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Pink—that is, Rose—is ecstatic these days, and half an instant after Pearl realizes that she resents that fact, she realizes too that that resentment terrifies her.
This is what they’re fighting for, isn’t it? Individuation? Or so they say? It had all been a front until very recently, a way to assuage their guilt (well, Pink’s guilt, but weren’t they one and the same, until…?) over what they were doing to the Earth and hopefully end the colonization effort. But now…
Things feel different now. And not just because of the frightening notion that Pearl might have thoughts and feelings that differ from her Diamond’s. Nor merely because of the logistical concerns inherent in keeping a secret of the magnitude required and waging both sides of a war when there is now a third entity among their quorum, one who isn’t and should not be privy to all the information. And not merely because of the starry-eyed glances Rose keeps sending toward their new addition, the source of all of Pearl’s novel and scary resentment.
(“How do we know we can trust her, my Diamond?” Pearl had whispered days ago in a rare moment of alone time she could steal for them. “The Ruby and the Sapphire–they’re both Homeworld Gems!”
“So are we, Pearl, most of the time! Besides, Ruby and Sapphire might be from Homeworld, but the fusion is from Earth!”)
No, beyond all of these factors, the language of their rebellion has changed now. When Rose speaks of their cause, she no longer speaks merely of protecting the planet. She speaks of them, both of them, all of them, every Gem in the cosmos, their potential, and their liberation, how they can grow to be more than they are, more than Homeworld allows. They–Pearl–can be individuals, and deserve to be.
And that would be wonderful, it would, except it means that if they win, and as they get closer to winning, infinitely more Gems would permanently join their number. Not that Pink has actively tried to recruit—it is not a Dimaond’s job to think through the implementation or implications of a vision. If the thought of seeking more Crystal Gems had occurred to her, she had not given voice to it. But even if she had, Pearl should be happy, shouldn’t she? She has no right to monopolize the attention of her Diamond, she knows—she’s merely a Pearl. The addition of more to their number would be a return to the order of things, and it should be a welcome return.
And yet, this past period of time, the two of them as the sole caretakers of their joint cause, another little secret to share, however illicit the fantasy…
If more Gems did join them, Pink would surely divert her attention away from Pearl to other, more worthy recipients. Like she already had with the fusion. And it’s the fusion who had inspired the change. While she had given no indication that her presence among them was permanent, in the here and now, Pink—Rose—loves her. It terrifies Pearl that she cannot say the same.
Whatever she feels, though, the fact remains that at least for the moment, there are three of them—four? no, three—and more complicated a task than before. Pink should not be encumbered with the minutiae of coordinating it. Better, surely, for Pearl to conceptualize the general architecture of their strategy and next steps and merely present it to her for approval.
To do that, however, she needs a space to think, and given the fusion’s presence, the moonbase is no longer an option. In fact, while the fusion is with them, they effectively no longer have any base. Another problem for Pearl to solve. For now, though, the banks of the stream in the forest below the Sky Arnea where they had spent the past several weeks will have to make do. Pearl sits, projecting potential stratagems into the air from her gemstone for consideration, made double by their reflection in the water below.
“I’d like to sit beside you.”
The voice rouses Pearl from her imaginings, and, with a start, she hastily allows the images to blink away. When she turns, it’s to see the fusion standing behind her, the pink and blue patches of her hair catching the dwindling sunlight, hesitance tumbling out of her three eyes.
Pearl turns away from her and back toward the water. “Then sit.”
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”
“Interrupting me doesn’t count—I’m just a Pearl.”
“I’m just a Ruby.”
Pearl releases a sardonic laugh. “No, you’re not!”
The fusion hesitates. “Part of me is.”
“Yes, and the other part is a Sapphire!”
“That’s not…I’m more than…And anyway, those Gems up there, my—I mean, Blue—Diamond didn’t treat me like a Sapphire. I’m >worse than a Ruby.”
A raised eyebrow. “Worse than a Pearl?”
“No! I didn’t mean…I just meant that I—I mean, Sapphire—I, she brought Ruby down. No, you—I—she didn’t! I…” She hugs her arms around her waist, as though trying to comfort herself, hold herself together.
