Hey everyone! So this chapter actually knocks us off a bit off schedule but I've been getting kind of carried away. Also this Garnet chapter has been a long time coming and I know people were looking forward to it. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint! This week I also wrote a oneshot called "Emergence" you might want to check out if you like reading me being mellow dramatic and writing about diamonds. I would be really interested to see what you guys think is about to go down in about *glances at notes* 3 chapters. or who knows maybe two depending how monday's goes. As always thank you so much for every review everyone leaves. You all are awesome.
enjoy the chapter, See you monday!
Domina didn't have much experience with garnet's. She had only met a few while she was with Yellow on Homeworld. From what she had seen, they were dramatic, cunning, and boisterous. Garnet was none of these things. She was something entirely new.
Both of them were quiet in the warp stream. Domina kept her eyes closed trying to figure out why the permafusion had asked her to come along. Was 'we need to talk,' a good thing or a bad thing,especially considering what had just transpired. They both landed on the receiving pad and Domina opened her eyes, intending to take a moment to steady her nerves. Instead she gasped.
Steven had told her about the strawberry battlefield, and explained what strawberries actually were. But this isn't what she was expecting. Battlefields didn't stick around in the empire. Places where troops had to be deployed were quickly overtaken with the next stage of colony production, usually terra formars before the fleet moved in to do whatever was necessary. But this... this place, with the weapons discarded and stretching into the air, interspersed with chunks of debris and so many red fruited plants that the air was heavy with their smell.
"Woah." she said breathlessly, before quickly following Garnet off the pad.
"There's a corrupted gem about a mile from here." The fusion said. Domina nodded. They walked in silence for a while, Domina definitely didn't know what words should break the silence, and Garnet was as inscrutable as ever.
Finally, she broke.
"I'm sorry, you must think I'm a monster." Domina glanced at Garnet. The gem didn't pause, she seemed to be waiting for something more. Domina felt an uneasy pit in her stomach, Garnet had never had much interest in her before, an odd word here, a disapproving look there, she knew that the fusion must not care for her at all. "I mean.. I would hate me in your position." She said, still no reaction from Garnet. "Between the thing with the fusion on Homeworld, how I treated Pearl, just showing up after all of this expecting you all to help, and then... doing that to Steven." Domina trailed off, trying not to think about the jaggedness and discordant edge to Steven's memories.
"You're not what I expected." Garnet finally said. Domina looked at her startled and see the hint of a smile on Garnet's face.
"Not even with your sapphire's vision?"
"It's not all knowing. Surely you've worked with sapphires before, you know that." Garnet said.
"Yes, but, who were you expecting then, my mother? That's what most people expect." Domina said with a frown.
"I wasn't expecting you to be so desperate." Garnet said, Domina stumbled over a discarded chunk of rubble.
"What do you mean?" She said with a nervous chuckle. "I'm not desperate."
"You are, you look at everyone trying to make them happy, trying to make people like you, trying to make every possibility work. Even the ones that can't coexist together."
"Well who wouldn't? I like to keep my options open." Domina said with a uneasy shrug. "And it's not about making people like me. It's about making sure they're not afraid of me. If they forget I'm a diamond for a bit they're willing to talk and that's so much better than being feared." She turned to look at Garnet directly. "It's easier when they don't know who I am. Do you know how hard it is to get rubies to talk to you when they know you're a diamond?"
"No."
"Right, well trust me. It's hard, and if we through these stupid mind altering powers on top of it..." Domina trailed off
"Your abilities aren't a bad thing."
"How is going into peoples heads without their permission and pick and choose what they remember not a bad thing?"
"You used it to save Steven."
"I...I did, but I shouldn't have let him fall into that situation in the first place."
"You cannot blame yourself for that, I know how convincing Steven can be." Garnet said "More likely he would have attempted it on his own and..." Garnet stopped and adjusted her glasses. "You're trying and that's more than any of the other diamonds have been willing to attempt." Domina shrugged and opened her mouth to respond only to be cut off by Garnet pulling her behind a pile of rubble.
"What is it?" Domina asked peeking around the chunks of metal. Ahead of them were two corrupted gems. They were bipedal and a practically transparent green with feathered wings twice their size at the ends of which rest their hands. "Oh, apatites" Domina said noticing their square cut gems.. She attempted to disregard the unease she had about these particular corrupted gems. Apatites were surveyors and cartographers, there had been one with the fleet, 1KL, who taught Domina most of the control she had with her aerokinesis.
