They'd found her in the Prime Kindergarten, a quartz soldier who wasn't. The amethyst had been too late for the final battle for Earth; she had incubated for so long that she emerged as small as a human child. Pearl had been the one to find her, and the way she had talked around the discovery confirmed Garnet's suspicion that whatever she and Rose Quartz had been up to there was none of her business. Heavens knew they had a hard enough time keeping their hands or eyes off of each other as it was now that Homeworld had pulled out. Still, she thought it odd that they chose a place as depressing as Kindergarten to fool around. Given that nothing else made sense and that she could think of no other reason for their visit, Garnet let it slide.
"You should have told me you wanted privacy," Garnet had said to them once she met them at the rendezvous point a couple of miles away from the Kindergarten. Pearl had had the grace to blush, while Rose had simply grinned and Amethyst looked lost. Then Rose took command of the situation and led them away.
For a while they walked in silence; finding a new base was so much more time-consuming without the technology they once possessed. Pearl carried Amethyst part of the way, and then Rose took the little snoozing bundle of purple when she noticed Pearl getting tired. They may have won against Homeworld's final offensive, but it had taken out everyone who hadn't been protected by Rose's shield and fried all nearby technology. With nothing left, they roamed the planet they saved in the search for a place to carve out a home. The probabilities that they would end up by the sea, on a shore close to Mask Island and the Galaxy Warp, were increasing with each night spent following trails pressed into the soil and grass by human feet.
Even after the war had destroyed the nearby landscape and cost too many human lives, the humans roamed their land as fearlessly as they had before colonization began in full. The great cluster of mounds near the gulf that might have become a city in a few hundred years had fallen in the war, but its people moved on and would rebuild. Vast trade networks spanned for hundreds of miles, and Rose would often point out evidence of them in the rainbow-hued, fire-treated flint tools that came from the great drying plains in the middle of the continent to these eastern mountains. Once she had been so excited over finding shells from the other side of the continent and obsidian razors from the land that tapered to a squiggle, all within the contents of a trader's bison-hide sack, that she chattered at Pearl and Garnet for hours. Had they stayed in one place for long, Garnet was fairly sure that Rose would happily bury herself in human cultures and mores. It felt oddly inappropriate in light of the vast power imbalance and differences in experience between humanity and gemkind (not to mention the colonization), but unless it looked like it would be a problem, Garnet would keep her doubts to herself.
This new member, however, might just be what they needed. Her very situation would be enough to keep Rose interested, if just for a hundred years or so. Garnet had yet to learn much of Amethyst, so her projections were not as informed as she liked. As they made their way down a foothill, around the billion-year-old sedimentary boulders so worn and weathered that they would flake and splinter with a half-hearted smack of her gauntlets, Pearl left Rose's side to appear soundlessly at Garnet's. They had known each other for a thousand years, yet Garnet still found Pearl a little unnerving when she used other gems' willful disregard of pearls to her advantage. Garnet could reassure herself a hundred times that her lack of situational awareness regarding Pearl was a residual effect of Homeworld indoctrination, but it still gave her pause.
"It's incredible, isn't it?" Pearl began in a hushed voice, her hands moving in a way that Garnet still found distracting. Mostly, though, she was gesturing towards Rose and Amethyst in emphasis. "Had she emerged earlier, she would have been programmed and pressed into service like all the other Kindergarten gems. But here she is, and she doesn't even act much like a quartz warrior!"
Garnet hummed in response; she knew Pearl would get to the point in her own time. Then the other gem's hand alighted onto the crook of her elbow, willowy fingers cool against her warmth, and a tiny little part of Garnet that was purely herself might have liked the contact more than she should have. Perhaps it was because she liked to feel needed, perhaps it was more. Given that Pearl had eyes only for Rose, she never remarked on this habit.
