Pink Pearl
Pearl is shaking. Shaking, shaking, shaking.
All around her is rubble. Rubble, and the clogging scent of smoke, so thick she could gag. She wishes to run off, to get away from it, but she can't.
She takes a trembling step forward. Something cracks underfoot. She looks down. She has not stepped on a stone, or metal, or plastic. It is something shiny, and jagged, and broken.
A gem shard.
Hand shaking, she picks it up. It is orange. A jasper? A topaz? A carnelian? No way of telling, now.
She looks down, through the smoke. There are more shards all around her. Most are orange, too. Others are not.
She wishes she had not regenerated. She wishes she'd stayed inside her gem.
But she has regenerated. So Pearl bends down, and begins picking up the broken shards.
It is not long before her first hand is full, then her second. She holds out her long skirt to create an impromptu kind of bag. She drops each shard into it, as delicately as possible. They clink against each other. As she walks forward, always careful of where she treads, she picks up more—reds, purples, greens, silvers, yellows— shards in every colour imaginable.
Even now, she's not entirely sure what happened. She had been standing attendance on the main flight deck of the ship. Everything was going smoothly; there had been no turbulence, they were on schedule to reach their destination. Then there had been a shuttering bang; all the lights had gone out. Another bang; everyone had screamed as they'd been thrown sideways. Pearl could remember lying on her side, dazed and disoriented, before something heavy came crashing down on her, and..
When she'd regenerated, she'd found herself wedged in between two crumbled pieces of metal which had once formed the ship's hull. There'd been barely been any room, even for her thin body. She'd called out for help; nobody had responded. It had taken her a long time to crawl out of the small little gap. When she'd finally managed it, she'd found herself in a complete wreck of a ship, not a single other Gem in sight.
What had happened? She doesn't know. Maybe a system failure. Maybe a freak collision. Maybe a rebel attack. It doesn't matter.
How had she managed to survive, when no one else had?
Luck. Pure luck.
She carries on her way, picking up every shard she comes across. She stares at the pile in her skirt. It's grown disturbingly large.
The rubble and debris becomes more scattered, less common, and finally, she reaches the edge of the crash site. She knows it's the edge because there's a blue line on the ground marking it. The line stretches off in two directions. She cannot see it from this vantage point, but Pearl knows that it forms a diamond insignia. It's the ship's automatic distress signal, calling for help.
Help. For a moment, she sags with relief.
Then, she snaps back into fear and panic. She stares, wide eyed, at the shards she carries.
She's heard rumours. Terrible rumours, about what has been happening to shards. About them being pressed together, forced to fuse, to create mindless abominations. To create a weapon. If they find her- if they find the shards-
She runs.
Pearl doesn't know where she is running to— just away, away from the ship, away from the rescue, away from everything. Eventually, she finds herself at the base of a mountain. There is a crevice. She slips inside of it, and pressing her back against the wall, falls to the ground.
What is she doing? She can't run away from Homeworld. Not on a planet teeming with murderous rebels. Not with a collection of Gem shards who could reform at any moment, desperate and mindless and violent.
But she can't just let them be experimented on.
She picks a handful of them up, holds them in cupped hands. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I wish— I wish I knew a way to help you, or protect you—"
Her vision is blurry. Her eyes are watering. She squeezes them shut, trying to push back the tears.
When she opens her eyes again, there's something hovering above her hand. A tiny pink sphere. Pearl blinks, staring at it. Inside are the shards she were holding, floating peacefully.
A bubble. She's surrounded them with a bubble.
She hadn't known she could do that. But she isn't going to question it. Pearl picks up another handful of shards, then another, and another. Each time, she closes her eyes, focuses— focuses on her fear, her sorrow, her desire to protect— and when she opens her eyes, there's another bubble, holding the shards safe.
By the time she finally finished, her whole form is shivering, slack with exhaustion. She has eleven bubbles. The hang in the air around her, strange floating tombs.
Pearl pulls herself to her feet, and navigates through the sea of spheres, careful not to touch any of them, in case she breaks them. At the cave's edge, she looks back at them one last time. The crevice is small, tucked away, hidden from the elements. They'll be safe here. Or as safe as they can be.
Weary and wary, Pearls turns her back on them, and begins the trek back to the crash site to await rescue.
oOo
Author's Note: Take a guess as to where this Pearl has her gemstone. Go on, guess.