Coal awoke with one large yellow hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently but also a little desperately. From her place upon the floor, she came face-to-face with Topaz as she sat up.
"Is everything alright?"
"Umm, yeah," but Topaz's furrowed brows and mouth bent out-of-shape suggested otherwise. "Everything is fine, but some soldiers are here and they need this space."
Coal frowned and touched her shoulder.
"I know. I'm sorry. I wish you could stay longer, but—"
"No. I don't want to get you in trouble. We'll go."
Only a few items were scattered about the floor, and after waking Pearl with a kiss to the forehead, both cleaned quickly and quietly. From the outside, laughter echoed around the halls amongst muffled conversation that Coal and Pearl walked into upon organizing the room.
Dressed in yesterday's rags, the traveling pair brought silence upon emerging. The soldiers—white Quartzes dressed in shined armor—paused to stare at that large beggar and her dirty Pearl. Both looked them up and down, searching for grime between their toes to filth in their hair that may not have been there. Twins in just about every way, they wore similar looks of disgust that worsened when Coal and Pearl hugged Topaz goodbye.
"Thank you again," Coal said.
"Don't let them keep you down," added Pearl.
On their way out, both parties exchanged brief glares. Neither soldier came to words and their laughter resumed as the travelers walked back to the forest, where the trees wouldn't mock them for being homeless.
From that day onward, battles lasted well into the night and the sun shone permanently red. No one could escape the haze that built higher and higher with each passing hour and the air grew thick with the constant smell of blood and fire.
Coal and Pearl slept higher and higher into the mountains, hiding themselves beneath blankets of leaves and taking refuge behind bushes when they could. The color of their skin used to protect them well enough. They would blend into the night without being spotted by robbers or soldiers, but now that the noise raged from dusk till dawn and lights exploded across the ink-black sky, neither could hide as well.
"Do you think all this fighting will really be over soon?" Pearl asked Coal one day as they stopped to eat. Both of them sat quietly, cutting up the vegetables for their soup as the blast of cannons echoed throughout the hills. None of the soldiers were nearby, but their hollering travelled well, like a chorus of thousands of miserable voices.
"I doubt they can go on much longer."
Pearl placed her carrots into the bowl and began working on the onions. "Is there anything we can do?"
Coal chewed on her reply as though sampling its flavor. "I doubt any magic can fix this. In fact, I'm sure if we tried to intervene, the problems would become worse. The various forces in this world have all come to push against one another. Throwing our hands into that battle won't do a bit of good. We just have to wait, until one of them cracks, and we'll have a new definition of normal."
Pearl paused for a moment before looking at Coal. She gulped and continued to cut the onions.
"Whatever happens, I promise we'll get through it. Unless we can't. At which point, it's simply fate."
"That's reassuring." Pearl furrowed her brows.
"Reassuring or not—" Coal patted her on the head, "It's the way things are," and continued to slice up the peppers.
That night, both slept early. Finding a section of the forest in which to hide, they huddled together as Coal pulled a blanket of leaves over them. The larger gem wrapped an arm around the smaller and their bodies remained close. As Pearl breathed in and out, she pressed her stone gently into Coal's stomach, above her own gem.
Both remained still.
Light shone through the blanket as the soldiers perverted the sky with violence. The ground rumbled with cannon fire, and loud screams, miles away, manifested themselves quietly.
"My Lady…" Pearl whispered. "I'm scared."
"I won't let anyone hurt you."
"But I'm just—"
"And I'm just carbon. Please don't worry."
"Thank you." She tucked in even closer.
"Try to get some sleep."
"You too. Good night."
"Good night, Pearl."
Eventually, both lost consciousness upon the chilly earth as the world burned. The wind howled with the soldiers through the trees and Coal kept their blanket from blowing away. She protected Pearl from the cold and somehow managed to remain asleep, despite dreams of running through a wasteland of snow.
In the morning, she awoke to a scream.
"What was that?" Pearl whispered.
It occurred again, and sounded far too beast-like to belong to any gem.
The wind picked up around them for only a moment before settling down again.
