"My name is Pearl," the little girl answered. She looked only about 10 years old.
"I see," Rose said, kneeling down on one knee and brushing the Pearl's hair back with her hand. "Do you have parents? We might be able to bring them here, but that town you were in isn't safe."
Pearl shook her head.
"No, you don't want to be here, or no, you don't have parents?" Rose asked.
"No, I don't have parents," Pearl answered very timidly. Rose watched the girl look past her at the taller gem hovering only a few feet away. "That girl has three eyes," she commented nervously.
Garnet bit back a very sharp retort, but Rose saw the corner of her mouth twitch open enough to see a few teeth.
"Yes," Rose said softly, turning back to Pearl. 'What an amazing observation. Oh well, she's young,' Rose thought.
Garnet wore a huge pair of glasses. They, Rose had noticed, now covered her third eye.
'So she is self-conscious about that,' Rose thought, slightly amused. 'Best not to bring it up often.'
So Rose continued to watch the younger gems spar with each other. Pearl would be staying with them, at least for now, until either she was old enough to move on, or some other arrangement came up.
Diamond, as far as Rose could tell, was still gathering armies. And by the day, more gems were either be assimilated, or they were being destroyed.
"Try again," Garnet taunted, but didn't summon her gauntlets. A young Pearl drew her spear out of her gem and began to fight, with Garnet easily blocking the gem's blows. A moment later, Rose watched in shock as the bigger gem picked up Pearl and threw her into the sand a few feet away. The younger gem landed with a soft thud, and didn't get up.
"Garnet!" Rose yelled, becoming angry. "She's so little! Don't be that harsh when you're sparring with her! She's younger than you!"
Garnet frowned nervously at the strength that she had accidentally used, becoming too caught up in the moment with Pearl. She ran over to where the young gem lay, in a slight panic, but stumbled back in shock when Pearl popped back onto her feet and swiftly began to swipe at Garnet, shredding the other gem's sleeves with her spear.
"Next time you try that, be ready," Pearl snapped. Rose actually thought it was pretty cute, like an angry little girl who wasn't used to channeling her rage.
"You little punk," Garnet snapped back. She grabbed Pearl's hair, and slowly pushed the younger gem downward so that she sank waist deep into the sand.
"Hey!" Pearl yelled, struggling to climb out. "Quit it, Garnet! You're always doing this stuff when we train!"
Rather than immediately reprimand the girls for fighting, Rose considered that her first priority was to contain her laughter. At this moment in time, Rose only looked about twenty.
This was all interrupted by a bright flash of light coming out of the warp pad, and a young gem with white hair and light green skin falling onto the sand, bleeding heavily. Rose's head snapped toward the warp pad, but Garnet and Pearl continued to bicker, not noticing the change in atmosphere.
"Shut it!" Rose yelled over them, and both gems fell silent, and turned in shock upon seeing the injured gem only a few feet away.
"Please," the young man said, lifting his face at level with the sand, just high enough to lock eyes with Rose. "Help me."
Rose and Garnet were both holding up the young gem between them, with one of his arms on each of their shoulders, as they carried him inside the house. Pearl nimbly followed the two older gems without saying a word, but silently forming perceptions on what was happening. The green-skinned gem was bleeding from a long cut on his back.
"He came from Diamond's army," Garnet murmured, looking down at the now passed-out gem's face. "He could be dangerous. We should have left him."
Rose cringed at the mentioning of Diamond's name, but looked down at the young man with compassion none the less.
"We couldn't have just left him there. I wouldn't allow that," Rose said. Garnet noticed that she spoke with far more kindness about this gem than she had in years' past, whenever Diamond's name had been mentioned. "And besides," Rose continued. "I have heard rumors that they have a way of tracking gems if they retreat into their gem to regenerate. If this is true, then he could have come just to set a beacon for them to find our location. We aren't very kind to them, after all."
Since having retrieved Pearl, the Rose and Garnet had both been on several more missions to keep Diamond from completely clearing human areas, especially if it meant that her army would become bigger. Despite the fact that their attempts were often futile, they were still making a name of themselves as an enemy among Diamond's ranks.
"They didn't know that we had a warp pad to begin with," Garnet reasoned. "So it seems illogical for them to find us now, of all times. Unless they decided to explore here, again, and wondered if some other gem had set up a warp chamber?"
