Citrine confronts the possibility of a life without gem powers. Contains a bonus "flashback" sub-story!
Kids ages: 7/5/3 (flashback: 1/x/x).
Citrine jumps onto the warp pad, getting into position beside her father and her gem-ma Amethyst.
"Eeyah!" She yells, throwing her plump arms out wide and closing her eyes tight. She and her brother, Cairn, have been trying to activate the warp when going on outings with their father and the Gems. The kids know that warping is one of the first gem powers that their dad showed, along with bubbling things and accidentally summoning his shield, and Citrine isn't about to pass up this opportunity on a mission without her little brother to try and be the first one who does it.
The warp activates, carrying them home, and Citrine's eyes fly open, but quickly narrow again.
"Aw, Dad! That was you!" She punches his sturdy leg to no effect as they step off the warp pad, Steven and Amethyst laughing.
"Don't worry Sunspot," Amethyst continues, "I'm sure you'll get it next time!"
"Uhg, you two," Pearl lectures as she hovers over gap-toothed Cairn at the counter, "Its cruel to just assume that she'll eventually be able to do it on her own-"
"Pearl," Connie cuts her off sternly, handing a sleepy Morion to Amethyst on her way to the warp pad in the back of the living room.
"I'm just saying, it's not like she's really a Gem-"
"Pearl!" Both Steven and Connie interject fiercely, silencing the room. Cairn drops the crayon he'd been coloring with, shocked by his parents' outburst. Pearl quickly bends down to retrieve it and to hide her blue-blushed face.
Steven lowers his hand onto Citrine's shoulder, surprising her. She stares at his large, familiar hand, Why isn't he correcting her? I am a-
Her mother's hand suddenly alights on Citrine's other shoulder, and she swivels around to look at it's fine… human… features. Her eyes race up to her mother's, to find them aching with.. pity?
Citrine's eyes widen, and she looks to Garnet, who remains silent.
"I… I'm not really a gem?" Citrine starts to freak out.
"Of course you are… sorta," Steven fumbles.
"But I'm not… I'm not gem enough?" Her eyes flit from her parents' to random objects scattered about the room, geodes from the island sitting on the coffee table, the warp whistle hanging on its peg between the car keys and the umbrella, the portrait of her grandmother over the front door, gem… gem, gem, Gem. She steps back, "I am! I can do it! I can activate the warp, I will! I'll have my own weapon! Or a shield even, I don't care!"
"Citrine, it's okay," Connie tries to reassure her, "It doesn't matter, everyone has different abilities, even without gem powers you can be whatever you want… I'm human, and-"
"But…" Another step back and she's on the warp pad. Citrine looks from the strong, magical members of her family, and back to her smart, beautifully delicate-looking human mother and cries, "but I WANT to be a Crystal Gem!" She throws out her arms, like so many times before, desperately wishing to be anywhere else.
Connie reaches out to grasp her shoulder, but hesitates, and withdraws, lost for how to comfort her.
Citrine's eyes open, and the tears spill out. She pushes past her mother and father as she runs to her bedroom in the new wing of the house.
"Nice one, Pearl," Amethyst says accusingly, as Morion whimpers in her arms.
"I- I didn't mean…" Pearl looks back to Steven who juts his head to turn her gaze toward Connie, "I'm sorry…"
Steven is able to eventually calm his daughter down by reminding her that she's still younger than he was when he first used gem-powers, "there's no need to worry about it now, we'll just bubble it for later," He draws a circle in the air between them, and holds his finger in place until she sniffles and copies him.
"Boop," they say in unison when their fingers touch, releasing their hands back as if the 'bubble' has warped down to the basement. He tickles her, "I love you, Sunshine, you know that?"
She giggles, "I knoooow."
He makes eye contact with Connie as she retrieves the younger kids' nightclothes from the adjacent room, "And your mother loves you very much, too, you know," he whispers, "no matter what."
"Yeah," Citrine smiles, buried deep in the bear-like arms of her father, "I know," she giggles as her words make a raspberry sound against his skin, and she smooshes her face against his warm, cushy chest.
"You gotta be careful about…" he trails off, looking into her innocent eyes, "...You know, your mom doesn't have any gem powers... and she still goes on adventures with your Gem-mas and I, she's saved our butts plenty of times. She wields your Grandmother Rose's sword like a warrior goddess… She's just as much a Crystal Gem as I am, no magic powers required. I love her just the way she is..." Steven stares into his daughter's bright eyes, hoping she understands. There's so much they just don't know… he doesn't want to lie to her, but he doesn't want to see that hope- that vital belief in herself- fade from her eyes.
Citrine blinks up at him, then grimaces, realizing that she must have hurt her mother's feelings. Finally pulling away from her father's cozy embrace she plants a kiss on his cheek and jumps off his lap before running out to the living room.
