Welcome back to Hope of Morning! I had a lotta fun with this chapter - I like writing about the ocean. And I've been waiting to write this since I even thought this story up, so I kinda made it all in one day! I was really pumped.
Also, this marks the three-week anniversary of this fic being put on the site! Woop! I'm surprised I've got ten chapters and 40K words so far!
Disclaimer: Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar!
Learning that Steven was absent from the Temple had been a discouraging discovery.
Lapis was hoping he would be the one to help her scavenger for the lost set she was looking for. Instead, the boy was out with his human friend, Garnet had said. She had been the gem to let her inside.
The ocean gem had gotten over the fact that, despite her own personal aversion to fusion, Garnet continued to stay together. How she managed such a feat, Lapis was both drawn to and horrified by the notion. Steven had been the one to console her that Garnet was fused with love, with the desire to stay together, to be around one another on purpose.
How could fusion be such a vast concept, that two polar opposites could exist under the same name? One loving, and one. . .
"She should be out soon," Garnet deduced as she readjusted the visor over her face. "Amethyst is currently fighting to find the Temple entrance through her room."
"Roger." Lapis tucked her arms in to her thin chest, drumming her fingers along her lower bicep in a technique she'd seen Peridot do countless times whenever she got impatient at home.
Through the watchful corners of her eyes, she could see Garnet turn away from the closed Temple door and turn her eyeless stare onto Lapis. On another day the blue gem would have considered her unbroken stare as guarded or impassive, but today, it seemed to radiate warm patience.
"What made you want to retrieve her limb enhancers?" She asked.
Lapis looked up from her crossed forearms, stopping her thrumming fingers to scrutinize Garnet. "How did she know?" She was quiet in her befuddlement until she remembered that Garnet was also a Sapphire. "Future vision, of course."
She also missed the small knowing smirk twitching on the fusion's face.
"She seemed so upset about them when she came back to the barn last night," she nonchalantly offered, putting in a small shrug for emphasis on her 'apathy'. "I thought it-"
The whooshing of the Temple door drifting open in a short burst of light cut her off. An undersized Amethyst stepped out, carrying in her arms a large pan spotted with brown grime. It wasn't until she looked up that she saw Lapis and Garnet boring down on her.
"Oh. 'Sup," the purple gem greeted lazily before ambling into the kitchen behind the counter island.
Garnet's shoulders lost some of their composure as the fusion moved across the house to loom behind the purple gem who was now moseying through the contents of Steven's fridge, pan in hand. "Amethyst, I've got a quick job for you."
Lapis could see Amethyst physically chafe at that. "What is it?" She sighed in over-exasperated cheerlessness. "'Cuz you know I'm not gonna do the chores 'round here. Not after last time."
"None of us have forgotten the last time," Garnet remarked coolly. "I'm going to send you with Lapis to retrieve something."
Lapis, from behind Garnet, met Amethyst's confused violet eyes and gave a half-hearted thumbs-up. "All right," complied the small gem as she placed her dirty pan on the countertop. "Just don't let Steven use that. He might die or something."
"Noted. Lapis is waiting."
Truthfully, the task at hand wasn't urgent, so Lapis wasn't really waiting. More or less, just lingering. Lapis had persuaded Peridot to perform a number of technology-related things that day - not that Lapis understood most of them. She'd been taught how to disassemble their tractor, and that about piqued the blue gem's level of expertise. But she knew that keeping Peridot busy would keep her sorrow from yesterday at bay.
And, it would give her time to go out and search.
It wouldn't be surprising if by the time she returned, limb enhancers in hand, Peridot was still tinkering away at her barn security drones.
"So, what're we lookin' for?" Amethyst probed as she hopped in beside Lapis, stretching her arms over her head and giving the blue gem a sideways glance. "More little mystery things that give us headaches? Another crash site? A will to-"
"Peridot's limb enhancers. Garnet said you know where they might be."
