By the reckoning of the people of Nakbe, a city situated between the colonial landing site and where Rose Quartz was considering establishing a temple, it was tun fourteen of the katun two, of the baktun six, and the rest she forgot. Some three thousand years after landing. Just when she had grown used to the way one group of humans reckoned time, they had been asked by some king of another group of humans to attend a social function in their year of four thousand seventy-something, in the month of… Tammuz? She couldn't remember the day, but it seemed so much less complex than the Nakbe calendar. Pearl had been enamored with the Nakbe calendar, however, and insisted on using it when they needed to keep track of any meetings they may have with the humans.
"Mathematically speaking, the long count the Nakbeans use can continue for millions, even trillions, of years," Pearl had explained years ago, the jewel-like feathered cape gifted to her by Nakbe's god-king fluttering and shimmering with her excited gesticulations. Rose had smiled at her indulgently even if she was a bit mystified over their counting system, and Amethyst had stuck out her tongue and muttered "mudscratcher" under her breath. "It's closer to our own time-keeping than anything else humans have come up with!"
For the most part, they left the technicalities of calculating the differences between calendars to Pearl. After all, they seldom engaged with humans anyway, and certainly not to the point where they would need to know exact dates. But this date was apparently something of importance to Pearl. Rose felt bad for having forgotten about it.
"Why are you going to Ninua so soon after spring equinox," she asked as delicately as she could. As much as she loved humans, she could never understand their tendency to believe that the Crystal Gems were gods or demi-gods. The Assyrians were particularly persistent about it, and she'd long since given up trying to convince them that she was not the goddess Ishtar. Still, in the interest of cordial relations, she at least managed to attend a spring equinox festival or two every few years.
Pearl paused in the middle of pulling out a golden headdress of leaves and flowers from her gem; a gift some king or another had given her under the assumption that she had anything to do with the productivity of the rivers. Soulless, cold, Earth-borne diamonds that never had so much as a spark of life were set where there would normally be bits of lapis lazuli and carnelian, an oddity of a symbol that suggested something entirely different the rebels. No one had explained to the youngest gem why a pearl in possession of diamonds was perverse, or why Pearl stared at it when she thought no one was looking, and Amethyst had lost interest by the time the ale came out. Pearl pulled it out the rest of the way after a moment and placed it on her head. The dangling bits of gold glinted a yellowish-white from the glow of their illumination stones and reflected sparkles onto her pale skin. "Remember that irrigation project?"
It took Rose a moment to pull up the right memory; Pearl's pet projects were many. Reducing that number by those that involved humans helped narrow it down. After all, Pearl had never been entirely comfortable with them. But, because she never had the chance on Homeworld, she had taken to the engineers and mathematicians and learned from them. "Oh, yes. Mitigating the desertification of the twin river valley?"
By human measure, it was an old problem. They claimed that Gilgameš's actions had cursed Uruk with fire and drought a mere two thousand years ago. As civilization moved north, so had the environmental devastation and encroachment of desert. They had little understanding of the salinization of their irrigation ditches and canals, and less understanding of how to remedy the issue beyond the stopgap measure of further construction. Pearl had taken an interest in the design and construction of the Jerwan aqueduct, and took to the physics of it like a fish to water. She had joined the engineering crew, learned from and surpassed them, and in time they regarded her as Enbilulu, some aspect of a river god. "The Lord who knows the most subtle geometries of the earth." Pearl had tried not to be flattered, but her cheeks tinted each time they praised her. With Amethyst still hurting from losing her closest human friend, Garnet regarding Pearl's human associates with suspicion and a special distaste for their insistence on deifying the Crystal Gems, and Rose distracted by the literary tradition that seemed to bloom overnight in a nearby cluster of islands, Pearl was the only one who truly kept track of the Assyrians.
"Yes, exactly!" Pearl perked up upon believing that Rose had kept track. Rose smiled encouragingly, though she felt guilty for not paying attention as much as she should have. "Sîn-ahhī-erība invited us to attend to the public opening of his garden. It's primitive, of course, but it's interesting what they were able to do with such limited resources."
Rose's smile softened. Pearl may never appreciate humans the way she did, but she was glad that at least her partner respected their innovation. What could she do but encourage and nurture this interest? "I'm sure it's beautiful." She might have wrapped a few layers of unspoken meaning in her tone, but it was worth it.
The blush returned, and Rose very much wanted to kiss each cheek and cuddle with her partner. How could she restrain herself when Pearl was so adorable? "Yeah," Pearl murmured. "Of course, none of you has to come along if you don't want to…"
It took but a few steps for Rose to close the distance between them. She folded Pearl's long, slender hands between hers. Rose recalled watching her scratching at clay tablets from afar, her voice giving the Akkadian language a musical lilt as she worked with several engineers over some problem of elevation and water transport that Rose hadn't quite understood. There was something about screws. All she knew was that the aqueduct brought water from a considerable distance away and had to be lifted from a lower level to a higher level for the palace. At no point had gem technology been involved. "My Pearl, it would be an honor to see anything you've had a hand in building."
