Just another little idea I have been wanting to write about for a while.
Disclaimer: I don't own Land of the Lustrous nor Yu-Gi-Oh!
Soft Spectral Colors
'No. Not like this either.' Diamond thought to themselves with a small frown on their face as they once more practiced an unordinary fighting style. The clear diamond's hair and eyes fractured the sun's light in the colours of the rainbow, making it sort of look like their hair was constantly changing colour yet always displaying the entire spectrum, depending from where one looked at them. They knew that Bort had told them not to practice this sort of thing and that their partner was always close by, but Diamond felt an aching feeling of self-doubt in their mind.
Minerals possessed something called cleavage, a tendency to break in specific angles in flat surfaces due to their internal structure. Diamond was with a 10 on the Mohs scale one of the hardest gems there was, but their cleavage was universal. Meaning that with enough force, a diamond could be broken or cut in any angle. And unfortunately for the gems on the island, the Lunarians who came to hunt them down almost daily were more than capable of doing so with their arrows and spears.
Bort, on the other hand, was composed of a lot of microcrystals, making their body far more durable than a normal diamond. This coupled with their personality resulted in Bort being among the top fighters among the gems to fend off the attacks of the Lunarians. However, despite both of them being diamonds, the two could not be more different from one another, resulting in Diamond developing a certain feeling of not being good enough compared to Bort. They didn't hate their fellow diamond, not at all; but sometimes it did feel to Diamond like they just got in Bort's way.
Sheathing their sword again and sitting down in the grass, Diamond let out a sigh they didn't know they held as they looked up at the sky. It was a nice sunny day with white fluffy looking clouds drifting slowly over the blue sky, yet it did little to lift their spirits.
'Maybe I really should just give it up like Bort said...' They thought to themselves, looking down at their arms. Their hands were covered in long white cloves that covered their arms all the way to the elbow. Last time they had trained, the strain on one arm had become too much and it simply snapped in half right below the elbow. In a panic, Diamond had rushed to Rutile to get it fixed as soon as possible and asked them not to tell Bort. The doctor among the gems was a bit confused at this, but luckily agreed to do so. Since then, they had been more careful when it came to training...
"Mrow..." A soft quiet noise came from the tall grass around Diamond as they looked up and around. Around them was nothing but tall grass swaying in the breeze. Except one spot was rustling as something moved in it. Diamond was a bit unsure what to do for a moment, before deciding to investigate. Standing up, she made a few careful steps towards the spot that had previously rustled and slowly parted the long blades of grass with their hands. What they saw made Diamond stop for a second.
Beneath the blades of grass, Diamond found themselves looking down at a small creature unlike any they had ever seen. Its body was curled up with its tail wrapped around the front of it. It had four ears laying down against the sides of its head with a small red gem on its forehead. A second red gem appeared to be attached to the tip of its tail in a spherical shape. The body was covered in bluish-purple fur and rose and fell with each soft breath the creature took through a tiny nose. As it did so, it made a purring noise and occasionally the ears twitched slightly.
Diamond was left in a state of shock and kneeled down to get a closer look, unsure what to do when it suddenly cracked open one eye, revealing red gem like orbs in them of the same color as the ones on the tail and forehead. Its tail moved aside, revealing four short legs before it stretched itself with a high-pitched mewling sound and then turned its head to Diamond. The four ears on its head straightened and the creature cocked its head sideways as it looked at them.
'So cute...' Diamond thought to themselves, almost not noticing as the creature then climbed onto their lap and started nuzzling against their torso, emitting an even louder purring sound."Huh? HUH?! Wait... Just wait a moment..." Diamond felt their cheeks heat up as they panicked for a second, not quite understanding what was going on. Yet they also didn't have the heart to push the small squirrel/cat-like creature away. They slowly brought a hand to it, which made it first look at their limb in confusion before leaning into it, nuzzling it affectionately. 'So soft...' Diamond thought as they felt the small warm body beneath their fingers.
"Dia! What are you doing sitting down there?" A familiar and stern voice suddenly tore Diamond out of their thoughts as they turned around and saw Bort walking over to them with a scowl on their face. The clear diamond panicked a little, unsure how to approach this situation when all of the sudden they felt the weight on their lap shift and suddenly appear on their head. Bort stared with surprise at them, while Diamond still tried to process the fact that the small creature she had found had apparently jumped from their lap onto their head, holding onto it with its arms as it looked at Bort. "... what is that thing?" Bort asked.
"Uh... well... you see... I was just... and I..." Diamond stood up as they tried to find the words to explain the situation to Bort, when the little creature surprised both of them. It leapt off of Diamond's head and then floated over to Bort, circling the black diamond's head once before settling down on their shoulder and nuzzling into their cheek while purring.
