Chapter Text
A/N: Credit to lapislazuhli for the idea that Lapis remembers Pearl from all the times Pearl has asked her to bring up images of Homeworld and/or Homeworld-controlled planets. And deep thanks to oathkeeper-of-tarth for the beta.
“We found this gem-powered mirror at the Galaxy Warp. It can capture and display any event it’s witnessed in all of Gem history.”
“…It is in pretty rough shape. It must finally be broken. What a shame.”
“Steven, it’s just a mirror, a tool. It can’t want anything.”
trapped by extenuating circumstances
Time drenches everything in a haze. Everything was grander.
Gems were so much more powerful.
Gems were always right.
Homeworld was the universe, or at least, had everything worth having in the universe.
Lapis wishes someone could understand.
Lapis also wishes she could just turn off her mind, just sink into the waters without a war within her or a cage around her.
She feels no relief that she has been freed, that she’s been offered companionship, that on some evenings Steven sits with her on a deckchair by the beach.
Sometimes she finds herself back in the past, a mirror, bound to the wishes of whoever is holding her.
Sometimes she’s still there, at the bottom of the ocean, chained with her own power, locked up in her own jail cell.
She hates this form, sometimes. Wishes that she could claw out the illusion of skin. Wishes she could tear herself apart. She’s never believed in this miserable hunk of rock. Now she is bound to it by the loss of Homeworld. Even when she screams, it is not enough. Even when her throat hurts, it isn’t enough.
There are days when she hides herself from the Crystal Gems and Steven. They don’t run after her, probably on Steven’s wishes. They give her space.
She hides herself because it’s too easy to lash out at anything. She materializes water whips from the ocean and cuts rocks into halves, fourths, eighths – on and on until they’re nothing but bits scattered on the sand. The sound of rock cracking surrounds her, and still it’s not enough. The earth completes its rotation, but Lapis can go on for much longer when she’s in the mood, days and days of wandering around, traveling beyond Beach City and to surrounding islands, destroying, destroying, destroying, wishing that she could lose herself.
It is Amethyst (of all the gems) that warms up to her.
“Hey,” Amethyst greets, after Lapis has just finished a trip to some distant islands (she ground the boulders there into particles as fine as sand).
The sun has set.
"Where’s Steven?“
"He’s hangin’ out with his lady friend.”
"…What do you want?“
"Well, I used to be the queen of sulking around the beach sands until you showed up and stole the crown."
"What do you have to sulk about?” Lapis glares. “You… you weren’t trapped in a mirror for five thousand years.”
“No, I was just left on my own after Kindergarten was shut down. And then after I finally found someone that cared about me, she had to go and… leave too.” Amethyst glares at Lapis. “You try being a gem when you don’t know anything about being a gem. An’ everyone’s kinda rubbing it in your face, even when they don’t mean to.”
Such a point of view has never occurred to Lapis.
Amethyst shakes her head, tangles her fingers in her hair. “Ah, nevermind. What was I even thinking? Go have the sands to yourself.”
“Hey – wait.” Lapis says, as Amethyst stomps off. “No, I’m… we can share. We can be sulking royalty. The beach is pretty big. You can have one side. I can have the other.”
“Nah, I might hit you or something. Used to be, if I was feeling pretty awful I’d take it out on a wrestling match, but eh, it’s not fun without a challenge. So these days I’m stuck cracking the air with my whip. Kinda lame.”
“Wrestling match?”
“Um. It’s a human thing. They’re all crazy in the head like we are, but since they gotta get along, some of 'em blow off steam by like, play fighting. Well sometimes it’s real fighting. But wrestling’s more about the hype and the drama and the crazy stunts. The audience gets in on it too.”
“We have those,” Lapis says wryly. “Except we don’t do fake fights. We do real wars.”
“Humans got that too,” Amethyst says. “Not a pretty sight. Wrestling’s, like, a form of entertainment.”
“What, they just shove each other around? And cry if they break a bone?”
