Chapter 10: Moving on.
" This is really good." Raina says as she sips tea for the first time. It's apparently called green tea.
" There are many types. Jasmine. Earl grey. But I usually prefer the Oolong." Pearl says. " It's the closest thing I'll ever get to eating."
" Yeah." She says before tucking a hair strand back into her headband. She has made some changes to her appearance since she had the wires taken out.
She still wears her dark blue dress, but the blue ribbon around her body is repurposed to be a headband instead. Most of her messy blue hair is pushed back. Revealing her face for the first time. Which looks exactly like Pearl's. Only a small section is not behind the headband and lays on the center her forehead where Pearl's gem is. Her face is definitely something the gems are trying to get used to. If anyone didn't know any better, you would say that she and Pearl twins.
The long gloves she wore are now gone and she no longer wears that veil that covered half of her face. To be honest, Raina never liked the veil. It was heavy on her face, but it would cover the wires in her mouth. Now that wires were gone, she has no need for it anymore.
Her voice was also a big change as well. She sounds a lot like Pearl, but her tone is completely different. It's lower, but also softer. She also speaks slower too.
The crystal temple door opens to find a frantic Amethyst with a rag across her face. Her up in a ponytail and rubber gloves on her hands.
" Where is it?! Where is it?!" Amethyst runs up to the Pearls.
" Where's what Amethyst?" Pearl asks tempted to smile.
" The cleaning supplies! Pearl! There's a stench in my room that is making my nose fall off!" Amethyst yells.
" I don't believe this Amethyst." Pearl makes a fake amused gasp with Raina not helping with her chuckles. " You said there is nothing wrong with a stink here and there." Pearl recalls words from Amethyst from the past.
" I can't take it anymore!" She shouts. " The stench in my room has reach new levels! New levels!"
" Fine. They're in the lower kitchen cabinets." Pearl says before Amethyst makes a run into the kitchen and grabs all the cleaning supplies from the bottom cabinets before running back into her room armed in hand. Almost bumping into Garnet on the way.
The door closes behind her and Garnet makes her way over to the Pearls.
" Alright. Why does the temple reek and whose idea was this?" She asks them.
" I have no idea what you're talking about." Pearl says almost too calmly with a smile on her face as she sips her tea.
Garnet raises an eyebrow. She isn't fooled by this. Only the two of them would come up with something like that.
" Alright fine." Raina confesses. " Pearl was complaining about Amethyst's room, so I may have come up with a way to motivate Amethyst into reorganizing her room."
" By using a stink bomb?" She says.
" Yep." Raina. " That was how I took care of the rubies whenever they made my job harder. The one thing I learned about dealing with those rubies is that you have to get them to want to do your bidding by giving them a motivation they can't ignore."
" I see. And are you planning to do this Amethyst often?" She asks sternly .
" Don't worry. I'll probably keep it to maybe once every ten years. When her room gets really bad." She says.
Garnet looks at her sternly before she says, " Alright then." Before walking away.
Pearl sighs, " I'm jealous. I should have thought of that when Amethyst joined the team. Would have made things easier."
" Yeah." Before Raina sighs deeply. Sounding a bit sad.
" What is it?" Pearl asks out of concern. " Are you still having flashbacks?"
" I'll always have them, but…. I can manage them. And I just have to remember the good ones." She says.
" You know you can always talk to me if it gets out of hand." Pearl says.
" I know that. That's why I want to show you something. I don't know how else to explain." Raina sets the tea cup on the coffee table and digs into her dress pocket. She slowly puts the item onto the table.
" A handkerchief?" Pearl says as she unfolds the crumpled up fabric to find shattered light green gem pieces. She understands immediately of what they were.
" It's Jade. Isn't it?" Pearl asks looking at the Pearl.
" I never wanted to leave her behind. If I was going to be shattered, I wanted to make that I wasn't alone. I kept her with me since she was taken from me." Raina says brushing away her tears.
"Raina. Follow me. And take Jade with." She says as she gets up from the couch and offers a hand that Raina takes with Jade's gem in her other hand as she follows Pearl once again to the temple door. The door opens to find a strange room with bubbled gems in here.
" What is this place?" Raina asks.
" This is where we put the corrupted gems at. There's also a few shattered gems as well. You can have Jade in here if you want. She can be safe here and one day we might even be able to save her. I can't promise anything though, so I'll understand if you don't want to."
Raina looks up at the bubbles and looks back at her Jade. She wants nothing more than to keep Jade with her, but Jade would not want her to carry on like this. She would not want Blue to have shouldered this kind of burden. Even if Blue wanted to.
Raina pours the Jade pieces from the rag into the palm of her hand before she forms a light blue bubble.
" I love you. I will always love you. Even in death, our love goes on." Raina quietly says to the bubble in her hands. Her hands shake as she raises it up to the ceiling and lets the remains of her beautiful love slide from her hands.
Pearl comes up to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. The two watch in silence as the bubble floats higher and higher till it disappears from sight.
" Pearl?" Raina says.
" Yes Raina." She says.
" I want to learn how to fight."
Pearl looks at Raina in shock and has a bad feeling, " Raina. I understand that you might want revenge, but it will do more damage than help."
" I don't want revenge." Raina says. Which shocks Pearl even more. " And I'm not doing this for myself either. I'm not only one who was scared. There are gems on Homeworld like me who are scared. Gems on Homeworld like Jade that have lost their lives to protect their lovers from the Diamonds. I want to do something that I have never done in the past. I'm going to stand up against Homeworld and fight for those who can't. I might still be scared, but not of Homeworld. I'm not going to let control me again. Will you please teach me to fight?"
Pearl tears up as she smiles and says, " Sometimes we even sound the same."
" We might as well be what Steven calls us. The S word." She says.
" Sisters." Pearl explains.
Raina looks up at the bubbles," Yeah. Sisters."
Yeah. It's the final chapter. It's short but it pretty much ends everything on the note I wanted to end on. Sorry that I haven't updated. I was having a severe depression and anxiety attack for almost a month. It got me pretty hard and now I'm just starting to come out of it.
Thanks for allowing me to share this story. I hope you enjoyed it. Tell me what you think and thank you for your patience.
I also have started a spin off/sequel to this story. Check it out. It's called Enraged.