Connie didn't see Citrine rushing toward her because she was helping Morion into faded, star-print PJs. If she wasn't so used to the sound of Citrine's heavy footfall instantly preceding being accidentally knocked to the floor, she likely would have crumpled onto Morion when Citrine collided with her back. Instead she felt her daughter's face against her tensed lower back, pressed into the spot her own gem pressed into her. She's growing up so fast. With Morion settled, Connie twists and puts her arm around her daughter, pulling her around to her side and cupping her still-cherubic face.
"murble mu murmb," Citrine murmurs into her mother's wrist.
Connie smiles, heart swelling as she easily deciphers the muffled, chagrin words. She embraces Citrine with both arms and bends down to kiss the top of her head, "I love you, too."
At the entrance to the hallway, Steven leans against the wall, watching them. Morion walks over to him in Citrine's old PJs and Cairn's outgrown slippers, dark hair a long floofy mop, reminiscent of Steven's own. He scoops up Morion and ruffles the toddler's hair, "None of that from you now, kiddo," he looks back over his shoulder to make sure Connie and Citrine are still distracted as he carries Morion to the nursery, "I don't think this house could take it tonight."
The next morning, the kids are playing school in Cairn and Morion's room. Citrine has drawn the letters of Cairngorm's name and he is diligently copying them, his ever-swinging feet shaking the play table as Morion sits atop it, enthralled at the deliberate lines being drawn by the older siblings.
"You wanna try, Ri?" Citrine asks, pulling out a clean sheet of paper and writing Morion's name. "Hold it like this," she puts a purple crayon in ri's hand and guides it over the M a few times before letting go, "M for Mmmorion!"
"I have one, too!" Cairn points to the last letter of his name.
"Mmmm," Morion repeats pensively, retracing the letter, "mmmmm" ri continues, giving the drawn letter more and more legs.
"No, that's not right!" Cairn scowls as his sister laughs, "Citrine!"
"Mmmmm?" She answers, then laughs, proud of her own joke.
"You're supposed to be the teacher… Ri's drawing on the table!"
"Oops!" Citrine grabs the crayon out of Ri's hand, the long snaking letter finally coming to an end, "Lets try something else… we'll just bubble this for later," she pantomimes forming a gem bubble around the paper, then draws a whirlwind of circles around Morion's name.
"Ammeh ball, Ammeh ball!" Morion cheers.
Cairn, done with his name, is ready to move on to something else as well. Following his "teacher," he picks up his own paper, and forms a small cairngorm gem bubble around it, silencing ri's chant.
"Woh-"
"What!" Citrine grabs at her brother's bubble, which promptly breaks open.
Cairn frowns at her, and bubbles it again. Even though Citrine has two years on him, they're about the same height, but Cairn's longer arms enable him to successfully keep the bubbled paper out of her reach.
Morion, perched atop the table, has no such limitations, and grabs the bubble from between Cairn's hands, "Ammeh ball!"
Both older siblings are surprised when the bubble doesn't doesn't break, but Citrine recovers faster, and tries yanking the gem bubble from Morion, causing it to burst apart again and Morion to start crying.
"Citriiine..." Cairn whines as he re-bubbles his now crumpled paper, and Morion cries accusingly at her.
Citrine's eyes dart from the bubble, to Morion, to Cairn and back, and then, before she can try to grab it again, Cairn warps the bubble away, simple as that.
Citrine shouts in agonized disbelief, pushing away from her brother and easily knocking him to the ground. All three siblings now bawling, Citrine runs out of the room-
-And straight into Garnet.
Citrine bounces off of Garnet's legs and lands with a hard thud, knocking the breath out of her, cutting off her cries… but the tears flow on.
Garnet picks her up off the floor, and cradles her in her arms as Citrine tucks herself into her gem-ma's chest. Silently, Garnet carries her to the breakfast nook, where they can easily see and hear the ocean lapping against the beach below.
Slowly, Citrine's heart beat slows, matching the beat of the waves. "Cairn made a bubble," she murmurs.
"That's impressive."
"... and Morion could hold it without it breaking."
"You must be very proud of them."
Sniffling, Citrine glares up at Garnet, considering. "You knew." Garnet shrugged, It was irrelevant. Citrine crosses her arms and plops back down, turning towards the window. "I… well, I guess it's kinda cool..."
"... but?"
"But. It… it broke when I touched it… They already have gem powers and I don't… I'm the oldest and I can't do anything. I'm n-never gonna be a real gem like you. It's not… It's not FAIR!" she slams her fist on the window sill as Garnet adjusts her visor.
"Have you ever heard about the time your parents dropped you into the ocean?"
Citrine's face swung around, aghast. "Wait… they... whaaaat!?"
"Hmm. It was before Cairn was born-"
"Bet they wouldna' dropped him," she mumbled.
