Rating: T
Reading Level: 8
Content: Steven Universe fanfiction, Golden Topaz introduction arc
Acknowledgements: Steven Universe original concept and ongoing productions created by Rebecca Sugar
This Story by: FeanorArran
Chapter One: Please
Lion was sprawled out across the entirety of the mattress, fore paw twitching after some dreamland game. "Ugh, Li-onnnn," moaned Steven. It was time for bed, and after a day pursuing corrupted gems through the beta kindergarten, he was exhausted.
Lion opened one eye, looked him up and down, and shut it again. Refusing to be denied his own sleeping space, Steven knew drastic action was called for. Negotiation was not an interest of the big cat. Or following instructions. Or answering his own name. Steven wedged himself between the wall where the headboard would be, and Lion.
With his back on the wall, he pushed with his feet as hard as he could against the big cat. Steven grunted heavily. "Lion, I love you, but I want my, urrrgh, bed!" Lion batted an ear. Steven sighed. After a brief pause, he had another idea. "If you get down, I'll get you a Lion Licker," he sang. Lion rolled away from Steven, causing him to flop forward face down onto the bed.
"Thanks, Lion," he said, muffled by the comforter.
After feeding Lion his bribe, Steven lay down under his poster of the solar system. Sleep came quickly, and he didn't notice Lion pulling the comforter off of him and curling up under it himself. For a moment Steven was flying through the clouds above Beach City. From here, he could see the temple, the ruined docks, the lighthouse, Funland, all of his favorite places. Flying dreams were the best.
He went higher. "I wonder how high I can go in my dream?" He soared above the clouds, higher and higher, until the blue of Earth's sky became a glow below him enveloping the globe in its fullness and warmth. "This is AWESOME!" he cried, and accelerated upward. He soon ripped past the moon. He went faster. Soon he was tearing a serpentine path through space.
A planet lie ahead. Its surface was red and orange. A great mountain could be seen, even at this distance. "Mars! Cool!" Steven raced onward. Soon two rocky moons streaked by.
"We are stillness!" cried a voice Steven had never heard before. It was such a shock he stopped right where he was. It was a strange thing to say. What the tone delivered was anything but 'stillness'. The word 'stillness' echoed throughout his dream. He proceeded onward, now curious as to who might have been speaking before. Soon he was on the sandy surface, facing an ancient flow of lava now formed into basalt.
Steven listened. Mars was windy, but strangely quiet. Was that someone crying over the sound of the wind? He listened again. There it was! Steven bolted in the direction of the voice.
"Hello?" he shouted. The wind picked up, and a dust devil formed. "We are the temple of tranquility. We are the counselor and the healer," said the voice, clearly coming from nearer the mountain. The voice was calmer now, but there was an edge in it. Another voice spoke suddenly, whispering venom. "You are only an implement of destruction!" it accused.
There, under an overhang, was the glint of reflection that made Steven suspicious. It wasn't the shine that put him off, however, but the tone of the new voice. "Helloooo!?" he shouted again, heading towards the glint.
Apprehension built as he approached the cleft. The structure was well hidden. He crossed a ravine and began to ascend towards what appeared to be a window. Steven realized he was not moving nearly as quickly as he was before, and it was because of the fear swelling inside him. That second voice had a quality to it that was- something. The word defied his grasp, but 'bad' was weak.
"We are the temple-" started the first voice. "Weapon!" hissed the second. The voices were much stronger now. The fear inside Steven made him stop briefly, but he determined that if he was projecting, no one could hurt him, and soldiered forward. He arrived at the glass. It was a generous window, set well under what seemed to be an overhang formed deliberately from lava. There were a few rooms visible, but only one seemed to have a dim kind of light inside.
"We are the weapon- Temple!" said the voice again in frustration. Steven went to place his head against the glass, and ended up sticking his head through it incorporeally. Inside was a simple room. There was a gem-style door like on Earth, a bed, and a table.
It reminded him of the way a hotel room might be set up. There was the window forming one side, with its view out under the basalt shelf and onto the long plain where the distant dust-devil now roamed, raising clouds of sand and dust in silence.
The wall on his left led to the recessed door, with what looked like a crystal that might correspond to an Amethyst or other Quartz gem. It seemed to have some designs on it, but they were so eroded by time that only faint outlines remained.
