Rest for the Werey

A full house can be a blessing and a curse as Morion searches for answers after a slew of restless nights.

Kids Ages: 16.5/14.5/12.5

Part 2 : Fish Nor Fowl

Humans and Gems... it's still some pretty new territory.

Upon returning home from school, Morion was already sluggish. Ri had stayed late with Thema for a student government meeting. You wouldn't think a Pre-K-through-Twelve school with only a few dozen students would need a student government (and you'd be right), but Thema had seen to the creation of one to add to her resume, as if there wasn't enough to recommend her already. Typically their meetings didn't last long, but Citrine and Cairn had been in a rush to get home today and had headed off right after school instead of waiting for Ri to finish. So Morion had made the walk across town on mor own and at a much slower pace than usual, owing both to the absence of fleet-footed Cairn and Morion's own recent unshakable tiredness.

"Hellooo?" Morion called out upon entering the quieter than expected house.

"Hey, how was your day Rion?" Connie was in the kitchen cutting up some fruit slices for their after-school snack.

Morion shrugged, "Where are Cit and Cairn?" and then spotting the two extra backpacks on the floor, "...and Sal and Afia?"

"They were headed to the Sea Dome, want to take these to them?"

"Sure."

"Thanks Sweetheart... You okay?"

Rion nodded and dropped the faded burger-shaped backpack over the back of a dining room chair and carried the tray of fruit and water bottles to the dais at the back of the room. Using voice commands, Morion played the recording on the phone to activate the warp stream to the underwater facility.

"Not that I'm complaining, but why are we doing this!?" Sal called out from the sea of dumped sports balls of every shape and size.

"Gemma Garnet says I need to work on my Agility," Citrine answered as one of the red dodge balls they'd borrowed from the school hit her on the side of the head, barely phasing her, "Gem attacks," she said in a worthy imitation of the fusion's accented voice, "pack a powerful punch- you could get seriously hurt if you just stand there and let them hit you."

"That's not what she said," Cairngorm shook his head from a few feet away, easily side-stepping the basketball that bounded his way.

"Eh, something about dodging, whatever, close enough," Citrine shrugged.

"Dodge this!" Afia warned, sending a series of lined up soccer balls flying toward the two Universes in rapid succession.

Cairn dodged one of the balls with a twisting step and batted away the next with a wooden training sword. Jumping out of the way of the first aimed at her, Citrine inadvertently stepped into the path of the next ball, and it bounced forcibly off of her shoulder. Citrine forwent her own training sword in favor of kicking the next one back with her foot.

"Citrine!" Cairn scolded, "That's not dodging!"

The Sea Dome's warp pad was in the center of a large yellow-tinted glass dome. It had thick golden support ribs sprouting from around its circular floor at regular intervals that met at a ring centered over the dias that Morion stood on now. From this vantage point, the ribs and ring looked like spokes of a giant wheel, and twisting slightly while looking up gave the illusion that the whole room was revolving around you.

Suspended between the ribs were egg-shaped entry pods, reminding Morion of the sides of the strawberry pots in the Garden. They were like little balconies of water, open to air above on the dome side and water below on the dome's exterior. Thick rims long coated in salt deposits and barnacles prevented spillage from the water displaced when you crawled into one, making each pod function like the S-bend of a toilet. The thought that there would have ever been enough Gems entering the facility at once to require so many doors in addition to the warp pad still awed Morion, and yet paled in comparison to the incomprehensible seating capacity that the Arena was clearly built for. All those gems would have been lost- shattered in the ensuing war, or else corrupted and left to roam the earth until the Crystal Gems bubbled them.

How many of the gems in their basement had seen this place first hand, filled to the brim with their friends as they watched... whatever it was that had entertained civilized Gems so?

Morion had named this room the Landing Dome. It was one of four large domes that flanked the great Arena Dome in the center of the complex.

There, through the large arch straight ahead, ri could hear the familiar voices of the teens echoing in the vast main chamber… and yet Morion hesitated to join them.

The Landing Dome sat opposite Morion's favorite room, and by the sound of it, the others wouldn't even notice a delay. These outer domes were connected by a series of irregular smaller domes, which would have acted as a concourse during the events that took place here. Morion headed right, toward the second-largest opening in the wall. The vast majority of these linked antechambers were full of benches clustered into intimate seating arrangements. Their centers were left wide open to facilitate movement of crowds between them, and the glass above their low ceilings was tinted dark or encrusted in organic patterns of the sea life from above.

