Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jasper couldn’t remember making her way back to her cave. She couldn’t remember anything said to her after the order, “Find something better to do with your life.”

Those words tumbled around her numb mind on loop, layered over thousands of years of horror that would never go away. Her entire existence had been a waste of resources, at best. Static buzzing flooded her senses and threatened to rip her apart all over again. Her skin prickled head to toe and the weight of reality crushed her chest in. She couldn’t make her lungs expand. An all too-familiar sensation in recent years.

She stared, unseeing, at the same spot on the wall of her cave for hours while that buzzing built and built until she flung herself into the cool night air, hyperventilating, feeling like she might corrupt all over again while memories tore her apart. Her knees hit the bare earth and she dug hands into her hair, gripping those hideous, detestable horns. The panic broke into a festering hatred and a hollow laugh broke through the frantic gasping.

One of them was broken now, reduced to a stump. The other remained intact, coming to a sharp point that she pressed her thumb into until pink spikes flashed across her vision and she shuddered, wondering if she could rip it off. She never actually tried.

She gripped the foul, bone-like growth while her heart raced. Won’t fix anything. You’re trash by design. Her hand fell away and she was overwhelmingly numb again, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she looked around.

This didn’t feel like her cave anymore. She never considered this place anything special, but it had been secure, if nothing else. Her eyes lingered on the little wooden hut that didn’t belong to her and the static inside her grew loud again.

It was easy to rip apart, at least, easy to fling away into the woods with very little effort or thought. And then as if by instinct, without any real decision to do so, Jasper began tracking the damage left by the fight, retracing their steps.

The thrill of it all returned as if she was reliving it in real time, delighting in the confidence and competence with which her Diamond threw every bit of his power at her, finally. Proving, after all this time, that Diamonds were just as powerful as they’d been made to believe. It wasn’t all a lie.

Part of her felt a choking, overwhelming insanity if she thought too hard about the multiple sincere attempts she’d made at destroying the Diamond she was created to protect, between Rose Quartz and now Steven. Rage mingled with guilt and she could feel the pressure mounting once again, the buzzing growing louder.

She followed damaged trees, fallen branches, occasional small craters from missed or deflected strikes. A creature Steven once called a “deer” lay obliterated in one of the pits, a gruesome mess of wrecked limbs and insides brought out. Those pink discs did some real damage now that he knew how to use them.

And then her stomach dropped when she came to the edge of a vast crater; a half-mile wide strip of decimated organic material half-buried under a deep layer of blown-up soil, clay, and rock. Pink spikes consumed her vision and she felt the terror flood her once again, the horrible realization that she was afraid of being shattered. She never expected self-preservation to kick in at the last second.

The pain of being split apart was exquisite. It lasted only a moment, but it was like remembering every sort of pain she’d ever felt, and then feeling them all again, combined, in one final flash. Ripped and torn in every direction, physically and mentally. But not erased.

No, that was the real horror, Jasper had discovered. There was no silence after shattering. There was no freedom from existence, of course it couldn’t be that simple. She assumed there would be some sort of release, craved it, at times, but she’d been so utterly wrong.

But even so, the panic came before she learned the truth, not after. That realization puzzled her. Why did she fear her existence ending, particularly when it’d been nothing but misery?

Shattered, she existed as formless energy: semiconscious but broken, detached from the corporeal world and lost. Locked in a prison of vague feelings, shadows of memories, flashes of sensation. Everything was wrong. She needed to form. She needed to be whole. She was pure fear. She wasn’t anything at all. And then, after what felt like her entire lifetime, her energy was being redirected, pulled, fused back into place, and with a terrified gasp, she was reborn.

Fear and wonder were matched in intensity in that moment. Only a truly powerful, merciful Diamond could so easily destroy a gem and then put them back together. And to be brought back at all must mean she was needed for some greater purpose, or at least to finally serve the one she was made for.

Find something better to do.

She dropped down into the crater, trekking through the raised hills of destruction and clambering over broken trees until she found what she was looking for. Freshly ruined earth surrounding a small field of flower and grass regrowth that marked where he crawled around crying, collecting the pieces of her gem. Pathetic.

She laid down in the grass and flowers, staring up at the starry sky and feeling utterly alone.

Why would he bring her back for this?

Her skin prickled and the static in her mind amplified and she wanted to rip herself apart with own claws. She disconnected from reality and felt sheer horror pulse through her every atom, more powerful than any physical pain. Her very existence and continued survival felt like some sick cosmic joke.

To emerge during a violent raid on her defective kindergarten, during a false war, with the sole purpose to protect the same gem she was meant to fruitlessly attempt to destroy… she was created to fail and cursed to endure eternity with no viable escape. She remembered a thought she used to have, long, long ago, that her fellow kindergartners had it lucky. They were all deemed off-color and shattered the moment the war was lost, her agate loved reminding her. They got to escape before the real torture began.

Or so she assumed. Now she knew better. Now she knew exactly how her fellow kindergartners felt for thousands of years. Would their shards ever be recovered? Or were they powdered and released into space, deemed too dysfunctional even for harvesting? Her agate’s voice echoed in her mind like the crack of a whip, “Only traitorous, Earth-made trash would care about the complete waste of Yellow Diamond’s time and resources that was your kindergarten. You’re not a traitor to your Diamond, are you?”

Maybe “something better” was never resting until Yellow Diamond felt every bit of pain she’s ever inflicted, directly or through her agates. Maybe it was hunting down her old agates and smashing them to powder.

Or.., you could come to Little Homeschool!

A flash of pink spikes blotted out the dawn sky and her stomach flipped and she scrambled to her feet, her heart ready to burst. The sudden panic was quickly drowned in shame at her reaction to a memory of his voice. Coming back here was stupid. Why had she done it, without even thinking?

Why was she trembling?

As repulsive as the idea was, her only option was obeying her Diamond’s expectations by going to his stupid school. Being tortured by agates seemed more fun than learning how to befriend an agate, and she was certain plenty of gems would feel the same about her. But really, what choice did she have? Minding her own business in the forest away from everyone is how she ended up shattered.

Jasper gritted her teeth and clambered out of the canyon of blasted forest, wandering away from her grave. She was broken and ready to face whatever horrible new life she’d have to endure, miserable and alone as always.

Chapter Text

Wide yellow eyes with pupils narrow as pins stared, unblinking, between wet tendrils of white hair that snaked over clammy skin. The beast was motionless for the first time in weeks. The tense calm was unnerving, and Lapis knew better than to let her mind wander for even a moment.

Jasper's tired voice cracked when she asked, "Why don't you end this?"

Lapis ignored her, focused on maintaining their bond while shutting off access to her mind. She already leaked too much when she got distracted, and she couldn’t risk giving Jasper any more of herself.

When they first fused, Jasper tried to split away, but Lapis quickly figured out how to apply water chains within Malachite to match those on the outside, binding their light so she couldn’t leave. She thrashed, yanked, bit the chains, twisted, kicked, roared violent threats and obscene insults; none of it mattered. Lapis always made it worse for her, getting creative with water gags that wouldn’t allow enough air for her to speak or a fist of water around her throat, yanking her into the foul green pool below with a cruel snap of force and holding her there. It was exhausting, but Lapis endured with grim satisfaction. All that flashy muscle meant nothing against the power of a planet’s ocean in her hands.

After Steven infiltrated their space, rage choked all other emotion out of Malachite. Lapis was distracted, disoriented -- worried that Steven was still near, somehow. Jasper yanked their chains with enough force to throw her forward, slamming her face into the pool floor and knocking the wind from her lungs.