"I chose this location to hide, thinking it would be the last place that any of those gems would find us," Rose stated. "If they are anywhere close to finding us, then we had better be prepared when it happens."
The injured gem's breathing became less shallow, and he seemed to relax slightly with time.
"He's young," Rose murmured. He only had to be a few years older than Pearl. Realistically, this actually meant that he had to be at least fifty years older. His face became more relaxed, and his jaw opened, allowing him to breath more freely.
When treating him, Rose had noticed a small, green gem located on the back of his neck, just below his head. Later on, she had realized it was a peridot.
Garnet and Pearl were off resting after having been training. They chose to do so while sitting by the warp pad, waiting to see if there were any more threats that were going to appear.
The young gem blinked his eyes open slowly, allowing his gaze to drift around the room without lifting his neck. He was lying across a small couch that Rose had had placed in the small wooden house when she and Garnet had first come to live by the beach. And slowly, his gaze shifted to the older gem that was hovering over him. She was a tall, young lady, wearing a white dress, with light pink skin, and pink hair with large curls, and a kind smile. She was lovely.
That is, until he noticed the small pink crystals that were popping up out of her skin, now visibly noticeable by more than just Garnet.
Peridot couldn't help it. He cringed when he saw that Rose Quartz was afflicted.
"You're awake!" Rose said, looking a bit shocked. The gem nodded. "Do you remember what happened?"
"I fell out of a warp pad after being attacked. And I remember bleeding," he said. For a young gem, Rose thought that he seemed very matter-of-fact about what had happened to him.
"You had a really huge cut across your back. And when I turned you over to treat it, I noticed that there is a green gem in your neck. By my experience, you are a Peridot, right?"
"Um, yeah," Peridot answered. "Thank you for helping me, I guess. Um, what's happening to your skin?"
"Oh! I..." Rose said, turning away and shuffling through the small house in search of the mirror she had been avoiding. She found one hung up on the wall, and had to contain her scream. The small crystal blemishes were now four centimeter shards on one side of her face.
"It's gotten worse!" Rose wailed loudly, tears pouring out of her eyes.
"What's gotten worse?" Garnet asked, walking into the house, holding Pearl's hand. She cringed when she saw Rose.
"Why didn't you tell me?!" Rose shouted, covering her face. "What's happening to me?!"
Peridot looked up at Garnet. Pearl smiled at the injured gem.
"It's alright, we'll find a cure," Garnet explained quietly, trying to calm the hysterical Rose down.
"You look like how Diamond did when she became sick," Peridot commented.
"Don't you mention that name! Go back to sleep if you're going to talk that way!" Rose shouted back.
Garnet sighed, letting go of Pearl's hand and telling the younger gem to head up stairs and rest for a little while longer. Garnet turned, looking over at Peridot, and lifted Rose off of the ground, effectively restraining the hysterical gem.
"Let me go! Letmego! Garnet, PUT ME DOWN!"
"If you go up those stairs and touch even one hair on that little girl's head, I will smash you into the ground," Garnet said stoically to Peridot.
"That would be difficult, seeing as how my back is still injured and I can hardly move," Peridot said calmly, despite Rose's loud protests and screaming.
Garnet nodded at him, and the two gems shared a small understand, a small trust even, and Garnet silently turned and carried a still-screaming Rose out the door.
Steven swayed where he sat, turning slightly pale. Garnet paused for a moment.
"Are you alright, Steven?" she asked, calmly, but hinting slight concern. He turned slightly green.
Steven looked up from where he had been leaning over the bed a moment earlier and wiped his mouth. He stared in horror when he realized that he had thrown up on Garnet's shoes.
"I'm sorry..." he whispered, horrified, and looked up Garnet.
Garnet took off her glasses, her eyes squeezed shut as she massaged her forehead.
"It's...alright," she said finally, stepping back and slipping out of her shoes. "I can get Pearl to clean up in awhile. Let's go down stairs; I think you have had enough of the story for just a little while."
I absolutely loved seeing "Mirror Gem" and "Ocean Gem." I just figured out about how this story is going to end, and because of the episodes, the plot line for my Garnet-centric story literally exploded. In a positive way =D
Thanks so much for reading! Please leave review! =)