The man called Dr. Drakken leads you down a narrow walkway composed of wooden boards. You cannot quite name what it is that compels you to follow him, something about his energy when the rest of the miserable planet is yawning and thinking about going to…sleep, is it called? The sky is darkening into a color closer to your skin than his, the sun dipping low.
Buildings line the walk-of-boards, some grouped together as if they are standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the field of battle, others recoiling away from each other. Drakken approaches one with a flapped awning which reads, "Ice Cream! 25 Flavors!"
There's a trail of unbecoming saliva at the corners of his mouth.
Drakken barters a green paper for an object the likes of which you have never seen before. The bottom part is a cone – you recognize that much. Topping it is a thick swirled substance just a few sandy shades off pure white.
Like the rivers on – oh, which planet did they use for Kindergarten Base 13? The ones you couldn't manipulate because they flowed with something other than water?
It was a strange place. You felt powerless. You were glad when it fell.
The substance narrows toward the top until it winds into a small curlicue. Perfect in form. Rather pretty in design.
Drakken ushers you toward a table, shaded by canvas from the heat of the setting sun. He pulls out a chair for you and waits with his strange tied-back hair standing fully on end until you lower yourself onto it. Must be an Earth custom.
You know nothing of it, but it was clearly a polite gesture.
That's when you realize it's not the energy drawing you, nor the sameness of your hues, nor the mystery of his cracked cheek. This man has a decency you've encountered very little in the past few millennia.
Once.
Courtesy of a small man named Steven.
Drakken is not Steven, of course. He is – he is – you cannot guess at a number, since humans age so strangely, but he is grown. The energy, the decency, the quick smile and full head of hair – those, however, remind you so much of the only friend you have now.
It immerses you in tiny currents, that you wish to reciprocate the connection. "My name is Lapis," you say. "Lapis Lazuli."
His eyes do some peculiar thing where they appear to brighten from inside – not in color, in mood. "That's pretty." He licks at the swirl atop his cone. "It's a rock, isn't it?"
You bristle a little. Rock is such a coarse, blunt word, dropping clumsily from the mouth, never capturing a Gem's intricate facets. "It's a Gem," you correct him.
Drakken chuckles, a sheepish sound, his shoulders rolling. "Oh. Sorry. I'm no geologist."
Geo means Earth; you remember that from your Teachings on Homeworld. And logos has something to do with studying….so, "one who studies the Earth." Gems must occur on this planet, too, though you doubt they're the sentient variety.
Drakken abruptly smacks the palm of his hand, thankfully the unoccupied one, against his forehead. "Oh, fiddle-faddle!" he cries. "I didn't even ask if you wanted a cone! What kind of gentleman am I?"
You cannot answer. You have never met one of any kind.
"Do you like ice cream?" He asks the question like the answer is foregone, holding the slather of substance out to you. The whitish part on top is melting in the heat.
"I don't know. I've never had it."
Drakken's jaw drops as if you have confessed to having not seen the Galaxy Warp. "You've never had ice cream?" he gasps.
You shake your head. You know ice, and indeed this swirly mush wilts under the sun's gaze in much the same way. You know cream, and you can see a resemblance in texture. But together…together they create something foreign.
That's when you remember that he is a mere human and knows nothing about your species. "I don't need to eat," you reassure him.
Lines pucker his forehead. "Sure you do," Drakken says. "You're skinny."
You wonder what this has to do with eating.
And yet you cannot stand being the cause of his worry. You've never been comfortable making trouble. Some call it "making waves," an expression that has never seemed fitting to you – because those you greatly enjoy making.
"We feed on the energy at the heart of the universe," you say.
Drakken points the twirled end of the substance he calls ice cream at you. "Does that give you enough dairy?"
Unsure how to answer, you grasp at the cushion beneath you, which is leaking white puffs that must have once been a plant product.
"Do you want to try some, at least?" Drakken asks. The ice cream cone is suddenly beneath your nose, and you can smell the cold rising from its peak like a mountain.
There are many gaps in your knowledge of humans, but you can imagine that sharing one's food is a very kind gesture, particularly when a human is so obviously fond of the confection he's holding.
Accept a gift graciously, even when it is not needed.