She knew Jasper was only a few short strides away from ripping her apart and she scrambled to get up. Her legs slipped and slid as she kicked herself away, coughing and spitting out water. Jasper was smiling and had a crazed look in her eyes. Her voice was hoarse and soft when she said, “You’re not protecting Rose, you lying, traitorous brat.”

In her panic to fly away as far as their chains would allow, narrowly avoiding a swipe of deadly claws, Lapis let her guard down. Her mental barrier dropped, and she couldn’t control the flow of her memories.

In that brief moment, Jasper watched her emerge from the mirror in front of Steven, cracked and panicked and significantly limited in ability, but still more than capable of building an ocean tower into the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Still capable of destroying the Crystal Gems and multiple humans, had Steven not begged her to stop. She would have enjoyed destroying the gems that kept her prisoner and tried to stop Steven from releasing her and would have delighted in their shattering -- if Steven hadn’t cared about them so much. She owed him her freedom, and him alone.

Lapis shook her wet hair out of her eyes and glared up at Jasper with every bit of hate she could harness, allowing her shatter-lust to pulse through them both with every beat of their fused heart. Steadying the quiver in her voice and forcing it cold as ice, she said, “I’m protecting him from us. You deserve this just as much as I do.”

Something in Jasper changed after that. Lapis had no clue how many hours of quiet they’d had, but it was stressing her out more than fighting. It could all be an act to make her drop her defenses again, and Lapis wouldn’t be tricked. Though it was getting hard to ignore the prickling anxiety that made her stomach twist and the tiny voice in the back of her mind telling her she made the wrong choice.

"Shouldn't be hard for you to shatter me. I won't even fight back... unless you want me to."

Lapis felt hot venom flood her veins and she clenched her fists, tightening the chains that held Jasper. Their hearts raced like opposing war drums, out of sync and messy. It'd be very easy.

And then what? Go back to Homeworld? Run back to the Crystal Gems and beg for their forgiveness? This was her purpose now. This was where she belonged -- crushed under cold, dark, abrasive sea and locked to one of the few gems more pathetic than herself. The chains got even tighter as Lapis’ fingers involuntarily clenched.

"Just do it already, you pathetic coward.” Jasper stumbled forward, her eyes wide and a terrifying, manic smile on her face that turned her blood to ice. “You want to, I can feel it! I want you to—”

"Shut up!" Lapis shot a thick tendril of water down Jasper’s throat, coiling it down her neck and clenching her fist. Blind panic bubbled up in Malachite while Jasper thrashed against her chains, her lungs flooding.

She'd never lose consciousness like an organic life form from asphyxiation or drowning, of course. But a gem’s survival instincts were designed to suit colonizing predators likely to meet physical resistance. If you threatened a gem’s physical form, they could really feel it, and would react accordingly.

Lapis could feel it, too. She could feel every painful, oppressive, horrible thing she did to Jasper, but that was fine with her. She owed it to Steven to stay and atone for what she did. Jasper wouldn’t even be on Earth if wasn’t for Lapis running back to Homeworld, expecting it to be her home after all that time.

She felt a powerful pull to crush Jasper’s gem when she said “I want you to;” an impulse that came from Jasper herself. Was she really that desperate, that she could overpower Malachite for that...? No, just willing to do anything to make me lose focus. The gnawing anxiety in the pit of her stomach spiked.

She crouched next to Jasper, swallowing down an intense choking sensation and watching her thrash up close. Impressive how this one turned out, considering the careless job done with her Kindergarten. Lapis was the one who maintained the perpetually flooding canyon that became her kindergarten – a panicked order coming from the top demanding a canyon far from where the Crystal Gem home base was, ignoring all other structural factors. It was there that she was poofed during a raid by the Crystal Gems, the day the Beta Kindergartners began emerging. She knew that wasn’t Jasper’s fault, but… it sure felt like it was.

She released the coil and Jasper collapsed forward and heaved up water, gasping for air while Lapis gently swept the wet hair from her pained face. She was soft -- loving, almost -- as she said, "You could feel how much I loved doing that, couldn’t you? Don’t worry about your gem. I don’t make a habit of breaking my things.”

That memory made Lapis want to claw her own throat open. You're a fucking monster.

Jasper’s eventual arrival in Little Homeworld was something she tried to prepare herself for. She had a thousand conversations in her own mind, repeating scenarios on loop compulsively. It was exhausting how angry she’d get over imaginary confrontations and blowouts with a gem that only existed in her memory.

None of her obsessive rumination included Jasper getting shattered. Finding out about that horrified Lapis, forcing her back into foul memories that she’d managed to avoid for a long time. What’d she finally do that pushed Steven to shatter her?

They were totally different gems in a totally different timeline from when they were fused. She vividly remembered the urges to shatter her own gem that Jasper shoved down when they were Malachite. She usually had no reaction to the impulse, thanks to thousands of years of Homeworld conditioning. She was taught that her only value as a gem from a defective kindergarten was her overwhelming strength and tenacity in the face of extreme torture and isolation, and she believed it to the point of pride. She was very good at pretending it didn’t bother her.

But, sometimes, the crushing darkness of the ocean was too much for the both of them, and they dwelled on their worst desires and impulses. Jasper was interested in being shattered long before Malachite. Her agate often described how the other Betas were shattered, and Jasper was left wondering what it felt like, if it was freedom of any sort. She never seemed to consider her agate might have been lying – most of her Kindergarten was unshattered on the Zoo ship. It was ironic that she achieved her goal, just to be dragged back to deal with the life she objected to.

Did she feel differently, now that she’d experienced it? Overwhelmingly, repaired gems reported their time being shattered as utterly miserable, a state of painful disconnect. The light that holds a gem’s consciousness refracts all over with no ability to connect, unable to repair itself, and unable to split away from the shards themselves. Like the human myth of purgatory, or how some humans speak of distressed spirits unable to achieve peace after their body’s death.

As shitty as all of that was, Lapis wished she could deal with it somewhere far, far away from her. Another planet, maybe. Jersey, perhaps. She’d like it there.

But she wasn’t in Jersey, no. She was leaning up against the wall of Bismuth’s shop, for some reason – arms crossed, staring off at nothing. Where is Bismuth...?

Lapis had been watching her from behind a sign for a few minutes in a state of disbelieving dissociation. At first, she was worried maybe she was hallucinating, but she looked like an entirely different gem from when they were fused – certainly not the version of Jasper that haunted her nightmares. She looked broken. Her corruption scars reminded Lapis so much of Malachite in color. She gazed absently at the broken horn jutting from Jasper's wild mane and wondered if she ever thought the same. Lapis would never forget that sickly green hell they shared.

Maybe it wasn’t her place to wonder at all. But after Steven corrupted himself out of sheer despair, well… There was no reason to believe corruption was a physical contagion a gem could contract from fusion. Corruption was a manifestation of the deepest despair turned physical, and despite all Jasper had been through, all the centuries of Homeworld torture before they ever met, her corruption scars resembled Malachite more than anything.

Her stomach twisted and she was overcome with a sudden and confusing rage that threatened to boil over into something physical. Nobody even told Lapis she was supposed to show up that day, that she was there already, right outside of Bismuth’s shop! She tried shoving down the voice that screamed and Steven fucking shattered her!! It was too much too fast; she couldn’t even remember where she was headed or what she was doing. She formed wings and took to the sky, flying hard and fast for the warp pad with tears stinging her eyes.