“Heh,” Amethyst says, shapeshifting into a huger form, with longer hair and tights, “Time for a live demonstration!”
the baddest of them all
Their first sparring match rearranges the shore line. It’s the most fun Lapis has had in a while – getting to unleash her powers on an adversary that can (sort of) dodge. Amethyst is right: there’s no fun without a challenge, and the rocks she used to pulverize didn’t put up their dukes. It’s heaps more interesting when the air’s charged with two gems coming at each other, slashing tidal waves with energy blasts from dual whips, when the sands fly all over the place as Amethyst spin dashes. Heck, it’s fun to scream pointless battle cries, hear the snap of a whip breaking in half, only for Amethyst to recover with another one. Feet skidding on the ground, graaahs of annoyance or pain, the twinkling sound each time Amethyst pulls out a whip – it’s a big game, and when they both lie down on the sands, totally spent, they’re both laughing their ass off.
“Annnd it’s a tie! The longstanding feud between Purple Puma and the mysterious Water Witch must continue in the next installment! Tickets available next week!”
Lapis doesn’t understand the words, but it sounds like fun.
Things get better after that. Much better, in a way. She finds it easier to hang out with Amethyst and Steven. That way, she can still tell herself she’s not a Crystal Gem. Because she’s not.
But she likes breathing, when Amethyst shows her how it works. She likes eating sweets, too. Develops a habit for feeling the atmosphere, even if she doesn’t have to. The days change. Cold and foggy in the morning, hot in the afternoon, and cool again in the evening. Sometimes her gem mixes them up, associates hot with spicy, smells the cold rather than feels it. She touches Steven’s hand, notes how the skin wraps around bone, the flab that Amethyst explains changes as humans grow. Being barefoot, she can feel the texture of the wood when she walks on the pier, feel when she steps on the heads of nails hammered into the planks, feel the bits of sand that have made their way around town. The sounds of life reverberate in her mind. She gets why Amethyst indulges in these things: they make the hurt in her mind easier to bear. The sensory overload from human receptors is a welcome drunkenness from the sobriety of her past.
Around Garnet and Pearl she’s still distant. To Garnet she’s thankful for the space between them but also the short diplomatic steps the taller gem takes to include her – will you be there for a picnic? We’re having a ride with some humans – but Pearl is a different story. They still haven’t talked.
“We need to give you a backstory,” Steven says, sketching out a poster of Purple Puma and Water Witch. Garnet’s out on a mission, Pearl’s making dinner, and the three gems are on the sofa. The television’s on, but the volume is muted. Lapis loves television, the making of imaginary stories. She’s gotten quite good at understanding all of Steven’s television-borne quirks.
“We can go with the 'misunderstood’ angle,” Steven suggests, and Lapis snaps her attention back to the task at hand..
“No way, that’s been done to death! I wanna fight against a hardened criminal locked away for years in jail – but it turns out she was innocent all along! But the years in jail have totally changed her into a vengeful…” Amethyst pauses when she looks up at Lapis.
“Okay, maybe not.”
Voice flat, Lapis says, “I’ll go with being a vengeful water spirit. But I’d rather destroy everything for no rhyme or reason. The twist is,” – and here Lapis smiles faintly – “that I win.”
“Awww you guys,” Steven says, “Can’t this have a happy ending? Maybe Water Witch realizes that all her vengeance is really tiring and decides to fight with Purple Puma to right all the wrongs in the world instead.”
“No,” both Lapis and Amethyst agree.
“Purple Puma’s never gonna be a good guy.”
“But if it’s two bad guys fighting, who will the audience root for?”
“The baddest one, of course!” And again Amethyst and Lapis are in agreement.
“Ahem,” Pearl says, clearing her throat. “Who’s eating dinner?”
All three of them raise their hands. “Okay,” Pearl murmurs. And that, Lapis realizes, is the first time in weeks that Pearl’s bothered to even look in her general direction.
Lapis tells herself she’s fine with three out of the four of them actually treating her like a person. If all of them did, she worried that she would be that much closer to being a Crystal Gem.
Never, she thinks to herself.
Months pass by. The gems go out on missions. Lapis doesn’t come with them. She spends her days in town, introduces herself as a friend of the ladies down by the beach. Depending on who she is talking to, she’s either a circus act or a witch. They’re words for things people can’t really understand, but no one seems to mind. And Lapis knows why. Nobody minds because of Steven. He’s the link. Here’s a human, the humans think. This human trusts these magical ladies. The humans think he’s one of them. And the Crystal Gems consider him one of them, too.
