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Freshly come-off the battlefield, it is no surprise to see a scuff, a scratch, an odd bruising spot where the light of one’s projection bends a bit wrong. They are, after all, fighting for the planet. Why should it be a shock?
Pearl tries to convince herself that it’s just that. Just a spot of surprise, just a bit of needless shock, as she stares at the lavender smudge on Rose’s pink arm.
If it’s something as small as a passing curiosity, and as needless as surprise—if it’s just that, she can talk it away.
On Rose’s other side, Garnet says something about soldiers outnumbered thirty to one, how unfortunate for Homeworld’s forces that they couldn’t see how much more they’d need—something about high probabilities and favorable futures. Rose laughs; her hair bounces, a strand falls across her arm and obscures the view.
When Pearl lifts her eyes, at last, she sees Rose in a fit of giggles, shoulders shaking, her smile spread wide and her cheeks forced up into a high arch that squints her eyes completely closed.
Her nerves seep back an inch, like daylight nudging back the shadows.
--
The forge casts a strange orange-red light on everything. Pearl has never quite been able to shake the strange feeling of it. Even tinted Pearls reflect the light around them, and there are gems in high places who bend the light to bathe everything around them into similar hues. In the presence of a Diamond, everything washes out to their colors.
Some, of course, more than others.
Pearl has decided, at this particular moment, that she hates reconnaissance.
Rose laughs at what Pearl knows must be a terribly sour look on her face, and Pearl tries not to frown more deeply. “And you,” Rose teases, “who is always telling me I need another plan, a better plan, any plan at all!”
“It’s hardly my fault I’ve gotten used to the excitement of the battlefield,” she says.
This time, Bismuth laughs, tossing a grin over her shoulder as she pulls a sword down from the wall where it was mounted. “My fault if any,” she quips. “I can’t seem to make a sheath she likes half as much as a Homeworld Quartz, ha!”
The fires bring out the red in Garnet, they throw the under-curve of Rose’s curls into deep burgundy shadows. Pearl never looks too closely at her pale arms, in here. Bismuth, though—Bismuth always looks terrifically at home in this light.
(There are some strange commonalities they share. Bismuth, too, is reflective—grey-blue skin and rainbow hair. No matter what hues are cast over her, she looks as though she belongs in them. She and Pearl are the same, and opposite, too. They both borrow from the bend of light around them. Bismuth is all colors, and Pearl, closer to none.
Maybe it’s for that reason that, in the instants after their eyes meet, Bismuth’s smile pauses and remains wide on her lips for a moment longer than it would.)
“You know,” Bismuth says, “Rose, if it’s inconspicuous you’re after, you don’t get much more mundane and overlooked than a builder gem. I could go check it out with Pearl if you wanted.”
Pearl forces a smile and shakes her head before Rose can answer. “We’re trying to get an eye on the court.”
“Aw—the Sky Arena isn’t in need of any repairs? None of the spires, the towers? Clearly we aren’t wreaking enough havoc.”
“Duly noted for our next advance,” Garnet says, cracking her knuckles.
Pearl shakes her head, again, for good measure. She takes a step—closer, true, but it is as much a gesture of self-assurance as it is anything. “We need someone small, and someone who passes the notice of the nobility, and someone who can get in and out quickly. I know why it’s me, and I’m glad enough to have something to do. I’ve just gotten used to the excitement, that’s all. You’re right, Rose—I do want better knowledge of what we’re up against. We need it. I’ll stave off my blade for another day.”
“—not until you test this,” Bismuth says, proffering up the sword in her hands to Pearl. “I adjusted the balance on it. I need your go-ahead before I make you a matching blade, Pearl. I’ll be cracked before I let our finest renegade Pearl walk into battle without the very best.”
“Well,” Pearl says, trying not to be so flustered. She takes the hilt gingerly, with a pinched smile. “Thank you, as ever. I’ll let you know.”
“Anything for you, you little terror,” she says, before lifting her grin. “Hey—Garnet! Get on over here, I had an idea or two about those gauntlets of yours, let’s talk.”
