9. The Lifetimes.
"Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart."
- Emil Cioran
After centuries of darkness, they were exhausted. But under the true light of the actual sun, their energy returned to them fast.
The days were much longer here than on Earth - though the sky remained black, the sun brightly lit the rocky ground. The nights, equally as long, were cold and lit far less brightly by the ever-present stars. The blue sphere of Earth in the glittering sky was only visible for half of the journey, when they happened to be on the side of the moon to which it was tidally locked.
Ancient mountain ranges, created in the molten fire of meteor impacts and strangers to erosion, often lay in their way. Dealing with mountains was easy, however. All they had to do was place one foot in front of the other and voila, they were doing something.
As they came back around the other side of the moon, they couldn't help but fixate on the illusion of Earth rising higher over the barren horizon. They walked slower in order to draw out this strange and haunting moment. To savor it.
It had been a silent journey. The lack of breeze and the sound of their boots scuffing against rocks was surreal, but they got used to it. It took less than two months - two moon days - to circumnavigate the moon by foot, without the aid of magic.
In the distance, they soon saw the Diamond Base. It was only when they were able to reach out and slap the side of it that they could consider their journey complete, as per custom. Only then did Connie stomp a boot into the ground.
The sudden vibration ripped into the rock beneath them and a portal wrenched open in a swirling burst of light.
They fell through and landed on their feet inside the Observation Room. Lars couldn't help it. The instant he found himself steeped in air again, he took a deep breath. His lungs stung as they filled and he let it all out in a yell that reverberated off the walls many times over.
Connie's face twisted into a grimace and she clapped her hands to her ears. She glared at Lars, only to see that he had his hands over his ears too. In the middle of it all, he shrugged and smirked regretfully.
"Talking, talking, blugh, blugh," she started quietly after the room had fallen silent. She placed a hand to her throat. "Ahh, talking feels weird now."
Lars snapped his head back to look at her. "Hi! Connie, right?" he joked.
"Hey." She smiled softly and rubbed an ear. Sound again after so long in silence was almost too much to deal with. "You're so nasally. I forgot."
"Hm, yes. Hurtful."
She walked over and grabbed him into a hug. "It's good to hear your voice again."
He hugged back. "Heh. You too, but we've gone longer than that without speaking."
"Yeah, but you weren't mad at me this time."
He raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't make sense. I thought you were mad at me."
Her brow knitted together in confusion. "Were we giving each other the silent treatment for no reason?"
They thought for a long moment, but the inciting incident was evidently too insignificant to recall.
"Whatever." He shrugged as they let each other go. "Doesn't matter."
The room around them, vast and dimly-lit, was silent and unoccupied aside from themselves and the orb hovering dormant in the center. They moved towards it, their footsteps echoing off the walls before dying in the air, succumbing once again to silence.
The orb lit up into an Earth-blue glow at Lars' touch. He began to fiddle around with it while Connie stood back to watch as the room changed and morphed around them. It was daytime suddenly, and they stood in a meadow grazed by deer.
Then, twilight moments later on the side of a mountain overlooking a sprawling forest.
Then daybreak over a sandy beach, waves crashing in and sliding out only to repeat itself over and over as they stood knee-deep in the moving water. Well, not really, but if they tried hard enough they could almost believe.
Lars stood back and looked around. Everything around them seemed so real. Of course, it all was real somewhere else, but the only way they could tell they were apart from these holograms were by the shadows they cast in the orb's light projection.
And the lack of feeling. Of sound.
They gazed up at the landform in front of them. There was no sign that they used to live on top of the hill, but thanks to the looming statue of Obsidian gracing the cliff face, cupping a warp pad and the temple's entrance in a few of her many hands, there was every sign that the Crystal Gems lived there now.
From where they stood in the water, they could see the gems gathering. There was Rose, laughing soundlessly about something with Garnet. The temple door opened and Pearl stepped out. Rose waved her over.
Amethyst had been clowning around on top of the statue but she threw herself down when she noticed everyone else was gathering.
"There they are," Connie said, wide-eyed and wistful as the four gems discussed their next mission. "I wish-"
"No," groaned Lars. "Don't wish for stuff. Please."
Connie bit her lip and nodded, only to be surprised as Lars kept talking. "We wish we could go join them, we want to help with what they're doing - we know. But, we can't. So-"
But he knew he was preaching to the choir.
"Yeah..." he trailed off as they watched as the four gems stepped onto the warp pad and disappeared a second later into its light. Where the gems were bound for, they didn't know. They couldn't follow.
They were alone once again in the projection, in the silent chamber.
"How lonely are we?" he asked after a while.
Connie shrugged. She had her arms folded and wore a sad smile. "Fairly."
He turned back to the orb and selected a place he knew to be the location of some well-to-do settlement or other. Suddenly it was high noon, more or less, in a crowded town center.
There were people all around them dressed in the garb of the day. Some were merchants peddling their wares to passers-by; others were tradesmen working on a nearby building. A troop of soldiers, heavily armed, marched right through them like phantoms as a handful of children ran around, playing in the dusty street.
"Would you have liked to have some of, uh, these things?" Lars asked after some minutes of watching the joyful exuberance with which these smallish beings conducted themselves.
She shot him a look. "We aren't having tiny pink humans. We don't know if we even could, and I'm not willing to find out."
The thought of roping other people into joining them in this extremely long, bizarre and yet normal pseudo-life they were living had never appealed to either of them in the slightest.
