~Lapis meets Mama Lipsky. I was hoping to get this proofread and uploaded before Thanksgiving break, but alas, it was not to be. Still, better late than never, right? Hope you enjoy and that you all had a great turkey day.~
There are beautiful things about Earth.
The sky now is one of them. Through your newly-rinsed vision, it seems cleaner and brisker than before, a mosaic of every shade of blue you have ever seen: your skin, Drakken's skin, your hair, your eyes, your dress, Drakken's lab coat, Steven's trousers. The clouds have firmed up and stand strong against it, their edges distinct as if one of Homeworld's great artists has outlined them with a fine-bristled brush, separating them from the endless blue.
The placid give of grass beneath your feet, something you fondly recall from before your planet went to technology and metal, is another of these things, as is the sound of Steven's laughter from the front of the barn – even if it is mixed with Peridot's shrill exclamations.
As is the look on Dr. Drakken's face when you tell him your teddy bear's last name.
"Plastic Lazuli Hope," he says, patting the bear's tiny hand. "Delighted to meet your acquaintance."
You lift Plastic's arm and put on a squeaky voice, pretending to talk for the bear as you've seen Steven do with his. "Nice to meet you, too, Dr. Drakken."
"Do you like your new owner?" Drakken says. "You do, don't you? I knew she'd take good care of you!"
Rather than heating, your cheeks crease in puzzlement. You have never thought of yourself as a caretaker, much less a responsible one. Only because this bear is not a living being that you can hurt are you able to take it as the praise as which it was meant.
Even so, you hurriedly pass Plastic off to Drakken. For all his bumbling, he handles her with something just short of reverence, placing her in the plastic sack that holds his belongings, hooking her arm around the arm of his own teddy, and tucking the sack into a niche formed by the dashboard.
"All right, we're loaded and ready," Drakken says. He thumps the vacant seat beside him. "Here, you can ride in the front, next to me."
You let your eyes fall to half-mast and your tone do the same. "Or I can fly because I have wings."
There are straps on the seats. They are safety harnesses, no doubt, but the thought of constraints of any kind flashes white-hot down your back.
"Oh."
Dr. Drakken's sudden droop dismays you. You flash him a quick smile and add, "But I can fly right next to you so you don't get lonely."
He brightens.
You walk to the front of the barn again and bid a warm goodbye to Steven and a stiffer one to Peridot. She does not even attempt to touch you, to her credit, merely watching you expectantly. Steven throws both arms around you and hugs you so tight that it squeezes the digestive system recently formed to deal with that cereal, so tight that your body has no choice but to straighten into a twig shape. Yet there is no pain, only Steven's enviable purity.
You rest your hand atop his curly hair. "'Bye, Steven," you repeat. "Thanks – thanks for everything."
"You're welcome," Steven says. "But it's not 'goodbye', okay? It's just – 'see you later'."
"All right." You ruffle the curls. "See you later, then."
The way he tilts his head to study you – it is the first time in six millenniums you have felt at home on Earth…or anywhere else.
"Take care of yourself, Lapis!" calls the white Pearl. Her clear, liquid words are wrapped with a duty that she was never assigned.
"Yeah, and maybe try to actually have some fun for once in your life!" Amethyst adds, wagging her head in mock irritation. It could be an insult – or it could be a well-wishing, and since you have determined to see only the beautiful today, you accept it as the latter.
Garnet stands, silently as usual, in the doorway of the barn. She appears to be conducting one last check to make sure they have everything they need. Surely in her mind she is following the stream of each possible future where something has been left behind. You have always been curious about how that works, and yet how does someone explain something so innate?
That is not why you slowly make your way over to Garnet. You have a vague, flawed memory of her carrying you as you swam beyond consciousness, and you wonder if she might be someone you can trust, the type of Gem you need in your life now. You owe her – for the subdued strength so different from Jasper's force you could feel in the arms beneath you; for the lack of judgment on her expressionless slab of a face, even though Malachite must have seemed such a travesty to a complementary fusion like Garnet.
The only honorable thing to do is offer what you have left. You approach from the side, slowing down even further, because you have forgotten how tall she is, so much taller than you. You remember her insistence that they bubble the mirror, convinced you were a corruption, and you question your own reasoning. Her gauntlets, however, have been shed today, leaving behind surprisingly delicate hands.
"Hi," you say.
Garnet's chin jerks to acknowledge your presence. You are not expecting more than that.
"I don't know if you remember me," you say. Your pitch is high and weak, even for you. "I was on the base when you first fused."
"I remember you." Garnet sounds exactly like a Sapphire, tranquil and aloof. "You were the one not screamin' insults."
Her speaking to you is a marvel in and of itself. Garnet conserves her words, as though she is only allotted a certain amount each hour and she prefers to save them for the people she is most comfortable with.
You hesitate on your next sentence. Although your alignment with Steven and your acts against Jasper have surely brought shame upon Blue Diamond, you have never directly spoken against her, and you are nervous to do so now. "I'm really sorry for what Blue Diamond tried – tried to –"
Garnet cuts you off – "Wasn't your fault."
It is as if she, too, has scooted over and patted a seat beside her. The moment is remarkable in its normalcy.
Garnet's sunglasses tilt down ever so slightly. You can see yourself reflected in them, can see a durability you don't remember being present on your face.
"Well – see you later," you say.
It earns you another jerk of the chin.
You turn and walk back to the hovercraft, trailing a budding connection behind you. It is as rickety as the rope bridges humans constructed when you first arrived on Earth, and yet it is there. You think it may be trust.
"Ready, Lapis?" Drakken says once you are back to the hovercraft.
You crouch, ready your heels, and tense your arms. A silken breeze slides down your skin, cooling the patches that are still damp. "Ready."
As the hovercraft lifts steadily from the ground, you take a moment to close your eyes and then thrust them open again. You project yourself, your feet springing from the ground at the exact instant your wings spring from your gem. You spin like a hurricane until you reach the right altitude, and then you release.
You laugh, emancipated and weightless, into the wind.
When you turn your head to the left, Dr. Drakken is there, grinning widely, piloting the hovercraft with fumbling, clever hands. "How's the weather over there?" he calls.
"Just as nice as where you are!" you respond.
He chuckles.
Some stretches of your flight are so still that you need to pump your wings, beat them frantically – a good, sturdy feeling – while others have enough wind that you can simply coast along, the occasional flap as automatic as Drakken's breaths. At one point you pass over a large stone arc that reaches up nearly to touch the hovercraft or scrape your bare belly; Drakken tells you it is called "The Arch" and it was built by humans.
At one point, a rainstorm builds in your path, and since it only takes a flick of your body to rid it of water, you hover above Drakken's head to keep him dry.
"I didn't know you doubled as an umbrella!" he says.
"Could an umbrella do this?" You pluck a handful of leaves from a nearby towering tree and drop them, one by one, on Drakken's head before it occurs to you to say, "I don't like being compared to objects anymore."
"Ohhhh. Because of –" Drakken's voice dips so low you can't even hear it, but you know what "mirror" looks like shaped on someone's lips. And if you didn't, you could still guess, based on his cringing shoulders. Everyone acts as though you will shatter if they bring up the things you have been through, and you don't especially care for it.
Even if they're right.
You just nod, and Drakken nods back. Communicating with Jasper was not that easy when you were sharing a soul.
"Ooh, Lapis, look!" Drakken cries. One finger points straight ahead of him. "A rainbow!"
"A what?" you ask, and then you see. It is The Arch, in the sky, translucent with a full spectrum of colors. Ruby slides into Jasper, Jasper into Yellow Diamond, Yellow Diamond into Peridot, Peridot into Sapphire, Sapphire into Amethyst, a fusion where they each have their own glorious stripe.
That is when you understand why Drakken once loved his home planet enough to wish for control of it. Taken on its own merits and not compared to Homeworld in its glory days, it would be magnificent.
