Welcome back! Thanks for coming. Read on!
Pearl
Pearl never stopped staring at her feet as she trudged behind her new madam. It was dark and there was a wind howling menacingly through the tall, run down buildings and their broken windows. There was an underlying sound like scrambling and yowling and distant gems fighting. Everything felt unpleasant. Pearl stepped over small bits of glass. She had no idea where she was.
As if she could read her mind, Madam Hematite spoke. "We are going to the household now, my pearl."
Pearl raised her eyes a bit. "The household…?" She felt very small. Her view was only of Hematite's intimidating figure from the back. She seemed several feet taller and while dressed in all black, she looked like a silhouette.
"It's where you all live dear! They really don't teach you pesky things anything in the factories, do they?" Hematite made a light huffing sound and a large plume of smoke billowed from her mouth. "My last pearl knew a lot more than you do when I first bought her. I guess you were rejected early in the refinement process."
Pearl gulped. There had been a pearl before her? She wondered what had happened to her. She rubbed at her raw wrists and picked at some of the dried blood that had stuck in rivers on her forearm as she walked. Madam Hematite had been so kind as to remove her shackles, to 'prevent sullying my reputation!' she had said. Surprisingly, towing a gem around the back lots of the city with cuffs on looked pretty bad. Pearl rolled her eyes.
"Ah yes, here we are!" Madam exclaimed, throwing her arms out wide in a dramatic gesture that failed to improve how dingy and broken down the building looked. Pearl grimaced a bit. "Come, come. We need to wash you up." Hematite sent Pearl a flashy fanged grin, and she nodded with the biggest smile she could muster despite her unease.
Hematite pushed the door open with a creak that threatened to knock the whole building down. Pearl scoffed as she stepped over the muddied concrete into the "household". Papers were strewn all over the floor with dirt tracked over them. She took in the moldy walls with an air of disgust and disdain. She felt an unexplainably strong urge to clean everything.
"Let's go, this is just the lobby," Hematite said, rushing forward. She held her skirt up to avoid the filth. Pearl stepped carefully behind. "This is it!" Hematite put a hand over a small circular pad on the wall next to the door. A green light scanned her hand and gave a nice dinging sound. The door popped open just a crack and Hematite swung it open, gesturing for Pearl to step inside.
Pearl hesitated, and then stepped into the dark room. Hematite followed and shut the door behind them. For a moment they were both bathed in darkness while she found the lights, and they flickered on slowly after she pressed a few buttons on a control pad in the doorway.
Pearl blinked and scanned the room. It didn't look much better than the rest of the building, and was very small. There was a hatch on the floor, which Hematite reached for and pulled up with some forcing. The hatch revealed steps going down to an even darker room. She heard the sound of something dripping. "Well?" Hematite snapped, breaking Pearl's train of thought. "On you go, down."
Pearl shook her head clear and stepped down slowly and cautiously. She gripped at the wall to the right of her and her hand landed in something sticky. She shuddered.
The steps ended and Pearl was left standing in the middle of darkness again without any sense of direction. Hematite stepped down to meet her and turned on another set of lights. Only half of them worked.
Pearl bit back a gasp in disgust. She hadn't thought it could be dirtier than it was up above, but she was proven wrong. The air smelled thick with something rotten and she brought her arm to her nose to shield it, though it made no difference. There were splotches of unidentified fluids and sticky substances all over the floors and walls. Most disturbing, however, were the numerous sets of tall bars that closed off small rooms, still shrouded in darkness since there were no lights inside of them.
She paled when she realized they looked like cells. She swung her head back to Hematite in panic, only to be met by that fanged grin that spelled trouble. "Come Pearl, you need to be rinsed off first." Pearl's eyes were wide and followed her Madam as she stepped passed her and beckoned for her to follow again. She looked down at her feet and tiptoed behind Hematite with tears threatening to fall.