The right side of the door ended at what seemed to be Gem technology. It reminded him of one of his father's stereo cabinets, filled with obsolete sound gear. Whatever was inside, or whatever it was, seemed inactive. It seemed to be a cabinet about a meter deep to the door and three to the wall on his right.
At the corner of the cabinet was a small pedestal or table, carved from the same basalt as outside. On it was a device, with twelve characters in the Gem language, changing. Two of the characters on the right side matched. A clock? It was soothing to watch the graceful shapes change.
There was also a bed, or table, on articulated joints, almost like one that could be found in a hospital. There seemed to be something on it. Only when it blinked did he realize it was a Gem. Steven jumped back in shock. She was so motionless that she seemed to be part of the bed, rather than a person. He'd never seen a gem so motionless. The only one that even came close was Garnet, when she was meditating, and even she couldn't remain so still.
Dust covered her, and was so thick he couldn't discern her features very well. She wasn't dead- Gems 'poof'-ed when they were defeated, and only the destruction of their stone could result in death.
"Hello?" said Steven, uncertain if this gem could hear him. Her eyes were open, and the bed was propped up to see out the window. Someone must have cared a great deal about her to do that. But something about her expression seemed a little off.
Steven thought. If this was her dream, she would have seen him well in advance of now. His only approach was directly in front of the window, but she seemed utterly unaware of him. If this was his dream, what did it mean? Could he really be on Mars?
"Wooohoo!" he shouted. The gem's eyes scanned the room. She even moved her head. Had she heard him? As she moved, dust fell off of her, first in little bits, then in a large cascade triggered by the first part, onto the floor. On the floor around the bed was evidence that this had gone on periodically for ages. Could she not move? Was she reacting to him? How long had she been here?
With what seemed to be a tremendous effort, she rolled her head to her right and back so she could see the clock. More dust fell, revealing more about her. Now most of the dust was off of her. She was yellow and brown. Her garments seemed to be a slender dress combined with Greek style overdress.
Tones of gold and rust made up most of her, with shades of sky blue and silver fade at her edges. A strange thing about her was what could loosely be referred to as her hair. Other gems had crisp lines and rigid patterns; this one was a mess. It was strange. Then he saw her gem stone.
It was a golden stone cut into a briolette, a tear drop, presented with the main facets upward. Its light was what brightened the room. Where his Crystal Gems could project light as an electric torch might, this gem was giving an unsolicited, golden glow similar to a night-light. The light source that had been illuminating the room was this gem, and now shapes in the room began to cast true shadows. But the light was imperfect. He looked closer.
He gaped at what he saw. Her gem was cracked, a fissure hewn into it very deeply. Wedged perfectly into the split was what looked like a gem shard, like the ones that made up the mutants he and Connie had encountered in the hospital. Steven shook his head. He wanted to talk to her.
He drew a deep breath and bellowed at the very top of his volume, "Hello!" The Gem started, and began to look around without sitting up. Her eyes peered into the shadows. "Hello?" she whispered uncertainly. Steven cheered. She could hear him. Steven continued to howl for her. She searched the room again, but strangely, did not sit up.
A sound gained his attention. At first he couldn't find the source. A vibration, somewhere nearby, much more subtle than a device set on vibrate was making the air tremor slightly. Then he realized it was the clock. Eight of the characters now matched.
The clock wasn't telling time, it was counting down. The remaining four characters were changing shape, matching more and more closely the ones that already matched. The sound now had the attention of the golden gem.
Her expression went from vague unhappiness to unrepressed fear. Her expression, more than the realization that the clock with the hypnotic characters was counting down, set him on edge. Whatever was about to happen was connected to the countdown. He looked with resentment at the clock. It was crystalline, and the characters had seemed so benign.
"We are-" her voice was now filled with a tremor. "We are- are- stillness of temple- no-" she said as her fear built up. "We are stillness," she said, only to have the other voice whisper in acidic tones "destroyer." This made her wince. The clock began a barely audible grumble as the ninth character matched.
"We are the counselor and compass," she tried to return to her mantra. "Deceiver," returned the whisper. The clock's sound, to Steven, was slowly becoming some sort of evil incantation. It had started as a benign, confusing oddity. Now it carried some subliminal fear to it. Maybe it was just the way she looked at it. "We are the healer and herald of peace," even less convincingly than before. It was barely words now. "Bringer of the end," said the other voice.
"Shut Up! Who are you!?" demanded Steven, who now had enough of the mockery. If he could be here invisibly, could someone else? This startled the gem even more. He decided to remain silent. He wasn't helping.