That's somewhere in the back of your homesickness.
You nod, lean your body forward to brace your hands on the table, and free a drop that was about to dribble onto the wide lip of the sand-colored cone anyway. Your tongue, only accustomed to being used for speech, wiggles it back and forth, trying to figure out what to do with it.
And…wow!
The taste is subtle, yet full, one bite seeming to fill your entire mouth. It is sweet. Fresh. Cool and moist like an energizing breeze. You close your eyes to let it linger, open them again when it's finally faded away.
"It's…good," you say.
You cannot help smiling.
Drakken's shoulders shake again. The broadest spans bounce out of rhythm with the rest of them in a way that suggests they are synthetic – a word you were Taught on your return to Homeworld.
"Want some more?" he asks. His body practically radiates satisfaction.
This time, you shake your head no. The back of your throat still needs to adjust to the cool, sleek texture now dribbling down it. "Not yet."
Drakken nods as if he understands, although he still seems puzzled around the eyes. "So, what…who…are you?" He gestures with the cone, a dollop of ice cream landing on the streaked table.
"I'm a Gem," you say, hesitating between words. It's been eons since you've had to explain what that means to someone; you are out of practice.
And you are apparently not doing a very good job, because Drakken's eyebrow knots. "No," he says. "That thing on your back is a gem. You are…a…?"
Your mind searches out every image you have been exposed to, an automatic function of those once condemned to communicate only through playback, but one that is useless now.
You tilt your head back and look at the sky. The sun is leveling closer and closer to the planet's flat horizon, painting the sky in deep shades of Jasper-orange and Amethyst-purple. As beautiful as it is, it cannot compare to the splendor of the same sight from Homeworld. But when you went back, you discovered they'd built a signal tower right on the very spot where you most loved to watch the sunset.
"I am the thing on my back," you say. "Everything I am stems from it."
Drakken pauses. He licks. He says, "So, you're not from around here, are you?"
"No." Your voice is almost a whisper. "I'm from Homeworld. I don't know what its name is on this planet."
You try not to sneer when you pronounce this planet. It could be nice, in its own way, you suppose; it will just always be inferior to your home.
Drakken lowers the cone slowly. "You mean, you're like an alien?"
"Technically." You have no fondness for the word alien, either. It makes you sound like a savage being, an outsider, rather than a member of a proud, established race that has been around longer than his.
"What about you?" you ask, hoping to steer the talk away from Homeworld. Recalling the technoport it has become hurts you too badly, as does the distant picture of the way you left it, faded and worn from being taken out and gazed at so often. "You're a human – I didn't know blue was one of the colors they could be."
He grins with something halfway between pride and embarrassment, another human trait you recognize from the one called Greg. "Lab accident," Drakken says. "It was messy."
"Oh." You shiver involuntarily. Lab – yet another word that is all too familiar from your recent return. Those stainless buildings are cold inside and out, and they scrape against your memory of a more carefree, innocent place where Gems cared for one another.
And though this Dr. Drakken does not seem like the type to conduct those cold experiments, you remind yourself that you have only known him for thirty Earth minutes.
Drakken glances up toward the sky and squints, taking a long, strung-out lick from his cone. "I have a friend – well – more like an enemy – well, an old enemy – sort of somewhere between enemy and friend – anyway, he's a rocket scientist. I could get you a rocket! Do you need a rocket?"
You find yourself staring. You never realized that ideas, even in a form only halfway completed, could come so rapidly to humans. If he were one of your kind, these sloppy sentences would be the Advantages Drakken pulled out of his gem.
It's almost a pity that you have to refuse him. You hadn't realized the corners of your lips had tweaked up at this man's babbling until now, when they fall again.
"No," you say. "I went back, and everything's…different now. I was gone for thousands of years. They have new technology that I don't know how to use, the land isn't familiar anymore, and no one….no one even remembered who I was."
It's Drakken's turn to shudder, with a deep "ewwww" like he has accidentally touched the scientific gelatin stored inside those Homeworld labs, and somehow you understand it is meant in sympathy.
His fingers twitch on the table as he crunches into the cone itself, which you weren't aware was even edible. The thumb in particular traces the same circle around and around, over and over. Could it be that there is something he wants to say? For a second, it looks as though there is, and then he shakes himself and it disappears.
