Chorus
Chapter Thirteen
Apologies for the long delay, I had two trips abroad and I'm also currently working on the sequel to my novel, which is taking up a lot of my attention. I'll try to update as regularly as I can but as with the rest of 2018, my schedule is very packed.
BTW this chapter will get a little technical with musical and dance expressions, but I will add a glossary to the end.
…..
"Okay, Steven, look...I get why they have to stay here, but why do we have to?" Amethyst whined.
He estimated that about a cycle had passed by the time she finally reached the end of her tether. It wasn't exactly fair, though. It wasn't like the pearls were doing anything terrible. Or anything at all, really, besides staring into space and gesture-speaking with each other and occasionally singing little scales quietly to themselves.
"We have to wait here for Orthoclase to come back, she's not going to take long," Steven assured her. "Come on, they're not doing anything weird..."
"That's why they're weird, Steven," Amethyst hissed. "They don't do anything! I mean, jeez, Pearl would have been cleaning up or, like, making a pie or something...it's really freakin' creepy."
"You get used to it," Steven shrugged. "The only dangerous one is Murder Pearl, and she's not going to hurt us. Right?"
Amethyst blanched; clearly hadn't realized that Murder Pearl was just behind them, placidly listening to their conversation.
"No," she replied softly. "Not right now."
"Oh, and Elsa, but I think you'd only have to worry if you're a Jasper, and neither of us are, so we're okay!" Steven said, finishing with a thumbs up.
Amethyst just groaned and stomped away to sit in the stairwell.
She had only been sulking there for a few minutes when Orthoclase arrived, kicked open the door and told them all to get up.
"We've got everything, we're heading out in the next half-quadrant. This is it!" she announced with a wide grin.
…..
Steven held all the pearls (minus Ginger) in a sack on his lap, but thanks to the nanobytes it was disguised as a barrel of graphite shavings and the Topaz at the checkpoints didn't even look twice. Lapis had gone ahead with Garnet after she unfused; it wasn't unusual for a gem of her standing to have a Ruby bodyguard and a Sapphire in attendance.
Steven knew Garnet was still unhappy about this plan, but when she unfused he realized that her unhappiness was down to conflict between Ruby and Sapphire. Sapphire couldn't see far enough ahead to calculate the risk and she didn't respond well to the unknown, whereas Ruby just wanted to find Pearl and get them all off of Homeworld before they inevitably got caught. The disagreement between the two of them hadn't made them unfuse right away, because both were firm that they wanted off the planet, one way or another.
Still, as they drove the van-type vehicle out of the main city, it was clear where they were going was far away enough to (hopefully) escape detection. The balustrades of the abandoned building they were going to loomed in the horizon. All around it, the landscape was bare.
When they pulled into the central courtyard, there were a handful of Jaspers milling around, lifting the symphonaria under Lapis' strict instructions and rigging up the pylon in the centre of the yard.
"It's rather more rundown than I expected," Lapis told them, brushing the hem of her gown with an air of irritation. "But it will have to do."
"I'm not picky," Orthoclase shrugged. "When did the Jaspers get here?"
"They were here when I arrived."
"Efficient. I like it!" Orthoclase said with a grin, and walked over to greet them.
Steven approached Ruby and Sapphire cautiously. The hem of Sapphire's gown was fringed with clinging icicles, and she was visibly gritting her teeth. Ruby was stepping from one foot to the other, clutching her hands, full of nervous energy.
"It's all going smoothly so far," he laughed quietly.
Sapphire's jaw clenched, the icicles shattered as she turned and walked away.
"We should leave her alone for now," Ruby said in a voice that quivered like a bowstring. "When she gets like this there's no talking to her. What's with these Jaspers? Are they supposed to be here?"
Smoke plumed from the soles of her feet.
"They were told they're allowed to keep some of the pearls after the Chorus," Steven told her. "So they owe us a favour..."
"A favour? This kind of thing goes beyond a favour, Steven," Ruby giggled in a frenzied manner. "Jaspers never break the rules! This is a sting, oh sweet core it's a sting...!"
"No, no, they just really like pearls. They even let us borrow their pearl for a while," he assured her. "Look! That one likes pearls so much she's crying!"
It was the seed pearl fanatic. Steven figured she'd volunteer for the Chorus mission, but once she caught sight of not just Thumbelina but the other seed pearls she crumbled into a sobbing, howling mess.
"There's...too...many..." Steven heard her gasping through her tears. "I... can't... protect... them!"
"That's okay," Daisy shrugged and patted her back, and the others nodded. It only made the Jasper howl louder.
"Agh, you're so cute!"she shrieked skywards.
In the corner, Ginger was removing the pearls and (Steven assumed) calling them out. One by one they were regenerating and filling the courtyard. Steven found himself joining her, watching the pearls spring back to life was a very positive action when surrounded by so much nervous energy. Alice approached the symphonaria, but Lapis waved her away.
"You should sing with the others," Steven heard her say. "I will play."
"This is a pearl song," Alice responded, quietly but firmly. "It should be played by a pearl."
Lapis raised an eyebrow at this little defiance, but she stepped aside and ushered Alice to sit by the instrument. Then she sauntered off to watch the proceedings in the stands.
"Don't you need three strong singers to start the song?" Steven asked Ginger, recalling that little detail from the planning. "I mean, you have Blinky and Bunny but don't you need..."
"Willow can fill in. Her owner was fond of her singing," Ginger replied.
Steven glanced over at the pearl he'd named Willow. He named her that because she had six long ponytails sprouting from her head and was silver and pale green in colour. That was before he noticed that both her arms was missing from the elbow down. Her owner may have liked her singing but it wasn't enough to protect her from being 'improved'.
"It looks like we're ready to begin," Ginger told him. "You should go to the stands with the others."