"Yeah. That's not where I was going with that," Lars replied somewhat awkwardly. "I'm just. I'm asking... I meant, in some other life. If things turned out different."
She tilted her head at him. "Would you have?"
He shrugged. "If things were different, maybe."
"With Sadie?"
He looked away.
"Crap, sorry-"
"No. It was a long, long time ago. It just feels weird because it-" He hesitated. "It's slowly comin' around again, after so long."
"I know," said Connie, the half-remembered face of Steven again at the forefront of her mind.
"And... you're right," he muttered, waving a hand around briefly and cutting her off. He turned back to glare intently at the glowing orb as he manipulated it once again. The town center became a forest. "It was stupid. Forget it."
"I never said it was a stupid question, Lars. I just-"
She stopped abruptly as the scene around them changed once more. A beautiful sunset, russet gold and bright, over the ocean. Even after so long they were still awed by such sights. They watched as it sunk below the horizon, the colors changing with every passing moment.
Her breath caught in her throat. His jaw dropped open.
And so the fancy took them to begin chasing sunsets. There were an endless number of them in a single day, every single one of them completely unique, so they were spoilt for choice.
Hours passed. Maybe days, possibly months - they couldn't really tell. The passage of time is hard to keep track of when one is able to dart around the Earth instantaneously from the comfort and safety of an Observation Room on the surface of the moon, and when all one can think to seek out from that chamber is sunsets.
Much, much later, as the sun slowly lowered over the long-abandoned and broken Sky Arena, Lars lay on the floor looking up while Connie leaned back nearby against the wall.
"Look," she said finally, breaking the silence that lay heavy upon them. "I guess I would have, eventually. I never thought about it before it all went bad. I was young, you know. Then all we did was search, and I never let myself think about it." She hesitated. "But. I think I would have liked to eventually," she added carefully, her chin resting in her palm.
"With Steven?" he asked after a time.
She bit back her own pain. "Of course. But now... there's no way. No way at all."
"Glad we're going to fix everything then," he said, wide-eyed and without humor. "I dunno if I woulda had any myself, actually. I was in the middle of re-evaluating my life, once again, right before it all went bad."
"What do you think you would have done?"
"I had my crew," he said emotionlessly. "We talked a lot about space. Maybe we would have gone back there for a while."
She kicked a leg out from under her. It felt stiff.
"Lars," she said quickly. "I wanna go outside. Let's- let's make something."
This had his attention. New ideas always did. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, his joints cracking satisfyingly as he did. "Yes! What are we building?"
"Anything."
Wordless and soundless, they used the tools they had accumulated during their time on Earth and carved a quarry out of a convenient crater.
Then, block by block, they began to build on the far side of the moon.
They figured it was okay, that no one would be able to see whatever mess they made - not for a couple of thousand years yet, and by then they would have fixed everything anyway.
There was no plan at first, and then a towering castle of glittering pale grey stone rose up around them. The sign language they'd developed to help orchestrate their silent task was another stroke of genius - that's how, many decades later after they finally had everything exactly how they wanted it, they were able to communicate to each other just how much they hated it and wanted to tear it down.
So they did. Gradually, a much bigger, far more elaborate castle took its place. They built it into a tall crater mountain, and the tops of its highest towers could easily make one lose track both of the moon's surface and of themselves in the sparkling black sky.
The spacious interior was bare and dark. Whenever they passed through the airless chambers, they were forced to light up their eyes. The only other lighting source they knew about was fire, but that was impossible in the near-vacuum.
Lars chiseled their names a thousand times over into the rock as Connie watched, unable to argue with his logic. No one will ever see this, he'd signed to her. Not after we fix everything.
Suddenly, after losing track of the years once again, Lars became worried that they'd overshot their appointment.
He saw Connie happen to glance up at him from where she was finishing off the battlements on one of the outer towers and signaled as much to her from the top of the battlements. Connie frowned. A single day here was as long as a month on Earth and they'd long since lost track of those, so it wasn't outside the realms of the possible.
Meet you there, she gestured back. She hated to leave a task unfinished. Gotta finish this.
Lars gave the thumbs up and disappeared in a flash of bright light.
She joined him a small amount of time later to find him at the orb, cycling through the civilizations they'd watched grow and change. They were obviously still mired somewhere deep in the past - when exactly, they still couldn't quite tell.
Think we're still good, he signed at her.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Why aren't you talking?"
He frowned. Because I- He took a breath. "Because I forgot, alright?"
She snorted and reached out to tap the orb, and suddenly from a high vantage point they looked down upon a sprawling city.
Her eyes widened. So much had changed since they had last stood here in this chamber.
"This place grew," she said, astounded. She nudged him when he appeared confused. "Remember the little village with the corrupted ruby problem?"
Lars scratched his head, eyes bugging. "What- How did they manage all this? There were so many corrupted rubies."
The projection of the sky above them grew dark with heavy cloud cover. Moments later, raindrops began to fall. Lars gasped and held out his hand. But the rain, of course, was part of the illusion - the droplets passed straight through his palm. Straight through the both of them.
Wind moved silently through the leaves of some nearby cypresses and as they watched, a longing washed over them.
Though the silence and the isolation of the moon was nice, they craved the sensations of Earth and this was the hard proof. It was safer to stay, but surely a short visit wouldn't hurt.