The clock now vibrated and sang its spell. Even now, it was barely a buzz or growl, but the difference now and when it had begun was the balance of a mere sound, and a door to unspeakable evil being left open for all the sounds of things lying in wait to drift out. His gem gave one last heroic effort in her terror to restore her calm in the face of whatever was about to happen. Another character matched, leaving only two.
"We are," she muttered.
The clock growled on with tangible malevolence.
"the- the-"
One character.
"the weapon of the temple," she flubbed weakly, wincing, concluding the wreckage of her mantra.
The last character changed, and the face began to flash. Steven braced. A static hiss began to issue from a speaker concealed somewhere on the device. Different tones, moments of silence. There were no blaster cannons deployed, no explosions, no poisonous gas. Just noises.
"That's not so ba-" Steven looked at her. She reacted to every change in tone, each hiss and silence with varying degrees of sorrow or horror. Whatever was coming out of the clock had real meaning to her. Tension built in her as the recording went on.
There was a clear, perfect silence. Then someone yelled an impassioned 'No!' followed by a wicked crack and tinkling noises. Then silence. All of the life seemed to drain from the gem. Even the warm colors emitting from her gem cooled until they were nearly imperceptible. There she lay with her eyes open, staring into infinity through Steven's chest, moving only her lips.
Steven stood in front of her, and leaned to match the lay of her face on the bed. "It's over. Hello?" He tried reading her lips. It took a moment. "So sorry," was all she said. Sorry, for what? He looked into her eyes, and in the space where pupils should have been, he saw a scene beginning to play out there. He found himself being drawn into the scene.
"Whoa!" he said as suddenly he found himself in the scene with her. He looked around. Nightmare shades of darkness combined with dim lights, defining gems' eyes in the distance, looking on with judgment as several ruby fusions of varying builds forced his golden gem and a purple-and-pink one, onto their knees. Each of the Rubies were armed with massive hammers, not summoned but artifacts forged for war.
A purple and white gem approached the kneeling figures, but her own shape was blurry, obscured by time. Only her face was sharply defined. She exuded confidence and mockery. Her feet crunched over rubble as she went, sounding like she was walking over crushed ice. Steven followed behind her. The golden gem cried out.
"What have you done? You had no right, no authority for- this!" she motioned around at the blurred rubble. The purple and white gem, clearly a quartz of some sort shrugged.
"Do you not think consequences were in order? I think it's fitting." Now the pink and purple gem made her own protest.
"No, not this! Never this! This is wrong!" she argued. The quartz just shook her head and turned away. Then she looked at the golden gem and pointed. The gold gem winced, then noticed Steven. As she noticed, the scene began to change, and some of the gems began to vanish away as the imaginary things they were. She was separating from her nightmare and entering the dream in the same astral state Steven was in.
The quartz snapped her fingers. "Start with that one," she said airily and turned away as if bored by the whole thing, then winked out just like the others were doing, as the dream unraveled. One of the Ruby Fusions stepped back, and got a huge back-swing on her hammer.
The golden gem stood up to look at Steven, then realized what was happening. Every gem vanished but the pink and purple one, who suddenly lunged herself sideways. As she did, the golden gem reached for her partner.
"No, stop!" she cried, but by the time she reached and cried out, the pink gem was no more. The golden gem just froze there, with her hands stretched out. They were surrounded by darkness. Only the light of the golden gem wavered and played, dimly.
"Who are you?" She asked mildly, without turning around.
"I'm Steven. Who are you?" he asked. Tiny globes of light fell from her eyes to the ground, where they arced and spat for a split second as they hit.
"We were Golden Topaz. Now we're just a broken gem," she said, showing him her flawed stone. "Are you real?" she asked. Steven was taken aback.
"Yes. Of course I'm real." As he spoke, the hospital room with the clock re-materialized, this time with her own astral form beside his.
"Good. Then you can help me stop this thing," she said with force. She placed her hands together, focused herself. Energy seemed to accumulate in them, then she thrust them forward with conviction at the clock.
A globe of visible force or energy materialized around the clock as she did. She struck the globe, and a visible jolt of some yellow, fluidic energy shot through her astral form, which flew across the room and against the wall. As she struck the wall, her astral body vanished.
Her physical form jolted into wakefulness and upwards, until she hit the energy restraints. Bonds across her wrists, abdomen, and ankles flashed, again sending energy through her. She screamed for a few seconds as the energy coursed, then it stopped and she dropped again onto the bed, limply.