Up on the stands, Amethyst, Sapphire, Ruby, Orthoclase, Lapis and the Jaspers had taken their seats. Their expressions ranged from apprehension to mild interest to excitement. The superfan Jasper audibly gasped when the seed pearls climbed up on the little platform that had been built to keep them on the same level as the others to take their positions.
"Don't start crying again," Steven heard one of the others hiss. "You're embarrassing us."
"I'll try," the superfan hissed back. "But I can't make any promises."
When all the pearls were in position, Ginger included towards the centre, the signal went out to Alice, and she began to play. An ascending high note, clear as a bell, climbed through the pipes and was joined by another, lower, in harmony.
Bunny's mouth opened, and she matched the high note as Willow took the low. A resonant note on the strings rang and was matched by Blinky, just as a rhythmic percussion thrummed through the ground. The notes were held, rose and burst, just as visible strings of gold started streaming from their outstretched hands towards the pylon.
The notes changed, an arpeggio, and their fingers danced along, weaving the gold threads deftly. Even Willow managed to weave with the stumps of her arms, catching her threads on her exposed toes effortlessly. The threads fluttered down the pylon, making it look like a maypole, and then they fanned out.
The Disney pearls, just behind the beginning trio, took up the strings and the song. Their notes soared as a web of threads were fixed to the central threads, and were spread out into the air. The trio stepped back and spun on their toes as the sextet made a forward glissade, then hopped back so that their threads wound around each other. Considering they weren't looking at each other, and one of the dancers was blind, they melded so perfectly it made Steven shiver, despite himself.
As the woven threads flexed and wavered, the structure spread outwards over the courtyard. Finally, the rest of the pearls joined in. The song formed words, though they were words that couldn't be understood by those watching, they spoke of searching, of longing. The tune was mournful and yet hopeful, full of minor keys and soaring resonance.
They danced together, circling and weaving in and out of each other as they wove the threads that built the web. They moved in impeccable symmetry, even the seed pearls on their platform kept pace with the others. Alice's fingers flew over the symphonaria, then suddenly she increased the volume with a heavy crescendo that the pearls matched. The web flew into the air, spun once and fluttered out beyond the courtyard, beyond the building, towards the sky. It was now large enough to be seen from anywhere on Homeworld.
It continued to spread, towards the city they had come from and, Steven assumed, over the rest of Homeworld. The pearls held the remaining strings as the song faded, lowered into a single held note. One by one their eyes closed, and their movements finished. They were concentrating.
Then, slowly, the song began to break. Each pearl let go of her string with a little exhaled breath, it dissolved in the air like smoke. Their eyes fluttered open and they looked to each other. Some of them began gesture-speaking, almost frantically.
Ginger broke away from them, marched towards the stands as the watchers were still trying to process what they had seen. Steven glanced over at Lapis, and was astonished to see tears flowing down her cheeks. From behind her, the superfan Jasper burst into loud sobbing again, but the other Jaspers seemed shell-shocked, too incredulous to stop her.
Even Sapphire seemed stunned. Her mouth was hanging open, as though she were trying and failing to find words. Ruby had an expression of rapture. Orthoclase was failing miserably at looking unimpressed, and Amethyst's face was...pleased? Confused? It was hard to tell.
In Steven's esteem, it had been one of the most beautiful things he had ever heard or seen. It made him want to cry, but it also made him want to laugh. It filled him with sadness and joy in equal measure, both emotions fighting for dominance.
Joy won in the end, because as soon as Ginger reached the stands she had news.
"We know where she is."
…..
They regrouped back at Lapis' mansion. The Jaspers were dismissed, and Steven had to say a reluctant goodbye to the Disney pearls and the seed pearls (they had decided they might as well give them to the superfan.)
"I hope they treat you well," Steven said as he hugged each of them in turn.
"They will," Bunny assured him. "They have always been very good to me."
Very good to me for Bunny meant being dragged to dangerous planets, singing non-stop for hours and being trussed up like a demented plastic doll, but it was probably as good as it was going to get for them. He'd fooled himself up until the very last moment that he could take the pearls with him when he left but he knew now it was impossible. The best he could hope for was for them to go to kind owners.
Lapis had been silent ever since they left the abandoned building, sitting by her symphonaria but making no effort to play it. Alice hovered nearby, watching her intently.
Orthoclase, meanwhile, was acting almost like it had never happened. She had three screens open, one of which was a news bulletin detailing some 'strange astral phenomenon' that had caused almost every pearl on Homeworld to glitch.
"I dunno, we were just walking around the promenade like we usually do," a pretty and somewhat vapid-looking purple gem was telling the interviewer. "And then that thingy appeared in the sky and she just, like, freaked out! Started spinning around, and I didn't even tell her to do it! Then once it was gone, she was okay."
"Did every pearl on Homeworld join in?" Steven asked, sitting down beside Ginger, who was typing on a fourth screen.
"All but the ones who couldn't," she replied.
"What do we do now? We know where she is, right?"
Ginger stopped typing, and before she spoke she observed the other gems in the room. They were all distracted, Amethyst and newly refused Garnet were having a quiet hissed conversation in the corner. Lapis was at her instrument. Orthoclase was flipping through her screens.
"We do know," she said, in a whisper. "A pearl who was nearby when she was brought in spread the word through the song. But she will not be easy to get to. We need to make a lot of preparations."
"Is she okay?" Steven asked.
"No," Ginger replied with her characteristic bluntness. Steven's heart skipped a beat.
"But...she's alive, right?"
"For now."
Glossary:
*Percussion: A beating instrument, such as a drum, or the sound of it
*Arpeggio: Series of notes in a rising or descending order
*Glissade: A small jump, starting on two feet and ending on one, a traveling movement
*Resonance: A vibration of sound waves in the air