For her part, Pearl seemed to take her noncommittal hum as disapproving. "I suppose what I'm getting at is... Amethyst is the embodiment of everything we were fighting for. She's a completely blank slate. She would never need to know everything about Homeworld, or its strictures." She would never know enough to treat Pearl as anything but an equal. It was left unsaid, but Garnet knew the thought had to be there. Her other hand, with Ruby's gem, settled on top of Pearl's and gave a reassuring squeeze. A smile teased at the corners of Pearl's thin lips, and Garnet answered with one of her own. "So, ah, what do you think?"
"I don't know enough to be certain. She is a quartz, and probably has all the instincts of one." Pearl's smile faded, though Garnet's remained. She phased out her visor just long enough for Pearl to see that she was earnest. It seemed to help, for the tension in Pearl abated for the moment. "But she'll have us to guide her. Let's keep her."
The smile appeared in full, as lovely as the moon on those nights when its glare was softened by veils of ephemeral clouds. Given that pearls were supposed to be lovely, Garnet did not reflect much on the thought. Her thoughts returned to the many new branches that appeared in her mind's eye regarding Amethyst and her future with them. Given the absence of corruption or the mark of the Diamond Authority on her uniform, Garnet doubted that the young gem was a Homeworld agent. Those possibilities she eliminated, but there were still many more avenues to explore. Amethyst had to be trained, obviously, but she would likely snap and leave if they were as hard on her as they had been when she and Pearl trained the rebel troops. Be too soft on Amethyst, however, and the quartz instincts in her would test their patience until they would be forced to discipline her. It would have to be a balancing act, and one she wasn't entirely looking forward to. Rose's soft spot to the new and exotic would make her blind to Amethyst's faults until Garnet talked to her about it. But if they did this right... A picture formed in Garnet's mind, as clear as any of Sapphire's visions had been before Ruby's introduction of chaos expanded her perception: another fusion. Pearl's eyes and nose, Amethyst's lips, all framed by the mane of hair that was more typical of a fully-formed quartz soldier. Garnet looked forward to meeting her.
"You'll be her first, like Rose was for you," Garnet finally said, after a long moment of inner deliberation.
Pearl's eyes widened, owl-like, and she took in a breath in that way that preceded an argument. Garnet's answering frown quickly deflated her, and her voice became a low hiss instead. "But Garnet, I've never fused with anyone besides you and Rose!" And not for want of trying. While Garnet had accepted their new recruits unconditionally and taught many of them how wonderful a fusion born of love was, Pearl had always held herself back. "Wouldn't it be better for her to fuse with Rose? They're both quartzes."
"You were the first to find her." Garnet left it at that. She had never been good at articulating more abstract concepts, not the way Pearl was. All she knew was that Amethyst would likely equate Pearl with all things relating to gemkind because Pearl was the first gem she encountered. There were other reasons, but the echoes of the future were vague and elusive.
They fell into a comfortable silence after that. Pearl switched to her other side once they reached the valley floor. Pearl had started these displays of affection shortly after the first appearance of Sardonyx, and the thoughts Garnet had then (presumptuous for a pearl, is she doing this because pearls aren't supposed to be so forward?, or does she require attentions Rose isn't giving her?) were borne of an ignorance that she found appalling now. That ignorance was something she still had to work on, and likely always would. Still, if she could learn to respect Pearl as her own gem, she could learn to love a stunted quartz warrior.
... A quartz warrior who was grinning at her once Rose joined them. A term, definitely human, came to her then: shit-eating grin. It was accompanied with a flash of an image, of Amethyst rummaging through a human shell midden and munching on discarded oyster shells. Rose didn't look at all apologetic when she held out Amethyst, who reached out for her like a human child reaching for its mother. "She wants to get to know you," Rose offered as explanation. Garnet tried to come up with an opposing view to that, but nothing would do any good. She held out her arms to support Amethyst's weight as the young gem wrapped her stubby legs around her torso and planted her hands on Garnet's shoulders.
