Hello, reader :)
MyNameDontMatter and I have been collaborating; with the first stage of our efforts realized, we proudly present the first chapter of Pearlnet .net
(Chapter 2 has been posted by her, a link to it is given at the bottom of the page (though it appears on the same S.U. page, so you'll probably see it anyway)).
"Steven, if you'd just used your bubble and stayed put we could've flipped the guardian over and taken its gems before it became a problem."
"But I could've got it! You don't always have to leave me out, Pearl. I'm a Crystal Gem too; I can do things, but you never give me a chance." was his unhappy reply.
"I do give you chances, but this time I wanted you to have a good position to witness the outcome of proper planning."
"You said it was to keep me safe…" he said with a disbelieving frown.
"I… ah.. well, you would've been safe; if somebody had deactivated the level control tower in the way I described."
"I did! I swapped the white one with the black one, the yellow one with the purple one and the blue one with the red one... or was it the green one?" said Amethyst in an attempt to defend herself.
"You were supposed to swap the blue star piece with its orange counterpart!"
"Okay okay, I get it. I'm sorry, your highness. Seriously P, it was just some coloured blocks, chillax."
"It's because of those 'coloured blocks' that Steven was on the ground; where he-"
"Where you had the great idea of using him as bait." she interrupted me with her accusation.
"I wasn't using him as bait! He just happened to put himself in a strategically advantageous position which, if exploited, would have led to the success of the mission in spite of your inability to follow simple instructions."
"Steven's not a strategic advantage! He's a dude. He's our dude!"
"Amethyst is right, Pearl. You can't use Steven as bait." said Garnet, choosing now to involve herself in the heated discussion.
"That wasn't even a part of the original plan! He was supposed to be near the top of the crater until we deactivated the guardian, then we would have brought him down for the straightforward part."
"You mean the boring part…" Steven muttered, more to himself than any of us.
"But that isn't what happened, and he wasn't at the top of the crater." Garnet continued.
"So I adapted the plan; seeing how Steven insisted on doing the most reckless thing possible at that moment."
"Awwww, I just wanted to help; I was so close!" Still he was trying to justify himself.
"Yeah, but not close enough. You should've seen your little legs! Classic, bruh." said Amethyst, completely missing the actual point of the conversation.
"Hey! You have little legs too."
"Not anymore." she said, shapeshifting into that grinning fool of a masked wrestler she's so fond of.
"Guys, that's really not helping."
"Sorry, Garnet." they said together.
"You two should've just thrown the boulders at its legs like I told you to, then we would have the glass shield and the gems right now."
"Yeah, and we'd have a dead Steven too." Only Amethyst could deliver a remark so tactless. And incorrect.
"Steven wasn't in any danger until you used your personal weapons on the guardian, like I specifically warned you not to! It was built to divide on each contact with a gem weapon! Were none of you listening when I explained it the first time?"
"But it was running straight at him!"
"Ahhhhhhhhhh! Are you blind, or dense, or both? It wouldn't have reached him before you took out its legs!"
"It's alright, Pearl. We don't expect you to be perfect, no one is. We can all make a wrong decision sometimes, what's important is that we're all okay." said Garnet, interrupting us.
"But it wasn't a wrong decision! It was good, it was a good plan, but you di.."
"Just admit that you messed up, Pearl. It sucks that we lost, but there's no point in trying to blame anyone else. If it wasn't for your 'good plan' then we would've got the invisibility thingy."
"And the gems from the robot." added Steven (most unhelpfully).
"Yeah, and the gems from the robot."
"Oh I'm sorry, Amethyst; I didn't know that you were the expert on plans all of a sudden! Please, tell me about your plan, and how it positively affected the outcome of the mission! Oh that's right, you didn't HAVE one!"
"Pearl, chill. There's no need to yell like that. It was a pretty complicated plan, and the situation changed. It's nothing to worry about." said Garnet, totally failing to calm me down.
"Stop telling me to chill, you chill! And I am not yelling!"
"Okay. We're not going to get anywhere by arguing; why don't you go to your rooms and forget about this for now. The glass shield and the guardian aren't going anywhere, we can think about them when things have calmed down." she suggested (firmly).
I glared at the three of them in turn; Garnet with her folded arms, Amethyst reflecting my icy expression and Steven attempting to look serious.
"Fine!" I declared, adding as an afterthought: "You people are insufferable!"
I stomped - with a certain delicacy that only I can manage – towards the Temple Gate, its star-shaped seal recognising my gem and sliding horizontally apart, granting me access to my room (and to my seriously needed personal space).
…
"Is she gonna be alright?" asked a concerned Steven.
