Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jasper knew to look for the sea more than the mountain, although both were off limits. Up north was the sea, only a hundred meters from their home. It was off limits for the war they were fighting. Down south, a hundred leagues, at the heart of the known world, shielded by the mountain, was the throne of their enemies.

Her home was the Jade Town, where she stayed at the Palace. Big names, but bear with her. It was hard to write a memoir, and her co-author was allergic to being straightforward. That’s why it fell to her to write an introduction, to dash vanguard strokes, to shed light into a long history, though doing it so brassily felt like an affront to her friends.

If you were able to make an appointment with one of the Nephrites, you would be able to acquire a map. A rectangular piece of paper, as big or small, as delicate or sketchy as you could afford. The known world laid out before you, in accordance with cardinal points. Up north, Blue Diamond's snowy mountains, southeast, Yellow Diamond's expanding territory, with sand dunes at its furthest border. In the middle, with the expensive maps, it would be drawn in gold ink: a star. It stood for the Capital, White Diamond's throne, the master's home fort. You wouldn't be able to miss it, it was in the center of the map, the center of the known world, and its master swayed many things.

The Capital would come up often enough later on, but you must remember where we set out and where we would return. Jade Town, Pink Diamond's first and only settlement, was a city close to the sea, at the easternmost border of the known world. Where Jasper lived all her life.

If you ask her, Jasper would admit she got it good: got a cushy life with a cushy job. Her Diamond hand-selected her and kept her close ever since. Ten years already. And the ancient one next to Pink Diamond was Pearl, whom she kept in service for even longer. Well, depending on who you were, your first impression of her would be different, but Jasper would vouch for Pearl. During ten years of service, they had grown close.

Pink, Pearl, and Jasper were living a very public life, Pink must do right by her name (it would come up again later on). However, they were carrying a load of secrets, if Jasper wrote on a long piece of paper everything she must keep close to herself, well. The paper was as long as it needed to be and she made little paper stars out of it. Then let's say she could convince her accomplices to do the same. Secrets, paper, paper stars, you follow? Then, they would have enough of them to fill forty-nine small towers. The first thirty-nine were between Pink and Pearl, the last ten were shared among them.

Jasper had only been in the big secret for ten years. Fought in the war for ten years. Working hard at the job for ten years.

For the aforementioned public life and secret life, their cohort got a strange array of shorthand. The war was the ongoing bitter fight between Pink Diamond and the Crystal Gems, of course. It was the only war in the known world, so it didn’t need a name. However, the job didn’t need a name because everyone who talked of it must be in the cohort, and the cohort was the three of them.

The job was their vengeance against the House of Diamonds, the ruler of this world. If the time came, and you read this when their job had been completed, you would find the explanation to be redundant. Yet, there was a time, (too long a time if you ask Jasper) Pink's rejection of the diamonds must be kept a secret. They were building their force and fostering their heir. And if you knew the name of their heir and sighed in adoration, then their job had succeeded in the highest note.

Yet if you didn’t know, then the time was unripe, and the secret remained untold. It didn’t matter if just yet, you were not let into the secret. What happened here was before that: when their mission was still concealed, and Pink Diamond bore her title and did right by her blood. Her gems likewise.

What was going to happen was not violence, which happened by the sea shore, or bloodshed, which was washed away by the waves. They were called, for the job, back to the mountain, for New Year’s celebrations.

~~~~~

Half a month until the New Year, things slacked off a little. Even in the front buildings, where usually the admins stumbled onto the captains, people were content to take a slower pace. The majority of them had already gotten their break. The fighting by the sea ceased, their rule of civility demanded a long truce.

Jasper found herself taking a walk around the Palace. It's a pleasant place to walk around, the joint efforts of Pink and Pearl. It’s a newer architecture complex, as Jade town was a newer settlement, but nobody can deny its beauty.

Jasper started from their study, a tower in the middle of the Palace. When the building process started, this tower complex, with garden, fountains, and pleasant pathways, was built first. A rectangular frame, as common aesthetic dictated, but here and there were delights of invention and taste: eclectic trinkets and wild-grown trees. It was the height of the palace’s beauties.

Design and building were shared interests of Pink and Pearl. Pink had plotted out the garden. Pearl had designed the tower next to it. They had joined efforts in the waterworks, an intricate web of fountains. A gentle reminder of the past, when their joint work had a flavor of play. Jasper could sigh. Now, they were militaristic. Now, they only talked about the job and the war.

It was midday already. The sun was beating down (it’s hot all year round in their country). Jasper realized she had not seen Pearl the whole day. Well, she got a good guess why. This time of the year, Pearl got angsty.

At first, in the starting rough patch of their acquaintances, ten years ago, Jasper had thought she was so because she disliked the festivities and the little party they held in the summer home. She had told Pink Diamond that the group party was a bad idea, Pearl was a bore and a nuisance.

When their relationship got easier, when Jasper had smiled and accused her of that little misunderstanding, Pearl had told her the reason why (after vehemently declaring she liked both the party and Jasper). She was grim because at this time of the year, the Diamonds called Pink back home.

Yes, at this time Jasper had already known the fare. Pink was beloved by her sister. A messenger from Yellow Diamond came yesterday. Another from Blue Diamond came the day before that. They meant to escort Pink Diamond back to the Capital themselves, as per their Diamond’s bidding. Pearl had fenced them off, citing every reason there is. She managed to make an excuse with the horses' sickness or the cows' madness once. Jasper didn't remember the details. Trying to recite, her reasons would sound ludicrous, but it read like a song when Pearl put it down. She got a way with the courts' gymnastics and her letters.

Today, by the garden’s gate, as usual, Pearl must have been standing sentinel. She would let no rude messengers pass, who intended to be unwelcome guests until they got Pink Diamond back with them. She did so without offending the court the messengers carried on their backs. Other areas she could be a little stiff, but Pearl was flexible with diplomacy, where one must be soft but firm.

Jasper decided to keep her company. When she reached Pearl, she saw that Pearl was already busy. A messenger was there.

However, Pearl did not portray her usual fitness. If anything, she was shocked and stone-still, and Jasper wasn’t sure she ever talked. Not like the messenger spoke much, but keen on their task of handing Pearl something. Jasper came closer, but the other one had already left. Pearl got a letter. She was pale.

Jasper looked over to see the messenger, who was almost out of sight. They were petite and slender, wearing a white cloak.

“What is it?” Jasper asked.

“We will have to call Pink back.”

“Really? She has just left.”

“This letter was sent by White Diamond,” Pearl laughed, “She is summoned back to the Capital by the master herself.”

~~~~~~

Late at night, they fired the message calling Pink back. Before dawn, she arrived at the palace. She scarcely had been at the summer house for a few hours. Even the war was not this hasty.

Pink strode through their garden, tiles glimmering like gold in rose-tinted dawn. Jasper and Pearl had been awake, waiting for her. Pearl was sure that she would come back very soon.

“How was your visit?” Jasper said, conversationally. They were having preparations to come to the summer home together, a task Pearl enjoyed, but she had barely bothered with it since yesterday. Was a letter such bad news?

Seemed so, because Pink glided past her, “Where is it?”

Pearl pointed to the heavy oaken table in the middle of the study, where the white envelope lay waiting. A paper knife was beside, but Pink opened it with her hands. They did find it funny, when Pearl was anxious about the waiting, she put the knife beside it, setting the table all nice. Go out to do the gardening at night.

White Diamond’s bold penmanship seemed to push out of the page. Pink skimmed through it, while Pearl watched her, transfixed. They were very reticent about their memories at the Capital, where they were born. But Pearl hated the place as much as Pink.

“She wanted me back.” Pink laughed, “There was a time she hated to have me at the same dinner table.”

Pink sighed, looking to the room, “What are we going to do?” Decisions were made by casting votes, a job thing. Usually, the matter discussed was more straightforward, they debated the pros and cons of a common good. However, today, the matter seemed personal. It was related to the history.

The history was not included in their cohort’s official shorthand, because only Jasper used it. Pink and Pearl never spare a world for the matter. As if they had been enlisted in the war as soon as they were born. But they were not, they had spent their youth in the Capital, and only had the city by the sea by their young adulthood. Oh, and their first five years by the sea had been the most delectable thing ever, sweet as a hard candy that you hold in your tongue.

They had played double life and revolution. The first had been fantastic, but the latter sincere. Pink had donned a new mantle half of her time, and had assumed her birthright Diamond title for the rest. She had been called Rose, which in this memoir you can use interchangeably with Pink. For the sake of the introduction’s coherence and the tale’s location, let’s stick with the first. Double life and revolution, both part-time. If you think it was unsustainable, then you were right.

Pearl had been Pink’s pearl (you know what she is talking about), and she had bridged the way to their double life. They had shared a sweet love and made friends. Those five years, which even a mention of it could bring something gentle to Pearl’s eyes, briefly, before it turned dark and sour. For those years, Pink and Pearl’s and a handful of others’ job was to fight in the war, for love, back when the three terms pointed to roughly one thing.

It broke, ten years ago, it had been a great event, when the horrors and the sorrows, which they had been blinded to, which they had not wished to see, appeared in plain sight. They had been confronted with an awful truth. They had known it to be awful and swore against it (insert many starry nights and clandestine missions). It had gotten more awful when they realized that after all, it had been real. More real than their promises. Probably, Pink and Pearl had emerged as different people after it, but she wouldn’t know, Jasper only knew them after the great event.

At Jasper’s probing, Pink and Pearl had given different cryptic answers. Jasper got the broad stroke, the vague timeline of ten years, fifteen years. But what puzzled her was their big rift uncrossable. A denotation. Annihilation of Pink and Pearl’s love and friendship, what sweetness was only seen now in a garden.

The fuel for the explosion had been lying dormant for all the years she mentioned, but Jasper was sure the big event happened in the course of one night, or three. Pearl had left Pink with Jasper and went away on her own for the year after Jasper was recruited. To where, Jasper did not know, and was not at liberty to share if she did. Oh, and she had come back, which had brought life back to Pink, but Pearl’s condition had been pathetic. She had returned to the Palace clinging to her doctor’s neck.

But that’s a detour, one of many secrets filling the said tower. Pink and Pearl were silent on the matter. As if it were only the death of one bothersome acquaintance, but nobody was dead, and the history was alive and festering, even now. It destroyed, and Jasper felt like her cushy life and job were its next target.

She would like to know the details, so she probed and asked. Well, she probed Pearl more than Pink, as she said, they got off to a rough start. Jasper used to be an arrogant star child, outstanding among her peers. Pearl was equally proud, even now. Pink was likewise reticent.

The matter seemed personal, but the reasonable path was clear, “We should go,” she said, “We must, it’s only reasonable.”

Pearl was sitting down on the windowsill, turning her back toward them. She turned around, her expression complex but hard to read. She was unhappy with the idea.

“I know we should.” She said, “But would it hurt to send a letter nicely worded? Or fake an accident on the way. The Capital is a very unpleasant place. The Diamonds.”

She laughed, “You won’t like them.”

Jasper found it amusing, “You are telling us to back down?” Pearl was the opposite of a coward. She liked a fight.

“Sometimes, sometimes.” Pearl smiled.

“I have never been to the Capital,” Jasper said.

Pearl was amused, it was Pearl's idea of fun that Jasper was marginally younger than her, "You are missing out on nothing. The sea is a better sight."

To tell the truth, the visit intrigued her. If nothing, it will be for the sightseeing. But will it be nothing? “Come on, aren’t you going to visit family?” She said.

Pearl appeared surprised, while Pink laughed, “I don’t think of it that way.”

Jasper looked at her pointedly, to ask which way she thought of it then. Expectedly, Pink balked.

“We are going to the enemy’s house.” Pearl said, seriously, “The ones who injured us all, and many others.”

“It’s true.” Pink said, “But we have not opened fire yet. You are right, Jasper, I’m afraid we must go.”

Looking at Pearl, Pink tried to reason, “More than ten years. Maybe even White has started missing me. Wouldn't you say so?"

Pearl smiled quickly, but her mood was stumped. She excused herself, while Pink kept Jasper back, showing her gifts from the summer home. Jasper knew Pink was trying to keep her mood light, quite unneeded, as despite the bad reviews, she was excited for the trip.

Maybe because of the bad reviews, she was excited for the trip. It was their hometown, it was the start of their history, which Jasper wished she were privy to.

Pink noticed Jasper quickly lifted mood, she was amused. She advised Jasper to tone down the excitement, to remember their job. Old drills.

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Jasper said, low hanging fruits, but it was late, they were tired. Pink laughed like it was really funny.

She was dismissed for the day. They would leave the next morning, there was no time to miss.

~~~~~~~~~~

They set off early tomorrow, with Pearl and Jasper in front as heralds, Pink and the army trailing behind, carrying her large possessions. It was a straight way from the Jade town, the easternmost territory, coming to the Capital, which stood at the center of the known world.

Pearl had been racing. She was swift with a horse, the road was wide and easy, her mind was on something heavier, so she made the task a little bit of a sport, challenging Jasper on. Jasper was glad to comply, equally for the game and Pearl’s mood. She had hoped the strange temper yesterday was temporary. However, it was a far-fetched fancy. Pearl hunched down, if it was possible when riding top speed.

While racing on, something caught Jasper’s eye. Glimmering like white sand under midday sun. She called for Pearl to stop.

Pearl was rosy-cheeked, she was winning, but there wasn’t the usual cheer.

“I saw something,” Jasper said, “Why don’t we take a detour. We are making very good time.”

Pearl appeared to register her surroundings for the first time. The city, where they were going to spend the night, was within sight. The day was still long. They left Pink quite a road behind.

She agreed, and some cheer returned. She smiled, some humor returned, “You have never gone this far, have you?”

Jasper admitted.“Sometimes I forget you are younger," She said. 

“Not by much,” Jasper said.

Roadside’s scene was a grassy plain that stretched far and wide. Further away were hazy mountain ranges. Nothing blocked their eyes save for occasional thickly-grown groves. The strange light had been from one of them, Jasper followed it, and Pearl was close behind.

Coming closer, Jasper saw it was a ruin of a building. It was badly damaged, and only a wall was left standing. The broken stone was wide, thick, and tightly-packed, but it didn’t amount to much space, only as large as a room. The once-white stones had been beaten into dirty yellow.

“It is a temple.” Pearl said, coming before Jasper, “Or a fancy grave.”

“Was there one similar to this by the road from Jade town to the summer home?”

Pearl smiled, “I suppose. There was a lot around. It was from a faraway day. But almost all of them were so badly damaged. We don’t even know who they were worshipping.”

“Should we pray?” Jasper said. Her religious expertise was limited to the halfhearted rule at her kindergarten. She usually laughed it off. She didn’t believe in life after death.

“I will pass,” Pearl said.

“I can say a few words on your behalf.” And for Pink Diamond, too.

“Oh. What should I pray for?”

“Happiness was the usual drills,” Jasper said.

Pearl smiled, “I was sublimely happy by the sea. And we will be back soon enough.” She had already been thinking about going back, when they scarcely left, “But you can ask for good luck. Let's call Fortune by her name. We would need a lot of those in the Capital.”

“You are being secretive again.” Being old, if Jasper was talking to herself.

“Ah, you will see it soon enough.” Pearl said, “The Capital is the start of many things.”

~~~~~~~~~

The days spent on the road were pleasant and quickly gone. By the fourth day of traveling, Pink’s company reached the Capital’s outpost. Carved itself into the mountain, it boasted the vantage point of a hundred miles. The mountain also served as a veil, concealing the Capital from prying eyes. White was careful like that.

The further they got inland, the presence of the Diamonds' house was more prominent. The people were taught to adore them, and their image was revered as divine.

What would Pearl give to bring each and every Capital citizen to the sea? There, where the rock was unsullied, where the sea brought a real image of the absolute. By the sea, they had pretended the Diamonds did not exist altogether, and Pearl fancied herself pure and free. The exquisite carved rock said she was not, she was wearing a dress showing her status already.

By the courtyard where the company gathered to wait for their returning parade, Pearl was lost in thought. She gazed upward, seeing the frieze supporting the expansive roof, which depicts the Diamonds as the perfect lordly house, godborn, glorious. A lofty piece of decoration, the gray stone made the image appear grim. It must have been old, the image of Pink had short hair, she was poised, tall, and slender, although she had never been so. It was a fanciful illusion. 

It was the carvers’ job to make the Diamonds appear larger than they are, anyway. They filled their job according to White’s design.

By the Temple where she studied, though it was an exception in the Capital with quite a collection of art, there was a handful of artworks depicting the Diamonds. Pearl was duly impressed by their beauty and power. It was quite a shock, when she met Pink for the first time, that she was small, with a self-conscious gait.

Now, her long white hair shining like waves in twilight hours, her body was fine curving porcelain. She looked nothing like the image on the frieze, but closer to it than ever. White would be pleased. It brought a strange humor to Pearl’s lips.

From afar, what was it that she heard? Did the people start singing already?

Pearl leaned out the window, straining to hear the songs more clearly. Her hands gripped the ledge, and her neck craned out. She was trying to see past the morning's daze. She couldn't see anything yet when Jasper distracted her.

She came beside Pearl, silver armor shining, a pink diamond logo on her chest. Pearl knew the time to depart was close.

Jasper was in good humor, “You look pretty, my darling.” ( They use a very soft and endearing speech, their idea of fun)

“What can I do to make you not so upset? You looked at them like calling for a fight.” There was this little sigh in her voice. Pearl had marred her prefect mood. Yet, only so slightly.

“It was my love for peace, for now, that I repeatedly told us to return.” Pearl said.

“It was unreasonable.” Jasper said, a little cocky, “What’s about our ten-year plan?”

Pearl looked at Jasper, quizzed, challenged, but in good humor. Through no conscious effort, the ten-year plan was a term Pearl usually used. It was a thing that shut her up real quick, as she knew she was lower than her task.

Pearl said, “I remember our ten-year plan.” Self-consciously, she added, “I would never stray from it.” It was true she behaved foolishly.

Jasper laughed, “I never thought otherwise. Anyways, it was too late, we are at their front door.”

“A terrible place. After this, you would love Jade Town more.” Pearl knew Jasper thought she was partial to Jade town, it was Jasper’s hometown, but Pearl loved it ten times more. It was a nature-blessed city, close to the sea. White praised it so, fifteen years ago. It would be a piece of cake, she told Pink Diamond.

“I would consider it a challenge.”

Pearl smiled, “Consider it a warning, my dearie.”

“I must go back to my post,” Jasper said, Pearl waved her off. Jasper looked at her pointedly, saying “And you yours.”

“Now, you remind me of my task.” Pearl said, “You have become dependable. Soon enough you would take my job.”

Jasper said, “I just hope one day to be let in on your history.”

Pearl smiled at Jasper’s shorthand history, “It’s nothing much. Don’t worry.”

She looked at the Capital, her hateful hometown. It bred shame, that followed Pink, that followed her, and reached its height in their shared secret. There was no need for any order to seal it away, Pearl was utterly unwilling to share any.

“You don’t trust me at all,” Jasper complained.

“I trust you the most.” Pearl said truthfully, “More than anyone.”

She saw Pink Diamond emerge from her chamber, with shining hair and resplendent dress. She was looking at the same view: the Capital looming high.

Pearl came next to her, it was her position, which Jasper went out of her way to remind Pearl. Their eyes met for a minute. It was unbearable. Their eye contact broke, and carried with it something else: a feeling of generosity, like neighbors forgetting petty arguments. One day, everything was out in the open again. The bitterness renewed.

What do you think, Pearl almost said. After knowing each other so much, all we have left is solitude. However, suddenly, Pearl saw that she was at the peak of her own solitude: a high, dark, and isolated peak, where it was no use saying or yelling. It stifled her speech. Therefore, they were silent.

Pink Diamond’s army marched into the city. Through the tenfold heavy gate, emerged the resplendent white Capital. People lined up on the street, they longed to admire Pink Diamond’s beauty. She was young, beautiful, and mysterious. When she was at the Capital, her reputation was fun-loving and a little bit frivolous. However, after more than ten years, she made her name with her rich kingdom by the sea and was duly loved. Today was her long-awaited homecoming.

The sun was shining, the street was clean, and the people were excited. They spread flowers along her way, letting her chariot drive through a red carpet of rose petals. She was going to the Palace, where her royal sisters were waiting.

Pink Diamond arrived with her army of ten thousand, and by the sea she had a thousand ships. On her long progression, the crown jewel was her perfect Jasper, famous in battle, shaped under Pink’s hands. She was wearing her shining armor, and the pink diamond logo was on her chest. She was thrilled, but she was collected, commanding the army on Pink Diamond’s behalf. She was Pink’s beloved companion.

The Palace was in the southernmost part of the city. Pink Diamond dismounted before White’s tower, coming up a flight of stairs, going through the double door studded with amethyst. Beyond the threshold, greeting her were the royal armies of her sister, orderly situated, Agates, Jaspers, and Amethysts, like the row of columns supporting the impossibly high roof. White’s tower rose to the summit of today’s knowledge. She was reaching out to the gods in the blessed realm.

From White’s tower, to the Palace, to the Capital, to everything White can reach all the way to the border of this world, all was the theater of White’s mind. In this room, it was almost too much. Bright and lofty, with people saying things on cue, according to their caste. White was a bad designer, her creation was of bad taste. 

Let’s focus on the scene before. Pink was almost done with climbing the stairs, to present herself before her royal sister.

From Pearl’s youth, in similar events, White was colder, Pink more excitable. Now, they meet each other more equal-footed. Pink went up the stairs quickly, reaching White’s seat. White would not rise from her high throne, never, but she reached out a hand, eager to have Pink back. Pink arrived at the highest step, her action soundless, her face betraying no emotions. She touched White’s hands and knees, and the other was thrilled.

The action was repeated with Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamonds, but warmer and less insidious. It was White who was a strange brood, not the diamond race. Blue Diamond shed a tear, and Yellow Diamond was about to hug Pink outright, but decided against it.

Beside their throne, it was the frame of slenderness, Blue Pearl and Yellow Pearl. They were well and alive, doing right by their name as the Temple’s star graduates.

It was now her turn to kneel before White. Her status called for so, fitting like a rhyme at the end of a sentence. No one ever thought twice about it. They clapped for it and called it clever. Her Diamond had done it, what was Pearl before White, the bad designer who created her in equally bad taste?

Pearl heard the music again. She realized this was not real music, it was a dance of madness, symptoms from her dream, an uncommon illness. Ten years ago, Pearl had felt for the first time (it was a dark pit and a strange time). They had hounded her. Now, when she was weak and ill, they came back promptly. However, you must remember that this was not real, even though it was what happened. We indulged the existence of this equivocal plane for the sake of the memoir’s integrity. Some added flairs, props, and characters were permissible, as it was in Pearl’s head. If you think she was crazy and needed some help, then you would be pleased to know Pearl was under the care of a very good doctor and was making great progress.

But at this time, she slipped into the ten-year-old pit. A dream and a masterpiece painted on paper. Emerge from the left side was one of our actresses, she was lamenting, “If only I were killed in one of those battlefields! Weren’t you so willing to give up yourself?”

Emerge from the right side was the other actress. Calling Pearl by name, she dared her, “If only there were a sword in my famous hand! They will know why I was feared in battle. Look, look, won’t you take the weapon out of their sheath, kill White now, to avenge our loss?”

“If any of my old friends see me now, they will pity me, and they will lay me to rest. They will pity me, saying my sentence has long passed.”

The ghost’s face was always hazy, she was wearing battered armor. She was so pale, if she lay asleep on a battlefield, people would assume she was already dead. Even now, she longed for her rest. She blamed Pearl for her lack of a sumptuous funeral. Pearl should have paid respect to any abandoned tomb she could find, in the hope that the ghost would release her someday. Let's call her Briar, for the sake of coherence.

“They have hated you since forever! If you want to scavenge any of their respect, listen to me: the enemy was within reach. Act! I don’t know why you are afraid. I certainly not.”

The other was in a similar indistinct state, her body was light. She was wearing a white chemise, but it was tattered, like she had spent the last year begging for food. She talked big, if Pearl did not satisfy her whim, she would do it herself. Ah, but she looked hungry, what could she do by herself? Even Briar has a bigger chance of winning a fight. Let's call this vexing creature Heloise.

“I remembered the old days, I saw a light, which I wanted above all. Despite knowing it was stupid, I chased it.” Briar was conversational. Her best days were bygone, though if you ask, all of her best days was the most horrible days. It all depends on the point of view.

“Who cared about it anymore? Call on the blessed whom you turned away from, whom you still call when you need! Call them down to witness this rightful murder!” Heloise had a more one-tracked mind.

Pearl would have been lost, if not for seeing the procession moving forward. Her status called for so. No one ever thought twice about it. Pearl led the way. Before the stairs leading up to White’s throne, closer to Pearl than any other, Pearl knelt down. Her forehead was close to the dirt. She glared at the ground. Her body was heavy.

In her lying down state, the hounds jumped right on. Heloise exclaimed, her claw on Pearl’s neck, “Horror! Shame! You would do it, wouldn’t you?”

Briar was not a sympathetic character, though her actions were milder. She leaned onto Pearl’s back, “If the claw of calamity reached me long ago, you won’t have to go through such humiliation.”

