Chapter Text
Pearl (pearl) is born in what would have been the year 100,492 BCE.
(She is not older than the entire human race—but only just.)
She is the seven billionth pearl, give or take a couple hundred million.
(By the time of the great war she will be the seventh oldest, the vast majority of her older brethren long dead.)
She is born (created) on a planet already in the process of collapsing under its own weight (the Earth before Earth), crawling her way out of the dirt, one of the seventy-three million gems born that day alone.
(Kindergarten is nothing more than a proof of concept—and does not even begin to approach the true level of devastation gems are capable of inflicting on a planet that has earned their collective ire.)
The planet lasts a total of three more months before being drained completely of everything that made it unique, and is then abandoned like the worthless piece of scrap that it is.
(Pearl does not know if there were sentient beings on the planet prior to the gems’ arrival, but she suspects the answer is yes.)
She is a faceless gem among many, ordinary in (almost) every way.
Two eyes, arms, legs, and ears—one mouth, nose and torso.
(One gem, placed solidly in the palm of her right hand.)
She is trained to be an engineer (to be a mechanist), just like every other pearl in existence.
She does well in her training, but is nothing spectacular.
Hardly anything to write home about.
(Hardly the legend she would one day become.)
Her first kill is an overzealous ruby who pushes her just a little bit too hard.
(What do you know, you’re just a—)
She is found, just under two hours later, white spear she should not be able to summon hanging loosely from her right hand, and a shattered ruby ground to powder before her.
(There is red power in the legs of her pants, smeared all over her boots.)
Her blue eyes are cold, and her gaze uncaring, when the violanes comes to take her away.
(She holds her right hand out, fingers splayed and gem on display, as if begging them to break it for her.)
She dismisses the plain white spear, and goes peacefully.
(The entire way the violanes are deathly silent, and give her a wide berth.)
She isn’t executed because murder is hardly an executable crime.
They instead give her combat training, and she is good.
(Not spectacular.)
But she makes a much better fighter than she ever made an engineer (she has neither the patience nor clarity of mind to deal with the fiddling inner working of Homeworld’s most complex machines), so they let her stay.
(She is not the only murderer who is casually made into a mediocre soldier.)
They are not prepared for who she will become when they put her onto a battlefield.
(For who she will become when they tell her it’s okay to shoot for the gem.)
(To go for the kill.)
She is suddenly the best fighter of her generation (of her planet).
(She is suddenly the most terrifying soldier they have ever produced—)
(A soldier whose expression does not change, even as she drives her plain, white spear deep into the gems of her enemies.)
She comes to be called a great many things, but chief among them is monster.
She fights for them for tens of thousands of years, her skill ever-growing (her face an ever-unchanging mask of indifference), and never questions a single order.
(She is the greatest soldier they have ever had.)
Her pale blue skin comes to be flecked with every color of the rainbow—iridescent and beautiful (an angel of death).
(Each time she is forced to regenerate, her skin is briefly clear once more—)
(Before gem powder ingrains itself into her skin once more.)
Time passes, things change.
Rebellions grow more frequent, and the empire comes to fear those who are too singularly powerful.
(Who could do too much damage if left unchecked.)
They come to fear her—her ever-unchanging mask of indifference, and her flawless martial efficiency.
(They stop bringing her to homeworld for briefings for fear she might just—)
(Snap—)
(And wipe out the government in one fell swoop.)
They steadily give her fewer and fewer orders of importance (less orders in which she can kill—)
(Less orders in which she can shape history—)
And they accidentally make her a person.
(She travels the stars, reads libraries beyond number—)
(She finally finds passion in something other than the gem powder ingrained in her skin.)
There are three more rebellions, each more devastating than the last—
And then they shunt her off to an unused corner of the galaxy, demote her to the engineer she hasn’t been in close to one hundred millennia.
(The engineer she hasn’t been because machines make her skin itch—)
(Makes her want to kill something.)
(Makes her want to destroy everything she can get her hands on.)
She is placed under a newly created rose quartz, one whose gem is in her navel (symbolism so blatant not even a gem could miss it), with a large body that is large and soft and overflowing.
(A body that is not given to the war that she was made to wage.)
She expects a What do you know you’re just a—, but instead Rose is kind and soft and beautiful (Rose listens when Pearl speaks), and suddenly, Pearl’s skin doesn’t itch so badly, anymore.