"Hi," she said, for lack of anything more elegant to offer. Elegant was Pearl's thing. Still, the amethyst beamed at her like she could do no wrong in her eyes.
"Hi, I'm Amethyst." An unnecessary statement, but Amethyst's mouth shaped around the name like it was her own. She said it like it was the whole of her being, like everything she was could be condensed into a word that superseded its original meaning. Like there had only ever been one Amethyst and there always would be. "Pearl says you're Garnet and you can see the future. How does that work?"
Garnet's lips pressed into a thin line if displeasure. Sapphire's ability, transformed by Ruby's chaos, had been a subject of much curiosity to the recruits in the rebellion. Frankly, Garnet was sick of it by now. "It's a little more complicated than that. All gems possess special abilities, and that's simply mine."
"Oh! Mine must be shape-shifting, huh? Pearl says she's never seen someone change shapes as quick 'n easy as me." Amethyst might have puffed up a little in pride at that, and Garnet thought it best not to mention that shape-shifting was a quartz trait particularly common among amethysts. "Wanna see?"
Wordlessly, with the knowledge that agreeing resulted in the most positive outcomes, Garnet nodded. Amethyst was positively gleeful when her shape shifted into that of a purple black bear cub. An unremarkable skill in and of itself, but the speed and accuracy with which she shape-shifted was astonishing. Save for the color and the gem that no one could ever really hide, Amethyst could easily be mistaken as a bear. Still, the way the shape-shifted eyes watched her for approval would betray her as sapient. "I'm impressed," Garnet admitted, accenting her words with a hint of a smile. It was enough to make Amethyst grin, and the young gem shifted back to lean in and wrap her hands around Garnet's neck.
"You're warm." It was a statement and a hint of a question all rolled up into one. When Garnet gave a questioning hum of her own, Amethyst continued. "Rose and Pearl feel cooler, like rocks in the shade, but you don't. It's like you're all warm inside, like the fur-bearers."
"Mammals," Garnet supplied without thinking. It wasn't the first time someone commented on her unusual ability to maintain an even temperature despite environmental conditions, but it was the first time someone brought it up without knowing of her nature as a fusion. It was something they'd have to address once they taught Amethyst more about her own kind. "I'm different."
Amethyst accepted this without question and moved on to tell Garnet about her hole and the rocks she played with, and all the animals that wandered into or were washed into Kindergarten that she took shapes from. For her part, Garnet nodded along and gave noncommittal hums when those were all that were expected of her. In time, Amethyst wound down and rested her forehead on Garnet's left shoulder to doze off.
The sun drew lower in the sky when they stopped before a trader. Rose's eyes gleamed when they met with him, and Garnet was tempted to urge Rose away and give the man room to breathe. But soon enough, Rose got him to open his beaded leather bag and Garnet and Pearl lost interest entirely. Rose would barter away some fragment of broken gem technology for even more useless trinkets, and she'd done this often enough that there was genuinely nothing of interest to encourage Pearl or Garnet to stick around. So they returned to the trail, which was growing rockier as they went deeper into the spruce-fir woods. The air was cooling and the sun growing red-orange as it began dipping below the horizon when Rose Quartz caught up with them. She alighted before them at the end of a leap, her skirts barely stirring. Unsurprisingly, she wore a new necklace of cut-and-polished purple-white shell beads.
"We should take the other trail," Rose began with that excitement in her voice that made it hard to resent her fascination with humans. "That lovely young man said that if we're in just the right place, we can witness the fireflies flashing in unison!"
Pearl had that look again, bewilderment and fondness for Rose bundled up in her dislike of the uncleanliness that creepy-crawlies represented. "You... want to look at bugs?"
"I like bugs," Amethyst exclaimed a little too close to Garnet's ear. Garnet held her a little further away just in case she got any ideas to continue. Which she did. "What kind of bugs?"