However, a few, like the one Morion passed through now, had clearly been altered fairly recently. Darker spots on the smooth floors belied the locations and sizes of the cases that would have stood here for millennia while the surrounding floor was subtly bleached by the sunlight filtering down from the surface above. The kids figured they would have held trophies or other memorabilia, but Ri wasn't sure why their gemmas would have gone through the trouble of removing something so innocuous. The fine powder of shimmering dust coating the floor was best left undisturbed though, and Morion quickly moved on to enter the second-best room of the complex.

This brightly lit dome was held up by irregular tendrils of dark-green supports that branched out and entwined amongst the panels of pink-tinted glass. The circular pool in the center had long been dry, but liquid there would have once reflected sparkling light back onto whoever stood at the raised triangular dais in its center, at the very heart of the room. The benches here were not arranged in tight groupings, but rather in long arching rows that were slightly askew: turning a pattern that could have been concentric and orderly into something suggestive of lively and organic tendencies, reigned back and toned down to the point that the lack of perfectly parallel lines could be construed as accidental by anyone not willing to look at them too closely.

But this room was a sterile imitation of the real thing, and they called it the Fountain Dome not because of any functioning water works, but because of its notable similarity to the fountain at the Garden.

Tray still in hand, Morion took a moment to glance out of the large archway on the left, only to see the four teens gathering scattered sport balls. Cairn and Afia seemed to be doing the most work, while Citrine and Sal had gotten side-tracked and appeared to be trying to lob the balls at each other's heads under the guise of throwing them very poorly back to the pile.

"Halfway..." Morion muttered, and forged on through the pointed arch that led to more antechambers. Another emptied room, more lounges, a shrine, and finally to the Bunt Dome.

This room was named after it's shape: the glass walls of the dome curved back into a funnel at the center of the room, which dove into an open pool of seawater. The deep blue tint of the glass, and the smell of the water would have been sufficient to create the illusion that anyone walking here was walking through water. But the effect was further heightened by the large coral and seaweed that decorated the space and the glass bottom of this dome through which the sea floor was visible a few dozen yards below. There was a water-filled tube tunnel that led from the open pool to the Arena, where the retractable floor could be opened over a large basin of salt water. The corals reminded Morion of the rose moss around Beach City, a fascinating mixture of magic and organic life.

Today, movement near the bottom of the funnel alerted Morion to the presence of a more benign life form. A hermit crab struggled to escape back up the smooth glass wall in a bid to return to the rest of the ocean. Morion sat the tray down and stuck a hand in the frigid water, carefully checking that the creature hadn't been damaged, and carried it over to the side of the pool thick with seaweed.

"If you want to leave so bad, the least I can do is help, huh?" Morion's hands relaxed as the seaweed twisted and grew, entwining around Ri's arms and carrying the little crustacean up and up and up the funnel, over the round ridge, so that its slide down the side of the dome would deposit it in the soft sand below.

This feature had clearly not been designed with marine safety in mind. Creatures were constantly getting lost and stuck here. Morion was glad for making the detour, but the others would be getting thirsty with all their exertion. Ri pulled shivering arms out of the water and dried them with the long hem of mor t-shirt before picking up the the tray and following the path of the underwater tunnel out into the largest room: the Arena Dome.

Large, faded banners hung from four of the eight massive arches that supported the clear glass of the cavernous dome, high above the concentric rings of steps that formed seating for thousands of spectators. Down the aisle of steps Morion went, careful not to topple any of the tray's contents, even when a tennis ball flew by scant inches from Morion's head.

"Cairn!" Citrine shouted as the rubber exercise ball he so effortlessly dodged careened into her, "Uhg," she groaned from a heap on the stone floor, "how'd you get your legs to do that!?"

"Keep your stance wide." Cairn intoned academically as he helped her up. He demonstrated the basic stance himself, and prompted her to try and mimic it. Shaking his head, he used the wooden sword to push Citrine's leg into a more suitable position, "Keep your body lowered… like so. Remember: balance is key." Without warning he pushed against her hip, and she was able to shift her balance to the other leg without toppling over.

She smiled enthusiastically before cracking a joke, "I dunno, it looked different when you did it!"

"Ha-ha. You hardly need to use your leg as a counterbalance when you've got all that mass centered-" as a tennis ball flew towards him, he shifted and swiped at it with the sword, sending it flying back toward Sal and Afia, but not near enough that it might hit either of them.