Embers of dust wafted into the air, glowing with heat. She lay with her head still to the side. Here eyes were open. She was back to watching the countdown. Heat built in Steven. At first he thought the room was becoming warm, but he remembered he was astral.
This was anger. A deep seated feeling of rebellion and injustice was growing inside him. He looked at the clock. It was already down to four characters, and making its grumble again.
"Steven," said Topaz. He whirled around, wide eyed. "You can see me now?" he said, astonished. "I had to believe," she responded. "Come close."
Steven did as he was bidden. "I can give you one of my powers," she said, not moving. "Oh! Like Garnet and her future-seeing!" he blurted. "I can give you the ability to touch the physical world from the astral plane," she said. "I want to be done." Steven nodded, and leaned in.
Golden Topaz kissed his forehead, and a confidence and might surged into him. It was different than the seeing he got from Garnet, but he could feel it. He stepped over to the clock.
How had she done it? Steven placed his hands together and- froze.
Eyeball.
He had healed that Ruby, and for his trouble was almost murdered. He'd freed Bismuth. She had been obsessed with vengeance.
Centipeedle. He had almost healed her, but he lacked… He looked at Topaz.
"You're a healer?" he asked. Two numbers remained on the clock. Through her terror, she whispered "We are the Counselor and Healer General of this world. We are at your mercy. Please, before it changes," she begged, her tears popping and arcing in the dust.
Steven focused his outrage into his hands. Whatever flaws or character Topaz was bringing with her, he would cope with it later. He mustered his outrage and rebellion, and thrust like Topaz had. His hands struck the energy barrier, which was pink this time, but his half human nature allowed him to ignore it in the same way he'd ignored other fields, and he followed through.
He felt the clock as a dim pressure, and the clock slid towards the edge of the table. It hit a lip and almost stopped, hanging halfway off. Time and motion paused as it hung. Steven looked at Topaz.
She watched the clock, gazing at it, trying to move it with the force of her will. Her eyes, still scenes of memory, like Lapiz's had been, tracked the clock to the floor. A resounding crack filled the room as the face flew off, a crystalline cube popped out, and green gel began to ooze out of where the digits had been.
As the clock destructed on the floor, a peace filled her form, and a golden, silver glow filled the room warmly. Her eyes fluttered, and dropped closed. Her astral form rejoined Steven. It was imperfect, the fissure in her gem affecting her shape. Her composure in her astral form was much better. A reverse pixie cut adorned her head in orange. Her garments were crisp and neat. She bowed.
"You did it!" she elated. "We have been trying to turn that off, or destroy it for-" she thought. "Since the time of the fifth planet. We don't know how long that is." She looked out the window. "It's been so long since we've seen the sky with our own eyes," she said aloud. Topaz turned toward her body, and cautiously ran her hands over her wrists and across her neck.
"The barriers are gone!" Steven beamed. Topaz took a long, cleansing breath, and knelt to look Steven in the eye. "Thank you, Steven. The sounds of our imprisonment were left as part of our punishment by a wicked and thoughtless Quartz. It's good to know that you carry on the values of a true Quartz," she said, examining his gem. "A Steven." She stood up. "So much has changed."
Steven opened his mouth to correct her, but decided that would be later. He liked that she accepted him as Steven first, rather than the Rose Quartz she saw. She stood straight, and turned towards the door. "You rescued us, Steven. What wish do you have that we could grant?" she said as she began to walk towards the door. "Though, with our imprisonment, we can only answer your questions."
She stepped confidently and immaterially through the door, gesturing for him to follow. Steven followed her excitedly. He was bursting with millions of questions. The most important one burst out first.
"Can you teach me how to-" his jaw dropped as they stepped into the hall. Six colossal statues of fused gems stood on plinths. In Topaz's silver glow, their glass surfaces shone, their faces exuding confidence, or authority, or power, or ferocity, or glee.
The gleeful one seemed to resemble Sardonyx, but the others were strange to him. The hall was arranged in a way that made the fusions look like they were discussing something. On either side of the door they had 'used' were a few other doors just like it on either side, and on a balcony above.
Across from where they had exited was a great hallway leading off into darkness. Lining the feet of the plinths were statues in the same colored glass, of whom Steven presumed were the gems who joined to make the fusions.