"Wait a second," Drakken finally says, seeming more uncomfortable with silence than with sitting in the presence of a creature from another planet. "If you don't have a rocket, how did you get back home?"
You blink. The question sounds utterly ridiculous, as if he has asked how fish can breathe without lungs. "Well, I just used my…"
And then, there it is – the reason behind the question. The frail human anatomy, you realize, needs rockets to fly as much as they need food to stay powered.
You divert your eyes down to your knees. "This might be a little strange," you tell Drakken. "I don't think humans can do this. So – I don't want you to be afraid."
When you peek back up, his face is appreciative.
Taking a deep breath, you loosen your muscles and let your wings unfurl from your gem. There is a tension, a drawing-out as they break through, then a magnificent feeling of wholeness as they reach their full length to sparkle in what you're pretty sure is known as "twilight."
You chance looking at Drakken again. His jaw is hanging down almost to reach his chest, gaping in sheer awe.
And, even as you watch, bright yellow flower petals pop from his neck to bloom in a fluffy halo around his face.
Drakken's cheeks, the smooth one and the strikingly cracked one, turn rosy pink. But he otherwise does not appear to be embarrassed as he points to the petals you know are not natural for humans and says, "Another lab accident."
You giggle, a sound rendered unfamiliar to you for so long. One you rediscover you like.
By now, the planet has turned its back to the sun entirely, darkening the neighborhood until a few electric lights, the ones humans must have finally discovered while you were…away, buzz on. Humans wander down the path, some of them rubbing at eyes that exhaust so easily.
Including your human. Dr. Drakken crunches the sandy cone itself between his front teeth – so it is edible, too? Amazing.
He's saying something, but you don't quite catch what. You are attempting to decide whether one small lick of ice cream necessitates shapeshifting an entire digestive system, and it is taking all your concentration.
Finally you hear, "Well, I guess I better get back to the hotel." Dr. Drakken's lips stretch backward and his throat produces a single, billowing note. "There's a marathon of The Love Boat on tonight, anyway."
Marathon?
He makes the throat-noise again, accompanied by a slow blink, and you recognize fatigue. And the way his body has turned slightly to the left, feet already lifted to pace away.
He's leaving.
It's not fear you feel, not the narrow slant of the ground below you or the ugliness of forgetting you are not frozen to it. It's a pulling-inward, an empty kind that reminds you that you aren't bound by gravity the way these limited creatures are, a lonesome superiority.
Dr. Drakken's eyebrow twists suddenly. "Do you have someplace to sleep?" he asks.
It's the wrong question, but it's asked out of care.
"I don't need to sleep," you say.
His expression suddenly takes on an intelligence you wouldn't have expected from him. "You know, I used to think that, too, that I could just keep on going and going forever and ever, but Shego said I couldn't, and she turned out to be right, because one day I caught my lab coat on fire and then…"
Drakken's voice trails off. Your brain is now suspended somewhere between the twin confusions of Shego and lab coat. "Oh," he says, coughing a little. "You – you really don't need to sleep? Because you're a Gem?"
You are somewhat surprised he put this together. You nod.
"Oh," Drakken repeats. "Well…do you have someplace to rest, at least?" His fingers rub the front of his bathing costume. His gestures are warm. "I have a room at the hotel. I – I could get another one for you. I brought my debit card."
There's so very little in that that makes sense to you. "Room?" Of course, you know very well what a room is, but not in this context, not around terms such as hotel and debit card.
"Yes," he says. "I'd offer to let you share mine, but there's something weird about that."
The pink spreads across his cheeks again.
You are tempted – where do they sleep, and how? Is there a special place they have to be? Do they need to prepare in any way? Does it require effort or does it come as naturally as the sea comes to your control? Yet you hesitate to impose.
"No," you say. "No, I'm fine."
"Do you have someplace safe?" Drakken's voice pitches higher, almost a shout. He is near panic.
For you? He fears for you?
You work your mouth slowly. It's smiling, somehow, and almost stupefied in gratitude. "I'm always safe when I'm near the ocean."