(They destroy planet after planet, mothers to millions of gems that never know their faces.)
Rose talks a lot about beauty, about love.
About the importance and the sanctity of life.
(Her words are soft, but they cut deeply.)
(Pearl begins to spend much of her time alone.)
I’m sorry.
I don’t know what I did.
Please, forgive me.
(Pearl stops spending so much of her time alone.)
(Rose’s words do not stop hurting, but her hands are warm and soft and wonderful, and they almost soothe away the pain.)
Then—
My Pearl.
(Whispered in the dark of space, pink lips pressed into pink hair—)
You’re wonderful.
(For the first time in her life, Pearl finally feels like she’s something important.)
(Something good.)
Time passes.
Pearl grows smaller.
Rose grows larger.
(They come to fit, even better than before.)
Then, suddenly, there is Earth.
A planet filled with color and teeming with all varieties of life.
(For the first time in her short life, Rose hesitates.)
(For the first time in her short life, Rose questions.)
Kindergarten comes to fruition.
Plants and animals die by the millions.
(Humans die by the thousands.)
(They scream as they die.)
Then, once more—
My Pearl.
You're wonderful.
(The war begins.)
Pearl doesn’t want to fight.
Pearl wants to leave it to other gems—
(Gems who do not burn the brightest when they are coated in the powder of their brethren—)
But—
Pearl doesn’t get to have a choice.
(Rose is not made for war.)
Pearl’s skin becomes iridescent, once more.
When Rose first sees her, shining like the angel of death she has once again been forced to become, her eyes widen first in surprise, and then her face crumples in understanding.
(Oh, Pearl.)
(I’m so sorry—)
(I never knew.)
Rose tries to convince her to wash (Please, you’re better than this—), but Pearl refuses—
(Pearl knows well the power of fear.)
(She never expects to become a symbol for hope.)
Pearl refuses to leave Rose’s side—already knowing what happens when she delegates the protection of Rose to other people.
So it is only natural that she bears Rose’s standard.
(Pearl stops being the monster and becomes the flagbearer—)
(The single greatest symbol of the rebellion.)
The war continues.
A truly mind-boggling number of gems are reduced to powder (broken so thoroughly not even Rose’s tears can heal them), but Rose continues to stand tall (Pearl standing tall by her side), even as healing tears stream down her face.
(Pearl's eyes are dry.)
The empire tires of the war, and makes an executive decision.
(Rose is still naive, and never imagines just how far the empire is willing to go to end the rebellion.)
(Pearl doesn’t see it coming fast enough.)
They are drawn out into a final battle, outnumbered three-to-one, and make a final stand.
(There is little hope for victory, but if Rose manages to survive, then they have not yet lost.)
(The galaxy warp is destroyed, and their gems can always be put back together.)
Their last general falls, both of her gems fractured almost in two (but not quite), and, on a whim, Pearl banishes the fractured ruby and sapphire into her gem.
(It distracts her just enough—and she takes a sword to through the chest for her troubles.)
(The world goes dark.)
Pearl awakens to Rose's arms warm all around her, and nothing but ashes for miles beyond that.
Pearl.
Rose clutches Pearl to her chest.
Oh, Pearl.
And Rose weeps.
(They are tears of relief, Pearl notices, and not tears of sorrow.)
For a long moment, enveloped in Rose's arms like she is the only gem in the universe, Pearl considers not telling Rose about the two gems she is hiding in her gem.
(The last two gems besides them, she is sure, that still exist on this planet.)
She imagines, for a long moment, the two of them alone, together, for the millennia to come.
(Rose's soft arms wrapped around her, Rose's soft everything enveloping her—for the rest of eternity.)
Then she raises her hand to Rose's where it has wrapped completely around her, and deposits the two gems she has hidden (the two gems she saved) into her palm.
Rose cries out in joy, weeping with eyes wide open, and pulls her closer, closer—
Pearl—she says, breathlessly, pressing kisses to the coarse hair on Pearl's head—Oh, Pearl.
Rose enormous bulk wraps fully around her, enveloping her completely—
You are wonderful.
Closer, and closer—
I love you so much.
(Moonstone is born.)
When Pearl opens her eyes once more, Rose laughs and smiles and presses her lips to—
Pearl's gem.