"Yeah, don't worry about it. She'll talk to her swords or whatever she does in there, and she'll be back to her usual stuffy self in no time." said Amethyst, disregarding his concerns.
…
Why do they always insist on doing this to me; singling me out to be the 'bad guy'? Why won't any of them acknowledge that we all had a part to play in the failure? I wasn't the only one on the mission (though if I was, I would have completed it). If they'd have just listened to me we would've got the glass shield and the gems, minimised damage to the Crater Palace, avoided physical confrontation with the guardian and kept Steven as safe as possible. And they all thought that I was using him as bait! It wasn't like that! How could they even think that I could do that? I love them all: Garnet, Amethyst and especially Steven; I wouldn't... I couldn't knowingly put any of them in danger. Maybe it's because of the rocket incident... but that wasn't even the same thing; they know how I feel about space…
I tried so hard, I just wanted the mission to be done well, and for Steven to be alright. I was trying to keep him safe, but he puts himself in danger and it's my fault for trying to salvage the situation?
I know I'm not his mother, but Rose is gone, so I try my best to be something like that for him. He needs to learn and develop and become the master of his gem; I can help him do that, nothing would make me happier. But it needs to happen at a pace that he's ready for, and sometimes that means watching, not doing. Why can't he understand that I'm leading him forward every day, not holding him back?
I'm the one that makes the most effort to stop him from seeing and hearing things that he can't understand yet, and I treat him with as much love as any of the others (if not more). But he never stops to think about that; he's more interested in Amethyst's foolishness and Garnet's raw power (or maybe it's her visor… I can get a visor too!) than what I'm trying to do for him. I just wish that he'd be more appreciative of the additional considerations I make for his benefit.
Amethyst doesn't help things either. She needs to understand that she's not the youngest anymore, so she needs to stop being so reckless and inappropriate; it's a bad example to set for Steven. Would it be too much to ask for her to act her age when he's obviously watching her? She has a responsibility!
The thing that really upsets me is her lack of respect; Rose, Garnet and I found her at the Kindergarten, we took her in, we raised her, we showed her how to be a person, a Gem… a Crystal Gem; all three of us, equally. So why doesn't she respect me like she respected Rose and respects Garnet? We're supposed to be a team, and if we are then each member's input should be valued by the other two, but that just doesn't happen. She'll readily agree to anything Garnet says, but it's a struggle for me to even get her to listen to anything I suggest, even when I'm right! That's not equal. That's not how it should be. Why doesn't what I say matter anymore?
Even Garnet… How could she… betray me like that! 'It was a pretty complicated plan…' To hear her dismiss my idea like that, to dismiss me like that that… I feel worse than I have in a very long time. The plan was good, I was sure she could see it; wasn't that why we executed it (or tried to at least)? And then she threw it back in my face, just like that; not even a 'thank you, Pearl' or a 'good thinking, Pearl'. She didn't even acknowledge that it was the ONLY plan!
I don't know why I expected anything different this time; even when I'm obviously right she never sides with me. I cling to the thought that she's trying to keep the peace… but sometimes you don't keep the peace: sometimes you agree with the facts, sometimes she's supposed to agree with me! She has no trouble listening to Steven: 'we do it Steven's way', 'let's see what Steven thinks of'; but sometimes she needs to accept that he's just a boy, even if Rose is part of him.
She doesn't even back me up when it comes to Amethyst! She needs DISCIPLINE! But it's only ever me that gets told to 'chill'.
…
I remember one of the last things that Rose said to us before she… gave us Steven.
"Now listen to me. I love you all very much, and I'm sorry that I'm going to have to leave you. But never forget that I'll always be with you, through Steven. I want you to promise me that you'll always be there for each other, and for him as well, and that you'll help him grow into a great person. Each of you is different, but you all have something unique to offer each other and this world. Together you're going do amazing things, I just know it..."
They've forgotten, but I haven't. Yet somehow it's me who's been left out of 'together'. She was my everything, my best friend… but even when I try to reach out and hold on to the remaining part of her, there's no deeper connection. Sometimes it feels like she's really gone for good.
I feel so lonely without her, and the people who make this planet bearable, the people who make such a great difference to my life, I don't seem to make the same difference to theirs, not anymore.
It's as though I'm nothing without her.
…
I need to focus on something else, so I summon my sword collection. I'm drawn to a simple looking blade, a jian; its balance is perfect and it brings some comfort to hold the substantial weapon in my hands. What's more comforting are the Chinese characters on the ricasso that depict my name; they bring back the bittersweet memory of when Rose brought me along for her meeting with Sun Tzu. She took me… just me. It was our time together, our time to explore a shared interest.