Over the course of the journey, you see more of Earth's hidden beauty. You fly over rolling fields of grass that shimmer in the sun. Vast – is "forests" the right word? – of trees blaze their new seasonal colors like a fire – a comforting fire, kindled by a Ruby to warm her friends, not the inferno of the battlefield. Not all the leaves are the same; some are long and slender, others squat and symmetrical, and still others so resemble Dr. Drakken's copper coins that you expect them to jingle rather than clap in the breeze. There are mountains, even, hugged by thick layers of trees all up the sides and then left bare on the peaks, reminding you of Greg's head.
And water. There is always, always water. Lakes in the shape of fingers. Great rushing rivers. Miniature ponds surrounded by concrete, with metal ladders leading on. All shimmering in the sun, alive with their own ripples, pleading for reconciliation.
You don't know if you're ready to give it to them. It is strange to be afraid of something which is completely under your power.
But maybe that's it precisely.
"Tell me again what mothers are like," you say to Drakken. You have never known a mother other than Rose Quartz, and even now it occurs to you that did not truly know Rose.
"A mother…is kind and strong and loving and protective." Drakken's buoy-words drift in a light mist; he takes another empty swallow. "And the scariest person in the world to have mad at you."
That sounds exactly like Rose, actually.
The two of you are quiet for another few Earth-miles before Dr. Drakken squeals from the rumbling back of his throat and sticks a finger straight ahead and down. When your eyes follow it, you discover you are now flying over a series of close-set, sloping roofs. The buildings are each painted a pleasant yet unremarkable sand-like shade, and the road between them is fading black and as smooth as the white Pearl's speech.
"Where are we now?" you say.
"This is Middleton," Drakken announces, chest thrusting. "This is where I live!"
The second sentence is almost unnecessary. There's a splendor in his voice that only emerges when one is talking about one's home.
Drakken makes a turn to the right and swoops the hovercraft low over one section of road, and you pin your wings back so you can dip with him. The buildings are spaced farther apart, and yet the effect is more closed-in than Beach City - not claustrophobic, just compact. Each roughly the same size and shape; each attached to a horizontal sweep of white stone that appears to be used to store earth vehicles; each centered in rectangular patches of grass, some of which are decorated with trees transforming to their fall colors – the only real difference between them is the color of their doors and the placement of their windows, like a line of fresh-cut Rubies distinguished solely by gem location.
You pass over another building, similarly sized and arranged, that nevertheless stands out, decorated as it is with bright blue circles, each larger than your head.
It is such a bold, unexpected sight that you giggle aloud. "That's your house, isn't it?" you call to Drakken.
He beams and nods.
The hovercraft cranks sharply to the left, and you soon fly over a long purple building surrounded by vehicles on every side. Drakken tells you that is the mall; it is less severe than you imagined it. It sports a glass dome rather than a ceiling and its doors, which open and shut at the approach of a human, are translucent as well.
You continue until Dr. Drakken lets out another roughened squeal. Your gaze anticipates a spectacle and is surprised to shore on a chipped vehicle storage path that supports a small car of brightest yellow. The house to which it is attached is medium height for a house and narrow, as though holding its breath, trying to fit into the slot between scrubby rations of grass. Unlike the proud stone houses around where Drakken lives, it is made of wood, old, dark wood that sags and lists the whole structure slightly to the right. It reminds you of your planet's relics, before everything became stainless and efficient.
And it seems to beckon you closer.
The hovercraft lands on the road, and you land beside it, slipping your wings back into your gem. Drakken climbs out. His eyes are solemn as he uncertainly lowers his hands to your shoulders.
"Now, before we go in, there a few things you should know," he says. He leans forward, pressing his meaning into you with his eyes. "About what to expect from my mother. Things that'll – that'll – well, it'll just help you get along better."
Your gem pulses nervously. You have long known how to submit and just recently learned to dominate; getting along is something you struggle to accomplish.
"First of all, she likes to be called Mama Lipsky," Drakken says.
"Okay."
"And she loves to give hugs." Drakken drops his hands to wring one wrist. "I've told her about how you're a little wary of being touched too and asked her to please try to rein it in a little for you. She seemed like she was listening, but…." He shrugs. "There's this little move I've perfected, where you kind of squirt out of her hug and climb down over her back, though I don't recommend it until she's seriously about to rupture your spleen."
"I don't know what a spleen is, and I don't think I have one," you tell him.
Drakken looks momentarily puzzled, and then he grins. "Right! The whole thing where you don't have internal organs…that must come in handy. So – how much experience do you have with the utensils used for eating?"
"None," you say.
"Okay – well – quick course. They each have handles on one side, but the top sides are different. Spoons – you know what spoons are, right? Steven and I used them on our cereal this morning?"
You nod. You remember the slim metal stalks that blossomed into indented ovals at the end.
"Those are used for when a substance is primarily liquid," Drakken explains. "Soups, cereal in milk, pudding, etc."
"All right," you say. It was fairly easy to operate a spoon this morning. You don't think you will have too much trouble with them.
"Now, forks are used for solids," Drakken says. "Forks split into little spikes called tines at the top. You use the tines to stab solids so you can lift them to your mouth.
"Ah, but sometimes you have a solid that's too big to stick in your mouth. What then? Well, that's where knives come in!" Drakken jabs a finger forward, his face giddy with the information he's about to impart. "Knives have a blade on their other side."
"Like a sword?" you ask.
"I suppose, yes." Drakken wags his head from side to side. "So you hold your knife in – um, I don't suppose you know whether you're right- or left-handed?"
You stare down at your hands. "I have both," and this confuses you, because you can see that Dr. Drakken's thumbs point in opposite directions and you believe humans have both, too.
"Oh. Right." Drakken whacks the flat of his hand against his forehead and drags it down into his eyebrow. "Of course. It's just that – what I mean – ngggh. Humans have a dominant hand that's significantly stronger than the other. For most humans, that's the right hand, but for me it's the left. But I guess Gems' hands are probably equally strong, huh?"
You nod again, studying Drakken's hands this time. They both look small and flimsy to you, neither one more so than the other: it is another human intricacy invisible to Gem eyes.
"Oh," Drakken repeats. "Well, normally the advice is to put the knife in your dominant hand to cut while your other hand holds the food in place with your fork, but it sounds like you can do whatever you want with the knife. As long as you only touch the handle!" he adds hastily. "You never want to grab the blade."
Drakken reaches up and strokes his fingertips over the ragged permanence of his scar. The skin you wear tingles the way it did when Jasper's fingernail nicked at your own cheek, though nothing has broken through it.
You press as close to Dr. Drakken as you can without touching him, the top of your head coming to just above his elbow. "Anything else?"
"Yes. There'll be all kinds of food there, and it'll all be wonderful, because my mother's a great cook! Still, on the off-chance you don't like something, it's best not to spit it across the table the way you. . ." Drakken stops and plucks his lips like guitar strings, as if he is considering whether or not to complete this thought.
"The way I did with the pizza," you finish for him. You knew it was probably rude as you soon as you did it. Your mouth had simply never been filled with anything that oily before, and despite the inviting flavor, you couldn't shake its resemblance to spaceship fuel, and you needed it gone now.
"Yes. No. Er, that's not generally something you should do, unless someone screams, 'Spit that out! It's poisonous!' or something. But there is this handy little trick you can do: when nobody's looking, you can very discreetly pull your napkin up to your lips and kind of transfer the food into it." Drakken demonstrates, pantomiming dribbling into an invisible napkin.
"All right," you say.
"And – please, please, please don't tell my mother if you don't like something," Drakken says.
You roll your toes inward. "You want me to lie?"
"No, no, no!" Drakken gives his head another enthused shake. "Not lie. Just…not tell her everything."
A reflection clicks cleanly into place, of the first time you withheld information from authority. "Because it isn't relevant to the mission," you venture.