You’re so beautiful—
Pearl opens her palm, and, for the first time in her life, she finds it empty.
My Pearl.
(Her hand is light, for the first time in her life, and her body is balanced.)
(Beside them, a ruby and a sapphire lie silently, unfractured and fully healed.)
The empire's forces do not return.
(Pearl knows it is because they fear this planet, blaming it for the rebellion, believing that it is the Earth that is special, and not Rose Quartz.)
It is Pearl who finds Amethyst, years and years later.
(She does not know why she decides to go on that particular day to the place that started it all—)
(But she has never regretted that it is her that finds Amethyst, and not Garnet or Rose.)
Amethyst is small and strong and so very, very lonely.
(Who are you, what are you doing here!)
She screams, and kicks, and screams, and kicks—
And then she curls into a ball, and hides in a tiny, Amethyst-shaped hole, and weeps and weeps and weeps.
(Pearl scoops her up, and takes her home.)
(Amethyst beats tiny little fists against Pearl's chest, before she fists her hands tightly in the front of Pearl's dress, and cries once more.)
Pearl spends most of her time curled up in Rose's arms while Rose strokes her hair, and they watch the sky.
(Sometimes they fuse, sometimes they don't.)
(Rose runs her fingers over Pearl's skin every day, and tells her how soft and wonderful and beautiful she is.)
The first gem monster appears three millennia after the war is over.
(It doesn't come to their attention for another two centuries after that.)
(They never know how many humans it managed to kill, but Pearl is fairly certain that it was a not-insignificant portion of the human race.)
Pearl kills it, even though she does not know what it is.
(It has a gem, and even though her spear is no longer plain, and white, she is still one of the best destroyer of gems the universe has ever seen.)
When she returns to Rose, Rose does not allow her back into her arms, her face frozen in horror and sadness and fear.
(Why—Rose whispers to nobody at all—Haven't we given enough?)
Amethyst finally learns of her heritage, and her permanent smile falters, and breaks.
(Of all of them, it is Amethyst who likes humans the best, and learns their languages and customs to play with them—)
She crawls into Pearl's arms, sniffling and nuzzling closer and closer, and—
Pearl, why—Pearl—
Opal is born (smaller, even, than Garnet, round and rainbow-colored and tiny).
(Opal curls into a ball, and goes to sleep.)
Pearl awakens speaking tongues, knowing more about the human race than she ever cared to know before.
(She loops her arms around Amethyst, and finds comfort in her presence in the absence of Rose.)
(She is very soft.)
They do not let the subsequent monsters loose for as long as they did the first (Pearl is nothing if not efficient), but the monsters still leave trails of blood and destruction in their wake.
(They are never fast enough.)
Rose retreats further into herself, and Amethyst further into Pearl.
(Garnet spends her days staring into space, all three eyes furrowed, looking for something none of the rest of them can see.)
Three centuries later, Garnet drags them to the great barren ashen wasteland in which nothing still grows.
She sits them down, points them at an uninteresting stretch of desolation—
And then, the wind blows, the sun shines just right, and a gem grows itself out of nothing.
(It then grows itself into a monstrous beast, and Rose tells Pearl not to hurt it.)
(It almost kills them all, and Pearl ends up killing it all the same.)
(But Rose's depression breaks, and she grabs Pearls hands and smiles—)
(We can bring them back.)
(She says it with such wonder, her face split into the first smile Pearl has seen in centuries, tears of joy streaming down her face—)
(That Pearl almost believes her.)
(But not quite.)
Pearl returns to Rose's arms, and Amethyst returns to the humans.
(Rose’s arms are soft and warm Pearl is reminded how much she enjoys being so small, once again.)
Every several months, Garnet will take them to the site of their last battlefield, a gem will emerge from nothing, and Pearl will kill it.
(Humans stop dying, and Amethyst starts to smile again.)
(Rose paces and roams the halls of their old abandoned fortresses, and Pearl sits in the libraries and reads.)
Don't kill it!
Make it return to its gem.
(They almost die, once again, but this time, they succeed.)
(It is Amethyst who manages it, and when she is finished, she beams up at them, so very, very proud.)
(Rose wraps her up in an embrace, spinning her around and around until they are not two silhouettes, but one.)