Why couldn't Jasper have gone literally anywhere else?!

The precarious happiness and stability Lapis built after destroying the barn was crumbling, and she had nobody to blame but herself. They didn’t have to say it directly. She knew they all saw her as a victim deserving pity, and she hated that. More than that, though: she hated the thought of her friends learning to fear her true self and abandoning her. That would be so much worse. They’d struggle to accept that she enjoyed keeping Jasper fused to her, forced to endure torture for torture’s sake. Forced to atone for the sins of other gems while Lapis wallowed in her own self-serving guilt and misery, redirecting her hatred of them onto the first gem to get in her way.

She landed hard on the warp pad; stumbling, gritting her teeth and blinking away tears, she warped away without directional thought. Things are better now. I'm better now. But if that was true, why did seeing Jasper make her feel so unstable so fast? Maybe because she was fucking shattered! Her chest clenched and a sob slipped past her lips – she couldn’t inhale. Lapis just wanted to feel nothing about her, why couldn't she just feel nothing…?

The warp stream cleared, and she was in the beach house looking at the temple door. Her stomach dropped when she realized there was no Steven to talk her down – he went to the hospital with his humans after his corruption stabilized and would likely be there for a while.

Selfish of her to turn to him right then, anyway. What a horrible friend she was for trying to bother him about this during his time of need. She turned to collapse on the couch and nearly jumped out of her skin when she made unexpected eye contact with Amethyst. There were bags under her eyes as she lay with her neck bent badly; phone in one hand and lit blunt trailing smoke from the other; surrounded by a mess of snack trash with a tablet laying forgotten on her belly, looping the Stardew Valley menu music. She held out the blunt in offering, saying, “Dude. You need this more than me.”

“So, you knew? Why didn’t you fucking say something to me?” She hated how shaky her voice was. Pathetic. The rage that’d reared up in her slowly fizzled away and was replaced with festering shame and disgust. She moved forward and snatched the blunt from Amethyst’s outstretched fingers and took a long drag, savoring the grounding burn that tore at her throat. She hated this stuff – a hybrid of earth cannabis, altered with Blue Diamond’s essence to heavily impact gems – but she needed something. Her eyes slid closed as she resisted the need to exhale. The desperate impulse to take in clean air was deliciously familiar.

“Damn, Pearl said she was going to text-- you didn’t hear from her at all?” Amethyst snatched the blunt back and Lapis exhaled, watching the swirls of smoke trail away. Her insides felt like ice, and she had nobody to blame but herself.

“I blocked her two years ago,” she admitted, and Amethyst choked, coughing out the hit she just took until a laugh made it through the gagging.

“Bro! I’m sorry, that’s so funny!” Lapis smiled in spite of herself; she couldn’t be mad at Amethyst for her own inability to tolerate Pearl’s newsletter texts. Amethyst said, chuckling, “I wish I could block Pearl sometimes.”

She slipped the blunt from Amethyst and put it to her lips, standing up and pacing while vacuuming down the burning smoke, grateful for something physically distracting. She hated how sick she felt. The weed was kind of helping, but not enough. She kept smoking, hoping she’d level out eventually. Numb was ideal right now.

“I don’t think she’s going to, like, do anything stupid, you know?” Amethyst’s voice was suddenly tense -- serious. “I thought I had the past all sorted, and I know healing isn’t linear, or, whatever, but I can’t stop feeling like things are just as bad as they used to be. Y’know. Back then.”

Lapis passed back the blunt in stiff fingers, blowing out her own cloud of smoke and feeling her scalp begin to tingle, spreading a buzzing warmth down every nerve until her toes tingled. She slowly pieced together, “I think… I need Peridot.”

Amethyst mumbled, “You and me both,” and took a quick puff off the blunt, blowing the smoke out quickly and pulling out her phone, typing one-handed.

The smoke curling from the ashen tip was making Lapis’ eyes burn. I miss Peridot. She plucked the blunt back from Amethyst, nearly finishing it off in one long pull that burned her throat raw. The strain and ache and fire from holding it all in as long as she could tolerate was a beautiful distraction. She wished she had booze so she could add more types of burn to the mix. What if nothing terrible happens? What if something good happens?

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready for this,” Lapis said thickly, struggling to hold back tears now that she was high, inhaling deep and exhaling slowly.

“Listen… I feel you. Literally nobody in my life has come for me the way Jasper did, and I’m still fucked up about it. I don’t blame you for feeling messy right now,” Amethyst said, setting aside her phone and staring out the window.

Lapis didn’t know what to say. She was pretty sure she’d done far, far worse things to Jasper than Jasper did to Amethyst. Lapis hated that everyone saw her as a victim of Jasper’s and would likely assume that was the source of her distress. Jasper wasn’t anywhere close to the worst gem Lapis had encountered -- though she was one of the most pathetic. Aside from me.

She wiped her face, angry at herself. She felt like she was regressing into old thinking patterns, but she didn’t feel like she had the power to stop it. The warp exploded with light and Peridot tumbled towards her, panting; saying between heavy breaths, “I got here as fast as I could! Lapis, are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lapis said, irritated, suddenly wishing she was completely alone. Why?

“I can’t believe she just. Showed up here! And now Bismuth is on gemsitting duty, and soon we’ll all have to deal with her,” Peridot said, rolling her eyes.

“Must be terrible for you. I’m sure you know exactly how I feel,” Lapis said, any hint of humor behind the sarcasm gone and replaced with pure venom. She could see herself unraveling in real-time, and she was horrified that she couldn’t stop it. Amethyst looked up from her phone, her eyebrows raised, and Peridot looked suddenly terrified.

“I didn’t say that! I have no idea how you feel about this specific topic,” Peridot said, twisting her hands together. “You’ve never talked about this! And you don’t have to right now, but… Lapis, I’m afraid of losing you again.”

It’s like everything inside her was screaming for her to lash out at Peridot harder. Give her a reason to want Lapis gone before she finds her own reasons.

Peridot would never do that. She’s begging for you to stay in her life, even after everything you’ve done to her. And then Lapis broke down, her guilt overflowing; sobbing into her hands helplessly, repeating again and again, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

And they were both comforting her, reassuring her, promising that they loved her; she believed them. She was still sorry to put them in this position at all -- of having to love a monster like her. She’d just hurt them again and again until they were worn down to a shell of who they once were. Isolation was the safest place for her, really.

In the deep dark of early morning, Lapis and Peridot sat together under the stars, listening to the soundtrack of some anime that Peridot kept begging Lapis to watch. They hadn’t spoken for some time, and Peridot was fiddling with an old Gameboy when Lapis finally spoke, her voice tight. “That was embarrassing. I haven’t lost control like that in… years. I’m sorry I scared you.”

Peridot put down the Gameboy immediately and said, “No, no, I’m sorry that I made it about me when it wasn’t. I just don’t know what’s okay to say about any of this, and that’s hard, because now we can’t just avoid the subject. The subject is too big and loud to avoid.”

“I feel insane that I can be in the same room as Blue Diamond and feel… nothing. Not bad, not mad, not sad -- not happy, either. But Jasper showing up throws me into a spiral worse than any I’ve had since... maybe the one where I took the barn? I can see why that messes you up,” Lapis said with a frown, misery churning in her belly like nausea.

Peridot shrugged and wove it off. “Can I ask questions? You can pass on any that are too hard.” She was nervous again – twisting the corner of the oversized T–shirt she was wearing today into a wrinkled mess. That made Lapis feel even shittier. Peridot, of all gems, was at least owed the ability to ask her any question she ever wanted.