"Exactly!" Drakken claps his hands at his waist and finally skitters up to the cordial level of wood surrounding the front of the house. "And the mission is getting her to love you."
There's a weight to what he says, and you understand why. If you squander this chance, you will likely never in all the cosmos get another one like it.
"Oh, but don't worry, Lapis!" The somber expression is washed away by a galactic smile. "I'm sure she will!"
Drakken pokes a small button beside the door. You expect it to flash a signal alerting whoever is inside to the presence of visitors and are startled by the deep note that seems to reverberate through the building's entire framework instead.
Your fingers have been stiff sticks of driftwood at your sides; now they turn as cold and limp as a pair of bad clams. "If I promise never to do it again, will you please not tell your mother I dropped leaves on your head?" you say. Your tone splinters right before it can fall into begging.
Drakken gives his forehead another quizzical wrinkle. "Why, that's very nice of you, Lapis, and of course –"
The door creaks open, and there stands Mama Lipsky. You wonder if only the women with big pink hair are designated to be mothers.
She is smaller than you, which most humans are not, and stout, and everything about her – her flesh, her flower-patterned dress, the emotion in her eyes – seems soft. Her face, so much like Drakken's, breaks into a miniaturized version of his grin.
"Ohhhh, Drewbie!" Mama Lipsky says shrilly. Her words are not soft – they are thicker than his, and creamier, but you recognize their buoyancy. "Welcome home!"
The look she gives Drakken is an embrace; it is an oath of loyalty; it would be a perfect precursor to fusion.
"Oh, and you must be Lapis!" Mama Lipsky's attention shifts to you. "Hello there, dear!"
There is a gulf inside you that you did not realize you had until she fills it. Her look at you is not as devoted as the one she gives to Drakken, yet it is open and generous and alive with potential. You have the urge to curtsy and address her as "My Diamond."
You settle for looking into her eyes, black seeds similar to Plastic's, and saying, "Yes. And you must be Mama Lipsky. Very nice to meet you."
Drakken's hands become shooting stars, everywhere and all at once. "Oh, errr, yes," he says. "Lapis, Mother. Mother, Lapis."
That is more or less unnecessary, as far as you are concerned, but you hesitate to tell him. You focus instead on every embroidered vine wending its way down the front of Mama Lipsky's dress until you can take comfort in the reflection of the vine Drakken used to tag you just this morning.
Mama Lipsky indulges Drakken with another smile, walks to your side, and gives you a pat on the knuckles. Her hands feel every bit as soft as they look, as though they might squish at the touch, like the desert-mud where your people carved the Beta Kindergarten.
"Come in, come in," she says. "And I'll get you something to eat." She makes a clucking, birdlike sound with her tongue. "My goodness, you're thin as a rail."
You frown down at the arrangement of light that forms your body. "No. We have fence rails at the barn, and I'm definitely thicker than they are."
"Gems don't gain or lose weight, Mother," Drakken adds.
And for a moment, you are dazzled by the fact that humans can change sizes, naturally, and their skin still falls neatly in place without even the aid of shapeshifting.
Still – are you imagining, or did you hear a hint of disapproval from Mama Lipsky? The soft little eyes appraise you; were she Blue Diamond, you would release your wings for inspection.
"I can shapeshift myself fatter if you want," you offer. It will hold at least for the duration of the meal.
Mama Lipsky blinks – hers are slow and careful to her son's rapid flashes – and shakes her head, her hair seemingly welded into place like Peridot's. "No, no," she says at last. "That's quite all right, sugar. Come on in."
You're not entirely sure why she just referred to you as a cane plant, and yet the words are as warm at the edges as the lighter blue fingers that slip between yours, his thumb playing nervously across yours. Besides, as much as Dr. Drakken loves sugary foods, it must be a nice thing to call someone.
Drakken steps inside the house, and you follow in accordance with Mama Lipsky's invitation. The house is modest, fraying a bit yet not dilapidated. The patterned paper clings tenaciously to the walls, though it is shadowed with age. The couch in the living room sags in the middle, as though carrying a great, invisible weight. In the room beyond that – the kitchen – sits a table that has been nicked and sanded and re-nicked so many times that the Diamonds would refuse to sit there at all.
They wouldn't have fit, anyway. The whole of the table could rest inside their travel-boxes with room to spare. On top of its surface are things that must be other forms of food: ruddy slabs of meat glazed lightly with brown at the tops, a bowl of pale-yellow mush studded with green flecks, small lumps of bread whose tops curve into domes as though emulating the mall's ceiling, and a pink frothy spread garnished with the skinny fruit with peels the same color as Peridot's hair – bananas, you think you heard Steven call them.
Aromas you have never smelled before lap and tease at your nose. Beside you, Dr. Drakken's tongue is dribbling slightly through his lips, which must be that human sensation known as hunger. You can't experience it, despite the good smells, and you hope its absence won't displease Mama Lipsky.
You hardly notice when Drakken flits away for a moment. Mama Lipsky bustles around the kitchen; though her stance is wider-legged than Drakken's, they share quick, fluttering movements. You are struck again by her winsome resemblance to her son, and you say, "I can see where Drakken got his big chin."
The kindness in your voice must go undetected. To your horror, Mama Lipsky's eyebrows pinch inward, along with the rest of her face. It is as though you have insulted her, but to insult someone you have to call them an idiot or a coward or a bully – insults have nothing to do with one's chin.
Drakken chooses then to reappear and to drag you a few steps aside. His whisper is too loud when he says, "Lapis – it's not always polite to comment on someone's appearance."
It is your turn to blink. "But it's true."
"In case it's something they don't like about themselves," Drakken says.
More confused than ever, you turn back to Mama Lipsky, only marginally able to meet her gaze. "Why wouldn't you like it about yourself?" you say. "It's a great chin. It goes very nicely with your smile.
"And you said I was thin as a rail – that wasn't an insult, was it, ma'am?" Your voice is tiny, even for you; you can barely feel your vocal cords fluttering as you speak.
There is a brief, silent gap before Mama Lipsky allows you a peek of that smile again. Her lips are small and shaped like Earth insects – butterflies, Steven told you once – and somehow that is the perfect word for when that pink-glossed surface spreads happily and leaves you riveted.
Dr. Drakken lets out a long, heavy breath. You don't need to, but you can feel the terse pressure of your wings fade away from the surface.
You sink into a chair far smaller and less ornate than the ones at Blue Diamond's palace. If your feet don't quite reach the floor, your knees at least have the chance to bend. Drakken sits on one side of you, Mama Lipsky on the other.
Just as Drakken predicted, there are three utensils arranged around the curves of your plate, silver in color if not construction, with identical gripping handles. On the left, tucked into the napkin Drakken described to you, is one with individual spines; it must be the fork. On the right sits one whose taper is not as wickedly sharp as you feared – the knife. And the one next to the knife, the one with the dipped, rounded end, you recognize from breakfast as a spoon.
"Now, you just go ahead and dig in," Mama Lipsky says.
You spend an instant looking for a shovel before concluding that she must mean something else. Drakken bounces in his seat and thunders, "That means it's time to eat!"
Mama Lipsky picks up the enormous platter with the slabs of meat on it and holds it out toward you. It is a solid, so you tentatively select your fork and glance at Drakken. He nods to you, turning his thumb upward, his signal for, Yes, that's good. Still unsure, you spear the tines into one slab, half expecting the animal it was once was to squeal at you.
It doesn't, of course, and you pull it onto your plate, with a horrible scraping sound that grates into the deepest facets of your gem but leaves only a minor trail of glaze on the table. Drakken gives you the thumbs'-up again.
The slab is much too big to shove into your mouth, so you lift your knife, taking great care to keep your fingerprints wide of the blade that could damage them, remembering Drakken's warning. Your right hand, still holding the fork, pins the meat in place as you scratch the knife across with your left. In spite of the shrieking that leads Dr. Drakken to cover his ears, you manage to wrench a respectable strip of meat from the slab and saw it into small pieces.