"Ohhhhh." Drakken moves one hand from the bagging fabric around his waist to stroke his chin with it. "You have ocean powers?" He doesn't even give you the chance to answer – "That's cool. I have plant powers.
"High five!" he cries and turns that hand so it hovers expectantly in the air.
You furrow your forehead.
Drakken pulls his hand back in and stares at it. "Why does no one ever give me a high five?" he says, as if he is not really expecting a solution to his dilemma, so why even ask?
"How does it work?" you say. You don't like the disappointment on his face, and you wish to banish it from him.
The wish is granted. Drakken comes alive, illuminated like a constellation, and raises both hands above his head. "You slap hands," he says, demonstrating by bringing his together. "Only, you know, it's you and another person. Or Gem. Or any other dextral creature." He seems to possess great knowledge as he leans toward you, the knowledge of the Teachers. "It's called 'high' because you do it in the air and 'five' stems from having five fingers."
He glances at your fingers as if to reassure himself you do, indeed, have five. "And it's generally more successful if you both use the same hand. Otherwise, your fingers sort of just – just – SKOOOSH! Right between each other." He acts out whatever "SKOOOSH" entails, looping his fingers in circles around each other.
You find him very fun to watch.
Right now, however, your attention is drawn to your hand. Even though you could have an almost infinite number of fingers at your disposal if you chose, five is the most effective construction the Gems have discovered so far. The lines on your palm, grooves human use to grasp and to hold better, are faint and flex as you open it wider.
Dr. Drakken's breath, smelling of cold and sweetness, breathes down on your hair. Even with his noisy, clumsy movements, his presence has managed to startle you.
He takes your hand delicately in his and bends your fingers out slightly with his bony blue ones that are almost identical, only a little longer. "Did you know that every human being has different fingerprints?" he says. "If you had a microscope, you could identify anyone in the world by that pattern alone."
Drakken's eyes are intelligent again, glowing with a profound delight he is happy to share.
"But mine…aren't real," you start to say.
He gives them a tap and then, thankfully, releases them. "I bet they're still unique, though," he tells you. "Just for you."
Drakken's grin outshines the meager electric bulbs. (Have they not even switched to fluorescents yet?) He bids you a "Good night," and starts to walk away, glancing back over his synthetic shoulders every few inches.
You turn and wade into the ocean, the water lapping at your ankles in welcome, breathing on your skin. Instantly, you are secure and serene and every step you take farther from shore loosens you. You are no one's prisoner now.
Dr. Drakken must be able to see that, because his grin grows and he – you think the word is "waves," because his wrist flaps the way your ocean does when it's stirred into foam. "By the way – were you really gone for thousands of years?" he calls to you.
"Yes."
"Wow." Drakken shakes his head, the spikes poking every which way like brambles and twigs. "And they say I look young for my age!"
Then he is gone, in a series of quick skitters up the beach.
You sigh and sink to the sandy bed, legs stretched in front of you. The water here is sharper than the kind you would find in lakes and rivers, rich with a mineral humans call "salt," its scent and touch so close. So unchanging.
Instead of looking up to locate the home planet you can no longer feel kinship with, you burrow your hands into the sand and let the salt water course over them. This Dr. Drakken – he has been kind to you. He's spoken to you, even though it has to have been obvious from the start that this is not where you belong. He has given you food that you didn't need, imparted human knowledge with a wonder the Teachers used to have.
And now he has seen you off to safety.
You wish you had a gift for him, but what do you even own? Everything you ever had was back on Homeworld, and has probably long been redistributed by now, centuries and centuries after your disappearance.
When you bring your hands up, they are speckled with grains, decorated with bits of shell, strands of seaweed woven between your fingers.
For some reason, though, all you are truly aware of are your fingerprints.
When Dr. Drakken squeaks open the door to Room 106 the next morning, a scrap of paper lies right outside, weighed down by the most beautiful seashell he's ever seen. The perfect size to hold up to his ear, and spotted with brown and white like a beagle.
The note says, in wispy cursive that can only belong to the little pixie he met on the beach, Thank you, Dr. Drachen, for your kindness.
That's not how his name is supposed to be spelled, but he's happy as the proverbial clam anyway.