“Shoot.”

“You’ve told me so much about the mirror, about your feelings for the Crystal Gems initially, especially Pearl. But almost nothing about this. Was this fusion really worse than the mirror?”

“Yes... and no,” Lapis said, staring at the shimmering stars, nearly blotted out by Earth’s light pollution. She’d thought about it a lot and was ready for that one. “The mirror is something that was done to me. Something I had no control over, just another casualty of insane Diamond drama. Another victim of the war. It was the worst – I was conscious the whole time, I – nothing compares to the mirror. But Malachite… was entirely in my control.”

“But you were just trying to stop Jasper from hurting the Crystal Gems. That’s what Steven told me, when you were still… with her,” Peridot said, seeming to doubt herself more with every word. Lapis’ heart raced; she felt sick.

“When he was still a kid? Garnet just beat her within an inch of poofing, and she begged me to fuse to save herself. She couldn’t have made me fuse against my will, which is why she used the Crystal Gems to try to persuade me. Take them down together, get revenge on the evils done to us both by them,” Lapis said, feeling it all pour out of her like Spinel’s injector poisoning the Earth. Talking about it felt good, but she knew the truth was terrible.

“I hated all of them, all of you -- everyone except Steven. And I couldn’t hurt the Crystal Gems if I didn’t want to hurt Steven, but I could take it all out on Jasper, easy. And she was stupid enough to bring up the mirror, and stupid enough to try to stop me from leaving. I wondered if she knew what being trapped so helplessly felt like.” Lapis paused, hating herself. “I could have poofed her, shattered her, punched her across the planet, flung her into space, any number of things -- but then what? Live with the gems who kept me in that mirror?”

She put her face in her hands, exhausted; afraid to see the horror in Peridot’s eyes whenever it clicked that she was an irredeemable monster. She felt like a shriveled-up husk and wondered, with a sense of irony, if throwing herself in the salty ocean would give back the energy that crying took out of her.

“And so, you feel… bad? That you did that?” Peridot sounded genuinely confused. Lapis nearly laughed but was too tired. At least she developed beyond her old habit of rattling off replies and advice fueled by assumptions. She looked her in the eyes, imploring; determined to make her understand. Still afraid to see her understand, but she needed to. Lapis needed her to.

“Peridot, if it had been you stopping me from leaving and begging me to fuse, it – yeah, I know you wouldn’t, shut up for a second and put yourself in these shoes – it would have been you, suddenly aware you can’t escape within seconds of us fusing and dragged to the deepest darkest trench of the Atlantic Ocean. I would have had access to your worst fears and memories while being too strong for you to shut me out, and I would have enjoyed using that to torture you.” There’s that flicker of fear in her eyes. Finally.

Lapis pressed on, steamrolling over the spark of panic that made her chest clench. “Every bit of suffering I put her through, I could feel as if I was doing to myself. I still get her war and Homeworld torture flashbacks as if they’re my own. It was only Jasper because she put herself in my way, and even at her strongest, she only had a fraction of my power! When we fought Alexandrite, it was because I wanted it! I wanted it so badly, and I knew Steven wasn’t there that time, and she called me on that weakness. She could never take control from me -- our fusion stabilized because we felt the same way in that moment. Bored, exhausted, and ready to shatter the Crystal Gems… whole, for the first time. Joined together without resistance or doubt, finally. And then we weren’t.”

Peridot’s shock slipped away, and she said, in all sincerity, “I’m glad I got the option to bond with you over Camp Pining Hearts instead of that option. Fusion sounds tedious.”

And Lapis laughed, feeling the hard stone shell that had formed around her heart that day burst, and she was flooded with affection for Peridot. She should have trusted the gem who called Yellow Diamond a clod to her face before Era Three to be relentlessly fearless.

Maybe her fearlessness stemmed from her youth and lack of exposure to true horrors. It was refreshing, regardless. Contagious, even. Smiling, Lapis said, “Me too, Pear. How would I understand the complexities of CPH without you?”

“Ugh, you wouldn’t! My expert analysis is fundamental to the experience,” Peridot said with an air of mock importance. Her voice slid back to her normal cadence as she said, “Thank you, also... for telling me about this. I’ve been misunderstanding your perspective for years. Understanding you is important to me.”

“Even if my perspective is really, really dark?” Who does she think I am, really?

“You’ve always been a little dark, I guess? The Lapis who did those things is the same Lapis that took the time to get to know me, even though she really didn’t want to. And sure, you took the barn and broke my heart, but you’re so important to me and I’d rather you remember that and always come back than leave forever out of fear or guilt.” Peridot had a warm little grin that made Lapis want to cry again. She didn’t deserve these gems. She crawled forward and kissed her gem, and then her mouth, and then her cheek.

“As long as you’re here, I won’t leave again,” Lapis promised, giving Peridot one more kiss on the gem. And she meant it, though her trust in herself was relatively low.

Chapter Text

“You know, Earth quartz, it doesn’t matter how many fights you win or propaganda campaigns you’re featured in.”

Jasper ignored the slick, deep voice that taunted her from across the arena preparation lobby. She kept her eyes closed, centering herself for the next fight. She just just narrowly escaped a swing from the previous opponent that would have shattered her, and she couldn’t afford to be so clumsy in the next round.

“They can spread aaaall the nonsense they want about you, but I’ve seen you fight. You’re nothing special.”

Irritation bubbled beneath the calm. Jasper sucked in as much air as her lungs could hold, and then allowed the air to pass her parted lips slowly, easily. Calm down and focus.

“It’s some sort of… Achievement? That you survived Pink Diamond’s stupid war?”

Poisonous fury slipped into her veins, spreading quickly through every inch of her physical form. Calm the fuck down. Her breathing was quick and shallow, and her eyes squeezed tight against the urge to open them.

“Well, so did I. And you know what that means? I know exactly what kind of trash you are. I’m shocked they kept such an obviously defective gem like you around. You don’t even have a weapon—you have armor. Pathetic and cowardly.”

Her fists were clenched, and she wanted to rip this gem apart. All pretense of calm was gone – she was stiff as stone, tense enough to poof. As if I need a weapon. She knew this gem must be her next rival, attempting to throw her off-balance before their fight. To her growing annoyance, it was working.

“I mean, look at your grotesque form. Of course you’re Earth-made trash. I’ve never seen a jasper as excessive as a rose quartz—”

Jasper blacked out – the next thing she knew, she had the crumbled remains of one of Blue Diamond’s elite chalcedony warriors spilling from her hand, shattered against the hard light wall that contained them.

– Find something better to do with your life. –

Jasper had been an arena fighter on Homeworld in Era Two, celebrated by lesser gems who envied her position and circumstance, and derided by all else. A highly-decorated tool wielded by those in power to control any who might stray from their purpose. Yellow Diamond’s vicious, obedient, miserable attack dog, kept as a sort of pet after her arena career ended in one-too-many shattered elite fighters. It was a compromise, she was told by her supervising agate, an alternative to the demand from the other agates to have her shattered for all her “inappropriate back-stage shattering” of their quartzes. They said she was uncontrollable, dangerous – defective. For some reason, Yellow opted to keep her in her own chamber.

Maybe not as a pet – maybe a paperweight. A bookend. All she ever did was guard the inside of Yellow’s chamber, ensuring nobody was allowed in to bother her relentless workflow. Mind-numbing, dissociative, endless work. Work that wasn’t work. Work, standing there and listening to all the work being done, all the missions she’d never be sent on. That was, until an emerald called in to inform Yellow that the Cluster project was at risk of potential gem interference.