Heloise exclaimed, “You humor her ego! You turn the other way at the altar of the gods, but you kneel before her! And you dare to say you hate her the most. I should have known you were also a liar.”

Briar chuckled, “An idle speaker is more correct.” She added, “It was such a bad look.”

She said with the undertone of recommending her favorite place, under a stone plate, six feet underground, “You, of all people, should not bear to do this. You understand what is concealed under those hateful eyes: White fancies herself godlike, god-blessed, and fortunate. She wanted to be immortal. Astonishing stupidity. Even you are smarter than that.”

“You know why you are unhappy,” Heloise said, “She made you so. She tore you from your true home, she sent you to the Temple, she exalted at your unhappiness.”

“She fashioned you all out of her mind,” Briar said, “She liked you the most. You used to draw attention to yourself. You have to be famous.” Heloise laughed, thinking of the bygone days, “It was your lifeline.”

“Kill her now!”

“And let me follow suit. It would be right.”

Pearl thought she must have crawled away from her post. When she regained her clarity, the ceremony had ended, and she was behind a column. Jasper rushed towards her. Pearl wondered how she looked.

The daze left only height and light in Pearl’s eyes. She remembered the temples, where in faraway time, when she was a kid, she had been inclined to believe in. After White’s tower, the most audacious building was that of the famous temples, where the modern gods were worshipped. They bled the cattle, burned the meat, and poured the wine, all for the equilibrium of this world. It was an attractive proposal, which had attracted her, and Pearl was inclined to follow now.

However, this morning, when her mind was clear, when she had not been trapped in this insidious tower, Pearl was guided towards a promise, which she determined to take seriously. At that time, Jasper had asked and Pearl had given her words. She couldn’t bear the title of a liar. She remembered the ten-year plan, she would never stray from it. Everybody knew she was willing to give up herself, but she must do so in a reasonable way. Hadn’t she escaped the wood, ten years ago, with that exact answer.

“I've got to leave,” Pearl said. “I can’t stand this.”

Jasper was reasonably vexed, “Why? Where will you go? Why would you stray from your post?”

Pearl smiled. She was utterly unwilling to tell Jasper of her madness, “I will figure something out.”

“Don’t. Why won’t you tell me anything?”

“Not this.” Pearl said, “I will owe you a secret. I will show you the intricacies of this city, which won’t endear it to you! Don’t blame me for going away. It’s the better way. It was for our job.”

If Jasper was annoyed before, now she was infuriated. She would talk more, if not for Pink calling her from afar. She knew their disagreement clearly. She thought it was a horrible thing to take Pearl back to such a place.

“Jasper.” Pink Diamond exclaimed, “Go with me.”

Pearl smiled at her caution. Fright still in her heart, bad humors on her lips, the crazed scene still haunting Pearl’s mind, she turned away, leaving the terrible place.

Her chorus got their last words before Pearl banished them from her mind.

Heloise said, “I did not expect this.”

Briar added, “We will see how it goes.”

Chapter Text

Pearl got into trouble. She was running away from the Palace, her mind on something else, and when her clarity returned, she was the mob’s enemy. People looked at her funny. In this city, Pearl had a reputation. Pink Diamond was said to love her beyond all else.

She could blame the hounds, who had terrorized her. However, they were not in sight, their song had ceased. Pearl wouldn’t call them up again.

She looked ahead. The street was narrow and terribly crowded. The Capital was a small city, an hour to walk across and half a day to go around. It had a terrible population crisis. Here, on the city’s rear, houses stacked upon themselves, people tailing each other. Possibly, running wild, she disrupted the traffic pattern, one among a thousand vexing details here.

She was blaming others, but maybe, it was her. Lately, Pearl fancied herself trustworthy. However, the scene reminded her of her youth, of how she had been: she had poor foresight and a penchant for being unreasonable. Well, seeing the future is someone else’s job, after all.

In this long day, Pearl was likely to act unreasonably. She can carve out her way by force. She can act tamer, apologize, and people would hand her back to Pink. In the Capital, her pool of choices was narrow.

She would like to remain incognito and smooth out this incident. Pearl scanned over the mob, trying to design a way out. She saw Peridots, Cinnabars, Rubies. Just for a second, Pearl saw a deep blue. Pearl was intrigued, she looked more closely. She caught her eyes, high and mighty, lounging on the second floor, looking down on Pearl.

“Blue!” Pearl cried out, raising her arms. She smiled, here was one who didn’t mind her popularity, but she was calculating and cold, “Will you help your poor sister this time?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Before feasting, they must bleed and burn their offering. A kingly task, White rose for it, and when she finished, her robe was barely stained.

In Pink’s house, the religious rites were very simple, as only Pink was half-pious. Jasper could stand aside and nod, while Pearl didn’t bother at all. In the Capital, where the devotees lived, the religious rites were much more grand. Incense billowed up to the sky, which stung everyone's eyes. Bronze plates and ceramic vases clattered, when they piled their sacrifice high. However, to Jasper’s surprise, it only took as long as back home.

White Diamond was facing the altar, saying the last part of what was proper. When she turned around, Pink Diamond was right behind her. White appeared amused, while Pink put up a confident face. Said put up, because it was wholly artificial, Jasper knew for sure. However, White Diamond hadn’t seen her in years. She asked Pink to speak her mind.

Pink, who over the last ten years had learnt from speaking idly, performed her act right away. She spread a red carpet before White, asking her to use it, as it’s her gift, which was brought here from the sea.

White giggled. There was no more becoming word, as she laughed like a child. She was dared by Pink, who half-guessed that her little ploy was easy to see through. White looked at her funny.

It was a curse in a simple, though ancient means. In this hall, many people would have no idea what it is about. Maybe only White and Pink did.

Why would Pink Diamond be so bold, while the day they meet in battle is far away? Why did she choose this subtle means, while White devoted herself to a strange piety? She was hasty, impatient, as if someone also dared her.

White Diamond studied Pink’s face, who wore a sweet and sincere expression. Loving, almost, a crazed passion. It was also a mask, Jasper assumed. She wasn't sure. If it was a mask, then Pink Diamond had worn it expertly. White Diamond was sold on it. For now, she still saw her sister. 

White Diamond saw it fitting to turn to the room, raising her arms, and declaring. She declared that as long as she was able, the Capital would be immortal and live forever. The crowd went wild, it was White’s catch phrase. Jasper was caught off guard, but she duly clapped along. She mulled over the words (courtesy of Pearl’s bad reviews). What silly words. Immortal was such a big promise. Jasper had never considered it.

White wanted Pink to lead her through the red carpet, which Pink complied. She went first, holding out her hand for White. White followed. They were tall and beautiful, their eyes bright and shining.

At school, Jasper was taught that the Diamond house was descended from the ancient giants, which Jasper didn’t take too seriously. Seeing this scene, she had second thoughts. Maybe, there was some truth in it. Maybe, the god-born house was not a figurative speech. Possibly, White seriously considered her chance for immortality?

Jasper laughed to herself, now, this is a neat hypothesis.

She looked about her. Everyone adored their king, White Diamond. The crowd would truly endorse White’s claim to living forever. Ah, she missed a step. Who conquered the world, taking its children, and building the schools? White had carefully crafted the crowd. In the future, when White’s time came and she denied it, her kingdom would be of use.

The parading pair, beautiful and mutually loving, passed Jasper. White briefly considered her, and Jasper put up a straight face. White whispered a question to Pink.

Pink Diamond said she would be here soon. Jasper looked towards them curiously. The pair was soon out of earshot. She hoped White didn’t talk about Pearl. Her friend should have warned Jasper that she was famous.

~~~~~~~~~

The party went much longer than the religious rite. When they were released, the moon was high in the sky. Pink rushed back to her old tower, where she spent her youth. Having been abandoned for so long, it was a run-down, cold place.

Jasper and Pink crossed the garden to reach her tower. It must have been created before Pink developed her green thumb: the foliage was crude. Trees unsuitable were grouped together. Now, they are long dead, leaving leafless branches blocking the way.

However, the waterworks held up. It was dry, but the structure was elegant. The Capital had always been a place of building, its citizens considered that the architecture looked better without foliage. There’s little interest in gardening.

Maybe the garden was all Pink’s. Jasper imagined the young Diamond trying her best, but despite all, her youthful efforts had failed. Even in imagination, the scene made Jasper devastated. If she had been there, she would have helped Pink get the best, most flourishing garden ever.

Lost in thought, Jasper did not see what was in font of her when Pink let out a soft gasp of surprise. Jasper peered forward. She saw a pond, which was not supposed to be here. At this spot, a pipe must had been broken.

Great, they must spend the next ten days next to a swamp. Pink’s tower had not endeared itself to her. Such a pity, Jasper had expected a sweet, adorable room. Suit a youthful Pink Diamond.

Despite her whining, they found another path to the tower quickly. Pink settled down. This was an old place, but not inconvenient. However, Pink appeared restless. Pearl was still nowhere to be found. They were at the Capital, which was generally not a great place for her lot.

One would think the capital would be swarmed with pearls, but it cost ten small temples to train one. When the topic was about the pearls, people chimed in readily. Blue Pearl. They said in unison. She was this generation’s prima ballerina. Sadly, she was not here tonight.

At the party, Jasper was close to Pink Diamond’s side. She could see the only pearl present there, Yellow Diamond’s. The physical resemblance was striking. The pearl was porcelain white, with a strong nose, blue eyes, a well-defined jaw. She was tall, slender, and graceful.

She stood behind Yellow Diamond for the majority of the night. When time was late, she contributed a short performance. Jasper paid special attention to it. Pearl was stingy with any dances and songs. She didn’t care much about it.

Around the kingly table, she stood behind them unnoticed: She was made with music in mind. With music, she was complete, a perfect design. When she danced, she got the room’s undivided attention.

Ah, Jasper corrected herself, putting it so lightly undermined Yellow Pearl’s control. The attention was a little bird, which she swiftly captured between her palm. Whispered into it. Made it sing a song.

She finished her performance, and the party gave her a standing ovation. After a short bow, she stood up ramrod straight. Her eyes were hard and unfriendly. She is proud, Jasper made an informed observation, having seen the same expression and pose countless times. Ah, maybe not as proud as Pearl.

~~~~~~~~

Now, Pink grew anxious. A handful of her people were dispatched to look for Pearl. Jasper looked upon the people leaving, conflicted. If Pearl was unwilling, like she likely was, were the people dispatched going to force her back? How? Not to mention, forcing Pearl to do anything was such a strange thing to Jasper. Pearl had a way of commanding respect. When they disagreed, the best Jasper could do was negotiate.

Looking behind, Pink was in a similar snare. Before she made up her mind, one scout returned, bringing an Agate in white.

The color made Jasper worry, while Pink Diamond turned infuriated. The Agate barely said anything, but Pink denied every little sentence she breathed. She demanded Pearl back, right now.

Jasper cringed at this outburst. She caught two words from the poor Agate. Temple. Performance.

Now, were people doing performances at temples? What kind of performance? Or was it a theater? Doesn’t matter, she had to go looking for Pearl. Jasper slipped away quietly.

The middle of the month was a few days ago. The moon was bright. It was giving Jasper the last light. The leafless branches was dark, and the pond was painted a deep blue, dabbled with silver moonlight. Things looked less unkempt and more mythical. They left the abandoned gardens to go to a secret wood from bygone days.

When Jasper reached the pond, she saw a much-missed figure on the other side. Just as slender as the leafless branches, and just as upright. She was wearing a blue dress. The mist covered her face. Her dress was supposed to be pink, right? The night had dyed it blue in Jasper’s eyes. Jasper called her name, but Pearl was silent. She quickened her pace, coming to Jasper.

Well, Jasper laughed to herself, now shouting was too much? The Capital was a tough place. Pearl was less of a prude back home.

However, as the figure came closer, Jasper realized that her dress was in fact blue. She was not Pearl. She was Blue Diamond’s pearl, the logo was on her chest. She smiled politely. Her eyes were bright and beautiful.

She said, “I came because Pearl asked me to.”

The noise from the tower made Blue Pearl hesitate, “It seemed like Pink Diamond was giving our Agate a hard time. Do you think it’s smart to go in and relay Pearl’s words? I don’t want the troubles. Ultimately, Pearl got to do what Pink Diamond wants.”

Jasper’s heart skipped a beat. She urged Blue Pearl in, repeatedly assured that it would be just fine.

Her heart was heavy. Ultimately, Pearl got to do what Pink Diamond wants? Blue Pearl said so, and it was true, it was the law within the Capital’s walls.

No, she was mistaken. It was the law everywhere, except for the niche they carved back in Jade town. In this strange city, when her conditions lay thick, Pearl bailed herself out of service. Jasper was utterly unwilling to call her back, she was her friend. But what was she doing just now? Worse, Jasper got a hunch she would need Pearl back another time or two.

Jasper led Blue Pearl to Pink. They swapped small talk. The Temple, with a capital T, was a prestigious school, where all the finest pearls studied. Pearl graduated there, along with Blue Pearl and Yellow Pearl. They were hosting a New Year’s show. Pearl’s help was wanted. Or, concluded from Blue’s attitude, Pearl talked her way into it.

It was a fine place, a clever middle way, Jasper was relieved. Yes, why would she doubt Pearl? She was careful and exact.

Jasper wished them good luck. Blue Pearl gave her a funny look, “I heard this is your first time visiting?”

“Am I supposed to recognize you?” Jasper smiled, “No worries, people sang your praises tonight.”

Blue Pearl smiled, “Did you know anything about Pearl as a student?”

“Not really.” Jasper said, “She is reticent.”

“Well, she was not bad.” Skipping over other qualities of a fine dancer, Blue Pearl said, “She was clever.”

Clever was an apt word for Pearl, Jasper thought. The situation at Jade town, no notes, was special. Pearl got her range there, which was not available anywhere else. Jasper always assumed Pearl was drastically different in her youth, but maybe not? 

They reached the threshold of Pink’s tower, but Blue Pearl needed more reassurance. Jasper assured her, Pink would never do anything against Pearl’s wishes. She held Pearl too high for that.

Blue Pearl smiled, “Her Diamond made her as proud as today.”

“They got secrets.” Jasper was wistful, “I just hope to understand.”

“Maybe it’s nothing worth your time,” Blue Pearl said.

“Why?” Jasper demanded, “It’s frustrating, you know, to be in the dark about the truth.”

“I wouldn’t bother.” Blue Pearl said, “I understand not liking things artificial, but why not? Maybe the surface is fine.” She walked into Pink Diamond’s door, “Usually it’s pretty.”

~~~~~~~~

Blue was brief with her request. She put it mildly and sweetly. To Jasper’s surprise, Pink was quiet for a minute. However, she gave her permission.

When Blue Pearl left, Jasper came closer to Pink. She was holding Pearl’s so-called letter, an advertisement pamphlet for the New Year’s show. Giselle ballet. Pink fidgeted with it.

Jasper coaxed Pink out, asking why she was troubled. After more hesitation, Pink said she thought Pearl disliked the Temple. She said it was a harsh place. Pink looked about herself, laughed, and said this was worse.

Jasper was quick to offer to see Pearl tomorrow. The scene painted was curious, and Jasper wanted to take a closer look.

Chapter Text

Tomorrow morning, Jasper left to see Pearl. She got a guide from Yellow Diamond’s place, who was polite but a little quiet. She was left to her own devices for the majority of the way. Jasper took the time to consider the road. The guide said they would avoid the main streets because of traffic. She seemed apologetic, but Jasper was content with the smaller alleys they went to. It’s all new scenes.

The guide chose this way because she worried about the traffic, but the alleys are also crowded. How packed will the main streets be? Back home, they were always riding freely. Here, the guide advised her that it’s faster to walk. She said, if we went a straight line on the main road, it would take an hour to walk through and half a day to go around. This is a moderate-sized city. However, if we were going diagonally, then it took hours to go absolutely anywhere. The Capital got a population crisis. She lamented.

The guide repeatedly said to go faster, take the shortcuts, and avoid peak hours, but Jasper said she was fine with taking the time. She was here for a holiday. The leisure view surprised the guide, but not in a mean-spirited way. After that, she was walking a few steps forward, letting Jasper admire the view behind. Jasper did initiate conversation, but the guide seemed unexcited. Maybe keeping to themselves was just the Capital’s way.

Let’s focus on the scene before her. The dominant color was white. Limestone and concrete came in that color, it was reasonable. A little more quizzical was the brutalist taste. There was little decoration, and the architecture was bulky and bare. It was an intellectual design preference, which was not wholly alien to Jade town. However, they went to the extreme. It looked hard to live in.

Jasper could imagine the people smoothing down the stones, placing their bricks in a strict numerical progression. They touched on them back in the Kindergarten. Pleasing proportion like 1:2, 2:3, 3:5. The teachers were convinced the map of the universe was there. They exalted in the maths like they were gifted with a vision. Jasper was good with numbers (she was good at every subject), but like many things, she was not sold on it. She needed her grade good and her job prospects golden. Other things can wait.

The people here also bear the harshness of the buildings. They walked fast and looked incredibly busy. Jasper found it funny. She thought Pearl was peculiar in the way she walked with a purpose, but possibly just another product of the Capital.

Jasper caught up to the guide, saying sorry for taking her time. The guide said all good.

“People looked so busy here.” Jasper said, “It’s not like we are free over there, but this is a little strange.” The war was public knowledge, but not exactly tea-time talk. There was always fighting going on in the new land, but Pink’s war was well-known for its long duration.

The guide laughed, a little anxious, “Maybe it’s just the way of life. We are herded on.”

“What?”

“You know. There were always so many things to build and so much land to cover. We need to make things even more vast and beautiful. It is the plan.”

The guide said it in a dreamy voice. She checked the time, and it turned out they spent a whole morning on a supposedly thirty-minute road. She mumbled something about her supervisor. Saying sorry again, she asked Jasper to be quicker.

Jasper followed her. She saw the streets with more critical eyes. She got a hunch that it was about White Diamond’s immortality again, if such a thing can exist.

~~~~~~~~

They arrived at the Temple. After lauding the Temple’s praises, the guide excused herself. Jasper was repeatedly told that the Temple was famous, but at first glance, it just looked old. The Capital liked their towers and white stones, so the Temple looked outdated with its expanse and darker reddish bricks. Again, it looked like an unfriendly institution. It was expected. Her Kindergarten was strict with guests pass. Jasper can imagine the Temple being even more so.

She stood in front of the gate, which was made with dark metal spikes and entwined with rose bushes that must be a thousand years old. The guards have been giving her trouble for the past fifteen minutes. However, a new friend came to rescue her.

“She’s with me,” Blue Pearl said. “Let her in.” The guards followed suit.

Jasper went inside. Blue Pearl greeted her pleasantly. She told Blue Pearl she was here for Pearl. Blue Pearl offered to lead her there.

Jasper’s first impression of the Temple was that it was huge. There were a few large buildings, and three times the width of them in gardens. The buildings didn’t bother to go higher than two stories, they expanded wide. It was a stately old place. The impression of the crowded Capital was still fresh, Jasper could see the Temple was a coveted place, if only for its property value alone. Of course, it is more than that, but Jasper could see the Capital had more businessmen than art lovers.

Blue Pearl led Jasper to a building. It opened to a hall with every surface decorated with frescoes and paintings. As a large number of them were made with the Temple, meaning a very long time ago, their subject remained obscure. Heroes and beauties. Half-human monsters. Beautiful people with perfect bodies.

The last part was surprising, because beautiful bodies were still very much the leading taste in art today. Beautiful and proportional. An old teacher's voice echoed. Again, if Jasper truly bought what she was told, she could dig deeper into what was proportional. Was it the same obsession shown in architecture?

Jasper realized she had lagged behind, again. Blue Pearl was a few steps ahead, but she was also busy. An Agate came to her, showing her a clipboard, and whispering urgently. Blue Pearl quietly said something back, but decided her guest, Jasper, took priority. She told the Agate to look for her later.

“Sorry, I took my time.” Jasper said.

Blue Pearl smiled, “It’s alright. The collection is impressive, isn’t it? You should take a closer look. It is not open to the public.”

“Am I intruding on your time?” Jasper asked, “Looks like you got the Temple to run.”

Blue Pearl laughed, “No. Still a long way to go, I’m afraid.”

Blue Pearl showed her where the artwork transitioned. Further down the hall were newer ones, depicting the star students. Some are straightforward portraits, but there was a handful of more elaborate ones, with figures in a mythical scene. Elaborate foliage, imaginary costumes, and monumental landscape. Blue Pearl said they were reimagined ballet’s scenes. It was an expensive project, but always well-received.

“I think you will like this one.” Blue Pearl showed her a painting of a girl dancing in a red-black dress, in a scene like a town market. She was immensely happy. Her demeanor was fierce. The figures in the background were cheering her on.

All the figures looked similar, of course, they originally came from the same place. However, the educated guess was obvious, “It is Pearl?”

“Yes.” Blue Pearl said, “She played Kitri in her graduate performance. Very eye-catching.”

“She looked energetic.”

“She had reasons to be happy.” Blue Pearl said, “She just landed a plum job. It was just decided that she would have her place beside Pink Diamond.”

“Oh, how so?”

“She did a good job at the New Year’s show. We played Giselle that year. Oh, we are playing it this year, too, if you don’t know.”

“It was rare for a student to land a lead role. I thought they got to wait until graduation?” Jasper said. Even at graduation, only a handful of star students got their time to shine.

Needless to say, it was a harsh system, but one they all subjected to. The Temple’s students got it worse because they had to put up a show. Jasper had never slurred from her schoolwork because of the same reason. She can never catch Pink Diamond’s eyes otherwise.

Jasper recalled her situation more closely. The state which they found Pink Diamond. Was she capable of making choices at that time? Maybe Jasper got Pearl to thank for her job.

Blue Pearl was silent. Jasper assumed the information was not meant for her. She offered an olive branch, “I guess she was that good, after all.”

Blue Pearl smiled. In the dark hall, it looked more sincere. “Yes, she was determined. It was understandable.”

“The situation was a little harsh.” Jasper said. She was not sure of her statement, but she wanted to bait Blue Pearl out. It was obvious someone got secrets she was not privy to, again.

Blue Pearl smiled, conceded, “It was truly so. Pearl was incredibly anxious.” Jasper knew Pearl was not a genius in Blue Pearl’s caliber. “But she was also clever.” It was a little harder to know what clever entailed, but that’s all Blue can give.

Jasper asked to see Blue Pearl’s stuff. After some modest reflection, Blue conceded. Maybe Jasper was looking too closely at Pearl’s situation: Blue Pearl played all sorts of lead roles ever since she was a student, up until now. She would also play Giselle this year. From the party’s talks, she was only getting better.

Finally, they arrived at Pearl’s place. She was in a classroom. The show was a mix of professionals and students. All of them were the Temple’s product. Blue Pearl said they timed it right and told Jasper to be quiet.

Pearl was rehearsing her five-minute solo, which was her room and board in the Temple. It was a sweet and cheery melody, at the first act of the ballet. She was good. Her footing was light and exact. Her turns were balanced, and her moves are tight. In better words, she was well-articulated. She knew the beauties of the dance and made a compelling case for it.

Pearl finished her part. The room got a similar reaction to Jasper’s. They applauded and praised her generously. However, Pearl was carefully emotionless. Was it unexpected? Jasper did not think Pearl was one to be cheered up by songs and dances, but it was a small shock to see her so distanced. Image of Pearl’s youth was still fresh in her mind. There was a time she had been energetic and fierce. Now, all her strengths were quiet.

Blue Pearl gestured Pearl to Jasper. Pearl smiled when she saw her. The Agate, who had just came to Blue Pearl with urgency, snatched her again.

Pearl walked towards Jasper with purpose, again. She was wearing the Temple’s uniform, which was a sweet pastel thing. It made her look less authoritative, unlike the dress she wears back home to ran the town.

“I expect you to come.” Pearl said, “But you won’t ask me to go back, will you?”

“I won’t,” Jasper smiled, “But even if I was really nice and sweet about it?”

“Not a chance.” Pearl said, “This is the better way. I wish I could help you, though. You saw the place.” Pearl said. The Palace was not especially endearing, of course, but the way Pearl spoke about it was like it would eat Jasper alive. What had it done to her?

“I found it strange.” Jasper said, “But not too much yet.”

“Good.” Pearl smiled, “I wish I had something for you to bring back. But enough of that. How do you find the city? You have been waiting to see it.”

Jasper did not want to say it was strange a second time, while she was the one to push for the trip. She settled for, “It was alright. Carefully planned. A little crowded.”

“Yes, I forgot how crowded it was.” Pearl said, “Though I was always at the Temple, back then.” She skipped the Palace, but it must be where they were, before they were given the city by the sea.

“I didn’t know the Temple at all before I was here.” Pearl was amused, she thought it was legendary famous. It must be, it just escaped Jasper’s notice somehow.

“And I didn’t know you were popular!” Jasper said, “A star student. But I should have.”

Pearl smiled, “Just as good as you, my darling.”

Pearl told Jasper an abridged version of what happened yesterday, when she got into trouble. Jasper was alarmed. She realized the issue of incognito quickly. Pearl got more freedom back home. She wished she had taken Pearl’s aversion more seriously. The Capital was a harmful place.

Pearl smiled, “You worry too much about me. I got myself sorted all nice and cozy here.” Pearl’s exaggeration made Jasper think otherwise. “I knew it would be bad, but not for me alone.”

