Pearls are made to be pretty.
Pearls are made to be valuable, beautiful things.
Pearls are made to be lovely and empty and nothing at all.
This Pearl, who stands silently beside her Diamond's throne, knows this. She has known it from the very first day.
"The very best for you, Blue Diamond. The finest Pearl anyone could imagine."
This Pearl, who speaks so little she wonders if her voice still works, knows this is false. A Pearl is a Pearl. She may be dressed in Blue Diamond's colors, she may be the perfect aesthetic accompaniment, she may know how to do all the right things, but she is not the best of anything. She is a Pearl. Pearls are never 'best'.
"It performs its duties satisfactorily."
Blue Diamond does not have time for improper behavior. The Pearl knows this, and she performs accordingly. She cannot afford to make mistakes. If she makes a mistake, there will be a new Pearl in her place, said to be even better than the last.
She will not be. That Pearl will also be a Pearl.
Pearls are exquisite and expensive and distinctive, but they are not unique at all. They are all the same emptiness, dressed up and flaunted and ignored.
She pities the next Pearl, or the possibility of her existence. Perhaps if she does her job, fulfills her purpose, there will not have to be another.
Perhaps she can stand here forever, watching gems come and go, watching worlds rise and fall, watching, watching, watching.
Pearls see many things and they hear many things, but they are not intelligent enough for it to matter.
She thinks—or does not think, cannot think—that she knows more about Homeworld than many of the gems she sees. But she is not a gem, and she can do nothing, so it doesn't matter.
"Our plans for the colony are being delayed by a small group of rebels."
It is not the first rebellion to exist. Others have existed in whispers, in shards, in bubbles and dark corners. Other rebellions failed, and she knows this one will come to the same inevitable end.
But…
"Rose Quartz and her renegade Pearl."
A Pearl, with a rebellion. A Pearl, acting independently. A Pearl. Just a Pearl.
She pays even more attention to the meetings, to the updates, to any glimmer of Pearl in a conversation. It is as close as she gets to hope, though it is not hope at all. It is just a Pearl. One Pearl.
"Blue Diamond, leave this planet. This colony will not be completed!"
And then she sees. She sees the Pearl, sees a Pearl that looks like she could be just the same as any other Pearl, looks like she could easily be this Pearl, the Pearl that watches.
But there is something in the Pearl's eyes that is different. There is something there that she has never seen before.
"We are the Crystal Gems!"
She only gets a second, one second to see this Pearl, this impossible Pearl—she is whisked away with her Diamond before the fighting begins.
A second is all she needs.
Pearls are not all empty, and this thought fills her.
Pearls are not all pretty and meaningless accessories.
That Pearl carried swords, that Pearl called out her allegiance with confidence, that Pearl was fearless.
And this Pearl, this Pearl wants. For the very first time, she yearns for something more than watching and filling this place so another Pearl will not have to.
She cannot want it, but she does, and it is a painful and wonderful and broken thing.
Perhaps she is broken. Perhaps she is defective, for thinking this.
It doesn't matter though. As long as she does nothing to show this defect, as long as she obeys, her Diamond will not know. Diamonds, she has learned over the many years she has watched, know much less than the other gems think. As long as she looks lovely and empty, no one will notice her. No one ever notices Pearls.
She stands, she waits, she watches.
"The Sapphire and the Ruby are nowhere to be found, my Diamond. Our scouts believe they might have joined the rebels, as…as that fusion."
Pearls do not fuse. Pearls do not need to fuse. The Sapphire and the Ruby did not need to fuse either, but they did.
She thinks of the Pearl again, the one with the swords and the fiery eyes. She wonders if that Pearl fuses, since that Pearl has already done so many things that Pearls do not do. She wonders what it feels like, to break the rules, to break everything known to her. She wonders what feeling is, if it's the ache inside of her to know. She wonders if it matters. She is just a Pearl.
She is a Pearl, and she has something inside of her now. Questions. Knowledge. Forbidden things, for a Pearl. She keeps them, and kindles them, and wonders.
She sees the rebellion come and go, as all rebellions do. They all end, as this one does, in devastation.
She mourns the Pearl, somewhere beneath the façade she has learned to keep. She mourns the Pearl, imagines her last moments, imagines her standing tall and facing the end with her swords and her strength. Imagines that maybe some piece of her still exists.
She will remember this Pearl.
She will remember, and she will wait, and she will watch, because she is a Pearl. Because Pearls are not empty. Pearls are not nothing. And, perhaps, one day, she will show this to another Pearl. Perhaps that Pearl will show another, perhaps the next will pass it along, until they are all Pearls like that first one. Perhaps, one day, Pearls will not have to be empty and rebellions will not have to fail. Until then, they can wait. Pearls are good at waiting.