"This moment is perfect," said Connie as rainwater quickly soaked through their raggy, ancient clothes. As they basked in the color and life and sounds that the moon simply lacked. "Earth is so special. You know, I missed this old thing. Even when we were looking right at it."
"Easy to see why humans prefer it to the moon," Lars agreed.
A distant roll of thunder rumbled through the atmosphere. It startled them for a moment, but it was far enough away to feel somewhat comforting. Above, the very same cypresses they saw in the projection continued to move with the wind. This incredible world had that smell of wet grass and dirt - a scent somewhat alien to them by now after centuries of stasis in orbit of this living paradise.
"I mean, I know they don't prefer it, as though they have a choice-" He was going to explain himself further when Connie piped up.
"You really don't think we're human?" she asked, a bit of surprise in her tone. "Not even a little?"
He gave her an odd look. "We don't need air or even an atmosphere to survive. Humans love those things."
She blinked. "You're right. We can take it or leave it. In fact, we're lugging around all these organs we don't need. Spleens!? What's a spleen even for, anyway?"
Lars watched the high boughs of the trees sway in the grey rain. "I have no idea what we are, but I don't think the answer's been 'human' for a long time."
All this talk made Connie feel a little sick in her vestigial stomach, even though it made no sense.
"Sorry for ruining this perfect moment for you," he added quietly as raindrops continued to lazily pelt their faces.
It was supposed to be a short visit to their planet of origin, but it was too tempting to postpone their return to the moon and the years piled up once again.
They returned to their modus operandi of wandering. They'd spent well over a thousand years on the moon, most of that in a darkness illuminated by the shadows of the life going on down on Earth - a life, it turned out, that they missed.
In a world bustling more and more with humans and their works, they often needed to detour to avoid contact with people, and as a result at times found themselves in the proximity of Rose. After a while they realized it was like an extra sense - a feeling only felt when she was near. Often when this happened, they would simply head in the opposite direction.
On the moon, they felt no such sense. But they had become accustomed to keeping tabs on her, following her adventures whenever they happened to stumble upon her. So sometimes when they felt it, just to be different, they used this sense to find her.
Once, she was laughing and joyful in the company of a man. They quickly found themselves despondent - perhaps a little jealous - and left her to it, unnoticed.
Often they found her out with Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst. Usually on missions, subduing monsters or disarming dangerous structures leftover from the war, and again they left them. It was important work they were doing, and to disrupt it - or even to reveal themselves and offer to help - was unthinkable.
Whether Rose was similarly aware of them, it was impossible to tell in these moments. But on occasion when they found her alone, she spoke to them.
She was building a tower by herself out of rocks on a lonely picturesque beach backed by mountains, somewhere in the Great North. The breeze, cold and brisk, ruffled her long pink locks with each movement she made, but it couldn't penetrate any deeper than that.
"It's been forever since we last talked, hasn't it?" she said loudly, seemingly to no one, as she floated down from placing the latest block on the very top of the structure, to land delicately en pointe.
They heard her clearly from the dunes in which they had, up until now, thought they were being stealthy, sneaking up on her while she was preoccupied.
Rose paused as the two ex-humans held a whispered discussion that she could only half-hear. But it seemed that they wanted to be friendly in this instance and she was pleased to see them soon emerge from their hiding spot. They slowly made their way down the slope towards her.
She smiled that soft smile.
Although the sun was out, the wind remained cold. But that didn't bother any of the immortals gathered in this moment.
"Hi, Rose," said Lars, earning himself an elbow nudge from Connie. He lowered his voice, "What was that for? We decided-"
Oops, they were showing signs of being flighty already. The reason why, as always, eluded her so she wracked her mind to think of something neutral to talk about. To try to keep them there.
"So. What about this weather we're having?"
It was, to say the least, a long shot.
The two must have appeared confused because, to their surprise, Rose began to explain. "Oh, that? It's just small talk. Harmless banter, polite conversation about... fleeting, unimportant things." She seemed apologetic. "I picked it up from humans. I thought you would have been familiar with it."
Lars and Connie hadn't engaged in it in a long time. At upwards of three and a half thousand years of age, they each knew more than enough about the other to realize they didn't need it for themselves. They'd spent many a long decade without exchanging a word, and close contact with anything else that might've talked back had been nonexistent for millennia.
And now they were engaging in small talk with one of the most powerful beings in the universe, stranded here and in disguise. Her voice was beautiful and she knew them, remembered them. She was interested in them and of all the myriads of important things she could be doing in this moment, she was instead asking a couple of nobodies for their useless and insipid opinion about the weather here in this brief snapshot of time and space.
But the timeline didn't seem to have been ruined by their interactions with her thus far, so Lars piped up.
"It's... cold-ish? But we're okay," he said as he showed off his bare arms. Connie looked defeated.
Rose chuckled briefly. "That was kind of an answer, you know."
Connie folded her arms. "Don't get used to it."
"Today's not the day, then," she shrugged as she turned back to her tower, somehow managing to hide her curiosity for once, although it remained as strong as it had ever been.
"What are you building?" Connie asked her.
Rose glanced up the tower, which was incredibly tall. "This? Oh, I call it a Tower of Folly," she replied in a low voice. She then perked back up somewhat. "What do you think of it?"
"Uh, folly?" asked Connie with a raised eyebrow.
Lars' expression was much the same. "What's it for?"
Rose could see once again that they didn't understand, so she elaborated. "It isn't for anything. It's an experiment."