Steven is a tactical advantage for the gems, and surely Rose Quartz knew this. How classically Rose Quartz. Love and tactical advantages just happen to conveniently align.
She never believed in this place, she tells herself.
But you believe in Steven, her mind taunts her back.
She should be angrier about this. It feels like she’s splitting apart, Lapis Lazuli of Homeworld warring against the Water Witch from Earth. She’s neither, she knows it, not human, and maybe not even a gem.
She parts the seas with a flick of a finger. Combines them again with a wave. Crashing, thunderous, formless water: that’s her. And the anger crawls all over her, mixing with tiredness and the weight of six thousand years.
Evening falls and she lies still on the sand. Her fingers twitch now and then. She rolls now and then. Sits on a boulder that she tries not to destroy, now and then. The stars twinkle. She doesn’t notice the brief eruption of light from the house, meaning that the gems are back. Perched on a rock twice her height, she watches the waves, her view turned away from civilization.
Ten minutes later, she hears the careful crunch of footsteps.
“What is it,” she growls, to whoever is there. It’s either Steven or Amethyst, and they’re used to it. Heck, Amethyst is used to being greeted with a cannonball of water.
“We were wondering where you were,” Pearl says. Lapis struggles not to greet her with a blast. That bossy voice, always asking to be shown this planet or that, to walk the artificial gardens of Kepler at Cygnus in her dreams.
“Too bad I’m not on a leash, huh. Don’t worry, I haven’t deluged that poor human town just yet,” Lapis replies.
“You like the people there,” Pearl says tartly. “You wouldn’t.”
Lapis grits her illusory teeth. “Yeah,” she says, the admission good and bad at the same time. It’s the culmination of all that she’s thought today. “Yeah, I like them. I won’t blow them up. Good little Water Witch. Where’s Amethyst?”
“Tired and sleeping,” Pearl replies. She doesn’t go away. Lapis waits for a minute, not looking at Pearl. Under the light of the full moon, the sea is pretty to watch, a sight she hasn’t yet grown tired of. “I came to apologize.”
Lapis snorted. “Because your leader told you to?”
“Garnet hasn’t asked me anything,” Pearl says irritably.
“Rose Quartz. Steven.”
There’s a slight pause. Lapis turns to raise her eyebrows triumphantly. Pearl is blushing, out of shame. She’s easy to read, at least for Lapis. Amethyst had called her Bird Nerd. True to form, Pearl is squawking and flapping her hands.
“I still hate you guys.”
“I know.”
“Steven and Amethyst are the exception,” Lapis says, but is suddenly annoyed at her need to be specific.
“They’re blameless,” Pearl agrees. She looks so guilty. It makes Lapis a little amused. Maybe some of Jasper’s rage has stayed within her. She’s wondered that often, if fusions cause this kind of mixing that stays with you even after the dance is done. Or maybe Lapis has just been dealt a really bad set of cards, and wants someone to know just how bad it feels. She wouldn’t wish this feeling on Steven, or Amethyst. But Pearl is right in front of her, and might actually give her a better fight than Purple Puma. She was in the war, after all. She knows desperation.
“You want my forgiveness?” Lapis says, suddenly amused at having something to dangle in front of someone. Pearl doesn’t answer right away. Pearl might be doing this whole forgiveness thing to assuage her guilt, or because Steven wants her to. There’s no such thing as really being apologetic. Lapis is fine with that.
“Fight me,” she says with a grin. “People do this all the time, right? They fight and then they become friends after. It’s in all the cartoons. But don’t expect me to treat you like I do Amethyst.” She summons a large tidal wave and crashes it down onto the beach. Pearl jumps to avoid the blast. Lapis grins. She’s never done this against Purple Puma. This isn’t Water Witch Pearl is up against. This is Lapis Lazuli.
Pearl hasn’t summoned a weapon yet, probably trying to assess what her commander would do. But she’s a soldier, Lapis knows. Hands crawl up from the sea, trying to smash Pearl like an insect. She retreats further inland, but Lapis’s hands follow after her, shapeshifting into tendrils and vines that recombine when she finallydraws her spear and cuts them.
