Ultimately, Jasper didn't really care that much about the Crystal Gems. Rose was an occasional annoyance who treated every mundane thing as something new and exotic, and Jasper learned quickly that Rose demurred and left them alone for whole centuries when she asked anything about the Gem War and why humans were distrustful of gems. Garnet came with Amethyst sometimes, but otherwise left them alone. Pearl mostly came when diplomacy was necessary and there were corrupted gems fleeing across the Great River that marked the boundary between what the Crystal Gems patrolled and the lands which Jasper had declared were under her protection. Amethyst was the most frequent visitor, and she acted more like them than she did the other Crystal Gems. Amethyst was so frequent a visitor that she was welcomed warmly by those who had befriended her, and Carnelian would often join her on the warp back to do whatever it was that Crystal Gems normally did while they were sequestering themselves from humanity.
She might have said she would pay the Crystal Gems a visit, but "at some point" turned out to be a hundred years later, well after a volcanic explosion threw everything into disorder, drew far-ranging people to the south, and instigated a cultural revolution. Jasper had taken to extricating herself from all the petty politics and wandering in the interim, as it got harder and harder to care about small, ultimately meaningless power struggles when there were so many new groups of people roaming around. Dicer still had the intrigue and insinuations made during her games, Sage was still questioning everything she did, and Twig was still there to make her re-examine her decisions. At least the human migrations kept things interesting. For a while.
The final element influencing her decision to see Pearl about training was, simply, the ennui that returned once the ash clouds settled and the new human groups integrated with the locals. At this point, just over forty-five hundred years after their emergence, she wasn't really needed anymore. Aside from the handful of malcontents, the village functioned well. Their human neighbors had high regard for them, and the strange-speaking raiding parties learned quickly that their watchgem was sharper-eyed than them and that fighting them was more of a hassle than it was worth. Those raiding parties who happened upon them after a hunt were welcomed and fed with the meat that gems had no real need for, and sent back to wherever they came from. Other hunters were just as skilled as her. And so on.
Jasper hated feeling useless and having nothing worthwhile to do. She tried to ignore the resentment that grew from that feeling, but it only festered and infected her words when she let her guard down. Driven by frustration, boredom, and disgust at both herself and everything else, she took the warp pad to the Crystal Gems' temple.
She supposed the massive statue must have been impressive once upon a time, but it got boring to look at without the directions and ideas and territory declarations chipped into the desert varnish of sandstone boulders and cliff walls along common trade routes, or the writing carved into stelae that touted some local king's right to rule by divinity and how special he was. There were no figures or writing to look at, frankly. There was just that dull, simply-decorated door with its five-pointed star and the warp pad set before it. Knocking and hammering did nothing, so she watched the waves and waited.
In time, which was a few hours before sunrise, the warp pad shimmered and lit up. The Crystal Gems appeared in that rush of light and air, and none of them looked surprised to see her. A shadow of guilt flickered in Rose's expression just before she plastered on that fake smile of hers.
"Jasper!" The cheeriness in Rose's voice was forced; it wasn't that long ago when Jasper relayed a rebuke to her from the Antelope clan for breaking some young man's heart. "What brings you here?"
As much as she disliked having witnesses when talking about anything personal, she tried not to let the irritation about that or having to ask for anything show. "Training. That offer's still open, right?"
"Oh! Of course," Rose chuckled and glanced down at Pearl. "Would you mind, Pearl?"
"I'll be delighted." Something about the shift in Pearl's bearing suggested that she wasn't, but Jasper was hardly going to bring it up.
Rose beamed sunnily, gratefully, at Pearl. Probably for giving her an out. The more Jasper asked her questions, the less willing Rose was to answer them. Deep down, Jasper suspected that there would come a time when Rose would stop pretending to put up with her questions. "You'll do wonderfully. Have fun!"
Then, as if she wanted to get far away before Jasper asked something uncomfortable again, Rose disappeared into her room. Garnet muttered an excuse about a mission and picked up Amethyst to warp away. She was left alone with Pearl.