Garnet nods, but as she passes, she sets her hand on Rose’s shoulder, and whispers something in her ear that Pearl cannot hear. Rose blinks, then slowly smiles; Pearl turns her gaze quickly down to her sword. She hefts it thoughtlessly into one hand, tests its weight in her palm.
“I don’t suppose,” Rose says, startling Pearl out of her momentary reverie, “you’d like to practice with me?”
Sometimes, Rose is genuinely difficult to read. But sometimes, when she is curious, and especially when she is sheepish, she is as easy to read as a shadow upon the ground. Pearl’s lips wriggle.
“I’m not upset,” she says. “I promise I’m not, Rose.”
“But…” Rose pauses, searching for words, and Pearl waits patiently, lowering her blade almost to the ground. “But,” Rose says at last, “it still feels inescapable. Bismuth will always be a builder, I’ll always be a soldier—you’ll always be a Pearl…”
“It’s not that I hope to escape that fact,” Pearl says, amusement tickling her tongue. “I just don’t want it to decide what I can and cannot do. I… understand that, for the sake of our battles, we can take advantage of what others expect of us. I recognize that I am useful in ways having to do with what I am.”
“Not useful,” Rose murmurs, dipping down onto one knee, and reaching for both of Pearl’s hands. She clasps them together in hers. Pearl’s sword looks needle-thin like this. “Not useful,” she repeats. “Important.”
It is, in point of fact, more difficult to remain apprehensive in moments like this. Pearl gives up fighting a smile and closes her eyes. Rose leans their foreheads together and Pearl bites her lip.
“And what will you be doing,” she murmurs, “while I’m out there, being a Pearl, and all the beautiful, courtly, useless things that entails?”
Rose chuckles. “I suppose I’ll be here. Being a Quartz, and all that entails.”
Rose’s hands may be strong, but Pearl’s are slender. She drops the sword with a clatter and extricates her wrists from Rose’s grip, and twines her arms around her neck, instead.
Her arms, too, look as frail and dainty as needles, in comparison.
“Be careful,” Pearl says.
Rose giggles. “And you,” she replies, with a kiss.
Their well-wishes, though mutual, are hardly equivalent. Pearl doesn’t have the heart to tell her this.
--
Pearl stands at the outskirts of the court, looking inward, blending in. Somewhere else, if a battle breaks out, she isn’t there. Rose more likely is.
Again: Pearl hates reconnaissance.
--
(When she returns, she finds that there have been no battles missed, no skirmishes unattended. Rose greets her with a beaming smile and open arms and ready ears. She listens, and she makes Pearl feel listened-to. It soothes the ache from the moments across their history, together, when they spoke, but could not quite hear what the other was saying.)
--
“I fear one day you’ll run yourself right into the ground,” Rose tells her, once, after training. Pearl is finding ways to stretch her limits, finding ways to conserve her energy and extend her stamina. At the end of this day, her knees gave a visible wobble. Rose is so astute and so observant about some things; the state of Pearl’s knees, hands, chin, and other parts seems a subject of utmost interest to her.
Pearl is rarely inclined to seriously rebuke such attentions.
“We all will,” Pearl says, matter-of-fact assurance filling every syllable as Rose props an ankle in her lap and gently massages her calves. Pearl resists a relieved sigh. “That is, if we’re going to drive ourselves anywhere, it will be into the ground. And I’m hardly about to let anyone else do the work for me. I’d like to be quite responsible for my own driving, thank you very much, though.”
“I’d rather like to see you not driven into the ground to begin with, by yours or any other gem’s efforts.” Rose lifts up Pearl’s ankle, dips her head, and kisses her toes. “I’d like you to be careful.”
“You know,” Pearl muses, “I tell you that, too.”
“Mm. All the time,” Rose agrees.
Pearl lifts a brow. “You’re not,” she says, and as accusations go, she thinks, it’s among the gentlest ever uttered.
“I’m not as much as you’d like me to be.” Rose, too, lifts a brow—only, hers is punctuated by a hint of a smile. “I can’t hold myself out of the fray, Pearl. And I cannot let others take hits meant for me.”
“You’re much too important to this rebellion to—”
“—so are you.”