Lapis has seen plenty of Pearls die. She doesn’t even have to look, for the water fists and tendrils are an extension of her perception. And right now, she feels a water fist squeeze Pearl. She turns to look, just as a spear is flung in her direction. it buries itself into a wall of water with a plop. Not bad, Lapis thinks, as the distraction is enough for Pearl to squeeze out of the waterhand. She perfectly timed the spear in Lapis’s direction as the fist was closing in, taking advantage of Lapis’s carelessness. Too bad Lapis has ridiculous reflexes.
She reduces the number of hands. She could end the fight by watercloning, but that would be too easy. She wants a little challenge. Like cats play with food.
“You’d better pay attention,” Pearl says, forming two spears into one.
“Don’t bore me then,” Lapis snaps back.
Pearl retaliates with holograms, which project simultaneously from her gem. She dodges as she forms the holograms. Whatever holograms remain after being flattened by waterhands pick up spare spears Pearl’s left from her gem.
Finally, something a little more creative. But not much better. Lapis extinguishes each blue hologram while keeping tabs on Pearl, who almost lands one energy blast in her general direction, before a water vine pummels into the pale gem, knocking her inland. She rolls on the sand and Lapis feels only slightly better when she squeezes Pearl hard with a waterhand. She should be feeling better about seeing Pearl’s form about to snap from the crushing tension.
“Woah you guys!” It’s Amethyst, running out of the house. Short legs. Lapis could tie her up too. What the hell is she thinking? She shakes her head to clear herself of the deluge of violence in her mind.
Lapis takes a good look at the mess she’s made: puddles of water everywhere, rocks destroyed, what few straggling plants remained have been uprooted.
Amethyst stops between the two of them. “Everything… okay?”
“Water Witch just beat Bird Nerd,” Lapis says with a calculated shrug. She releases Pearl from the hand. When Amethyst goes to help, she feels just a little bit bad, but Pearl waves any support away, stands up on her own, and reassures Amethyst that it was all in good fun.
“This is weird,” Amethyst says. She runs a hand through her hair, like she always does when she has no idea what to do. “I’m not the one that breaks up fights here,” she says, irritated at her own inability to sort this out.
“A-Amethyst! I’m absolutely fine,” Pearl says, vibrating with some nervous tension, the sand in her hair and her clothes slightly torn.
“Yeah, Pearl’s into wrestling now.” Lapis says, taking Pearl’s implicit permission to lie.
“I am not,” Pearl huffs.
“Y'know what,” Amethyst says, “I’m going to pretend I never saw this, and I’m going out to eat at a twenty-four hour convenience store.”
“I’m coming,” Lapis agrees.
“And Pearl will come just to make sure we don’t blow anything up,” Amethyst says, pushing Pearl ahead towards the town.
It’s like flicking a switch in her head, Lapis realizes. Anger now, calmness later. Hatred now… and she doesn’t want to know what comes after that.
sulking rock
The Crystal Gems all have secret places. Lapis finds out about them as the months roll by. Amethyst has her human parties and her beach, Garnet disappears into the bowels of the temple, and Pearl has the most obvious exit – she uses the warp pad in the evenings to go somewhere. All of this goes over Steven’s head, but not Lapis.
She doesn’t know what it is that compels her to follow after Pearl one evening. When the light dissipates, she finds herself in a strawberry field littered with weapons. She walks around until she gets to a series of small chunks of rock floating in air, leading to a larger floating island.
Pearl’s there at the top with a picnic mat, lying down with her head resting on her palms.
“Hey, ” Lapis says, with no particular plan.
Pearl predictably jumps three feet into the air and puffs like a (thin) chicken. “Ah-ah-ah… Lapis?”
“The one and only Water Witch,” Lapis says. “Yeah, I followed you here. Deal with it.”
“You’re hanging out too much with Amethyst.” But Pearl moves aside anyway to make space for Lapis to sit.
“I’m hanging out with the Cool Kids, actually.” Lapis shakes her plastic bangles. “They’ve been teaching me fashion and stuff.” And also kissing and parties, but Pearl wouldn’t approve of that.