"H-heh…" Pearl gasped in surprise and jumped back. From one of the barred cells a small hand was reaching out. Its nails were chipped and bleeding green. She could make out one wild eye behind a lot of matted hair. The creature's throat was cracking as though she was struggling to speak. "H… Hello." The creature's eye widened and a huge demented smile of triumph spread over its face. Pearl covered her eyes and stepped quickly away to catch up with Hematite. She was struggling to contain her horror and breathe evenly. Her owner kept pace as though nothing had happened.
"In, darling." Hematite grabbed a fistful of Pearl's clothing and pulled her into a dingy stall, effectively throwing her to the ground. Pearl's breath hitched and she held her arms to her chest, which were still very sore.
"What are you-" Pearl was cut off as a forceful spray of water hit her face. She coughed and put her arms up to shield her face while she cleared her throat.
"You stink of the factories. It'll be just a moment then you'll be all done." Pearl looked up to find Hematite but couldn't see through the water hitting her. It was extremely cold and stung like small pins over her skin. The only positive was the soothing effect the cold had on her torn wrists.
The water cut off shortly after that. Pearl shivered violently, her teeth clattering noisily despite her best efforts to stop it. "T-thank you, Madam." She said. She looked up at Hematite's shadowy face. "I am all clean now."
"Lovely!" Hematite clapped her hands together. Pearl flinched. "Let's go, your room is waiting!" Hematite's sharply manicured nails scraped her chest while grabbing at her shirt and yanking her up to her feet. Pearl's legs were shaking from the cold just as violently as her teeth were.
Hematite led Pearl to her cell and opened the bars with a few presses of several unique buttons. She pushed Pearl inside and quickly locked the door back up. Pearl landed on her bottom and stayed there. She rubbed her arms furiously in an attempt to create warmth.
"Goodnight my darling. You'll begin fighting tomorrow, I think. I'm so excited for you!" Hematite smiled and turned curtly back to the steps to the outside world. "Take care, my pearl! You'll be making me money soon enough!" She laughed airily. Pearl heard her heels click up the stairs and then the snapping sound of the hatch closing, then silence. The lights flickered out.
Pearl could hear only a handful of sounds: the soft drip of leftover water in the hoses down the hall, her own slightly raspy breathing, and what sounded like nails tapping concrete. She held her eyes open and waited for the blackness all around her to take shape as they adjusted. A part of her hoped that the blackness meant it was all a dream, and that she would wake up warm and happy someplace else. With a frown those hopes broke and she began to make out basic shapes. A loud thump came from directly in front of her without warning, and she gasped.
"Who are you? Who's there?" She asked, attempting to sound more confident. She heard what sounded like the slapping of hands and feet against the cool ground for a few strides. The strides then stopped with the sound of hands clenching over bars. 'Another property of Hematite's,' Pearl thought.
"That depends," a voice called out, "who are you?" The voice was a lower pitch than Pearl's and spoke slowly, without definite inflection.
"I-I," Pearl cleared her throat and composed herself. "I am Pearl. I assume you are also Hematite's?"
"Afraid so." The voice yawned noisily.
A heavy silence fell between them. Between the bars Pearl could make out light colored hair that sprout in all directions from the other gem's head. She noticed a gem was located on the back of her hand. "Oh, please excuse my rudeness," Pearl said with nervous urgency, "what did you say your name was?"
"I didn't say anything, but my name's Iolite." She answered plainly. Found light glinted off the face of her gem in a soft flash. She removed her hands from the bars and sat back in a relaxed position. "Are you fresh?"
"Excuse me?" Pearl asked. Iolite chuckled.
"Are you new, were you 'just born'?" Iolite reworded, "you were factory-made, right?"
"Oh, well, yes." Pearl replied. She felt a little awkward trying to converse with Iolite. It seemed as though she wanted to skip formalities, but Pearl passively refused. She enjoyed the way politeness sounded, decidedly. "I was rejected, though."