She knew she was out of line for speaking, but Yellow didn’t interrupt her as she said, “My Diamond. If these are Crystal Gems that somehow survived… allow me to be the one to go and crush them. Allow me to avenge the Diamond I was made for.”

“Who you failed,” Yellow said, cold eyes flitting down to Jasper for a fraction of a second.

Jasper was losing her patience, fast. She shoved down the brief terror at Yellow’s comment, and said, “Respectfully, my Diamond – wasn’t it your agate that said I was unfit to be in her guard?”

Yellow paused her typing, staring at her screen with a blank expression while her pearl looked at Jasper with horrified disgust. If this was what led to her shattering, so be it. She’d rather be shattered than stay on Homeworld if there were Crystal Gems to destroy. But Yellow resumed her work and said, “Another quartz, one with far more experience in off-world missions than you, will escort this mission safely and efficiently.”

Desperate panic filled her lungs and froze her heart mid-beat. She needed this. “How will I gain experience in off-world missions if I’m never allowed on them?”

Yellow didn’t look at her again. She spoke with authority, never hesitating in her typing. “I’ve already allowed you to speak far beyond your rank. You will do as you’re told, and be grateful I don’t grind you down to dust for your disrespect.”

And Jasper obeyed, simmering in her indignation and staring off at nothing; a sentinel soldier returned to her miserable post. The notion that this monotony was punishment for her many, many failures – the arena, the war, her Diamond… it hadn’t occurred to her as anything other than a new assignment until Yellow’s gaze had pierced into her as she voiced dissent for her most egregious failure.

Hours passed; how many, she couldn’t be sure. She’d gotten good at numbing herself to the flow of time. At some point, Yellow’s top agate – Jasper’s supervising agate, Yellow Eye – strolled in, bowing low. Jasper’s vision always went fuzzy when she was around, accompanied by a feeling of rot in her belly and bones. Her voice was cold and calm as she said, “My Diamond. You summoned me.”

“Take this quartz to the upper quadrant docking bay and ensure she’s properly briefed on the mission assigned to Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG. The ship departs for Earth in one hour.” Yellow Diamond didn’t look up. She kept typing away, eyes glued to her screen.

Jasper couldn’t believe it. Surely, this was some weird punishment – make her load up the ship that she wouldn’t get to be on; make her mindlessly stand outside of the ship and watch some citrine or another get assigned the job she wanted; watch the ship she needed so desperately to be on that it ached in her gem depart, headed towards redemption without her…

– Find something better... –

As if Jasper hadn’t been minding her own business when he decided to show up and “help” her. That ended with her in shards. She wasn’t even allowed to stay shattered. Forced to participate in these stupid Era Three games with gems she would never understand. Who would never understand her. Today, she was being assigned an “apartment” by the Crystal Gem blacksmith, Bismuth.

“I don’t want any of this.” Jasper was gazing at a massive, cushioned bed that could hold at least two gems her size. It only took up a third of the apartment floorplan, and there was a separate small room for storage – it was all too much. A balcony spanned the length of the apartment, separated by a glass sliding door and glass windowed wall, pouring sunlight in. It was incomprehensible. What does any gem do with this much space?

“Well, this is the smallest place we have for gems your size, and they all come with a bed. You don’t gotta use any of it if you don’t like it. Some gems who prefer smaller spaces try hanging out in the closet,” Bismuth said, pointing back with her thumb at the small storage room. Jasper looked at it, considering shoving herself away in the cool dark, seeing how long she could tolerate it. Longer than most, from experience.

Prolonged darkness was one of her agate’s favorite punishments – deprive a gem of light, and they effectively starve. Not like some organic creature might starve and then die, but similar in effect otherwise. Weakness. Fatigue. Incredible misery and emotional instability. Some gems, trapped in darkness for too long, might try and break themselves against anything they can to end the madness. Some scream and scream until they can’t find the energy to scream any longer. Jasper had spent enough time trained in darkness by her agate, guarding the door in darkness for Yellow during her worst brooding periods, and trapped deep in the dark depths of one of Earth’s freezing, black oceans… the closet made her feel sick to look at.

A subtle but persistent, dull ache through her entire physical form that she’d been ignoring since she was resurrected suddenly spiked into something unignorable. What is that? It spread across her like her stripes… but it didn’t follow them. Whatever it was, it was burning all of a sudden, no longer just a dull annoyance. Weird.

Jasper wandered over to the glass wall. She could see the forest where her cave had been off in the distance. The door slid open easily, and the cool breeze combined with the sun heating up the stone balcony was almost distracting, for a moment. The aching didn’t lessen, though; If anything, she felt stiffer - worse. She couldn’t remember ever feeling anything like that – a pain with no cause, no obvious reason. She rubbed her arm, following a line of pain, trying to find a source. She pressed a finger directly against her arm, tracing slowly along—until it cut through one of her stripes. The line followed directly along where that stripe split in two – right along one of her new scars.

And then all of her shattering scars ignited as if they were waiting to be noticed, overwhelming her with a blinding agony. She stumbled forward and held onto the balcony railing, teeth gritted, trying to breathe through the burn. Why…?

“Hey, are you okay?” Bismuth had wandered onto the balcony behind her. Great. Jasper didn’t bother looking up.

“No—I mean – I don’t want—Fuck!” The pain was disorienting. She couldn’t think. Her gem itself felt like it was on fire, and she noticed a subtle flicker of the light within. She buried her hands in her hair and gripped hard at the root, slumping onto the sun-warmed stone floor and feeling as if she was about to burst at the seams – to spontaneously shatter, somehow!

“Okay, hear me out – I know what’s going on, but you’re gonna have to trust me,” Bismuth said, but Jasper didn’t process any of it; her breathing was ragged, and she felt like her lungs were flooding with glass. Bismuth crouched down and said, “Look and watch so you’ll know what to do.”

When Jasper didn’t listen, Bismuth peeled one of her hands from her scalp and held it in her own hand, squeezing hard. When Jasper’s tearful, stinging eyes finally met hers, she waved a little metal cylinder and said, “Take this between your lips and inhale deep, hold for five seconds, then exhale. I’ll do it first, so you know it’s safe.”

Bismuth did exactly as she said; when she exhaled, a cloud of shimmering vapor bloomed from her mouth and was whipped away in the wind. She held the device out to Jasper, who didn’t hesitate to imitate her. This pain was worse than being shattered, and she had no time to distrust this gem’s advice. The device was cold against her lips, and whatever she was inhaling was hot, choking – but a different burn from this weird new pain. Soothing, almost. She held in her breath for as long as she could before pain stabbed too hard and she coughed heavily in a way Bismuth hadn’t, feeling as if her lungs were unable to expand.

And then the pain began to ebb away, and Jasper was able to start catching her breath. Within a minute, it was back to a manageable, dull thrum in the back of her mind. She looked at the metal device between her fingers, transfixed by the shifting colors in the little glass vial attached to it.

“Good, this is good! Good that this worked, at least,” Bismuth mumbled, typing something on her cellphone. Jasper brought the device to her lips once again, taking a longer pull, inhaling deep and holding the burning vapor in for a few seconds. The cloud she exhaled was massive, and she felt dizzy and light-headed, and suddenly… weird. A relaxed smile spread across her face, and a bubbly little laugh tumbled from her throat. Every inch of her tingled, scalp to toe, and she laid back on the warm stone floor, thinking of nothing.