It was hardly unusual. She had lost count of how often Pearl had come with an accounting of errant corrupted gems running to the safety of the Great River's western banks, or with some warnings of future events from Garnet. This was new, however, and Jasper wanted to ask a dozen things, starting with; Why do you let her treat you like that?
"Rose doesn't like me, does she?" she asked rhetorically, instead. Whatever was going on between Pearl and Rose was none of her business. All she knew was that if she had a romantic partner, she wouldn't be running after someone else for fun.
"You hardly make it easy."
It was probably as much of a confirmation as she was going to get. "Someone has to keep you gems from getting too complacent." And speak up when Rose's weird proclivities for playing with human suitors and sticking her nose into private rituals were likely to get them in trouble with their neighbors. Given that the other Crystal Gems thought only the best of Rose and her own gems were reluctant to bring up the issue, that particular task was Jasper's.
Just as well that a lifetime of putting up with malcontents muttering behind her back had inured her to any doubts about that aspect of her job as leader of the village and smothered any inclinations she may have had towards being worried about what others thought of her choices.
"Yes, well…" Pearl's eyes drifted aside, to some thought she wasn't likely to share with Jasper.
Jasper waited for Pearl's eyes to clear. She just… got like this sometimes, when Jasper accidentally set off a memory of some dark time that Pearl would never talk about. Jasper waited patiently until Pearl could finally find her words again. Then the shadows lifted and Pearl tittered uncomfortably.
"Stars! I'm sorry. We'll go to the Sky Arena and start there."
The warp wasn't long, but she still preferred walking every time. The novelty of warping had worn thin in the first hundred years after the Crystal Gems showed them how to use their pad, at least for her. Staying still while being whisked away was boring. At least when she walked, she could feel the changes in the ground beneath her feet.
"How does this thing stay up?" Jasper asked as they stepped off the warp pad. She managed to glance over the side just long enough to get a view of the ground far below. The way the whole thing shifted ever so slightly in the wind suggested that it was held aloft by nothing at all.
"Magic," Pearl said with a smirk. She knew by now how Jasper hated trite, too-simple answers.
Jasper dignified that with a grunt and looked around. This high up, the air was both bitingly cold and strangely warm from the sun. The tiles felt solid, glued in place by something far more enduring than the lime mortar humans used for their masonry. There was a grit to their surfaces that prevented slipping. If that was consistent, then that was one less thing she had to worry about with Pearl's training. She took mental inventory of everything as Pearl led her up the stairs and into the arena itself.
It was crumbling, as all things of great age do, and there were marks of impact damage that weren't so different from the damage their ball court took during particularly rowdy games. The broken rubble left over from the smashing of pillars and statues were a bigger issue—she would have to be careful not to trip over the larger fragments. For the most part, what hadn't already been broken wasn't likely to fall over from a strong gust of wind. She wondered what the carvings on the pillars said, but teaching them how to read Gem writing had never been a priority for the Crystal Gems. Jasper supposed she respected that—she had no inclination to teach Rose how to read the boulders and cliff walls in which humans carved their directions and warnings. At least on her end, she had good reason to protect her neighboring humans from Rose's curiosity.
Finally Pearl stopped and took on that bearing she so loved to take when she was eager to tell someone what to do. Her fingers laced together, and her eyes were wide with anticipation. She evidently liked having students. Just not Jasper. After all this time, Jasper was sure that it was because her questions had a way of distressing Rose. For the thousandth time, Jasper wondered what Rose was hiding that made her so uncomfortable with the questions.
"Now then," Pearl said, her voice almost a chirp, "what's the extent of your combat experience?"
"Hunting wild animals, chasing off human raiding parties, and wrestling cheaters who can't win without fusion." Not that it was particularly their fault that she was freakishly big, but it was the spirit of the game that mattered. At least the fusions presented something of a challenge.
Pearl hummed thoughtfully. "And have you experimented with the quartz spin-dash?"
"Somewhat." When it was a new idea, anyway. She hadn't needed it for the wrestling matches, and by now she was skilled enough with her darts and thrower that she could take down an animal before it realized what was going on.
"We'll start there. Try to hit me with your spin-dash. You'll want to start a little further back."