“What?”

“I know you are capable by yourself, of course.” Pearl said.

“But the place is indiscriminating.” She looked at Jasper funny, “And you are plenty sweet and youthful.”

“No.” Jasper was halfway annoyed, “Say it fully. I know it’s not only me you talk about. What about Pink?”

“I worried about you more.” Pearl said, looking away. Somehow, she cringed into herself. The uniform made her look more mellow. She remembered Blue’s words, anxious and clever. She could imagine it still.

“Come on, don’t you want to give me something to bring back? Give me a piece of advice.” Jasper said, mellowed out her voice.

“The Palace is not a place to be wading in the dark.” The last sentence was a bluff, but it worked on Pearl.

“Pink Diamond would be unhappy there.” Pearl said, “And it would not be your fault.”

“What.” Jasper said. She pushed Pearl for more. Pearl was determinedly silent. Jasper turned annoyed and confused. Talking about Pink Diamond and her supposed plights did it to her. When pressing Pearl for more, she knew why Pearl was unwilling to say anything at first: Jasper easily lost her cool with Pink’s situation. She cared for her so much.

At last, they broke off and Jasper left for the Palace. Her steam went out halfway through. She was sorry. She came to check on Pearl, but she hardly asked her any questions. Why Pearl never mentioned Blue Pearl, whom she called sister, who was well and alive? Why say she was good and golden, while she wore a heavy expression?

Chapter Text

It’s been four days since they parted. Jasper did not bother to send her anything, not a note or a letter. Subsequently, this left Pearl in an information drought. This bothered her. The movement in the Capital was swift, but it always originated from the Palace. From White, most of the time, but Blue and Yellow got their own moves.

They should be careful, and observe the Diamonds’ movements. Well, that was supposed to be her task. With Pearl bailing out, maybe Jasper forgot about it. Or not, maybe it drowned out among other things: meaningless things that kept one busy there. Would Jasper realize she was in a hostile place, enemy’s ground? Even though Pearl was rehearsing a dance, and Jasper was doing whatever fanciful in the Palace.

She and Jasper parted in bad humors, though this was not the first, and certainly not the last time. She knew Jasper was angry because she did not speak enough, but Pearl believe she showed quite a lot of things. However, there were things that Jasper deliberately turned a blind eye on, which Pearl found hard to blame her for. Pearl laid a hand on her forehead. Are you sure, she could almost hear an echo of a voice. I think you are making an excuse for your terrible stutter.

She was at backstage, waiting for her part. She leaned on a cold wall. The theater’s air was dry. Apart from the bright stage light, everywhere else was dimly lit. Outside, the director was talking loudly, while the young faces inside were whispering among themselves.

The students liked her. Well, Pearl rose to the highest status a pearl can. She danced well, also. What’s more, in others’ eyes, Pink Diamond truly humored her. The students looked at her as if looking at a way out. A proper, narrow way out, a crack in a wall, but something, at least.

Pearl pitied them beyond words. Should she speak out loud now, that the Temple was a scam, and the way out they advertised led to a dark pit. Look at her, what kind of prize she got? Did the students know White exalted in their sure and secured unhappiness, or just they adored her, like they were taught? 

She should have said the only way out was revolution, and it was close at hand.

However, things got their time and place. Pearl came to a similar conclusion to what happened in the Palace, a few days ago: not now.

After enough waiting, it was Pearl’s turn for the rehearsal. A cheery five-minute melody. It would make long speeches, talking about her opinions of singing, dancing, and the character she was playing. The answers would also be subtle, five degrees to the left and right of I don’t care much about it . Moreover, it will inevitably lead to her youth and the Temple, of which enough was said. Therefore, let’s talk about the music, which was the Temple’s strength, and which art was less personal.

The musical composition was well thought out, where every part related to each other and to the whole. The base of it was mathematical, and the first expression in music was the perfect musical interval on a lyre. A lyre string was plucked to produce a note. It is then stopped at a half, third, quarter, and fifth of its length, at ratios of 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, and 4:5.

Then, it expanded outward, but the base was intact. The orchestra got every instrument under the sun. The music it made was complicated. However, if it had been made properly, like the piece she was dancing to, then pick a note and cleave it to the core. You should find it easy to do so, and at the core, the fancy golden rule was waiting.

The rule is abstract, the math was hard to understand, but did it shine beautifully for one moment? It was the math that suggested the star, of the sky, of the nebula.

Pearl performed her variation flawlessly, and quite effortlessly. It should be so. Her mind saw the music’s structure clearly, and made her body a vehicle to express it. When she finished, people loved it. Especially the older teachers. Pearl was naturally an old-schooler.

Pearl was carefully blank in expression and in heart. Suddenly, she was tired. The praises hung heavy on her, the young faces were hard to look at, and the theater was too cold and dry. The music was stiff and boring. She would rather clanging pots and pans together. Had she finished her part? She could just slip away.

Pearl was halfway up the raised auditorium when she realized how spoiled she was. What was she running away from, when Jasper was at the Palace bearing the worst? Her character and her love would have forbidden her to run. Pearl, weak in character and dry of love, was she going to run from nothing at all? Was she going to run because people complimented her dancing, which she spent all her youth studying?

Realizing her silliness, Pearl got herself a cozy and quiet seat, halfway up from the stage. She remembered what she was waiting for: Blue was going to perform her part.

Blue was a curious character. For now, let’s talk about the most conspicuous aspect of her, which impressed the sight and mind. All this theater, which could house up to two thousand people, was Blue’s. It was the old taste, to cement her glory in building.

The theater was clam-shaped, boasting 2 thousand seats. The orchestra’s radius was 20 cubits, the lower auditorium’s was 80 cubits, and the upper auditorium’ was 120 cubits. The roof is curved. The stage is expansive. The orchestra pit is lavish. The New Year’s show will be the opening show of this theater.

Well, Blue was loyal to the Temple. The building was for her love. It was not the first thing, and wouldn’t be the last to bear her name. However, this was a big statement: Blue is vying for the Temple’s control.

She is thrice-worthy compared to other contenders, but she would be the first pearl to possess this ancient gem. The result of the competition was obscured.

Settled down, she saw the musicians testing their instruments. There was less humdrum than usual. People, like her, were finding a seat for themselves: Blue would perform soon. For good reasons, she was the prima ballerina.

The matter of style was not discussed in the temple. There was one style, the true style, which was written in the book, realized in the building, then interpreted in dance. Pearl leant it well, and found it reasonable. Shoulder back and core engaged, she would lift her arm to a rhythmic, moderate, correct angle, sanctioned by the Temple, the Capital, White.

Blue knew better than that. She freed her movements, lively and empathetic in the way the Temple’s master could never calculate. A raiment of the impossible, glittering and profuse. Like the glittering transparent moth’s wings, multiplied to infinity. She bewildered the eyes.

The scene reminded her of a faraway time, back when she was a student, Pearl had wanted to compete with Blue. Well, it sounded presumptuous now, but not unreasonable altogether. Blue had been the best of her year. Pearl had also been the best of her year. Worse, Pearl had actively criticized Blue’s move, as its eclectic did not bow to analytics.

Pearl had retired from the scene for years, but if she was still dancing, this would have been the moment where she admitted defeat.

Blue was on stage, they would play Giselle this year, with Blue taking the lead role. The whole Capital was excited. She was going to rehearse the second act. Wearing a long white skirt, she was now a ghost, dancing in the woods. Freed from the weight of her body, she danced freely. However, she was not freed from the weight of her mind. The other ghosts promised that to her, though. With enough time, she would forget. But a protagonist needed to live more boldly. Giselle would free herself from the weight of her mind, she would forgive, somehow.

Pearl watched Blue dance and was enraptured. She was overwhelmed by vigor, she was enamored by virtuosity. She could have cried, if she had not been made so angry and confused. When Giselle decided to forgive her old lover again, Pearl was simultaneously convinced and rejecting. How so!? Throw the bouquet, which he dared to give, back to his face! Gripped him by his hair, yank him down, and make this a joint grave! Sprung alive again to make even! (Is it possible with this kind of pain?)

She gripped her forearms until it left marks. When she run her hands through her skirt, they were sweaty. Well, it was a hell of a run packed in an hour.

Blue bowed very curtly. She stepped out of character easily, and Pearl could have been moved by love. Blue was so lovely, and she was her sister! Pearl could have been moved by love, just as she had been when she was young. However, Blue’s face was hard and uncaring. Pearl remembered why her love was cut short, then no more: Blue was an exceedingly cold character. Moreover, today, she was crossed.

The standing ovation was still going on. People cheered and hollered her name. Heedless of the applause, she searched for someone around the auditorium. Pearl turned jumpy, she slipped further into the darkness. Blue exited the stage, ascended the stairs, eyes sharp scanning each row.

Pearl said, “This must be a joke.” She turned around and fled.

~~~~~~~~~

The Temple was huge. After fifteen years abroad, Pearl had forgotten the niches and hollows of the places. Outside of the theater, she crossed the garden (rose brambles and ash trees), reaching the main building. She went to the stairs in the back, went up once, took one right turn, three left turns, and went down twice. The sunlight became scant. The place became all stairs, going down. The space was dimly lit by candles and lamps.

Pearl did not remember where she was, but she had a hunch that coming down would lead to a closer exit than going up, so Pearl descended the stairs. The place is cold, dry, and well-ventilated. Things smelled clean and fresh. Taking a closer look by the lamp, she saw that the stone was pristine white, untouched by the environment. Pearls realized that by accident, she had gone to the labyrinth.

Well, she laughed to herself, it could have been worse, and she slowed her pace. She went far enough, maybe Blue would be bored with the chase.

The labyrinth, along with the majority of the architecture and wall decorations, was left from a faraway day. A history before the house of Diamonds, which was ignored. The teachers thought this place served some ancient cultic or caging purpose, and the doors were locked, as easily as that. However, the students can still get in. There had been a few dares happened here. Pearl knew the way out. She did not remember it exactly, but going down enough, they would find an opening.

Moreover, the stairs were inviting. It’s dark, but very clean. In her youth, Pearl was enamored by the history it suggested. The idea of an ancient past was attractive and mythical. She had fun exploring the place with other pearls. She was looking closely into it, to see what the downward spiral maze had to offer.

Now, when she had done more reading, Pearl knew she had stumbled on a blind spot of knowledge. The labyrinth was counterproductive as a prison, and people in the past honored their god in sunlight. This had always been a fanciful place. An attractive illusion.

As she went down, Pearl wondered what crossed Blue. She narrowed down the hypothesis quickly. The only thing that could have made Blue Pearl fast on her feet was the Temple, and the only place that could stir the Temple is the Palace.

She ran from the Palace, but its outstretched long arm covered the Temple. Anything in the Capital is a chess piece on the Palace’s set. Only on the rear of the continent would they find any relief. Pearl has been missing the roaring wind and the gentle lapping rolling water. Pearl closed her eyes and the heaven of her dream appeared vivid: her ongoing business was by the sea.

She went down until it tired her. She looked about herself to find a hint of an opening. She followed the clue of the wind, of the sound. She looked for the bright blue sunlight, dramatically different from the heavy yellow light at this place. Finally, she found what she was looking for: a window to the outside world.

Pearl was also reminded why this spot had been used as an adventure site: they got a vantage point looking over the whole Capital, and in the middle, glittering in sunlight, reaching upward, was the Diamonds’ tower.

They would have to stoop down, but they could have exited there, and gone back to class. What terrible thing. Her neck was stiff. She found it difficult to stoop down.

“You went quite far,” Blue said, suddenly appearing from behind, “Do you even know the way back?”

Pearl smiled. She felt dizzy. The labyrinth’s draughts caught up to her. Looking into the bright light and back to the labyrinth, she was seeing doubles. She swiped her temple, where a sheen of cold sweat gathered. Well, her health had been a troublesome thing. Back home, she met with her doctor every other week.

Frowning, smiling, and feeling sick, Pearl said, “No, not really.” Well, tagged, she was it.

Pearl was getting sized up in silence, as always, the other’s blue eyes were hidden. Although, it would be the same if Blue showed it: she had always been strangely expressionless. It was useless to guess her, and she got a temper.

“I wish you would just speak your mind?” Pearl said.

Blue chuckled, “Have I never come to you just for a chat?” She walked towards Pearl, looking out the broken window.

Pearl looked at the same view. Again, there were the draughts, the bright light, and Blue’s half-hearted attempt to humor: she had never come to Pearl without a purpose. She came with bad news, really.

“Do you like it here?” Blue said, in a conversational tone.

Pearl was stumped. She always was when confronted with the question of like. She settled on the dry nonsense, “It’s nice.”

She added immediately, “Let me stay here until I can leave the Capital.”

Blue laughed. She sensed her anxiety clearly, Pearl sighed inwardly, and she would take advantage of that, “Relax. You worry too much. Don’t you ever think I will come to tell you good news?”

Pearl was silent. The fact stands that Blue never came to her with good news.

“I wondered why you hate the Palace so much.” Blue said, “It used to be all that you wanted.”

Pearl said nothing, Blue tried her shot, “Was it because of White Pearl?”

The anxiety bubbled on her nape exploded. Pearl felt face-first into the wall, like she had just been hit. The stone scraped her face. Feeling cold and nauseated, in this underground passage, the sharp winds were like knives. She sweated profusely, and her eyes were blind for a second. Pearl strained her ears: was she hearing anything? She went as far as she could, as far as it was safe to do, but they were a demanding lot. Would they hate or love Blue, who was no comfort in her illness, but no injuries?

She turned around, slumped against the wall. There were no insidious songs or demanding actresses, not yet. Still blinded and cold, Pearl cowered into herself, her knees supported her hands supported her head. She said, “I’m fine.”

Feeling the daze in her eyes lessened, she looked at Blue Pearl, “Tell me more about White Pearl.”

Blue had taken a step back. After confirming the clarity in Pearl’s eyes, she relaxed minutely. She seemed quite amused. Her arms flared awkwardly, and her stance was nervous. Pearl looked like she had just had a stroke.

Pearl repeated, “I’m fine,” wiping off her forehead, “Speak.”

“… Lately, she had been seen more frequently. People talk about her. Well, she is the main character of a horror story.”

Pearl looked at Blue expectantly, Blue shook her head, “No. According to what I know, she didn’t get any better. Senseless as a ghost.”

Without prompting, Pearl said. “It was all my fault.”

The labyrinth called for confession. The attraction illusion, the fanciful artifact of the past. Pearl would have lifted her hands up, asking for forgiveness, but she got older and started reading more.

This labyrinth was a downward, useless, irrational path, leading to a disappointing scene. Likewise with the Temple. So much for her anxious hope and anxious hard work. So much for that of every student in time unaccountable. She choked on her breath. The misery surprised and made her angry. 

Blue chuckled. This was not what she came to ask of Pearl. Besides, she was tired of the whole story. She thought the whole business a trifle. Three times trifling, if anything. The fifteen-year-ago ordeal is child’s play, White Pearl was an unassuming fool, Pearl was a petty thief.

Pearl could not expect anything from her, but she glared at Blue. Blue deflected, a silent yielding. Pearl averted her eyes. It was as good as it could get.

Blue remembered what she was here for, “I have orders from the Palace. They have expectations for our New Year’s show.” She looked at Pearl intently, “I know you would do it well.”

Pearl laughed, “Nope, no, don’t, terrible idea. Aren’t you so smart and powerful? Think of a way somehow.”

“Is it your turn to speak?” Blue smiled, full of sarcasm, “You are here, you know. You live four days away from the Capital, but they still got you back.”

“Duty necessitates.”

“Likewise with me.” Blue said, looking at the window, where the shadow became steeper. “I must go now. I’m late for a meeting.”

“Off you go.”

“You don’t know the way back?”

Pearl smiled, “I will just crawl out of this hole over here. I know you are busy. I wasted your time.”

Blue shrugged. Knowing the Temple like the back of her hand, she slipped into a hidden path Pearl didn’t even know about. So much for being praised as clever.

Chapter Text

It had been four days since they parted, which meant they had been at the capital for five days, left Jade town for nine, and still had another five days to go.

Jasper started feeling lonely and homesick, which was unexpected. However, looking out the window, to the decrepit garden of Pink, she knew she missed the sight of the sea. They should not have left home so close to the New Year.

She should really send Pearl a note, and forward her the numerous letters addressed to her.

The letters started trickling in on the second day they arrived at the Capital, which meant Pearl had already left the night before. The majority of the letters were addressed to Pearl. She ran Jade town and Pink's business.

Just last month, they got in contact with precious foreign islanders (they did not look all that different from the mainlanders). In their meeting, Pearl had empathetically insisted that they get in touch at any time convenient. Well, they arrived quite late, in disagreeable timing, when business had already dwindled down. Even with Pearl, if they were at home (at the summer home at this time, probably), she would have put the letter aside for later. However, they did not mean to arrive so late. It would have taken five days for the letters to arrive in Jade town, and another five days to arrive in the Capital. Now, because of the wrong address, and the elusive intended receiver, this letter would have to wait another hot minute.

Jasper held it up to the yellow afternoon light. She could just make out the date through the mulberry paper envelope. She did the math wrong. This letter was sent a fortnight ago. Well, already late, nobody can do anything about it now.

She sifted through the pile of envelopes. Thirteen to Pearl, five to her. Two of them were identical, from the town's administration duty. Two were from the army, who were left in Jade town on guard duty. One was without the sender's name.

Pearl got three more letters from the town's administration duty. While Jasper only got reports, Pearl got some decision-making on her roster. She did it well, with efficiency. Well, Jasper knew it was due: there was a time when her task was much heavier and more complicated, however, she almost thrived in it. Sometimes, Pearl looked at the army with businesslike yen, but she only intervened when Jasper asked for it. She was being nice.

Jasper also thought that, during the majority of the ten years they know each other, she had been nice and careful towards Pearl's safety. Pearl got an ambiguity between being nameless and famous. In business, she was their chief, but her position and power were not explained or stated clearly. Not to mention the battles they got. Pearl might think the army can run better, but she adored the fighting to another level. She got incidents.

One incident that stood out happened last year. The fighting got fierce, the rebels' force broke through the defense and went close to the wall protecting Jade city. Jasper was making her way through a chaotic battle, driving them back. The noise and violence came to the highest level. People were fierce and the battle thrumming, drumming zeal was getting in Jasper also. She flung her arm high and slashed straight. She noticed the fallen opponents on her way first, who were pierced clean with an arrow. Then, her sight became a commotion.

Pearl went to the wall's highest level, where she was visible from below. She got a bow with her, aided Jasper's path with precision and restraint. Some people in Pink's force did not know her at all. Some knew her because their administration duty overlapped. Only a small amount was not taken aback by her hidden, and now revealed, skills in battle.

Jasper did not know why she was there. Probably, she got tired of waiting. Although she was trying to be patient, Jasper knew Pearl missed the battlefield. Moreover, the battle looked worse from above. Pearl was anxious for Jasper's safety.

On the other hand, maybe she was enchanted. On the Crystal Gem force, some were confused, some were apathetic, but at the sight, some were enchanted. They went crazy. Garnet yanked the bow from her subordinate and aimed for Pearl. She got all the zeal of a murderer, but inadequate skills as an archer. The arrow fell short. She was always a keen melee fighter.

With much effort, the subordinate took back her bow.. She loose her string at Pearl. She did a much better job, but Pearl got enough time to hide. Afterward, there were a few discreet arrows to help with Jasper's way, but Pearl was not seen anymore.

When the sun went down, with their rule of civility, the battle ended, leaving time for rest and dinner. In the orange twilight (the sky was always saturated), Jasper went through the long hallway. The shadows deepened.

She was going to have a serious talk with Pearl, but possibly for the first time, Pink beat her to it.

The two of them were standing as far away from each other as possible without making it funny.

Pink's voice was low and strained, "It's still too early."

"Yes." Pearl said, she was not petulant, but agreed to a hypothesis she helped prove, "It's still so."

"Garnet was going to kill you." Jasper accused.

"She will not," Pearl said.

"She might." Pink said, petulant, sorrowful, contradicted, "And it will be the end of everything."

Well, the frays in the edges, chips on a wall, they happened only a few times, and are tame and undermined (it was another quality of Pearl's movement). Most of the time, they are nice and respectful about their allotted task. Pearl strained herself to be more patient.

Let's get back on the letter, before the sun go down. She will get a headache trying to read under a lamp.

Six of them were from Pink's business. It was actually more complicated than that, so they usually referred to it as the business. It was not Pink's business as a Diamond, but a private owner. It started in all earnestness, ten years ago, with whatever funds they could trickle away from Pink Diamond's state coffer. They owned farmland and workshops at Jade town, of course, but they also got property from more remote inland. In these piles, two were from the north, in depots outside Yellow Diamond's territory. One was further south, a workshop in Blue Diamond's city. Two were from Jade town. One was from Pearl's banker. Her wage was handsome.

Jasper decided to open one letter from Jade town, and the one from Blue Diamond's city. Pearl usually welcomed her to look around a little bit. All the better that she was knowledgeable in their business. However, the letter required the context of the past ten business transactions. This time, when skimming through it, like the other times, Jasper saw only numbers and complaints. A new participant in the market, the sender complained. They got someone rich to back them up, they concluded. Afterwards were all numbers.

The letters were delivered with as much detours as possible without making them non-functional. Funny things would happen if the other Diamonds knew about this business, and their agents were keen. The letters were all sent to the mister at the summer home, with names inherited from their father. At that moment, Jasper was reminded of the enormity of their task, which was unimaginable, which was conceived by chance and betrayal. The thing that, in their own way, Pink and Pearl found it difficult to talk about. Pearl because of her fierce passion. Pink because of her subdued passion.

Would the summer home's mister understand the said task? The thing Pearl took for granted was being higher than an individual, which Pink agreed with. However, it was Jasper's job to help them. She was their tutor.

With that, Jasper saw that the remaining letters to Pearl were from the summer home and her doctor. The former was addressed to both Pearl and Jasper. Jasper opened it, being cheered up by sweet words and good spirit. Her longing for home doubled. She remembered the liveliness and privacy of the summer home, with the covered porch looking to the orchard, and further away were the farms. Due to good design, the house was cool and well-ventilated no matter the weather. There was a wind bell hanging by the porch. Its chiming sounds blended with happy voices.

Jasper should have known she was at a cheerful oasis with lovely people. However, she was beckoned by the mainland, with its bisected roads and skyscrapers. It was reasonable, really. Even Pearl agreed with her. Even Pearl was enamored by the traveling.

The latter was curious, after hesitation, Jasper decided to open it. However, the letter let her down. The doctor was put on short notice of their trip to the Capital. She wanted to set up another appointment as soon as Pearl was home.

The letter was written with brevity and guardedness, Jasper did not know why, and she did not have a lot to work with: Pearl was secretive with her health, and this madam doctor was complicit. Whenever she asked, all Jasper got was Pearl is doing really well. She is getting so much better.

Jasper would reply to her with a thousand years old look, calling out her bullshit. There was something wrong with Pearl's health. There were frays in the edges and chips in the wall. She just didn't know what it was, and what the symptoms were. However, the doctor's lips were tight, even tighter than Pearl, who would answer it's nothing much, along with I have shoulder pain. So much for how you treat your friends.

Jasper put Pearl's letters in a stack and bound them with a cord. She would ask the guide from Yellow Diamond's to deliver it tomorrow. She put it aside.

Then, her eyes caught the letters without a sender. She opened it. It was from Pearl, with less of her usual brevity: it was Pearl who caved and said sorry first about the incident four days ago. Jasper was a little embarrassed. Well, it was not the first and certainly not the last time. They cannot spend all their days being embarrassed. She was called to the temple tomorrow, as Pearl missed her (and the information she stalled to forward) and was in a little trouble herself.

~~~~~~~~~

Pearl got a Zircon from Yellow Diamond to deliver the letter for her. She knew the Zircon was the one who lead Jasper's way the other day. The less acquaintance they made, the better.

Pearl got some extra information to go along with it. She was wearing an easy expression. The temple's garden was all quietness and roses' fragrance.

"It will be nice when Jasper gets news from you," the Zircon said in good humor. She was a cautious and timid kind, traits exacerbated under Yellow's court, "It will cheer her up."

Pearl asked why she needed cheering up. These were days of leisure, with festivities all around.

"Oh, it was those festive, I think." Zircon said, "It was a little strange for me, also. You know the sports they put up lately? Jasper participated in one yesterday. Wrestling. She was good. I think she almost won, but the match was called off."

"Oh, how so?" Pearl asked.

"I don't really know. It was my Diamond who called it off, but Pink Diamond was standing right next to her. I don't want to say what I don't know for sure, but my Diamond was a big fan of those sports. She tends to keep it going..."

"No, maybe it is Pink Diamond who asked for it," Pearl said.

"Yes. Possibly. May I know why? Was the match upsetting to her, or was it not exciting enough? It's strange. I was a kid when Pink Diamond was still in the Capital, but she was the one who pulled up games and sports, not canceling them."

"It was so long ago," Pearl smiled. A little longer than fifteen years. It was a little bit before she got Pearl. It was left unsaid, and the Zircon was taken into a train of nostalgia. Fifteen years ago, she was still at school.