(Pearl feels a twinge in her chest until the new gem looks at her, scoops her up, and whispers how proud she is of her into Pearl's hair.)
The new gem reaches out with the single hand that isn't holding Pearl, and a deep red something crawls into existence, and wraps itself around the gem they just defeated.
(Garnet’s voice is worried, as she speaks over Pearl’s head, but new gem’s voice is not.)
(It is brimming with enthusiasm, and all the confidence of the single general who led the only successful rebellion the empire has ever seen.)
Time passes.
(The hope that shined so bright in Rose’s eyes fades.)
(No gems return from the dead.)
(Pearl holds Rose as she cries.)
Humanity learns to write, and Pearl finally finds new reading material.
(She decides that maybe humanity isn’t so bad, after all.)
(Even if they are almost always wrong.)
More gem monsters come, and Pearl learns to fight without killing.
(She is not much more than mediocre, but nobody dies, and no gems are broken.)
Then, in the blink of an eye—
Suddenly, there is Greg.
(A round, human-shaped ball of softness and hair—)
(Who is so filled with hope it shines all around him—)
(Blinding to watch.)
It infects Rose, and Pearl truly wishes she could hate it—
(But then Rose smiles at her like she hasn’t smiled in millennia, and she cannot.)
Then—
Please, Pearl, please understand.
Rose falls to her knees before her.
I’m begging you, please.
Don’t make me do this alone.
(Pearl starts to hate Greg, just a little bit.)
Pearl relents.
They fuse.
(Pearl understands.)
(She hates it.)
Through Moonstone’s eyes, Greg is the (second) most beautiful thing Pearl has ever seen.
(He is brighter, even, than she imagined.)
(The part of her that is Rose says—)
(Don’t you see?)
(Everything looks better through rose-colored glasses.)
Greg’s eyes open as Pearl sits up.
He is thankfully not touching her, his arm instead tossed casually over (onto) Rose’s massive form.
Their eyes meet, for a long moment.
Pearl?
He reaches his hand out, fingers halfway extended—
She meets him halfway.
(His skin is not quite as soft as Rose’s, but it is so very, very warm.)
Their fingers brush together once, twice, and then Pearl fluffs out the gossamer around her shoulders, and exits his van.
Steven is born.
(Rose ceases to exist.)
Pearl screams and cries and tears Rose’s room into pieces.
(She only makes the mistake of having it make Rose for her once—)
(And never again.)
When Pearl looks down at Steven for the first time—
Tears she did not know she could shed, streaming down her face—
In his tiny little roundness, she does not see Rose.
(She sees Amethyst.)
The next years are both very short and incredibly long.
(Pearl learns that she is not as patient as she always imagined.)
She blinks, and then there is a homeworld ship on the horizon—
Too tough for the quartizine trio to scratch, bearing down on them like the literal hand of God.
(Then Garnet is in pieces before her, a homeworld gem has rammed their face into Steven’s temple, and—)
(Pearl sees red.)
Her spear hardens in her hand, elegantly spiraling tip hardening into a simple point.
(She has crossed half the distance between her and the homeworld gem in the barest hints of an instant—)
(Now perfectly unbalanced for the first time in seven millennia.)
She is stopped by a wall of water and a screamed—
IT WAS YOU!
(Her spear does not shatter because Lapis Lazuli is Lapis Lazuli and not Rose Quartz—)
(But it slows her down just barely enough.)
Pearl’s vision goes black.
(If they had been anywhere but on that shore—)
(They never would have been able to stop her.)
When Pearl wakes, she is immeasurably glad that her palm is clear, and her head is heavy.
(When Amethyst finally speaks from behind her, her voice shakes.)
Amethyst asks her what they’re going to do (looking to her for direction for the first time in a very, very long time).
Pearl tells her the truth.
(I will show them that they were right to be afraid.)
(They have already taken Rose from her, and she will not allow them to take anyone else.)
They win.
That could have gone a lot worse.
Could’ve gone a lot better, too.
That night, Amethyst finds her way into Pearl’s room—small and round and short-haired, once again.
(She opens her arms, and makes grabby motions up at her, so Pearl takes her into her arms.)
I’m sorry, she whispers into Pearl’s neck.
(Pearl doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she is not the one who needs to apologize.
Opal returns.
(Opal sleeps.)
Life goes on.