Mama Lipsky watches you, her eyes continuing to probe. You wonder what the consequences will be if you do not meet her standards; while you know they will be nothing compared to what would surely await you back on Homeworld, you still fear her rejection, more and more acutely each time she caresses Drakken with a glance.
"I see you're a lefty, too, my dear?" Mama Lipsky asks.
You stare at your utensils. Your brain is too stiffened to find a reply, not even one of the sarcastic ones that have started to come more and more easily to you since letting Jasper in.
"Ambidextrous, actually," Drakken says. You think there is pride in the way he says it. When you rip the word's many sounds apart, it seems to mean that both of your hands are equally strong – which would make sense.
"Fascinating," Mama Lipsky says.
You relax somewhat – it does not matter which hand you use. You lift a scrap of meat to your mouth and bite into it.
It is good, better than you expected. It tastes of smoke, but not the smoke of the battlefield. This smoke is rich and juicy, carefully controlled by the sticky sweetness of whatever trickles across its top. The texture has tight weaving, firm without being too hard to chew. Your mouth slackens from the surprise, and you hastily swallow the pieces before they can fall back out.
When you look at Dr. Drakken, you understand where the phrase "dig in" originated. He is stuffing the food in at a rate that would suggest he is using a shovel. He has clearly had much more practice than you.
Mama Lipsky also shovels, though she's somewhat daintier about it. With her food slipped neatly into her cheek, she says, "So, tell me a little about yourself, my dear."
What is there to tell?
It would mean nothing to Drakken's mother that you used to be among the upper echelon of Gems, and you yourself have trouble remembering those days, anyway. As much as it hurts to accept it, Homeworld is no longer your home; your essence there is now a memory, a nebula, redistributed among the new bright stars that rise up to take its place.
Your imprisonment feels trivial by comparison. And so when Mama Lipsky follows up her first question with, "What have you been up to lately?", you rush forward to greet it:
"Well," you say. "I was trapped in a mirror for five thousand years, but my friend Steven got me out. Then I met your son. He's very nice. And then I was stuck at the bottom of the ocean for six months."
Mama Lipsky's fork stops moving. She peers at Drakken over her glasses frames. Without so much as a rustle of sound, her lips make the words, Are you sure about her?
Panic nips between your shoulder blades. Drakken dispels it instantly – his own lips say YES, and then he reaches over and gives your hand another squeeze.
There is strength when your fingers meet, strength that neither tiny set can possibly have.
It is the strength you need when Mama Lipsky suddenly bores down on you like an Injector. "Five thousand years…" she mutters. "Doesn't that make you a little old for my Drewbie?"
Your bent knees lock. You could ask what it means to be "old for" someone, but it would be more a stall than anything. There is a wrinkle pursed sharply above Mama Lipsky's nose, also so much like Drakken's, and it needs no interpretation.
"Well," you say again, "Gems don't grow and age the way humans do. In many ways, I'm exactly the same today as I was when I was first made."
Your words emerge much as you did that first day – unsteady yet awaiting and astounded. You remember awakening, pushing through a thin layer of silt and rubble, finding yourself beneath a gorgeous, bedazzled sky that imbued you with an instant sense of belonging. You ran after it; then you buckled, fell.
Another Gem caught you. She was shorter than you, but her legs were stockier, hardier, when yours felt as filmy as the haze you blinked from newly formed eyes. "Steady there," she whispered to you, with a smile you didn't need to see to identify. "Lean on me until you get those wobbly legs under control."
These are the kinds of ties you don't wish to sever – and yet you can't quite recall what variety of Gem she was.
Dr. Drakken speaks up then, yanking your focus back to your age, which you never realized could be such a divisive subject. "We're both adults, Mother, and our maturities are compatible," he huffs, as though pestered.
There is an uncanny silence.
Mama Lipsky breaks it by saying, "Ohhh, so that's why Drewbie went and hid all my mirrors!" The wrinkle disappears in a wash of sympathy. "I thought you just had terrible self-image or something."
You don't know how to reply to that, so you simply give her a submissive smile.
Something makes a ding noise from the back corner of the room, which you think you heard Steven once call a kitchen. Mama Lipsky says, "Oh, the peas are done!", hurries to the distant countertop and returns holding a clear container that resembles a bowl, only with tall sides and a lid. Mist beads on the outside glass, so the contents – small, round, dark green objects – must be hot.
"Can we eat those?" you ask.
Drakken tosses his head back and chuckles as if you've taken another turn tickling him. "Yes, Lapis, those are edible! They're peas, actually, which are a vegetable, which means they're really good for…well, good for humans."
You accept a serving and then slice another row of meat and then cut it to bites, angling the knife's tip ever so slightly upward. It doesn't make that ugly scraping sound this time, and you feel the corners of your mouth steal upward.
"This is really good meat," you say politely – and truthfully. "What animal is it?"
"Oh, this is fresh ham, straight from Middleton Grocers," Mama Lipsky says.
You've never heard of a ham. They must be native to a different region of the planet.
"And the honey glaze is a recipe that's been passed down for generations," Mama Lipsky says.
Generations. For some reason that clutches at your throat, and you stare down at your plate. You wonder which of the early human civilizations you observed at the start of your visit wound up settling down and creating Mama Lipsky, raising wild hams and teaching her how to glaze them with honey.
"Well, your generations sure know how to make a mean honey glaze," you say.
Mama Lipsky shows you the barest hint of a frown.
"A good one!" you hasten to clarify. "You see, Dr. Drakken taught me that mean doesn't always have to do with how you treat people –"
"Yes, speaking of how you treat people…" Mama Lipsky lays one arm across the tabletop, though it isn't long enough to meet yours. "Have you been good to my boy?"
The sudden rise in her body heat spells a distinct, if subdued, threat. You have no trouble whatsoever picturing her pulling her own broad-brimmed sword, the same hue as her hair, from the animal-skin bag on the back of her chair and running you through.
"Yes?" you say. Wet leaves drizzle across your memory; you push them away.
"Moth-er!" Drakken's voice pulls taut. "Are you just doing this because she's an alien?"
"Of course not!" Mama Lipsky taps her fork importantly against her plate. There is the same crank to her jaw that you feel in yours whenever you imagine Steven in danger, and it only compounds the wanting for this woman to be a part of your life. "There have been a lot of people, human people, who have mistreated my Drewbie. He's had his heart broken many a time –"
Your mind immediately spirals to the wounded staggering back to Homeworld with damaged Gems, some hairline cracks, others held together only by the finest sliver of stone. Humans can survive broken legs, you know, but the heart is a vital organ. The kitchen walls seem to slam together, trapping you in between.
"Your heart's cracked?" you say to Dr. Drakken. "Why didn't you tell me? Is it bad? Let me listen!"
You lean your head against his chest and hear only the roar echoing through you. "Should I get you to Steven?" and even as you say it, you don't know if Steven can remedy it. How is he supposed to lick a human heart, inside a human chest?
"Lapis!"
Dr. Drakken's arms lash forward as though to grab you, before rocking back and deciding to tilt your chin instead. His face is flushed. The comical wiggle of his ears brings you back, breaks the riptide's hold on you, and you feel your own cheeks stripe a darker color to match your hair.
"Symbolic heart?" you nearly whisper.
"Yes," Drakken says. "Symbolic heart." Not unkindly, he nudges back into the chair every bit of you that has overstepped it. "Eat your peas."
This seems your best option. You lift your fork and bring it down, but the peas reel away nervously from you; spearing one is like trying to catch a shore-bird with your hands alone.