Amethyst stopped just as her foot came to hover over the shining surface of the warp pad. Her eyes sought out Lapis, and fixed her with a diffident glance. "Yeah, I know where those are," she mumbled, pensive. "Why're yo- ohoho!" The shorter gem's eyes lit up with realization as she threw herself wildly onto the teleportation device. "I know what you're up to!"
Lapis' lips tightened uncertainly. "What I'm up to?"
"Duh! You're gonna get Peri's limb thingies! Aww, that's so sweet of you," the purple gem swooned, feigning theatrical disbelief as she draped an arm playfully over her eyes.
At a loss for words, all Lapis could do was watch Amethyst make her melodramatic movements with a look of blank misunderstanding. "Sweet of me?" She queried dryly. "What does that-"
"It means it's you're doin' something nice for her," Amethyst explained breathlessly while she dramatically brushed an invisible tear from her eye. "You're just like Peridot when she was still a total nerd. And she's still a nerd, just cooler."
"What does being a nerd mean anyway?"
The purple gem ignored her question as crouched down and patted the place beside her on the warp pad to coax Lapis on.
"Unimportant! Now c'mon, those limb enhancers ain't gonna find themselves!"
"This is where we ditched 'em."
"The Galaxy Warp?"
Lapis stared at the sharp spires that reached up to the dusty blue sky with heavy reluctance. Then she glanced around her to see endless ocean on all sides. Of all the places on this planet to dispose of limb enhancers, why did it have to be this Gemforsaken place?
"Yup. This is where we caught her!" Amethyst tramped off of the warp pad and moved across the sun-baked surface of the foundation. "I think I threw 'em over the edge by that warp pad there. The one with the weird sticker of a crying piece of toast."
Lapis hesitantly followed Amethyst's outstretched arm until she saw the device she was talking about. She meandered over and gave the small warp pad a disinclined once-over. "What's the sticker mean?"
"Means it's offline. Deactivated. Dead. Whatever word you wanna use." Amethyst came up beside her, squinting at the bizarre sticker Steven had placed on the warp.
Lapis made a noncommittal noise, brushing off the curious crying icon and skirting around the abandoned device. "You said you threw them over? Over the edge?" She asked for clarification, giving the water below a rather disconsolate look.
Amethyst sucked guiltily at her teeth. "Yeah, 'cuz we didn't ever think we'd need them. Same deal for Peridot. I just kinda. . . " She made a sweeping movement with her arms. "Chucked 'em down there. On accident."
"On accident?" Lapis echoed, narrowed eyes portraying her disbelief.
"I did say oops. Sarcastically."
The taller gem hummed caustically, staring down at the waves crashing against the rims of the Galaxy Warp, whispering anxiously in wait for the ocean gem to be dropped into its dark, wet depths.
"Okay," Lapis sighed, placing her hands on her hips before glancing at the casual purple gem. "Thanks for showing me."
"Yeah, yeah," preened Amethyst, flapping her hand over her chest in a very Pearl-esque fashion. "No sweat. If it's gonna- whoa!"
Before the gem could even finish Lapis had taken a broad stride over the edge of the platform in a quick surge of courage. Earth's gravitational pull sucked her down, billowing out her blue dress as wind rode up her legs. It was hard to remain composed as she felt cold water crash around her ankles and subsequently pull the rest of her down beneath the surface.
She waited, expecting to feel the abhorrent sensation of watery chains locking around her wrists and the achingly chaotic feelings that came with being trapped underwater.
Lapis opened her eyes only to register that she wasn't trapped.
Sheer cliffs of rock rose up around her, harboring small ocean life that flitted curiously in and out of their festive reefs to view the new being currently drifting through their midst. Sand eventually scrunched between her bare feet, and she blinked down at the clouding ocean floor.
Gone was the mottled green realm where she suffered for so long: all that was around her was pure, natural ocean. Her element and thereby her domain.
She wasn't trapped; it had been over for a long time now. She was here for Peridot, not to reminisce over her past.
The revelation lassoed in a new bout of determination as Lapis employed her powers and had them assist her in surveying the perimeter. The current in this section of the waters was remarkably soft, presumably weakened by the shelves of rocky coral jutting out from the ocean floor to blockade the area. If Peridot's limb enhancers had fallen here, they can't have gone far if the rhythm of the waters had been the same at her time of capture.