"So what?" Domina asked lowly, reaching her hand towards her gem. "How does this work? You take the one on the right, I take the one on the left?"
"You'll want the right one," Garnet said. "The one on the left is going to take off the moment we show ourselves."
"Can you jump that high?" Domina asked, her stomach was already churning.
"I can if you can't fly."
"I'll get it." Domina said, She drew her sword, it felt good, right. It had been far too long since she had held it. Garnet smiled cryptically, and summoned her gauntlets.
"After you." Garnet said. Domina took a deep breath and vaulted over their cover. Both apatites looked at her and, just as Garnet said, the one on the left shot up with a single wing beat.
Domina lept into the air. The winds collected underneath her as stable as any piller, her eyes were focused above at the apatite who dove and weaved out of her reach. Domina drew a second sword with a practiced maneuver. All her unease was pushed out by the adrenaline and for that moment Domina was just glad to be flying again.
The apatite let out a roar as it finally decided that it had had enough of being the prey in this situation. It abruptly turned and dove towards her, snapping it's toothy jaws. Domina pushed herself further up and landed on one of the floating land masses. Below she could see dust clouds forming and lightning striking as Garnet battled with her own corrupted gem. She seemed to be having much better luck.
The apatite landed in front of her. Domina took a step back to the edge to re adjust her footing. In that brief moment of inaction the Gem rushed her and knocked Domina back. She fell. She would have kept falling if it wasn't for the claws digging into the cuff of her pants.
This left Domina upside down, dangling over open air, with her fight or flight response shifting strongly towards 'panic and do nothing'. And once again, the world stopped.
She was in the void of memories yet again, her gem burning. But it wasn't quiet. Before, when she had been trying to save Steven, she had been to busy panicking to notice anything but the task at hand. Now though, when the only life in danger was her own, Domina could hear something. It wasn't quite a song, more like a collection of notes that were trying to be a song. They were the same ones she had heard in the nephrite's dreamscape, the corruption but, more... complete. The notes wove in between the jagged memories, completely covering them.
Domina didn't change anything. Instead she pulled herself out of the metaphorical void, and resumed dangling over the real one. Domina saw the ground miles below and screamed. The winds came back again shoving the apatite forward and sending them both tumbling into open air.
Domina lashed out, more as a reflex in an attempt to regain balance than an actual attack and sent her sword shooting through the apatites chest. The creature let out a screech either of pain or indignation before it dissipated, leaving it's gem falling with Domina.
She grabbed it in a brief flash of realization that that was what she was supposed to be doing in the first place, then turned her attention to the much more pressing matter. In an act of impulse and desperation, Domina made a cushion. She forced the air underneath her to allow her body to slow until she was at a safe enough speed. Then, Domina rolled when she hit the ground.
"Nice work." Garnet said standing over her. Domina looked up at the fusion who had contained her corrupted apatite. A quick tap on the top of the bubble and the gem was gone, presumably stored somewhere safe. Domina dug out the other apatites gem in a daze and handed it to Garnet for her to repeat the process. She was ok. She had fallen and she was ok.
Steven was waiting for them when they warped in.
"Hey guy's good mission?" Steven asked with a grin, the only evidence of the night before was the still present pink patch in his hair.
"It went well, Domina fought a corrupted gem all by herself." Garnet said.
"Awesome! Wish I had been there,"
"Eh you would have been bored." Garnet tousled his hair. "It was too easy." Domina smiled. Garnet went into the temple soon after, leaving her and Steven alone.
"So uh... Pearl told me what happened." Steven said awkwardly.
"I thought she might... I'm sorry." Domina tried not to stare at the pink in stevens hair.
"Why? It's ok!" He said. "I mean, it's kind of weird not being able to remember a whole two hours but that's better than being corrupted." Steven fiddled with his pink curls. "And this is kind of cool," Domina could tell his heart wasn't in it. "But Sabina has always said that she'd help me dye my hair if I want so.." Domina raked a hand through her own hair, it was still uneven, she had managed to avoid Pearl's plans to fix it so far.
"You want to go get some fries?" Domina asked awkwardly. Steven's smile returned.
"Yeah come on, I wanna hear about the mission you went on with Garnet, where was it? Was there weird old gem stuff? What kind of gem did you fight?" Steven asked as they exited the beach house. And for a moment, life almost felt normal.
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