"It's been a real problem for him," Mama Lipsky continues, as if nothing has happened since her last sentence. "Ever since he was a toddler, and that one little girl –"
Drakken speaks much too quickly – "No, no, no, no, no, no, not Lapis! She's been great. Not perfect, of course, but then, who is, right?" He throws in a laugh at the end that is not his real laugh: it is a crater, deep and empty.
This silence is undecided, and you can hardly bear it.
"I'm really sorry about all that," Drakken continues. "To her species, broken means – kkkkk!" He draws a finger across his throat.
You target another pea. It rolls away as well, and the tines of your fork hit your plate with a smack that you feel in your hollow parts. They could easily be the robot probes Peridot first sent to Earth, had they legs and a somewhat lighter tint.
"Oh? Lapis?" Dr. Drakken says. "You might want to use your spoon for those."
You do not blush, not this time. The buoy-words bob as he talks, untouched by the undertow of exasperation. "But they're solids," you say.
Drakken flinches from the neck down. "Yes, well – I forgot to put a little disclaimer on that. Peas are solids, but they're so small and so squishy that even if you caught one, it would just – spppppt!" He indicates an eruption of goo, which also reminds you of Peridot's probes. "You can go ahead and use a spoon."
You nod your thanks, pick up your spoon, and aim it for the peas. It dashes off the slippery surface of your plate. "It'd be so much easier if this were a bowl," you say as your vision narrows, shutting out everything except the peas.
Dr. Drakken grunts and scrapes his chair back from the table, leaning his torso across to you. "And your knife! Your knife can help! You can just use the back of it to redirect the peas, like this…"
Bony hands settle over your own. The right curls your fingers around the spoon and leaves it on one side of the plate, bowed and waiting. The left lifts the knife, rotates it so that the blade points to the ceiling, and then pinches the handle between your fingers. With his tongue-tip dangling from the edge of his lips, Drakken uses the harmless side of the knife to gather the peas into a herd; separate a few individuals; and coax them, in delicate imprecision, into the slope of your spoon.
The warm grip releases you, and there is a genuine chuckle now as Drakken returns to his own plate and replicates the trick with one broad sweep of his – which promptly scatters peas in every direction, sending a few spilling over the plate and launching at least one toward the ceiling. Peridot had more control over her artificial limb enhancers than this man does over his own natural limbs. He is a pleasure to watch.
That is when you sense someone watching you. You turn to glimpse Mama Lipsky. Her napkin is up over the lower half of her face, and her eyes twinkle with the same boundless possibilities as her son's.
Drakken mumbles some aggravated nonsense under the consistent whoosh of his breathing, which seems to give you permission to giggle and rub his back. One tiny pea has rolled in front of your own plate, and you pick it up with your fingers and flick it through the air toward the direction of Drakken's mouth. He, amazingly, catches it, green at the corners of his smile, and the feeling of something near home surrounds you.
Mama Lipsky stands, hoisting the bowl of green-flecked yellow mush. "Are you two ready for some potato salad? It's just the way you like it, Drewbie – with the chopped gherkins."
You wonder what gherkins are.
"Are we ever!" Drakken answers. He leans forward, restless elbows braced on the table, as if he has been invited to drink from the universe's reserves.
You are therefore surprised when, per Drakken's advice, you spoon a sample into your mouth. The texture is lumpy, like the curdled cliffs of Kindergarten Base 41, and the lumps have a sour crunch to them that your tongue is quick to reject.
Your throat begins to work; fortunately, your mind works faster. As soon as Mama Lipsky is looking elsewhere, you raise a napkin to your lips with your greatest degree of nonchalance and release the burdensome little lumps.
Mama Lipsky takes a large bite of the mush. "So, Lapis –" your name seems to gush from her mouth in the same way as everything else she's said, as though it is somehow liquid – "what do you think of Earth?"
Your spoonful of peas changes direction in midair and settles back on your plate. "Um," you say. Mama Lipsky's eyes are trusting, even gullible, and for this exact reason you cannot lie to her. And yet to burst forth with your first assessment of Earth – as a miserable, backward planet where the grass only exists in one color; where the environment is so easily battered by hurricanes and tropical storms; where nothing can both fly and carry on a conversation – seems not only poor judgment, but inaccurate as well.
Reflections and others' borrowed words arise in your head before your own voice, as is customary for you. You reach deep inside yourself, under layers of glass stained by Jasper, to grasp, one by one, the points you want to make.
"Um," you repeat. "It has its good points. Most of the humans seem really nice." You exchange a look with Dr. Drakken, whose glow is more radiant than a Peridot's gem. "And I like that the leaves change color with the seasons. We don't have that on my planet.
"But –" you tear your gaze away from the one to which you cannot lie – "I like my home planet better. I'm –" You stop the apology, wipe it from your mind; you will not apologize for loyalty to Homeworld.
Although you are seeing the tabletop, it is as if you have a second sight, and it is fixed on the sky when you first saw it: the endless span of stars, the swirl of distant galaxies, pinned in place by the dark knobs of planets. Beckoning you.
Mama Lipsky chews thoughtfully. "Well, of course you do," she says, surprising you with the statement. "Your first home is always going to have a special place in your heart. Me, I was born on a little farm in Illinois. Cutest little farmhouse you'll ever seen, and such a nice barn! Grew up learning how to milk cows and…"
She has the sound of a shorebird cawing its gratitude for the few scraps of food it has been fed, but underneath the screeching you can hear her son's buoyancy. You glance up at him, and he nods several times and mouths, THIS IS GOOD.
You swivel back toward Mama Lipsky and reenter the conversation as graciously as you can. "You know, I live on a farm now, actually."
"Do you, now?"
"Yeah. Well….we've got a barn. And a lot of grass. No animals, though. There aren't any cows or hams or any of that." There is only Peridot, and to explain who she is might be impossible. You aren't even sure who she is anymore.
You stick another piece of ham into your mouth. That is when you notice Mama Lipsky is surveying your plate, more narrowly than you are comfortable with. "You've hardly touched your potato salad, Lapis. Do you not care for it?"
The walls of the kitchen constrict, and you slam your palms down on the table before you can let yourself be trapped again. You return to your earlier talk with Dr. Drakken and seize a term you understand. "What I thought of the potato salad is…irrelevant," you say.
Mama Lipsky's lips part like a butterfly's wings flapping open. "Irrelevant?" she says.
"That's what I was supposed to say, right?" You glance to Dr. Drakken for confirmation, but to no avail. The skin on his cheeks is stretched tightly, so tightly that the bones of them are gouging the air. He is scared.
Strangely, you are not, because you haven't yet seen Drakken fear so strongly for himself when you are at risk. You turn to Mama Lipsky again and finish, "What's relevant is getting you to love me."
Mama Lipsky's eyes close and remain closed for so long you worry you might have stunned her into sleep. Then they open again, and you realize it was just the longest blink you have ever seen from a human. They are wet and sparkly, the sun on the sea.
"Wait – you didn't like the potato salad?" Drakken asks, agape.
Mama Lipsky pins him with a sharp look before softening it back to you. "I'm sorry," she gushes. "I just didn't know what foods you liked."
"Oh, that's okay," you say, smiling. "I don't know, either."
Mama Lipsky tips her body toward you and gathers one of your hands between her two claylike ones. When she speaks, the gushing has tamed to a trickle that flows cleanly across her low, generous tone. "What's the name of your planet, honey?"she asks.
Now she is likening you to the ham's glaze, and given its legacy and its savory sweetness, it must be a compliment.
"Homeworld. We call it Homeworld," you whisper.
And for the first time, you know where a symbolic heart lives, because you can feel the ache of rampant memories in your center.
"Ohhh, that is lovely!" Mama Lipsky says. The squeal is back as she clasps her hands at her waist. "My, they're doing such wonderful things with exchange programs these days! And here I thought it was impressive when they sent that boy to Japan…"
You have no idea where Japan is, though you can guess it is nowhere as far as Homeworld.