Is all fusion this fragile? Pearl wonders. The being she had tried to create with Rose had collapsed in on herself before she had even solidified. It had been harrowing, terrifying—opening her eyes to realize that she was no longer her, that she was part of Rose and was Rose was part of her. But then the truth returned to her, Rose wasn’t Rose, she was a Diamond, and to insert herself into a Diamond’s being, to assume that she, a Pearl, was worthy of that…forbidden did not even begin to describe that experience. Any thrill she had felt—and she did feel a thrill, in the instant before she returned to herself and hit the grassy ground—was overshadowed by the knowledge that came with millennia of programming that she tainted a Diamond’s essence with her touch. The transition between the elation and the revulsion, to be stuck permanently in that freefall…
Whatever else she might envy, she does not envy the fusion that.
Something melts in Pearl then. Her voice softens, she turns to meet the fusion’s eye, and when she speaks again, it’s in an attempt at a refutation, at something like comfort. “The Homeworld Gems clearly thought the opposite was true. That the Ruby tainted the Sapphire.”
“They were wrong!”
Pearl raises an eyebrow. Is the Sapphire being falsely modest, expressing love that the Ruby cannot by her very nature deserve, the likes of which Rose so frequently bestows onto Pearl? Or does this Ruby have delusions of grandeur to which she has no right? “Is the Sapphire saying that, or the Ruby?”
“I…” the fusion struggles. “Both! Or…neither. I…I don’t…I don’t think I work like that.”
“Mmm,” Pearl hums. “You can sit, if you’d like.”
Tentatively, the fusion does. A frog chirps. Rose loves that sound, Pearl thinks. Rose loves everything here. And Pearl herself? What does she love? Well…
“It must have been difficult,” the fusion whispers, snapping Pearl out of her contemplations. “To leave your owner. As a Pearl.”
A thousand retorts die on Pearl’s lips before they meet the air. Anything she says has the potential to reveal the truth, that she didn’t leave her owner, not really, and that revelation would be the end of whatever their nascent movement was becoming. So instead, she simply asks, “What do you know about Pearls?”
The fusion blinks. “I…”
“Did you have one? Did the Sapphire, I mean?”
“No. She just had bodyguards. Like Ruby. But in the end, Ruby wasn’t really a bodyguard. She—” The fusion stops short. “I don’t know what she was.” She hugs her knees to her. “I don’t know what I am.”
“I…” Pearl sighs, turning her gaze at last to her companion. “I know the feeling.”
She doesn’t realize it’s the truth until she says it. Suddenly faced with evidence that the contents of her gem—her desires, her feelings—don’t match that of her Diamond, can she even call herself a Pearl any longer? She’s been masquerading as a renegade for nearly as long as Pink has pretended to be a Quartz, but it had always been an act. Now, however, with the facade dropped…
(And Quartzes, unlike rebel Pearls, actually exist.)
If anything twitches in any of her companion’s three eyes at the statement, Pearl isn’t looking at her to see it. It’s only later—over five millenia later when Pearl has lost and rebuilt so many versions of herself that she scarcely remembers how she felt as this one—that she will wonder if her friend ever reacted to the admission. After all, it wasn’t until long after, until the being who had her Diamond really was gone, that she ever let the depths of her uncertainty be known.
Here and now though, after a moment of weighty silence, the fusion speaks again: “Rose Quartz told me not to question myself. And she was right—I don’t need to ask myself if this is who I want to be. Both of—all of me—is happy. I’m happy. I’m love. This is who I want to be.” A smile tugs at her lips. “But I don’t know who this is. I don’t know what to do without a template for me to follow. Ruby knew what to do because she was built to follow orders, and there were always orders for her. Sapphire knew because she could see the future laid out before her. But I…I don’t know.”
“We have a cause,” Pearls says, surprising herself. “Something to fight for. They’d never let you stay a fusion on Homeworld—”
“I know that.”
“So if this is what you want to be, who you want to be, if this is what makes you happy,” She pauses for a moment to interrogate the words about to tumble out of her mouth. She doesn’t want the fusion here, doesn’t want anyone here who would compete with her for Rose’s attention. And Rose hasn’t even said anything about building an army. But she wants to fight for this cause, Pearl knows, and she’ll need more than just a Pearl by her side to do it, even if Rose herself does not yet realize that. Every instinct coded into her functioning knows that every choice she makes should serve the purpose of fulfilling those desires.
