Brave
If Kimberlite searched the furthest recesses of her mind, she could remember a rather puzzling incident that had taken place just a little before the initial preparations for the Eclipse Congregation.
There was the familiar scurrying about, frenzied reactions to new timetables and scrambles to get every wall, pillar and alcove decorated to perfection lest any high ranking aristocrat made an impromptu visit.
In the middle of it all, Kimberlite – who was never permitted to do anything to help out- had a chance to consider that with everyone so distracted, now would be the perfect time to plan her trip to the forbidden planet known as Earth.
Her staff were usually recruited to assist with the adorning and protection of Blue Diamond's Temple and thus it wasn't unheard of for them to vanish from her personal quarters for hours on end.
Kimberlite knew she needed a Peridot to assist her with getting out of the launch bay. One of the angularly-interesting, green tinged gems seemed like the best and safest option.
Peridots were one of the few types of gem to have knowledge of engineering, piloting and the planning of lengthy expeditions.
Not to mention, a Peridot was just lowly enough in rank that Kimberlite could possibly bribe one of them into keeping quiet about the not-so-little "adventure" she had planned.
She hadn't initially planned to resort to blackmail.
That had been an unfortunate and panicked last minute change of plan.
The transfusion gem herself had been pacing in her personal chamber, doing lap after lap around the fountain.
It was vital that she sought a Peridot as soon as possible but how to obtain the right one?
It had to be one from Blue Diamond's court, naturally.
White Diamond's Peridots were strictly hackers and Yellow Diamond's Peridots had a reputation for being slightly... difficult about certain things.
Particularly pertaining to off-planet work.
Temple gossip was quite literally the best source of information that Kimberlite had ever had the pleasure to happen upon.
She also had to cook up some kind of believable excuse for needing a private appointment with one so urgently. It needed to be outstanding and unavoidable but yet so banal that it wouldn't turn the head of any Aquamarine or Topaz who was overseeing the daily movements in the Temple.
Eventually she settled on a fairly plausible lie; that she was having trouble with her communication systems.
It was important that her channels remained in good working order at all times, should she need to be summoned by Blue Diamond, faults in the communications systems were fairly common and additionally, they'd only be able to call in one of the Blue court's Peridots as they were the only ones acquainted with the localised systems in that area.
It was perfect.
Careful not to make a spectacle of herself lest a security team was covertly watching her, Kimberlite broke from her pacing and scurried over to the giant doors that served as the only entrance to her personal rooms.
Calling for help via her telecom unit would only serve to break the ruse that her communication system wasn't functioning properly, so she would have to send one of her personal staff as a messenger.
She was just about to type in the pass-key to open the doors, silently praying to the stars that her staff hadn't left the building in its entirety, when her ears caught the faint murmuring of a familiar voice outside of the door.
It was her Pearl.
She must have been doing some tidying in the small corridor between her rooms and the main hall.
She knew it had to be her Pearl for two reasons.
One: her voice was utterly unmistakable. It was a slightly nasal lilt that Kimberlite had become well accustomed to hearing over the many hundreds of conversations that they'd shared.
Two: she was in the corridor right outside of Kimberlite's room.
She was the only Pearl to ever set foot in that corridor.
It was a rather confined area that not many gems knew about.
Due to a vital component of the Diamond's survival being housed there, the small dimly lit stretch was kept on a need-to-know basis.
"Brilliant," thought Kimberlite. "I can send her to fetch me a Peridot; she won't ask too many questi- …"
The igneous gem's thoughts were briefly derailed when she suddenly heard another voice through the door. It was slightly muffled and much deeper and gruffer than her Pearl's but it wasn't unfamiliar either.
It was her Jasper.
Her voice was also unmistakable.
"Funny," the gangly, grey gem thought, a little perplexed. "I thought her timetable said that she would be on patrol in the citadel today. What's she doing in the corridor outside my room?"
Instinctively spurred by her own interests, Kimberlite leaned a little closer to the door, pressing her cheek against its cold, smooth surface as she tried to make out what was being said.
They were both speaking in hushed tones but were standing close enough to the door for their superior to hear their conversation.
"You shouldn't be down here," her Pearl was saying, anxiety weighing down her usually soft and passive trill.
"I know but I needed to see you," the Jasper told her earnestly. "I needed to be with you. You know you're my favourite passtime when I'm off duty."
"Very sweet," came a slightly bemused reply. "But you could see me and be with me at the Congregation Ball and there would be much less of a risk involved!"
"That's different." Jasper growled faintly in seeming frustration. "Standing beside you and making flowery small talk isn't my idea of enjoying your company."
"I know," Pearl told her, sighing deeply. "It isn't exactly to my liking either but we haven't got much of choice now, have we?"