"No, actually, I'm in exile," you say. To your discomfort, Mama Lipsky's face melts into anguish you wouldn't have wished upon her. "But it's okay," you add. "I'm fin –" Again you stop. "I mean, your son has helped me a lot."
Dr. Drakken bows his head in humility, a gesture that appears unpracticed on him.
"I just bet he has. My Drewbie's a good boy." Mama Lipsky makes no attempt to hide her smugness. Everything in your being winds toward it, caught in a circle around it, and you decide this must be how hunger feels.
You set your own hands in your lap. "So…is it okay that I'm an alien?" you ask. You once again have the body-quaking sensation of standing before Blue Diamond, waiting for her to either consecrate or condemn you.
Mama Lipsky grins, her teeth so much smaller than Drakken's. "You know, dear, I've been waiting a long time for Drewbie to bring a girl home to meet me," she says.
It can't have been too long, since he is only forty-two years old. You do not bring this up, however. Mama Lipsky already seems unnerved by the fact that you are older than many of Earth's landmarks.
"Now… here you are." Mama Lipsky taps the tabletop with a squared, regal fingernail, completely unlike the straggly ones Drakken frequently gnaws. "And I guess I should have always known that the woman for him would be a touch unconventional."
The woman for him. The words seep into your gem, nestling around your wings, drawing you closer, not defining but illuminating a self that has been silent and uncertain since splitting from Jasper.
You murmur your thanks and duck your head. The curved edge of your spoon bounces light back at you, and it occurs to you that it would launch a projectile very nicely. Were Steven here, you would shoot some peas his way to make him giggle huskily. But this is Mama Lipsky, and your bond with her is a thread scarcely woven, prone to snap if not tended with uncompromising care.
She's looking at you now, eyeing you over the last slice of ham left on your plate. "You'll be spending your nights here," she says.
This is the first you've heard of that. You glance toward Dr. Drakken, who shrugs the entire left side of his body. "It's the gentlemanly thing to do," he says.
His wide, simple tone plunges all questions back into the depths of your mind. For as easy as it was to picture Mama Lipsky shattering anyone who harms her son, you feel strangely secure in the woman's presence.
Mama Lipsky tweaks the small rectangle of cloth that rests under her plate and utensils. "The couch folds out into a bed," she says, "or you can just sleep on it as a couch. Or…do you need a bed? You can have my bed, and I can take the couch."
For a moment, your thoughts are so busy with her generosity – and with trying to imagine how that sloping couch in the next room can extend into furniture that will support a mattress like Steven slept on – that her actual question doesn't sink in fully.
When it does, you shake your head. "That's okay," you say. "I actually don't need to sleep."
You wait for the understanding to ripple across Mama Lipsky's face, but she sends your words sailing away with her hand. "Oh, pish-posh. Everybody needs to sleep," she says.
She speaks with such conviction that you are almost persuaded, and yet the life-force in you refuses to be slighted by her error. "No, really," you say. "My species, physically, we don't need to –"
A reedy human finger pokes your elbow. You glance up at Dr. Drakken, who is wagging his head, experience carved around his eyes.
You let your shoulders fall in resignation. "The couch will be fine," you finish. You are certainly not going to allow this woman to give up her bed, not for you, not for a sleep that will never come.
"Wonderful!" Mama Lipsky continues to beam, as though you have just constructed a shrine to her. Her smile, a miniaturization of Drakken's, seamlessly closes any communication gap. You return it and take your final appreciative bites of ham.
So this is how it is to have food in you. You feel rather like an hourglass that has long since been turned over, clumps of sand drained into your previous vacancies. The feeling isn't uncomfortable, but it is unfamiliar.
Mama Lipsky whisks your plates off the table and announces it is time for dessert – which, she explains, is the last part of the meal; Dr. Drakken whispers to you that it is also the best part.
There is such enormity in his pronunciation that your wings rustle nervously. When Mama Lipsky returns, though, carrying a blue tub with the words VANILLA ICE CREAM stamped on the front, you grip the chair handles in glee.
Mama Lipsky peels the sides of the snugly fitted lid away from the tub's corners. Another food smell fills the room, and this one you recognize: cold and thick and subtle. You draw in a breath scented with it, and it manipulates time more efficiently than your people's experimental device, transporting you back to summertime – a tranquil beach, an outstretched hand, an invitation to share the day with another living being.
Drakken stands to help his mother immerse what resembles a cave-throated spoon into the ice cream and drop a mound into one of the bowls she brought with her, bowls chipped and stained yet clinging resolutely to their class. Your grin, once as outdated and weed-buried as the ancient Gem ship abandoned in Earth's wilderness, returns hearty and natural.
"Ice cream?" you say, rather pointlessly, as Drakken scoops out another mound for you, then two more for himself.
A whole conversation flows between the looks Drakken and his mother exchange. "I heard you like it," Mama Lipsky says.
"I do."
And then you frown down at your bowl, wondering what decorum dictates; this was never part of your Teaching. Dr. Drakken lapped his up with his tongue that first day, but it was balanced on a sugar cone then, and so for several moments you merely sit there, noting the many near-invisible ridges in the mounds one scant shade removed from the white bowl, the way it swoops up into a peak at the top like a sand dune. When Drakken lifts his spoon and chips away a chunk of the ice cream, you immediately do the same.
"Now, what I'm curious about," Mama Lipsky says, "is how you know you like this, Lapis."
You slip a spoonful between your lips, and it is every bit as wonderful as you remember it. This is a story that deserves to be told; it could do both your planets much good.
"Well," you begin, "when I first met your son, he got some ice cream and he let me taste it." Dr. Drakken is watching you as you talk, as if you are still a mirror playing back the memories, memories that bring him as much joy as the silly noise you blow on your palm brings Steven. "I'd never tasted anything so sweet.
"He and Steven were my only Earth friends." The spoon becomes weighty and stiff as lead as you picture the expressions – darkened by time, hardened by indifference, erased by war – of those you once called friends on Homeworld. "And no one had ever offered me food before."
The thunder of Drakken's chuckle is tinged with sun at its edges, as Steven has told you occasionally happens with Earth's strange weather. "Oh, let me tell you, mothers will never stop offering you food," he says.
He apparently delights in the prospect. You are less sure. You swivel back toward Mama Lipsky again, and you look into that face which you cannot bring dishonesty before. "Well, I can't say I'll always accept," you say, "because I'm still not used to eating. But thank you."
You have said this phrase – thank you – multiple times now, and you wish there were a sturdier, intensified version. What it invokes, what rises like flight from the center of your gem, is much too big for this one.
Mama Lipsky winks at you, as though you are part of a secret together. "You're quite welcome."
Despite the cold trickling down your throat, you feel nothing but warmth as she settles her hips into her own seat behind the table. "So, Lapis" – her voice secretes your name like the soothing moisture in tissues – "do you have any questions about Earth?"
"As a matter of fact" – you glance from Mama Lipsky to her significantly larger son, and then back to her and her puffed hairdo and her butterfly mouth – "yeah." You swallow your next bite of ice cream. "How did Dr. Drakken come out of you?"
Petals burst from Drakken's neck.
Mama Lipsky's pliable skin startles a little and then almost immediately softens at you. "Wonderful question!"
You cross and uncross your legs, uncertain where it goes from here. On Homeworld, good questions were the only ones worth answering, but from what you've observed of Earth, good question appears to mean I don't have an answer.
Mama Lipsky's concept must be nearer to your people's. She rises from her chair and leaves the room with an assurance that she'll be right back, and she does return promptly, holding a short-spined book which she pushes across the table toward you, its pages long and graceful as a Pearl's limbs. "This is the book I used with Drewbie," she says.
Drakken's petals have fluffed out to fringe his blush in silken, pale-yellow folds. He gets to his feet so rapidly that he bangs one foot against the base of his chair and hardly spares a distant yelp for the pain. "If anyone needs me, I'll be going to the bathroom for a really long time," he calls back as he scuttles down the hall.