Topaz was watching him. "Teach you how to- what?" she asked obligingly. Steven realized he wasn't paying enough attention and blushed. "How to heal corrupted gems," he said. Topaz held up a correcting finger.
"Don't rush to judgment, Steven. Your idea of corruption may not be well-tuned as you think. Just because a Gem does something you personally don't approve of doesn't mean she needs to be 'healed'- that kind of thinking has caused more harm than good," she began, misunderstanding.
"No, no, not corrupt, Corrupt!" he said again. Topaz only stood there and smiled, placing her hands together, closed her eyes and bowed. "We're not listening properly. We apologize," she said simply, without derision.
Steven's hands flapped as he spoke, remembering Centipeedle, and what happened to Jasper. "They've been totally changed- Centipeedle was the captain of a starship, but now she's a bug, Jasper fused with a corrupted gem and it spread to her, and now she's a- a- monster!" he blustered. Topaz's expression changed from pure patience to deep thought.
She moved to the base of the plinth a serene looking fusion stood upon, and hopped up to sit at its feet. "We'd have to see this process, Steven. We've never heard of this before." Steven started to reply when he realized one of the gem statues that made this fusion looked very much like Topaz. Yellow glass glowed in Topaz's light, the expression of pure tranquility. It stood with its head back, eyes closed, and arms arranged in front palms up with fingertips touching.
Topaz saw Steven staring at the statue, and stood on the plinth next to it. "Oh dear," she said, blushing. "Yes, that is us." She made the pose. "What do you think? Is it right?" she asked. Steven smiled.
"I like the real one more," he said. Topaz curtsied. "Thank you. Fluorite made it. She made all of this. She was a genius," said Topaz, gesturing broadly to the entirety of the room. "Except this one," she said, stepping over to the statue across from hers, pink and purple glass, holding a pure glass globe.
"This one had to be made by Bismuth," she said, smiling. "Fluorite would never make a statue of herself." She caressed the statue's hand. "Said it would be too difficult- she couldn't see herself to make it proportionally. I think she believed it was self-aggrandizement. And Bismuth was happy to do it- Fluorite saved her the trouble of building this shrine."
Steven watched her as she told her story, looking into the face of Fluorite's likeness. She had the same look Pearl got when she talked about Rose Quartz. "She was always making jokes and finding the better side of things." Topaz turned to face the center of the great hall and raised her arms in joy, and hopped off of the plinth and floated off in a pirouette, to a circular inset in the floor between all of the titanic carvings.
"This space was once filled with Gems, seeking guidance, sharing ideas, communicating, asking advice-" As she spoke, all of the faces and facets shone, giving depth and detail to the figures as her enthusiasm and illumination grew. "needing aid, caring for each other, finding out new things-" she said, finishing a turn facing Steven, fists clenched over her pear-cabochon stone, "Learning!"
Light filled the space as though the sun was shining down on Beach City and reflecting off of the sand. Hues scintillated on the walls, playing and moving as though it were reflecting off of the ocean. "We were in service to all of Gem-kind on this world, and it was a great honor and joy! The Quartzes ordered this shrine be erected so we would have a place to meet with the people and listen to their stories," she went on, gesturing to the fusion that stood above the likenesses of Topaz and Fluorite.
"We were foundation of peace here. Our strength and calm guided the people through many hardships," she smiled with her arms outstretched as if to embrace the serene colossus. Topaz's glow turned to a warm, deep gold, making the plinths look like they were made of the metal, and making her own likeness radiate.
"We loved them as they loved us, and they trusted-" Topaz froze. The light in the room suddenly quenched the same way it did when the sun disappeared behind the temple in Rehoboth. It diminished until only Topaz herself was visible, as though some night had fallen inside her.
She now had on the same expression she did when the evil little clock had gone off. A new voice spoke, in whispers, low caustic tones. "Weapon. Compass to destruction. Herald of death." To Steven, it sounded familiar. Topaz shook it away.
"And now we will guide you from the same sacred spaces," she said weakly, trying to regain her confidence. "We will be your teacher, if you'll have us," she said, regaining some of her energy. Steven realized that the voice intoning derision and doubt was the voice of that wicked Quartz, the one from Topaz's memory. Steven tried to ease the tension down a notch. He looked up at the titanic symbol of strength and calm.
"Who is she?" he asked. His question wasn't quite what Topaz was expecting.
