It also happened that, as well as no choice about what to do, Zircon also had no choice as to when she did it.
She had been fixing her hair when she was caught.
After the very high probability of shattering, which was a mentally taxing concern and which she wasn't too perked to deal with right now, Zircon's first concern was her appearance. She still couldn't seem to summon the energy to fix her tattered jumpsuit, as if she'd spent it all while shapeshifting and running for her life. It didn't help that she had a slow recovery rate when NOT stressed. She was pretty stressed right now, to say the least...and her recovery rate seemed to have ground to a stop.
Knowing this, Zircon returned to the underworld, and took shelter in an abandoned shop with shattered windows. It was dark, smelled like sulfur, and had fallen prey to thousands of years of graffiti artists, but the back room had a long bench and a locked door. Groaning, she set down her pole and lay on her back. The ceiling greeted her with a cheerful red "GO FRACK YOURSELF".
Wearily, she ran her hand through her hair. It was short and unreasonably curly, and flopped in her eyes without her scarf to hold it back. If nothing else, she needed that scarf. So she closed her eyes, tapped into her energy, and imagined the stiff molded scarf folding itself up around her head.
Her head remained unmistakably bare and all she managed to get out was an undignified grunt.
Not only that, but her efforts made her realized exactly how fatigued she was. How sick she was of running and crouching behind things. She'd been gripping her pole so hard that her fingernails made indents in her thumbs. She was tired. She didn't want to run anymore.
Until something moved in the shop beyond and suddenly running seemed like a great idea again.
Zircon was on her feet again, despite her fatigue, and she scooped up her pole — except that she was shaking so bad that it slipped down and the end clanged against the floor. The sounds in the shop stopped. "Stars help me," thought Zircon, just before the door was smashed into pieces.
Three quartzes stormed in.
Unlike Shadow Agate, they were fast. When Zircon swung her pole, the first one ducked and the second reached in to pluck the weapon from Zircon's hand. The third barrelled her into the wall. Her head knocked against the stone, and there was a great pressure on her chest, and the next thing Zircon knew, there were three gigantic quartzes leering at her. The largest one held her up with a single hand, so high off the ground that her feet dangled limply. A thick finger pressed into her gem.
"It's her, alright," the largest quartz grinned, her sharp teeth glinting. "The treasonous zircon."
"Can't believe that bloodstone brat was telling the truth about seeing her come in here," snarled the quartz on the left.
The quartz on the right made a face. "She don't look like much."
"She won't look like anythin', once we're done with her." The center quartz shifted, leaning her weight into Zircon's trembling form...and unintentionally baring the blue diamond on her chest.
"Ah — I — wait!" Zircon cried. "I seek asylum from Blue Diamond!"
Her voice cracked, but it at least got their attention. The quartzes stared at her. "That's new," the right one remarked.
The left one's fists were still clenched. "Boss, what do we do?"
They both looked towards the center quartz, but she just glared at Zircon. Gulping, Zircon stared right back. In the dim light, the quartz seemed to be a purple color, maybe some strain of amethyst, and her white hair was pushed up by a dark scarf. Her forehead gem, in a square cut, glinted in the dim light. Her dark eyes were unreadable.
Then, without warning, she pulled her hand off Zircon's chest and let her drop to her hands and knees.
The next thing Zircon knew, the officer grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her outside. The other two quartzes locked Zircon in. Still trembling with shock, Zircon stumbled along with the quartzes, and obeyed when they told her to get into a dark red shuttle pod. They could be taking her to another, not-exploded Harvester and she couldn't have fought back. The odds were too risky.
The right quartz took to the driver's seat, and the officer and left quartz squeezed Zircon between them on a tiny seat. The left one held Zircon's makeshift pole weapon. It took a while to adjust to the bright light inside the pod, and once she stopped squinting, she straightened her back and tried to act dignified as she looked to the quartz officer. To her surprise, all three quartzes weren't purple; rather, a rich reddish-pink. Raspberry quartzes.
"Ah, excuse me," Zircon cleared her throat nervously, "would you be permitted to tell me where you are taking me, or for what purpose?"
The officer side-eyed her. "To our manager," she said. "You're a defense zircon. Figure it out."
She tried. She had dealt with asylum cases before, but none particularly recently, and none with a Diamond. You didn't just seek asylum from a Diamond. Asylum meant turning yourself in to someone who would speak on your behalf to save you from shatter row, and even rubies knew that in these cases, the Diamonds were always the prosecutors. The conflicting interests of Blue Diamond alone would complicate this. Shadow Agate said both Diamonds had sentenced her to shattering; Yellow Zircon said that Blue Diamond regretted her decision. Something went wrong along the way. Presumably, they would be taking her to a middleman — a neutral third party who would analyze her plea for shelter and present it to Blue Diamond on Zircon's behalf.
Zircon began to feel like this plan was less of a plan and more like walking blindfolded onto a minefield.
After a silent ten minutes, the shuttle pod glided to a halt and the door slid open to a pristine, private docking bay. Everything was tinted a pale pink. The three raspberry quartzes led her down two long corridors before the two smaller ones stopped on either side of an entry point, marked, "Manager: Cranberry Tourmaline, 2.8J9P, Blue Diamond." The quartz officer pulled her inside, to a dim pink room with high ceilings and walls that seemed to stretch for eternity.
