Bronze Pearl
It's not right.
Pearl knows who she is, what she is. She knows her position. This she understands and accepts.
She knows that she is not strong, or smart, or clever. She knows that her knowledge is limited. She knows that her place is to serve in silence. She knows that the strategies and decisions of war fall into the hands of Gems far more capable than herself.
She knows these things, but she also knows this:
What the Diamonds are planning is not right.
War. Pearl knows nothing of war. She is not a solider; she has never experienced it. She understands it is a terrible thing, but sometimes, an unavoidable one. Gems die, gems are shattered, and this is a tragedy. It is one that the Diamonds, in their wisdom and benevolence, strive to avoid. But where war cannot be prevented, they pay those lost their respect, and give them a second chance to serve their empire in death.
Or they used to.
This is not right.
Pearl has always been silent, always been dutiful. For the first time, she is seized with the desire to speak out. To scream. To shout to the stars, to show them sense, to stop this.
But Pearl is thousands of years old. She knows her who she is, what she is. She knows her position. The Diamonds will not listen to her.
But there are some Gems who will.
It is not right. That has always been her opinion of the Crystal Gems. They are dangerous, violent traitors, whose extremist propaganda threatens to bring the entire Gem Empire crumbling down around them. The disintegration of the caste system, uncontrolled fusions, the end of all order and sense. War might be terrible, but there is no other option, to stop their radical beliefs from spreading.
Their death was the lesser of two evils.
But this? No one, not even the Crystal Gems, deserve this.
She has to warn them.
It is surprisingly simple to slip away. The Diamonds and their cabinets are busy organising the evacuation and preparing the detonation. No one has time to watch a single pearl. Nobody notices her as she runs through the hallways. She almost wishes they did; that someone would catch her, before she does something so foolish.
But she is a pearl, and foolishness seems to be in her nature. She makes it to the nearest Warp Pad uninterrupted. The most difficult thing is fighting through the stream of fleeing Gems, to finally find a moment where it is free for her to use. She clambers onto it, scarcely believing what she's doing. She screws her eyes shuts and thinks, Earth.
There's a brilliant blue flash through her eyelids. Gravity vanishes, and she floats— only to fall to the ground with sharp suddenness moments later.
Almost immediately, a hoard of desperate Gems shove her away, tossing her to the ground. By the time Pearl has clambered to their feet, the group has already warped away, and another has taken its place. She rushes off, not allowing herself to get affronted. She too is working within a time limit.
She runs to the nearest terrestrial warp pad. She's never been to this planet before, let alone the place she has in mind, but she has overheard reports, seen pictures. She fixes the location in her mind: the Sky Spire. It is a territory notorious for its Crystal Gem encampments.
When she arrives, she can hardly see, it is so dark. This side of the planet is facing away from the sun, and the sky must be filled with clouds, for not even the moon or stars are visible. It is windy— very windy, and Pearl has to fight to remain upright. She thinks that the place must abandoned, and is about to try elsewhere, when in the darkness a voice barks, "Declare yourself!"
The next moment, she feels something very sharp pressing against her back.
"P-pearl," she stammers. On Homeworld, she would state her Master's title and cut, but she doubts that will help her very much here.
An orange light flares, and Pearl finds herself staring up into the menacing bulk of a Quartz with an eye gem. The Quartz's 'uniform' is plain, and completely bare of any Diamond insignia. She scowls at her. "You're not one of ours, are you?"
"No," says Pearl.
"Just defected?" suggests the Gem holding a sword to her back. Pearl thinks she recognises it as the voice of a jade.
"Not— not exactly," says Pearl. She has no intention on turning her back on Homeworld and her Master. "But— but please! I have important information! Your leader has to know, immediately—"
The quartz laughs. "You must be cracked if you think we're going to bring you to our leader, just like that."
"Oh, relax, Tiger Eye," sighs the jade. "At least let us hear her out. If it's important, we can report it for Garnet to pass on. What is it, Pearl?"