Iolite sounded intrigued. "Rejected?" She made a small 'huh' sound. "What for?"
"I believe my summon was incorrect. Supposedly, I was supposed to summon a flag." Pearl looked down in disdain. She was rather ashamed of her defect. "Pearls are intended to serve a master, right? So, how is it that I can't even do that?"
"Hey, cut with the heavy stuff. We just met," Iolite smirked. "The truth is Pearl, Homeworld is a confusing place." Pearl folded her arms over her knees and settled into comfortable curl.
"They have standards that don't make sense to anyone who really thinks about them. Unfortunately, that's why I'm stuck down here with you. No offense, though." Pearl was unfazed. She wanted to learn more.
"Anyway, Homeworld really likes everything to be the same. That hits you, and others like you, the hardest, because you're 'products'. Again, no offense."
"None taken," Pearl said, though she was getting irritated at Iolite's apparent stalling. "So then why was my summon bad? I would think a spear would be quite useful, actually."
Iolite jumped a bit. "An actual weapon? No way, that's amazing! No wonder they rejected you, a spear!" Iolite laughed heartily, seeming much more animated than before. "Oh man, you're gonna be a horror in the rings! I wonder what stage name you'll get. Can't imagine what their faces would be like when they see a real, actual weapon come from your gem! Priceless." She continued to laugh.
"I don't see what's so funny, Iolite," Pearl said curtly, "Rejection is not a laughing matter." She pursed her lips to contain her anger.
"Oh no, not at all, I'm sorry," Iolite said as she wound down. "It's not funny. It's awful, actually. I just think it'll be a riot to see everyone freak out in the rings though! Don't you think?"
Pearl sighed heavily. "I suppose." Silence hit again. Pearl felt a twang of pain in her wrists where the skin was rubbed raw. She pulled her knees up closer to her face and stared at a small sliver of light that was glowing in the middle of the concrete walkway, between herself and Iolite.
"Hey," Iolite said in a quieter tone, "it'll be fine. Hematite isn't that bad compared to some of the others."
"What happens in the ring?" She asked suddenly.
"You fight other gems, didn't someone explain this?" Pearl shook her head.
"No, I mean what really goes on. I know we fight. I have no idea why, or how."
Iolite seemed to be thinking. Pearl's eyes had adjusted as well as they were going to, and she could make out basic expressions and features of Iolite's face and body. She was stout and had much thicker limbs than her, which made Pearl feel like maybe she was rather small compared to most.
"You, well… The rich gems, the ones who own us, they set up the fights, you know. They try to match us up so they'll win, because they bet on the winner. It's like a big game. It's pretty noisy but once you start fighting you kinda forget about everything else around you. It's just you, and them, the two of you pitted to fight until the other… You know. This is a little weird to talk about, it's easier to just try to forget about it." Iolite waved her gem hand off. " I don't like thinking about the things I gotta do in there."
Pearl shivered. "You mean, fight someone? You don't need to kill, do you? I mean, not really, right?"
Iolite froze and shifted with unease. "Well, sometimes… Sometimes yeah, we have to kill. It's just what we have to do."
"Well, not really, our bodies can retreat to our gems correct?" Pearl began to sweat as anxiety swelled in her chest. "The gems at the factory, that's what they taught me, we can just abandon our bodies if they become too injured! No harm done, right?" Pearl's voice broke with the question.
"I'm sorry Pearl. It depends on the fighter," Iolite looked away, "but not all the time. Sometimes we need to really kill, by breaking the gem. We die if our gems get cracked or broken like that. Sometimes the fighters like that kind of a show. Hematite likes to avoid them though, because she can't make money off a dead gem."
Pearl had raised a hand to her mouth in shock as she let Iolite's words sink in. "No… And I'm supposed to…" She began to tremble again. "They can't do this!" Her thoughts raced and flooded her ears as though they were shouting in them.