She lifted her head to shoot a fading smile up at it, looming high above them.
"I only want to see how long I can keep building this up before the natural course of events washes it all away."
All of a sudden, they understood perfectly and together the three stood for a while, the tide gently lapping away at the base of the structure as they admired it.
They grew less afraid of Rose, at least. In the odd moments they encountered her during their extended stay on Earth, they reciprocated her pleasantries.
They were happy to talk about meteors, eclipses, eruptions, auroras, sundogs, about the comings and goings of humans. With every single passing day, there was always something new going on with humanity. Villages grew into cities grew into nations, the geopolitical landscape seeming to change around them in the time that it took them to blink.
Rose didn't try to ask them anything deeper about themselves, nor did they her.
The time was getting closer. It was still hundreds of years out, but thousands of years had passed already and the crushing weight of endless time had somewhat lost its sting. They were able to go years without noticing - a half-century sojourn felt like a day's detour, to them.
When at last they resumed worrying about their impact, they returned to the moon.
And once they were settled back watching life's endless dance from that silent, distant chamber, they soon yearned to go back.
But there was no reason to go back, not for a long time, until Connie caught sight of something in the projection. She nudged Lars and pointed. When he saw it, a slow smile spread across his face.
"You remembered," he said.
"Surprisingly, I remember a lot."
He snorted at this and pushed himself up on his feet. He walked over to shut off the orb.
She stood as well. "You ready?" she asked.
At Lars' nod, she took a deep breath.
Portals between the moon and Earth always, always required the pure force and fury of a roar ripped from bursting lungs. No other method of creation they'd tried so far would do.
Soon they were hurtling toward Earth through tunnels within tunnels of wind and light.
The darkened ground they touched down onto was far too exposed. One much quicker portal later they were on a mountainside overlooking the nearby city.
With a good view of the darkened landscape spread out far below, they saw the arc made by a tiny point of light. It rose like a little firefly in the dark before exploding into brilliance after reaching the apex of its flight.
Seconds later, the noise hit them. Little thunderclaps - the sound of fireworks. A sound neither of them had heard in so long.
"We're getting closer," Connie observed. "We're still perhaps around a thousand years out or so, but-"
"What are you waiting for?"
They spun around to see Rose, once again. Their eyes widened as they tensed up - and to Rose, they looked exactly like gems staring at the light of an oncoming blast from a diamond.
Rose froze. She hated that look. Actually, she despised it. So, very slowly, she took a careful step back.
"Doesn't it get boring?" she added gently. "Just the two of you..."
Lars and Connie exchanged glances. They'd been surprised, sure, and Rose had overheard something they weren't comfortable with, but they liked her. She was the closest thing they had to a friend outside of each other. In the end, Lars decided to pipe up.
"We, uh. We find ways to fill in time."
Rose simply overflowed with curiosity now. "Really?!"
Lars blushed at the unexpected interest. "Yeah, we build things too-" He winced as he received another sharp elbow from Connie. "Ah, okay-"
Despite that, Rose wasn't done with these fascinating non-human non-gems. "Well, don't you get lonely?"
They did. She could see it on their faces. Pleased for one more extended audience with these elusive beings, though, she once again stumbled over herself to keep them talking.
"Maybe there's a way you could come join me and the others," she found herself saying. "Amethyst will be so excited! Pearl and Garnet..." She trailed off briefly, frowning. "They don't like to get involved with humans." She smiled again. "But I like you! I'm sure they would too."
Lars and Connie exchanged glances again. Tucked away, deep in their pink little hearts, all they wanted was to be surrounded by other ageless immortals. To have company. Not for the first time, they imagined being able to join the Crystal Gems in their quest to find and subdue the corrupted.
...But. And it was a steep but.
Once again, Rose could see it on their faces.
"Perhaps joining us is asking too much," she said, just before they parted. "But, you know, I have a good feeling whenever I see you. Even though you leave me every time. I feel like- well, I'm not certain."
Here, she'd smiled.
"But I feel like you're important."
More years passed by. Kingdoms rose and broke apart into different kingdoms, and a little ice age came and went. Atrocity after atrocity was committed against the Earth, against mankind itself. Nature receded more and more, falling further away every time against the spread of humanity.
Monsters still roamed the lands, but far fewer thanks to the efforts of the Crystal Gems. Slowly and yet quickly, time was closing in on itself.
Lars was reading one of the many books they'd collected over their long years on Earth, but despite how deeply entrenched in the pages he was he managed to glance up at just the right moment-
Stradivarius-
The word leapt from the lips of the man in the projection of a Mediterranean city square, during what Connie felt was the Renaissance. He appeared to be gloating to his friend and, tucked in his arm, was a violin case.
Lars was a very good lipreader by now and this rang a bell for him. There had been a moment, long ago, when his best friend told him a fact about herself. A specific kind of violin, one she'd always wanted to play.
There she was, over on the other side of the chamber - something else had caught her eye and she had no idea. A slow smile crept across his face. This kind of coincidence was unprecedented and he knew that if he acted quickly, she'd be none the wiser. He dog-eared the page he was on and shoved the book into his head before standing up.
Of course, his scream alerted her to the fact that he was up to something.
"Where are you going?" she asked, startled by the sudden lack of silence.
He stumbled and aborted the jump. "N-nowhere!"
She gestured to the portal. "I can see your portal, Lars. And I heard you make it, so I know it terminates on Earth. It's hard to miss."