"You're all in grave danger. The Diamonds are planning one final, devastating attack."
'Tiger Eye' seems unconvinced, her face curled in a haughty sneer. "Let them try. Homeworld doesn't have the Gem-power to mount an attack of that magnitude. They're fleeing the planet, haven't you heard?"
"Because they have a weapon that will destroy every Gem on the planet instantly!"
Pearl shouts it. Her words pierce through the wind, leaving a heavy silence in their wake.
"What do you mean?" asks the jade. The blade presses more sharply against Pearl's back, making her shiver. She resists the urge to flee. She would be poofed instantly, and if that happened- if her message never got out- it would be over for all of them.
"It's a new invention. Experimental. This is intended to be the first full-range test," she stutters out. "A magical bombardment of the entire planet. It effects gemetic code, mutating it, rendering everyone affected mindless beasts! It's… it's…" Pearl chokes, remembering the various reports she's overheard. "It's horrible. It isn't right."
The jade withdraws the sword. Now there is fear in the quartz's single eye, though tempered with doubt. "Surely… surely that can't be true…"
"We can't risk it," says the jade, moving finally to look Pearl in the face. Her expression is unreadable in the strange, heavy shadows cast from the light of Tiger Eye's gem. "You'll be reporting our commander Garnet. You will tell her everything, and she will know if you are lying. Understand?"
"Yes, yes," said Pearl, impatient with the rebels' paranoia. "Let's just go, already—"
Just then, the clouds part. Instantly.
Through them comes a beam of light of what Pearl first thinks is moonlight.
But no. This planet's moon shines white. But this light— it's not just white, but blue and yellow, too. And it's spreading, growing brighter, greens and pinks and reds spilling out, filling the entire sky, burning through the cloud covers— filling her entire vision—
— there is a pain, a pain, deep in the core of her being—
— she falls to the ground, clutching at the gemstone in her knee—
Through streaming eyes, she sees the two Crystal Gems stumbling, too. Everything is bright, but they are even brighter, their forms glowing, as though they're regenerating. Looking down, Pearl sees her own form doing the same— it's—
— it's flickering, blinking- her fingers are winking out of existence—
Pearl focuses, trying to bring them back, trying to resolve them…. For a moment, she thinks she's succeeded. But no, those aren't fingers— they're sharp, clawed—-
No, no, fingers, she wants fingers….
What are… fingers? She— she can't quite remember, she just knows— knows they are important—
The jade is spasming, strange bright lumps shooting from her back— the quartz is screaming, the scream becoming a low growl as her forms grows and expanded, her mouth jutting forward— her mouth is filled with teeth, huge and sharp—
"No," Pearl tries to say, but her mouth no longer seems to be working, she no longer seems to even have a mouth.
She convulses into silent screams as corruption courses through her code, her body buckling, her form shifting. Confusion, fear… already, words are slipping away, memories too, and she can't— she hadn't— it isn't— this isn't right—
Pearl's last conscious thought as Pearl is, I was too late.
oOoOoOo
Author's Note: First off: the Tumblr user Zreyta did something amazing and wonderful, and made beautiful portraits of some of this story's Pearls. You can find them You can find a link to them on my profile.
Secondly: when I was really young, my school did a unit on geology, and my parents got me a collection of semi-precious gemstones for educational purposes. My favourite was always tigers eye, and it remains one of my faves to this day. Basically, it (and its sibling stones, bulls eye and hawk eye) are varieties of quartz which display a very distinctive sheen. It strikes me as the type of name a Crystal Gem might take after seeing a tiger or something and being like, 'omg that is awesome'.
Thirdly: updates might slow down a little over the next two weeks. I'm getting all four of my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday, and I'm not sure how 'with it' I'll be while recovering. (Of course, the alternative is that after 4-5 days stuck in bed without work, maybe I'll get a lot of writing done! Who knows.)