They fall, both of them, into almost-amicable quiet. This is no new conversation. They have not yet found a compromise to their predicament. Pearl knows fully well that Rose cannot stand to see Pearl put herself before every blade, every ax, every hammer meant for her. Pearl also knows that losing Rose is worse than unacceptable, and that her blade is as good as any others, to fend off the blows.
Rose has begged her not to, and Pearl has begged her to accept it. They are not always good at hearing just what it is the other has to say, but stars above, if they do not listen, and try. Pearl thinks, one day, perhaps not far from now, they will hit upon something tolerable to both.
Pearl did not quite realize that Rose had stopped her ministrations until she begins them, again. The rhythmic press of her thumbs in the lines between her ankle and knee forces a small sound from her throat, and she tilts her head back, brows furrowing.
Immediately, Rose pauses. “Too rough?”
Pearl shakes her head. “Not at all. Thank you.”
Slowly, Rose presses on. Pearl, eyes closed, body slackening, lets her mind drift to techniques, to parries and thrusts, to the next moment when she is infinitely less a Pearl, and ever more greatly Pearl.
--
She and Garnet fight remarkably well together. Garnet has less time among battles and combatants to bolster her, but what she lacks in experience, she makes up for in sharp attention and steady fists. Pearl weaves in and through her movements like a searching vine around sapling branches.
To their left, Bismuth lands a hit with a hammer sculpted of her own fists. Behind them, Crazy Lace gives a victorious whoop. Somewhere to her right, the sun glints off of Rose Quartz’s sword.
It is a hard battle, but another victorious one. It begins more and more to look as though they will win this war. Maybe. Maybe.
Their aggressors make a hasty retreat, with Biggs and Crazy Lace both close in following, to make sure all are gone. Garnet starts turns back to where their battle began—the gems furthest back will be the first to reform, and one must always be cautious of the enemy that might come from the back. Before she can take a first step, however, something stops her short. Her mouth parts on a frown and, just like that, Pearl’s insides give a horrible twist.
Pearl turns on her heel and sprints for the western end of the field, where Rose Quartz raises her hand, beckoning to an already-called Bismuth. She makes it to Rose before Pearl, though only by a scant few moments.
“Would you mind,” Rose says, offering up her sword, “holding onto this for me? Just for a little while. I’m much obliged, Bismuth, thank you.”
“Rose,” Pearl says.
Bismuth, sword taken into her hands, throws a look over her shoulder and quickly side-steps, clearing a path. Rose looks past her, lifting her gaze. Pearl cannot help but notice that it takes her an instant too long, to focus on her eyes. With practiced swiftness, she sheaths both of her swords against her back. Rose reaches out with a hand and Pearl grabs for her, restless fingers soon finding her way up Rose’s wrist.
“Oh, you—hello. Pearl. You’re so sweet,” Rose says, smiling. The tilt of it is wholly wrong. Pearl’s grip tightens until her fingers press tiny divots into Rose’s skin.
“Rose,” she repeats.
“Can I—ask a favor of you, as well?”
“I…”
“Oh, do listen, please. Homeworld would find it so funny. Laughable, actually, which I hope will give you a lot of satisfaction, at a later time—please. Pearl.”
“Yes?”
Rose smiles wider. “Carry me back?” she says.
Rose Quartz closes her eyes. The mountain of a soldier, the mass of her curls, the sheer volume of her erupts twofold into smoke.
It is not a startled sound that Pearl makes. She is not especially shocked, and only barely surprised, and her shout is neither of these things. It is a sound one makes when suddenly struck. Her mouth is open for no more time than it takes to sniff, but agony fills up every crevice of her throat to utter it.
There is a clink of a gem upon the ground. Pearl drops to her knees and scrambles to find it. When she does, she runs her fingers once, twice, four times total across the faceted surface, making certain there is not a chip, crack or scuff to be found.
By the time Garnet gets to her, the smoke has cleared, and thick, steady tracks of tears have paved the way from her eyes to her chin. Pearl clutches Rose’s gem tightly to her chest, and hates the space that is not being filled by her.