“How are you feeling?” Bismuth asked, sitting down next to her and crossing her legs. Jasper’s gaze slowly shifted to Bismuth, staring into her concave rainbow gem, transfixed.

“Warm.” Jasper spread her fingers and flattened her palms against the stone below. She felt connected to the sun-warmed stone – they were made from similar stuff, probably. Made from Earth’s silica and… stuff. Thoughts kept slipping away like sand in an hourglass.

“It’s nice, yeah? Listen.” Bismuth sounded nervous – tense. Jasper continued staring into her gem, watching the subtle shift of color and light within. “I don’t want to bring you down or scare you, but... what happened to you just now was because you were shattered. and it’ll happen again unless you stay medicated or go to Yellow Diamond.”

Jasper’s eyes shifted up to hers, surprised by how dark they were in contrast to her gem. She grinned and said, “I’m defective. Maybe I’m supposed to feel like this.”

“N-No, hey, now. Nobody deserves to suffer.” Bismuth placed a hand on Jasper’s shoulder, and the warmth that radiated from her palm rippled through her – soothing. “And you came out beyond perfect! What makes you defective, being bigger and stronger than all the other jaspers out there?”

“I was created to protect Pink Diamond from Rose Quartz. A lie injected into the crooked walls of my Kindergarten,” Jasper said, gazing up at a shapeless mass of cloud in the bright blue sky. She took another long drag off the device she’d been twirling idly in her fingers.

“I’m not going to pretend your Kindergarten wasn’t a wild fuckin’ mess,” Bismuth said, casually pulling the device from Jasper’s grip as she blew out a massive cloud of vapor, wondering if it could possibly join the cloud in the sky above. Her eyes shifted to Bismuth’s face, really taking in all of her features for the first time. She had a hardness to her eyes – deep stress lines around her face and forehead. But it was a strong, dependable hardness – not cruel, like some agates. Jasper fixated on her lips as she spoke, entranced. “Fuck Pink Diamond, and fuck Rose Quartz. Okay? The moment you popped outta that damn canyon, you were ripping apart massive fusions with your bare hands to protect your gems! You are a fierce protector!”

“You were there,” Jasper said. It wasn’t a question; the way Bismuth spoke was as a witness, not like one of those sycophantic fighter gems who worshipped the arena.  She looked at Bismuth with newfound curiosity. Clearly, she made it out of there with her gem intact – not many Crystal Gems had.

“I—I was there. Yeah,” Bismuth said with a frown, gazing at the floor where her finger drew nervous circles against the stone. “That ambush was one of the most cowardly moves we made.”

“War is war,” Jasper said, feeling her entire form ripple. The clouds swirled abnormally – she knew this had to be the stuff Bismuth gave her. Pure, blissful disconnection. Her eyes slipped closed, and whatever Bismuth was saying faded into the background, unheard.

Chapter Text

“The zaps” was the stupid name that Peridot came up with for the pain attacks post-shattered gems experienced. “Zap” wasn’t the right word for it, in Jasper’s opinion. Four weeks after her first zap attack, she’d describe it more like splitting at the seams – burning hot nerves, bone-gnawing aches, relentless fire in the gem itself. Until recent years, shattered gems had never been repaired, and nobody anticipated that every repaired gem might be disabled from their shattering. The reasoning behind it seemed clear enough, to Jasper. Obviously, repaired gems would still be missing miniscule pieces of their gem – teeny, tiny fractures of shards that were much too small to be seen, pieces left behind forever.

There were ways to manage the pain, and only one way to permanently repair gems. The permanent option was deeply undesirable to Jasper, and to many other gems: hand their poofed gems over to Yellow Diamond for a month so she could incubate the gem in a paste that would repair the miniscule fractures for good. Jasper would rather be shattered again than go back to Yellow for any amount of time, and she certainly didn’t trust her to handle her gem in an unconscious state. The other option was consuming a cocktail of Diamond essence via combustion – either a vaporizer with cartridges full of liquid essence, or burning and inhaling the smoke from a hybrid Earth plant that Peridot cultivated from soil enriched with it.

Apparently, Blue Diamond had an entire chamber of vaporized essence on Homeworld where gems went to partake in hedonistic parties, and they realized post-shattered gems who attended had significantly lessened pain. Combining all the Diamonds’ essences created the perfect medication for the zaps – not to mention, the perfect soothing drug for any stressed-out gem. While Jasper hated relying on the Diamonds like this and hated the human ties to this method of medicating pain away, she had to admit, the essence felt incredible.

Jasper experimented with letting it wear off entirely to see how long she could handle the zaps – if she could overcome the pain. She lasted about five hours, analyzing the pain and trying to understand it better. Pain never bothered her before. She loved the searing, burning, aching pains after a brutal fight that left her feeling more alive than ever.

This pain was different. Disgusting, unsatisfying, jarring. She writhed on her floor, eyes squeezed closed, and teeth gritted while every nerve in her form was shredded by invisible, fiery hot razors, as if the muscle under her skin was trying to dig its way out of her. The difference between good pain and bad pain had never been so clear. She moaned pitifully and finally dug the vape from her neckline, taking a long drag while her physical form flickered, threatening to dissipate. Every movement was draining – exhausting.

The vapor worked quickly, though. Blissful relief spread through her gem, from her scalp to the tips of her fingers and toes, all warm and relaxed. She lay on the cool stone floor of her apartment, sucking down more of the vapor, interested to see what would happen if she kept going. Every experiment was performed in excess. The hot vapor crossed her tongue and stung her throat, filling her lungs and sending her spinning deeper and deeper into something totally new, something difficult for her to understand. The white string lights that circled her ceiling radiated halos of shimmering, undulating rainbows while the slow, heavy music she had thrumming out of her speaker system penetrated her gem, forcing tears to well up in the corners of her eyes.  

Her existence felt just as meaningless as it had felt for the last five thousand years. Many gems looked at her with pity or fear, while some avoided her entirely. The other quartzes, for the most part, accepted her existence, or at the very least, didn’t run away if she entered the room. They invited her to play volleyball with them, though she only agreed to watch, and mostly to fulfill the expectations of her “Get a Hobby” class. She hated these stupid classes, but she refused to fail something so simple and asinine.

These other quartzes were all very familiar with one another. She observed them, learning their names and personalities, trying to figure out what her next move would be. She sat in a corner of the sports storeroom while the others mulled about, chatting and rough housing, while Rose’s Pearl sorted out deflated volleyballs in preparation for their game. Why Pearl was in charge of the quartz volleyball games, she couldn’t fathom.

Surprisingly worse than Pearl’s presence was a jasper named Zebra. Jasper couldn't stand the sight of this gem. Zebra was a white jasper with black stripes and straight, mint-colored hair, with deep black eyes that peered from behind too-long bangs. She was lean, muscular, with a single horn atop her head. Barely scarred from corrupting compared to most other gems.

The arrogant smirk she wore every time Jasper caught her staring made her skin prickle. Zebra straddled a backwards chair, her arms folded over the backrest and her chin on her arms while she watched Jasper. Her black eyes seemed to absorb light, like the darkest starless corners of space. It was unnerving.

Why was she always staring? She couldn’t be in the same space as Zebra without being watched in a way that made her feel hunted. Jasper stopped pretending to ignore her and glared straight at her, meeting her gaze with fury. She wouldn't be intimidated by some other, smaller jasper. Zebra held her gaze, tilting her head a fraction. Lips curling into a taunting little grin.