He rolled his eyes. "I'll be back! Trust me. One second, okay?"
"One second-" she was about to ask what that meant exactly, but he was gone already and the portal closed behind him.
She did trust him, however, and turned back to the projection.
Moments later, to her complete surprise, he was back. He had his long hair, which he had been growing out for the last century or so, hidden under an old hood and his hands were gloved, but could tell it was him.
"Lars?" She was deeply confused. "What are you-"
She blinked hard in surprise as she saw he was speaking to someone in the projection. She was more surprised to realize that she couldn't hear what he was saying.
And then she gaped when she noticed his shadows were all wrong. He was lit as if by the light of a different world - of Earth. He wasn't here with her.
"Lars," she breathed, eyes narrowed. "You idiot."
She couldn't help but watch. Although she'd also become a strong lipreader, she'd in her shock missed out on being able to follow the brief conversation. But Lars had already parted ways with the stranger and was on his way somewhere else, moving quickly down the semi-crowded street. She scrambled over to the orb and adjusted it so she could follow him, avoiding people and carts as he went.
Suddenly he glanced around. She knew that look on his face, paranoia so thick she could almost smell it even though he wasn't really there. He ducked into an empty alley. He approached the stone wall of a building, raised a hand and brought it down into it. The friction rippled out and ripped space a new portal-hole.
"No, no, no," she muttered at him, tensing her fingers uselessly in the air out of frustration. "Don't you dare-" but she could only look on as he jumped through the portal. To where? Well, she knew that he knew she wouldn't be able to guess.
That bastard.
But even despite this sudden terrible behaviour, she trusted him. She knew, as per their ancient gentlemen's agreement, that all she had to do was wait exactly where they'd parted ways and he'd eventually return. And waiting was easy. Her entire life had been spent waiting.
It actually wasn't long before she was able to glare daggers at him in person. His hood and gloves were gone now, stowed away in his head for safekeeping. The portal disappeared and immediately he glanced around to see from the projected alleyway that she'd been stalking him. His eyes focused on her, and he smiled some devilish smile for a moment as he gauged her expression.
Mostly unreadable with a dash of fury. Good. That meant he still had a chance.
"Hi."
Her expression intensified. After spending so long together, Lars should have been used to the sort of look Connie was now giving him, but he really wasn't. He quailed a little.
"Heh. Got you somethin'," he added.
"It better be worth risking time itself for," Connie started, confused and outraged. "Lars, this isn't digging around in garbage for books or fabric! You know that was a huge deal, right? And for what!?"
She found herself looking at a curvy black case. It had a familiar shape to it.
"Surprise..."
"Huh?" was all she could manage as she accepted it.
"Strudenheimer, right?"
The look she gave him was one of pure disbelief. She opened the case and, with a trembling finger, gently traced the contour of the beautiful instrument contained within.
"How-" was all she could utter.
Lars smiled incorrigibly. "I spent some of that gold we found in Pangea ages ago. Do you like it? You... still like these things, right?"
"I-I."
He frowned. "Are you okay?"
She didn't hear him. She pulled the violin out of the case and studied it. It smelled fresh of varnished wood. She plucked one of the strings and it rung out strong.
"Is it in tune?" Lars was asking. "The guy made me wait while he tuned it. It was... bad." He hugged himself a little. "And I. It was weird being inside a human dwelling again. Small, you know. I nearly almost had heart failure."
She glanced at Lars, uncomprehending any of these mouthwords of his.
The eye contact made Lars remember something. He pulled the bow out of his head and offered it, but she was already distracted. She was turning the instrument over and over, studying it. She peered into the F holes, but the light was all wrong so she lit up her eyes briefly. And there it was - the label declaring the instrument a legitimate Stradivarius, stamped on the inside of the back.
"It's real," she breathed.
"Uh, it better be real."
She took the bow from him, placed the end of the instrument under her chin and began to play.
Lars gasped quietly. The piece started out strong - each slow stroke wobbly, sure, but despite that the melody she coaxed from it was beautiful and haunting.
For the first time in a long time, she began to sing.
"The... sun is bright, our shirts are clean," her breath caught in her throat and the tune faltered and became scratchy, but only for a moment. "We, we're sitting up above the sea-"
Suddenly she was shaking but still she sung, still scratching out those increasingly discordant notes as she went. Lars' expression grew more concerned.
And yet she sung. The song grated the air. "Come on and share. This-" Her breath caught again. "-jam with-"
She stopped playing and held the instrument in her hands once again, looking down at it with tears threatening.
Lars took a step toward her. "Connie?"
Before he could do anything else, she lifted the violin up with both hands by its neck like a baseball bat. Her eyes lit up with a stark white glow. She grit her teeth and as Lars looked on helpless, she smashed it, screaming, directly into the orb.
The alleyway scene flickered and then cut out abruptly and the air in the chamber jolted. The building shook and rumbled. The orb spun wildly in place.
They stood alone in darkness, like they always secretly did.
The instrument was a mess of splintered wood and strings in her hands but she raised it high once more to bring what was left of it down again, and again.
Lars rushed forward and grabbed her arm before she could bring it down a fourth time.
"Con-"
He saw the tears streaming down her face as she ripped herself away from him, letting the splintered neck of the violin fall to land amidst the rest of the debris. Shaking, she brought her hands together into a clap.