"Oh!" Pearl gave that little laugh of hers that was a mixture of self-deprecating, programmed humility and the barest hint of pride that defied it. "I didn't actually build it."
"Don't be modest! You were figuring out the physics of this thing on your own when even the engineers were taught by others. You're wonderful!" The teal flared to life again on Pearl's cheeks, and she looked aside to string enough thoughts together to counter Rose's statement. Before she could protest, Rose leaned in to brush her lips against the cool, smooth surface of Pearl's gem. It promptly derailed Pearl's self-effacement. "Why don't you go find Amethyst and Garnet and invite them? I'm sure Amethyst wouldn't turn down a chance to get away for a little while."
An awkward, lovely smile tugged at the corner of Pearl's lips as she tried to fight down the blush. She excused herself from Rose's presence and would be preoccupied with finding Amethyst, and Rose only allowed her own smile to fade when Pearl was out of view. She hoped it was enough time to contact Ninua and remind them of their arrangement.
.*.
Garnet stood to the side, against the frescoed and carved walls of Sîn-ahhī-erība's great dining hall. The people left her alone in favor of Amethyst's rambunctiousness, having exhausted their curiosity when Garnet proved aloof and intransigent. At least Amethyst was enjoying herself now; the death of her friend Gilgameš had hit her hard. This arrangement served them perfectly fine; Amethyst loved an audience and no one could match her ability to drink (though Prince Aššur-nãdin-sumi was making a valiant effort to best her), and Garnet preferred to watch and listen to snatches of conversation. It gave her the freedom to follow the trajectories of future possibilities, and the snippets of rumors helped refine those trajectories.
Regardless of the paths she followed, nothing good was going to come of their continued association with humans. If Pearl knew that Rose Quartz tried to protect them by telling the humans to hide their slaves ahead of time, a wedge would form between the two that would only grow. As much as the thought displeased her, Garnet would keep secret Rose's attempts to shield them from humanity's nastier qualities. However, that only illuminated another problem. If Pearl found out that Sîn-ahhī-erība was using their association as propaganda fuel for his war against his neighboring nations, she would be heartbroken and that would feed into Pearl's distrust of the humans and lead to hatred. That hatred would become stronger if she found out for herself. If Garnet refrained from telling her until years later, Pearl would stop trusting her. If Garnet told her now, she'd ruin a perfectly nice night, and one of the few times Pearl felt at ease with herself. She would wait until morning and bundle the rumors into her argument for detaching themselves from humanity until they could stop projecting their gods onto the Crystal Gems.
So she watched and listened, as she always did and always would.
.*.
It was so late when Pearl invited Rose out to the gardens at the topmost level of the palace that half the guests at the feast were asleep, either from overindulgence or simple exhaustion. Mul-urgulû, the Lion, was high in the sky. She knew that the stars that were visible from Homeworld's galaxy had gem names, but she had never been taught them. Humans named them by the patterns they projected onto certain arrangements of stars, unaware of the fact that they moved as according to the gravity wells of other stars, black holes, dark matter, and the rotation of the galaxy. The patterns they saw now would be unrecognizable in a few thousand years. Still, the stars were gorgeous at this time of night, when torchlights and bonfires were snuffed out and the vast majority of the local human population was asleep. She longed to be among those stars, in their harsh light unfiltered by the Earth's atmosphere, but she surrendered that life when she chose to follow Rose Quartz into rebellion and exile.
Not that she could possibly regret it when she had the freedom to learn what she wanted and love whom she wanted. Rose straightened after stooping to pass the doorway, and her eyes reflected the stars when she took in the hanging gardens that marked the edges of the palace platforms and all the levels below them. The Jerwan aqueduct and its associated screws provided water year-round to the reflecting pools that mirrored the stars, to the exotic fruit trees and flowering plants native to the wetter climes of other nation-states, and to the residents of the great "Unrivaled Palace" of Ninua itself. The air was fragrant with the chemical releases of hundreds of different flowers and ripening fruits, and enhanced by the earthy scents of wet concrete and clay and the microbes that resided within them. She could almost taste the nectar and a hint of lime when taking in an unnecessary breath.
"It's lovelier than I'd imagined," Rose said after a long moment of silence. Pearl beamed, gratified that her few, modest suggestions had enabled Sîn-ahhī-erība to build something worthy of Rose's admiration. The reflecting pools were her idea, and they performed admirably. As Rose stepped weightlessly onto the water and twirled, it almost appeared as if she was suspended in space. There was nothing more beautiful. Her partner paused and grinned at her, and stretched out a hand in invitation. Looped around the wrist of the other was an ivory ostrich-feathered fan that quivered with each motion. "Will you dance with me, my Pearl? The night isn't over yet."