The sweetness of the memory fades, taking my smile with it; resentment at her and everyone else's abandonment of me is left in its place. I summon three tangible holograms of myself and instruct them to attack. I wield the sword in a turbulent, brutal way; nothing close to my preferred style, but I feel like it's me versus the universe, and elegance tends to suffer against odds like that.
…
My projections are relentless and come at me time after time, until eventually I have no energy to continue. I slash the last of the holograms in the chest, rendering all three of them passive, and then reintegrate them back into my gem.
After hours of practice I expected to feel better, but I don't. I'm just tired, physically and mentally. Tired of being undervalued, of being unrecognised, of trying to do the best for a group that I realise I'm barely part of.
I should go and do something; these kinds of thoughts aren't going to get me anywhere. But really, what is there for me to do? Maybe for once I'll do whatever I feel like doing, reconnect with matters that interest me. Maybe…
When I'm ready to leave my room.
Whenever that is…
…
Just over a day and a half later.
"Pearl! …Pearl! …Peaaaaaaarl!" I could faintly hear Steven's cheerful voice from somewhere outside my room. I ignored him in the hope that he'd go away.
"Pearl? Are you in there? Please come out!" Still I didn't reply.
"Pearl, if you don't come out then I'll have to get Lion and come in!"
I sighed. If he was able to find Lion then he would've tried to get into my room; I didn't want to find out whether the Temple Gate would survive an encounter like that.
"Yes, Steven?" I asked wearily when I'd opened the door to him.
"Uhh, Pearl. We're going to the Sunrise Spire, remember? Garnet told me to come get you."
"Well, please tell Garnet that unfortunately I'm unable to come with you."
"Aww, why not?" He looked so disappointed that it almost made me want to reconsider my decision.
"Because I can't." I told him bluntly.
"But... it's a mission. We always go on missions! Oh come on, Pearl, it won't be any fun without you! Pleeeeeeeease!?"
"Thank you, Steven, but… I'm sick," I wondered where that explanation came from, and feigned a cough for authenticity. "You'll be fine without me. You always are."
"Awwww that's not true, we always need you; you're... you're... you're the icing! On our Crystal Gem birthday cake! Garnet and Amethyst are the.. Wait, you're sick? I thought Gems couldn't get sick. You don't look sick." he said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
"Well I am. So it looks like you'll have to go without me."
"Can I catch Gem diseases too!? Oh man! Then I'll have to get shots for those as well! Are you alright, Pearl? Does it hurt?"
"Steven, I'm sick, but I'm fine-"
"But that doesn't make any sense! You-"
"STEVEN! ...Just go, you don't want to keep the others waiting."
"Okay… see you later. And please don't get worse while we're gone."
…
"What do you mean 'she's not coming'? Why not?"
"She said she was sick. But she said she was fine too…"
"Garnet, are you gonna let her do that?"
I didn't respond immediately. Pearl obviously wasn't sick, which meant that she didn't want to come with us, but why not? The mission was going to be easy; so it was probably best that she stayed behind if that's what she wanted to do.
"Yes. I can't force Pearl to do anything she doesn't want to do. If she's sick, then she's sick, and we'll have to do without her this time. Let's go."
Amethyst looked shocked for a bit, but she stepped onto the warp pad anyway. She's been a Crystal Gem long enough to know that I didn't want to talk about it right then, in front of Steven.
…
I've seen Pearl upset before, but I knew there was something different about the last mission. I should've gone back and talked to her to make sure she was really okay.
When I think of her face, that look she gave me before she went to her room… She looked so hurt; it feels like I've failed in looking after her. But I don't know the best way to look after Pearl, she's so complicated. Everything means something with her, each little thing has its own place and time and way… Stuff is just-so with her. I want to be a part of her system; I want her to explain to me how she feels, about everything, with all that detail she loves so much. If that would make her happy I would listen to her every day, gladly.
I was looking forward to this mission because I know how much Pearl loves architecture; it was gonna be a perfect picture: her in her element, ready to give the lessons in the glow of the sun; imagining her so happy made me happy. Now I can't wait to get back. I need her to speak to me to sort out what's wrong; she's never turned down a mission before, this is really serious. I hate to think that we, that I… did this to her.
She's smart and strong and wise, she could easily get by on her own, but I need her as part of the team. I care about her and how she feels so much, even if I can't show the depth of it during missions. I wish she would talk to me even a little bit like how she talked to Rose; I want her to know that I'm with her, and that she can share her problems with me, instead of keeping them inside all the time and trying to hide that part of herself…
…
Chapter 2:
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