"We've got now, haven't we?"
"If we get caught-!"
"We won't."
"But if we do-!"
"At least we can say that it was worth it."
There was a break in their conversation for a few seconds and if Kimberlite had a heart, it would have been racing a mile a minute. She leaned closer still, her face almost aching as it pressed against the door, the polished steel bearing into her cheek.
The silence was only broken by the ruffling of fabrics, an odd lapping sound that Kimberlite couldn't place at all accompanied by what sounded like little, sharp intakes of breath.
"How strange," she thought. "Gems don't need to breathe."
Pearl, however, sounded like she was suffering from a distinct lack of oxygen when she finally spoke again. This time she sounded much happier.
"Careful," she chided playfully. "Lumbering Quartz…"
"Weak, little Pearl," Jasper teased back, also sounding positively delighted with whatever was going on outside the door. She exhaled contentedly. "I wish we could do this a little more often."
"Maybe we could."
"Huh?"
"I was just thinking: we're not exactly in the normal stations of gems of our kind. Supposing we made our…situation known to our Kimberlite. She's innocent. Impressionable. She barely understands Homeworld Society the way most gems do. I doubt she'd take any issue with us spending some more time together."
Kimberlite herself, wasn't too sure how she felt about being referred to as "innocent" and "impressionable" but she was far too interested in trying to decipher what was going on between her Jasper and her Pearl to dwell on the matter.
"What?" Jasper gave a low bark of sardonic laughter. "Pearl, what planet are you living on? Even if Kimberlite isn't the sharpest cut in the facet batch, she's still the Diamonds' first aid kit. Who knows how long it'd take before she'd let something slip to big Blue?"
Behind the door, the "Diamonds' first aid kit" squeezed her eyes tight, her hands clenching the folds of her chiton.
Those words stung.
It didn't bother her to think that other gems thought her to be ignorant or even a little less than bright. However, to suggest that she was some kind of spineless informant? Was that what all of her service gems thought of her?
"Maybe if we explained to her that she couldn't repeat it to anyone?" Pearl's voice faltered slightly.
"You think her loyalty to us is above her loyalty to the Diamond Authority?"
"…perhaps not." Pearl's crestfallen words were so full of despair that Kimberlite could practically hear her head dipping forward. Her voice started to tremble slightly, reminding her eavesdropping superior of the way the pearl's hands had trembled when she had been brushing Kimberlite's hair. "It's…it's just not fair."
Jasper's voice softened, to a beautifully comforting tone that Kimberlite had never heard a Quartz produce before. "Hey...I get it, you want to believe in everyone. You court girls are so trusting…and so soft too. Don't go crying on me now."
More shifting noises.
Fabric rustling.
Soft breaths.
Kimberlite heard Pearl sniff loudly, an audible smile in her slightly-muffled voice. "We can't all be hardened warriors now, can we, officer?"
"Maybe not," Jasper laughed at first but her initial mirth gave way to another heavy, tired-sounding sigh. "You're right though. It isn't fair. If we were stationed somewhere else…on one of the colonies…in one of the other temples…if I was from the barracks and you were privately owned…we couldn't have this. No chance."
"We might have found a way."
"Pearl, there are places on this planet where gems like me would get shattered for even looking at gems like you."
"Don't say that. Even if we were caught, you're a decorated officer with a good track record and -…"
"They say that there are two types of gem, right? The type made to rule and the type made to serve? Well military gems- rubies, jaspers, carnelians, amethysts- all of us. We all know that's not true. There are three types of gems. Types to rule, types to serve and types to die…and that's what I am. I was made to be destroyed if necessary. In battle or in defence. Dead in the name of the Homeworld's safety." Jasper's gravelly voice reduced to a whisper. "And I'm not saying it's gonna happen any time soon but believe me when I say that the Authority do not hold my life in any kind of high regard."
"I do," Pearl insisted, whispering now too. "And I don't imagine that if we were caught that I'd be spared any punishment either." She gave a small snort. "I mean, if you're "made to die", what does that make me? I'm just a pearl. They can literally make me again, one hundred times over, if needed."
"You're just about the most wonderful, crazy, beautiful Pearl I've ever met and trust me when I say that they'll never be able to make you again," the Jasper replied, amidst some high-pitched giggles from the Pearl.
"Jasper! Don't you dare! Stop that! Stop that this instant!"
"Or you'll what? Stars, don't you know how to make threats? For a Pearl, you give orders like General Smokey Quartz."
"For a soldier, you're not very good at obeying orders!"
"What can I say? It's a defect I was made with…"
More giggling.
Kimberlite didn't know what the officer and the servant were doing but it sounded like the latter wasn't that opposed to the former's actions.
