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It took nearly two days for Emerald to regenerate.
It wasn’t… unexpected. Ruby had never seen Emerald get poofed before, but he had a relatively larger gem and physical form, so reconstituting himself meant a much greater expenditure of resources than it did for, say, a more disposable ruby, designed to go down often and bounce back quickly.
And coming back tended to be… disorienting, and difficult, for gems who didn’t have much experience reforming themselves. Topaz, also a relatively larger gem but notably more prone to getting himself poofed, was back by nightfall, while Emerald still sat dark and inert in Ruby’s lap.
So it made perfect sense that Emerald would take longer to get back.
Ruby still hated it.
While they waited, the walls rose around them, heavy blocks of stone lifted and slid into place, bracketed and supported by the heavy trunks of felled trees. It was a primitive sort of fortification, certainly, but it was solid, and relatively secure, and it made Ruby’s shoulders just a little less tense when the last gaps in the walls were closed.
The last of the worry, however, did not fade until Emerald’s gem began to glow, soft and green against the nighttime dark.
Ruby heaved a relieved breath, set the gem down in the charred grass and took a few steps back as light spilled out, gathered, solidified and clarified- Emerald reappeared in a flash of brilliance, standing with one foot back and his hands up, caught in the moment of the fight.
“My emerald!” Ruby said quickly, drawing Emerald’s attention.
“...Ruby,” Emerald said, looking around, clearly trying to reorient himself. It was later in the day than it had been; the enemies were gone; the walls were risen. It was always weird, coming back and seeing that the world had changed around you. “What happened? There was…”
“You poofed fighting the spinel,” Ruby said. “Which I hope you know you’re never going to hear the end of. We had the aquamarine outnumbered, but there was another- another fusion. It appeared and they escaped before we could stop it.”
He left out- he was sticking to the most important details. Emerald didn’t need to know about the exchange. Certainly didn’t need to know how close the aquamarine had come to vanishing with his gem to someplace unfindable.
“Another fusion,” Emerald repeated, sounding thoughtful. In the dark and with his visor over his eyes, Ruby couldn’t make out his expression.
Ruby nodded. “Two gems, I think. Which puts our number of known adversaries at at least four.” Still less than their five- six counting the bismuth, seven counting the pearl as well, though neither of them were truly meant for combat- but still not a particularly appealing number to fight, especially considering the feats the two fusions had been capable of.
Emerald was quiet for a moment. “What about the ship?”
Ruby winced. “Most of the ship is still intact,” he said, making a valiant attempt to start with good news. Unfortunately, the good news was basically limited to one item. “But the cockpit is completely wrecked. Control systems, comms, onboard computers- all gone. Amethyst’s been looking at it, but- well, none of us are exactly technicians. The bismuth offered to give it a shot. I wanted to wait until you woke up in order to approve that.”
“The bismuth,” Emerald said, attention apparently drawn back from wherever it had gone. “He’s still here?”
Ruby nodded, terse. He still didn’t particularly trust the other gem’s sudden appearance, and if it had vanished after the fight he would have taken it as a given that it had only approached them in the first place as some sort of distraction, but it had stuck around, and even pitched in building the walls. Now, he wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“But right now, the ship’s just, completely trashed.”
“Yup,” Ruby confirmed. “We’re stranded.”
Emerald grimaced, finally sat. “Awesome,” he muttered.
“You did say you were looking forward to a nice, long mission away from Homeworld,” Ruby pointed out, unable to resist the jab.
Emerald groaned, flopped over backwards the rest of the way onto the ground. “Not like this!”
Ruby snickered- then blinked, winced. “Right, the pearl’s also missing.”
Emerald lifted his head. “The pearl. Pink Diamond’s pearl?”
“Unless there’s another pearl we had onboard I didn’t know about.”
“Pink Diamond’s personal pearl, who we are responsible for,” Emerald repeated.
Ruby shrugged helplessly. “He wandered off! There was a lot going on!”
Emerald dropped his head back to the dirt again without comment, staring up at the stars. Possibly reassessing every choice that had led them to this point, which was fair. Ruby tipped his head back to follow his gaze. They were distant enough from Homeworld that he wasn’t sure its star was even visible from here; if it was, there was no way to pick it apart from the million other lights in the sky.
“This is a rebel faction,” Emerald said, after a long stretch of silence. “Right? It’s gotta be. And this whole mess is… uh, dire, for sure, but… if we could defeat them, deliver this planet for the empire, make up for the resource cost of all those lost missions and then some… just imagine what they’d give us. Imagine the influence we could have.”