"H-Hey! Stop that! I'm not..." Bort tried to protest, but even they had to admit that the creature's soft fur felt rather nice. Then it moved to the other shoulder, climbing behind the curtain of long black hair and mewled happily, when it took a step too far and almost fell from Bort's shoulder to the ground... Emphasis on 'almost' because the black diamond caught the small creature with both hands as it was at their chest level. Bort felt their cheeks heat up when it then started pawing at their chest.
"Looks like it likes you." Diamond chuckled, making the blush on Bort's face deepen.
"T-That's not... What even is this?" They asked to which Diamond frowned.
"I don't know. I just found it myself." They said before their face lit up. "Maybe Sensei knows. Let's go ask them." Bort gave them a look that said that they wanted to protest. After all, they really got no idea what this thing in their hands was. For all they knew it was some sort of animal or lunarian weapon or whatever. All those arguments died down in their mind as Bort felt a slight tug at a strand of their hair and looked down as the creature had stretched itself on its back and was now pawing at the strand of hair as if it was a cat rod, causing Diamond to chuckle even more. "Fine..." Bort said, turning their head away from their smiling partner, which made the strand of hair move slightly and elicit a playful mewl from the creature in their hand.
'Why is it so cute...' Both of them thought as they made their way back to their home.
Diamond might not have been able to see the fluffy Lunarian dogs, but now they got a small fluffy duel spirit as a friend.
For those of you who are curious, Ruby Carbuncle is still a duel spirit and as such would not be affected by Cinnabar's mercury.
And here a little extra omake.
A small yellow butterfly sat on a blade of grass, gently swaying in the breeze alongside the plant it was sitting on. Meanwhile, Ruby Carbuncle was eyeing the insect with large red eyes, curled up on the floor and swaying its back from side to side. Then the butterfly's wings twitched and the duel spirit leapt towards it. Though the insect quickly escaped and the small cat-like creature landed on the grass. Shaking its head slightly, it looked after the butterfly for a moment before returning floating back to where it returned to Adamant's lap, who was fast asleep or meditating as he called it.
"Aw~" Was the collective reaction from Diamond, Phosphophyllite and Euclase watching the small creature nestle itself into the monk's robes.
"It's bad enough that it is interrupting your work." Jade said as she looked at the other gems with a frown with Rutile standing next to her. "But it also seems to interrupt Sensei a lot as well." Jade could still recall the time they had found Adamant playing with the creature by using a cattail like plant as a cat rod rather than mediating or going over the documents they had brought him.
"It is quite soft." He had replied to her upon being asked why he was doing so, while petting the creature. "Very soft..." He did in fact not answer Jade's question and was too busy petting the small spirit.
"You're just mad it didn't let you pet it yet." Phos shot back with a grin, making Jade's cheek flare up in color at the accusation.
"T-That's not true at all. I just don't want to." Jade replied while everyone else gave them a flat look, not buying it at all. Meanwhile, Rutile looked at the small creature with a frown.
"You're lucky I can't dissect you while you're around Sensei." The doctor said, still recalling the time when Rutile had first suggested to do so and in response, Ruby Carbuncle had mischievously thrown a jar of powder to the floor from their shelf like some sort of vindictive housecat.
"Rutile, no." Came the unanimous reply from the other gems as they looked at their doctor, who simply smiled back at them with a scary grin.
"Rutile, YES!" The doctor said brandishing their tools from their coat.
Unbeknownst to them, a Lunarian sunspot was heading towards the island, yet could already see what was going on down at the school as the leader of this hunting party looked through a telescope.
"Looks like the gems are having fun. Well time to attack and..." The Lunarian in charge was cut off by a strange aura of rainbow colors filling the air around the sunspot, making the Lunarians onboard look around in confusion. "Uhm... what's with the light show?"
"Aurora Borealis?" One lunarian offered, making everyone else look at them.
"A-Aurora Borealis? Really? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the world? Localized entirely within this specific place?" The one in charge said in disbelief.
"Maybe got something to do with that MASSIVE SERPENTINE DRAGON OVER THERE!?" Another lunarian shouted while pointing up ahead.
"...huh?" Every other Lunarian said as they looked in the direction the other one was pointing into. And indeed, Rainbow Dragon was glaring at the sunspot with its four yellow eyes boring into them, before opening its jaws wide and firing a multicolored beam of light at them. The attack utterly obliterated the Lunarians as one could only hear the faint noise of the resulting explosion from the ground.
"Did you hear that?" Yellow Diamond asked.
"Hear what?" Zircon asked.
"Oh nothing. I thought I heard something. Hey, a rainbow." Yellow pointed up in the sky to see indeed a rainbow there. Despite the fact that it had not rained in a few weeks now.