You've been meaning to ask, as well, exactly what it is humans do in a bathroom, but for now Mama Lipsky and her strange book monopolize your attention. The pictures in it, though awash in lovely colors, seem more what you are accustomed to from Homeworld's books – instructive and precise, with none of the whimsy from the book about the giant red dog. You find yourself straightening your posture to something alert, something poised.
"Well, for starters," Mama Lipsky gushes, "humans are very small when they're born." She turns the elongated pages slowly; her smile is a morning dew. "My Drewbie was six pounds exactly."
Oh. So she didn't produce Drakken at his current size.
"Six pounds – is that normal?" you ask.
"It's…petite," Mama Lipsky says, "but not unusually so." She pats an area below her waist. "Now, babies grow in a part of the mother called the womb."
Rose must have shapeshifted one of those.
"And usually after nine months, when the baby is ready, it'll start traveling down what's called the birth canal…"
She walks you through the rest of the process, as an illustrated baby is thrust into the world by his mother's strength, in one picture as reddened and wrinkle-lined as Drakken once described to you, calming into a pink bundle of beauty in the next. You are transfixed: this is where Dr. Drakken came from. Maybe Steven, too.
One word snags in your mind.
"You said usually when the baby is ready…" you say.
"Oh, yes." Mama Lipsky folds the plump neat hands with a touch of sadness. "Some babies arrive before they're ready. That's called being premature. Usually, they're very sick, and they need a lot of help from the doctors before they can go home."
"So you do it in a place with doctors?" you say.
"Yes. Most women give birth in a hospital."
You feel yourself brighten. "That's where Dr. Drakken went when he cut his face, right?"
"Yes, it is!" Mama Lipsky says delightedly. "You see, birth is a very delicate process, and there are many ways it can go wrong." She visits you with that conspiratorial look again and does not seem bothered that you can only return it with blankness. "They don't show it in the book – because who wants to look at that? – but it's rather messy even when it does go right."
Messy?
You can almost picture the white Pearl pursing up with disapproval. A question pops up as you wave her image away:
"Does it hurt?"
"Dear goodness me, yes!" Mama Lipsky's forehead crimps. "Childbirth is one of the worst pains a human can experience."
You cringe, and you wonder if the many colonized planets felt that type of pain, their life pulsating from them to strengthen the next wave of Gems. The last of your ice cream doesn't go down all the way with one swallow.
"But don't worry, dear," Mama Lipsky says. Her strident voice rubs, untangles, as though she can sense distress in you. "Believe it or not, once I saw my little Drewbie, I forgot the pain completely. He made it all worth it."
You do believe it. You believe it because every time you look at Steven, all of your rancid memories of Malachite scatter like ash. He is most assuredly worth it.
And yet Steven is not here now, and she swims unbidden through your mind, and although your temperature can't be affected by the draft leaking in through the window, that doesn't mean you don't know what it means to be chilled.
You lock onto Mama Lipsky's intractable compassion, let it seek you out, before you can knot up like a fishing wire. "What was Dr. Drakken like…as a baby?" you ask.
Watching Mama Lipsky descend into the past is like watching her son's vines burst into blossom. "He was quiet for a baby. Oh, sure, he'd babble and cry like any baby, but I always got the feeling his mind was on bigger things. He watched everything so closely. You could just see how eager he was to learn, even back them, bless his heart.
"He was clingy – you wouldn't know it from how scared he is to be touched now. And shy. He'd be friendly with others as long as he could still see me. Once I was gone, though, that was when the tantrums started. And he had so much hair and such beautiful long eyelashes that everyone we met thought he was a girl." She shakes her head fondly.
You aren't sure if you follow that logic – you're a girl, and you have shorter hair and stubbier lashes than Drakken – and yet you like to imagine him as a six-pound baby snuggling with his mother, innocent of what is still to come.
"Thank you," you say, "for telling me."
The whole kitchen seems to be filled with Mama Lipsky's smiling, welcoming face, the face like her son's, the shape of a hen's egg. Blue Diamond's expression disappears behind her veil. "You are most welcome," Mama Lipsky says.
You stir the liquid from the remainder of your ice cream and hope with every bite of food in your stomach that this is a time when humans mean exactly what they say.
Kneeling on your seat, you call out, "All right, Dr. Drakken! We're done! You can come back out!"
There is that large whoosh noise that bathrooms always make when humans are done with them, and it matches the sigh of relief you can hear coming from Drakken. He wanders, still rather flushed, back to his dish. The ice cream has lost its form by now but apparently not its flavor, for Drakken still happily slurps up the rest of it, even though he is more drinking it than eating it.
Having never completed a meal before, you follow Dr. Drakken's lead: you take your bowl to the sink, rinse it with a stream of lukewarm water, and place it in a large square maw known as a dishwasher. Drakken explains that, later, someone will fill it with soap and set it to churn so that scraps of food and germs are knocked from the dishes and washed away.
The three of you leave the kitchen for the living room. Mama Lipsky sits on the sunken sofa cushion farthest to the left, and Drakken straddles the fluffier right side. The funny wave of his toes just centimeters above the brittle carpet sends glee traveling down your back.
You sink down next to him, facing Mama Lipsky. Your eyelids suddenly want to bat, fiercely, as though there is something under them.
"Well, Lapis, did you enjoy your dinner?" Mama Lipsky says. She radiates warmth; you feel like a probe hovering just inside the atmosphere, scouring for what you are purposed to find.
"It was the best dinner I've ever had." You pause. "It was also the first."
Mama Lipsky laughs, a sound akin to the trill of a happy dolphin.
You pull your legs up on the couch before you, taking shelter behind your knees. "So you've probably figured out by now that Gems don't have families the way humans do," you begin.
Mama Lipsky's new noise is sympathetic.
"Families are one of the things I like best about Earth," you say. "And Dr. Drakken taught me that families aren't just made by giving birth – that people can choose their own families."
This is it. You smooth your skin before aligning your fingers in your lap and breathing:
"So – could I – ?"
You are interrupted by Mama Lipsky's hand on your cheek. There is something profound in her touch, a privilege the Diamonds themselves have never known.
"Sweetheart, as long as my Drewbie loves you – you will always have a place in this house," she says.
Water collects in your eyes for the second time in two days, and you lower your lashes to entrap it there, limp-kneed in relief. You don't know whether your relationship with Drakken will always be what is today, but you have the stark feeling that Dr. Drakken is not the type of person to stop loving someone.
All too soon, it is time for Mama Lipsky to prepare for bed. Drakken whips the cushions dramatically off the couch to reveal a hinge in its underbelly that he yanks outward to form a box of springs and braces. Unrolling it from its doubled-up position reveals what you recognize as a mattress. You don't like the look of the thing; you shake your head at it, and Drakken huffs and puffs it back into the sofa and conceals it with cushions again.
The sky, framed by streaked windows, matches your hair, right down to the choppiness of the cloudbank. It blocks the view that always raises homesickness at your edges. You move closer to Dr. Drakken until you hit the protrusion of his hipbone.
"You know," he says, "I've been meaning to ask you…how do you know what flirting is?"
"Well, you see a lot of things from inside a mirror," you say, surprised by the relative ease with which you say the long-hated word. "Garnet used to sit in front of it all the time and flirt with herself. And – I think it was the Sapphire part of her that called it 'flirting.'"
Drakken looks at you quizzically. "Oh. Right. The fusion. My – what a – unique experience!"
You snort a little. "You don't have to try to be polite about it. It was really weird. And I don't miss it."
It's then that you are left to wonder: would even Garnet, as proud as she is of her rebellion, flaunt it so boldly in front of a mirror where she knew a Homeworld Gem was trapped?
Drakken chuckles, a wet sound like one that precedes a cough. "All right, thank you. That is, as Shego would say, 'high-end bizarre.'"
