It took two minutes for Blue Zircon to realize two things: one, that Raspberry Quartz had hidden herself very well; and two, that Cranberry was following her.
Every once in a while, an echo that she thought was her own footstep wouldn't sound quite right, as if off tempo. At one point, she whipped around and caught a flash of pink darting behind a trash bin.
The first of the two things made sense. Of course it would take forever to find Raspberry. She knew the warehouse better than Zircon; she probably had a whole handful of sulking corners. Zircon had even begun thinking that it was foolish to gallivant into the unknown without a guide.
But the second thing, Zircon could understand only minimally. Tourmalines were worriers by nature. They had to be if they were to do their jobs, which was making sure things happened when they needed to — or for being the shoulder to cry on for higher class gems. The happy medium between an agate and a mental therapy pearl. Zircon supposed this qualified both categories. And of course Cranberry would worry about Raspberry's reaction to Zircon; it wasn't like the last one had been at all successful.
But still. It was somewhat unnerving, seeing Cranberry just out of the corner of her eye, following thirty feet behind and to the left of her.
Only by luck did Zircon finally find the runaway Raspberry Quartz. Along one wall of the warehouse ran a series of transport tunnels, most of them blocked off or spilling with disintegrating transport cars. But one was empty, its tracks seemingly pulled into the black hole by gravity alone. Only one thing broke it: a marble of pink light. Just under it, the outline of a face and fists. Raspberry.
Taking a deep breath, Zircon stepped forward into the tunnel — and then stopped as her foot crunched in gravel. Raspberry whirled around. For a second, her eyes met Zircon's...and then she put out the light of her gem and disappeared. But there was no sound of movement.
"Raspberry?" Zircon said.
No response. Tentatively, Zircon stepped forward again. She couldn't see in the inky darkness anymore, but estimated it would only take ten or so steps to reach Raspberry. It did. Her hand brushed a soft tuft of hair —
"Don't touch me," Raspberry snapped.
Zircon startled back. Her eyes had adjusted; Raspberry was curled up against the crumbling back wall of the shallow tunnel, her back turned to Zircon. Cornered. She had nowhere to go. Like this, she was smaller than Zircon. But there were also narrowed eyes, bared teeth, curled fists. So Zircon stepped back.
"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry. Next time, I'll ask."
"There won't be a next time. Get away from me." Raspberry tucked her head down again.
"I wanted to apologize for — "
"I don't care. If you knew what it meant when you opened your fool mouth, you wouldn't BE here."
The silence that fell was deafening. Zircon stepped back, her hand over her mouth. "But...I…"
"I said GET OUT!"
As loud as it was, Raspberry's voice wobbled. Zircon flinched. Without thinking, she turned and sprinted back to the mouth of the tunnel.
This was a whole load of pointless.
Wearily, she began to pace, rubbing her forehead. She could see Cranberry Tourmaline from here, clearly thinking that she was well hidden behind an old billboard — but not, because her pink shoes showed in the gap underneath. Suddenly, something flared hot in Zircon's chest. She wanted to face Cranberry and tell her that she was wrong; Raspberry clearly didn't care about how sorry Zircon felt. All that stupid quartz wanted was to keep holding her grudge forever. It was just one word; why did she have to take it so seriously; why couldn't she just forgive Zircon and then this whole ordeal would be over —
Her foot bumped against something hard and cold. Something that clinked.
When she looked down, she saw that it was a chain — each loop the size of her fist, the surfaces rusted from the eons but its strength yet preserved. At first, Zircon thought it must have been an old piece of equipment. There were plenty of those down here...but her eyes, subconsciously, followed the length of chain as it wound across the floor. Then they widened.
At the end of the chain was a giant iron collar, large enough to wrap around Zircon's entire waist. When she knelt and brushed her fingers across it, the rust gave way to a line of carvings. A diamond, a word in a language she didn't know, and a number: "10011". Perhaps once, the diamond had been painted a color. Perhaps once, the word might have meant something. But now the shackle lay disused on the ground, its bolt still tightly shut, forever locked around the ghost of 10011.