"Maybe one day we won't have to hide anymore,"
"Maybe not."
"And until then, you and I are just gonna have to be brave."
"I think we can manage that."
"And like I said before, we've just gotta make every moment worth it, right…?" Jasper hesitated for a moment- an oddity for a gem trained for situations of war- before quietly adding. "…my Pearl?"
Kimberlite's body seized as she realised for the first time what extremely illicit activity was transpiring right outside of her door.
It was also then that she realised for the first time that she had fallen to her knees.
"Right." Pearl replied breathily daring to add: "My Jasper."
There was a long silence after this and Kimberlite decided to move away from the doors, returning to her perch on the edge of her personal fountain.
Suddenly, getting a Peridot didn't seem so urgent anymore. In fact, Kimberlite felt entirely numb.
It was when she caught her own reflection in the surface of the water and met the gaze of her own eyes that a jolt of anxiety shot through her. Kimberlite decided that she needed to forget having ever heard this conversation as quickly as possible.
She could live with knowing that her servants didn't trust her.
Most of them knew that Blue Diamond could usually wrench whatever response she needed from her carefully trained transfusion gem.
But what she had just heard raised far too many questions than she was able to handle at that point in time.
Her lips shook a little when her Pearl eventually entered her chambers that evening. She managed to stammer out a relatively normal greeting in response to Pearl's blithe smile.
"Eventful day?" Pearl asked her, summoning a comb from her gem and sitting at Kimberlite's back.
"N-No…not really…"Kimberlite replied. "And you?"
"Me? No, never," the servant informed her, not a single wrinkle of guilt or deceit in her content, relaxed tone. "Just the usual madness. It baffles me why everyone insists on starting preparations for the Eclipse Congregation so late. Every year, there's this insane panic about whether we'll get all of the decorations up in time. Somehow, we always manage it."
Kimberlite was barely listening.
She badly wanted to bring up what she had heard earlier that day but she didn't know how to do it.
She didn't know what to say so that she wouldn't upset or frighten Pearl.
She looked down at her own hands, lacing and unlacing her fingers, eventually lifting her gaze to stare out at the stars.
How would it feel to want to die for anyone else but the Diamonds?
Was it possible to even feel that way?
Evidently so.
Evidently despite what was rumoured about their programming, gems could feel something deeper than respect for each other.
Or maybe it was just other gems.
Maybe it was only gems that weren't the Diamonds' "personal first aid kit."
Maybe she'd never know.
"Hey Pearl?"
"Yes, my Kimberlite."
"Could you maybe…uh…send a Peridot up here as soon as you can? There's a fault with my communications system and it won't turn on properly."
"Of course, my Kimberlite."
Again, there was not a single trace of deception in Pearl's voice.
How long had her servant's relations with her bodyguard been going on for?
That was another question that Kimberlite decided against asking.
She decided that Pearl and Jasper needed her not to talk about it and simply to enjoy the time that they had together during the Eclipse Congregation.
And like Jasper said, they needed to be brave.
She needed to be brave too.
That was precisely why she didn't give in to the ever-beckoning temptation to cancel her request for a Peridot.
Brave.
She was going to be brave.
This memory suddenly came rushing back to Kimberlite at that very moment in time because crouched under a rock, inches from being speared by the mighty bill of a gem beast, crying and mewling- she had never felt like more of a coward.
Sadie had her arm draped over Kimberlite's shoulders.
It was the extremely resourceful human who had managed to drag them both into a crevice between two rocks beneath them.
The terrifying bird's beak was far too large to fit between the rocks to reach them but if it kept attacking with that force, it wouldn't be too long before it prised its way in.
Kimberlite tried desperately to use the magic trick that she was able to do sometimes.
The one that Blue Diamond would forbid her from doing ever again if she knew about it.
It was no use though: she couldn't activate her gem when she was this stressed.
She caught Sadie's eye and the woman smiled shakily at her.
Even under this kind of pressure, the human had a kind of unrelenting strength about her that Kimberlite partially envied and greatly admired.
Sunlight stole through the crevice as the massive bird drew back for yet another vicious attack.
The two women braced themselves, Kimberlite squeezing Sadie's hand- still firmly in hers in anticipation of both of their physical forms vanishing.
Only the attack never came.
Kimberlite looked up to see the bird disappear in a cloud of smoke following a deafening whipcrack.
Suddenly, a large, purple blur shot past the opening between the rocks with a loud cry of:
"Get dunked on, bird-boy!"
A bit shorter than I would have liked and it covers a lot less ground too, but I hope this chapter is alright!
Good news, I will now be able to update on a weekly basis so no more crazily long waits!
Thank you so very much for reading!
Drop me a line if you'd like :D