Enough was enough. She'd fight arrogance with arrogance. Jasper’s heart thrummed wildly when she demanded to know, "What's your problem?"

"She speaks!" Zebra announced, sitting up straight and grinning wide as the room fell silent. All eyes were on them – even Pearl stopped sorting volleyballs to watch.

"Why are you always staring?" Jasper asked, ignoring the gnawing at her nerves. She hated that now everyone was staring. Why did she even agree to this nonsense? They didn't want her fighting anyone, but they wouldn't leave her alone, either. And right now, fighting felt like a reasonable solution to this particular annoyance.

"I've never seen a jasper that looks anything like you," Zebra said with a little shrug, her eyes lingering a little too long on one of her scars.

"So?" Jasper snapped, crossing her arms. Fuck off.

"So… you're interesting. Your reputation is wild, and you're one of the most impressive jaspers I've ever seen, scars and all," Zebra said. Jasper didn't know how to reply, and Zebra’s gaze still, for some reason, felt predatory. A confusion rippled under the anger, and she felt deeply uneasy having her scars so casually commented on.

"That's enough, Zebra," Pearl said, looking between them both. That annoyed Jasper even more than Zebra's invasive comments.

"What, don't want them finding out how I got my scars?" Jasper asked, cold, turning her anger at Zebra onto Pearl.

"That's your business to discuss – nobody is stopping you," Pearl said in a measured tone. At least she isn't looking away or cowering. She continued, "I don't want Zebra harassing you, that's all."

"All I said was The Joker here is, like, impressive," Zebra said with a scoff, sliding off her chair and walking over while Pearl put her face in her hands and the room erupted in stifled giggles, shushing, and delighted murmurs of “not The Joker!” and “she really just called her The Joker, fuck!”

Zebra was a head shorter than Jasper, dense with muscle, overflowing with a reckless confidence that Jasper almost admired. Almost. She was sizing Jasper up, her eyes lingering on her hips a little too long before finding her eyes again, and said, "We all have scars here, gorgeous. Do you feel harassed right now?”

"I feel like you want your ass beat," Jasper said, her hand twitching as her blood quickened and her heart thrummed in her chest. It'd feel so good to punch her right in her perfect nose. Or better, in her stupid, staring eyes.

"She does, actually," a jasper called Biggs interjected and the others laughed, only agitating Jasper further.

"Me? No!" Zebra winked at Biggs. She looked back and Jasper noticed flecks of white in her black eyes for the first time. Like tiny stars. Why does that matter? That stupid smirk curled her lips as she said, "I just wanna see what big girl can do!"

"You can see what she can do on the volleyball court, if and when she decides to play," Pearl said, impatient.

"Ooor, we can go to the arena," Zebra suggested with a flash of excitement. Nobody had ever mentioned an arena. Jasper assumed they'd all been abandoned, unused in this era of tedious nonviolence.

"She's not ready for that."

Jasper scoffed, shoving Zebra away from her and storming up to Pearl.

"I'm tired of you speaking for me," she said, threatening, glaring down at Pearl, who didn't look even remotely intimidated. In fact, she looked annoyed. Jasper wanted to throw a chair against the wall.

"I will never speak for you. I will, however, uphold the membership rules for this particular venue. You’ll be invited when I say you’re ready,” Pearl said coolly, maintaining eye contact without falter.

The way she didn’t flinch from Jasper drew out the five-thousand-year-old memory of Pearl’s sword pressing into her abdomen, drawing blood. Pearl wearing an expression wilder than any quartz soldier she’d ever seen, risking her gem to protect Rose Quartz – no, to protect Pink Diamond. That thought made her fizzle down to a stubborn, petulant acceptance of her situation, stewing in the confusion of that realization.

“Fine. Whatever,” Jasper huffed, deflated, more intimidated by Pearl than any other gem in Little Homeworld.

Another confusing realization, though she’d learned the hard way not to underestimate gems smaller than her – gems not made for combat or punishment. The sickly green scars that marred her physical form were a constant reminder of just that. Pearl looked momentarily suspicious that Jasper had crumbled and caved so quickly, but then smiled and said, “I really think you’ll enjoy volleyball! It’s not sparring, but the way these gems play, it’s not… not sparring.”

“Yeah, especially once Steven stopped making us review the rules every two weeks,” Zebra said from across the room to resumed laughter and chatter.

“Aren’t we supposed to not have any rules now?” An amethyst called Crazy Lace asked with a grin.

“Some rules exist to limit harm to yourselves, other gems, and organic lifeforms. We went over this every other week for a year,” Pearl said, pinching the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed. “You’re not going to like it when one of you ends up cracked badly enough you have to go ask Yellow Diamond to fix you.”

“I don’t know, she’s kinda hot… in a pathetic way,” Zebra said, and the others laughed.

“Of course you would think so,” an agate named Blue Lace said, rolling her eyes.

“How bad does the crack have to be for that?” Jasper asked Pearl, a mock tone of innocent curiosity that she apparently took no notice of.

“You know, if a gem gets chipped badly, worse than a crack – split, or–,” Pearl stopped, looking horrified as it clicked who she was actually talking to.

“Shattered?” Jasper offered with a bitter smile. She wasn’t actually mad at Pearl this time, and she did feel a little bad for leading her into that one. There was a sick sort of pleasure she got from fucking with everyone who couldn’t handle the horror of her existence.

“Right,” Pearl said, a soft sadness in her eyes that wasn’t there before, “We sometimes have the supplies to recover gems who are badly damaged here on Earth, but… Well, we would need Steven here to make that work. Or to drag one of the other Diamonds here, and most of Little Homeworld prefers it when we don’t.”

“Bismuth’s recounted wanting to punch Yellow Diamond in the eye on the day of Garnet’s wedding so many times,” Biggs said, laughing with the others. Something Bismuth and I have in common.

“Volleyball was supposed to start five minutes ago. Let’s get going,” Pearl said, clapping her hands together, jumping at the break in the tension.

The rambunctious group made their way to the volleyball net with Jasper lagging behind. They all fit so well together, despite their wildly different origins and wartime affiliations. She would never be one of them. She never had a group, a team, anything – she’d been alone nearly her entire existence. Other quartzes kept in barracks together, sparred, had each other’s back on missions. Jasper couldn’t understand how that came so easily to other quartzes, but for her, the idea of being part of a group made her feel sick.

Jasper sat on the sand, watching the waves pull away from the beach, the damp sand that was soon washed back over, again and again and again. Volleyball seemed almost as repetitive as the ocean tide – back and forth and back and forth they hit that stupid ball, laughing and shouting and kicking up sand. Jasper’s focus was soft, not taking in anything in specific, trying to ignore the discomfort these quartzes made her feel. They were too comfortable being physically close with one another – when Pearl blew her whistle to indicate a goal scored by the teal and pink spotted jasper Ocean, Zebra pulled her in for a deep, aggressive kiss, knocking her down onto the sand. Disgust roiled in Jasper’s belly and she looked as hard as she could at the ocean, focusing on the sound of the waves instead of the rowdy laughter, whistling, and encouragement coming from the group.

Pearl got the game back on track, though she had no negative comments or suggestions of punishment for what just occurred. Pathetic. Gems here have no structure. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on a knee and stewing in her discomfort. She pulled out the vaporizer and took a small pull, trying to ease the sensory memory of an electric whip to the gem. She exhaled and looked back over at the game, frustrated and confused.