The Zircon's remembering brings up some memories of Pearl, too. Memories etched in stone, covered up by dust. It was easy to recall, like wiping off the dust with the side of her palm. The stone was like flesh, and the memories were salted. It was unpleasant and long days. The sky was what it was now, saturated blue with a glare. She had just graduated, and her days seemed to end before the date she fancied it started. She didn't know how to move anymore. Pink Diamond told her to stop doing things: stop singing, stop dancing, stop talking. Pink had not known what to do with her, and Pearl had been none the wiser.

"Why do you think Pink Diamond stopped the match, anyway? It was just a game." Zircon repeated her question.

"She doesn't like to use her gems to play games anymore." Pearl said.

Chapter Text

The morning that she invited Jasper over, the weather was awfully nice—bright and cool. She woke up early and went to the garden.

The orchestra also gathered early, at the pavilion not far away from the main hall. Pearl stayed at the rear, listening to them practice stuttered pieces of music. After a while, an idle guest artist and old graduate, like Pearl, took notice of her. They were not acquainted before. She was a moonstone with the same gracefulness as the Temple students.

She was usually stationed quite far away, at the rear of the known world, by Blue's snowy mountains. She was an entrepreneur gypsy, who was set on selling Pearl one of her many musical instruments: the fiddle of Pleasure, the banjo of Private Life, and the zither of Ignorance.

They were inventions of the past and the future, the Moonstone said. Her secret business partners dig them up from the abandoned graves or acquired with great price from the foreigners. She talked about the graves and the foreigners with great zeal, her big words reared on children’s comics. They were probably comic, everyone knew that the past was not real and the future was now. She said with a high, excited voice, which was equivocal of its own seriousness. She promised to show Pearl a flying carpet the next time.

Pearl was sold quite easily. She got herself the prettiest of them all, the zither of Ignorance. The Moonstone moved on to other expensive pearls with a little money to spare. Therefore, Jasper found Pearl fiddling with her new instrument—the moonstone had left her an instruction booklet- in the grand hall, where Jasper was led in the other day.

She put the zither aside, stood up, and came to greet Jasper. She smiled, "How nice of you to show up! I was afraid you were not going to."

A little bit dazed and drunken, Pearl gave Jasper a small peck. She sat back down, folded back to herself, and fiddled with the instrument of ignorance.

“Do you even know how to play those?” Jasper said, curious.

She had been frowning when she arrived. She was distracted by Pearl’s rare loveliness. Now, before she returned to the big issues, she was led away by the image: Pearl sitting cross-legged on the hallway’s ledge, she hunched down, and her nose almost touched the zither. She struggled to put three notes together.

“The Moonstone peddler left me a booklet,” Pearl said, “I will be alright.”

“I was swayed to buy something, too.” Jasper said. She took a curious shiny cube out of her pocket, “It’s a dice. The peddler said it was part of a collection. It has a name, which I have to find by myself.”

She held it under the light. It was made of colorful enameled glass. The symbols for the games were painted on its fourteen sides. Jasper squinted her eyes, reading the etched lines, “It is… the dice of Sympathy.”

“Roll the dice!” Pearl said. Jasper complied. It rolled to a fourteen, the highest number.

She picked it up again. In the dice, blooms of colors made up geometric patterns. Red intermingled with blue. The dice’s design was centered in the middle. It’s two halves mirrored. She pulled it along in her palm, its etched name glinting in sunlight. Sympathy. Jasper found it funny. “Why so dramatic?”

“The Capital loved their theatrics.” Pearl said.

Jasper sat on the niche on Pearl’s left hand, perpendicular to her. They were looking out to the same scene, the blooming garden of a hot spring day, breezeless, with enough sun to cause a mean headache.

“I got quite enough of them already.” She said.

Pearl looked at Jasper curiously, “Was it like I said?” She smiled.

“It was just like you warned me.” Jasper said, “I wouldn’t like it here.”

Pearl flipped through the booklet, again. She got better luck producing three notes. “I have said you would love our town more.”

“Yes, but would I know that if I stayed there forever? You liked your traveling."

Pearl smiled, vast landscape rolled through her eyes. What if she had gotten herself a zither early, and followed the road? “You are right.”

They settled for quietness. Jasper was agitated. Things did not go well for her in the Palace. She was in a strange landscape, every road was ominous and tangled. I don't like it, she thought to herself. Behind her back and very close to it, a voice whispered, you wouldn't like it here. The voice did not mimic her. It was a warning that came at good time, from almost a fortnight ago.

Pearl was preoccupied: she picked up the new instrument fast. She plucked the strings and let it tell her what to do. It made clashing, simple sounds. She picked out another three notes, placing them in order. It made some clumsy music, but Pearl was pleased and intrigued. She played it faster, the sounds blurred and curt, and they made chaotic noises. However, they were delightful.

Jasper was watching Pearl. She played with the dice in her hands. She didn’t know which games needed fourteen-sided dices and each with their own names. Why did the dice she got called Sympathy? What’s good does sympathy bring in a battle? Or in business? She got even more confused about the game this dice was supposed to play a part.

“What if I say I want you back at the Palace, by our side?” Jasper said. She was conflicted. She did not want to say it lightly, but she had to say it as lightly as she could.

Pearl’s answer matched her softness, she plucked another note in the instrument of Ignorance. Her eyes flitted to Jasper’s quickly, but she turned away. She smiled, catching the same lightness. “No. I’m afraid not, my darling.”

Jasper was pained, she remembered the other day, where Pearl, silent, diminutive, looking at the ones who were higher than her, who pinned her down. She remembered her private promise, which she went against just now.

“It was not that I don’t care about you.” The lightness in her voice was gone.

Pearl looked at Jasper a moment longer, but just short of her eyes. Why were they afraid of Jasper getting hurt for so long a time, only for a trip to the Capital waste it away? Now, her voice was heavy and her words were equivocal. Are we all going to have a stutter? She complained about the Capital, but it was wild how far its hand reach.

Pearl sighed, “I guess you are having it hard.”

She turned back to the zither, her hands resting on it. It was a handsome instrument, white strings on sleek black wood, with lacquered decorations on the lower left side. She fanned it lightly with her fingertips. The sound was mellow.

Pearl said, “Pink has been unhappy.” She repeated herself, really.

She looked at Pearl in the eyes, but the other was still preoccupied with her zither, “How can I fix it?”

“It was not your fault.” Pearl said, wincing, so briefly and so lightly. Like a spring breeze, their speech had been soft.

"Why is she so unhappy?" Jasper said. It was a kind of unhappiness that left people in awe. It was like a dark day, with a storm raging, thunderbolts tore the heavy cloud apart. She stood astonished.

At Jasper’s pain, now in the open and undeniable, Pearl stopped playing with the zither, but still hugged it closely. Her knees pulled close to her body, her back bending down, and she was looking at Jasper.

She looked tired, bored, and withdrawn, yet her words are full, “The wrongness is so vast, it might have been growing since the beginning of everything. However, don’t blame yourself and only yourself. It’s an unhappy cliche.You, in particular, don't fall in their trap. You are so lovely and brave." She smiled, although things are not particularly fun.

They had such similar eyes, Jasper thought about Blue Pearl, but they couldn’t have been related by blood. She was startled for a second, her plight almost forgotten. Pearl, again, in her pastel attire, looked like a different person. However, she is not a stranger. She is the person who will grow into your accomplice, Jasper thought, you are going to know her.

“Tell me again?” Jasper caught herself. She had seen that face. Pearl looked at her with the same expression before the ruinations caused by the Diamond kingdom, before the young Amethysts who were fresh out of their schooling (Pearl had a lot of sympathy for the young). Pearl would have the humor to explain.

“It’s a tired cliche, a long one at that. We would have to go from the beginning.” She stood up, smoothed out her skirt.

Jasper followed her, flustered, “Oh, it is still there?”

She laughed at Jasper’s question, “No, it’s only tales, but,” she said, “maybe a friction of it remained."

Pearl was regarding her instrument, which now lay on the ledge. It shone beautifully beneath the sun. It was an invention of the past and the future, taken from graves or foreigners. It would ease her headache and let her ignore unhappiness.

"We would have to vacate. This place is too public. Come with me, all the places we are going today are going to be pretty, but I’m afraid you will come to hate them, when the day ends. Would you take my words more seriously this time?”

(She left the zither there.)

"Can I roll your dice?" Pearl said.

"Oh. Sure." Jasper put it on her palm, "What kind of games are these?"

"I think the soldiers used to play them. When they are sober and leisured, they like their game complicated." Pearl said, "I can't remember what the winning goal is, though."

"Roll a fourteen, again!" Jasper said.

"I want a four." Pearl smiled, "That's how many days we have left."

She rolled the dice. It stopped on the ledge, next to the zither. It was a fourteen. Look at that, Pearl said softly. What does that even mean, Jasper said. They don’t know the answer.

The pair left their queer instrument there and went to the path of different things.

"I will tell you things, but don't ever call me back again. You faulted me on pride, but it was my due." Pearl said.

"I won't." Jasper said.

Pearl managed to get up, but she was weak. Her breath was soft and shallow. She hung by Jasper like a willow tree, like a vine on the stone ledge. Her flesh was cool like a breeze, and her fingers were stems.

"Is your illness acting up again?"

Pearl chuckled, "I'm perfectly healthy."

"Pearl."

"Ignore it, if you humor me. It's another story, and this tale will need your full focus and more."

She led Jasper through the winding path of the Temple. Soon, the main building with the sculptures and portraits, where they spent the last hour with the zither of Ignorance and the dice of Sympathy, was out of sight.

They cannot see the surrounding wall or the horizon, but only the uneven ledge of green canopy. The Temple was so huge. Straying from the designated path, where Blue Pearl guided her through the other days, Jasper felt the wonders. Here, the green canopy was overwhelming. It blocked the sunlight. Everything turned hazy. The shortest road bore illusions of a maze.

Jasper was curious what it concealed, but like a traveler in twilight hour, when they know they should go back, she was also quite tired and wary of it.

Possibly, the weariness had seeped through from Pearl, who hung on her arm like a bird injured in flying. She was wearied, also, but then, she was past wearied, she started to talk as glibly as she could.

~~~~~~~

That night, when Jasper went to sleep, she dreamt. It's strange, almost a nightmare, but she could have forgotten it easily. However, over the next ten years, from time to time, the dream reoccurred. It was etched into her consciousness, became part of her psyche. After many times, it was less a nightmare but more a song. If she saw a lake glimmering past the forest barrier in her dream, Jasper would follow it, with gladness in her heart.

However, the first time, it was scary and strange.

She saw a deep and cold lake on the horizon, the type that can outlast a forest fire. She met many Pearls on her way. They said, belligerently, don’t go in.

Come back to your home. They said guiltily. Don't ask me. Ignore it, for your own sake! Yet, after Jasper traversed the forest of past destruction and new reconstruction- as after the forest fire, life returned, and now, the new woods were as tall and wide as her, she reached the lake's shore.

Another Pearl was there, "Come in," she agreed, because Jasper had been insisting, "Underneath, there were ashes of death. I thought you were a twinkling light, from fire, from life, but maybe you were a lake also. Don’t be upset: it makes me love you more."

~~~~~~

"You usually fault me for being cryptic."

"It's alright." Jasper said. Now she knew the kind of pain that stuttered somebody.

Pearl made a face, she liked clarity. Yet, they couldn’t be clear. They settled for the abstract, "It was the giant's wish to live forever. She kept everyone in mindless suffering. She was rich when everyone else was poor, but she wanted to she richer still."

"Exactly how rich does she want to be?"

"I don't know." She said, petulantly. "It's abstract. She drew star maps, she wanted them all."

"How poor is everyone else?"

"I don't know. It cannot be accounted, cannot be expressed."

"Is everyone you and me?"

Pearl smiled, "Now you deigned yourself on my standing."

Jasper was flustered, "You never tell me anything."

"It's alright, I don't want you to be like me. I don't want to complain." She chuckled, "But I was a dirt-poor orphan, Jasper."

"I'm sorry."

"But you are one, too. I'm sorry for you, too. We can go around being sorry for each other, but we are too far away from home and leisure, and we are doing things quite late."

"It's you and me who were sorry for being poor." Jasper lamented.

"And more." Pearl smiled, "You tell me."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"I know you pitied Pink."

"I know you don't," Jasper sighed, "I don't want us to fight."

Pearl wanted to say something, but like many times the subject of Pink was broached, she was deadly tired before she could speak.

"I do not not pitied her." She tried to explain herself again. She almost fell face-first to the dirt covered with emerald grasses. They had to sit down.

It was another stone ledge, fully covered on three sides with overgrown thorny bushes. They get in from the only side that was left uncovered, but it was a small way in. The bushes bear colorful flowers without fragrance. There was almost no sound, apart from the leaves’ gentle rustle. The stone was very old. It was more moss than white.

"But whatever she gave me seemed to need so much more." Pearl said. She was sitting down, her face hung low, but her hand raised up. She was grasping Jasper. She was angry. She felt that this was very unfair.

However, it was soon submerged in her weariness. She settled down. Her hands were by her body, but she could look up. She leaned on Jasper, who was flustered.

"Don't speak anymore." Jasper said, "I'm sorry for keeping asking you to speak. I know why your doctor was so anxious. You looked like you were going to die in my arms."

"I will keep telling you." Pearl said, "As you said, it's not like I don't care about you. I will show you the start of everything. We need to get away from the Temple. You are in luck: I know a way out."

Jasper was moved, "Thank you."

Pearl chuckled, "Why do we have to go all this way? If only you had taken my words when White sent Pink the invitation. This is her home court, and I feel worse than ever."

"I'm sorry." Jasper said, "But I need to see it for myself."

Pearl sighed, "You do."

Then, she parted the evergreen vines: stones which were wide, smooth, and upright were right under it. They were by the Temple's fence, old and forgotten.

The Temple students like their stellar manner, their good grades, and they believed in a narrow way out. Pearl had been so. She never considered skipping class or jumping the fence, never curious about the wide world there was outside: she didn't buy that kinder people were just outside the wall. She knew the Capital, it was punitive. The people were likewise bleak.

Today, let them take an unusual road, to see where it lead them. They scaled the wall.

Chapter Text

It’s midday when they scaled the wall to escape the Temple. Early morning’s awesome air had already left, leaving behind a beating glaring heat that could give a healthy adult a stroke. From the school's hazy canopy, the glare came harsh and shocking.

Things are so bright here, Jasper thought. The walls were white, and the reflection was shining. The grid of the skyscrapers stared back in Jasper’s face, multiple, immovable, apathetic. The air is humid and stuffy. They were at the temple’s back wall, there was nobody around, but just around the corner, the crowded Capital would come down in full force, with people tailing each other like sand falling.

The Capital was a great place to be miserable. Just too many people around. Even if they sent the blue Zircons a million talents worth each year, nobody could’ve made up a road system that can cope with the population. They suffered to be a little cramped and hot.

Jasper came down first from the wall, gallantly waiting to prop up Pearl’s descent. Pearl giggled at that. She accepted Jasper’s goodwill.

“This year is really hot.” Pearl said, wincing at the heat and the glare, “It just gets worse every year.”

“We stumbled into a burning oil vat,” Jasper complained.

“We were invited here.” She said. She could’ve taken another jab at Jasper, but she had already felt bad enough.

Pearl, having a knack for theatrics, smiled at Jasper’s drama. Jasper was a natural. If they were here in summer, it would be the time for poetic dramas. Blue would like another ballroom to celebrate the events. A young student would play an old man hugging his grandson’s corpse and calling him beloved three times. Only when they were so young that they could portray that desperation, which was from confusion.

They were in the drama's very center, in its school, and they haven’t touched on them at all! What a loss. But Pink owned a great library. They could put up their own reading. With the kids, they could touch on the fanciful poetry with people bigger than them and life grander than theirs. Winged horses that glided through the sky. Flaming car. Ocean nymphs. Something that excited Pearl.

A bigger world, which White would allow to exist as long as it was hers. The drama was celebrated because she thought it was foretold. Well, she liked the lyrics. Bloated expressions.

'A burning oil vat' is one of them, but Jasper was being unfair. She made up the false advertisement. The Capital was what it said it was, a metropolis, house of the Diamonds, a self-perpetuating machine, a tower that kept getting higher. Yet, being here, experiencing the thing it says it is, it felt like a shocking trick, and there was no take-back.

She linked their arms together and led the way. Turning left, they blended into the stream of people relentless like an autumn flood.

They went to the main road, two bisected streets from the Capital’s one end to another. At the east was the gate, where they marched on the other day. At the west was the Palace, shooting upright like a spear. On the roadsides were a multitude of shops and people. Somehow, they were busy and hasty, even in the lull of the coming year. Jasper asked them to stop at one of the vendors. She said she sold curiosities.

Well, Pearl smiled wryly, the vendor animatedly talked Jasper through her limitless catalog. Pearl was a leading curiosities buyer and collector, but the business had been growing fast these days. Who else liked it? She had never met fellow hobbyists.

The vendor promised Jasper a flying carpet, again. Jasper said she wanted something to protect them against the sun. The vendor told her to wait a minute.

Pearl looked into the streets with the people. The shops which couldn’t help but be a little run down and messy. The Temple's tallest trees which were still visible from here. Big city's excitement. Sophisticated urbanism. She liked the roads, grid superimposed on grid. A pattern looked like nothing else, but alive and insidious.

“The Temple is at the city’s center,” Pearl said, conversationally, as the vendor went through her trunk.

“It’s in a good location. It’s a historical site, also. Though White doesn’t like the site much. Too gaudy, she said. Greedy people’s creations. So on and so forth.”

“Is the school in danger, then?” Jasper asked.

“I don’t think so,” Pearl said. “Blue would hate it, and besides her, there are others. White only think the building is gaudy. The Temple is fine. It’s hers. She spends big on every show, actually.”

“White liked her theatrics,” Jasper said, in a good-looking brooding way. It bore traces of the temple. It bore traces of Pink, who wanted to raise everything in gentleness.

“You saw Pink Diamond’s reception,” Pearl said. “It’s a grand event that has too much of everything. All in bad taste. White like her control and posture. She liked to control her sister.”

Pearl flexed her jaw, like she was tired again. “The vendor is taking forever.”

Right after she said that, the vendor came out again with a pink parasol made of stiff paper. Its spokes curved gently.

“Where is it from?” Pearl asked, intrigued like she is with queer objects.

“Out in the oasis, past her glorious Yellow Diamond’s sand dunes.” The vendor tittered, “They got amber eyes and quick hands over there.”

“It was made by foreigners?” Pearl asked.

“If you take an old woman’s words.” The vendor smiled, her eyes were too quick to be trustworthy. Well, why should Pearl bother. It was only one straightforward buying and selling, and they would never meet again, “It’s called the Parasol of Preference.”

“No.” Jasper exclaimed, genuinely puzzled, “Gave me something without a name. What’s a parasol doing with a name?”

“Everything I sell has its own name.” The vendor was a little offended. “It’s a curious object! It traveled a hundred leagues to be here!”

Before Jasper said they also traveled a hundred leagues, Pearl offered to buy it. The vendor said a high price. Pearl had to gently haggle it down: the price was outright ridiculous. Pearl got to save face for her own business. The vendor agreed. They left her and went back to their gentle introduction to the Capital.

After a short walk, they arrived at the main road’s bisected center. The centerpiece greeted them: a roundabout circled by colonnaded arches. Inside the columns, twenty-seven angels turned outward, smiling at the pedestrians. After them, inside the pool, fourteen titans looking inward, herald the arrival of the upright pillar.

The pillar rose high. On four sides were the placid faces and upright stances of the royal diamonds. Water flowed down from their feet. It fell to the pool of the titans, trickling into streams around the angels, made a circle around the colonnaded arches.

“Wow.” Jasper said.

“Yes.” Pearl laughed, “It is what it is.”

The carved limestone body was supple and robust: all forty-five of them. They were made from the best images of naturalistic bodies, and more. The gods looked like humans, they were just grander in every aspect, living forever, and being immeasurably happy. This was White’s best attempt at recreation.

“It’s— grand.” Jasper said.

“And just right.” Pearl said.

The centerpiece bears an impression that large but not excessive. Not a muscle too tight. Not a flower too much. The mathematician broke their back pulling up the equations. The carver carved a toenail to be one-sixteenth of a foot. The priestess frank their hallucinating drinks. They were looking at the general, the universal, the stars.

Pearl sighed, “I used to love them. I still do, I think.” It was hard not to love. The loveliness was imposed through the eyes, on the mind. The stark columns and brutalist towers were of the same branch.

Being at a good spot for a general view of the capital, they settled down. They got drinks and some food, which Pearl poked around. She talked about the capital. It was crowded all around, so they did not stand out, Pearl wore the Temple’s uniform and Jasper some undermined gray garments.

From where they were, they could see the Palace, down in the west. Well, from anywhere in the Capital and most of the outskirts, they could see the palace. Its roof was a tad higher than that of the modern gods’ temple. Glittering and symmetrical. White’s mind (what she called her room) offered a view of a straight axis to the Capital’s gate, through the mountains. Her greed shot far. She would like to see the sea.

The east side, the mountain stood sentinel, the mountain pass was carved cavern. From the natural hollow, they carved the niches for the angels. Going east a hundred leagues came their home. Half a day's road to the west, there came the gate, from where they arrived the other day.

Jasper admitted she didn’t remember much of the gate, which was all marble and precious stone. It told the story of conquering, the known world kept getting known: there's always fighting at the kingdom's rear. The people were well versed in the bloodshed by the sea. It was honored with a glowing title of a war, the only one in the whole kingdom.

They called the other ones skirmishes. Blood was shed quickly and silently. The people: poor, hungry, confused, and terrorized, did not and could not put up any protests. The soldiers are cold and disciplined, taking the children with their same eyes and skin, and sending them to a designated life. The soldiers had already forgotten, and after a while, the children would also forget. They took the diamonds for their mothers and makers.

Tired of looking, they took a walk. Pearl pointed to the glittering roof just out of their view. At the north was the capital’s second-tallest structure. Jasper happily offered that she knew what it was. Modern gods’ temple, where the priestesses were butchers and drinkers. Well, they killed and drank in earnest. They were devout folks, regardless of how their practice manifested.

They went into the temple. Multi-domed, lofty, and colorful. Looking at the statue with their god flesh, in their birthright thrones. They reclined in the light of their happiness. They were a little greedy and apathetic. Yet perhaps they were all there was: the gods were common, even for the foreigners. Even for the young children they seize.

To Pearl, it was confusing and lacking. For her business, Pearl got genuine connections with the foreigners. They looked the same as her and worshipped the same gods.

When visiting Jade Town, last year, they had asked to pay respect to its temple. Pearl had had to get it swept and get the incense burning. She had done the butchering and the wine pouring. She knew how to do it, back in the day, she had been a devout one. The teachers had pointed her to the altars for her problems. She needed justice and belief. It kept her alive. However, the gods were a little cold.

At the south was the cemetery, which was more straightforward. A tombstone was everybody’s due. Even by the sea, they must keep their rule of civility and have time off to tend to their deaths. It was an incredibly sorrowful event. They could chant and the priestess could do all the wine pouring, but would they be able to alleviate the grief? There was nothing after life.

It depressed them, so they did not go all the way to the cemetery. They turned back to the Capital’s centerpiece.

“You were not in a hurry at all,” Jasper said. They were walking around the angels, who laughed at them. The statue's eyes were glinting. They fancied knowing everything.

The sun was going down. The twilight was orange. It must be filling White’s mind with a blood-like saturated red. Pearl wiped her brow and wiped out the image. In the capital, her hatred became an unproductive obsession.

She looked at Jasper smiling, “I must entertain my guest. You know I never get friends to come over.”

Jasper laughed, “You planned to invite them soon enough.”

Pearl made a face, it was long overdue. “If things were up to me, it had already happened yesterday.” How impatient she was with the sword!

“So this is what it is? You took me for a walk to remind me of the war, our job?”

“Are you offended?”

“I’m not.” Jasper laughed, “And I guess you can’t help it. That’s the whole deal, right? Everything in this city pointed to who you were.”

Pearl was amused. “Loathe as I am to admit it.”

Jasper had graciously said the past tense, like she was any better now. She wouldn’t mind a who you are. Her vengeance was active. (She is obsessed with her own struggle.)

“But this is not what I ask of you.” Jasper said. “I wanted to know why Pink is so unhappy. Why do you take me on a longer way? Did you not trust me?”

Jasper looked at Pearl, but she didn’t see her. She was engulfed in her passion, “I know what I am getting into. You two have questioned me, and I have said yes. For Pink’s sake, I would see the Capital leveled. Is that enough for you?”

Her passion was not new. It was not a secret or a new declaration. Yet, it impressed Pearl, and for a moment she forgot what to say.

She settled for the obvious, “I never doubt you.” She looked up, hovered her hands about Jasper’s shoulders, touched her fluttery soft, and let go.

Her devotion had been glaring since the first moments, ten years ago. It was a pity that they were the same.

Pearl saw the Capital with its wide roads expanding four ways, glowing orange at twilight. Shatter it, a hammer on a diamond: a tantalizing future, a hypnotizing fragrance just about the corners. Everyone would be better for it. Well, save for Blue, maybe.

“Yes. You have seen it. You could be able to sack it. I know, I know. But what if I say it’s not the secret of Pink’s unhappiness?” Or her happiness, which you longed to find.