Ruby listened, and imagined. He could never really do anything else, when it came to Emerald’s ambitions. From any other gem he’d call them ridiculous, but there was always something about the conviction Emerald spoke with that enthralled him, made him believe.
Emerald sat up, suddenly, met Ruby’s eyes through his visor. “Ruby,” he said, that unusually thoughtful tone back in his voice again. “Do you remember when we met?”
“Of course,” Ruby said automatically. How could he forget?
“Do you remember,” Emerald started, and then frowned, cut himself off. Was silent for a moment. “…Tell me about the second fusion.”
Ruby-
Ruby stared at him for a moment, uncertain and speechless.
Did he know?
“Ruby?” Emerald prompted.
“I- right,” Ruby managed, shaking his head. “It was… tall. Maybe as tall as you. I think it must have been a fusion of two gems, because I saw one- uh, a cabochon over its heart, and a faceted gem lower down. I don’t know what it was, but maybe some sort of agate? Because it had inclusions. It was very…”
He hesitated, trying to gather his thoughts. “It looked normal,” he eventually settled on. “You know, whenever I heard about cross-gem fusion, it was always that it was- impossible, or if it was possible it always made… monsters with too many limbs that couldn’t come apart, or that sort of thing. But this fusion- it looked like it could’ve been any other gem. It had a third eye, but that was all. And…”
Emerald was listening intently. “And?”
“It was powerful,” Ruby said. “It froze the whole hilltop at once. Stuck all of us in place long enough to get away with the aquamarine. Honestly, we were lucky it just left instead of making a stand. I’m… really not sure how we’d do in a real fight against it. Or against that other one, for that matter.”
“You mean the purple one.”
Ruby nodded. “It… fell apart, I guess, before we really had to fight it, but those explosives… and it was fast. I’m worried…”
I’m worried it might cost us more than two days and a lot of stress, next time.
Emerald nodded. “You’re right,” he said, shoulders slumping slightly. “I’m… so freakin’ glad all of you were alright. I can’t just slip like that again.” He sounded frustrated. “I need to be able to do more to protect you.”
“Hey, hold on a minute there,” Ruby said. “We’re the ones who’re supposed to protect you.”
Emerald huffed, sounding fond. “You know that’s not how I roll, Ruby.”
Ruby scowled. “I don’t like it.”
“Tough,” Emerald said, before sobering. “But… you catch my drift, right?”
I need to be able to do more to protect you. Ruby nodded, an inexplicable anxiety creeping down his neck. “I do, but- my emerald, what-“
Emerald shifted, pushed himself from sitting to kneeling. Ruby watched him, uncomprehending and a little apprehensive. Emerald’s eyes were very bright behind his visor.
“My ruby,” Emerald said, “do you want to try and fuse with me?”
Ruby- stared for a moment, before turning sharply away, trying to calm himself, trying to think.
“Ruby-” Emerald started.
“Shut up,” Ruby said, not looking back at him. “My emerald.”
Emerald, mercifully, did, waiting quietly for Ruby to gather his thoughts.
It was- it wasn’t like he’d never thought about it. It wouldn’t even be the first time. Until now he’d been certain Emerald hadn’t even known just what had happened when they first met- how could he have, with no frame of reference?- but Ruby had.
He’d fused before, many times; not out of any real desire to, just because it was what he was for. Fusing with other rubies, giving up the sum of his ill-defined self into the whole. He’d never been good at it. He was too selfish, too self-concerned, prone to destabilizing the whole structure with his preoccupations.
His impulse was to reject Emerald’s offer out of hand, no matter what his actual feelings on the matter might be. He wasn’t good at fusing. It wouldn’t make them any stronger; it would be dangerous, a liability. But-
He’d never fused by accident before. He’d never met a gem who he worked with seamlessly enough to just… flow together into them without even trying. That had been new. And their fusion, during the bare few seconds it had existed… it had been strong. That was the one thing he knew about it. It had shattered a falling slab of crystal heavier than either of them into fragments and dust with one blow.
This was… a bad idea. A bad idea for Emerald, if nothing else, because Ruby wasn’t worth that much in the grand scheme of things but Emerald would be the future of the empire, if Ruby had anything to say about it. He was important. His reputation was important. Ruby should think of- some way to shut this down, laugh it off, move on to another plan to keep everyone safe. One less… insane.
But what else was there? They were alone, and stranded, and they had other gems they were responsible for, and they had no way of getting help.