Jasper stepped back, eyes darting around to pick up every little thing of note around her, and considered whether she really wanted to attack Pearl. She liked Pearl well enough, considering that they never agreed on Rose.
Something about her doubts must have shown on her face, for it only made Pearl smile. "Don't worry. You won't hurt me."
Jasper wasn't sure about that, but she resolved to try getting to her anyway. She dropped into the roll, used the friction of the floor tiles to her advantage, and picked up speed as her form shifted into the motions of the spin. The ground sped by quickly, and she was so close, and—
Suddenly, without warning, Pearl was gone. Jasper skidded to a stop, palmed a broken-off bit of stone, and glanced around. Pearl grinned at her from atop one of the statues, one foot not so much dangling off the statue's head as pointing elegantly downwards.
"You know how to stop before you run into anything. Good! We can work with that." Then, as if to show off the fact that Pearl was lighter and quicker, she stepped off the statue's head, shifting her weight to the toe of the dangling foot and landing on its shoulder, and dropped to the floor with barely a spot of dust kicking up.
She would have to change her tactics.
"Let's try again. Watch me during your spin-dash and try to predict where I'll jump next."
The minutes sped by as she dropped back into her spinning ball form and chased Pearl around the arena. When she picked up speed, Pearl saw her and leapt off in another direction, forcing her to make sharp turns and circle around if she couldn't turn fast enough. It was like chasing an antelope, and the way Pearl shifted into the direction she planned on going before she leapt and pranced off somewhere else wasn't much different.
Once Pearl stopped broadcasting her motions, she truly started to shine as an evasive target. She kept Jasper thinking on her feet, something that not even the most canny of prey was able to do for long. It was exhilarating to be so focused on a target she was so close to reaching, and the hours passed quickly. Her ability to switch directions mid-dash actually seemed to improve from the practice.
By the time the sun started drawing low in the sky, Jasper figured that it was time to stop playing. Her eyes never quite adjusted well to the dark.
Pearl flounced to her side and was ready to leap again. Jasper darted towards her as she had so many times during this session, and changed directions to circle back the moment Pearl made the leap. Pearl moved to redirect her own landing, and Jasper spun wide behind her and stopped to lob the rock she kept in her palm for so long. She didn't even have to think to aim anymore.
The rock soared as all her darts did and hit Pearl right between the shoulder blades. None of the force she used with her darts was behind the throw, but still it got Pearl's attention.
Pearl turned, startled, and stared as the rock clattered to a stop on the tiles.
A silence settled over them, sudden and awkward, until Pearl broke it with a chuckle. "Well! Where did you learn to do that?"
"Hunting."
A quick, easy smile spread across Pearl's face and lit up her pale blue eyes, as if she had actually enjoyed prancing around like that. "It's a good start. Have you considered developing a proficiency with other weapons?"
"Haven't needed to." It wasn't that her options were limited. She just didn't get much out of what was available when she already had her darts, helmet, and the sheer size and strength to make both of them deadly.
"Hm." Pearl's expression turned thoughtful as she considered her options. "It would benefit you to learn how to use them."
Jasper had no illusions about any of this. As engaged as the practice kept her, it had a purpose. "It would keep me occupied, you mean."
"Your friends have been expressing…" Pearl paused, and her long, lean hand was doing that vague gesturing she did when she was trying to find the right words. "Concerns."
Her eyes narrowed. If she wasn't inclined to talk to Twig about it, why did anyone think she'd open up to Pearl? "Doesn't matter."
"No, it doesn't." The concession shouldn't have been as surprising as it felt. Frankly, Jasper expected more of an attempt to get her to talk. As if any of them had an idea what to do about her lack of direction and what it was doing to her.
Pearl stepped away, her eyes distant and thoughtful. She seemed to be thinking in arguments and counter-arguments, and the moon had visibly moved in the sky before she spoke again. "You could join us."
At first, Jasper wanted to reject the offer then and there. Then she thought on how to respond to the offer. Nothing about the Crystal Gems' tendency to sequester themselves from humanity and hunt stray corrupted gems appealed to her. It seemed repetitive, tiresome, dull. But, this was Pearl, and she deserved better than a curt rejection. "And that involves…?"
