Pearl is the first pearl of the Crystal Gems, and she is the last, but at the midpoint there are three.
Garnet finds the second. There's not much left of her at the time. The gem in the center of her chest looks flattened, like much of the top has been worn away, and there's a large chunk gone from the side. Her projection's barely there. Pearls are good at keeping themselves together, so there's none of the glitching and unspooling Pearl's become familiar with from battlefields. Instead, the other pearl's projection shed everything she couldn't maintain. Her arms end in pointed stumps while her legs lost even the knees, and from the mud she must have been dragging herself for some time. The only feature left on her face is an intermittent gash she's trying to speak through.
Rose bursts into tears, Pearl pours them over the gem, and there's a moment of returning detail before the other pearl's form flashes and gives out under the strain. It takes her a month to reform.
It's the two of them for some time. Pearl divides up her swords and gives lessons, and Pearl learns eagerly, and before a battle, the two of them twirl through the dance they both know and fuse. Same gem fusions are easy. It's never been quite what Ruby describes, never just the same but bigger, because pearls didn't live their lives next to each other, but every pearl's life is the same, really. Pearl feels herself more strongly now than she did when she did this back on Homeworld, but anything is more than nothing, and there's never any answering pull from Pearl. (Pearl couldn't know what this meant, then.)
The third arrives with a flint. Carnelian comes looking for them, because the pearl said she belonged to the flint, and someone laughed because flints don't get pearls and they certainly don't get a diamond's pearl, and now the pearl sobbing Flint is her owner she is she is she is while the flint is screaming she'll shatter anybody who tries to take her.
Pearl and Pearl calm them down, gently pry the pearl's fingers off the flint's arm, and explain over and over that no one will take anyone until the two can almost believe it. Pearl and Pearl teach Pearl swordfighting. Pearl and Pearl and Pearl twirl, and fuse, and become someone bigger.
The fusion is a little less stable than before. Where before there was the occasional jolt of But Rose, is Rose okay?, there's now But Flint, is Flint okay? It's not enough to pull them apart - the great Pearl, the one with black pearls running in a line from her forehead to navel, accepts Pearl's argument that if they lose Rose, they lose everyone. But it's a bit of grit in the workings, a constant reminder that they're themselves, and it makes it easier for them to feel the other tiny differences between them and for those to grow. Pearl is in love with the flowing of water and the working of metal and all the ways small things can become great, while Pearl is in love with the striations on worn cliff faces and the shapes of long-dead wood washed up by the waves, while Pearl, for reasons she can't quite articulate, faintly likes seeing mayflies dance over the reeds.
One day when they fuse there's not simply Pearl but all three of them making a fourth, and Pearl holds up her hands to find more and laughs in delight at who she's becoming.
But there is still a war.
The blow comes at Pearl's head, and she parries, because she needs to keep fighting. The blow comes at Pearl's stomach and she dodges, because she doesn't want to die. A dagger stabs through her chest and Pearl bursts into dust.
Pearl learns to fuse with Rose. Pearl learns to fuse with Flint. When the end comes, Pearl is with Rose, and Pearl is not.