But there is a drive beyond this, Pearl knows, beyond even that petty resentment she feels toward the fusion, and it’s no less terrifying. Her fantasies about the life she could have with Rose Quartz—not her Diamond, not her owner, just her…companion? Friend? Partner?—bloom before her like the Earth flowers every time she closes her eyes. A life together. The horrifying, exhilarating truth is that she has desires too, beyond just the echoes of her Diamond’s wishes etched into the sides of her gemstone. And even more awful: she wants to fight for them.
She’ll need an army to do it.
Pearl continues, at last: “Stay and fight with us. Join us. Become a Crystal Gem.”
The fusion blinks, startled. “I don’t think I would know how to do that.”
“You’re half Ruby, aren’t you? I’m just a Pearl, and even I have gotten pretty good with a sword.”
Millenia later, the gem who this fusion will become will remember this. Pearl will stand in front of her, head bowed, concocting excuses for violating her trust. “No matter how hard I try to be strong like you,” she’ll say. “I’m just a Pearl. I’m useless on my own. I need someone to tell me what to do.”
There will be an irony to this statement, the fusion will think, to this whole conversation, and if she weren’t so incensed, so devastated, by Pearl’s recent act of betrayal—and if the stakes of this moment weren’t so high—she would perhaps say as much. Would perhaps raise a brow and remind her that these words were also the ones which she uttered in quite a different tone, for quite a different purpose millennia ago, when she, the fusion, was the one in need of reassurance.
She won’t say this in that moment. But later that evening, she will approach Pearl as Pearl sits on top of the temple in which they’ll reside, gazing out past the human-clothing cleaning devices and toward the ocean. The mood will be calmer, more contemplative than the heated and urgent conversation they’ll have had that afternoon, but the ghosts of that discussion will nonetheless linger heavy in the air like the salt on the ocean breeze.
“When Rose left,” the fusion will say. “You forgot that you were strong.”
“What?”
“You were always strong, Pearl.”
“No, I wasn’t, I—”
The fusion will interrupt her. “You were the one whose strength prompted Ruby to fuse with Sapphire in the first place. And once I was me, you were the one who convinced me to join the Rebellion and fight.”
“I…I was always just following Rose.”
“I know you believe that. And perhaps you were fighting for Rose. But your strength, your drive, your abilities—they are and always were your own.”
At that moment, Pearl will meet her three eyes, as though suspecting a lie and searching for reassurance that the fusion’s words are, in fact, true. And the fusion will meet them with a steely and grounding seriousness, the type that Pearl will have come to expect from her over the course of their long comradeship.
But at this moment, millenia before the conversation overlooking the sea, when the fusion considers joining what had hitherto been a nascent two-Gem movement, she looks at the glint in the terrifying renegade Pearl’s eyes, and her own features relax into a determined smile. “Alright. I’ll fight with you. I want to.”
Pearl returns her grin. “Good!”
“So I know what I will do—what I want to do. But, as for who I am…I still need a name.”
“A name?”
“Yes. I’m not Ruby, nor Sapphire. I’m someone new. I have a purpose, but I need a name.”
“Well…” Pearl furrows her brow. Names are descriptors, merely a functional method to denote one’s place in the order of things—she is Pearl because she is a Pearl; this is a signifier as much as an identity. And true, Pink took the name Rose Quartz, but that was part of a disguise, a way to denote her alter ego’s place in the schema of Homeworld, so far from that of a Diamond. But denotations, Pearl supposes, can be prescriptive too, not just descriptive. Names can be a promise. “You know what you want to do. Who do you want to be?”
The fusion glances down. “I want to be someone you and Rose Quartz—and others, if they join us—can depend on.”
Pearl thinks of Pink, her reaching out to a newly emerged Amethyst in welcome, how she always advocated for each Gem under her command. “Like a Diamond.”
“No! Not like a Diamond!” The fusion exclaims in a reaction that initially takes Pearl by surprise, but then makes sense after a moment of reflection. What context did this Gem have for a Diamond beyond Blue Diamond’s display in the arena?
“Alright then,” Pearl considers. As a Court Gem, her grasp on military structues extened only to Pink’s interest in them, and her interest in that declined drastically after her decision to halt the colonization. “A different type of commander, then, whose troops rely on her and who leads them. A…Hessonite? Pyrite? Dementoid? Uh—”
“A Garnet,” the fusion interrupts, eyes widening. She repeats, beaming: “Garnet.”
Pearl grins.