Pearl’s eyes flicker from the cheap plastic bangles to Lapis’s face. Lapis catches the look; she’s trying not to say anything. Neither does Lapis press the issue. She doesn’t know whether she should apologize for her callousness the other night.
“So this is your sulking place,” Lapis says.
“Sulking place? I don’t sulk.”
“You nest, then? Or maybe you’re the type to bury your head in the sand?”
“I should take away the television,” Pearl mutters.
“Too bad you can’t ground me, huh?”
Somehow their light talk eases the atmosphere.
“Sorry if I roughed you up a bit,” Lapis says. It’s easier than she expected to say. She feels a knot of hatred loosen, just a bit.
Pearl looks much better in her not-worn-out state. Pretty, even, with the starlight shining down on her.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Pearl says, slipping into what Lapis recognizes as a habitual formality.
“I still kinda hate you guys,” Lapis says, without any real heat to her words. She should be angry at herself for her lack of hate lately. It comes and goes, sputters and roars. Like a switch. Sitting next to Pearl, she’d better not forget that the switch flicks on and off at the worst times.
Predictably Pearl just nods.
“What do you go here for anyway?”
Pearl returns to lying down. Looks up at the stars. Lapis follows. And far above her, the faint twinkling of Homeworld is there, though its song is distant. This twinkle is the light that’s traveled years to reach Earth. She loves that she can see it from here. She hates that she can see it from here. It reminds her that before will never be again. She sits up to tear her eyes away from that hypnotizing, unreal twinkle. The past is gone. Was it ever really there?
“It’s like looking into the past, I suppose,” Pearl murmurs. Lapis is amused. That’s a poetic thing to think. How Pearl. She hears Amethyst in her head. Dork. Nerd. Humans have the best words for these things.
“It’s strange that you miss Homeworld,” Lapis says, then is startled by her own words. “I mean… I don’t mean to pry.”
“I find it odder that you’re… indulging in human things with Amethyst.”
Lapis smiles. It’s a bitter twist of her lips. “I never believed in Earth. And yet it was an Earthling that was kinder than my kind. And I don’t mean you Crystal Gems. You’re the enemy. Or were the enemy. I wasn’t expecting anything from you. It just hurts like a bitch to know that Homeworld isn’t there, either.”
The sudden warmth of a hug floods Lapis, having spent months with human receptors. But Pearl draws away quickly, nervously, and Lapis turns.
“I’m sorry,” Pearl murmurs, and to punctuate the point she moves a small distance between the two of them.
Lapis ignores what Pearl considers a gaffe. “You know, it wasn’t even that Homeworld was different. It was thatI was different,” Lapis says.
“I can’t go back either.”
“Huh. It’s strange that you think that way. You defected because of Rose Quartz. You gave all of that up to protect this world. And yet you won’t even let Earth be your home. Even I know that I have to make the best of what’s left of things.”
“You’re lucky that you can accept things so easily.”
“It’s not easy!” Lapis screams. “Do you think I like being trapped with no options but Earth? If it weren’t for your friends I would have destroyed this place. And it wouldn’t be enough.”
“Would it be enough to know you’re not alone, at least?” Pearl says, looking at the stars.
“Would it be enough to know that someone is pining for the past along with me?” Lapis wants to lash out savagely. She knows the love Pearl has for her commander – who didn’t even tell her everything. But even then Pearl had a choice. She chose to betray Homeworld. Her refusal to make Earth her home was her fault. “You had a choice. I didn’t. So no, I am alone. Your pain is your fault.”
And Pearl should really be getting angry at her by now. She doesn’t say anything though.
If the word for Pearl is nerd, then the word for Lapis must be jerk. Human books are split on experiences like hers: sometimes humans that draw bad cards learn compassion. Other times, it just makes them want to burn the world the way the world burned them. She knows which one she is. Pearl is the other sort, even if Pearl doesn’t recognize empathy in herself. She’s dense like that.
“I’m leaving,” she announces, annoyed at herself.
“Us?” Pearl says, suddenly panicked. Steven would be displeased with Pearl if she were the reason his beach summer fun buddy left, Lapis thinks, irritated.
“I’m just leaving this sulking rock of yours. See you around.”
Lapis Lazuli flees from the mess she’s made.