Pearl found herself being equivocal. She said again, more short, but softly, “It’s not the secret of her unhappiness.”

“Then what is it? How can I? Show me the way. You must.” Jasper said, her passion stayed.

“I can only show you the person who bears the marks of what happened.” Pearl said, “From the first time Pink realized she was truly unhappy.”

Unhappy was a broad, watered-down word, yet they could not bear more. What could they say of a storm incessant, heavy, poignant, from the start of time? Staring upward, raindrops on their face, they could only say it had been a black day.

Pearl looked at Jasper to gauge her mood. Jasper had never said it out loud, but from the first moment, ten years ago, she had been in love and devout. How could it be any other way? She had been fresh out of school, young and hopeful. A mortally wounded Pink Diamond with her earth-shattering secrets had been handed to her. Why should she say it out loud, it was something taken for granted, a given fact. From the first moment, she had been working for Pink Diamond’s happiness.

What kind of fraud was it to say Pearl found the goal impossible? What kind of betrayal?

But despite her best efforts, despite her best efforts, (she really tried) Pearl found it impossible. That, at least through Pearl, it had been a spectacular failure. An astonishing defeat, as if the goddess of vengeance had been chasing her, pinning her down with their claws, licking her throat in snake tongue. She had been smashed face-first to the dirt. She had tasted her own blood.

“I must see it. I must do things until there’s nothing left to do.” Jasper said.

She had been chased into the woods, to her mean corp dancers. They had laughed and taunted her. When she had fallen on the ground, they had danced around her in circles. They had found her comical: she had been what was left when there was nothing left to do. A wait had turned to despair turned to death. A fresh corpse had turned bone dry. (Nothing left to do when you know you have been taken. Nothing left to do when you're begging for crumbs.)

“You are better than me,” Pearl said wryly, her pessimism came in waves, her heart sank under them. She truly wished for Jasper’s success. She was better than Pearl. She was. She must be. “If you want to, keep up your work.”

They traveled west, took a beeline around the Palace's wall. Behind the palace, a gentle hillside curving upward, a few trees scattered. It was greenery, but it was not wilderness. White had had a colonnaded barrier put up around the hill, almost like a fence. A sense of order, a razor line across the fabric. She wanted to fashion it into a garden. Biggest one ever! Yet, the project is a little slow. After a short walk, they left the paved path for a natural, dirt-beaten one, only three steps wide, and the grass came up to their hip.

On the left, they can see the aforementioned columns walkway. On the right was the aqueduct going over the valley. The sun was sinking lower and lower. The sky was deep blue, and only a streak of orange was left on the horizon. The wind was blowing.

Jasper turned around to look at the Palace. They stared at the back of White's tower. It's far enough away that nobody on the tower can see them. It's the same look as the Capital: impassible white rock stacked close and upright. Maybe White started with her tower and made everything else its reflection.

"Are you coming back with me?" Jasper asked, in good cheer.

"Nope." Pearl said, popping her word a little, "If things go well, no. I think things will go well. Blue got good intel."

Pearl took a 30-step dart, "Come up!" She called to Jasper, "You can see it from here." She was on the hilltop.

Jasper dutifully followed her. She came next to Pearl, shooting her view far and wide. A streak of hills, grassy green, getting hazier further away, merging blue into the horizon. It was a beautiful picture, but Jasper did not see the interest.

"What do you want me to look at?"

Pearl pointed to a canopy of green: trees range which must be a thousand years old, entwined into each other like a hug, like a fence, like a lace curtain. Twig intersected with twigs, stem with stem, and a multitude of leaves shield the eyes. The lacy canopy reflected back the light like a thousand little suns, twinkling in the last sunlight.

"Can you see it?" Pearl asked.

"It's shining." Jasper said, "What is it?"

"Look closer." Pearl said, "It was not the sun's reflection. It's something that shines by itself."

Jasper tried to open her eyes wider and stare. She saw parallel lines shooting upward to the sky. Twinkling. Multicolored. Somehow, she was taken by joy and curiosity. She sprinted toward the light.

She drank in the scene. Twin columns supporting an arch. Three pairs of them, each getting taller and grander. After them stood a curved alcove continuing curved ceilings, on which was a multitude of niches and hollows, with pointed edges like stars. The arched ceiling reaching, reaching upward, like hands. The structure was breathing and growing. It reflected the light and shone.

Jasper came close to breathing in the material: precious marble, with green-pink streak, and shiny sandy speckle. She looked ahead, straight to its axis, to an image of a master spear thrower.

She must guess the statue's identity. The spear was gone. The gilded and painted veneer had rusted away, leaving behind darkened bronze. Its fingers rusted. In some part, the bronze had melted, leaving behind the hollow of making. Yet, the image was calm, measured, and extending. She came closer to it. She was shocked to find out it's only as tall as her when standing on its pedestal. It had seemed so big.

Not only was the statue damaged but everything else was in ruin, it was a bone of something grander. God's bones, when the fleshy stuffs had decayed. Yet, it sang and was mesmerizing. The more it obscured, the more it attracted. Look at these chipped columns and this room without a roof or wall! How grand it must be, if it were completed.

"You like it?" Pearl was behind her. She perched on one columns's base. The taller one, right next to the statue. She was looking about herself all the while. Are there other things to look at?

"Can I help it?" Jasper said, in good cheer, "Can anyone help it?"

"I guess nobody can." Stop her search for a minute, she looked at the shrine and its bronze statue: she scrutinized and re-scrutinized them. She smiled, quite taken. She found little faults, "This is the starting point, and everything else is its imitation."

"It does not start with White's tower and her mind, then?"

"No," Pearl laughed, "Look at us, falling at the feet of a thief and a liar."

"You took me all this way for a history lesson, again." Jasper said, "I can't even be mad. Some things only click when you are looking at them."

"You can find it beautiful." Pearl said, "I did. Can't help it. Yet, it's easy in equal measure to hate."

"Don't worry, I know, I know, far-fetched history is sometimes boring. This one is close and dear to us all."

Pearl stood up, walked up to Jasper, whispering in her ear, "It is their lineage."

Jasper was aghast, she turned to look at Pearl, who was smiling, the patient, sullen, self-mocking, old man by the sea one. Jasper exclaimed, "I didn't know he was famous."

"Just like Fortune dictated." Pearl said, eyes hard, ire under them.

She had gotten into one of her moods, which was sour but familiar. Jasper was prepared to brace Pearl for it. A fabric shield in warfare's mist, but what else could she do? She wanted to comfort Pearl. To outlast this.

However, as quickly as the mood came, it went away. Pearl turned around to look. She scanned the whole scene. She was a little afraid and insecure, her shoulder jutting high. Her eyes slinked back to further days. The trees, ancient, with stems like fingers were tugging. It was easy to abandon yourself to the past, or let the past come to you, weaving through the tree lines.

"Look even closer." Pearl said, "But don't move, don't touch, don't make any noise, if you can help it. She is coming soon.”

A ghost appeared. She appeared with the darkness and the moon hung midway.

The tree trunks turned gray and ghostly, their stalks knitted close. The ghost appeared like mist over the water, threading through the trees like a serpent around poles, tugging like pulling the knots tight. She walked around the trunks, every one of them, clockwise, and made a loop around the tree ranges. She appeared with unseeing eyes, a stone face, and small steps like water. She probably could not see her way but to feel it. She was going to this ruin. Why does she come here? What are you looking for? Whatever it is, you have been looking for so long.

Jasper moved forward, she was compelled to reach, to help, but Pearl held her down by the shoulders. She pulled Jasper back, close to the column closest to the statue, where they had been hanging. She was about to tell Jasper to keep quiet, but the other had made no noise. They stood motionless, soundless, blending into the shrine.

Her small steps finally made their way to the structure, weaving through the furthest twin columns, and making her way upwards. So self-absorbed was she that she didn’t see or react with them standing there at all. When she came near, Pearl had finally gotten a good look again. Fifteen years back, she had first seen her like this, and it had shocked her to the very core. She had been aghast. She had been disgusted with herself and her crimes.

The ghost passed by, and Pearl craned her neck watching her. Her dress, her hair, and her skin was white. Her hands reaching out, her head tipped up. She was almost glowing, staring at her so much Pearl’s vision flashed, and other things turned dim. The house of god turned dim. Well, maybe they were never very good.

You know the mythical girl Io walking through countries and countries, ocean and ocean, continents and continents in her madness (God-blight nonsensical madness). Why walking, you asked? Was walking pious, did walking mean anything? It was hard to answer, but did you feel her struggles, her labor, her doings? She had lost her mind, but she still got her legs. She needed to move. She needed to be. She needed to breathe softly, keep breathing, stay alive. She needed to show something of her anger and pray for release, relief.

Pearl started crying, softly, quietly, only water.

Jasper was startled. She reached for Pearl, almost touched her. She was so close, but she shied away at the last second. She found a napkin and did it more surely. Pearl took the square cloth from her.

She let her tears fall, dabbing them away. Don't bottle it up! Let it out once in a while! Good for her health. Doctor Maheswaran would say so. Probably.

White Pearl had finished her pious walking. She had walked around the shrine three times and stopped at the first twin column again. She stayed still for a minute. She looked about herself, like she were confused. Her eyes were almost seeing. However, like clockwork, she turned back to White's tower. The master of this world who had broken her mind.

The pair looked on White Pearl's depart, they were engulfed. They didn't bother to say anything for a minute. Jasper grimaced. She pitied the girl, mad, lost, and miserable beyond words. She turned to look at Pearl, and new sadness washed over her.

"I have never seen you cry." She said, sadly, as an explanation.

"You sure?" Pearl crackled a bit, wiped her tears dry, "I cried a lot."

"No." Jasper said, "You have never cried before me."

That can't be true. Pearl thought. She could remember the whole triple dozen of examples where she cried: because she was sad, or she was impatient, or even nothing at all. When they ride through the seaside cliff early morning, a lovely rose-tinted dawn draped over silver water. Pearl cried because she was riding so fast and freely, and the world was so vast and beautiful. It was so vivid under her eyes that it could have happened yesterday.

And Garnet said so. She said so when they were already quite close, and knew each other. She said it not to fault her, but to cherish. Pearl was on the receiving end of her sweet nature. She said when smiling that Pearl had been of a sensitive sort.

But it was almost fifteen years ago, when they first saw the world. For a long time, she had stopped crying. She had no reason to. She cannot feel sorry for herself, when her friends and her kindred were ever at a sorrier state. When tears of frustration fell, in the first year of their war, when Pearl had been raw and new to it, she had clawed it away.

Yet, today, this evening, would you let it fall? You cried for White Pearl and what had happened, and you cried for yourself, also, a little bit. You couldn’t have helped it: you looked alike, you were from the same place, molded at the same school. But her injustice was greater than yours.

Pearl got the urge to wipe the already dried tears again, frustration and pain came up. She remembered crystal teardrops that stick broken flesh together. They merged into a limitless horizon, but reflected on their smallness like a mockery. Why did she cry? Any kind of tears was not enough.

Even if she cried tears of blood, it moved nothing. If she was willing to unsheathe the sword, kill White now. She saw the Temple where she used to be pious, multi-domed with god-languishing happiness, and she fancied tit for tat. Offering herself as an animal slaughtered for the thing she always wanted. But it was nothing, not real, and impossible. She needed to mould her hatred into the useful sort.

“You should bear witness to my word.” Pearl said, “For White Pearl’s sake, I will see this city destroyed. I will see the Diamond house crumble. My sister will be worse off for it.” Pearl laughed, “But it needs to be done.”

Jasper did not laugh at this strangeness, “It had always been our job.”

Chapter Text

The night was young, the sky still had a hint of blue. The moon hung midway, shining golden, a gibbous moon. Pearl looked up at it, almost expectant, like she could will time to fly by faster. She knew the date and had been counting backward till the day they could go back to Jade Town. In another 3 days, they would be free.

The Capital got all sorts of festivities underway for New Year’s celebrations. However, the crowning event would be the Temple’s show, and afterwards was their main ceremony. The royal sisters would walk a straight way from the theater to the modern gods’ Temple, where more drinking and butchering would be done. Afterwards, a week-long feast would be held at the Palace. However, Pink was only needed for the ceremony. (Would White let her do the animal slaughtering?). She would be free to go on the first day of the New Year.

Pearl could imagine the road already, the fortresses they must pass, their city’s wall, and at last, the sight of the sea, glittering like a silver band. What were they doing now? Hopefully, her friends spent their days more pleasantly than hers.

As Pearl stared, time did not pass any faster. She looked at Jasper, who seemed nervous. Well, White Pearl gave a scare, and Pearl had introduced her dryly and harshly. She must tell the story more fully. Yet, the story was as terrible as White Pearl seemed. She could sigh after every little word, dip her chin commiserating after every sentence. Should she try verses, riddles? Would it make it any better?

White Pearl used to be Pink's. She was of the same age as Pink, and they used to get along so well, like a pair of little birds.

However, White hadn’t loved White Pearl, she looked down on her. White Pearl had been sweet, innocent, and playful, but lacked the Temple's poise. She had been so much like Pink, which was why Pink had loved her.

Yet, you know, (Pearl said, and Jasper echoed, I know, knowingly.) The situation at the Palace, in Pink's youth, had been a tower about to topple over: the weight-bearing pillar was made of salt and rotten. It had been sinking, sinking, a slow degeneration of all parties involved: Pink had gotten more impatient, hot-headed, nervous. She had laid waste to the Palace's main hall. She used to cry out, so that her sisters could hear it.

Pink Pearl had gotten more tired and confused. (She didn't have anyone to take her for a walk and show her a resplendent ruin.) They used to keep each other company so well, so sweet, but they had slowed into a sluggish confusion. A screen of mist. A rain shower. They had been swimming in the dark. The pair of little birds had stumbled and fallen.

Jasper said, “White took her away and gave you her post, because she loved you?”

“Yes”, Pearl smiled, “White loves me the most, I was the right kind of clever.”

Fifteen years ago, when Pearl had been close to graduating, she had coveted Pink Pearl's position. White Pearl had gotten more ill, and Pearl had despised her confusion. When White Pearl had cried, she had thought that she was weak. When she had run around asking for guidance from people older than her, other graduates, Pearl had blamed her for incompetence. When she had sunk into her silent sullenness, Pearl had thought that White Pearl had been occupying her post, her rights.

Pearl had been a pretty, darling star. She had been the best of her year, was running on the star track to be a Diamond's pearl. But there was a plethora of hers and there were four Diamonds. Moreover, White liked to sit outside the races. From her audience's seat, far enough to see others doing their little dance and song, she had looked at them and laughed so bright and sharp.

Well, Pearl told Jasper, the Yellow Pearl you see now was new, but fifteen years ago, Yellow Diamond's old pearl was a tower of grace. Blue got her position a couple of years before me, and she quickly distinguished herself. Everyone's favorite champion. The prima ballerina.

“I was eighteen, my clock is running out, and my odds looked ever so bad.” Pearl said.

“They only give you a narrow chance when you are fresh out of school.” Jasper lamented.

“They fashioned the Temple into a dark pit with spikes, they wanted the ones who lasted it and more.” Pearl echoed her.

“Do you regret it? How unhappy can you be being an Agate's pearl?” Jasper grinned, saying. They fell into their more wicked kind of humor.

“I would probably be dead. And when I was young, I was the greedy type, thinking so highly of myself. Why shouldn’t I? I played the Temple’s rules well.” Pearl smiled.

“I should have waited until graduation, when it was my due to have a lead role.”

“You did not wait until graduation.” Jasper said.

“I didn't,” Pearl whispered. “I was so nervous, and the chance so ever narrow.”

It would have been three months from the New Year's show to their graduation. The room for error had been vast, with so many students desperate for a chance. They would have smashed each other's jaws for their narrow way out. The diamonds were cold, their eyes were high. They did not look so low.

Pearl remembered the broken window of the labyrinth. What if there were no stairs but a straight drop down. Bodies piling on bodies. Roundness of pearls, luster shining in the dark, they were all chipped, cracked, shattered. (You shattered them).

The littering glimmering dust she inhaled. Classmates, girls of the same year, sisters. Pearl was terrified, but she was still alive, conscious. She calmed down, groping in the dark, squinting so hard to look for the narrow way out. A crack in the wall. Faint light in darkness. So weak and cruel, but what is the other way? When she saw the crack, she plunged, squeezed herself into it. Her back bent, and she rose up. Oh, it was me, she had thought. I sprang up from the dead, said she. I was alive again. 

When she was graced with light again, the world before her eyes was new. She was crowned a victor. People applauded her, saying Here is all that she ever wanted.

“I was convinced I was better than Pink Pearl.” Pearl laughed, “I only need to show myself. If the Temple did not give it to me, I should fabricate it myself.”

New Year's show fifteen years ago, Pink Pearl had gotten the lead. It had been mostly a diplomatic move, Yellow Diamond got into a terrible fight with Pink, she had hoped to give the lead to her pearl as an olive branch. But Pink Pearl had been in bad shape.

“I was her understudy, we shared a studio. She was so ill and pale, when she used to be energetic and lovely. She was almost a ghost already. She disliked the practice, it was so draining. She was sick of Pink's tower.”

“So you swoop in and save the day? You offer your help to shoulder her part at the show?”

Pearl laughed, “Pink Pearl would spit at my face if I dared to utter those words. No, she is still a Temple student, and she was never stupid. No, my love, I have passed my asking days. I put a nail in her shoe.”

Pearl sighed, “Oldest trick in the book. No wonder Blue laughed at me.”

“How did that happen?” Jasper whispered. She said it for Pearl’s sake.

“I sabotage her on opening day. I took my stage, so happy and hopeful, I was too joyous to be a ghost, and only knew the taste of betrayal on the hilt end. Yet I made my name, the performance was well-received.”

“White,” Pearl laughed, “On my debut day, when I showed myself, only she saw me in my entirety, and she loved me. It would be the morrow when it's decided I would get Pink Pearl's old post, and Pink Pearl was taken away.”

Pearl sighed, suddenly weary, but she picked it up. She looked at Jasper, saying, “I did not ask where. I was busy, and the hoax of people crowded my way to applaud me. I got another lead at the graduation show, and spent my time preparing for that. Not until I was admitted to the Palace that I see her again.”

Pearl smiled wryly, “I saw Pink for the first time, also.”

Jasper did not say anything, taking it in, maybe. But she held Pearl’s hand lightly, the story was bad, Pearl was vicious, but she was already forgiven before Jasper heard it. Their sweet friendship ensured so.

However, it was not the light, breezy, instant forgiveness that Blue had given her, and Pearl was thankful for that.

Blue had known of her ploy, she had seen the little nail Pearl put on White Pearl's shoes, and she just walked past her, down to the hall of identical shelves. Blue had accepted it easily. She always thought that they could not afford to regard themselves that highly, like the ones who crowded the modern gods' temple. If Pearl had been vicious on top of her second-grade talents, then it was just fine. Can't help it. Can't be different.

Back in the day, when Pearl had just been admitted to Pink’s garden, she had almost been driven mad. The Temple's sham was like a slap in her face. She only needed to see that timid face, that equivocal gait one more time before she did something that damn them all. She had been paralyzed with guilt before White Pearl. When she clung to Blue Pearl’s dress to ask for help, Blue had yanked her dress back, almost kicked Pearl away. Her pleas for help had met with cold silence. It had not been a punishment, it was just how things go.

She shot her gaze further away. They were still at the ruins, behind the Palace. Without the sunlight, the hill stretch was pitch black, and the house of god glowed faintly. Before her eyes, the capital stretched wide and still shining, shimmering. It wouldn’t be another hour until the city slowed down, and even then, only in parts. She could vaguely see the temple, which was bigger and shorter than almost all other buildings in the city, therefore it’s a patch of darkness in the metropolis.

Pearl breathed in, breathed out, fully, slowly. Her heart, jumpy with nerves, went steady again. She let go of Jasper’s hand, smooth out her skirt. The night was getting colder. The sky was black, but the horizon was still a deep blue. The winds teased her hair, dried her eyes, and cooled her body. She was calm again.

Finding the Temple in the flickering map, Pearl smiled inwardly, remembering Blue Pearl’s crossed mood. All things considered, Pearl got it sorted out nicely for herself. She was as far away from White as she could. She was not in Pink’s tower. Now, their sentence was halfway past. It would not be that hard to bear another three days.

She turned to Jasper to tell her of the good news, but Jasper had already been watching her. She was not smiling. Her eyes were bright, like stage lights. Pearl felt scrutinized, caught off guard, and ill-prepared.

She was reaching for Pearl again, but thought better of it. She said it softly, “I want you back.”

Unthinking, Pearl took a step forward. Her hands reached out, she gripped Jasper’s shoulder, shook it violently. Jasper stood still. Pearl pushed her away, hard, and she stumbled two, three steps backwards. She had the nerves to look at Pearl meekly, beseechingly. Her eyes were still bright, and her face was so mellow, like petals floating on water.

“Why.” Pearl croaked out. Jasper was standing so nice. Her shoulder dropped down, hands close to her body, the image of humility. She would cling to Pearl's dress if need be. She would stand there taking it if Pearl wanted to slap her. Pearl was tempted to do it.

Instead, Pearl took a step back, glaring at her, her throat tight and nervous. Her body was cold, shoulders jutting high. She groaned, pained, accusing, demanding, “You should have pitied me instead.”

“Please,” Jasper said, and it was as if Pearl was being hit.

She stumbled backward, one, two, three steps. She slammed against the pillar, but she did not stop, did not know to stop, and pressed her back into the cold stone. She wanted to keep backing down, so she moved on the spot another two steps. She was afraid. She thought Jasper was going to slap her one more time.

Then, the air left her. She slumped against the pillar, almost fell down on the ground, but she found purchase to prop herself up again. She perched on the pillar’s base, as she did this afternoon. Pearl hunched down, but her face tipped up, looking at Jasper. Bright, cold, expectant. What else Jasper had for her, Pearl was waiting to see.

You disappointed her so well. Jasper thought, and she was almost jolted up. Pearl had never looked at her so heavily, since the day Jasper knew how to look at her properly. Yet, she must finish her pleas, “You have been there, you know it. White is vicious, look at what she had done to White Pearl! Pink is vulnerable, she is so unhappy. You know it. You told me so.”

Her pleas were presumptuous, but Jasper suddenly felt confident, at ease, and sure about her speech. Her voice got louder, higher, and she fancied she made a whole lot of senses.

Ah, on the ground of love, she asked Pearl, and it was on that ground Pearl was a stout believer. She had cried for White Pearl. She had always looked at the sea with such open longing, and forged it into some patient weapon, unbending spear, its steel rang, rippling across space. Or a bow she kept taking aim, but holding the shot. And you know, you know. Back in the day, she used to love Pink more than anything.

Jasper was not cold to her, she cared for her, and she knew her struggles. Terrible things that almost killed her, and narrowly, narrowly, Pearl rose up and came back.

Jasper wouldn’t have Pearl’s fate for her own: it would kill any lesser one, herself one of them. But Jasper loved her Diamond more. Yes, on that ground, on another day, Jasper would have to plead for Pearl’s forgiveness, and she felt like Pearl would give it to her. Therefore, she said, her voice high and sure, “You have to do it. Please.”

Pearl looked at her, her eyes were pained. Her shoulders slumped down, pressed to the pillar, pinned into it. Same thing with her hands and ankles. She looked so still, like the butterfly with its wing spread, a corpse on display. Jasper remembered the other day, Pearl had also been pinned down, hounded, close to the floor, and she had run away. Do you know what she ran away from?

Even now, when you pushed her so close to death's door. When you betrayed her so, she was still alive (narrowly). Her body was still, but her face was that of a living one, despite its slow, slow drop to hollowness: after anger, despair got her. Her face smoothed out, smoothed out to a blankness that could have resembled calm, but her eyes were pained, lost. She looked about herself, like she were looking for something again.

Jasper’s heart felt, straight down a cliff. She cried. It started as a strange wail from the base of her throat, then tears came. She took a step forward, her hands reached out, but then again, she was taken aback by herself. She stopped on her track, still a few steps away from the other. At that moment, the misery of everything caught up to her (Astonishing things). Jasper took another step forward. She stopped.

Jasper’s tears turned Pearl’s mood into something sour and mean. She glared at her, scoffed, “Why do you cry? Should I pick you up and tell you everything is fine? Would you like that?”

But she walked away from her post, went to Jasper, standing face to face with her. She touched the back of her hand lightly. Hard to help it.

Jasper was silent. She was still crying, biting her lips, avert her eyes. She would not take back her words, she would not say it again. She was confused, confounded, she left the matters in Pearl’s hand. Pearl looked back at the shrine, where White Pearl took her pitiful walk.

She looked at the back of White’s tower, it glared back at her. It was easy to imagine her giggling, clapping. Her design was so good that everything ran by itself. She was up high looking down at a chariot race. The track was eight-lane, circular, and each contender had a team of four horse. But there was a million of them down there, slamming to each other. Pearl held her rein. She looked at the chaos, with people failing, steel grating, smoke billowing. What did it even mean anymore to crash or not crash.