Rose's eyes practically gleamed in the diminishing light and her grin was impossible to miss. "You'll see." Then she turned in flurry of pink curls and very nearly skipped along the trail. "Keep to the trail, now. We don't want to disturb anything!"
Without another word, Pearl followed along, picking her way around the rocks in the trail almost effortlessly. Garnet couldn't be bothered to care, and she crunched along and kicked rocks aside with Amethyst still in her arms. She supposed she could insist that the younger gem walk, but this was... nice. She understood a little better why Pearl appreciated the fact that Amethyst knew nothing of the norms and mores of Homeworld. Amethyst didn't know she was a fusion, and she wouldn't need to know that Homeworld regarded fusions as war machines. Her arms tightened around Amethyst for a moment. "We're going to make so many mistakes," Garnet murmured in a voice only Amethyst could hear, "but we'll do our best for you. Promise."
Amethyst didn't respond in words, but her arms tightened around Garnet's neck as she cuddled closer. Garnet doubted that she understood the full weight of her words at the moment, but she would in time.
It was fully dark when they arrived in the valley, and Pearl's gem was the light by which they navigated. The moon was new and it was too overcast for any but the brightest starlight to pierce the clouds. Rose sat at the foot of a boulder and drew Pearl into her lap with a giggle that Pearl soon echoed and they were probably going to be necking the moment Garnet and Amethyst were distracted. Garnet couldn't really speak; if anything, Ruby and Sapphire were even more affectionate. At least Rose and Pearl could set aside the affection long enough to function. Ruby and Sapphire found it better (and less distracting) for all of them if they stayed fused. So she jumped atop the boulder to give them a little privacy, and Amethyst rearranged herself in Garnet's lap once she sat. Garnet's arms folded loosely over Amethyst's chest, but Amethyst hugged her arms closer still. Was she trying to make up for all those centuries without another's touch? Garnet couldn't guess, but she squeezed the small gem close nonetheless.
Then it happened. The first few flickers were yellow-green points of light in the gloom above the valley floor. They were echoed by a handful of females below, and then the night lit up as all of the males in the area synchronized the flashing of their abdomens to draw the attentions of the females. The mountains and their valleys became awash in thousands of flashing points of light, like tiny stars dancing against the evergreen-and-wet-clay-scented darkness. Individually, no point of light was very strong, but together they cast an almost supernatural glow on the nearest leaves, branches, or boulders.
"Wow," Amethyst breathed, almost reverently. Then her breath caught and Garnet noticed that a firefly had landed on Amethyst's nose. They both remained still to keep from scaring it off, then it flew away to join its kin after a moment's exploration.
The light show lasted for hours. There were moments of synchronous flashes, moments of pure darkness when they all stopped glowing at once, and moments when they stopped synchronizing their flashes to blink at random. By midnight, the number of fireflies trying to find mates dwindled. At first it was slow, just a few lights going out at a time, then the gems were left in darkness with no need to speak.
And yet...
Amethyst's voice was barely above a whisper. "Thanks. For finding me."
A smile tugged at Garnet's lips as she tousled Amethyst's too-short white hair. "Welcome to the Crystal Gems."
This has turned into something of a series. Any issues brought up here and the other one-shots in the series will definitely come up later. This is set in the Great Smoky Mountains, which I figure might be somewhat close to the Prime Kindergarten. The mound system mentioned is the earliest mound complex discovered in North America, Watson Brake in Louisiana, which would have been active during the rebellion. In the real world, changing habitats and increased animal consumption were likely why it failed; in this ficverse, it was caught in the crossfire between the rebellion and Homeworld. Also, there are oblique mentions of the obsidian trade in Mexico and the Alibates flint trade in the Texas panhandle.
The firefly show is a real phenomenon and draws so many tourists that a lottery system was set in place to limit the number of them. You can see video links on the AO3 version of this fic.
Also, any theories of mine regarding SU background info are very likely to be disproven when more is revealed by the show. So, please don't consider this in any way canon.