"They are Diorite," she said, light again building, just a little. "They were the builder of unity and peace, the bedrock and foundation of society," she said. "We're sorry, Steven. You won't be meeting them," she said, and sighed, and began to walk toward the dark hallway. She stopped in front of Fluorite one last time.
"We wish you could have met our Fluorite," she said. She tried to project an image, as Pearl often did, from her stone. For a brief instant, Fluorite appeared from Topaz's memory. She seemed every bit as cheerful and bright as Topaz had said.
But the image lasted only a second before it flickered and disintegrated into a few glowing purple embers and was gone. Topaz stood where she was, and only looked at her broken gem. She nodded. Then she looked at Steven again, smiled, and kept moving down the hall.
"We will teach you how to project. Then you can show us 'corruption'." They made their way down the hall. On either side of them were murals. Gem spires, figures of power, depictions of diplomacy, of star systems, maps, Gem writing.
It was art, intended to be art. Steven had got the impression from Peridot that art was somewhat unknown to gem kind. Clearly, at least here, that was untrue.
They arrived in another hall. This one had its own illumination. A long center aisle stepped gently down many meters between rows of glittering glass seating, each seat equipped with a small table surface.
As they descended, Steven noted how some of the tables and seat backs had been scratched, and he realized that it was graffiti! "What does it say?" he asked without thinking. Topaz stopped, and examined it. As quickly as she bent to look, she threw a hand over his eyes, and quickly sputtered "Ew, ew no don't read that." She led down to the front.
The front was simply a stage under a huge hemisphere. Steven had noticed that Topaz's travel varied from walking to gliding like Sapphire did, depending on her mood. Presently her feet moved under her narrow maxi skirt. She almost did so without disturbing the dress, moving her feet in semicircles instead of kicking the illusory 'fabric'.
She didn't swing her arms either. They stayed clasped inside her long, flowing sleeves. Only the passage of the fabric through the air caused it to linger in the spaces she had passed through. Topaz stepped onto the stage. Something seemed to sense that she was on the stage, and the lights dimmed. Instinct told Steven to have a seat in front of the stage.
A spotlight focused on Topaz. Another one focused on a space to her left. She sat quietly, and folded herself into a half-lotus with her back straight and eyes closed, facing out and up towards the seats, just breathing. Steven noticed how the stage was only elevated a few centimeters and that even the first row of seats, including his own, were higher than the stage. He looked at her in silence, learning what he could about her just by observation.
First, he noticed her poise. Nothing on her moved. Her pose reminded him of the temple statue, with her arms extended, palms up. Her gem state was a clear indication of how she was feeling. He'd never seen that before. Earlier it had glowed with the brilliance of the sun. Presently, it was almost transparent with the odd flicker of yellow, except for the pink and purple fleck embedded in it.
"Steven," she said mildly. "Yes!" he said, startled. Topaz looked at him, then at the empty space next to her, in the spotlight. She sighed. "Come, sit with us. Please," she invited, without moving. Steven did as he was bidden. He got up, mounted the stage, and
stopped abruptly, at the edge of the circle of light, realizing whose place it was, and not daring to even cast a shadow there.
"It's okay, she won't mind," said Topaz. A single drop of golden light fell from her cheek onto the stage, noiselessly. Steven sat as respectfully as he could manage. He tried to sit the way she was, and ended up shuffling more than he really wanted to.
"Steven."
"Yes!" he said, quietly.
"We can only teach if you question."
Her stone flickered transparent and yellow. Steven realized that she was still fearful. Boldness filled him. She had promised to share her knowledge.
"Teach me what you're afraid of, then," he said, hoping he wasn't going to regret asking. He remembered having to face his guilt and anger in order to fuse with Connie properly. Maybe this would help Topaz. She looked at him, a little shocked at his observation. Then she nodded.
"We learned that to be trusted, one must first be willing to trust. The last time we trusted so deeply, we-" she took a deep breath. "-We were hurt. Terribly and deliberately, by a close friend." Steven made a mental note. Was that Quartz the one she meant? "But that's not all, is it." Topaz shook her head.
"No, not all. We are afraid to wake up." Steven didn't understand this answer. "What? Why?"
"We will have to face our broken-ness, and solitude."
"I can heal you! I can rescue you!" countered Steven. Topaz sighed.
"Steven, this stellar system is so far from our home galaxy, it's a miracle you're here at all. We mustn't expect you to be able to find your way back here on your own with so little experience as an astral body. And to get here physically…" She leaned toward him, putting her hands down to support her weight.
