For a moment, the battlefield is still.
Every eye turns towards the empty space where Rose Quartz once stood. Her armor, human made, lies abandoned on the ground, surrounded by dusky pink shards. In the quiet, the only thing Pearl can hear is her own breathing. It sounds like she's crying.
Rose's standard droops without the wind to support it. Pearl's spear is chipped. There's a small crack in the blade near the top. She has to remember to fix it. She's surrounded by Kindergarten gems, cut off from anyone who could help her.
Rose could help her.
Rose is dead.
One of the Kindergarten gems steps towards her. The gem's arm falls to the ground. The same ground where Rose lies. Homeworld is even trying to desecrate her grave now. There's another chip in Pearl's spear.
The gem retreats into herself like the coward she is. Pearl wants desperately to crush her into dust, but Rose wouldn't have wanted that for her. She'll let Garnet do it.
Pearl stands over Rose's abandoned armor. At least she won't turn aside, even if everyone else did. The Kindergarten gems turn away now, many retreating into their gems in shame. The spear grows heavy in her hands and she knows it's not supposed to be like this but she can't remember what it is supposed to be like and she's so, so tired.
Rose's standard falls to the ground. Someone is supposed to be carrying it. Oh, right. Her. She is supposed to be carrying it. She picks it up out of the ribcage of another gem. No one is allowed to touch it but her.
The battle continues now as Rose's army tries to fulfill her wishes but it doesn't matter. She can't express her wishes anymore.
There is something Pearl is forgetting. It lingers on the edges of her consciousness, asking for her attention. She ignores it.
Rose's shield crumbles.
The Homeworld gems rally, preparing to crush the resistance, secure in their victory. Pearl readies herself for combat. She will die, she's sure of it, but not without a fight. Rose wouldn't have wanted that for her. Not for her planet, anyway.
In the corner of her eye, she sees Garnet brace herself, gauntlets glowing with the power of their wielder. Garnet's gem shines brilliantly on her chest and Pearl remembers.
"To me!" she bellows, battle singing in her body. "Drive them out!"
Rose's army roars a wordless reply and charges. They are consumed by fury to the very last gem and Homeworld doesn't stand a chance. They fall like trees in the long-dead forest where the Kindergarten was built. Most flee the field. The few who remain are crushed to powder in Garnet's fists. Pearl can't bring herself to stop her.
Silence falls once more and rain soaks the battlefield. It will nurture the plants that live here one day, but today it casts a pall over the dead. Pearl blinks the rain from her eyes. She's never understood how life and death work on Earth, why life comes only from death. Here on this strange planet she must learn to call home, the dead provide for the living. All the living can do is wait their turn.
A drop of rain on her forehead catches Pearl's attention. She has to move. She reaches under Rose's breastplate and pulls her gem from the wreckage. She turns it over and over in her hands, checking frantically for damage. There is none. She clutches the gem to her body and sobs with relief.
Garnet picks her way over the stricken field, nimbly skirting around fallen weapons. She doesn't look where she places her feet. She doesn't need to. She never does.
"Is she alright?" Garnet asks, her voice taut as a harp string.
Pearl nods. "She will be." She takes a shuddering breath. "They hit the decoy. Only her body was damaged."
"Good," Garnet whispers. "That's good. I thought-" she breaks off. "Nevermind."
She pulls Pearl into a firm embrace, Rose's gem nestled between them. Someone starts shaking uncontrollably as the adrenaline fades. Pearl isn't sure which one of them it is.
Exactly sixty seconds later, Garnet breaks off. "Alright," she says. "Back to work. Put Rose somewhere safe. Don't post a guard." She walks away.
"What?" Pearl demands. "Why not?"
Garnet doesn't turn around. "As far as Homeworld knows, Rose Quartz died here. Put up a memorial. Make it convincing."
Pearl wants to scream, to rage, to shout to the heavens that Rose Quartz lives, but Garnet is her superior. She can't toss aside the whole chain of command just because she's upset. No matter how much she wants to. So she wraps Rose safely in her standard and begins the long walk to the Lunar Sea Spire.
She has to walk because the warp pads aren't safe. Anyone who uses them dies. Garnet and Amethyst used them. They're still alive. Pearl isn't sure how and she doesn't have the energy to think about it.
Garnet leads the procession back to their base. Stoic, silent, poised Garnet. Rose's right hand. Pearl clutches convulsively at her bundle, trying to stifle her jealousy. She's never felt more alone. Her spear trails along the ground, its spiralled edge broken off almost completely. She isn't sure when it got damaged. Most likely dragging it over the rocks had done it. That seems plausible. She refuses to consider any other explanation.
Pearl places herself in the middle of the group, where Rose will be protected on all sides. She hears the gems around her muttering to themselves but she doesn't understand what they're saying. All she knows is that she doesn't like it. A few look mutinous, others grieved, still more angry. Most of them just look tired.
She tries not to think about how she must look.
They make camp that night in a forest of standing stones. The Lunar Sea Spire is too far away to make the journey in one day and they need time to rest. Whenever they leave, Rose posts her plant guardians around the Spire. The guardians will survive without her guidance, but directionless and either unwilling or unable to follow orders. Their army could easily be walking from defeat to defeat. Rose's plants are infamous for their bloodlust and Pearl can only pray she never has to face them.