“I don’t know how you do it,” she tells Steven one day, as they are out eating ice cream.
“Do what?”
“Put up with Pearl,” Lapis mutters.
“He’s a saint, right?” Amethyst agrees.
“I know you asked her to talk to me,” Lapis says back.
Steven looks at her. “I didn’t, though,” he says. “I think Pearl feels the sorriest about things.” He stops talking to focus on licking the ice cream before it melts onto his fingers.
“Well, Pearl did stuff her in her gem. That sucks big time,” Amethyst says.
“Yeah, and you just tried to kill me when I got out,” Lapis says cheerfully.
“That sucks big time too,” Amethyst agrees.
They focus on their ice cream for a while. It’s a beautiful day at the boardwalk, and there they are, the picture of friendship.
“I’ve been mean to her,” Lapis says, as she finally reaches the cone part of her ice cream.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Amethyst says at the same time Steven frowns.
“What’s wrong, Lapis?”
A lot of answers pop into her head. I’m fraternizing with the enemy. I’m friends with my captors. I’m betraying myself because of you. Or because I’m holding onto whatever is left of where I came from.
“I dunno,” she says.
“Hm. Maybe you could do something with her,” Steven suggests.
Amethyst snorts into her ice cream. It doesn’t deter her from snarfing down the whole thing. “Clean the house? Shop for groceries? Have a freak-out session?” Amethyst wipes her fingers on her shirt.
The two gems have a chuckle over that. “Exactly!” Steven says, missing the point. “She could use some help. And she bought a used car and she’s figuring out how to fix it. You could help with that.”
“We don’t do those things,” Lapis says. “That’s a Pearl thing.”
“You could always learn,” Steven says. Not for the first time, Lapis is struck by how little Steven knows about gem culture. Amethyst too, for neither of them seem to really get it. She doesn’t do those things. Those things are a Pearl’s job.
Against Steven’s hopeful smile though, she can only say, “I guess?”
the real housewives of beach city
She asks Pearl the next day if she can help with the car. Pearl’s face rearranges itself from shock to wariness. She can’t tell Pearl it’s because it was Steven’s idea. Not after she was wrong about Pearl’s intentions.
Maybe she’s not that easy to read.
“It’s alright,” Pearl says in that prissy voice. “I’ve got it under control.”
“Just shut up and let me help,” Lapis says irritably.
Pearl smirks. “Is that how you say sorry?”
“It is,” Lapis says gruffly. Today is a better day. Her internal battles aren’t at the forefront of her mind. Instead she allows herself to be surprised at how quickly Pearl too can switch roles. Then again, in television, the neurotic mom occasionally had more depth than most people expected. She can roll with it, Lapis tells herself.
Pearl’s been looking through the assortment of tools. “Let’s start by lifting the car,” she says, with some kind of tool. “Car jack,” she explains.
“I could just… lift it up with my waterhands,” Lapis mutters.
“You could,” Pearl says, poking around the toolbox.
“…I’ll just do it your way.”
She’s never really had to learn about tools. Having to rely on them – learning them, maintaining them – seems awfully limiting. She has her wings, her hands, her clones. She can fly. Or more precisely, she had them until her gem cracked.
The afternoon goes like this: Pearl tells her what the tools are, and she hands them to Pearl, kind of like in the medical TV shows, except the car is the patient. Pearl lies down on some kind of rolling board, does whatever, then she goes to the front of the car – called a hood – and does whatever. Lapis follows, not really listening to Pearl’s lecture about the salesman lying about this or that.
They break for a bit sometime in the afternoon. They sit down on deck chairs. Pearl has a cooler for drinks – of course she does – and Lapis appreciates the unhealthy fizzle of soda going down her form’s throat.
It’s around that time that Lapis realizes that Pearl doesn’t breathe, ever.
“Does your gem feel anything?”
Pearl stops sorting the tools on her plastic folding table. “Beg your pardon?”
“Do you let yourself feel anything?”
“Of course? When Steven was younger we had to be conscious of what might hurt him, what was too cold or hot. And of course when we’re in battle…” Pearl drifts off. She’s not talking to a human. She’s not talking to a gem born on Earth. And she’s not talking to Garnet.