Iolite sighed and grabbed Pearl's attention again. "I'm sorry, Pearl." She repeated. "It's just what we gotta do sometimes. To survive and stuff. I'm not saying I'm proud of it." She raised a hand to her heart. "I've had to do a lot of things I'm not proud of since Hematite took me."
Pearl listened closely to Iolite's words, searching for anything that might allow her to cling to hope. "I messed up. I guess I should be thankful to Hematite in a way," Iolite laughed dryly, "I was supposed to get ground up for treason, but she smuggled me out. She never told me what I was going to be doing, though. I just got thrown in here and left to figure everything out.
"You must be scared; I remember feeling scared. I had someone to help me understand though, she…" Iolite trailed and her face looked pained for a moment. "Well, I can help you now. I can show you how to survive in this hell."
"I…" Pearl began, but she choked on the syllable. She had brought her hands together, cupped at her chest, and started to cry. A few tears dropped into her hands and arms and once again she was reminded her loudly of the injuries caused by her own body's volition. Her blurry vision darted to her wrists and she felt the salt sting on her skin.
"Hey, stop." Iolite spoke quietly. Pearl shot her eyes back up and into Iolite's, whose gaze looked lifeless. She made no effort to stop her tears. Memories of Hematite's words attacked her all at once. She felt like she couldn't breathe again.
'This is the only life you will ever know, dear.' It couldn't be true, Pearl had hoped. At least being a standing servant would be better than this. Organizing files sounded more and more pleasant as time went on.
"Pearl!" Barked Iolite, snapping Pearl back to the present. "Stop that. There is nothing you can do now. You need to calm down. Crying, and freaking out, all of that is pointless. You're still going to be down in this jail at the end of the day."
Pearl furrowed her brow. "I refuse to accept this as my fate." She spoke through tears.
Iolite shrugged. "Then go for it. When you're done feeling sorry for yourself, let me know." She stood and walked out of view, behind the thick cold walls that enclosed her barred door. Pearl reached out through her own bars in a sad attempt to call her back, but Iolite couldn't see. She was out of view.
Pearl slowly pulled her arm back through the bars and held it tight to her chest. She sniffed and blinked rapidly to stop her crying, but the tears wouldn't stop. Without Iolite on the other side, she suddenly felt so much more alone. There was nothing to see but shadows. A small cracking sound bubbled from her throat while she tried to breathe through the tears. The sound of her own voice breaking only encouraged sharp sobs to rip through her body. She squeezed her shoulders and rocked back and forth while trying to control it, but knew that deep inside she didn't really want to stop crying. What was the point?
After many long minutes or hours without any way to truly count them, her eyes grew too sore to produce more tears. She had lain on her side and curled her knees into her chest at some point, but she didn't know when. Her breathing evened out. Pearl considered what Iolite had said. There really wasn't a point to crying, either.
She sat in silence for a long time without really thinking about anything. She felt incredibly numb, and tired. The sliver of light she had been eyeing in the middle of the floor disappeared to make way for a blanket of light to cover her cell without her noticing for a while. When she did notice, she was only disappointed to see that everything was still in greyscale, like it was when the lights were on last night.
Her eyes felt puffy and blinked slowly. "Iolite?" She called out of her cell. Her voice sounded hoarse and she winced at the pathetic sound.
Even though she had called Pearl was still surprised to hear the sound of bare feet stepping over the floors. Iolite came into view then, and Pearl was able to see her colors. Her hair was a light blue and stuck out in wild directions, but she also had a few small braids pulled over her shoulder. Her clothing was purple with small accents of white and blue. Her skin was a deep royal purple. She looked full of pity and Pearl shrunk away from her.
"Morning, Pearl. Done crying yet?" She asked. She looked irritated. "I was getting pretty sick of your whimpering over here. For someone with a pretty voice you sure make an ugly cry." She smirked. Pearl noticed she had a pronounced lower lip. It complemented her round face.
"I'm sorry," she began, but Iolite waved her off.