Pearl opened her mouth to reply, but the words never left her throat. At some point, she had forgotten how to breathe. Her cheeks warmed with the realization and she stepped forward. The pool remained undisturbed as she redistributed her mass as Rose had done. If she ignored the heady perfumes of organic life and the light summer breeze that teased at leaves, she could almost lead herself to dream that they were truly among the stars. For a moment. Her hand alighted onto Rose's and Rose flashed her that disarming grin before tugging her into an embrace. Rose's voice bubbled into a giggle that teased an answering grin from her. Her partner began swaying in time to unheard music, and she led Pearl into a few tentative steps that became a waltz. The world fell away, and with it all the doubts and worries that haunted Pearl when she let her mind grow too quiet. All that mattered was the familiar weight of Rose's hand on her waist and the brush of hair against her skin when they turned. All that mattered was that Rose looked at her like she was the most precious gem in the universe.
The stars dimmed and the moon changed positions as they danced, and the sky lightened all too soon. Rose's eyes twinkled, and she leaned down for a kiss. Plump, soft, warm lips met hers, and they became one.
Rainbow Quartz danced alone on the surface of a pool that reflected the pinks and oranges of the dawn, her gems warm and vibrant with love for her existence.
.*.
Pearl had no idea why she remembered the fan when she did. It had disappeared sometime during that dance so long ago, and it was such a small thing that it hardly bore remembering. In the generations since the fall of Ninua and the rise of Mûsil, the Unrivaled Palace had fallen into ruin. Archaeologists catalogued all they found during their excavations, but still the memory teased at the back of her mind until she had to look for herself. She found it under layers of dirt, resting a few feet from where Rose had dropped it, and took it back to the temple to clean it off. All that was left was the ivory made a pale yellow-brown with age, and a few agate beads from the cord that once hung from the handle. She teased out dirt from the smallest crack and pit, restrung the handle and beads with a new pink cord, and left it in her gem until she felt that the infant would want something like it.
The infant grew up into a toddler, into a child, and into an adolescent who was finally more careful with his toys. Pearl waited until it was just them in the temple; the others wouldn't understand, and she had failed at connecting with him when Lion appeared to pull her comfortable illusions out from under her.
"Steven?" She called out once she left her room, after the hundredth attempt to make sure the fan handle was presentable. She found him lying on his stomach in bed and watching that confounding show of his that involved overly emotional, anthropomorphized food items. Her smile faltered for a moment, but he grinned at her and paused his video.
"Pearl!" He moved to sit up and seemed to be untangling himself to get up. He paused when she waved and told him that she was coming up, and he took the time to clear a space for her to sit. "Do you want to watch TV with me? We can surf and find something you'll like!"
The space he cleared for her had a few wrinkles in the fabric of his bedsheet, but she was hardly going to make an issue of it. Pearl settled into it, her mass barely making a dent in the mattress the way his did, and uncovered the fan handle from the silk kerchief she kept it in. He scooted over to get a better look at it, and his eyes widened. "That's cool!" His finger reached over and hovered over the figure of a winged lion with a woman's head that acted as centerpiece to the head of the handle. "What's this?"
"That's an apsasû. A protector deity." Pearl turned it so that he could see that the figure was the same on both sides. "The feathers are gone now, but this used to be a fan that someone had given your mother over a thousand years ago."
"Wow!" She couldn't help but smile; he made everything sound new and interesting when he had that tone in his voice. His dark eyes practically twinkled as they roamed the intricate carvings. "Thanks for showing it to me!"
With a slight shake of the head, she pressed it into his hands. "It's yours. I just thought you might appreciate something of your mother's." Something that wasn't a weapon, or whatever he found in Lion's mane that no one else could access, or any number of things relating to war.
Steven's hand closed around it with a conscientious that he hadn't possessed a few months ago, and his other wrapped around her waist as he hugged her. "Thanks, Pearl."
A maternal warmth filled her as she returned the hug. She had been hurt by Rose's decision to leave them and despaired for her loss, but it had turned out all right in the end. She kissed the top of his head through his curls, a gesture she was perhaps too infrequent in bestowing to him, and surrendered herself to a few hours of television.
Would you believe this came out of rewatching the dance scene in the Utena movie? Also, I have a degree in archaeology and I cannot resist the opportunity to write in one of my favorite time periods and cultures.
Decoding:
- Nakbe is an early Maya city, and though the long count doesn't naturally extend as far as Pearl suggests, it's very arithmetic-based and can be used to calculate extremely long-range dates.
- Amethyst's use of "mudscratcher" is a nod to the Mesopotamian writing system and their use of styluses and clay tablets to write. I figured it would be an early form of "nerd".
- Ninua is now known as Nineveh, Sîn-ahhī-erība as Sennacherib, and Mûsil is the Kurdish form of Mosul.
- Though the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar II, there is no archaeological evidence supporting that claim. There is, however, plenty (including actual texts and extensive water-based public works that includes an aqueduct and Archimedes' screws) suggesting that Sennacherib built them in the Unrivaled Palace in Nineveh.