“What do you mean?” she asks instead.
“You should try it,” Lapis says, putting an aluminum ice-cold drink to her forehead. Pearl follows suit.
“It’s cold,” Pearl says. “And wet.”
“I can’t believe you.” Lapis would be amused, or horrified. She gets it. She gets why Pearl is so dead set on being a gem. On not being human.
“We’re not humans,” Pearl says, starting to get a vague idea of just what it is Lapis is trying to say.
“I’m going to guess that Amethyst has tried to get you to do this and you’ve fought over it.”
“… She has.”
“It’s pointless to hold onto being a gem,” Lapis says. “I’m not a Homeworld gem and I’m not a human.”
“And it makes you angry and violent to have lost all that,” Pearl murmurs, returning the drink to the cooler.
“So you hold onto this whole gem shit because you don’t want to go on a crazed rampage? You don’t care for most of humanity. You think Earth is a backwater planet. You still dream of space.”
“I did. Almost killed Steven trying to get to the nearest star system.” Pearl’s glares at her, telling her to drop the damn subject.
Lapis chuckles darkly. Steven might have an idea that his caretakers are dangerous. He doesn’t really get it yet.
Every time she talks to Pearl it always feels like they’re on the precipice of undoing each other’s efforts to get by.
“That kid’s going to hate you when he hits puberty,” Lapis says. Pearl rolls her eyes. But she doesn’t say anything. The Bird Nerd knows herself, even when she wishes she didn’t.
“You think you’d deserve it, huh.”
Pearl still doesn’t reply
“Pretty sweet revenge for all those times I had to visualize Homeworld for you.” She should shut up, she realizes. But she can’t stop herself. “Mirror!” she says, mimicking Pearl’s voice, bossy and high-pitched, “The Sanctuary at Cluster Seven!”
“Stop it,” Pearl growls through clenched teeth. There we go, Lapis thinks. The cracks start to appear.
It makes Lapis want to keep going and play her part to the hilt. Then they’d fight. Then the car would be wrecked. And so on, and so on, and so on. The thought of it is tiring.
“Yeah, let’s just get this thing washed.”
Lately Lapis has been following one of those teen shows every evening with Amethyst and Steven. One of the characters keeps a diary. It seems to be a kind of log for Lapis, but much more personal. It’s not for work, isn’t for submission or tracking purposes. There are physical diaries, then journals, then blogs. The physical diary is a blank notebook with an intricate plastic lock.
Dear diary, she thinks to herself. Yesterday I helped repair a car.
Dear diary, she thinks to herself, I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’m screwed in the head and so is she.
Pearl doesn’t really care for this hunk of rock. Pearl doesn’t like Homeworld that much either. But she still asks for pictures of the past all the time anyway. Probably wishes for a time when she didn’t have to fight against her own home planet. Probably still wonders if all the death and destruction during the war was for anything. Does Pearl believe in this planet? She believes in Steven. But she doesn’t have Rose Quartz’s all-encompassing love and faith for this world.
She did it all for Rose and at the end of the day she has to hold on for a child.
How miserable, Lapis thinks. She hates watching Pearl for that reason. Because she – Lapis Lazuli – can destroy if she wanted to. But Pearl can’t let herself lose it. There she is, hanging onto a sliver of sanity. One slip – one bad day – who knows if Pearl would still be a Crystal Gem? What fragile bonds keep them together, if it weren’t for Steven.
Or maybe Lapis is wrong and Pearl’s teammates will pull her back from the brink. Who knows. They’re both trapped – and really, even after telling Pearl it was her own fault, the truth is, Lapis isn’t sure what to make of their common chains.
tbc
“There’s a lot you don’t know about Gems, Steven.”
“How could I have known the Gem contained in that mirror would be so powerful?”
A/N:
Gems don’t see each other as ‘people,’ guys. They probably don’t really consider each other ‘their fellow kind.’ Peridot didn’t even know the Crystal Gems in Marble Madness. She freaked out because she saw a gem.
Part 2 has a little more about how Lapis perceives her situation, some small worldbuilding stuff (a bit about being trapped in the mirror, etc.), and the usual Pearl/Lapis bickering. And, I don’t know, maybe they finally learn how to get along.