Pearl turned back to face Jasper, eyes bright with that fervor she only ever seemed to have around Rose. "Following the manifesto of Rose Quartz!"
The way Pearl got when the topic of Rose Quartz came up was always a little disconcerting; for the life of her, Jasper could never quite grasp why Rose deserved that kind of loyalty. When she bothered to ask, the topic was usually talked around with meandering words, if not dismissed outright with the implication that she couldn't possibly understand how important they were to each other. In the interest of maintaining a semblance of diplomacy, she ignored the first question she thought of, ignored the misgivings sprouting up in the back of her mind, and asked; "What manifesto?"
"Oh!" The utter delight in Pearl's expression might have been infectious. "'Fight for life on the planet Earth. Defend all human beings, even the ones you don't understand. Believe in love that is out of anyone's control, and then risk everything for it!'"
A dozen questions came to mind almost immediately, among which was: "Did a child come up with that?"
Wide blue eyes blinked quizzically at her, evidently thrown by being questioned outright. Then Pearl's expression turned wry, as if she knew she shouldn't be surprised by Jasper being inconvenient again. Her lips quirked as she tried not to smile. It was clear that she was thinking through her responses. "Rose is… very idealistic."
Idealistic. Naive, perhaps. She should just leave it at that, but she felt like she owed Pearl an explanation. "I get the first part. It's the love bit that sounds childish. Love fades. Ends badly. People don't build on such poor foundations."
Pearl hummed noncommittally, but she made no move to discourage Jasper's line of questioning. So Jasper plunged on, suddenly very aware that she was talking to an actual alien. "Why 'risk everything' for a feeling that might be fleeting, or hurt others? Humans don't build their societies around that, they build them around rules that will last long after an affair."
"Have you ever been in love?" Pearl asked after a long moment of strange, uncomfortable silence.
"Don't see how it's relevant." Jasper may have thought about pursuing such feelings in passing. There were options, and she was fond of a few of her own, but she was also responsible for the entire village. She couldn't afford the fall-out if an affair with one of her own gems ended poorly. If she was going to be with anyone at all that way, her only real options were humans.
Pearl's answering smile was fragile, almost sad. Sad for her, maybe. Jasper wanted to roll her eyes. "You wouldn't understand."
"I understand Citrine going through the entire village and hurting anyone expecting commitment from her. I understand Twig's human wives and her dedication to taking care of them and their children for however long they last. I understand Rose's weird thing with treating her human suitors like toys she can discard when she's bored." Jasper was aware, faintly, of the disapproval turning down the corners of Pearl's lips. "Rules exist to protect people from getting hurt by emotional whims. There needs to be a better foundation than 'love that is out of anyone's control'."
"Rules are a cage."
The utter conviction in Pearl's voice brought Jasper up short. There wasn't just a disagreement here, there was a gulf of different experiences and worldviews. Jasper had never been offworld, never experienced whatever Pearl had, and she had no idea how to bridge it. Pearl was as much a product of Homeworld as Jasper was of Earth. Should she even bother?
With a grunt, Jasper dismissed the entire idea. She could consider discussing it later, when Pearl didn't look at her like she expected Jasper to be intransigent and disappoint her. For now, Jasper would move on. "What weapons do you want to start with?"
Relief seemed to ease the slope of Pearl's shoulders, like she was just as happy to let it go. "Oh, I think I have a sword that's just your size."
If nothing else, weapons training would keep her busy enough to stop thinking about her uselessness and pass the time.
The volcano mentioned here is Sunset Crater Volcano, which I had the opportunity to visit a few years ago during a brief job in Flagstaff, Arizona. It erupted around 1085 CE and triggered an influx of migrations to its ashfields because the ash retained water and was good for farming.
Also, I know this is probably a sensitive subject for some fans, but: Jasper is not going to be a Crystal Gem. Her experiences with living around and with humans are much too different to gel well with the CG ideology and tendencies to keep themselves completely separated from humans. Plus, well, her tendency to plow through with inconvenient questions just isn't going to mix well with Rose's secrecy.