It was just collecting dust. A little drabble on my view of how stuff went.
Pearl's P.O.V
"Sometimes it's for the best, you know?"
I looked back at her, horrified. That she would do such a thing –
"You see. When the humans are in pain they… they self-destruct. They do whatever it takes to get away from the pain. And in doing so they ignore whatever it is that's around them."
When she raised her arms towards the sky, the clouds swirled down, wind pulling at my clothes and turning the beach dark. "That's why I have to help them. Find their true selves, find their own indestructible cores."
Her face only looked terrifying when she turned to smile at me. Once beautiful, I thought hysterically, I would follow this darling girl to the ends of the universe, protect her from everything that was after her.
But this was different. She was different now, and I had to accept that.
"…Pink."
A wave crashed against the shore.
"Pink, we have to go."
"Go where? The Earth is here. It will stay here, for as long as the sun blazes. And I want to be here." Pink raised her head, eyes turned to the sky. Ambition, I think. My darling girl… What have they done?
"I want to be here if the sun stops. I want to help the humans realize potential."
"And of course, you will. You will, sweet girl, you'll show them the moons and the stars and the universe-"
The way you showed all of it to me.
"But we have to let them live for themselves right now, on this planet. It isn't ours to take, remember?"
Everything was terrifying. Pink was changing. My job. My duty was to protect her, to help her guide and control the planets, to brandish my sword. Here I was failing at my job.
Nothing but a defective Pearl in the end.
The bonds pulled at my lips, tugging them tighter, the self-doubt soaking into my words and tainting them with weakness.
"Of course it is."
When she turned to me, her bangs fell across her face and covered her eyes in shadow. Pink eyes, the determination in them still crystal clear even after a millennium of nothing but disappointment. "Humans need to be guided. We need to help them evolve to become the way we are!"
And with that she twirled around, child-like glee lilting her voice. I carefully pushed away my panic, thinking back to the words of the Diamonds;
Careful with this one.
"Sweetie. Listen to me."
And even though I knew she hated it I brought her to a halt, setting both of my hands on her shoulders. "Humans are warm. They're organic, and they live to grow and die and are eventually recycled into this world."
My fingers were white, a striking contrast to the lovely pink shade of her form. Gently, I prodded at her face, stroking her left cheek from ear to chin. "Do you feel that?"
Slowly, she nodded.
"We're cold." My hand brushed the stiff cloth of her form's dress before leaving her. "And hard, and unaccustomed to change. We have no right to decide what a human should be like and what a human shouldn't."
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a warm voice filled up the space and made me feel just a little safer.
"But what should I care? It's my planet." She pointed at the hill where I knew the other gems were toiling away doing what was expected of them. "It's my army. I think the humans should be grateful of the courtesy I'm giving them."
"Pink."
"But."
Was she considering?
"Maybe I'd be better off just getting rid of the whole lot of them.
"Pink, careful." There was no mistaking it. The cruelty I'd always recognized in each of the voices of the diamonds, the glint that had been there since day one, magnified and sharpened. "You're starting to sound like Yellow."
She drew back, as if struck. I hurried on, wary of her impressive temper. "I promised to tell you if you did, and. Well." My eyes closed and I braced myself.
A pair of arms wrapped themselves around the torso of my form.
It was funny. I'd always thought of the diamonds as cold, and hard. Beautifully elegant from a distance, godlike up-close, and it wasn't until I'd seen the humans had I started to question whether the image was actual beauty or not.
Right now, Pink felt more like a human, warm and expressive, none of the standoffishness or authority I'd seen her develop over the years.
When I looked down all I could see were the big fat tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry."
My gem glowed in rhythm to hers. "There's nothing to be sorry for."
"I promised you too." She looked up then, vulnerable and soft, the expression wiping away a century's worth of anger. "That you'd never have to compare me to her. That you'd never have to warn me to step back."
"Oh, my darling."
"I miss home world."
I sank onto the sand cross-legged, guiding her so she was situated on my lap then started threading my fingers through her hair.
"I miss not having to – to deal with all of this here, so many gems expect me to do so many things and I can't."
"That's why I'm here." I was here, I reminded her fiercely, to help her. To guide her, to protect her, because after all, "I am your Pearl. And if you can't depend on me, then what good am I?"
She let out a tiny breath. "Yeah."
The night sky was still beautiful. In the distance, a small star glittered, filled to the brim with (deterioration) progress, and (artificial and ruthless, cold and harmful) beneficial life forms.
Rose Quartz came to life in my head, a beautiful giant woman who had command, on the battlefield or off of it. The atmosphere she exuded was always friendly, always so full of passion. I'd always admired her for that.
"This planet is wonderful, don't you think? The life forms on it, the humans…"
Her voce was a blanket of kindness and amazement. It was all I could do to nod.
"I admit, they are interesting."
"Aren't they just?"
She hated Pink. For landing on Earth, I think. Her interest ran deeper than I thought it had, as deep as the soft intensity she bore for everything.
Sometimes I'd look back at her or be around her, and instead of feeling the compassion I'd come to associate with her I'd feel something that was a little more wrong.
Pink to me… I rested my chin on her head. She was growing into something I didn't want her to grow into. For so long I'd been fighting off the inevitable. I'd pull her out of her moments, try to bring her back to the ground, try to help her find the shreds of sanity that weren't tied together by her sisters.
Yellow diamond, the cruel, whom which she was starting to become more and more like each and every day.
Blue diamond, the cold. This was my least favourite version of her, almost a mockery of the way she was at her core – burning and bright and extraordinary, even when it was for the wrong things.
White diamond, the regal. The perfected form of any diamond there would ever be.
I hated that particular influence the most.
"Pearl?"
"Yes, my darling?"
She shifted.
"If I ever become… like any of them." She paused, knowing that we both knew what she meant. "Stop me. Shatter me, if you have to."
A world without Pink. Now what would that be like?
"I will do whatever you ask of me."
Horrid and bleak and dark and lifeless and unfathomable in its desolation. That was what a world without Pink would be like. Nothing worth carrying on for, nothing worth fighting for.
But it was my duty, after all, and my duty always came first. As much as I hated the very thought of it, it was my duty to give her what she wanted, even if what she wanted meant the existence of a spiteful, awful universe.
"I hope I won't ever have to do that."
Her hair was soft, even if the rest of her form wasn't. "I hope so too."
The words sounded eerily fake.
Rose Quartz lead a battalion of soldiers into the battlefield. The scenery clashed heavily with the people in it, strawberries crushed under swords and battle axes and armour.
She looked up and made eye contact with me, the hatred in her eyes clear, the softness to her smile doing nothing to erase it.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Pink laugh as she pointed her army forward, the achingly familiar tell-tale glints of influenced insanity sparking in the curve to her lips.
A thought in the shape of a needle stabbed into my mind, leading me back to a command given by a different, kinder version of Pink. One Rose Quartz would approve of, I think. A dull pang settled into my heart.
Wouldn't be long now.