Pressurized water brushed away excess scraps of dead coral and underwater foliage, revealing the grainy sand to light, however faded, for the first time in could have been many, many years. Lapis pushed her way through a thriving sponge colony, delicately pawing her way as to not disturb the marine beings dwelling there.
Even if the ocean had caused her so much grief in the past, she didn't think it would be incredibly fair to wreak on its inhabitants the same sentiment.
The next stretch of ocean was heavily adorned with beds upon beds of reef. Tiny fish darted from one colourful shelf to another, some even daring to dart close enough for Lapis to make out the light shimmering against their individual scales.
The colony was so rich and diverse in colour that it would take quite the effort to hunt the enhancers down simply by sight. Lapis withheld a groan at considering the idea of personally shifting through the ocean detritus. She would never be home before nightfall, which had been the plan all along.
Why did they have to ditch her enhancers, anyway? Couldn't Pearl have used them for something? Modified them to fit Crystal Gem standards, whatever that meant?
While Lapis was brooding a slim royal blue-and-black fish flecked with gold freckles had rode right up in front of her, swimming so close that Lapis had to cross her eyes to make it out clearly.
"I don't suppose you know where Peridot's things might be," she snorted mockingly. Its fins swiveled as the slender fish turned away from her. She swore she could see its dark pupil fixated on her before it darted away at breakneck speed into the din of the coral reefs.
Before she could decide why she found herself rocketing after the fish. Her skirt pinned to her legs as she swooped beneath a green rock arch, tearing through a fluttering meadow of sea lettuce. She chased it through an amalgam of algae before it halted. Lapis slammed to a stop, her hair forming a wispy halo around her face and her skirt swelling at the abrupt lack of locomotion.
The blue fish spun around to fix Lapis with a blank, beady brown stare, before it began to slowly swim deeper into what Lapis realized must have been an underwater cavern.
The animosity the lair diffused didn't go unnoticed. Even if water was her specialty, navigating through dark underwater corridors was especially annoying. Considering the only source of light she could offer was on her back. Load of good that would do her down here.
Lapis steeled herself and dove deeper into the open mouth until all light was consumed by dark blackness. Panic began to flutter like a caged bird in the willowy gem's chest as she tried to stand but found her feet churning in water rather than solid rock.
In the middle of her mentally cursing the fish for leading her on into this creepy place, something flashed in her peripheral vision.
Sure enough, when Lapis forced her head in the gleam's direction, she could make out something reflecting against an unseen light source further into the cavern. Upon closer inspection she realized with a relieved grin that it was a disheveled set of limb enhancers. Even the small magnetic fingers that came with it were piled atop them.
She zipped over to the set and ran a finger over the electric green surface of the devices. It was shocking how they lacked layers of grime or algae from being underwater so long, in so dark and dank at place at that.
As she lifted up one of the metal legs, she contemplated its weight before something awful struck her.
What was lighting up the cavern?
The water-muffled sound of rocks grinding made Lapis to swivel around. She caught the flash of luminescent scales, quivering only an arm's length away from her in the murk. She stifled a gasp as she raised her eyes up for a better look.
A colossal eel's face glared down at her with glowing blue eyes that screamed malice. A gem was stuck just below its bulbous jawline, sickly glittering in the light emitting from its own skin. Like a bird ruffles its feathers its scales convulsed, pulsing sharp blue light throughout its body.
Lapis decided to take that as a sign to get out of there.
Slowly, Lapis moved her wrists to gather the limb enhancers into a cluster of bubbles. But as soon as they began to lift from their throne the eel let out a gurgling shriek before nosediving towards Lapis.
The ocean gem darted out of the way, dress swaying elegantly around her as she coldly regarded the monster. It had coiled itself to cover the entrance where she had come in.