--
“She’ll be fine,” Garnet says, with a calm assurance that forces Pearl to brace her jaw.
“I know,” she murmurs.
Garnet reaches for her shoulder. Her hand is slender in comparison to many of the others that Pearl is used to, among their group, but it is a firm and steady touch, and Pearl has grown to appreciate it in the years they’ve had.
“But it does not make it easier,” Garnet says, suddenly. “I worry, too.”
Pearl regards the fusion with a long, thoughtful look. With a free hand, she swipes below her eyes, then returns that palm to the first, resting over Rose’s gem.
“I suppose we all do.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t.” Garnet tilts her head. “We are stronger than Homeworld gives us credit for. Perhaps we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for, too. After all,” she murmurs, “today, with us, a Pearl carries the weight of a Quartz in her hands.”
“Not just with my hands,” Pearl says softly. “With all of me.”
Garnet slowly, slowly nods. “Stronger than they give us credit for, still. Stronger than ten of them, for one of us…”
“You’re saying, I need to give her more credit?”
“I don’t know if that’s actually possible,” Garnet says, a hint of humor sneaking into her tone. “But I think we can give ourselves the credit of finding a way. Somehow.”
Pearl runs her thumbs across the familiar facets of Rose’s gem. And, as they walk, she leans just enough across to settle her temple on Garnet’s arm. Garnet, in turn, curls that arm around Pearl’s back.
It does not make for easy walking, but they manage. Credit where credit is due.
--
An hour later, in the safety of their base, Rose Quartz’s gem thrums in Pearl’s hands. Pearl opens her fingers around it and lets it drift out of her palms. In ribbons of white light, a shape forms. Rose Quartz condenses from the glow, and comes to the ground in a soundless toe-ball-heel roll of her feet.
She shakes out her hair, and opens her eyes. Her gaze settles upon Pearl, and Pearl bites her lip.
“You’re right,” Pearl says. “Homeworld would find it laughable. Everything about it—you, me—it’s laughable.”
Rose blinks, obviously adjusting, stumbling in her reply.
She has been abrupt. Pearl knows this, same as she knows that there is a softer, meeker, more practiced part of her who could have spoken differently. That Pearl, with her airs and wariness, might have begun this with niceties, with concerned murmurs, with a gentle easing into the thoughts she means to express. The only thing Pearl hates more, right now, than how difficult she's made this moment, is how easy it would have been to be a different version of herself with a tongue heavy-bathed in white-washing light, who could have made this moment easy.
Into the silence, her hands clench at her sides.
Then, slowly, then, Rose shakes her head. “Not... to me, it isn’t," she says. "I—I want to laugh out of amazement and wonder and surprise, but—but I don’t…” She stares, mouth slack and her hands held helplessly open. “They can think what they like, but I don’t think it’s funny, Pearl. I don’t want to laugh at us.”
Just like that, Pearl shudders. She takes a step closer, and finds herself instantly and tightly wrapped in Rose’s arms. Much to her relief, they feel the same as they ever have.
“You need to be more careful,” Pearl says, because she can’t not.
And this time, Rose says, “I know.” With a tip of her head, she settles her lips into Pearl’s hair; Pearl feels the shape of the words almost as much as she hears them, when Rose says, “I’ll try.”
--
The next time there is a bruise upon Rose’s skin, Pearl steels her nerves, and reaches. She presses the pad of her thumb against the pink skin around it. Rose, blinking, looks down upon her. She smiles sheepishly.
“I suppose I’ll have to borrow you next time,” she says. “I haven’t seen a scratch on you and Garnet for the last three skirmishes, you two fight so brilliantly alongside one another. Perhaps if I stand a little closer?”
“Safety in numbers,” Pearl agrees. She means to sound matter-of-fact, and does, but she feels breathless with exhilaration.
With a sheepish giggle, Rose takes Pearl’s hand in hers. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt me to take a little extra precaution.”
Pearl beams. She does not waste time waiting for Rose to bend in two; she rolls up onto her tip-toes with her chin tilted accordingly, holds Rose’s shoulder for support, and kisses her with all she is.
It is a marvel, being so listened-to.