Cranberry Tourmaline stood behind a spartan desk, gazing idly out a window with her hands behind her back. She was curvy but imposing, her form pressed into a trim pencil skirt and her high heels putting her just at Zircon's height. Like all tourmalines of her kind, her skin was a dark wine-red; her cloudlike black hair was pulled into a high bun. She wore shiny metal bracelets.
Raspberry Quartz stopped a few feet from her desk and saluted, leaving Zircon disheveled and very awkward. "Cranberry, we found the fugitive zircon," Raspberry said — if not a little obviously. Cranberry turned and raised an eyebrow.
"At ease, Raspberry." Her voice was low and harmonious, but tight and controlled. It only tightened when her eyes settled on Zircon. "She hasn't been restrained?"
"No. She came willingly, and pleads asylum from Blue Diamond."
Cranberry's other eyebrow went up as well. Then, sighing, she sat down at her desk and motioned for another chair, which rose from the floor. Raspberry Quartz stepped around the desk and behind Cranberry, letting Zircon take the seat. As soon as she did, blinds rolled down the windows. The main source of light now came from the glowing desk.
"Explain," said Cranberry Tourmaline, pulling up a screen. Zircon felt the familiar sensation of sweat beading on her forehead. She sat only on the edge of her seat.
"I...assume you mean why I would want to seek asylum."
"Whatever you tell me will be forwarded to Blue Diamond. So presumably, yes."
Zircon hesitated as she gathered her thoughts, then hesitated again as Cranberry Tourmaline looked at her. Stars above, the quartzes could have at least given her the time to do her hair. She awkwardly pulled up the severed strap of her top (it dropped back down a second later). "I...well...ehem."
Cranberry looked back down at her screen. Zircon exhaled.
"To begin, I want to apologize. I got a little carried away in the courtroom — it was a high pressure situation, I was arranging my case extemporaneously, and I may have jumped to conclusions. There are, of course, many reasons why someone else other than Rose Quartz might have shattered Pink Diamond, and why no one knew about it. I've made it my objective to find them."
Cranberry Tourmaline's plump lips pressed together, but she said nothing. Raspberry folded her brawny arms and her glare sharpened. Hesitantly, Zircon continued.
"I understand that, in escaping the Harvester, I caused a lot of damage...and I shattered several innocent gems. I don't deny that. But it wasn't my intent. As soon as I reformed, I shapeshifted as a peridot and tried to leave the Harvester without hurting anyone. I took the barrel of trinitrotoluene with me because I needed to hide my gem. I didn't know that it was explosive; I almost carted it onto a level with a furnace before a peridot stopped me. When the agate cornered me, she wanted to crush me, right then and there. I was desperate. I suppose I tricked her into setting off the explosive. But I swear by the stars, I had no idea how powerful it would be. If I had known…"
She trailed off. Cranberry's fingers danced across a keyboard. "Go on," she said without looking up. Zircon did.
"I had been in the agate's office because I needed to know if Rose Quartz was admitted for harvesting. But she wasn't, and I haven't the slightest idea where she could have gone otherwise. I've been searching for clues to her whereabouts ever since, but no one knows. Yellow Zircon…" Zircon hesitated, remembered how she'd swore to Yellow not to tell a soul of her involvement, and changed her story, "...refused to speak to me. The only witnesses left are the Diamonds themselves. I know they were the ones to sentence me in the first place. But my Diamond — Blue Diamond has questions. Why and by whom was Pink Diamond really shattered. I want to find the answers just as much as she does. Rose Quartz may hold them, and there's no way I can find her on my own. I seek — no, I beg asylum of my Diamond. No one wants to solve these questions. I will, if I receive the support I need."
The sounds of Cranberry's fingers on the screen stopped. When Zircon looked at her, she was staring off into space. Her eyes glimmered with tears.
"What happened to Pink Diamond?" Cranberry Tourmaline asked. It was half-echoed, half a legitimate question, and Zircon wasn't sure how to answer. Suddenly, the Blue Diamond insignia on the front of Cranberry's dress seemed out of place. A substitute.
Cranberry's eyes flicked to Zircon, intense, almost angry. But sad. "She was mine," she said, her voice as taut as a bowstring. "She was my quartzes' Diamond, too. And now she's gone. I'm...so, so confused, all the time."
"I'm sorry," Zircon said solemnly, but Cranberry cut her off.
"If you can give me a better answer for how she died," she said, "I'll send this report to Blue Diamond. But if you're as cracked as they say you are, I'm alerting Yellow Diamond as well. That's my only offer."
Hesitating, Zircon nodded. "Understandable."
"So tell me. From the beginning." Cranberry Tourmaline closed her screen and folded her hands in front of her. At her side, Raspberry Quartz shifted her weight. Their eyes met Zircon's, dark but glimmering wetly. "How was she broken?"
YEET SORRY FOR THE WAIT i was writing chapter 9 and got stuck and then scared that i'd end up posting all my backup chapters before i finished it
anyway, introducing the berry team! i'm gonna kill em off next chapter so enjoy them while they last — im just kidding they'll disappear but then they'll come back. i'm hoping to make them a bigger part of the story than just a plot device, and if not then into the barrel they go with 5XI, 5XU, and Shadow Agate
updating this may be a little slower than before because i have ap summer projects but i still need review food so pls feed me if you would please
