Abalone Pearl

You are waiting.

You have been waiting for a long time, but you don't mind. The room you're in is small, but nice. Quiet, painted a peaceful blue. You're sitting. You've rarely gotten the opportunity to sit, especially not in a chair as plush and comfortable as this one. You intend to savour the sensation while you still can.

A portal opens in the wall, and a Pumice steps in. The portal closes behind her.

Your waiting is over.

The Pumice sits down at the desk across from you. She takes out a few items from her bag— a scroll, a quill, an ink pot— and lays them out. She smiles at you, polite and professional.

"You are the Pearl previously belonging to Idocrase 6LJ-FR?" the Pumice checks.

"Yes, ma'am."

"My condolences."

You bow your head, and say nothing. It has been three Cycles since your Master was shattered, and in that time, you've run out of things to say.

The Pumice asks you questions, double checking your answers against the information already recorded in your file. Where were you made? How long ago? Who was your first Master? Why were you re-assigned to Idocrase 6LJ-FR? Have you ever exhibited any defects? How many times have you regenerated? What were the reasons for those regenerations? Has your gem ever sustained any direct damage?

You answer honestly. You have nothing to hide, and even if you did, lying would be pointless.

Pumice scribbles things down on the scroll. Eventually the questions end, and she falls silent as she churns numbers and calculations in her core.

You wait.

Finally Pumice writes one last thing down, then places her quill on the desk. She smiles at you, polite and professional. "Alright," she says. "Your gemstone is well constructed and in good condition. Its power output is nothing spectacular, but steady and reliable. Currently there's a new elevator in construction, one which will carry Gems right from a planet's core up to the outer Spires. It would require almost the exact amount of energy that your are capable of producing. Does that sound suitable?"

You nod. You don't much care, and you don't have much of a choice, anyway. But it's nice to know what you'll be, at least. Nice to know that you'll be useful.

"Excellent," Pumice says, making one final note. "The Diamonds thank you for your contribution."

Pumice rolls up the scroll, and tucks it away in her satchel, along with the ink pot and quill. Then she pulls out a knife. She smiles at you, still polite, still professional. She strikes sharp and quick, right between your eyes. It's so fast you barely even see, so fast you barely even feel pain before—

oOo

nothing

oOo

there's nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing and

you light up.

You are the light, you can feel yourself glowing, growing, stretching, forming. You can feel your legs and your hands and your stomach and your clothes. You can feel— feel so much, a million sensations, touch and hearing and smells and— and things you never expected to feel again, things you'd forgotten you'd ever even known—

You remember that you have eyes now, so you open them, and you see.

You're not in the blue waiting room anymore, but you didn't expect to be. But then, you didn't expect anything. You were Harvested. That was supposed to be it. So how can you be here? Did something go wrong?

You register movement in front of you. You force yourself to focus. A hand. Someone's waving a hand.

"Hello," she's saying, and she's a Pearl, too. "Welcome back! Can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?"

You blink, count, and try to remember how lips work. "Four."

"Ah! Perfect!" The Pearl is smiling, open and warm. "Your systems appear to be coming back online very quickly. Good, good."

You frown. "What?"

"Some Gems have trouble re-adjusting to consciousness after Long Term Energy Harvesting. You seem to be adjusting quite quickly, but you can still expect some disorientation. Perfectly normal, nothing to worry about."

You're hearing the words, and understand what they all mean individually, but you're having trouble putting them together. So you look around to try and get answers that way.

Try being the key word. As soon as you twist your head, the world seems to spin and flip, your legs wobble and you fall. You hit the ground. It hurts. The pain— surely it can't be that much, not compared to a knife, but for a moment it overwhelms you so utterly and completely that it consumes your whole world.

But there are so many other sensations to take in that the pain can't hold your focus for too long. There are so many other sensations to take in— how cold the smooth floor is against your skin, the smell of ozone and metal and dust, the distant vibration coming from somewhere deep below. The other Pearl takes your hand, and that touch too is something to focus on, to ground yourself with.

The other Pearl helps you to your feet. "Sorry," she says. "I should have warned you. Your balance might be a little off at first."

"I…" You shake your head— a small, careful shake, so you don't give yourself vertigo again. "I'm sorry— just— what am I doing here? I was Harvested, wasn't I?"

The Pearl's smile disappears, replaced with a much more solemn expression. "Yes."

"But..," you say. "I was going to be an elevator."

"You were an elevator," the Pearl says. "Now you're not."

You can't quite comprehend that, so finally you get enough of a hold of yourself to take a proper look at your surroundings. You're in a laboratory, one simultaneously far more advanced and more worn than any you've ever seen before. It's filled with all sorts of complicated computers and instruments and chemicals, things you have no hope of comprehending, but the workbench in front of you is bare of any of this. Instead of any computers or advanced equipment, you find a single piece of crumbling stone. Once it must have been quite elaborate, covered in detailed carvings, but now its broken into pieces as though struck with a hammer. You can see that if you pieced them all together, there would be circular impression, the exact shape of your gem.

You reach out and touch a piece. It crumbles a little bit more.

It's an elevator controller. It was an elevator controller.

It was you.

You look left, down the bench. You see— things. So many things, metal and stone and glass, all of it broken.

You look right. There are more things there, but these are still whole and recognisable. Tiaras, fire-starters, armour, knives, wands, cloaks and more, all laid out neatly. On each one, a gem, or gems, glitter. All kinds of gems— coral, limestone, turquoise, flint, granite, ruby, bismuth…

"You're not an elevator anymore." You look back at the Pearl. Her smile has returned, hard and determined. She's holding her hands together to form some kind of circular salute. "You can be whatever you want to, now. We all can."

oOoOo

Author's Note: it's in second person cause i wrote this after an Undertale Fic binge.