Y-6 / / / Hurt
Y-6 had been thinking a lot about the choosening.
Since Gaa-reg had left them, the thought of being paired off with someone did not appeal to him quite as much. In fact, the entire idea of the choosening had lost its original charm. While growing up, Y-6 had awaited eagerly for the day he would be of age and permitted by The Little Voice to take part in the choosening. Like magic, like fate, The Little Voice just knew, just as The Little Voice always knew, who to choosen and who to put the choosened with. Then, just like that, two people were now a pair, happy as can be. There was joy to be found in the choosening to be sure. Young Y-6 had liked to sit in the perimeter of trees surrounding the choosening and watch the sudden smiles of the choosened when The Little Voice let them know their destinies. It looked like a glee similar to that of someone who had been told the punchline to a long-anticipated joke. However, Y-6 liked to think the choosening would make everyone experience their own versions of happiness. Y-6 thought his choosening would feel like the sensation of rolling down a hill of the softest grass, like smelling the sweetest of flowers, like finding out that your fruit is purple. The choosening was Y-6's dream, but while he was still a child Y-6 could only watch from the side-lines. The choosened had a little piece of pleasure yet unobtainable to Y-6 and he had wanted that desperately.
Y-6 remembered his mother telling him that after you were choosened The Little Voice spoke to you personally, just you and your fellow choosened. She had told Y-6 that it had been the best moment of her life. She told him she had felt special— no, blessed. The Little Voice had choosened them. It had singled them out and told them they could do something wonderful – together. The Little Voice had guided her and his father together and just like that everything made sense. Y-6 had pestered his mother for more information, but she had smiled at him serenely, with a twinkle to her eye, informing him that The Little Voice wouldn't want his special day spoiled for him.
Y-6 supposed he could live with that. But still, he wanted to be choosened badly.
So when Gaa-reg had arrived, he thought that his special day had come. Surely it had, because everything had made sense, just like his mother said it would. What Gaa-reg said had made sense. He opened their eyes to a new innovative way of finding a companion. It was a rather exotic concept, to be the one who choosens for himself. And to think, that was how they all did it on Earth!
When Y-6 had chosen Gaa-reg he had felt independent. For the first time, he felt that his life had truly taken on a sense of development, like he was growing beyond anything he could have imagined for himself. It had all felt very special and adult, which was strange because he was already an adult. He had been an adult for a little while now.
However, that all changed after Gaa-reg didn't choosen him back. He choosened no one back.
How could he do that? How could he be so cruel? How could he make them hurt? Y-6 had never hurt before. He had never even been near not good. Not good, that is to say, bad – bad, like the opposite of good – bad which meant hurt. Oh Little Voice, he was hurting. He was hurting bad. Y-6 didn't think something so unbearable could exist. And it didn't stop. When Y-6 stubbed his toe or bumped heads with someone, the pain always eventually stopped. This persisted. It followed him like his shadow so that, when he finally lay down to rest on the night of the ruined choosening, he couldn't sleep. The hurt was still there.
The tears may have stopped flowing and the most painful feelings from the unexpected rejection may have ebbed, but the hurt had settled somewhere in the pit of his stomach, like a dead weight. Thoughts of earlier that day came to him, in a cyclical motion, back-and-forth through his head. He just wanted them gone. He needed to think about something that wasn't Gaa-reg, or the choosening, or the fact his chance to be special had been completely wrecked. But what? Today had been so much more painful and unlike any other day he had ever experienced, that Y-6 struggled to think of anything else. As horrible as today had been, it had been interesting, perversely so.
Eventually, Y-6 reasoned that if he couldn't stop thinking about today, then he just had to think about something from today that wasn't Gaa-reg.
After wriggling into his favourite mossy surface to sleep on, Y-6 squeezed his eyes shut and thought hard and purposefully. Unfortunately, it did not take long before Gaa-reg appeared again in the forefront of his mind.
"Arrrgh!" Y-6 cried and flipped onto his front to punch his moss-pillow in frustration. He buried his face into the clumpy plant, mumbling into it sadly, "It is impossible. I'll never stop thinking of Gaa-reg."
It had been a nice idea, to think of another interesting part of the day, but he had forgotten that everything interesting that day had somehow involved the source of his hurt.
If only that purple lady was still here, he thought ruefully.
Things hadn't seemed so bad when she was around. He remembered how her hand had cupped his shoulder, holding him steady as sobs wracked through his body. Her fingers had curled around his side so nicely, solid as stone but silky as grass. She spoke to him then. Her voice had been a gentle rumble, with a throaty twang, that had sounded so striking Y-6 couldn't help himself but to quiet his weeping just to listen. It was a colourful voice and the longer she went on talking, the more it had distracted him from his hurt. The tears that had filled his eyes soon dried and what had once been a blurred blob of lilac became a face. A sweet face – strong-jawed, but soft-eyed. And he simply couldn't fathom the colour of her skin! He had never seen such an extraordinary shade, not even in their daily fruits. He had seen purple before. He loved purple. It was his favourite. But never like this. This purple was different, like a swash of calm, subtle yet mesmerizing and all-enveloping. It was a purple like light mist, settling upon his senses. She had stayed with him for some time, while his fellow humans ran through their home, their distant cries made immaterial to him by the sphere of comfort this woman provided.
Vaguely, he remembered telling her, as he wailed, "I'll never choosen again!" because it was true. He wasn't— wouldn't. He didn't want to involve himself in a dream that had become so tarnished.
But, she had been soothing, and said in her grainy stream of a voice, "Sure you will." Well, it was nice of her to try. Even if Y-6 firmly believed he could not choosen again, at least she had faith for special days to come.
She had left him a little while after that. He didn't want her to leave and demonstrated this by clinging onto her arm. She had looked at him, with her round lavender-grey eyes, startled. For a split second, she had seemed hesitant, but as quickly as she came she left, through the strange opening-wall along with Stee-van and Gaa-reg.
Gaa-reg. He was thinking of him again. Y-6 sighed. At least he had forgotten about Gaa-reg while the purple lady was with him. It would be helpful if she could talk to him again now. Yes, he thought as sleep finally took him, I do wish she was here again to stop me thinking about Gaa-reg.
But, the last thing Y-6 saw before falling into slumbers that night was not the image of Gaa-reg he had tried so desperately to avoid, but instead of the face of the strange purple woman who had been so kind.
A/N: So, if you haven't realised (and if not what are you doing here? This is major spoiler territory!), this is a story based on the episode "The Zoo". Specifically, i'm basing all this of one little scene towards the end of the episode when one of the amethysts (since this amethyst doesn't have a designated name I will be calling her 8-XN) awkwardly comforts the one of the humans from the zoo (Y-6). And since I thought it was cute, I wanted to try my hand at a very bizarre human/gem romance.