"If anyone else tried to say that to me, Cairn!" Citrine laughed, twisting out the way of a volleyball when her first instinct told her to kick it back. He was right though, it was easier to keep her balance like this. What was it he'd said? Citrine started humming then singing, weaving his words into a ditty so she could remember it for later.

"Are you paying attention?"

She paused for a second to reply, "Of course!" before continuing her singing.

"Do you have to do that?"

"I'm doing what you told me…"

"Yeah, no, I meant the song?"

"Oh…" Citrine took a moment to glance at him, confused. Since when did Cairn have a problem with singing? "Singing helps me remember things better. Gregpa taught me how when I kept failing my spelling tests. It helps me focus... like you with that shaky leg," She swept her training sword toward his tapping foot.

He blocked her sword with his own. "It's called a mnemonic but that's not what I meant…" Cairn was long used to people breaking out into song at the drop of a hat. "I meant... that's not how it goes." Citrine shot him a confused look and he suddenly realized she might not have ever heard the song he had thought she'd been butchering, "Here's how mom and Pearl taught it to me-" He sang the verses of the old training song as they'd first been sung to him over six years ago. After a few rounds Citrine's got it, and they harmonized and embellished the classic as they dodged and deflected the barrage of balls.

"What about you, Rion?" Afia asked as Morion joined the two teens and set down the tray on the bottom row, apparently having arrived in the middle of a conversation.

"Yeah, you gonna start singing, too?" Sal jokingly threatened, a frisbee raised like a shield to protect his ears from the very thought.

"I don't sing." Ri was positive the carefully neutral line had been delivered without any trace of bitterness, but something must have betrayed the sentiment anyway, as Afia quickly offered mor a ball and a mischievous grin.

"Well then help us throw!"

With a startled chortle, Rion nodded and took the offered dodge ball. Ri tested its weight and pressure before dropping it to the ground and catching it with a toe. With a swift kick, the ball joined Sal's and Afia's as they sailed toward Citrine and Cairn. They made fast work of the remaining ammo, and when all the various balls and discs lay scattered across the Arena floor, the five of them gathered around the snack tray.

Quickly devouring her portion of oranges, Citrine turned to her youngest sibling, who had yet to finish off a single slice. But the look on mor face made Citrine forget her request for any unwanted leftovers, "You look beat, Rion."

"Hmm? Oh… I haven't been sleeping well." Morion admitted, before asking them all for suggestions on how to get a good night's sleep.

"Wear yourself out!" Afia lifted up one of the empty mesh bags and motioned to the center of the arena, indicating they'd have to pick all these balls up soon.

Citrine laughed apologetically; she'd never had a problem sleeping… just staying awake.

"Try some ambient noise?" was Sal's suggestion, "Maybe Cit's snores are keeping you up?"

"I don't snore!" Citrine playfully pushed him and he laughed and stumbled off to start rolling balls back toward the bags. Citrine wanted to help Ri though, and thought on it for another moment, What helps me sleep? "Maybe you could try making it darker in your room?"

Rion nodded and turned to Cairn, who just shrugged. He slept even less often than Amethyst. "You might be asking the wrong people. Why don't you try getting advice from someone more… human?"

"And what are we?" Afia let out a sharp laugh, "Chopped liver?!" The ball she chunked toward them beamed Cairn in the head- the first hit anyone'd landed on him all afternoon.

Morion left them to finish gathering the balls, instead warping back to the house alone. The sun would be setting soon, still plenty of time... but nobody was in the living room. Putting the tray back in its spot, Rion opened the fridge and grabbed a packet from the freezer. Eyeing it hesitantly, Morion's gem-studded tongue licked mor lips, and ri reached back up and grabbed a second one before heading outside and down to the den under the house.

A/N:

Steven probably fumes at the fact they still make Lion Lickers... and is probably even more appalled at the thought that the kids actually like them.

The return of Thema, Afia, and Sal... introduced in Practice Makes Progress, and reappearing again here and there. Was going to write more about Thema and how she created a Student Government and then ran for President unopposed but instead Mechafone got me started off on creating new places... and I went a little over board with the Sea Dome. There's some preliminary sketches of the different domes on my tumblr if you want to check it out. (quartizinetriofic)

Thanks to Mechafone and Benevoson for proof reading! 2 down 1 to go! Look for Counting Sheep tomorrow!