"It's fine. I understand." Pearl swallowed past the thick lump still in her throat, but before she could reply, the sound of a distant door opening startled them both. "That's Hematite. She may be putting you out early." Iolite looked nervous.
"What, really? I-" Iolite hushed her loudly and put a finger to her lips while pointing toward the steps. Pearl looked and in perfect timing the hatch for the staircase was slid open by Hematite.
"Pearl, my darling!" Hematite sang, a trill in her voice, "It's time for your debut! Oh I can hardly wait, I have the fight all picked out for you." Pearl hastily stood and straightened herself. She was following Iolite, who was standing up in front of the bars of her cell looking straight ahead with her posture stiff. It looked strange on her, judging from all Pearl had learned in the short conversation they'd already had.
She jumped when Hematite came into view. "Ah Pearl, you look beautiful! If not a bit, well, disheveled, but that's not a problem. We'll get you fixed up in no time!"
A wave of gentle wind blew away from Pearl as her door swung open per Hematite's request. She felt so exposed. She wondered why Hematite was simply staring at her, and then realized she had extended a hand. She hesitated, then put her hand in Hematite's gloved one. Hematite pulled her from her cell and back toward the stairs.
Her madam was rambling about what Pearl was going to be doing in a few minutes as they walked, but all Pearl could pay attention to was Iolite's painfully anxious expression. Before she fell out of view, Iolite gave her a nod of good luck, which she returned. Pearl felt slightly less nervous with her blessing.
"One more thing dear, I need to travel lightly." Hematite turned back to Pearl with a grin that turned Pearl's stomach. "I hope you don't mind, it will only be for an hour or so."
From her handbag Hematite pulled out a pronged instrument that Pearl didn't recognize. She looked to Hematite, confused, but was suddenly hit full force in the stomach with pain.
She cried out and looked down. The tool that Hematite had pulled was stabbed into her torso and was shooting sharp electrical currents down her entire body. She screeched and looked to Hematite desperately for answers but received nothing but the grin in response. It looked so sickeningly sweet.
Pearl looked at her arms and noticed the currents slowly breaking apart her body. She was horrified. When the currents finally seemed to hit her heart, she felt something crack inside her, and everything snapped to black.
The next thing Pearl knew, she felt warmth growing from her chest and stretching to the tips of each finger and toe. A splash of bright white light dazed her and she blinked her eyes clear.
Noise attacked her ears without any reason. Many different voices, twenty, fifty or more, all yelled over each other from above. She looked up and saw that she was in a circular ditch about the size of two of her cells. It was enough space to move around but not enough to run. There was a metal fencing around the top of the ring that prevented the strangers from leaning too far over and into the pit.
Pearl then looked around her in a complete circle. She was in the center of the pit. It didn't seem as though anyone else was there with her. She felt slight relief ease her panic at that thought, but it didn't last long.
From the sand several feet to her right raised a small orange gem. The white outline of a body burst into view, and from the outline formed the true body and clothing of a short, shivering gem no taller than Pearl's shoulder height. She looked around quickly, then locked her eyes on Pearl. Her eyes spelled murder.
Pearl gasped and backed away. "Look, I am not interested in fighting you, let's try to get out of this mess, together!" She said, sweating nervously. The muffled sound of an announcer spoke overhead and quieted the gems above.
"Last call for any bets ends now! To the left we have Madam Hematite's fresh meat, Pearl! Give it up, everybody!" The crowd catcalled and booed until there was no discernable opinion to deduce. "To the right, we have Miss Tanzanite's new arrival, Citrine!" Again, the crowd roared with a mix of approval and disdain.
"Two newbies up for their first impression in the rings. Who takes the win? Gems get ready," Citrine crouched low to the ground with her arms outstretched. Her nails were filed into claws. "Set," the announcer said, and Pearl took a step back when Citrine growled.
"Fight!"
Review? Thanks for reading!