A portal sparked into existence. Lars knew better than to make her stay, so he didn't try to stop her when she threw herself through.
When the light from the portal disappeared, he turned back to look back at the mess that remained. She'd wanted to be alone, so he stayed and picked up a little, knowing full well he'd go after her eventually. Her portal hadn't been enough to get to Earth, so Lars had an idea of where she might have gone.
Some time later (neither was certain how long, exactly), he found her sitting cross-legged and slouching upon the battlements atop the highest tower of the literal castle they'd built roughly one thousand years earlier. Under the Earthless sky, under the light of the sun and countless stars, it continued to stand as tall and as perfectly as it had the moment they'd left it.
She didn't hear him approach of course, but felt his presence as he came over to lean against the battlement next to where she sat. After a while, he leaned the side of his head against her arm - an apology.
She nudged back. Another apology.
They exchanged forced smiles briefly before looking away.
Here on the far side of the moon, the furthest from the Earth they could possibly get, Connie and Lars hung out for a while. Silently they watched the distant stars and the unchanging moonscape before them. Silently they worried about the task which forever lay before them.
"How did we ever miss this?" Lars asked, some other time, as they looked around the top of some gem structure on a steep hill. They were actually of course in the Observation Chamber on the moon, but around them was an ancient unchanging gem structure they'd never actually been to in person.
Although they'd tried their best at fixing the orb, the projection now had a tremor to it. Every so often it would flicker and blink out for a second. It did so here, but it always returned. It was jarring when it happened, but they were slowly getting used to it. They hoped so, anyway.
"I have no idea," breathed Connie, a little awestruck at the idea that there could still be undiscovered vistas like this one out there, waiting to be found. "This is amazing. We've walked through these mountains so many times. How did we never think to climb one? Or even to just... look up?"
They watched as a tiny bejewelled bug skittled about the place.
"That's- wait, isn't that the Heaven Beetle?" Lars dropped down onto his stomach for a closer look. "Wow. She's really a tiny bug."
"Which makes this... the Sky Spire," concluded Connie. "Huh. I can't believe we missed it." She glanced over at the tiny domed building in the centre of a platform laying plush against a pool.
"That must be her little house," she said as she made her way over to it.
Lars jumped back up and scooted over to join her in peering inside the tiny windows. The projection flicked off and on again, a little jarring.
"Very bare," she said, trying to ignore it.
Lars shrugged. "Gems were always kind of minimalist. Not like humans."
"True," she conceded.
They hung around a little longer to admire the view before Connie had an idea.
"Lars. Remember how we made all those little models back in the bronze age?"
"I remember a lot, Connie. We've got pink magic in our brains preserving our memories or keeping us sane or something. Not that I'm complaining-"
But her idea was big. And important. And when Lars learned what it was, he was all in.
One frivolous portal later they were at the Sky Spire in person, interior decorating a corrupted gem's house with tiny model furniture they'd made for no reason a couple of thousand years earlier and shoved into their heads for safekeeping.
They'd based the designs on furniture they remembered from their old lives. And there was a lot of it - a cute wooden bed, a TV set complete with aerial. A tiny wooden cactus in a little wooden pot. Bongo drums, randomly, among other things.
It was in surprisingly good condition for all the time that it had existed. They put it down to the lack of oxygen in that darkened, airless world beyond their heads. The lack of microbes, of atmosphere. Entropy didn't appear to exist there. But out here...
The corrupted Heaven Beetle wandered over as they set about their task, for all the world as if to watch. The tiny creature seemed harmless and generally in approval of their presence, so they tried to remain mindful of her, careful not to harm or upset her.
Lars had his tongue stuck out in concentration as he squinted through the window, trying his best to coordinate the placement of the tiny books upon the tiny bedside table.
"Got it!" he said in triumph. "What's next?"
Connie offered him delicate curtains made from a kind of burlap as well as a ceiling fan. He looked disapproving.
"How am I going to hang those? It's not like I have glue- oh, wait. I do!"
There was still some relatively fresh resin laying about in their heads from the last time they'd had to repair Moldavite's glassy faux-bubble, so they focused the sun's rays through a little glass they'd picked up recently and melted a small piece of it down.
Soon, the little house was fully furnished, complete with curtains and fixtures. They watched through the windows as the diminutive corrupted gem wandered around inside it.
Lars was rather taken by the whole situation. "That's so weirdly cute. Connie? This right here is what Rose was talking about." He smiled widely at her and clapped his hands together once. "This is the most important thing we've ever done."
"Doubt it, but at least she approves," Connie said with a snort, nodding towards the little beetle. "I wonder if anyone's ever going to find all this."
He raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you say that Steven-"
Connie rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "That's still more than a century away. And now that it's out of our heads and here in the elements and oxygen, surely it'll all rot away by then. Right?" She frowned. "Or is that too short a time? How long did the cabin take to rot away, again?"
"I have no idea anymore." Lars shrugged. "So maybe Steven sees it. Worst case scenario? He'll like it. What's he going to do - overthink it? Hah. And it's not like it'll stick," he reasoned. When he saw her glance at him, he shrugged. "You know. When we fix everything."
Connie frowned. There was that phrase again. When we fix everything.
Ultimately, it didn't matter. They'd had a little fun and whiled away yet another afternoon in pursuit of something pointless. The remainder of their time there was spent watching as the corrupted Heaven Beetle explored her new 21st-century styled digs. They liked to think that she approved of it all, but they knew she couldn't possibly.
