It would almost be perfect if it wasn't for the company.
I'm going to rip you apart. You're going to suffer. You're such a coward, hiding on a planet you couldn't care less about. Letting those other gems shield you. I never thought someone who wanted so badly to go home would end up being such a dirty traitor. Well, none of my business. You were being so smart too. If you wanted to avoid pain, there'd be safer ways to go. You know how it feels to have your gem slowly broken apart? I'll teach you. I've got plenty of experience.
How deep were they? At Lapis's behest, the ocean had pulled them deeper and deeper, further and further, until the last vestiges of sunlight from above were gone. There was black, all around, just water as thick and dark as ink, water that couldn't be pierced even by four eyes. They had settled among skeletons of ships and fish and humans, disturbing the lost treasures at the bottom of the ocean. In the darkness, fish would brush against their skin. If anything lingered too long, Jasper would roar out a mouthful of bubbles, and whatever unfortunate creature was there would meet a short and painful end. Lapis had felt an infinite number of lives crushed to death in their gigantic fists.
How long had they been there? With no light, it was hard to count. Lapis had reassumed the sort of near-sleep that had kept her through her millennia in the mirror. She felt the tide ebb and flow around her. Years, probably. Maybe even decades. Jasper, whose long life had never included the captivity that had defined Lapis's, was far more impatient. She struggled and pulled. She fought, sometimes so fiercely that Lapis had to bring the full weight of the ocean down on them once more.
You're the weakest piece of trash I've ever seen. If it weren't for the ocean, you'd be useless. I didn't see you acting so mighty when you had a chance of losing. Coward. Go back to the past and stay there. The world's moved on without you, brat.
And the world will move on without either of us.
Jasper had very nearly broken free. Every second she seemed to fight their fusion. Surely she knew that even if their form broke, Lapis could destroy her in an instant given their surroundings, but that hadn't stopped the brute from struggling. Maybe she'd prefer death to this stasis.
The only way to maintain the fusion was for Lapis to become as the ocean itself, moving with Jasper's whims, catching the other gem's anger and slowly dissolving it. If she countered, pulled too hard in another direction, the bonds started to dissolve. So Lapis endured every threat, every insult, let the water wash away her anger and pain. Jasper was nothing compared to the vastness of the sea. Lapis had come to accept that freedom would be forever denied her, but here, in her element, she felt restful at last.
A single point of happiness, longing, and regret broke through her apathy. She tried not to dwell on it, for its simple existence was cause for mocking from Jasper, but she couldn't always control herself.
Beach summer fun buddies.
She thought of Steven—Rose?—befriending her when he knew her only as a piece of glass, setting her free, seeking her out and healing her gem. She hadn't known what to make of it, because she could hardly remember anyone showing her such kindness. Maybe on the Homeworld, so many years ago, so many that she had forgotten.
Did Steven think of her? How old was he now? Had he changed? Lapis was fairly certain that human aging was different than gem aging, but she had no concept of how long they had been trapped, and so had no reference. Maybe it had been long enough that he had forgotten her, the same way that those Crystal Gems had been content to leave her as a broken mirror, as a tool.
Thinking of them incensed her, and it was only in her anger that she and Jasper were alike. Then their fusion ceased to be a battle, their heart beat as one and their mind focused as one, even as they hated each other. In Jasper's memories Lapis saw ancient battlefields, infinite enemies crushed to dust, and felt the prideful glee that had accompanied each fight. In return she gave back vast silence and the feeling of having been completely abandoned, completely forgotten. They fought each other but hated together. Jasper's anger was quick and passionate, violent, the eruption of a volcano. Lapis's was long and deep, a grudge held for infinity, cold as an iceberg.
I have no home.
I want to go home.
I want to destroy them.
I want to make them feel as I've felt.
I want to be free.
When Lapis realized what was happening, she resisted it. She jerked herself awake and away, returned to the serenity that they could not share. Jasper was equally repulsed, moreso because she loathed fusion in the first place. The fighting resumed, the back-and-forth, but just as the tide came in and out and the seasons came and went, the cycle came around again.
It took a very, very long time. The arguments, the pulls to freedom, became fewer and further between. Lapis's even breathing grew deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
Eventually, not because of either of them but in spite of both, because of time and their nature and the longevity of Lapis's emotions, it happened, and We became I. They became She. And four green eyes opened under the deep blackness of the sea, their color indicative of something poisonous, and her name was Malachite.
Malachite was hatred.
Jasper's anger and Lapis's cold, furious patience were one and the same then. No longer did two personalities pull, for the seemingly infinite time that had passed had forced them to coexist, to breathe as one. Lapis Lazuli and Jasper had ceased to exist. There was only a monster, filled to the brim with unbridled loathing, desperate for a target.
Malachite did not know why she had chosen refuge so deep, and it seemed to her the pinnacle of foolishness. The ocean was hers to command; why not raise it up? Why not stand above it? She would wreak her fury upon its creatures, upon the land, upon anything that dared come in front of her. This world had imprisoned her, and she would end it for that crime.
The sea surged around her. Coral and weeds that had grown around her were wrenched free, crushed under her weight. Six gigantic arms commanded the waves to lift her higher and higher. Fish swam away in desperate packs, knowing that such a disturbance was nothing good for them.
Light filtered down through the surface, and Malachite smiled. A shark did not swim fast enough, finding itself caught up in her grip, and she crushed it to pieces. Elation filled her, the happiness of destruction, of finding a target to exact her revenge upon.
Malachite broke to the surface. Her white hair began to blow in the ocean breeze, woven through with seaweed and debris from the depths of the ocean. The moon shone down on her. Once it had controlled the tides, but now they were hers. It was all hers. Her prison would become her empire.
There was nothing but the vast sea, but Malachite knew which way she had come from. She walked along the surface, like a ship, and every step sent out vast ripples. Then she ran, ran and ran and ran, as the moon set and the sun rose and the moon rose again. The time meant nothing to her when she had already lived an eternity.
A small boat of fishermen was unlucky enough to catch her eye. They could do nothing as she approached, nothing but cower in terror of this apparition and make the futile attempt to steer from her path. She smiled above them, this creature who walked on water, and caught up their boat in one hand. She picked the men from it and heard them screaming, heard them utter prayers to whatever they believed in.
Red looked good against the green of her skin, she decided.
The sight of humans stirred something within Malachite. A memory rose to the surface, just one, the remembrance of events that had once meant a great deal . . .
Beach summer fun buddies.
But there was no happiness this time. She remembered that small boy who had also been a gem, and she knew him by name.
He would pay.
Malachite was hatred. Her white teeth gleamed in the light of a planet and sun not truly her own, and she laughed, for she had found a target for the abhorrence that defined her.
Malachite was coming.