Brainless chunk of granite.
Zircon couldn't say who 10011 was, what had happened to her, why her collar was here. She could have been a quartz; she could have been a topaz; she could have been a primordial being, something wilder, whatever walked the surface of Homeworld back when this WAS a surface.
But, as she knelt in the dust, holding 10011's collar, one thing rushed upon Zircon in total clarity: this was not a thing of the past.
Of course she had studied her history. But she couldn't remember a time when the quartz was respected without having to fight for it. They were expected to take whatever abuse was thrown at them. What was a soldier who pitied herself? What was a soldier who lashed back when she was called impure or defective? She was none at all — and Zircon knew this.
And yet it was still so hard to wrap her mind around. She couldn't help but still be angry. Maybe what they both needed was a little space, Zircon reasoned. If Raspberry wanted to be like that, then she could. So she turned to go.
Then, she saw the light.
It was right in front of her, right in front of Raspberry's hiding tunnel, a flickering yellow pinprick in the hazy distance of the warehouse. At first she thought it was the spotlight that the peridots had oriented for the training ring, but that hadn't been on this side...and this one was growing in size, and rumbling…
Oh, no.
So many things happened at once. Cranberry's voice shrieked her name. The rumbling grew to a deafening pitch — the yellow light seemed to draw her in — she realized that it wasn't going to stop — something in her head began to count down. Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.
Raspberry!
Cranberry had emerged from behind the billboard, but she was frozen in fear, her mouth twisted in a silent scream. She knew it as clearly as Zircon. If the transport didn't stop — who in blazes was driving it?! — it would rocket down the tunnel, towards Raspberry. Sixteen, fifteen. Crushing her for sure.
But it wasn't stopping. As if possessed, Zircon waved her arms until her shoulders hurt, screaming at the transport to stop, but soon she couldn't even hear her own voice. An ungodly screech filled the air — the brakes of the train, slamming down against the wheels. Sparks flew from both sides.
Thirteen.
But it didn't stop.
Zircon expected — no, WISHED that Raspberry would notice the commotion by now, and perhaps come out on her own, but when she whirled around she saw nothing but the darkness. "Raspberry! RASPBERRY, GET OUT OF THERE!" she cried, scrambling to the mouth of the tunnel. She glanced back at the train. Ten.
"I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE!" Raspberry yelled back. "Now QUIT IT WITH THE NOISE!"
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.
"Raspberry, please!" Zircon begged. "Turn around! YOU NEED TO GET OUT!"
"I'M NOT LISTENING! HANDS OVER MY EARS! KISS MY FACET, UPPER CRUST!"
Six. Five. Four.
For a second Zircon saw inside the front window of the transport. Three pairs of wide eyes. Two peridots and a hyacinth zircon.
"RASPBERRY, YOU HAVE TO RUN — "
Three. And no response.
There were ten feet in between Zircon and the transport. Twenty feet in between the transport and Raspberry Quartz, huddled at the back of the tunnel, shut off from the world.
Two.
And it was like something spoke past her ears, directly to the part of her mind that controlled her legs, and she took off — into the tunnel. Her reason screamed in protest. This was suicide — what did she plan to do — was there even a plan at all — why was she running in?
But then she skidded to a stop in the gravel, just in front of Raspberry; just as the quartz lifted her head, her glare slowly morphing into pure horror. Zircon didn't stop to meet her eyes.
Instead she turned, facing the blinding glow and deafening roar and scalding heat — and raised her palms to meet them.
She had never felt more at peace.
.
One.
.
There were six witnesses: Peridots 5XI and 5XU, Yellow Zircon, Cranberry Tourmaline, Raspberry Quartz, and Blue Zircon.
5XI and 5XU would always — without a doubt — begin their story by saying that they DID have things under control. Initially. Then the accelerator got stuck and the brakes failed and they both began to scream. Not because they would be in danger, oh no; they knew perfectly well that a transport crash wouldn't kill THEM. But a certain large pink someone might upon realizing that they had just crashed the only working transport.