Pearl looked down to her hands. Does she only have herself to blame? Should she take her cold, ignorant stance another time, and stand protest against this? Music from the zither of ignorance was sweet, she could keep playing it in the Temple’s garden, on a bright morning. Pearl could be lofty if she never felt anything. (You who must leave everything that you cannot control. It begins with your family but soon it comes around to your soul.)

But her sweet friend was here, crying, confounded in her sorrows and anxieties, saying please twice. It was hard to blame Pearl for caving in, for being pinned down, when this was frequently the way it happens.

“Wretched!” They could say wretched, misery, horror a thousand times, “If only I can kill White with my bare hands. I will listen to you, but not tonight, when your nerves are rubbed raw. The next time you call me, I will come to your aid.”

Chapter Text

<<A letter to the High Priestess of the Spires, the Mirror Lake, and the Never-ending Hall, sent from the Capital.>>

S, nice to hear from you again. I have been notified of the Spires' donation to the New Year’s show. You were very kind, and it made me a little embarrassed. In the summer, as we discussed, the Temple would lend you its dancers. A happy celebration. Hopefully, I can tag along, and I think I should be able to. You know that my Diamond never gets sick of visiting the Spires.

I asked you to use your seeing stone and tell me if I would win the race for the Temple’s control or not. You gave me a stern word, tell me your seeing stone is not yours to use, and least of all for such a reason. It was well-deserved. You see, I knew the importance of your eye, and I was sorry that you had to remind me. However, I was trying to be silly in the last letter. Staying for too long with the young ones did it for you.

You even made me more shy with the kind words that follow. You said that any system that has respect for merit at all would give me the Temple, as it was my due. However, we both know that the diamonds can be careless and thoughtless. The rules they play by are arbitrary. You said, and I quote, ‘their field is a small square drawn on a dirt mount, their back and forth is tiring and squabbling. They are all sisters, all related, a happy thing for them, but us ever the poorer.’ Well, enough has been said about the state of things.

The narrow field enables us to pick through my supposed opposition one by one, if the loose use of the word is forgivable. You said that White Pearl has never been in any shape to dance, poor girl. Mad. The gods of the Spires keep forgetting her. You told me that Yellow Pearl is my sweet young friend, you wondered about Pink Diamond’s pearl, and whether this time Pink Diamond would heed her summons or not.

Pink Diamond shows up this time, it would be bold not to, the master of the world called her back. Of course, her pearl goes with her, and she is a weak spot in our field. (You forgive my loose use of the world.) Hardly a week ever passes peacefully between the four diamonds. My Diamond and Pink Diamond used to get into terrible fights, and this time it is the same.

If you can humor my anecdotes, I can tell you more about Pink Diamond’s pearl. Well, she only goes by Pearl, if you can imagine the nerves. My sweet sister, she is.

I wondered what happened, and how exactly it happened. We used to call each other sisters openly, but now everyone has forgotten. Well, maybe she also forgot, so now she is almost a stranger. I feel like not know her anymore. She turns hard to bend.

I remember when we were younger, we studied together at the Temple, a couple of years apart. She was a clever one, and she managed to learn some grace. Delightful enough to see on stage. However, she was too severe, even if one of your priestesses saw her, they would say she wants too much. Would the Spires like a young preacher? In some fanciful situation that it could have happened, of course.

Back in the day, as she got older and ever more severe, I never knew whether she would last or not. She almost didn’t, when she was just admitted to the palace. It was an easy, obvious fall. If that was the end it would not be for any of her faults. But they got sent to the sea, and she is still alive to this day, so something must have worked out.

When I told Yellow about the situation at Pink’s tower, she shed a tear for Pearl. Yellow said that Pearl loved me, and was looking to me. If I have time, I would go to the Spires and try to learn if any of that matters.

Well, if she used to, then now she is certainly not. She holds an old, beaten, dried-up grudge from fifteen years ago. The sea whips some new senses to her, and now she is hard as steel. Got some edges by the side. Her Diamond holds her in her bare palms, which makes her bold.

Whether she loved me or not is a tiring question, but she used to look up to me, puppy eyes and fawning. I could have used some of that now. She becomes more sensible, dissecting, and she knows my shaky position. If I command her, she would probably laugh at me.

Yet, you are right. It is Pearl whom I must get across. Everybody knows what a dead cause it is to get through the diamonds’ thick, dense skulls. So much for all my dancing, glittering stages. One wonders if there is any genuine consideration about excellence.

Without noticing, I wrote a long letter. I hope to hear back from you soon. Your loyal friend and supporter. B

P.S, have you heard about a new player on the market?

P.P.S, my Diamond was pleased about the sandalwoods you sent her, it was of the first grade. However, I heard from one of your temple-keepers how much you pay for it. Is there any funny little story I should know of?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Only another day, Pearl thought and sighed for herself. She could count it down by the hours if she liked.

Usually, the New Year celebration could have filled Pearl with a quiet, slow gladness. Pondering about time easily led to that, along with something subtle and patient. If they were at the Summer Home, (cheerful place, thrumming amateurish music, the voices carried down the hall), looking out of the window she would not see the sea, but it was a habit all the same. And the sight was easy to imagine, black night, dotted with firelight.

But they were in the Capital, its festivities were not for her, and she was apathetic to it. Another day, they would be free to go, it made Pearl elated. She didn’t feel like sleeping, so she went to the Temple’s garden, vibrating in excitement of waiting.

The other day, when she had gotten away with Jasper, she had left her zither in the hall. To her delight, it had still been there when she got back. Now, she was making little music, stand-alone notes to accompany each passing minute. A pluck on the string to express her heart. The four-day road waiting for them seemed pleasant, desirable, she imagined racing down the way as smooth and fast as gliding. The prize was so sweet it even sweeten the waiting.

Early morning yesterday, Jasper had sent her a note. She had gone through her delayed letters first. Everything had been fine, but she had grimaced at the horribly late letter from her islanders. She had sent them a reply, of all things citing coming home and festivities as the reason for the delay. They would probably let it slide. They were not a fussy lot, as far as Pearl knew.

She had read Jasper’s letter last. It had been a small note, a rectangular paper fit in her palm, but it had not been written in haste. Little ink dots had shown Jasper’s hesitation, and she had added a timid sorry at last. It had been a sorry without an explanation. Probably, Jasper had wanted to add one, but decided against it. Pearl had been glad for it. There had been little to be sorry about, and at the same time, too much for explanation. Difficult to boil it down into a note, and least of all should Jasper send it to her.

Pearl had expected the situation in the Palace to be bad, the royal sisters petty and hostile. It had been worse than she had thought, and plummeted to the most vicious days between the diamonds, the days before the sea. Easily, they did it, like pouring wet plaster into a mould. Copies came out without a fault or variation. They seemed to fight every other day, and try to make nice on the next. (Save for White, whom Pink didn’t want to speak with or disobeyed.)

The most prominent one had been between Blue Diamond and Pink. Old history dug up, ceramics got shattered, the lunch table flipped upside down, and their gems got sent away. The next day, Blue Diamond had acted like nothing had happened, if you ignore her sour jabs. Pink had been willing to let it slide. However, Blue was feeling guilty at last, she wanted to make nice, and gave Pink a gift. Passing the ball to her sister to win an easy score.

It was in poor taste, and foreign. They had been away from each other for too long.

From where she was, Pearl could see the roof of Blue’s theater, it curved upward, extruding forward. Like the prow of a ship wind-cutting, like the curve of a bow pulled taunt, aiming to the sky. It felt like Blue, and Pearl winced at the thought.

It was false to compare themselves with the diamonds, they were so much poorer, but let humor her a minute. She could imagine the diamonds’ lofty hall, where Blue Diamond waited. She spent much more time at the capital than Yellow Diamond or Pink. She got her sentimental streak (did not endear her to Pearl), she was reclining on a plush chair, sending letters, people, calling her sweet sister back. She must have wanted Pink to be back, kneeling by her side, letting her pet her hair, like a child, like a pastel and glittering vision of childhood she had always indulged.

Yet, in a hunch, let’s call it a hunch, since Blue Diamond was not exactly keen or perceptive. She wouldn’t be able to discern the transgressions, to call it out. But likely, she had a feeling, a ghostly feather by her nape. Pink would be able to kneel before her chair, letting her pet her hair just fine, but Blue Diamond would feel that something was wrong. She was holding a stranger, and she did not know her sweet sister, her darling baby anymore. It rattled her, made her flip the table, and made a whole show.

Fifteen years ago, when Blue had driven her away, Pearl had been put in a similar snare. Why would Blue drive her away? Or were they always apart, their sorry state forbade them from being close and sweet. The decisive moment came, it was clear that they were no more, and couldn’t help it? Pearl had not known the answer, and she had not known Blue. She had been at a loss about the nature of their relationship.

Insult added to the injury, really. Oh, she had cried, and Blue had determined to keep silent. Drowned as she was, Blue had crossed her arms, looking the other way.

They had reached no resolution. Pink Diamond got sent away, and Pearl went with her. She had licked the injury until it had scabbed over, itching. After another while, it had gone still and left her alone. Yes, it had been the lacking answer she got. They had not thought of each other anymore.

Sometimes the itch acted up, like tonight. From her left, Blue walked towards her with a purpose. From afar, she was so lovely, her silky dress pale blue. She always held herself beautifully, like ice crystals forming over green leaves. She looked unreal on stage, her dress shimmering, glowing. Now, Pearl should know to be content to look from afar, on the seat she could have afforded. She was cold, and Pearl had hated her previous ice burns.

Blue came in front of Pearl, a few steps away. She was not smiling, but again, her smiles had always been rare. Pearl was sitting on the ledge looking outside to the garden. (Plucking another string to still her heart). She looked up at Blue, whose face was stern, she was grimacing even.

Pearl smiled, Blue had been tried the last few days. The success of the New Year’s show would affect her grip on the temple. Blue Diamond had tampered with it, in ignorant diamond’s fashion, which Blue hated on her best day. And when the contest for the Temple’s control was going on, it unsettled her. It’s a rare sight, Pearl was amused, as Blue honed her composure like a principle.

Now, Blue tried for a smile that did not reach her eyes, the corner of her mouth twitched, “It was decided that you would take the lead tomorrow night. Aren’t you glad? You were away for so long, but as soon as you are back the limelight is for you.”

Now she deigned to talk to you. It was supposed to be smooth, with her as the low link on the chain of command. Blue Diamond would suggest her idea lightly, Pink would agree, and Pearl did as they told her. Yet, Pink didn’t budge, (they were not that bad), but the diamond’s expectations stayed the same.

Pearl scoffed, she was feeling kind of mean. “I’m not glad, and I won’t go on stage that way.”

“It used to be all that you wanted,” Blue accused, with a faint hint of a question why.

“I would play my five-minute part, as we discussed, but this is uncalled for, unreasonable.”

Pearl looked at her, her scowl was so deep. It amused Pearl. If she couldn’t get smiling love, then a scowl was just as good. She never knew what to do with a blank face, and silence was a bad cue, "I don’t think you want to give it to me, though you decided you have to.”

Pearl smiled, “But why don’t you ignore them and stand aside with me? You can still go on stage as the protagonist, it was your due, the Capital would love it. It is you whom they admire and call for. Just jump on stage, Blue Diamond won’t be able to pull you down. Try standing aside, leaving their rules, ignoring their little game and narrow field. You will find it to be overly sweet.”

Blue sneered, “Pink Diamond let you do anything you please.”

"You see, I ran from the palace and it was just fine.” She grinned, toothily. “You can do it, don’t you always think you are better, smarter than me?”

"It's not a game." Blue Pearl scoffed.

"Oh, we are being played for sure.” Pearl smiled.

Blue, beyond herself, reaching out, intent to shove Pearl down. Pearl dodged her, standing on the ledge, swirling around.

She giggled, amused, then laughed out loud, “Oh, what are you doing? Are we doing it? Maybe we should, we are missing out, we were too concerned about poise from a young age.”

She flicked one foot, grazing Blue’s skirt, the tulle flurried, Pearl had yet to touch Blue. She quickly took a step behind, breathless with laughter.

Blue took a step forward, and another, hands reaching out, face tipping up. They were positioned so that Pearl’s knees were at her eye level. Blue decided to play, or she had just lost her composure further. She reached forward, probably to pull Pearl down. Pearl dodged her. They should collect some sticks and play-spar.

Pearl took a few steps behind and Blue chased her, stumbling to follow. Pearl took a break every three steps to make sure she did. She swirled around, kicking dust in the other’s eyes.

“I know you are hiding something.” Blue sneered, and they are running around like school children.

“No, I don’t.” Pearl smiled, “This is just what leaving the Capital for long did to you. We live simply by the sea. Oh, I would love to have you there, if you agree to, but I guess you are frequently busy with the Temple.”

“You were so devout, but it always hovered just out of your reach.” Pearl smiled, “I would say give up on it altogether, you know?”

Blue got a hit to Pearl’s knee. She stumbled backward, laughing, and took a couple more steps backward for good measure.

Blue said, “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

“I never see why the Temple is so attractive, to be sure.” Pearl shrugged, “As soon as I’m out, I don’t dance anymore. Maybe I don’t have ground to speak, but you love it a little too well.”

Pearl smiled, “You are so clever, but you let Blue Diamond play you as a fiddle as soon as the Temple is in the equation. I don’t need to tell you that’s a bad look, you love your stiff neck just after the Temple. I would say give up on it, your life would be easier, plenty of other sweet things to enjoy.”

Blue got another hit on Pearl. She grimaced, this one was just under the knee, and this time, Blue packed more of a punch, “You really don’t know what you are talking about.”

Blue looked at her, cold, but slow and sinking. Something heavy sank to the lake’s bottom. She lunged towards Pearl, same heaviness in her frame.

It was not the first time someone had asked her to give up and be content with other prizes. Blue was insulted, genuinely so. She was going to show something of her vast love for the Temple, which Pearl spoke lightly of. She looked ready, and dangerous, like the prow of a ship, like a scepter in a king’s hands. Pearl did not know what she was going to do, so she dodged, taking a few steps back. Looking at her warily.

“Let me bend a knee and ask you.” Blue said, jeering. She wanted to shift their game to another plane.

Pearl grimaced, saying, “Is it worth it?” She had a soft spot for Blue’s pride, finding her beautiful and fittingly proud, so she answered her own question, “It’s not worth it.”

“Oh, but you said it yourself. I love the Temple more than my stiff neck, I would ask you to be kind to me. I’m doing it for my love, but do you know what it means?”

“What do you mean?” Pearl startled.

“I’m asking if you ever love something in this way.” Pearl looked at her wide-eyed, so she dumbed it down even more, “It’s very vast.”

“What are you talking about, what do you even know?” Pearl said.

“You never loved me.” Accusing. Ire of the past got the better of her, it was thrown out like a harpoon, aiming for something moving under dark water. As soon as Pearl said it, she regretted it, she tried to pull it back, “No,” she uttered, but it was too late.

Blue had already held the harpoon by its handle, her eyes cold and bright, visible under the water. She was laughing at Pearl, and she returned the throw.

“I never love you?” Blue lunged forward again, and she hugged Pearl’s knees and legs.

Pearl stiffened, she shook her legs one, two times, wanting Blue to let go, “No. No matter. It is something of the past, so far away from now, even I had let it go.”

Blue looked up, smiling, she was thinking of something Pearl didn’t know, “Oh, did you? Yes, it was so long ago. In just a little while, the time when we are apart would be as long as when we are together.”

“I never love you, you say. What a strange thing you are talking about. Maybe someday I will go to the Spires to learn about it, along with a handful of other things. I will stay there a whole week, if need be.”

“No,” Pearl breathed out, one last time, “I won’t, you can’t make me. I don’t owe you anything.”

Blue looked up at her, smiling, the lines on her shoulder were lovely. She was pulling it down and raising it up, “Of course you don’t, you are doing so well by yourself. Well, you are also hasty, I am not asking you to do it for free. When I have the Temple, its service will be yours to use.”

Pearl was puzzled, “What kind of service can the Temple provide?”

“Well, you don’t have a theater by the sea?”

“Not really.” Pearl said.

Blue made some close-mouthed noise. For effects, or she was genuinely concerned, Pearl didn’t know, “Well, then I will give you my services and help you with whatever it is you are hiding.”

“I am not hiding anything.” Pearl shook out of her grip.

“You can call upon my debt anytime. Well, save for the New Year’s show. And I have important prior commitments in August. Other than that, I’m a letter away.”

“You are ridiculous.” Pearl said, “I don’t need whatever it is you are talking about.”

“Will you dance tomorrow, then? Don’t fall, and everything else is negotiable.” Blue smiled, straightening Pearl's skirt.

Pearl sighed, swatting her hands away, “Keep your words.”

Blue said, "Let's go."

"What."

"Wake up my dance partner, well, your dance partner for tomorrow. We got about 21 hours for practicing." Blue smiled, "I'm counting on you."

"I want to go to sleep." Pearl complained.

"I'm sure we can squeeze a three-hour nap somewhere." She pulled Pearl down, let her stand on the ground, then pushed her shoulders from behind. She said, sing-song "Now let's get going, we are almost late."

They went to Blue's dance partner's room. She was woken up from a good sleep, but she was a good sport about it. Blue left them in the studio, (the goal is to keep her on her feet, alright?) and went to wake up the pianist.

The dancer called Abime. She shook hands with Pearl.

"Take good care of me," Pearl said, in the usual decorum. Abime smiled, returned in like manner. She was the generous, cheerful type. Her lifts were remarkably stable. She had brown hair and brown eyes.

"Well, what a tough spot we are in right now, but Blue is sure we would be able to pull it off."

Pearl smiled, but the corner of her mouth twitched, "Sometimes I'm afraid she was too confident."

Abime laughed, "Well, I heard you played Giselle for your graduation, and you did it well. It will all work out, I heard people never forget their graduation role "

Pearl smiled, in poorer humor, "Something like that, though I hope I can make new memories about the role."

Chapter Text

They got a good twenty-one hours of practice, and at midday, Pearl had a three-hour nap. In the afternoon, they rehearsed with the full cast. Afterwards, more private practice with Abime. An hour before the show, she got dolled up in the record time of twenty minutes (hair extensions took the longest) and now, she was waiting at the wing.

She could see the house, the stalls curved upward, the circle on top of it, bending down as it approached the stage. Of course, the house is full. The royal sisters took the premium seats at the center, their court trailing behind. Glimmering in their silk dresses and stiff collars, they adorned themselves with their finest jewelry, diamonds as big as an almond on their fingers. It was lucky that the dress code loosened. Plain gaudy if the audience were color-coded.

The theater was calling through the speakers, and the audience was settling down. Attention, it said, the performance will start in five minutes.

Pearl played with the costume. She picked up the skirt in her palm, and let it fall down. It was fine, trailing like water. When she spun around, it billowed like a cloud. Glittering gems and shiny threads. Blue said she looked fine, before showtime, in a good mood. Pearl had asked why she got stage makeup on, which Blue ignored.

Giselle's costume used to be a pastel purple-pink thing, with bows around the neckline. It looked so sweet, accentuated nicely with the corp dancers' muted yellow skirts. Now, the bodice is blue, stiffer, and the skirt pale gray-blue. Streamline and smooth. The character’s direction was refinement rather than innocence.

Abime had left her to go to the other wing, and she got a sepia shirt that flattered her brown eyes. Their practice went out smoothly. They listened to each other’s ebb and flow, and made efforts to match it. They were shy and careful with the lift, the turn, but it worked out. They had wished each other luck before assuming the position. Pearl would enter from the left side of the stage, while Abime from the right. Now, she can see her on the other side. Abime raised her fist, shaking it, another gesture of good luck. Pearl smiled, returned it in like manner.

The light went off. The orchestra started with the violin. The bow chafed against the strings, somber, wistful, and now it’s time for the show.

Cheerful, wind instruments started. The curtain raised, the dancing villagers went on stage in pairs and groups. Hands on the small of their dance partners’ backs, hopping across the stage. They raised their hands, introducing the scene: a remote village, clear air, green grass, brown huts, a wooden bench, and little daisies. Hilarion, a gamekeeper, pointed at her door, gesturing around his face: he praised her loveliness. He came to put a red bouquet on Giselle’s door, having taken a fancy for her.

Abime entered the stage as Albretch, and the audience cheered and welcomed her. Proud, pompous, smile, big steps, chest forward. She hid away her cloak and her sword, knocking on Giselle’s door. She had also found Giselle lovely.

It was Pearl’s note. When she entered the stage, the audience cheered for her. Smile, raise your eyes. You've got a sweet face, you would look just fine on stage. Address the audience, jump, and turn. Listen to the music, catch your notes, and look for the one who called for you. Remember to smile. Look at her eyes, brighten up.

The next fifteen minutes were cheerful, upbeat, sweet music. Giselle met Albetch, they played cat-and-mouse, and teased each other.

You took a liking to her, of course, there would be no story otherwise, but what a dry reason. A world apart from reality, your ripe loveliness: Your heart was ready for love, long for it, like your feet want to dance. You complained to your mother, you were sick because she did not let you dance.

You two played a game with the daisy, counting its petals. You were distressed when done counting. Stand up, run away, to the other side of the stage, close to your house. Shoulder down, and head bowed: it just made the loveliest line ever. You were upset because the petal said she did not love you. Ah, too long and excessive, the petal said: no love. Yes, this is more succinct and truer.

Albetch came to you, she counted the petals again, but did it backwards. You had gone clockwise, and she counterclockwise. Doesn’t matter. She pointed at the last petal held to the stalk by a vein. This means I love you, she said. You were overjoyed, taking her hand. Giselle and Albetch danced together at the village festival. It was sweetness itself, fresh joy of youth, like ripe fruits. It was plump under your nail, a little graze, and it would burst open (Pink). All of you fall for it. Lying down, back pressed on the grass. Never been so giddy. You and your friends, young folks, barely old enough to drink, but the bite of this juice? You would never get that drunk again.

You danced happily for a while, but you are not supposed to, it’s bad for your frail heart. From your hut, your mama entered the stage. Your friends covered for you, but she made her zigzag way to this side of the stage. Albetch hide you behind her back, very cute, but your mama snatched you.

It’s goddamn fucking Blue, having all the audacity in the world to play a concerned mama. Wow. You smile, you have to, all the better for the performance if it was all too wry. The Capital mob would hate you, just after Blue Diamond. They would be aghast that Blue Diamond made their prima ballerina do an acting role. In her dab, her walk looked better than that of the corps.

You tell her you have been dancing, hopping in circles for her. Giselle’s mama told her not to, sweet girl, your heart, your heart. Some drama followed, Albetch was worried, Giselle told her not to. You went back to your hut in your mama’s arms. You two came to the stage’s wing.

“That was pretty good.” Blue smiled, pleased, and breathed loudly. The performance, in itself, excited her. Her role was not physically demanding.

“You must be joking me.” Pearl gestured to her costume.

Blue giggled, “I don’t see why not.” She wrapped Pearl in her arms, “We will see the night through, and you went your merry way! Give me a smile, it’s a cheerful night, and you have really helped me out. Your Diamond and your friend would also be dazzled.”

Pearl did not have a reply for that. They were handed chairs and water, looking to the stage from the wing. Albetch was notified of the aristocrat’s hunting party, and she ran away to hide. Hilarion found her hidden sword and cloak. He got a plan.

The hunting party arrived in the thick and fine dress. The villagers welcomed them. They knocked on Giselle’s door. Blue went to the stage first, giving them a warm greeting, she went back for Pearl and led her out by the arms.

You went out and welcomed them. You admired the lady’s fine things. You told her of your love, and she was charmed. She told you of hers, saying hers was a handsome one. She gave you a necklace, and you bowed to her.

You lead a couple to the middle of the stage to dance on your behalf. The dance was cheerful, and you liked the nondescript name, peasant’s dance for two, your supposed room and board. Well, now there were more things in the deal.

After the dance, the aristocrats resided in Giselle’s hut. The farmer returned, they started to dance, and were soon joined by young boys and girls. It was overly cheerful. They clapped for Giselle, called her out, and wanted her to play with them. You enter with their call. You want to dance, you hug your mama lightly by the shoulders. Humoring you, she gave a go-ahead.

You flaunted your youth and beauty. Your grace and balance. Twirling, you moved from this side of the stage to the other, balancing on one foot, and your hand reaching out for your friends. Playful, cheerful. Be on your toes, lift your skirts. Raise your eyes, audience, smile. Moving in quick, small steps across the stage. Arms flourish, head tilt. You made it to the other side of the stage, and a twirl accentuated it like a bow on top. Berries, candy, sugar-coated jellies. The audience cheered for you. You did well, you were very sweet, graceful, and controlled. Your turn was like a bow tugged open, smooth satin grazed against itself, a gift opened, trumpets blared, and seven-colored confetti fell from the sky.

They applauded your beauty. Cheers filled the theater's roof. You bowed, bent a knee, and crossed your chest. They would see the one vertebra of your neck. Their applause continued, you bowed another time, and left the stage.

The next time, you entered with Albetch. You grinned ear to ear, the audience wouldn't mind if you were too eager: She was just wonderful. You two are going to dance with your friends, and that might as well be your wedding feast. You would take it if she gave you a daisy ring.

However, Hilarion came between the two of you. He was furious, serious, with something cruel under his eyes. He curtsied with Albetch, and dare you. He asked if you love her, and even a question insulted you. It was beyond doubt, obvious like the air they breathe. You told him that you do, so so very much.

