Red Beryl had finally stopped crying.
Crinkled like a ball of paper on her fainting couch, she looked into the ceilings and caught her breath. Her burgundy hair, which was normally restrained inside a strict and perfect bun, spilled around her head like shed blood on a white tile floor. With the flavor of saline occupying every bud of her tongue, she linked her fingers together. Her body accepted the full magnitude of its bruises, cuts, and scratches.
Despite the temporary calmness, Red grit her teeth. The edges of her ornate room—located in the center of her ornate chambers which were a very small portion of Yellow Diamond's enormous ornate castle—blurred.
The soft light from her computer at the other side of the room grew brighter with an incoming message from the Queen herself. The glow posted on the corner near the generous window reflected yellow, and a familiar voice spoke: "Red, I hope you're in your chambers. I'm coming to see you. I'll be there shortly."
The message clicked off and dullish light returned, having been dyed slightly brighter from Yellow Diamond's pigment.
In the darkness, Red Beryl sat up immediately and organized the twisted, miserable cushions she had held hostage beneath her body. A few of them now had little crimson patches from her blood and most had damp salty puddles from her tears. Yet, meticulous hands put them right back into place and driven feet brought her to a mirror to correct her appearance before the empress arrived.
"Pearl! Where are you?"
Red's voice bounced around against the walls. She didn't get an answer.
Still, she sopped the water from her eyes and filled in the trenches the melancholy had weathered onto her face. The bags beneath her bottom lashes remained, swollen and dark. They were like heaps of ugly curtains that had fallen to the floor during an earthquake, but there was hardly any time to hang them back up.
Just as her hands came to arrange her hair back into place, the sound of opening doors reverberated throughout her chambers. By the time the notes of their closing rang out, Red Beryl made herself present in the main room and bowed against the flawless tiles that created the floor.
Yellow Diamond turned on the lights.
And sparkled inside them.
They both attempted to speak at the same time, but the moment their greetings clashed, Red Beryl remained silent and kept her vision trained on the Queen's feet, regardless of how her ruined hair hung unruly before her face.
"You're still bleeding."
"Yes, My Diamond. I deserve this pain and even more for having failed you—" Something took up room in her throat and the aristocrat choked again. She nearly bit off her bottom lip to keep it from quivering.
"You don't need to punish yourself anymore for what's happened. Stand up."
"With all due respect, Ma'am—if I lay my eyes on you I'll begin to weep."
"I came here anticipating that." The golden woman made a few steps forward and towered like a statuesque goddess before the whelp clawing at the ground before her. The Queen's flawless brows bent in the center. "Really, Red. You're such an abject perfectionist that even something this minor tears you apart inside. It's almost charming, if not somewhat disconcerting, to see how badly you want to please me. Yet, you're so much more disappointed in yourself than I am in you."
Red Beryl's response was nothing other than sniffling and shaking. With the desperation of a man about to hanged, she restrained her emotions by sucking them back down and asphyxiating herself in the process.
"I would tell you that it's not as big a deal as you think it is and leave you with that, but that isn't going to work. You'll beat yourself up until your gem shatters, and that's hardly what I want. So I've come here to make you feel better. Stand up."
Her knees practically buckled and folded between her unrelenting shame and her will to follow Yellow Diamond's orders. Fingers wrung out the skirts of her gown; Red's expression soured and twisted. And finally, her eyes met with her Queen's.
As promised, the smaller gem began to weep. Her deep crimson heart lines covered the features of her face and her anguish.
"I wish you would understand that you've impressed me far too many times to justify casting you out, but I think it's your deep rejection of failure and desperation to succeed that makes you this way. When you do make a mistake, it's much more tragic than it would be for anyone else. You should know that I'm actually quite proud of you—that the other Diamonds are envious that such a gem belongs to me. Though, none of that really matters because you're about to forget everything I just said. Come a little closer."
Red Beryl had calmed down and covered Yellow Diamond with every drop of her undivided attention. "Ma'am?"
"Don't worry. It isn't going to hurt."
The goddess lowered herself so she and her servant's faces were only millimeters apart. Her bright Yellow glove covered Red Beryl's' four pointed, diamond-shaped gem and all of her chest. With her other hand, Yellow Diamond held her close.
Red Beryl's face darkened. Some of the sorrow evaporated due to her blood boiling. A little steam even escaped her slightly agape lips, but perhaps that was merely a hallucination.
Then Yellow Diamond electrocuted her.
She fell into the empress's grip while her eyes rolled backward and her entire body shook. Despite all of this, the Queen had not lied. There was no pain, merely paralysis.
When it was over, the supreme ruler carried her deep red gem back to the fainting couch and gently set her down. Red's form practically molded to the creases and folds and cushions in a lifeless mass with golden irises that still glanced into the perfection of her mistress's face.
"I don't want to be like her—"
"Shh. You're not supposed to be able to speak."
Before those beautiful heels could tap out a rhythm that would serve as a harbinger for Yellow Diamond's inevitable departure, long fingers took up a smaller red hand.
"You don't have to worry about being like her. I'll see you soon."
Then Red made a groan that was intended to be at least five words. In frustration and a deep, passionate desire to respond to her queen, those unresponsive arms nearly flailed but only succeeded at twitching. The noble was mumbling again, and as the door opened, a bit of laughter wafted like a rich perfume back into her room.
"You're so persistent. As if you would have anything to be concerned about…"
The two halves of the portal came back together as Yellow Diamond left. Finally, Red allowed the unconsciousness to pass like a wave over her and wash the memories and the sanity away. In an unusual sleep, she drowned in the fantasy of the Goddess Queen's perfect love.