They bore witness to the industrial revolution. They watched the flickering projection as Captain William Dewey and his hardy crew founded Beach City. They watched Rose and Amethyst interact enthusiastically with their new neighbours. They discussed Pearl looking on in jealousy and suspicion. They theorized about Garnet's standoffish caution.
They had books, mountains of them that they'd collected over time, stored away in their heads, and read those during the boring parts.
They watched as the lighthouse was erected roughly on the site of their ancient camp. They watched the settlement grow into a fishing port. They watched Buddy Budwick have his crisis under the shadow of the newly-erected statue of his superior.
They watched as the man packed his meager belongings, most importantly his quill and journal. They watched his departure on his journey of discovery - that of the world, and of himself.
Lars set the book he'd been reading aside and punched the air with joy. But when he glanced over at her companion, he saw her brow furrowed.
When asked why, she shrugged. "Everything's turning out okay, despite everything we've done."
He smiled. "But that's good! He's going to write that book you'll read that helps us."
"But... what does that mean for our plan?" She sucked air in through her teeth. "If we can't change the future, we're screwed, right?"
Her concern was infectious. It put a damper on his celebration and they fell back into silence.
They were still watching a couple of decades later as a string of fires caused by the infamous Beach City arsonist brought the town to its knees.
The years rolled on and on and the tide of progress swept the globe. Humanity spread and spread and built and built.
Cities made no sense anymore and as soon as cars became a thing, they were suddenly everywhere too.
Nature, continually hacked further and further back, was becoming harder to find, but it was still there, clinging stubbornly to the planet as the human obsession with technology took prominence.
On and on it went.
They went down to Earth to get watches and an alarm clock when they noticed that those things existed once again, but aside from that, they couldn't bring themselves to visit longer than they had to. Neither could understand the place. The air smelled different with strange gasses and when they did find a patch of nature to enjoy for a while, it didn't seem as full and rich as it might have been prior.
They had an inkling that there wouldn't be enough time in what was left of their lives to understand this new world. Earth in general had become a far cry from the place they had known for so long.
Suddenly, after years of silence bathing in the light of the orb on the moon, Lars poked her. "Hey. Ask me if I was born yesterday."
"Huh?"
"Humor me," he insisted.
Connie continued to stare unblinkingly at the projection of the Beach City beach around them. "Were you born yesterday?" she asked.
"Yes. I was."
It took her a long moment to understand.
"Why didn't you tell me yesterday?"
He shrugged. "It's called a 'joke' I think."
She rolled her eyes. She knew they both remembered what jokes were.
"Well, happy birthday, my friend," she said with a small smile as she leaned back, half-closed eyes gazing out over the beach, then back down at her book she'd been spacing on. "For yesterday. How old does that make you?"
"Five thousand, three hundred and something, I'm guessing." He shrugged again. "But you were always better at that stuff than me."
They held their breath. They'd watched the time closely for years, refusing to become distracted by stupid things like circumnavigating planetoids, or interior design jobs for corrupted gems. Or building pointlessly for the sole purpose of having something to do with their hands.
It was the night before Steven's birthday, a date Connie dimly remembered, and now was the moment of truth.
Rose sat on the open hand of the statue of Obsidian, alone, watching the ocean lapping at the beach far below her, legs dangling over the side. The twilight sent brilliant streaks of red and gold glancing off the clouds. In the dim flickering light of the projection, they saw her heavily pregnant form.
They would have cheered, but this moment held a certain feeling that outweighed anything else they could have felt. In this complex moment, Rose sat in peace hundreds of thousands of miles away but the air between Lars and Connie was uneasy as they looked on unseen.
At last, Connie whispered, "Should we?"
"Yeah," breathed Lars.
Rose turned her head as the portal opened nearby. Her eyebrows raised as if expecting the arrival of an old friend.
"I was hoping I'd see you again," she admitted as the two familiar strangers stepped out to join her on the statue's open palm.
Connie nodded. "Rose."
"Hi, Rose," said Lars as the portal disappeared.
A gentle smile spread across her face as she picked herself up to stand and talk. "You know, somehow, don't you?"
Lars looked at Connie who, to his surprise, nodded.
"In that case, it's not a coincidence you're visiting me tonight." The gem paused briefly as she studied their faces. "I've figured it out," she said at last. "You will both come to know my child in some way."
"We did," said Connie, the words coming out with more difficulty than she thought they would. "Or, we will do?"
Rose gazed at Lars. "My child will bring you back to life someday, as I did to her. Like my friend, the lion-" She gasped to herself in realization. "Whom you must also know."
Lars nodded slowly. "We couldn't tell you much."
"We, uh, couldn't risk the future," agreed Connie.
"I can help," she started, perking up. "The Legendary Glass of Time! It lies protected at the bottom of the-"
Lars cut her off with a shake of his head. "No."
"What?" came her surprised response.
"We don't need your help, Rose," said Connie. "We have a plan. You still can't tell anyone about us." She glared meaningfully up at the diamond. "You have to promise us."
Rose saw the fire in her magenta eyes and nodded in acquiescence. She saw the way she calmed as the male placed a hand briefly on her shoulder.
"Besides," Connie continued, a little softer this time. "Maybe the hourglass could have helped five thousand years ago, but that canoe has sailed."
