First Light
Chapter 1: Defective
"It's too cold here." She though before rubbing her arms. How many times had she thought this though with no consequence to show for it? It's why she was here after all. She was worthless, unable to serve her purpose. So appalling that her superior had not even given her the digninty of a shattering, merely destroying her improper form and burying her in the ground to be trodden upon for as long as the new colony stood. But over time, as the elements corroded the stone above her, she kissed the air enough to reform, and saw that the earth was no less lively than it had been those thousands of years ago. She eventuqlly found herself back in the kindergarten that was the source of her agony. A subpar joke that could barely produce an adequate pebble. And fittingly, this jlke of kindergarten had once upon a day spawned something much funnier than itself.
"Me…" she whispered to her deserted hole.
She was however stirred from her thoughts when she heard a crash several, followed by an anquished cry she couldn't quite understand. She followed where the noise seemed to had came from and found two gems one… soft looking thing holding the bubbled gem of a jasper before sending it they turned, and everything froze.
"C'mere, sis." Amethyst sighed before bubbling and sending away her rival. She leaned into steven for friendly comfort when they all felt someone watching then and turned to the source. Standing there was a woman-no, a gem clearly, indicated by her rainbow hair and grey skin, simply watching them curiously.
No one spoke for several tense seconds before steven got the courage to acknowledge her.
"Um… Hi?" he asked, not knowing what else to do. This greeting seemed to snap the all-too-familiar looking gem from her own stupor and she swiftly snapped into a diamond salute.
"Bismuth facet 3H7K cug 9CK!" she belted out. Steven noticeably flinched when she said what kind of gem she was, the memory of the crystal gems own bismuth all too fresh in his mind. Peridot meanwhile, being the most well versed in gem etiquette of the three identified herself as well before asking,
"What is your purpose in the beta kindergarten?" The bismuth didn't hesitate for a moment before answering,
"To erode." This answer shocked them all. What after all was a difference between a crack and an erosion that wasn't as superficial as time spent?
"Wat?!"Steven exclaimed making the strange gem twitch, "How told you you were just supposed to… disappear?" The bismuth, surprised that she hadn't just been put back in her gem the instant she spoke, couldn't think of the proper words to say and settled with,
"I'm defective."
"But I don't see anything wrong with you?" Steven asked, wondering what she had done to earn herself that label in her own mind.
"My gem formation was dirtied with an intrusion of raw lead, rendering me unable to do the complex mathematics necessary to construct." She put her head down, no longer meeting their gazes.
"They'll send me back now," Bismuth thought to herself, "now that they know why my purpose has changed. The last thing she expected, which startled her likely more than a harsh blow would have, was the gentle hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see none other than the soft thing looking at her with an expression she didn't have experience with, only ever having seen contempt and rage.
"But what do you want?" Steven asked, genuinely curious about her answer. She simply stood there, looking at him, and wondered if he was defective too.