"But we are truly grateful to you. You have freed us from part of our prison. It is more than we could ever have hoped." Steven sputtered. He wanted to shout at her how close he was, how he could absolutely heal her cracks and flaws, how he would never give up. Topaz was aware of his turmoil. She returned to her pose in silence for a moment. Steven felt the calm issuing from her, and he calmed as well. Her poise was perfect. Her pose was welcoming. Her smile was gratitude. Steven felt the turmoil melting away.
"Like this," she said without being prompted. "We are stillness," she said, and waited. Steven took the cue. "We are stillness," he repeated. Topaz nodded.
"We are the temple of tranquility." Speaking the words eased the need to protest from him. "We are the counselor and the compass of empathy, we are the healer and herald of peace." It was peaceful. There hadn't been Gems on Mars for thousands of years. He felt for Topaz- she'd been alone all this time. He would bring the Crystal Gems with him, and she would no longer be isolated.
"Our pleasure and honor is to be in service to others." Earth was in danger. It had become clear the Diamonds were now intent on re-claiming the Earth. He would protect it, and all of his friends. Steven didn't need his eyes open to know her gem was returning to its golden form. The words felt good in his ears.
They repeated the mantra several times. Each time the words felt smoother, and stronger, and each time his were louder than Topaz's. Steven opened his eyes. Topaz was reclined on the stage, looking with adoration up the center aisle.
There, in all her glory, was Fluorite, and the classroom was filled with thousands of gems. Fluorite stood next to a Bismuth, and in the air before her was a globe of glowing glass. It changed shape several times as the two spoke and shared. Bismuth would point at it, and Fluorite would change it, then she would have an idea, and it would change again.
Fluorite was taller than Topaz, nearly as tall as Bismuth. Where Topaz was dressed simply, in vestments that suggested her post, Fluorite wore garb similar to Bismuth, a smock and apron most suited to a crafter. As the scene wore on, Fluorite and Bismuth came to some understanding about whatever thing it was they were discussing.
Gems around the amphitheater spoke in little groups. Everyone was smiling. Voices from the past filled the space with excited chatter and laughter. Steven turned to Topaz. She was now lying down, head propped on an elbow, watching the crowd. Her eyes and gem glowed with affection.
Steven noticed that as her eyes became narrower and narrower, her astral form was becoming more and more transparent. "Topaz! What's happening to you?" he gasped. Topaz lay her head down on her arm, and looked at him.
"We're falling asleep, Steven. Soon all this will give way to dreams. Thank you for coming. You've saved us." She looked like Connie did just before she fell asleep face down in a book. "Now maybe the future won't be so bad. Please don't be angry. We can't fight this." Then her eyes slid shut.
For a brief instant there was only the empty amphitheater, and the growing glow of Topaz even as she became more transparent. Then the scene gave way to the Hall of Titans. Music, composed mostly of chimes and woodwind played as Topaz and Fluorite danced together among hundreds of other gems who let them have the center and looked on with admiration.
At first Steven wanted to jump up and ask more questions. He wanted to learn about this place. He wanted to learn how to project images, he wanted-
He wanted to interrupt. To interrupt the first dance Topaz had with Fluorite, or anyone, in- in- 'since the time of the fifth planet'. Wasn't Jupiter the fifth planet? Instead of getting up, he simply sat and watched.
Gold and pink light flooded the room a champaign glow. The titanic statues glistened. Every detail of the space reflected light. Every stone of every Gem shone in her light, and Steven realized that the light was for them, and the happier they were, the brighter Topaz glowed. Another light seemed to be casting shadows, and when he looked up, it was the sun, a bright spot compared to the one he was used to from Earth, but still enough to illuminate.
The space he'd seen earlier had basalt ceilings. As the sun fell, outside the sky bloomed into magnificent and absurdly deep shades of blue he had no names for.
"Steven?" Pearl's voice snapped him out of his reverie so hard he sat bolt-upright.
The sky was pink. The grass was pink. In the distance was a tree on a hill. He couldn't breathe.
"Steven? Steven!" came Pearl's voice. He felt a great weight on him.
"Steven- Lion! Get! Up!" Pearl ordered. Steven pulled himself into Lion's mane, then shoved himself out again.
Lion was asleep at the top of his bed, belly up. Pearl helped him crawl out of the the mane. "Steven! I swear, sometimes… Are you alright?" she asked.
"We have to go to Mars!"