Coal claimed her arms back.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to see what it is. Keep the blanket around you."
"Don't!"
"I'll be fine."
"What if you die?"
"Pearl—"
"What if it eats you? What will I do?"
Coal kissed Pearl's forehead. "I won't let it eat me."
"But—" The smaller gem began to cry, but in order to stay quiet, clasped her hands over her mouth. "What will I do without you?" She whispered through the tears and her fingers.
"That won't be a decision you have to make." Coal touched her lips to the point of Pearl's nose before slipping out beneath the cover of the leaves.
Carefully, she stood up and kept behind the tree, bones creaking and popping from holding still the entire night. A few twigs broke beneath her feet, but Coal moved quietly as possible, poking her head out from one side of the trunk.
A short distance away stood an armored dragon. Her mad silver eyes looked straight up into the sky and she yelled again, smoke draining from her nostrils and mouth.
"Luna!" Coal whispered.
Whenever she moved, her white scales would change colors to display facets of the light spectrum. Her long neck appeared red, gold, and teal as she trashed and cried out.
Coal stepped out from behind the tree. "Luna," she called, "Luna, what's wrong, Love?"
The dragon bared her teeth as she screeched, standing up on all four lean legs. Something near her belly fell over, armor clinking as it made contact with the ground.
"Shh—it's alright." Coal raised her hands and set her eyes upon White Diamond, who lay unconscious in the grass. A gash showed through her armor upon her right leg through which she bled profusely, silver blood clotting and drying further from the lesion. Coal gasped.
Luna replied with a hiss and retreated only a step, as Coal hummed, getting her to sit back down, avoiding crushing her master in the process.
Turning and still humming, Coal made her way back to the tree where she pulled various supplies from the bags and piled them into her lap.
"Pearl—" She shoved the gauze into the collection and continued searching. From the opposite direction, Luna howled again, though her volume shook the trees less that time.
The smaller gem poked her head out from her cover. "You're alright! What is that thing?"
"It's Luna."
"Luna is here?"
"Pearl, I need your help. White Diamond is severely injured. I fear that if we don't move fast enough she'll die. I know you're afraid, but please help me."
Pearl hesitated for just a moment before casting the leaves from her body. "Okay," she sighed and went to work filling her arms with vials. "How bad is it?"
"It's bad. She has an enormous gash on her leg."
"Is she still breathing?"
"I don't know. I didn't get to see—" Coal stood and headed back to White Diamond's potential corpse, humming all the while to calm the dragon. Luna stopped lamenting and allowed Coal to come near her master, even remaining still when Coal's dark grey hands tore away the bottom half of White's armor. Using a cloth and some alcohol, she cleaned the wound and much of the dried blood, while White Diamond gulped at the back of her throat in response. The sound came out barely stronger than a breath.
Pearl poured some of her freshly mixed serum into White's mouth, as Coal had begun the healing fluid. Once she caused the smoke to rise, Pearl began soaking and placing the bandages. White Diamond didn't move.
After only about a minute they had covered the leg and Coal, with shaking hands over that fatal gash, spoke her quiet spell. The fluid began to dry and dissipate. The gauze popped and the smoke rose, slowly. All four kept obscenely still until finishing the procedure, when the haze turned white and Coal tore the bandages away.
The gash had disappeared.
Coal sighed in relief, but didn't spare a moment. At that point, she pressed her palm into the dirt. The ground shook, clumping together beneath her hand, with the roots of trees forming veins and the dense earth forming the outlines of a body. With the upward motion of her hand followed a golem, and Coal stopped with her arm straight above her head. It towered nonchalantly, with thick limbs and two holes for eyes.
"Pick up White Diamond, and be careful. She's very weak right now."
The golem grunted and progressed forward. Coal followed, continuing to hum, though the notes came faster as the Golem's enormous arms wrapped around White. Luna watched the entire time, adjusting her translucent wings and releasing mouthfuls of visible breath.
White's lungs expanded and contracted and Coal wiped the sweat from her brow.
"Come on," she said, "We're going to the cave."