"Connie, Steven, and their baby, Citrine, went out for a sunset ocean run with their pal, Lion..."
They stayed within sight of their home on the beach, but were enjoying just being together, warmed by the sun and refreshed by the gentle spray of water…
… until a curious bull shark erupted out of the waves. Lion barely managed to dodge it, but his sharp jump inadvertently dislodged both Connie and Citrine from his back, and the toddler fell with a plop straight into the water.
Steven and Lion whipped around immediately, trying to figure out where Connie, Citrine, and the shark had all gone. Steven didn't know where Citrine had fallen, but he saw Connie frantically trying to dive to a specific spot and knew that's where she must have seen her hit the water. But Connie could only barely swim, and was struggling and understandably panicking. Afraid for her safety, Steven quickly encapsulated her in a lightweight bubble, keeping her afloat near Lion. He took a deep breath, and dove.
Underwater, the light disappeared quickly, and Steven summoned his shield to act as a lantern. The rosy glow revealed Citrine, dense little thing that she was, sinking quickly… the opportunistic predator in close pursuit. Steven sent a sonic blast out from his shield, knocking the shark far away from his daughter as she hit on the ocean floor and latched onto an escaping sea star. Steven stretched out his hand, forming a rosy gem bubble her. Retracting his arm, he pulled the bubble, full of water, sand, his daugher and her tiny captive, up to him, frantically looking back up to the fading light. It was far... he pushed them towards the surface, but the light from his gem dimmed as he ran out of air...
Suddenly, Connie and Lion appeared under them, and instantly warped them all back to the beach, sending a plume of ocean water crashing down from nowhere.
The bubble around Citrine quickly bursts, and Connie was up on one knee, with Citrine diapered-bum-up in one arm, delicate fingers holding her mouth open, as the other hand delivered firm smacks to her daughter's back, just above the sparkling radiant-cut gem. Steven was on his hands and knees, frantically covering Citrine with big, wet, healing kisses between taking deep, gasping breaths of his own. Connie flipped her over and they finally saw Citrine's face.
Smiling up and looking between them as she shook her new friend, Citrine seemed unfazed by the entire ordeal. Connie shakily released her own pent up breath and stared down at her, dismayed but numb with relief.
Steven collapsed to the ground, rolling over and splaying out in the sand. "This kid is killing me!," he groaned, dragging a hand against his face, then down to his still wildly beating heart. "This goes on for what? 16 more years?" He gazed back up at Connie, so happy to have such an amazing person in his life, to be raising this fascinating, heart-stopping, child with. He couldn't imagine doing it without her…man, sixteen years will be over too fast.
Connie paused, still processing everything that had just happened. She removed the starfish from where Citrine had been using it as a teether, and let her gnaw on Connie's own finger instead. She looked down at her husband in the sand, saw the love on his face and grinned, reassured, "…I'm pregnant."
"I remember that starfish, it still shows up sometimes when I'm on the beach…" Citrine comments, she looks up at Garnet who stares back at her, silent. "Wait, that's the whole story? I thought you were gonna say something that would make me feel better," she pouted.
"Your parents thought you had drowned."
"I've always been a good swimmer," Citrine rolled her eyes, Apparently her parents had never believed in her. She followed a crack in the window pane, wondering why she had never noticed it before.
"You were underwater... for a long time."
Citrine just blinked up at her morosely.
"...you should have drowned."
"Hey!"
"No, no," Garnet laughed, "I mean you would have, if-"
"If dad didn't slobber on me?" Citrine pretended to shiver and stuck out her tongue in mock disgust.
"-if you had been Cairn or Morion… or if you didn't have any gem powers."
Citrine took a huge breath, a smile blossoming across her face, "Icanholdmybreathforever?!" she filled her cheeks up with air and scrunched her nose as Garnet stared on, but quickly ran out of breath and started gasping for air, throwing accusing looks Garnet's way.
"That's not how it works. You just have to not believe that you do need to breathe."
"...what?"
"Hmm… You know how you sleep on your stomach?"
"It hurts to sleep on my gem."
"You sleep on your face. Covering your nose and mouth."
"...yeah? That's a gem power?" Citrine was unconvinced, her gem-ma's advice giving skills were really going downhill, "Gems don't even sleep."
"Have you ever seen anybody else sleeping like that?"
"No… nobody? Wait, Gem-ma Amethyst!"
"Correct," Garnet smiles, booping Citrine on the nose.
"Ha.. HaHA!" Citrine laughs, jumping up on Garnet's legs, "I have a gem power! I! AM! a! GEM!" She shouts in joy, and suddenly, unable to hold out any longer, the window shatters.
Thanks for reading! Feedback appreciated! I have a few ideas for these characters outlined, but feel free to leave suggestions! If you'd like to see my art of these characters check out my tumblr!