Yellow Zircon passed out a second before the impact happened. 5XI and 5XU, the considerate beings that they were, left her on the floor until ordered to pick her up.
Cranberry Tourmaline saw what she thought was the whole thing. She saw the transport skidding out of control; she realized that Raspberry had never come out of the tunnel. She saw Zircon run in. Her brain shut down a little before then and all she could do was watch as the transport barreled into the tunnel…then, with a flash of light and a sickening, shrieking CRUNCH, stop. Only the tail end stuck out, forcing the clouds of dust to billow around it. And all she could think was "I am the only survivor." It came out of her mouth as a wordless shriek.
Raspberry Quartz, at first, saw nothing.
Then she realized something — that color was pressing in on her eyelids, like someone had turned on a bright light. "This is it," she thought. "This is what being shattered is like. Bright light."
But then she registered her own arms hugging her chest. Her body. Her hand shot up to her forehead and found an untouched gem. Her eyes flew open — and saw Blue Zircon standing above her, hands outstretched as if to push something away.
And surrounding them both was a blue half-dome, humming with electricity and light.
At first, Zircon thought the same thing as Raspberry — that she was shattered or cracked and this was just a refractory period where her brain didn't know how to process the information. Heat coursed through her entire form, sweat poured down her face and back, her fingers and toes tingled with numbness. She was frozen in a lunge.
When she saw the bubble around them, her mouth dropped open. It wasn't bright like the spotlight — rather, warm despite the blue, soothing, dimmer and pulsing with a comforting glow. Just past the glazed, translucent surface, Zircon could just make out the wreckage beyond. The transport that had nearly shattered them.
The bubble was tall enough that it filled the end of the tunnel, stretching up to the cieling. Wide enough to hold her and Raspberry, still on her knees. The quartz was silent.
Slowly, Raspberry reached out and touched the bubble wall, her eyes large and glimmering in the light. Where she touched it, little veins of white rippled across the surface of the bubble, and Zircon shivered. It tickled her hands.
"Did you do this?" Raspberry asked. Her voice was small and hoarse as a ruby's. And Zircon didn't know how to answer.
"I…I didn't know I could…"
She dropped her hands to her side and the bubble vanished, delving them into darkness again. Two lights flickered overhead — the transport's shattered headlamp and the light from inside the crushed cabin, where the faces of 5XI and 5XU gaped down at them. For once, they seemed struck speechless.
A sound tugged at Zircon's attention. "Raspberry? Starlite?" called a voice, high and trembling. Cranberry Tourmaline. Before either of them could respond, she appeared at the top of a pile of wreckage, her dress torn and her face covered in dust.
As soon as she saw them, she ran forward and crushed them both in a hug.
"I — I saw you run in, I didn't know what to do, I saw a flash and I thought you were — were — shattered; I don't understand…"
She began to cry, messy, trembling sobs that dripped onto Zircon's shoulder. The way Cranberry hugged them, part of Zircon was squished between Cranberry's and Raspberry's chests, a fact that she wasn't sure how to think about. Awkwardly, she tried to return the hug...but then her hand brushed against someone else's and she jerked away.
The embrace broke apart. Suddenly, it became very obvious how sweaty Zircon was, and how both Cranberry and Raspberry were staring at her. "I, ah…" she mumbled. She shuffled her feet in the gravel. "I'm just going to. Go."
She couldn't get away fast enough. Like a coward, she turned on her heel and split.
A/N: i don't even know why i keep posting here if nobody except the occasional "plz update and that's the only thing im putting in my review" guy are enjoying it
please fucking review im tired and im this close to not updating here anymore because, despite the fact that i have more views here than on both archiveofourown and amino combined, i got one review last time and it was one of those "plz update"s. like i don't actually care but if nobody likes this fic then im not super jazzed to put in the effort it takes to upload it here