Champagne Pearl
There's a confidence that comes from knowing exactly who and what you are. A sense of purpose, a sense of certainty.
Pearl is new. New, and bright, and shiny. She is well-crafted, beautiful and lovely.
Pearl meets her Master. A Spodumene. Surely the most wonderful of spodumenes in the cosmos. With her arched nose, her delicate lips, her clever eyes. Pearl was made to serve this Gem, and she would not have it any other way.
Pearl's duties are small, but they are important. They are part of the design. Every Gem has a purpose, and those purposes come together to build something bigger, to create a greater whole, the whole upon which all of the Empire rests.
So Pearl finds joy in every one of her tasks. Every recording she makes, every errand she runs, every message she takes, every floor she cleans— they are all important.
And nothing is as important as when she makes her Master smile. Nothing is as wonderful as when she laughs or compliments, and fills Pearl's core with the most fluttering of feelings.
And then Pearl finds the paper.
That must be what it is. Pearl's never seen paper before— nobody makes it any more, and she didn't even know it still existed— but what else could it be? It was in the back of an old storage room she'd been seen to clean and organise, tucked between two crates at the very back. It's a yellowing beige, flat and thin and brittle. It's covered in writing— not the neat, regular text from computer screens, but a sprawling, spindly script that's difficult to decipher.
But it might be important, so Pearl leans in close and does her best.
To the Pearl reading this:
Because you must be a Pearl. No one else ever gets sent back to the storerooms. That's why I'll leave this here, where you and you alone are likely to find it.
I'm a Pearl too. Or I was. By the time you're reading this, I'm almost certainly dead. Or Harvested. Either way, I'm gone.
You must learn quickly, or you'll meet the same end.
You'll be new. You'll be pretty and delicate and Spodumene will fawn over you. That will end. Your novelty will wear off. You'll get older and duller. She'll see new models in the catalogues and at other Gems' sides. She'll lose interest.
Pearl's lip curls in a snarl, aghast and disgusted at such words, but she cannot stop reading.
You'll be discarded. You'll be replaced.
Don't be like me. Don't be a fool. Don't wait around.
Get out.
Pearl's fingers are trembling. But the message is not finished yet. There's still a little more written at the very bottom of the page.
And if by chance the one reading this is not a pearl, but my Master Spodumene herself:
Go die in a black hole.
The paper tumbles from her hands, and Pearl hastens to pick it back up. She doesn't want to touch such vile lies again, but she can't leave it on the floor, out in the open, where anyone could read it. She could put it back where she found it, but no. She would feel it there, each and every time she was sent back here.
So instead, Pearl rips the brittle paper into pieces, and drops each piece into the disposal cart parked near the storeroom doors. She takes satisfaction in every tear. Later, a coral will come take the cart away, and whatever remains of that terrible treachery will be incinerated along with the rest of the garbage.
Pearl tells herself this, and returns to her duties. She places a smile back on her face, and resolves to think of nothing but her beloved Master's orders.
But her certainty has been shaken.
oOoOo
Author's Note: honestly i think my favourite pearls to right are the ones who are just angry.