"But you're here, and you answered my question!" Rose exclaimed, appearing overjoyed for a moment before growing calm once more. "Ah, well... I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. I'll be giving up my physical form shortly. I'll never get to meet either of you in this timeline. Or-" she added, placing her hands on her baby bump, "him or her."
In this moment, they could see that Rose knew her fate. She'd asked for this - not only that, but sought it out willingly.
"Are you okay with that?" Connie couldn't help but wonder.
"Of course I am," came her earnest reply. "I'm excited. I can't wait to have something of myself finally become a real part of this vast and beautiful world," she gushed. "Can you imagine what that must be like?"
She wore an expression of pure joy at the mere prospect of something so simple and yet so sublime… which faded significantly as she regarded them. She saw the vague pain in their faces that they were both trying to hide.
"I suppose you can," she admitted. "When I first met you on the battlefield, you two were young, weren't you?"
A silence passed.
"Almost children," she added.
"Yeah," one of them said. The other nodded. It didn't matter which did which.
"I'm sorry." Rose became awkward. "I've done so many things that I thought were right at the time. If, if it was something that I caused somehow, please, tell me and I'll-"
Connie shook her head and cut her off. "It wasn't anything to do with you, Rose."
Lars scratched the back of one of his arms, his voice lowered. "It was something else."
"And..." Rose's expression fell further. "You've been waiting all this time to fix it." She suddenly picked her curiosity back up. "Well, how much longer do you have to wait?"
"Not long," came Connie's simple reply.
Rose looked at Lars, but he was tight-lipped too. Finally, she sighed and glanced aside. "I understand. Playing around with time is big."
"Yeah, right?" contributed Lars with a roll of his eyes. "Doesn't stop anyone from mucking around with it, though. Not even your son."
"Son!?" Rose gasped, her exuberance returning. "S-Steven?"
The pink humans cringed at each other, but Rose looked so happy. She placed both hands upon her belly once more.
"Steven," she repeated lovingly. "Oh… I wish I could meet him. Can you tell me a little about him?"
Before either could answer or (and this was probably more likely) not, she cut them off. "No, no. Wait. Don't tell me." She smiled. "I want it to be a surprise."
The sky darkened as the sun dipped beyond the mountains. There was an ocean breeze that was ramping up a little but, as usual, it didn't bother them.
Rose took a breath. "Actually, I... do have some questions, if today is really the day."
They exchanged uncertain glances, but Rose couldn't stop herself. "Will my friend the lion find Steven?"
"Yes," Connie said simply, with a nod.
"Will he learn about-"
She couldn't make herself say it. She'd never wanted to look back, but they each nodded once and Rose suddenly felt naked before them; a difficult feeling, for a gem. "Will he be okay?"
"Yes. Of course he will," said Connie.
"He's Steven." Lars shrugged.
"What about Pearl? Amethyst? Garnet?" Rose hesitated, studying their expressions. Then her voice dropped slightly as she continued, so carefully. "The diamonds?"
Lars exhaled and glanced away at this, but Connie tensed. Her back straightened. Her hands became fists briefly, but her eyes remained hard. She clenched her jaw, knowing that whatever she said, it had to be calm and collected.
But there was no need to say anything. In this moment, Rose knew. She had gone into this hoping that the Earth was no longer on the diamond's agenda. It had been five thousand years of nothing, after all, and she'd wanted nothing more than for her child to never have to learn of them.
But the hard evidence was in front of her. These strange humans knew the diamonds. Neither seemed to like them, the female most of all. She wondered why, because of course she did, but there was no point in asking.
"My stars," she muttered. "He'll inherit my problems, won't he?"
Lars and Connie exchanged glances. "They- He-" started Connie.
"It'll be tough, but..." Lars shrugged. "He helps them."
Connie's eyes threatened to water. "He helps everyone," she said, a touch of mourning in her tone as she managed to hold them back. "It's what he does."
Rose's face ran thick with tears. She wiped them away with her forearm.
"If you can," continued Rose when she could talk again, "Please, tell him I'm sorry. And that I love him. And... let him know how proud I am of him."
They had no idea how to incorporate that into their vague plans, but promised they would try.
"I have one last question," said Rose after a time, earning their attention once again. "Can you finally please tell me your names?"
Lars snorted and Connie shook her head. Rose smiled and shrugged. She'd expected as much.
They sat a while with her to watch the restless ocean from their vantage point safe in the palm of the hand of Obsidian until Rose excused herself, wished them luck, and went to go and be with her family.
The orb was dormant and had been for hours. Connie leaned back against the wall of the darkened chamber while Lars paced the floor in front of her.
They were unable to sit. Unable to bring themselves to look upon the Earth... and unable of course to intrude ghostlike upon Rose's final, private hours with her loved ones.
They knew when it happened - a feeling, like a little fire deep inside, was there one moment and snuffed out the next. They'd never really noticed it before, but it was beyond impossible to ignore its absence. The only constant, the closest thing to a friend that they had known in a vast, ancient and ever-changing world was erased, forever.
Lars stopped pacing. Connie's gaze fell to the expansive stone flooring.
There was no question. The ancient rebel diamond Rose Quartz, brilliant yet troubled leader of the Crystal Gems, stranded on the very world she'd saved from herself and her own kind, was gone.
And when it returned a moment later, they could only assume that her son, the heir to her gemstone, had breathed his first breath.
But from the bottom of the empty pit of loss, it was precious little consolation.
Everything felt wide and flat around them.