She perches on top of one of the standing stones. It's not the tallest, but it's taller than any of the others dare to climb. Below her, Garnet walks among the troops, talking quietly, giving them gentle encouragement. She falls into the role of leader like she was meant to be there.
In that moment, Pearl hates her.
Then the moment passes and Pearl hates herself instead.
She curls herself around Rose's gem and cries until she can't cry anymore. Below her, gems busy themselves with setting up watch rotas or tending each other's injuries. She knows she should go down to help them but she can't bring herself to move. She has to keep Rose safe. She has to be Rose's shield.
She starts laughing at the thought, but she calms herself before hysteria takes hold. She can't panic now. She has to stay strong.
She watches idly as Garnet wanders off into the woods. Alone. Amethyst tries to go with her, but Garnet says a few words and sends her back. Pearl wishes she were close enough to hear their conversation. Once Garnet is out of sight, Amethyst heads straight to Pearl's pillar.
"Hey, are you gonna come down?" Amethyst calls up to her, voice grating against the raw edges of Pearl's grief.
Pearl can't summon the energy to reply.
Amethyst blows the hair out of her eyes and shifts into a bird, flying up to Pearl's perch.
"Go away," Pearl whispers.
"No way," Amethyst declares. "You can't just hang out up here all night."
"Why not?" Pearl asks.
"Look, if I don't get to hide in a hole when I'm upset then neither do you," Amethyst snaps.
"I'm not hiding," Pearl insists.
"Yeah sure whatever," Amethyst mumbles. She takes a deep breath, rustling her feathers. "Is she- is she gonna be okay?"
Pearl wants to reach out, to comfort her, but she doesn't dare let go of Rose, not even for a moment. "She will," she assures, hoping Amethyst can't hear the tremors in her voice. "She just needs some time to heal."
"Are you sure?" Amethyst asks. She sounds younger than Pearl has ever heard her before, even younger than the half-feral gem they rescued from the carnage of the Battle of Kindergarten.
"Yes," Pearl says with such conviction that she almost believes it. "I'm sure."
Amethyst flies away, down to the rest of the army. Pearl stays in her pillar until dawn, singing quietly to Rose's gem. It's the same songs Rose once sang for Pearl. Back in simpler times.
As soon as the sun rises, Garnet reappears and the march home continues. This time, Pearl walks next to Garnet.
"Many of them are ready to desert," Garnet notes over the murmur of the gems behind them.
"Most of us were only here for Rose," Pearl points out. "And the rest of us relied on her shield for survival."
"How many do you think would stay if we told them Rose was dead?" Garnet asks. As always, her voice is calm and level and utterly devoid of anything like passion.
"Don't you already know? Because of your Future Vision?" Pearl asks. The problem with talking to Garnet is that it's almost impossible to tell when she asks a rhetorical question.
Garnet adjusts her visor. "There are thousands of possible paths the future can take."
"Can't you tell which paths are more likely?" Pearl asks. "Do you see them more clearly?" She clutches at Garnet's arm in excitement. She's known about Future Vision for millennia, but Sapphire rarely talked about it and Garnet even less.
Garnet hums. "Well," she says, staring off into the distance. "You probably won't be bullied to death by wasps."
Pearl blinks. "Wait? That could happen?"
"Probably not," Garnet shrugs. "But it might."
"How many people do you see get bullied to death by wasps?" Pearl asks.
"A few," Garnet replies. "But we're getting off topic. How many do you think would stay?"
Pearl's good mood deflates. She looks back at the troops following them. A few are singing to each other, trying to keep their spirits up. Most of them are silent. More than a few have bubbles trailing behind them or carry cracked gems in their hands. Amethyst is in the form of a horse, even more gems in baskets hanging from her back. She's the only one still strong enough to shift her form.
"Not many," Pearl replies. "Certainly not enough to keep fighting."
Garnet makes a sound that could almost be called a laugh. "We've never had enough to keep fighting," she points out. "It never stopped us before."
"We've always had Rose," Pearl whispers.
"We still do," Garnet says. "She'll be back. We just have to hold together until then."
There's a scream behind them and Pearl turns to see another soldier retreat into her gem. Garnet picks the gem up and puts her in one of Amethyst's baskets.
"Hold together," Pearl mutters, adjusting her grip on Rose's gem. "Right."
The sun is directly overhead when they reach the Lunar Sea Spire. Towering waves hide the entrance from sight, making it impossible to discern where Rose's guardians are. Garnet walks into the churning sea without fear and Pearl watches it swallow her whole. A few minutes later, the waves collapse, crashing down into a tame puddle thousands of feet deep. The water stills and heavy stone blocks drift up from the depths, interlocking into a tasteful footpath edged with pink buds. They don't bloom. They won't bloom until Rose returns.
Without any sort of discussion, Garnet claims Rose's office and Pearl drifts to her side, taking up Garnet's old position as second in command. They spend the next eighteen hours talking, planning, strategizing. Preparing to wage war without Rose.
Garnet says that Rose will be back within a week, but Pearl doesn't miss how her plans stretch for months. She doesn't mention it and neither does Garnet.
Pearl puts Rose's gem in an alcove near the top of the Spire. It's a small, hidden spot, but it has enough space for Rose to reform. Pearl's sure she's the only one who knows about it.
She wants to leave something, a cushion or a light or a guard, to comfort Rose, but she can't. As much as she hates to do so, she knows Garnet is right. The enemy can believe Rose is dead, but they can never be allowed to know she's vulnerable.
All they can do now is wait.