Delta slowly moved her hand, gently caressing the hair of the gem whose head rested on her lap. The blue gem kept shivering, tears rolling from her eyes, sobs ripping her physical form apart.
The last half year of peace didn't lessen the pain Blue suffered; it only made it worse, far worse. At least during the six year battle the blue gem constantly lead her forces; observing and directing the numerous aerial squadrons to battle, and leading many of them into combat personally. Many of her darker, more dreadful thoughts pushed back into her subconscious and repressed by more important issues.
But now, when a period of relative piece was achieved and there was no way to push these memories and thoughts back. They would return like specters to haunt the blue gem of her perceived failures and inabilities. Even dueling sessions with Star, which Blue never missed and valued above all, had now become a torture as every clash of blades and every grunt would bring back memories of the brutalities of the battlefield.
She tried devoting herself to work again, hoping that like before it would help her, like it did before. But it didn't help in pushing back the nightmares; it seemed that once they were released, they wouldn't go back. Designing strategies and counters to enemy tactics would call back sights of countless lapis lazuli gems falling from the sky as aerial craft gunned them down. Even looking through the lists of equipment would remind her of the countless gem blue shards lying on the ground after a failed offensive. Devotion to work didn't help.
Blue spent some time with her soldiers, gems she knew for hundreds of years and had many fond memories, which they could remember. But to her surprise her comrades didn't want to remember their past. They wanted to concentrate on now and future. They wanted to concentrate on swordsmanship; they wanted to concentrate on ballistic weapons. They didn't want to remember their past as terraformers; they wanted to fully embrace their current position as soldiers, they wanted to train, they wanted to duel. But such activities where precisely what Blue wanted to avoid.
The gem commander tried to rid herself to these torturous nightmares by distancing herself from military matters, but there wasn't anything non militaristic in the crusading force. Every aspect and ability of every gem was turned towards production of war materials and military. Instead of building living quarters and civilian infrastructure bismuths raised massive fortresses and bunker complexes. Instead of assembling injectors and consoles, peridots forged battleships and artillery pieces. Even the few zircons that were attached to the crusading force spent their time analyzing the massive swathes of information.
Even Morganite wasn't able to help anymore. This was completely new, something she had not encountered before. She looked through all of the files she had at her disposal, and yet nothing similar occurred before. The orange gem even analyzed every document she could find on lapis lazuli gems, their production and their composition, but nothing in these sources indicated anything about such mental backlashes.
After the analysis of documents failed Morganite tried performing several experiments, to find if some sort of an action would help the commander to divert herself from her negative memories, and possibly causing positive emotions. Most of these experiments were quite mundane except for several strange ones, such as the scientist gem asking the lazuli to cut pearl holograms with knives or her fangs. But in the end none of the proposed activities helped.
The most the scientist gem could help her patient was to advise her to spend more time flying. But now, after six years of grueling combat, the movements of her wings and her swords started feeling the same for her, and every time she would try to rise from the ground, nightmares would wrack her mind again.
And so she isolated herself. She would spend cycle upon cycle locked in Deltas quarters, simply doing nothing, as she was afraid to trigger the nightmares again. But such isolation left her with her own thoughts and no matter how she tried to escape them, her memories from the front would always return to haunt her.
She was locked into an endless loop, where no matter what she did, and no matter to what direction she tried to go, she would be plagued by nightmares of the brutal battles and slaughters she had experience.
The only respite from such pains was spending time with Delta. Crying out her emotions on her shoulder. And even then it would only give short respite, which would only last moments and would be quickly replaced by the unending nightmares again.
And this cycle was no different.
Delta was sitting on the soft bench, Blue's head resting on her knees.
The quarters were mostly empty at this point, everything else except the soft bench and a glass cabinet removed from it, as the room was impossible to use for work anymore. The only remnant from being a communicator located on the wall opposite to the reinforced door.
The glass cabinet, located next to the soft bench was something that while Delta and Blue wanted to remove, they weren't allowed to.
The glass cabinet contained their weaponry. A smaller version of the usual obsidian sword. The only remaining sabre Blue possessed. There were also several different ballistic weapons and numerous clips.
Suddenly the communicator turned on.
Delta stood up, walked to the communicator and turned it on.
"What do you need? I'm not in the mood for talks" She exclaimed angrily, annoyed that someone called at such a time.
"Are your weapons nearby?" The voice from the other side asked, it sounded familiar, but it was hard to pinpoint who it was. Though the gem on the other side was nervous and clearly uncomfortable.
"What are you talking about? Why would we need our weapons?" The Prime obsidian was now irritated; someone was wasting her time with nonsense.
"We don't have time! Are your weapons nearby?!" Now the voice was booming and commanding.
"Yes" Delta answered, disturbed by such a tonal shift. "We have them cl…"
The armored door into her living quarters started breaking apart as something was clearly beating it inwards.
Delta turned around, shutting of the communicator. Blue had jumped up screaming from the soft bench and was scrambling to open the glass cabinet, her mind clearly drowned by the horrible memories.
Something was pushing itself into the room.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" She screamed at the intruder.
It looked at her and raised one of its arms.
The dark grey gem felt bullets tearing into her form.