Hilarion left, and you two embraced again. It’s nice to be held, her arms wrapped around you, solid, making you warm, the theater was a little chilly, breathing cool air around your nape. However, Hilarion separated you two with a sheathed sword. Tame brown leather, glinting steel, and studded amethysts. He poked it between you, hilt first, and its metal chafed against your arm. The cold came as an electric shock, you jolted backwards.

Hilarion told you it was Albetch’s, a coward, a liar, a noble playing peasant. She dressed in rags to fool you, Hilarion seethed. She didn’t love you enough, he said, she was not poor, he mocked. Ludicrous, you spat at him. You didn’t believe him. Would die if you were. Oh, the anger made your face hot and your neck tight. If you got a sword, you would use its sharp end. You ran to Albetch, then to your mama, swaying, swaying, quick feet, bigger steps, no smiling now, lost and confused. Your mama held you again.

Hilarion blew Albetch’s horn, calling the other aristocrats. They flooded in quickly and recognized Albetch, she was one of their own. They greeted her, held her hand, asked why she was here, and whether she had been here all this time. Albetch turned meek. She didn’t answer. She didn't move, hands by her body, wouldn't even look, insipid as a wooden toy. You doubted she even heard anything. She smiled, kissing the hand of her betrothed, all five fingers bejeweled. Red, red, yellow, a hint of sapphire blue, red again, a tasteful palette. (More than that she kissed.)

You came between them, claiming Albetch, and pointing to your ring finger, a bare bony finger. (you have not yet had a ring to show for it) (still a mockery for all parties if you do have one).

The lady did it back to you, pointing at her ring finger, a real diamond sparkling, head tipped up. She did it more forcefully, more convincingly. You were aghast. You begged her, you begged Albetch, holding her face in your hands, forcing her to look at you. You counted the daisy, and she counted it again. Love was declared, love was there in the bright and sweet air. She didn’t react, wouldn’t even look at you, standing still, and you hated it. You stumbled backward. Get away, get away.

Hands raised to the sky, flailing, groping. You throw away the necklace. You spun, stumbled, clumsily. There’s no grace now, you were beyond humiliated. Yanking your nice hair-do, mess it up. You wanted to explode, spilling out, extruding out. Your hair would not do in a neat comb. You wouldn’t do any more in this neat body. You were growing wings and thorns, it started at the base of your throat, at the curve of your shoulders.

A full body blow betrayal. You were lied to. You were so willing to give everything to her. You thought that it would pay off. You didn’t bite the ripe fruit in the hope that it would kill you. You should have known better?

Falling, face-first, on the ground, close to your house, at the other end of the stage. Your mama came to you. She cooped you up in her arms, holding you. The orchestra stopped for a beat, then picked up with a somber violin.

(When their face were so close to each other and safely outside of the audience’s view, Blue grinned, positively elated. Pearl wondered if Giselle was mad enough to slap her own mother.)

However, you stood back up and walked away, even from your mama. You ran around the stage, making a show of your madness. You picked up the daisy again, making a case for your indignation. Two thousand judges were sitting in a semi-circle, silent, looking down at you. Should you know better? You have counted it, the petal has said no love. Well, you thought you had counted wrong. All too willing to believe you have counted wrong, and there’s love, of course, there is love. What else of life if there were none? The love was real, materialized in the littlest of flowers.

Your heart was ripe for love. Now, yours was a bell, the thump of betrayal like a little hammer, pointed at one end. It hit the bell rhythmically, but was getting faster by the beat. Clink clink clink, clang clang clang, you heard it, and you were in so much pain.

A full body pain, from your neck down to your chest, and to the end of every limb. It seized and it pierced and it shook. It came for you, sharp, pulled back, and made another hole, seesawing back and forth, but in balance. You were a log about to be cut in half. A gaping fish on the butcher block, first went your fin, your tail, a line on your belly pulling out the guts, gunk, and a clean tear for your spine. Last the head, one chop, and done. Procedures written in the butcher's book. It’s always been like this, you have been warned, you have been taught. If Albetch managed to give you a ring, she would come back with a kitchen knife and a paper with your signature on it, pointing at the dashes. You were willing to give all of yourself, and your lover came to take what was their due.

Run for the sword, you were going to make even your pain. But it was impossible to make even with this type of pain. You could only make it physical, make it real, material. You hadn’t got a ring to show, the love was abstract. You should have a hole in your body instead. This pain was very real.

But Albetch ran to you, snatched the sword away. She got a hold of its hilt, you were going to push the sharp end on yourself. You stumbled backward again, too many things to run from but nowhere to go. Poor you, the whole audience commiserates. Poor me, you thought. You walked backward and slammed into the lady with her fine things, Albetch one of them. You had weak eyes and a stupid head. Albetch loved the lady’s dress more than you.

You ran the other way, back to your mama, face-first, on the ground, again. You were pinned down, you were poor. Humiliated. Your pride was uncalled for, the grace you aspire to was out of your reach. They jeered that they don’t love you all that much. Your mama picked you up, from under the arms. She pulled your hair back, smoothed it out, and made you stand up. She led you by the arm to your house.

However, you hear something, a wistful whistle, high and sinuous, calling from afar. They were calling for you, and what’s promised was not sublime happiness, sweet fruit, but still, some kind of cheer. You strained to hear it again. You danced to it, can’t help it. You were asked to.

Sharp pain in your chest. Bowed down, shoulder down, hands on your head, face dipped down, and raised up. The light dazzled your eyes, but you stared straight up, mouth agape. The audience gasped. You gaped for air. Bend down, be on your knees, swaying around, the mad song got you in a hook.

Be back on your feet one last time, as the orchestra pitched up, drama like thunderstorms. Falling, swaying, smiting. You ran around the stage, and people caught you in their arms. Your friends. Oh, don't. Hilarion. Your pitiful girl. He pointed to your mama, who waited for you with open arms. Come, come. You ran for her again, tonight, you had done it many times but never quite reached her, and had not yet know rest. You slammed into your open arms, and there's victorious music. Your mama's chest puffed up, and about to let go a sigh of deep relief.

However, once again, as two different madnesses mixed, you were back in Albetch’s arms. One arm reached up, head raised, back ramrod straight. Light filled your face. You reached up, reached up, then you fell down, on your back this time, clattering like a log. That is the end of your first act.

~~~~~

Well, that’s the end of the first act. It was only another minute until the curtain fell, and then a twenty-minute interval. The rest of her role was more like a stage prop. Eyes closed, face still, and body stiff, Abime tried to pick her up, pressed your body into hers. Blue (Giselle’s mama) came and pushed her away. She did it with some force, and Abime fall back dramatically.

Blue held her face in her palms, caressing it. Caldera (the lovely dancer who played Hilarion) was pulled in front of Giselle’s dead body, Abime pointed a finger at his face, almost jabbing it in, and blamed him. Caldera did it right back at her, finger to the middle of her brow, more forcefully and convincingly. Abime backed down, shoulders up, head down, cowering into herself as she stumbled backwards. She picked up the sword, took big steps across the stage, pointing its sharp end at Caldera’s face.

The student who played Albetch’s servant bodily stopped her. Abime let go of the sword. She crouched down, about to embrace Giselle’s body one last time. Blue raised a flat palm, signaling rejection.

Abime ran to the corps, and they turned their back on her. She turned to Pearl another time, but Albetch’s servant got her, covered her in the cloak. He pulled Abime back, Abime shook, rejecting, but then she stood still, shell-shocked. Wooden doll shocked. Raise her eyes, hollow eyes sucked a breath out of the audience, arms crossed on her chest. The student pulled her back again, and this time Abime went with her.

One last elongated note of the bass, and the curtain fell. Pearl lay still another minute, the curtain would be raised back up, and the whole cast would be in poses, receiving applause. The audience hollered and cheered, and the theater vibrated with it. A generous reception, chaotic at first, then hands clapped to a beat. Bravo bravo.

The curtain fell another time, this time for real, and would stay closed for the interval. All the dancer breathed, relaxed minutely, touching their friends’ arms. Pearl opened her eyes, just in time for Blue’s hearty smack on her cheek.

“Well done!” She tittered, breathless. Her face flushed, and she got the biggest grin ever. Pearl made a face, swatted her face further, and pushed her away. Blue laughed again, elated on the stage high, turned to the corps, and congratulated them on a job well done.

Abime offered her an arm, and she pulled Pearl back up on her feet. She smiled, likewise flushed and breathless, “Well done. You were terrific.”

“You too.” Pearl grinned, toothily. “Very exquisite, very charming. Real dashing to see, with your brown eyes and brown hair. I really bought it when you said you love me.”

Abime laughed, a belly laugh. Wow, stage high was a common condition. Looking at Pearl with twinkling eyes, she said, smiling ear to ear, “But I really did, I really did. Isn’t this the whole point of the story? I did love you, there was some love going around. You have to remember that, you are going to forgive me in the second act.”

Pearl made a face, teasing, “I don’t know, should I? I was made a ghost for my grudge. Forgive so easily?”

Blue jumped behind Pearl, clasping both hands on Pearl’s shoulders, “Remember to forgive!” She said, cheerfully.

~~~~~~

Pearl went to change her costume, a white dress with mid-calf skirt, flutter with each step. The wispy sleeve hung across her upper arms. She touched up her makeup, her face must be whiter, her lips more pale, and pronounced eyeliner.

She went back to the wing. Blue had changed out of her costume, she was wearing her formal dress, a stiff dark blue thing. She wanted to take the bow as a director. Blue waved for her, but Pearl moved to the other side of the wing. She settled down to watch the performance. The second act just started.

The stage light an eerie blue, and the backdrop is bare branches superimposed over each other. The leafless forest dark and uninviting, had been enchanted and abandoned for a thousand years. Left side of the stage stood Giselle’s grave, she was buried here because before her death, she shamed herself with her madness. It was harsh, she was adored when she lived, so now Hilarion came to visit her grave, he pitied her.

His friends yanked him back, saying it was a bad idea, the forest was haunted by ghosts. Staying here this late, they would snatch you and kill you, man. The orchestra picked up the pace, ominous, erratic music. Hilarion’s friends scattered, running for their lives, but Hilarion stumbled and was caught.

Myrtha entered, she was played by a professional a few years older than Pearl, Cirque. Her Agate was under Blue Diamond’s court, and Blue was chummy with her, finding her charming, exquisite, and everybody agreed. Blue pulled all of her fitness to have her Agate stationed here for the show’s running time.

Wistful, mournful wind instrument preceded her. She moved across the stage on her toes, covered by a veil that almost reached her ankle. Like Giselle, she had died unfairly, and now she ruled the ghosts in this forest. She had held her grudge for many years already.

Cirque did her five minutes solo flawlessly. Blue rocked in her chair with excitement, when the audience applauded her, she joined in with them.

The corps dancer got into position on the wing. With Cirque’s call, they entered the stage, all forty-five of them, in identical white dresses. They made a lovely, eerie image. Blue looked to Pearl and waved at her. It’s time for Pearl to get into position. She was led underneath the stage, and she would shoot up from Giselle’s grave. The technician put the veil over her head and wished her good luck.

Underneath the stage is not dark, but there’s little to see, so Pearl listened to the music. The pair of ghosts had started dancing. Their music was eerie, but it was not exactly sad. It had quick and elevating parts, the strings pulled at their vigorous notes. Some ambiguity of a life given for vengeance.

Pearl sighed, their choice was an understandable one, and after death, they didn’t seem to lack the company of lovely girls or music to dance to. They were holding hands, hopping in circles. The audience would enjoy their presence. Yet she was playing a protagonist, and the part she played had to be even more lovely and strong.

The platform she was on was raised to the stage, and she stood in front of the grave. Around her were forty-five dancers lifting their arms, calling for her. Cirque came closer in big steps. She was holding a white flower branch, flicked it, and Pearl's veil was pulled away. Cirque stepped back, leaving her the stage’s center, and Pearl danced.

A short one, with vigorous music and high jump, established Giselle as a ghost, freed from the weight of her body. The music was almost triumphant, but Pearl kept a stone face, as Giselle was mourning her own death. She moved across the stage, standing on one leg, jumping and swirling to the other side, and posing on one leg. She ran back to the wing, and the audience cheered. The ghosts danced a short passage, and they retreated.

Abime entered the stage, her feet hovered just above the ground, almost scraping it. She was weighted down. She brought flowers for Giselle’s grave. A giant bouquet of white lilies, full-blooming, was held tightly between her arms. Laughable as the character’s remorse is, the picture they made is pretty.

Abime frowned, bent a knee, and hid her face between her hands. Her shoulders were shaking. She was making a show of her misery and boundless remorse. In the audience seat, a fair number would buy it and pitied her. Giselle is going to forgive her, Pearl sighed again. For what reasons should she forgive, to save herself a heart attack that was painful for ghosts? Or maybe all of love was not yet spent, despite the enormous mockery. It’s fine either way, she doesn’t need to know, she just needed to reenact her character’s steps.

Abime came closer, about to lay the flowers on Giselle’s grave, and it was Pearl’s note. She ran outside, quick steps of a ghost, and lightly, lightly, Giselle now had wings on her back. Transparent moth’s wings, paper-thin, not those of an angel. Flighty, came back to the wings as quickly as the whistle music from the orchestra.

She moved across the stage, swirling when she passed Abime, who appeared confused. Now, the characters are a world apart, so she can see nothing, just yet. Abime moved around the stage, looking for her, then was distraught when she got nothing. She knelt again.

Pearl came back out, dancing around her, teasing. Abime stood up, moving around, looking for her again, arms reaching.

At last, she caught Pearl, holding her by the waist, and lifted her. It was remarkably stable and Pearl didn’t have anything to worry about. She was almost at rest in her arms, but she must pose, arms curved upward over her head, her raised arms shaped an arch.

Abime lowered her down, and they danced together. More mournful, more private, and the moves were of greater symmetry. They were linked by the arms, flourished with the other free one, and joined back again. They cross each other in a pattern of symmetry, accentuated by a jump at the end of their course. Giselle one-upped Albetch for having been dead, and now they are equal. They danced for ten minutes, a sentimental passage, Pearl gave the kneeling Abime two white roses and some more. No smiling now, Abime looked at her full of love and sorrow, engulfed, she was thinking she pulled her down this grave for real. They left the stage, Pearl first, Abime followed.

Caldera (Hilarion) entered the stage, a dozen ghosts followed him, then another dozen appeared. He trespassed into the forest, and they were not merciful. The ghost circled him, and he danced erratically, snappily in it. He had to dance until he fainted, die, and was carried off the stage.

Abime (Albetch) is the second of the ghosts' accusations. She was brought before the queen, and the other ghosts stood sentinel and witnesses. Similar to Caldera, she was on her knees, hands lifted up, and begging Cirque (Myrtha) for forgiveness. For trespass alone, she would have been sentenced, but she begged anyway. Myrtha was not made for mercy, so she turned the other way.

Pearl, who played Giselle, the titular character, ran to the stage, wedged herself between Myrtha and Albetch. First, she raised her hand and begged also, the lines of her arms smooth and animated like water flowing, but Myrtha stayed unsmiling, she turned the other way. Then, stepping backwards, she pressed herself to Albetch. She used her incorporeal body as a shield, defying Myrtha’s order. The ghosts circled them, the offense grand, and now both of them must dance as a punishment.

Giselle came to the center of the stage, hands crossed before her chest, she bowed her head to Myrtha, thankful, and started dancing. A slow, mournful, technically challenging passage. She raised her leg slowly above her hip, above her head. She moved it backwards, turning around on one leg. They can see the stability of her form, the sculpt of her body, that the muscle between her shoulder blades bulged up, but at the same time smooth, calculated, and graceful. A sculptor had spent a great amount of time on her.

Albetch came to her to dance with her. Holding her by the forearm and the wrist, she steered Giselle’s turn. Hands on her waist, she lifted her above her head. They came to Myrtha, Giselle’s hands reached out, but Myrtha didn’t stir.

The ghosts separated them, but they reunited right back. They continued dancing, it was their famous passage. Ebb and flow, up and down, separated then back together. (It would have translated better if you were there.) As they danced, they asked for mercy from the ghosts and from the queen of the ghosts. They would like Albetch, who is still alive, to come back in one piece. It was to no avail. The passage finished, but the corps was still unmoved. However, the audience moved, they applauded the dancers heartily. The dancer who played Giselle came back to the stage to bow her thanks.

It was time for Albetch’s variation. Myrtha commanded her to dance, and she danced. It was pompous, grand music, like trumpets at a wedding feast, and the dancer who played Albetch executed it right on the pomp, but minus the smile. She jumped high, with big steps moving across the stage. Her performance was bisected by a beg for relief, but Myrtha raised her hand, looked the other way, and told her to keep going. Albetch had to obey, she danced until she fainted, falling on the floor, face-first.

Giselle’s second variation, she came before Myrtha, laid flowers on her feet, asking for mercy. Before receiving an answer, which would be another refusal, she came back to Albetch, touching her hand, almost lifting her back up. Albetch stirred but she could not stand up. Giselle went to the stage's center and danced for her behalf. It was grand, but an undercurrent of ambiguity, bitterness ran beneath it. Quick jumps, but no smiling. The composer was always particular about their female love.

Giselle and Albetch exited the stage. The corps danced, they were not done, their annoyance unanswered. They lift their hands and call Albetch outside. Albetch appeared, breathless. Myrtha gave her final command, eyes hard, shoulder down, the cross of her forearms was absolute. Death is the verdict.

Albetch started jumping in place, thirty-two times, worn out and half mad, she is going to die like this. She was about to, stumbling, swaying, her ankle weak, and her legs tired.

Giselle appeared again, caught her, and danced with her. She was keeping her alive, somehow, in any way, had to keep her breathing first, her eyes open, blood running in the arteries, before other measures. The corps dances joined them, and they danced together, but the ghosts operated in different physics. They can keep on dancing, when Albetch fell, limp. She lay supine on the stage.

Seemed like she was dead, gone for good, went away forever, to a colony of ghosts who would welcome her. Myrtha checked her heartbeat and appeared pleased. It’s almost morning, and the ghosts had no morning’s light cut out for them, so they left.

Yet, Giselle had already forgiven her, and the story is beneath her will, as any good one should. She knelt in front of Albetch’s limp, reclined body. She touched her shoulders and managed to raise her sitting up. Arms across Albetch’s body, moving lightly with her, rocking her like a child, and the life was held back. Her breath and blood were given back. Life's strength regrew. Kneeling, Albetch held Giselle’s skirt hem, caressing it against her cheek, adoration in her eyes. She stood up again.