"I'm trapped," came the alarming thought, dawning upon her like frost that engulfed her limbs and made her freeze in place. "The only way to get out's through there." Her eyes snapped around the cavern, but she didn't get long because the eel's massive head crashed into the wall beside her, making the cavern tremble with the silent threat of a collapse.
Thinking about being stuck down here, forever trapped beneath the stones, awoke something cold and aggressive inside of Lapis. She shot away from the dazed sea monster, mustering strength and willing the water ripple and dance around her until it was a dense whirlwind that deflected any attacks the eel tried.
Her hands thrilled with energy as she sent a volley of pressurized water missiles into the beast's glinting eyes, taking immense satisfaction when it bellowed its dismay at being blinded. The cavern around them, however, didn't share Lapis' fulfillment. The walls gave a ill-boding groan as half-formed stalagmites began to break from the roof and drop down onto the fighting gems below.
Lapis darted downwards, narrowly avoiding being clocked in the head by sinking rock. She ripped down through the shifting current towards the limb enhancers, hoping to snatch them and make a wild swim for it, but she felt her hand touch the sleek scales of the monster instead.
It released another enraged holler before smacking its body roughly against Lapis, sending the blue gem spiraling into a wall. A cracking sound filled her ears, followed by smaller, weaker crackling. She flinched when a shock of pain rippled through her back, and inwardly prayed to anyone and anything that her gem wasn't cracked.
The impact she made had sent a channel of cracks up the cliff wall. She watched in horror as the fissures reached hungrily up to the ceiling, releasing a barrage of sharp stones and sending them careening down onto the large eel.
A monstrous scream, an explosion, and then darkness swallowed the crumbling cavern, leaving Lapis scrambling in the dark to catch the poofed gem.
When the ovular gem fell into her hands, she quickly surrounded it in a bubble. Without thought she tapped the surface of the bubble and was shocked to see it rise before quickly dissipating to wherever bubbled gems went. Not a moment later did the last of the cavern begin to cave in, crunching everything under the intense weight of the falling rocks.
Lapis hurried over to grab Peridot's limb enhancers and made haste out of the cave, escaping mere seconds before the entire thing smashed in on itself.
She sped through the waters, up towards the surface where she could see the sunlight waltzing on the seafoam. She shot upwards, followed by a floating bubble of water that held the enhancers inside, and extended her wings to soar up into a cloudless sky. She kept the enhancers within the safety of her water plume; it was a lot easier than trying to carry each and every little piece of the set in her arms.
Judging by the sun's position in the sky, it was a little past noon. Lapis could be back at the barn by early afternoon! With a victorious excitement that buzzed from the tips of her wings to the very heart of her gem, Lapis flew quickly back to give her findings back to their proper wearer.
The excitement made the journey back more lethargic, like it was purposefully stretched out. It was enough to make the water gem think she'd never reach the barn. But when Lapis could make out the massive Temple fusion in the distance, she slowed down with a sigh of relief.
The gem dove down and soared over the sands of Beach City's outskirts, stopping when she spotted a familiar star-wearing boy next to a less familiar girl.
"Steven!" Lapis gladly called out, dropping to the sands with a small huff. The boy looked up from the small construction he had been making with the human girl and quickly forgot it, stamping through the sand to greet the tired Lapis.
"Lapis! Hi!" He gasped as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Oh! Oh! Connie, come meet Lapis!"
The dark-skinned girl hovered uncertainly near the sand castle the two had been working on, eyeing Lapis with what the gem thought was suspicion. "I think we've met before, Steven," she softly said as she stepped towards them.
"Oh." Steven's face fell at the reminder of the last time Connie and Lapis had seen each other. "But meet again! She's totally good now!"
"But. . . what's that huge thing of water doing beside her?"
"Huh?"
Steven pried himself away from Lapis, and she sheepishly folded her arms as she turned back to see the bubble of water containing the limb enhancers looming curiously over her shoulder.
"Oh my gosh!" Steven beamed, gripping with iron fists onto the edge of Lapis' skirt and tugging energetically like she didn't notice the things floating around in her bubble. "Those are Peridot's limb enhancers!"