He has promised to introduce you to the cherished Shego tomorrow. But first you must make it through tonight.
And while even you are not selfish enough to deny Dr. Drakken the sleep he needs to function, you would rather spend a little while longer gossiping about the Crystal Gems.
"When they first brought Amethyst to the temple – which was only a few thousand years ago – she didn't like wearing clothes," you confide. "She used to shapeshift them off and run around the house bare."
Although Drakken blushes slightly again, his laughter is deep, as though it comes from the heart of a star. It is near impossible not to laugh along.
You rock forward, knees stationed at your chin to retain the warmth inside you. "Pearl always rehearsed everything she was planning to do that day.
"She went through this phase when toothpaste was first invented. She bought a whole big jar of it and she'd use it every single day, even though she never ate anything. She thought it was so great that they'd finally come up with a way to clean your mouth," you say.
Dr. Drakken's shoulders are shaking merrily when Mama Lipsky returns with a pillow and a blue-checkered blanket, which she drops on the sofa beside you. They both give placidly under your fingertips, and yet you recoil from them anyway.
"Is she really going to make me sleep?" you ask once Mama Lipsky has left again.
"Well, I mean – she can't make you." Drakken pulls a corner of the blanket onto his lap. "But she'll never buy that you don't need to. It'd be best if you just faked it until she falls asleep."
"I don't want to lie down." You are so consumed with keeping your pitch from the boundaries of whining that you fail to check its quiver.
The corners of Drakken's mouth quirk, one up, one down, scrambling the skin. "What's wrong? Is it – are you scared of Jasper?" He whispers the name, as though the two harsh syllables will shatter you. "Because she'd never think to look for you here."
You are tossed back and forth between gratitude for his consideration and irritation for the weakness of yours that requires it.
"No, it isn't about Jasper." You throw the two syllables back at him to show you are no longer at their whim. "I just – don't want to sleep. I only ever slept once, and it wasn't any fun. I had all these awful…shows in my head. Reflections that never happened; ones I couldn't control." You press both hands to your temples.
"Bad dreams?" Drakken says.
The term is vicious in its realness. It was false history, all of it: Jasper misappropriating your powers to destroy Steven; Blue Diamond with her fist clenched, sentencing you as she sentenced the Ruby half of Garnet; everything more distorted than the view through your wings, sky a hateful red, ground the wrong texture – and yet it lives in you, pinning you to the ground. You press your fingers more tightly to stem the tide.
"I'm rather an expert on those." A shudder passes through Dr. Drakken, rifling the collar on his coat-of-labs. "And since you don't need to sleep – Gahhh, I wish I had that option. I used to try anyway, but I always wound up conking out on top of my desk….usually with something flammable in my hand."
You gasp, and then he pats his head light-heartedly and says, "Luckily my hair grows back fast," and your gasp turns to a giggle.
"There are good dreams, too, Lapis," Drakken says.
The words crunch in your head the way the potato salad crunched on your tongue. "But how can you stand it when you wake up and you know it isn't real?"
Drakken considers that for a moment, hanging on to the same breath until his cheeks narrow. "Well, a temper tantrum isn't the most efficient reaction, but it can be quite satisfying!"
Your body feels more a trick of light than ever, and you touch Drakken's hand to make certain you are still solid.
"Dreams in general are sort of unnatural for a Gem, anyway," you say. "The only time we see things that aren't real is when we're in an unstable fusion." You know your face is sending out a plea too desperate to be vocalized. Although you can say Jasper's name and not fall apart, invoking Malachite's will certainly rot you from the inside out.
Drakken frowns. "Unst – Ohhhh. Oh! Well, sensically – I mean, of natural, I mean – that makes perfect sense! Well, then, of course you don't want to!"
"Some of our researchers think corrupted Gems see fake things, too," you relay off-handedly. It is one horror to which you cannot relate.
Receiving the fact doesn't bring the scientific lightening to Drakken's eyes this time. In fact, they thrash from side to side, and the rest of his body follows as he cries, "I'll be right back!" and shoots from the sofa. You hear the low bounce of his voice, a few minor crashes, and then he is there again, holding an object that he describes as his mother's cell phone. This makes sense, too; it has the same compact flip, though the shell he presses into your palm is silvered rather than black.
Drakken's thumb wanders, aimless, over your knuckles, unsure of anything except its care for you. "If you get too 'freaked out,' as the teens today say, you can call me."
You stare at this package of flimsy human energy. "But what if it wakes you up?"
"Oh, pshaw!" Drakken sounds humorously like his mother as he tips his head back. "I've woken so many people up in the middle of the night before – now it's my turn!"
He stops with a finger suspended in the air. "Is – did I say that correctly? Am I supposed to say that I'd be delighted to hear from you at any hour of the night?"
You blink. "I have no idea."
There is silence, save for the grinding of the dishwasher.
"Well, I guess I can try for a little while…" You rotate the phone in your hands. "Does your mother fall asleep fast?"
Dr. Drakken's eyes crinkle into tiny slits. "Almost as fast as my hair grows back."
You place the pillow on the couch's side, roll the blanket back, and slowly slide what you believe is called your tailbone to a place of rest against the cushions. Almost immediately, it turns to straw beneath you, and the food in your midsection flexes. You give Dr. Drakken a smile, though you imagine it is as tepid as the cove where Jasper eventually seized dominance.
He sniffs and wipes at the bottom of his nose. "Would it help if I sung you a lullaby?" he says.
"What's a lullaby?" you ask.
"It's a song you sing to help someone else fall asleep."
"Oh. That's what those are called," you say. "Pearl sings those to Steven sometimes." And though you are still not sure how you feel about the white Pearl, she sings with a resonance that stirs your wings to soar. "Yes. Go ahead."
"Lavender's blue –" Drakken begins, and then he shakes his head. "No, lavender is lavender. It had a whole color named after it, so why write a song where you call it another color?"
You draw up your feet so Drakken will have more room. Light from a small electric lamp at the end of the sofa twirls through his eyes, turning them reflective. Once again, you see yourself shining in a surface that cannot possibly contain all of you. But unlike in the mirror, you like how you look reflected in his eyes.
Drakken begins again:
Lapis is blue, dilly, dilly
Emerald's green
If I were king, dilly, dilly
You'd be my queen
Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly
And the lambs play
We shall be safe, dilly, dilly
Out of harm's way
The sweetness with which he sings is wholly expected; the quality is not. You knew his voice would be beautiful because it is his, but you are surprised at how well it handles the notes. It has a bit of a scratch to it, too, only nothing like Jasper's. Hers is sand in a fresh wound; Drakken's is the rough, warm feel of the barn's splintered wood.
He bends down and kisses the space between your eyebrows, the space he does not have, and you forget there have ever been other Lapis Lazulis.
"Good night," Drakken says, almost shyly. "I love you."
"Good night," you say. "I love you too."
Saying that reminds you of coral: building up naturally, piece by piece, over time –and yet it is still a wonder when you pass by one day, and there is a reef fully realized.
Dr. Drakken leaves, and you hear the front door lock shut behind him. Your fear has not vanished, but it has slunk meekly to a corner of yourself where it cowers. Though you still have no desire to fall asleep, you take one more look at your fingerprints in the lantern-light and find yourself capable of cozying beneath the blanket and listening to Mama Lipsky shuffle around in her bedroom.
Even after the shuffle stops and the space under the door goes dark – perhaps human sleep can be disrupted by light, even though it was never kind enough to penetrate your barricade of bad dreams – you only rise to your feet and walk a few paces away from the couch. You have no destination in mind other than the avoidance of further dreams.
This lean, wooden, windblown house – it does not feel like home, not yet. But for the time being, it is a place where you are more than content to stay.
~EDITED 11/29/2016 to fix unintentionally suggestive pea-eating.~