They danced gently with each other for a minute, but Giselle must also leave. She went back to her grave, gave Albetch one last white rose, and sank beneath it. Sunlight appeared, lighting half of Albetch’s face. She went to the center of the stage, kneeling down, eyes raised up, addressing the audience. Her eyes were hollow, then they were filled with light. She adored the flower, touched the petals lightly with her thumb, and let it go. The audience applauded, and the curtain fell. It was the end of the show.

~~~~~~~

The curtain fell, and Pearl was breathless, worn out by the physical demands of the show. But Blue came close to her, wrapped her in her arms, and gave her cheek a wet smack. Pearl did not find the strength to swat her away. She even turned her head to Blue, angling her face better for the kiss. Lightly touch her by the arm, and smiled. That soon turned into a grin, ear to ear, almost grimacing.

Yes, the stage got her. It was exhilarating, breathless. Out there, she had been flying and being showered with light. The joy thrust, her blood jumping, her breath became erratic, and she giggled. Blue gave her praises between breathless kisses. Pearl hugged her back. Ah, just for one night.

Around them, the corps lined up. They went to the stages to bow to the audience, bid good night, good year, and the like. The curtain rose again, and the house went down with applause, a standing ovation. They were good, they were awesome, the show was brilliant. Sparkling confetti fell down from up high, high whistle raised over clapping. Many bouquets had been lined up and would be sent for them.

Pearl was looking toward the house, trying to find a familiar face. Come on, it would not be that hard, the Diamonds’ seats are conspicuous, and she couldn’t have been far behind. As Pearl craned her neck, grabbing the curtain to not keel forward, Abime came to her.

Cirque, Caldera, and the other soloists were moving to the stage for their bows, in a minute, it's going to be their turn. She took Pearl’s hand, she would walk out with Pearl. Pearl squeezed it, her free hand flung over Abime’s shoulder, and gave her a cheek kiss.

“That was—“, she tittered, breathless, her eyes watered, but she could still see Abime’s grin, “So good! We were so awesome.”

Abime laughed, agreeing with her, clapping Pearl’s back. Some tears glinting on her eyelid, but she wiped them away, and walked Pearl out in time for the bow. They entered from the lower left, the corps parted way for them in the middle, and they moved to the stage's front.

First, they bow to the audience (the reception is crazy), then they bow to each other. Abime held Pearl’s hand between both of hers, kissed it reverently, respectfully. Forgetting the decorum, Pearl giggled out loud, she looked at her fondly.

She would have hugged her another time, given her hand a kiss, or maybe two, to one-up her, but Abime pointed her to the right side of the stage. Blue entered, and Pearl went to greet her, leading her by the arms to the stage's center. Perfect picture of loveliness, of success’s giddy sparkle, and tonight, at this moment, it was very true and real. They were all drinking sparkling wine out of the same cup, and for a moment it made them sublimely happy.

The orchestra’s conductor entered from the other side, and Abime gave him a similar fanfare. Blue and the conductor bowed to the audience, then took a step back to where the leads and the soloist were waiting. They linked hands, bowed another time. The cheer was getting louder, and at the last second, almost deafening. The curtain fell down, and this time it concluded the night.

She hugged Abime again, gave both of her cheeks kisses. She turned around, grabbed Blue by the waist, lifted her up, and twirled her around. Around them was the same merriment, they hollered and cheered for each other, congratulating their friends and themselves. It was the highest of the flood, sweet-smelling sweet-tasting glittery flood, then they ebbed down, ebbed down slowly.

Blue looked at her in the eyes, grinning, “You know what, you can call for me in the summer. You earn it.”

Pearl said, “I would tap on my debt now and make you always a lovely one, you think it’s possible?” It was a tease, a half-hearted tease, her smile was genuine.

She looked around the wing again, looking for Jasper. Come on, come to meet Pearl, give her praises, sweet words, and tell Pearl she was truly dazzled. Come lift her up and sway her around. Is she going to make Pearl walk to her seat with her toe shoes on? They clattered. Around her were all light, if Jasper came, she would share some would her, smoothing her brows to get troubles out of it. Their trip would have a high note, some merriment. The next day, hours counting down from now, they would be on their way home! Isn’t that joyous, Pearl vibrated, jumped on the spot. Oh, she would lift Jasper up herself.

However, her much-missed friend came heavy, burdened, and slow, like a prisoner with a mountain fettered on their ankles and shoulders. Looking at Jasper was like being submerged underwater, Pearl was doused real quick with reality. The shock of almost frozen seawater immobilized her for a second, but then she raised above, sucked a breath, cooled, and was calm again.

She came to Jasper, whose head hung heavy. She held her face with both her hands, lifting her head. She could have murmured what’s wrong, but Jasper went first. She was ready with her words, she was tugging on Pearl’s favor, which Pearl had given her words for the other day. She told Pearl that White Diamond whispered something to Pink, making her walk out and leave, visibly distressed.

Chapter Text

“What’s happening here?” Blue said, a little edge in her voice. Still holding Jasper’s face, Pearl turned around.

She saw Blue not smiling, her eyes guarded. She was edgy, Jasper spoiled their perfect mood, already short-lived as it was.

Around them, most of the dancers and audience had cleared out. They were moving to the Temple’s hall, where a feast was happening. An hour away from now, the Diamonds will lead the way to the modern gods’ temple.

Pearl smiled, wryly, saying, “I got this job thing to do. I will go now.” She sighed, “This is probably our goodbye. I will write to you sometime.”

“ Aren’t you having a sudden chill and have to sit out of the ceremony?” Blue said.

“A small change of plan,” Pearl said, “Cover for Pink Diamond and me the best you can? She went out for some air, I will get her back.”

Blue made a face. Last touch on the hollow of her neck, Pearl let go of Jasper.

She walked past Blue, clapping her back, but did not wait to hear her protest. Blue held her back by the arm. She told Pearl to change her shoes and handed her a pair of blue slippers. Pearl thanked her, it was a sensible thing to do, she probably needed to run.

“You are pale,” Blue said. Pearl sit down and changed her shoes. They were probably Blue’s, and they fitted her snugly. It’s strange how similar their physique are

“Nerves,” Pearl said, standing up, smiling. Cold brood they are, even that was already too much.

She walked out of the stage’s wing, to the house, and moving fast across the rows of chairs. The remaining audience recognized her, they put their hands out, clapping her shoulders, wanting to hold her back. They were about to tell her she was dazzling, darling, she just looked so good, danced so well. Pearl moved past them. She slipped off the hands clinging, sidestepped the people blocking, and made their words noises. Indiscernible. Focus, as she was charged with a mission.

She made it to the theater’s entrance. Outside was crowded, dancing, music, and merrymaking. Tables were placed from the hall to the garden, piled high with food and wine. On the other side of the garden, a band gathered. They fanned out in a semi-circle, their flute sharp, and their fiddler was fiddling something jolly.

The Diamonds were there, holding their elegant drinks. Their court crowded them, flattered them. Chatters, laughters. Many hands were about them, some were bending on one knee. The court held the diamonds’ skirts’ trains, about to lift them close to their face, admiring. Muted and monotonous, then sparkling yellow, radiant blue. They were diamonds, they looked like themselves, so forgive her vague images.

Pearl would pay them no mind, but their light was intrusive, like a flashlight straight to her eyes. So bright, White and white light. Light on the diamond, brightened and refracted on a thousand angles. Pearl would like to smash it broken, but focus, focus, she reminds herself, grinding her teeth. Remember what you were charged with.

Eyes forward, chest forward, move, one leg after the other, then forget the flesh and limbs, just smooth motion. A wheel freed downhill. (Perpetual motion). Her heart was like the axle, willing her body to make a balanced way down. Pearl tore her eyes away from the diamonds, turned to the dimmer surface, the unlit side of the garden, to ease her eyes.

However, after the brightness of diamonds, before the night, in her eyes, appeared a ghostly residue of pearly white. Why is there pearly white?

Terror seized her like a tightening rope. Pearl stopped so quickly she almost fell. But she put a leg forward, her feet slammed down, sending pain up her knee. Pearl winced, but she turned to look. White Diamond is far away, she was looking at other things, grinning, and raising her cup.

On White’s hip is a new belt, metal forged, inlaid with silver and sapphires. The studded gems were in a grid pattern, and close to her left hipbone was a lustrous white pearl, as big as a baby’s fist. It was undermined by the sapphire’s sparkle, but anyone who had eyes to see would know it’s a very fine one, a beauty to behold. A grain nursed with a thousand years of patience, held in its mother's tongue.

White moved, swayed her hip, and the belt shone seven colored lights. The aura of fortune: it was embedded with magic.

They got hold of magic, not in themselves (those are long dead), but in their items. Finely forged weapon that blessed strength. The eye of the Spires’ master. Invisible cloak. Talking birds. Crystal tears. Mostly, they were for ruling and fighting, Pearl couldn’t be so charmed by the past that she forgot they were also people. However, this one, finely made, wrapped itself with ancient light, luxurious, only to give White added loveliness.

If White were looking at her now, she would bare her teeth and her red tongue. Fingers brushing across the lovely pearl. Oh, someone hold her back, say to her ears, and point to her friend who witnessed her words, Pearl was slipping away.

Suddenly cold with a chill like fearing of falling, Pearl turned catatonic. She should back down, but she can’t move or shield her head. She was afraid of a rain of rocks.

Sickly breath by her nape, and Pearl knew, biting, shouting, falling, she was hounded again. They clung to her back. Arms draped over her shoulders, ghostly body pressed on her back. Just surface contact, their body would be soft if they were not so cold. They leaned close.

“You are too late,” the girl sighed to Pearl's ears, wetly, “I told you so.” Commiserating (it is Heloise).

“You think she's dead? It certainly looks so. Would she be able to put up a fight before she was killed?”

“You are supposed to fight for her.” Briar appeared.

“You should have come for the sword on the day it meant anything at all,” Heloise said.

“The hall is lofty and bright, and so many soldiers lined up, and their weapons are for your choosing. Their whips, black boiled leather with thorns. Doubles-edged swords, tempered steels, finely sharpened. You could have taken it from Jasper, even, she wouldn't mind. Oh, maybe you missed your spear. I missed it too, pretty thing, and it’s yours, its magic had taken your name, which won’t happen another time. Do you know where it is?”

“It had probably been destroyed.” Briar said, voice also mellow, “If I were her, I would snap it in half.”

“Pity, she used to love you so.”

“Pity indeed, and now you couldn’t even move.” Briar smiled, “Are you forgetting anything?”

“Don’t say that, you think you are so nice?” Heloise grimaced, “She is hard to pin down, you know. That day, on White’s tower, you ran from us so quickly.”

She sighed, “Now, you are still, I hardly ever see it. Even back in the day (ten years ago), you liked to walk, in circles, but still.”

“I am nice,” Briar smiled even more sweetly, “Only you are not. You scold her too much, calling her a coward and a liar. What’s the matter if she was one? We don’t reach so high. Back in the day, she was promised relief and some kind of cheer. A bed to lie down. Even now, the offer stands. No matter what you think, I am not your enemy, I am your friend.”

“But you don’t move, even when teased with your promises. You are not strong enough to carry those. If you know better, you should refuse her. If she knows better, she should never asked.” One of them said, “You were so sick and you needed help. You remember it, the forest we were in, the tower you used to live in. What do we call it?”

“We just call it the Tower with an intonation.” The other answered, giggling, “At the doors, I asked you to strip naked, leave your clothes, and your little money. You have lost everything else, and you don’t have any jewelry on you.”

“Your clothes, your money, and your ring (she doesn’t have one, the other protested). Things that are not you and you cannot control. Rules written that you leave them, cure for your sickness. I was looking out for you, but you keep a vestige of your past, that why you defected. What is it that you smuggle in, was it a shred of your old clothes? Dirty thing, can’t cover anything. If you have a cut it won’t bind it. It was I who dressed your cuts and tried to make you well again. But you kept it to lick on it. That’s why you stayed sick.”

“You went back where they are,” another sigh, from another ghost? “Your case is especially hopeless. I thought we were done with them. They had killed you, whether out of cruelty or ignorance, the Tower didn’t keep note. But there’s proof that you are dead, more real than your promised ring: your grave they dug themselves, why you crawl out of it?”

The other agreed, “Your case is especially hopeless, but we will take you back. You will have some kind of cheers. You fooled us to ran away, but you fool yourself, too. You know it on everyday you score away, like a prisoner, but who is your guard? You are fooling yourself. But it's been too long, maybe even that had waned.”

“We will take you back.”

“Oh, let's do things properly this time. You, want your madness and illness stop, don’t take anything with you. For your sake, leave.”

“It would be a long way to the Tower.” Whiny.

“But you had always talked of the sea as if you were willing to go back on foot. It won’t be much different.”

“You were running in circles so close to your old home.”

“Your promises void: the Tower permitted it. If you don’t fault yourself for your promises, then nobody has the nerve. Forget the task you are charged with.”

Pearl was leaning heavily on her right foot, hunching forward, and grinding her teeth. She put all of her strength to ground herself, but still almost toppled over. She would cry like this, like a newborn baby, a friendless child. She cried a lot in the Tower, where no one was around. She had cried enough.

"No." Pearl breathed.

"No," she yelled, the word wrenched out from her gut. Spilled over her teeth, her lips. Rushing, hot, red. Yet sure, like a dagger piercing. She stabbed those ghosts.

Her whole body hurt and she saw red. Heloise and Briar told her to forget her promise, but she couldn't and wouldn't allow herself to. It was not chains, it was friendship and beauty and she moved for it.

Here is the list of beautiful things, in no particular order. Her task is one of them. On the grounds of their friendship, in her first understanding of bitterness, Jasper asked her. (A birthday gift). Pearl was asked to show grace. Not without weight that it was asked, and not lightly Pearl agreed.

Love is another one. Beauty's highest expression. You have been here, you know: Pearl wants love. She been wanting love since her Temple days. She believed in it. She thought it could triumph over all.

You know it was active, you couldn't imagine her without a fight anyway. She was mocked, questioned, and laughed at. Ever since her youth at the Temple, where the teachers were cynical. They had made her learn by heart the encyclopedia of survival, but they had balked at beauty.

Fifteen years ago, on the battlefields, on that band of glittering sand between the sea and the city. The sharp point of their lance on her body. Her opponents, wide-eyed Amethysts, fresh from school, young, hopeful, and crazy with love for Pink Diamond. Yet they were aghast at her thin frame and had asked what she doing.

Even on the windy seaside camp, before she had won her friends over, they questioned why she was here. After she had won them over, they asked again. Bismuth. Garnet. Are you sure? They mouthed, softly and worryingly.

Rose, that night, a sweet one, one among many of those nights. A quiet field and the grass was sweet-smelling. Before going for a kiss, Rose had hesitated and asked if she really wanted this. Pearl shoved her mouth in with eyes wide open.

Yes, she wanted this. She questioned herself, and it's love she put her bet on. And at that moment, with ripe-fruit love, pink horizon, and starlight, she was sure. She took a bite thinking it would be sweet. Eye wide open, she took a dive.

For years, she fought so well and so sweetly. She knew sublime happiness, she first learn to live fully. She praised the highest of beauty which is love. Their ace to triumph over everything, whether rich or poor. How fully human and high-minded she was! Like the first dove that took a dive. She soared above and learn to fly. It was worth it. It was so awesome. More than yourself you became.

She called from afar. You do not know if the voice came from under the cliff or above. Dive down! She called.

~~~~~~~

Would it make a good and finished story if she were happy forever ever since? Yet the story dragged out and multiplied. It turned cumbersome and incomplete. Ten years ago, that one night, in the heart of the rebellion's camp and their secret, Rose defected and betrayed her.

She held the sword, its sharp end pushed into Pearl's belly. It came through the whole body. A whole lot of pushing. Buckets of blood, spilling. Sloppy and thick. Emerald grass dyed red. Yes, they made it certain that there was a lot of blood. Her gut was pierced. Her death was slow. (You know how it actually happened.)

Pearl felt, wheezing for air, full-bodied pain. Her belief was defeated and she lost. She was sentenced to death for killing her.

At that time, she strayed into the Tower. She was put on trial when Briar took her clothes. What are your beautiful ideas? Heloise quip. Where is the high love you keep talking about? For what you kill, were almost killed, and were hurt so ever more? Is it real?

Questioned, yet again, Pearl defended it with words as much as she could, (it was not in this realm and she had nothing to show for it). She tried to draw, she tried to compose poetry. An evocation, like priestesses in their high-roof temple. She would copy their manners if she were not so sick of piety.

However, the Tower’s keepers were a materialistic lot. They exclaimed that her beauty was abstract. They declared her evidence invalid. Memories of many kisses. Sublime happiness. Love. These are not objects, they said. We don’t know your beauty.

And Pearl was in doubt herself. She was defeated and lost some thing. Probably the chunk that was pierced from her stomach. When they said she was not real, Pearl yielded to them. Yes, it was for that reason she was stuck in the Tower. They declared her sick and crazy.

Their cure was the bliss of death, administered in small doses. They claimed they are getting her better, and she conceded there is some truth in it. (It was in total misery and annihilation that she showed up at their door.) She took their doses and nibbled on them.

It tasted like nothing. It was the absence of misery and annihilation, the temple keeper cheerfully announced. It meant to keep her tongue wanting, and after enough time, she should get used to tastelessness.

Pearl nibbled on it for a long time, oh, but one night, she doubted their cure. Next week, she was petulant towards it. The next week, she was angry with her sickness. After another fortnight, she realized she missed her friends. Garnet won't cry for her anymore.

Licking on her little cloth (the Tower liked to blame it on some object, she was not sure if there was really one) for three nights straight, she imagined shattering White's face. Smash that jaw and gouge out her eyes. It breathed life into her. Pearl found her vengeance more delectable than the cure.

The next day, she realized she did not want death, even in its bliss, she wanted not-death: she started wanting everything again. She fooled the Tower’s keepers and ran away. Go back to where the other people were.

Yes, she remembered how it happened, and it would be easy to be freed, another time. She denied death and it was easy to move again. Shaking her left leg, pulling it, moving the first step forward, it was the hardest, and everything else got sweeter and easier. Like a blade of light and its wielder, shining the obvious, she ran.

~~~~~~~~~

She ran through the Temple's gate, dark metal spikes entangled with roses. The guards recognize her, six on each post. They called her back, their hands pulling, but they could not reach her. She moved past the temple's gate, making a straight way to the Capital's centerpiece, its figure shrouded in darkness. The streets are clear and quiet. When she reached the centerpiece, she turned left, and dashed to the Palace, glowing faintly in the darkness.

It’s all right, she was running so quickly and so well, like a dagger made of light, all-consuming. Making a straight way into dark flesh. Pushing and singing, gripping the supple handle. Digging deeper. A straight way down. Twisting. Nailing the dagger to the flesh. Exhilarating. This is what it was made for.

The Palace entrance was open, with two dozen guards on each side. Forty-eight people looked, but seeing her, they jolted backwards and let her pass.

Were they blinded by her brilliance, were they humbled before her mission? Pure being, light solidified and tempered sharp by the edge. They saw her and they envied her. Pearl tipped her head back and laughed, but she did not slow down. When her laughter stopped, she still had this big grin on her face that made her cheeks hurt. Yes, it seemed about right.

She moved past Pink's tower, to the Palace's second wall. A hundred guards sighted her, about to draw their swords, knowing her to be a threat. But upon seeing her, they withdrew. Took a step back, slinked to the darkness because they were humbled before light. They knew this mission was hers alone, and their smallness stopped them.

A dagger of light, and Pearl was all too willing if she was a weapon. Oh, she cannot see, but by the touch she can feel. Warm and wet. Taut resistance of flesh before it broke and gave and pierced. This is the right thing to do. She is the right one to do it. Her origin and upbringing were all prepared for this moment. The sky and its twenty-seven angels sing for her. The future is glorious.

She crossed Blue’s apartments and Yellow’s mansion. A legion of guards, but they cleared the way for her. Their face were of awe. One hand shielded their eyes, and the other was reaching out. Or some reached for their sword, but drew back, hands still.

Pearl was quicker than they were, and more focused. She was at home. The time came for her to show herself and be famous. She was a blade proud and upright, the others bent, half in love and half in fear. A star that showed its light, but dimmed it, for the sake of the beholders. It was grace that she pulled back, the beholder was willing to be shredded, and they were thankful for the light. Yes, Pearl laughed, if only she were that type of weapon, carrying that type of light.

However, you must remember the story is that of concealing, and the moment unripe, a stone fruit. Tonight, she just did right by her profession as a dancer, and three days before, Jasper, well. Their sweet love was mutual. In high esteem, they hold each other. But Jasper called her back to the Palace and its tower, on the place close to Pink's side, close to the ground and White's feet.

Acknowledging how it insulted her pride and choked her angry, Jasper asked for her favor. By Jasper, in the name of their friendship, Pearl was called back on service and duty, did right by her status as a pearl.

It's disheartening, you can cry for her, and many have. You can make it into a poem: it would likely be a long and confusing chant, not many people were of poetry aspiration. You cried out, we went so far, but the pain is so primal, naked as a newborn baby. You cried because the baby was an orphan, no parents to love, and the world was harsh and cruel.

The hypothetical poet would be aghast, holding their creation, a tired song. You don't want to sing anymore. What you are holding is a circular motion that went on for a thousand years. The surface tension is great and taut, and you need a sharp edge to break it.

There would be, there would be. Pearl is a hopeful person, and more than hope, she moved. Had she ever stood still, or was it always full-bodied movement? It was toward the chaos she ran.

At the end of the poem, you can not believe yourself, but you should believe her. She wanted to be alive. She had learnt many lessons of patience by heart, had been sentenced to death, and refused it. Had longed for love ever since her Temple days. You are in good hands, and you should keep singing for her.

She concealed herself, the dagger sheathed, and she assured you she was made of light. She took your bet (on love and life), and would liberate your world. Soon enough, soon enough. You would have happy things to sing for, she is not an idle speaker.

~~~~~~

However, she certainly looked like light now, with her dress so white it was shining. Like a flashlight, straight to the eyes, dazzle, but cold and artificial. She was a slender stroke of white. Long limbs, a small face, and a graceful frame. No need to ignore her beauty for propriety, when now it impressed.

The guards swayed under her forward movement. The white pearl, the one White Pearl. The master of this world cheated and chained her so. Madness hounded her, and she made her pious walk. People were humbled before her and her struggles to be free.

Likewise to Pearl. She moved past White’s tower, that horrible creation, like a spear that conquered the whole world.

The more Pearl hated the tower, the more she loved White Pearl. She ran around the tower three times, and three hundred guards swayed under her path. Oh, but White Pearl was not here. Where else could she be? No, you know it, in the Capital, their pool of choices was narrow. Everything was terrible, and they knew few places. Pearl made her way to the shrine of the old gods.

Now, be good and let her get this one nice thing. Some years afterwards, she would be pious again. She had been brilliant and willing, so prove themselves to her.

Pearl made her way up hill. The grass slumped under her feet. Is this her victory path? Would the path be beautiful and shining, that even verdant short grass would be springing to bolster her steps? Pearl wouldn’t know until she saw the other side. But she hoped so well and sweetly. Let it be her victory path.

Pearl was on the hilltop, she looked at the open landscape beneath, a pulsing living thing, eerily blue under the moonlight. Pearl saw White Pearl. (She doubled over)

White Pearl was upright, unseeing, walking in circles. Her mirror twin, her next of kin. Pearl’s very own hands had struck her down, put the nail in her shoes, and willed her to fall. She had fallen so deep and Pearl was forever condemned. Yet, she was alive, alive still. Five years, and ten years. Fifteen years already.

Pearl was blessed and forgiven, she exalted, you yourself keep living is not for nothing. You were given a chance to atone. You promised you would concede that gods are good.

Oh, Pearl dived down, headfirst, and fell under White Pearl’s feet. She was humbled, she was blinded. Back in the day, she used to be envious, but now she knew that she shouldn’t.

She was falling face-first on the ground close to White Pearl’s feet. Half sitting up, Pearl lifted her skirt hem and caressed it on her face. Open mouth, she made cries that were too crude to be adoration, but they are. She could not speak yet. Her words were failing, and they were ever so little and lacking. Pearl got to touch. She gathered White Pearl’s skirt in her arms. Head bowed and shoulders down, Pearl dived into white satin. She was kneeling down and she was truly humbled.

White Pearl was not seeing her, and Pearl was thankful for it. She didn’t stir, and Pearl was grateful. Even if she was well, don’t stir for Pearl at all, unless it was to execute the law. Pearl would be kneeling and bowing at that moment. Her law was good and absolute.

After a minute, White Pearl took a step forward and yanked her dress away. She didn’t know Pearl was on the ground clinging. She couldn’t see and couldn’t be bothered. She wanted to keep on walking, moving forward. Pearl was unwilling to let go. Planted her heels, Pearl hugged her knees harder. Legs shimmied under her grip. Her face pressed further into the dress, snuggled, but the fabric scratched her. Pearl would grovel, cry, and beg.

White Pearl wished to move. She found the forward path blocked so she took a step back. Pearl’s hand was wanting, clutching White Pearl’s dress. Gripping tight and shaking. White Pearl yanked it backward, and Pearl at last let go.

Pearl sat on the ground crying. Heads in hands. Tears streaming unbidden, her eyes and cheeks and nose hurt. Sobbing, coughing. White Pearl moved. She didn’t look back or register what happened. Her madness and unhappiness were too deep. And Pearl. She did not know why she cried. Overwhelmed, probably. Something inside leaking outside, demanded expression. But expression of what? Surely not grief. White Pearl was alive. Pearl should be thankful and happy.

And thankful and happy she was. When her tears ceased, Pearl found herself laughing. Belly laughed, tipping backwards. Her poor throat hurt worse. She fell on the ground again, but this time she was looking to the sky.

The night was so blue. The stars were twinkling, shining. They were suns from afar, afloat amiss nothing, abiding by the maths of the universe. Perfect abstraction of harmony, but they made the enormous mass move in circles, obeying the core. Oh, if only she could also make her abstract real. Her beauty was true.

Her tears ceased, her laughter ceased. Pearl sat up and stood up. Wiping her eyes, nose, and patting her throat. Took a deep breath. Sobered up, but her mood elevated. Like a runner after their finish line. A designer with their masterpiece. One who was charged with a task and finished it beautifully. Chest forward and steps reassured, Pearl walked to the shrine of old gods.

~~~~~~

Beneath the feet of the old gods, who proved to be capable of caring, Pink was lying prone.

She was in a pathetic state, her dress spoiled, her face tear-stained. She wheezed open mouth, her chest pulsing with each short breath, but none seemed to give air. Gasping, painfully, like dying. Her throat must be hurting. Hands clawing her heart, Pink was distrustful of her heart, and Pearl had lost words to defend it.

It’s past midnight, it’s the new year already. The first animal was on the altar to ask for grace, but it’s fine, it’s fine. Despite it all, Pearl found herself smiling. Not at Pink, the pitiful heap on the ground, not for her either. Just some sweetness and ease found a place in her, and expressed itself on her lips, her eyes. It’s short-lived, so indulge.

The other was lying prone looking at the sky, her back arched up, her hips and shoulder pinned. Her neck tipped backward, exposed. Pearl came to her view. Pink recoiled, like she was struck. Eyes wide. Hitching, air punched out.

“Why are you here?” She heaved, hateful. “What have I done wrong again?”

Pearl sighed, slinked closer to the ground, sitting on her heels. Shoulder stooped, head hung. She was closer, but Pink still got to look up at her. Although, she didn’t look, Pink hid her eyes, her face, and everything she could beneath her hands. Can’t stand looking. Can’t stand being looked at.

Pink cried out, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Hitching breath, words squeezed out of her, jolted up, then plummeted. After a minute, the sorry stopped. She cried quietly. Her breath was soft, eyes squeezed shut, and she cringed into herself. She wished to turn smaller, smallest, and slipped from everything unaware.

Pearl looked at the situation in her hands. What should be said, what’s left to be said between them? Their relationship was unsatisfying. They were unhappy. They had a stutter, they had to use void words. Unhappy was the absence of happiness. Unsatisfying was the wanting of satisfaction. They didn’t know what they were, but had learnt in a hard way what they were not.

In her short-lived joy, let Pearl show some grace. Hearing Pink’s accusations, Pearl realized something, a facet of their relationship. It’s new because they never talk. But it’s true, so Pearl told her, “You can hate me.”

She said, amused, “I don’t mind. I have wanted full-bodied love, and only that. Everything else is the same.”

“I don’t hate you.” Pink said fitfully. Another header of what they were not. If they lived forever, maybe they would come to an answer.

Pearl’s reaction was slow. She was numb to this province. She blinked and looked at Pink, who averted her eyes. What was she here for? What were they all here for? They were in the Capital for the long job. Pearl was here for the immediate task.

“Please. Don’t hate me.” Pink begged. The words came quickly and rushing, like boiling water, and at the last syllable, Pink choked. She clawed her throat, like swallowing the words back in. She whined sharply. Eyes wide and mouth slack. Coughing. She didn’t want to say that. She did not know what she wanted to say.

But she knew Pearl was usually appalled by such a performance. Pink was equivocal, she was hiding. Pearl had told her to be sure and strong. Had told her that she was sure, strong, and beautiful. Now, whether Pink was so or not, Pearl would jab one finger on her face, and one finger point to the battlefield. She told her to open her eyes and ears. She had ordered Pink to march.

Oh, but it’s past midnight, the gods proved to be at least a little caring, and Pearl was in a good mood, isn’t there something nice to give Pink also?

Strong was a concept and sometimes Pink was daunted. It’s vast, and their friends were all heroes. She had parroted, but she did not know the thing itself. She needed something solid, something material. Something to put in Pearl’s hands and be less guilty. A gift for atonement. A bail.

“I will give you a little task, and afterwards, I will see if I hate you or not,” Pearl said, softly at first, then her words rose up and rolling. They were sweet and vigorous. Focus, with a mission. All of herself was a blade, but now let her words strike first.

In a breath, she said. “You see, White Diamond, the master of this world, she has many pretty things, but most beautiful among them is the circlet she wears on her head, with the diamond between her brows.”

Pink appeared confused. Are they talking jewelry at this time? But her memory was clear, and it supplied her with an image. Unadorned band of white gold, filed away at the edge. The crowning diamond in the middle, as big as a baby’s fist. White wore it to receive Pink.

“I think it's pretty, and I want it. I want you to kill her and give me the crown. If you do it, I will agree to not hate you anymore.” Pearl said.

“That—“ Pink croaked out. Hands still on her throat. It had been twitching, traveling. Along her jaw, her throat, down her chest, and up to her face. It’s a pity her hands were unable to cover her whole body. She lifted them to wipe her tears. She coughed, clearing her throat.

“That can be done.” She said. She looked at Pearl for the first time tonight. A long, solid look. An examination. Pearl was shifty under her look, but she had been staring all night. She can handle the look. She met her halfway, saw fluttering eyelashes and the diamond pupil. It’s pulsing. Awe, and some slow-blooming light, like someone returning home after a long day.

Pearl can even summon a little bit of ease, the very short-lived comfort. She smiled, and it wobbled. Well. She can’t imagine smiling at Pink anymore. It’s been unreal and impossible. But tonight, with all the grace it brought. Her smile was shaky, and it died down quickly. Pearl averted her eyes. Pushing on her heels, she stood up.

“We still have the ceremony, right?” Pink sat up, clearing her throat, “I guess we are already late.”

“It’s fine. We can still show up.” Pearl shook her legs to loosen them. “Blue will buy us some time. She is good at that.”

“Uh huh.” Pink stood up. She looked at her spoiled costume and winced. Well, nothing to be done about it now. “You think Jasper is already there?”

“Yes. Someone had to hold the line.” Pearl said.

Pink laughed, a little uncomfortable. She might say something, but decided against it. She stole a glance quickly, to Pearl, then pulled back, more assured. “No time to waste anymore.”