Connie floundered in beside Steven, gazing at the balloon of water in now undisguised wonder. "Limb enhancers?"
"I-I wanted to find them," Lapis spoke, surprised by the stammer in her voice. She had planned how she would present the enhancers to Peridot, but not anyone else. She didn't mind sharing her findings with Steven, though; maybe he could come to present them to her. "For Peridot. She seemed really upset. . ."
"Aaaa, this is great!" The boy hollered, throwing up his hands and staring at the floating limb enhancers. A shadow of thought passed across his face as his eyes skimmed over to the beach house on the hill. "Hold on! Hold on! I think - I think I have her foot!"
"What?" Lapis turned around to view the scattered limbs before she noticed how one of the legs was missing its foot attachment. "Oh. I couldn't see that in the dark."
"It's okay! I have it in a place. . . somewhere! I'll be right back!" Steven sprinted away, leaving a cloud of flying sand in his wake. As well as Connie and Lapis staring in bafflement after him.
Lapis turned to the small human, unable to pinpoint exactly where she had seen the face before. The memories were muddled and almost unrecognizable, but she could remember. . .
"Oh. . . Sorry, about what happened. With the ocean."
Connie's, Lapis remembered Steven calling her that, head snapped up and she met with Lapis' unreadable eyes. "It's okay," the human murmured and rubbed her hand through her dark hair thoughtfully. "The ocean came back! And Steven's talked about you a lot since you were freed, too." She phrased the end of her comment like it was a question. "I'm glad things are going okay for you now!"
Lapis regarded Connie quietly, brows quirking with inquiry. She couldn't begin to make amends for what she did when her gem was cracked. And with that thought, another alarming one came to mind.
"What's wrong?" Connie asked upon noticing Lapis' immediate discomfort.
She swiftly reached for her back, and reprieve swamped over her when she didn't feel a crack in her gem. "Nothing," she sighed, her terror abated. "I just thought-"
"I've got the foot!"
Steven raced up between Connie and Lapis, dusted with sand but holding up a metallic green foot in his chubby hands. "Can I carry it to the barn? Please?" He pleaded, grinning up at Lapis as he hugged the foot to the star on his chest. "I really wanna see Peridot! She'll be so happy!"
Lapis chuckled and happily pressed her hand through the boy's curly head of hair. "Why not?"
"Woo-hoo!" Steven bolted over to Connie. "C'mon! We can take the warp from the house!" Lapis wasn't sure how she felt about this stranger seeing their home, but if Steven was okay with it, then she guessed she could be, too.
"Wait a second, Steven." Lapis stopped them, glanced at the ocean waves rolling leisurely onto the beach, and swapped her eyes back onto the children. Her eyes were playful. "I think I have a better idea."
"Now, with how I just recalibrated them. . . they should be able to do . . this!"
Peridot flew her hands back, watching with anticipation as the drone between her legs did. . . absolutely nothing.
"Grahh! For the love of clod!" The small gem shouted, having run dry of options on how to further revise the issues plaguing her security drones. She resorted to kicking the dumb robot off of the barn loft where she'd been working, watching hostile smugness as it splintered on the barn floor below. Right next to the first one she had tried readjusting.
It didn't influence her anymore than the random blue bubble that had appeared next to the lime one she had sent here after her triumph in the beta Kindergarten with Steven.
Seeing them both scattered across the worn floorboards brought back her sense of impotence. "I can't even fix a stupid drone," she grunted, staring at the remote control that had previously controlled the drones. It wasn't like they were useless! They had worked plenty of times before, but only seemed to come out of hiding whenever Lapis was around.
Speaking of her barn mate, she had been absent for the whole day now. The blue gem had taken off just before the sun had lifted into the sky to begin its daily cycle, and had yet to show a sign of return. Peridot's lips tightened anxiously. Usually whenever Lapis was gone for longer than a handful of hours, she would tell Peridot where she was going, especially now that the two were much closer.
Had she frightened Lapis off last night? Had she finally decided that the debilitated Peridot was no longer worth the close companionship of? Had she-
"Peridot!"
