It's not often Pearl indulges in sorrow, but when she does, she doesn't hold back. Tears run freely down her face. Her chest heaves with every sob, aching. She's secluded in the temple, her room as neat and organized as she wishes her life was. There's no use trying to dampen the blow - Rose is dead. She isn't coming back. Pearl is a disgusting, snotty mess. How human of her. Rose would have probably been enthralled with her current state, she thinks bitterly.
There's a thought that lurks in the back of her mind usually held down and forcefully kept at bay, but tonight it's coming into the open. It's a toxic ooze that seeps out of her brain and into her heart. It's pathetic, but often she feels as if she'll wake up and shake off the strange, horrible dream. But it's not a dream. Stars above, it's not a dream. It's reality, and times like now it feels almost too much to bear. If it weren't for Steven…
Normally, she'd purge that thought from her mind. She must be strong, she'd think. Normally, she'd shove it back and pretend it hadn't been there. Shoo it away from her mind. Tonight, though, she's reveling in her own tragedy. There's a beauty in pain, the humans love to say. It still feels like a sick joke. This isn't beautiful. It's an open wound. Nothing about open gaping wounds are beautiful.
If it weren't for Steven, she would have let herself be shattered fourteen years ago. It doesn't matter how it happened, she'd think, as long as it did. She'd finally be free from her self-made prison. But she can't let that happen. Rose might be dead, but it's undeniable that a part of her lives on in her son. Pearl didn't just swear an oath. She'd been special-made for Rose, her love, her owner, her liberator. Without her, Pearl is nothing.
The word 'owner' never fails to make her chest flutter strangely. It's an equal mixture of revulsion and elation and it's doused in lust. And then a twinge of guilt. Has she ever been free? She doesn't feel free. As long as the gem is in one piece Pearl belongs to it. Her. Him.
It aches, so bad. No matter how tightly she wraps her arms around herself, she is alone. Without Rose she is incomplete. She continues weeping, rump on the floor and arms wrapped around her knees, desperate. It's been a long time since she's let herself act like this. She howls out, whimpering, begging the universe to acknowledge her misery. It doesn't. It never has, and it probably never will.
She's often heard the humans say there's beauty in sadness, but she's never been able to find it. In gem years, she's relatively young. There's still millennia left in her, and the thought is crushing. It's selfish to be distraught that she has so much time left; most pearls don't last as long as she has. Even the ones who diligently follow every order to perfection only last a few thousand years as owners grow bored and discard them for newer, prettier models.
And here she is, in safety, bawling in misery because she has so much time left. It's a self defeating cycle, and she knows it, but she can't seem to stop wailing. She wasn't supposed to survive the war. She was supposed to be shattered, heroically giving her life for the rebellion and serving as a beacon of freedom and hope for enslaved gems everywhere.
But instead, she's living a life of ease, far away from the horrors of homeworld. Secluded in a safe place, and miserable for it.
She's finally out of tears now, and she lets herself fall forward onto the temple floor, still wrapping her arms around herself. It's uncomfortable. Some hero, she murmurs to herself.