“I don’t know about that, my emerald,” Ruby finally managed, trying to inject some levity into his voice. “What makes you think I want to drag your gem around all over the place, huh? I did that the last two days already, and it was plenty enough for me.”
He turned back around, which was a mistake, probably, because Emerald was still kneeling, still looking at him intently.
“If you don’t want to, I promise, I’ll drop it forever,” Emerald said, sounding so earnest it made Ruby a little panicky. “But…”
Ruby laughed, and could tell it sounded nervous. “Listen, um- it’s not- what I want isn’t really, uh, the problem here. I just… don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not really… good at fusion. It never really goes that well with the other rubies. If you’re wanting someone to make you stronger, I… don’t think I’m your gem.”
It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. He was worried about dragging Emerald down and endangering the both of them, but- if he was really honest with himself, the prospect of the fusion succeeding, creating someone who really wasn’t either of them, was almost scarier.
Despite it, he still couldn’t really bring himself to state outright that he didn’t want to try.
“I think we can make it work,” Emerald said, undeterred. “Like, if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be- but I think we should at least try.”
Ruby hesitated a moment longer, searching his mind for anything else he could think to say to stall. “Promise we won’t get a building dropped on us again?” he tried. “I don’t want to repeat the last time.”
Emerald blinked. “The last time?”
Oh, for-
“I thought you realized!” Ruby said, voice pitching up in incredulity. “I thought- at that party- I thought that’s why you brought it up in the first place!”
Emerald was grinning now, slightly awkward. “I- look, I had a guess. I just… didn’t really think about it until just now? So we really… and you’ve known this whole time? You might’ve said something, man.”
He didn’t sound angry, but Ruby still glanced away, vaguely embarrassed. “How was I supposed to bring it up, exactly? ‘Excuse me, my emerald, I know we just met and all, but I think I might’ve just committed one of the worst crimes of gemkind against you, terribly sorry, won’t happen again?’”
“Against me?” Emerald repeated, sounding bemused. “My guy, that was a two-gem activity.”
“You’re an emerald,” Ruby said.
Emerald frowned. “Well, yeah, but- you know I wouldn’t hang you out to dry, right?”
“…Well, now I do,” Ruby said. Emerald was ridiculously loyal, horribly trusting and open. It would do him well to be a little more selfish. It was probably for the best he didn’t dedicate much time to actual court politics.
“Good,” Emerald said decisively, and then hesitated. “So- er, how do you normally, uh, do this?”
Okay. Right. This was actually happening. “It’s supposed to be automatic, for rubies. And other same-type gems that use it for combat. Usually doesn’t work out that easily for me. But basically, if you’re having trouble because you’re too different, you sort of have to- synchronize? It’s like… you have to be on the same wavelength. When I saw the spinel and the aquamarine fuse, they did, like- they spun each other around? I guess it was sort of like a dance.”
Emerald brightened. “Do you dance?”
Ruby made a face. “It’s not really the sort of thing you learn when your main purpose is to get smashed into bits, my emerald.”
Emerald’s expression softened, though he was still smiling. “Well, will you try? With me?”
He held his hand out. Ruby moved to take it; hesitated.
“This might not- work,” he warned. “Like, at all. But if it does, and it really makes us stronger, I want…”
He swallowed. Emerald watched him.
“…I want to stay with you,” he said, quieter. “I didn’t like seeing you gone. At all. And- if we’re fused, it won’t… happen again. It’s my job to protect you.”
Emerald tapped his visor, and it vanished to reveal his eyes unobstructed. The look in them was so sincere Ruby nearly had to look away. “I’m all in if you are.”
Ruby took a final breath, and clapped his hand into Emerald’s.
Everything changed.
Eyes fanned open. Arms stretched out. The fusion, nearly newborn, considered itself.
It was large, larger than Emerald had been, but when it stretched an arm out, it was dark red, almost brownish, not green at all. Something was pooling on the ground beneath it, deep and rusty.
It needed to speak with its people. It needed to plan. When it opened its mouth, it found its voice different; like Emerald’s, but slanted, and full of teeth.
It had to brace two of its four arms against the ground to push itself to its feet. It staggered as it did, not perfectly stable, something in its core not holding it up as it should- but all parts of it were wholly committed, and so it remained. Its cape moved with it, liquid, still dripping. Fitting, for its purpose.
Oh, yes. It was here for a purpose, it recalled. It was here to protect; to conquer; to rule. To guard those that belonged to it, and subjugate those that did not.
That was, after all, what a diamond did.