If Peridot had a heart, it would have jumped into her throat and throbbed at how quickly her mood alleviated and her head got lighter. "Lapis!" She squeaked, scrambling across the loft and diving down the wooden ladder. She tripped over a part that had disassembled from the main body of a drone, falling flat on her face with a curse.
"I'm coming!"The green gem scurried to the barn doors, taking a final glance at the mess of scraps and robot parts she'd left strewn across the lower level. "Uh, disregard the collateral mess in there," she chuckled nervously as she turned to where she thought Lapis was. "I was only-"
"Ta-da!"
Peridot was interrupted when Steven and a human girl run up to her. The boy thrust out his arms and showed the object in his arms to the gem with a huge smile. "Surprise! You left it in the bathroom when we all came over to the barn for the drill!"
Her eyes stretched behind her visor as she fumbled for her old foot, long since disconnected from its original enhancer. "What a great souvenir of that other time you assaulted me," she echoed, remembering uttering the same words when Steven came to her in the bathroom after her initial release. Steven laughed and handed her the foot.
She ran her fingers across its smooth surface. Already she could feel the sorrow for the rest of her enhancers distend within her, and if she could shape-shift her appearance she was sure it would be subconsciously inflating. "Thank you," she murmured. "But- I can't do anything with it like this. I can't even employ it for its intended purpose without the rest. . . "
"And you've got it all right here."
Lapis' smooth voice resonated from behind Peridot, and the small gem twirled around before she was benumbed with astonishment.
Gathered in Lapis' arms, a set of dripping limb enhancers were bundled together, with the taller gem fumbling to keep the fingers from dropping to the earth below. "Surprise," the blue gem tried with a doting, yet unsure, smile.
Those couldn't be. . .
"My limb enhancers?"
Peridot closed in the distance between her and Lapis until there was only an inch separating them from one another. She reached out her hand and placed it dumbly over the metal enhancer, like if she touched it it would vanish like the illusion this had to be.
Lapis laughed above her and crouched to place the enhancers on the grass. "Yeah. I went to the place where they said they got rid of them and fought a monster and-"
Lapis' words were brief because Peridot had flung herself around her middle. Shakes reverberated through the green gem's form as her fists clenched with the raw feelings that were just tearing away at her form like they had all the right in the galaxy.
Peridot faltered slightly when she felt soft hands gently pry her away from Lapis' skirt, looking up with damp eyes only to see the gem crouch down and return the embrace. "I know how much they meant to you after yesterday," the blue gem murmured as Peridot dumbfoundedly rested her head in the lithe crook of her shoulder. She was frantically telling herself over and over that she shouldn't be shaking and she definitely, definitely. . .
Lapis stiffened within her grasp. "Oh my stars, Peridot, are you crying?"
"No!" Sputtered Peridot, burrowing her visor deeper into Lapis' shoulder to hide her face but ultimately ended up spotting her visor with more of the building tears. "It's the rain!"
"But it's not raining?"
The small gem held on to Lapis for a while longer before finally pulling herself away, blinking away the stray moisture gathered in her eyes as she stared up at Lapis. "Wow, thanks," she whispered happily, softly smiling before her face broke out into one of pure ecstasy as she spun away and ran over to the limb enhancers scattered across the grass.
"Do you know what this means!" She squealed, holding up one of her arm enhancements and offering the others a winning smirk as she held it high above her head.
"You're gonna be taller?" Connie and Steven guessed together.
"No!" Peridot snapped, before realizing her error. "Well, yes, but this also means. . .
Her head shot up. "Steven! The Peridot ship! I can go in like Garnet suggested! I can retrieve the information!"
I can't believe Dory made a cameo in this thing. Same with a corrupted eel version of Tamatoa from Moana. Peridot's limb enhancers count as shiny things, right? I basically made those the hook here, hAA. Love me some homage to other things.
This is my favourite chapter so far - just because I got to do some extra things involving Lapis and Peridot. But, hey, I wonder what it means now that Peridot has the enhancers back?