Back and forth and back and forth, laughter and roughhousing and touch and affection. She hated them all for how easy everything seemed to be for them. How could they so easily disregard their original programming and behave like this? It was disgusting, sickening. And then Crazy Lace dove up to spike the ball from mid-air and miscalculated – the ball came flying right at her, suddenly pink spikes plummeting from the sky, and she quickly formed her helmet and dove out of the way. Fiery hot pink clouded her vision and her breathing was shaky – panicked.

“Are you okay?” A soft, gentle voice asked, and she looked up to see Pearl right next to her, holding the volleyball with palpable concern in her expression. That made Jasper feel sicker – worse. She didn’t need any gem’s pity. Her helmet dissipated and she stood up, brushing sand off of herself while she tried to force panic into anger. Better than being afraid of a stupid ball.

“This game is stupid," Jasper said, monotonous and short, before turning back towards town, towards her apartment. She wished she could blow up and rage, but the panic wasn’t lessening, and she couldn’t control any aspect of herself. She was consumed with hot pink panic.

“I’ll check in on you,” Pearl called after her, making no effort to stop her or follow. Jasper could hear the game resume as she wandered away, and she was sure much of the laughter was at her expense. Well, good. More reason to never participate in this idiotic, pointless game ever again.

– Find something… –

The moment Jasper gained sentience, still an unformed gem buried in sandstone, she knew she was in danger. Even more, she felt the call of her kin: those who were made alongside her, unlucky enough to emerge before her. She was consumed with a terror she didn’t understand, auras of gems that vanished moments after emerging. She knew, somehow, that she needed to defend the others and fight – she had no time to dwell on fear.

The sandstone surrounding her gem grew molten and she was taking form, glowing and growing into a formidable creature capable of defending those whose terror she felt as if it were her own. Fear turned to violent rage, and she burst forth from the canyon wall, liquid stone dripping from her as molten hot as the blood that rushed through her newborn heart. The world she was born into was chaotic – full of the clanging of metal against metal, the sounds of gems being crushed, and orders being screamed from every direction as sand was kicked up everywhere, creating a haze in her canyon.

A battle axe came swinging at her face within seconds of emerging, but she dodged quickly enough and grabbed the weapon from the top with both hands, ripping it from its wielder’s grip and tossing it to the ground. Instinct told her that her own claws would be quicker. This gem didn’t seem to have a physical advantage other than size, which is why she had the axe. In a blink, Jasper ripped the gem from her chest and flung it far away.

She whipped around, blood pounding in her ears, struggling to make sense of the commotion. A gem she knew to be her kin – she could feel that they were the same – was failing to fight with just one arm before she was crushed under a massive hammer held by a gem bigger than any of them. And then her kin’s aura was gone, along with her body, as red gem shards scattered over the sandy floor. She never stood a chance.

Everything was a blur of rage and terror, and Jasper formed a helmet in an impulse to protect her own gem. Cover it, protect it, defend yourself if they get close. Defend and avenge the others who are like you. She toppled over the gem with the hammer and quickly ripped her gem out of her chest, destroying her physical form in an instant and then snapping her gem in half, discarding her with the pile of red shards.

Jasper took out gems twice her size, blasting through their physical forms, charging at them fast enough to break apart massive fusions, ripping at smaller gems with claws and teeth, poofing and shattering gems with a swift strike from her helmet. She wasn’t counting how many gems she took out, managing to pull some of her own from danger before moving to the next enemy invader. Soon enough, she saw her fellow gems dominating the fight. They pushed back the invading forces with their own discarded weapons until they finally retreated, leaving behind their allies who were broken or formless.

The gems who remained were shaken by the brutality of their first day alive in the universe. They hadn’t had time to receive orders, to be assessed by peridots, or to even greet one another before the Crystal Gems descended on them. Jasper had to hand it to them; it was smart to try and take out newly emerged gems. It was a tactic none of the higher ups expected from them, given their usually sentimental politics. The Beta kindergarten should have been an easy target; gems were coming out twisted, missing limbs, and too weak to stand a chance in a war. The Crystal Gems took the tactical advantage, cruel as it was. They might have won, if Jasper hadn’t formed with the overwhelming drive to protect her gems.

They celebrated their survival for three Earth rotations while the peridots in charge of their kindergarten made reports and collected gems, shattered and whole, to return to their superiors. The Betas were given orders to be on standby for now, while those in charge scrambled to figure out what move to make next.

Jasper was overwhelmed with affection for these gems who were just like her but all so different. One of the jaspers who emerged before the ambush told everyone that the peridots overseeing their extraction said that more than eighty percent of their kindergarten was defective and would need to be harvested.

None of them knew what it meant to “be harvested”, but Jasper felt a chill at the word “defective”. She felt the same as any of these gems, and she felt connected to their auras in a way she certainly didn’t with the gems she’d fought today. She knew her purpose was to protect, and she felt very capable of doing that. How could any of them be defective, when they all survived that raid?

They were all much too young to worry much, and so they laughed together, tussled in the sand, counted the stars at night, and wondered about the true meaning of their assigned purpose: to defend Pink Diamond at any cost. Protecting one another felt inherent to achieving this goal. They were stronger together, as one united force.

On their second day together, a roaring river of freezing water ripped through the canyon, carrying off some of the weaker of their number, a few peridots, and any remaining uncollected gem shards were either washed away or buried, never to be found again. Most of them managed to climb into a hole just before the water hit, some yanking in a peridot or two in the process. Jasper was shoved into her own hole with a thin jasper as tall as herself and a small carnelian around the size of a peridot, all laughing together as they held on tight.

The water rushing around them was exhilarating – none of them had experienced anything other than desert stone and sand until then. Once the flood finally passed their part of the canyon, they all began to emerge, examining their newly-damp space. The peridots that got yanked into holes in time explained that this canyon was formed by floodwater coming from a northern mountain’s melting ice and snow, that usually they cut canyons with gems to avoid this sort of problem. Instead, they had a gem controlling the flow of water coming from the mountains after the first flood took out some injectors, but they lost track of her during the Crystal Gem raid. They assured them all that the intact gems wiped away were probably fine, as long as they didn’t get cracked on a rock in the current, and then left to make reports.

Jasper spent most of her remaining time in that canyon with the jasper she’d shared her hole with in the flood. They were the same height but she was much slimmer, with very little muscle. She was agile, though, and quick to find a light but useful weapon during the raid, taking out a dozen gems on her own, rescuing multiple of their fellow Betas from shattering.

Something about this one’s aura felt like it mirrored Jasper’s, like they were two shards of the same gem. The others felt distinctly like they were made of the same cosmic ingredients that connected them on a deeper level, but not like this. Their energies were magnetic, and nobody questioned why she ended up in Jasper’s lap, running long fingers through her hair with her back against her chest, because none of them knew that was inappropriate. It was a warm and genuine sort of affection, curious and alive. It was the last kind touch Jasper ever knew.

Forcing herself to forget the way it felt and sounded when that gem laughed, pressed up against her, safe and comfortable and happy just for a few days, felt like amputating part of what made her whole.

The sun rose on their fourth day alive, and the peridots returned with a few new gems who congratulated them on their unlikely survival. A yellow gem close to Jasper’s size with very short white hair and thigh high boots introduced herself as Yellow Eye, an agate with off-putting eye-like white spots blemishing her entire physical form. Her gem was in the center of her forehead and was no less jarring or eye-like, and something about the way she smiled filled Jasper with dread.

They were ordered to line up so she could go one by one and determine who was fit enough to be presented to the Diamonds, their ruthless, glorious, radiant, marvelous leaders who were responsible for their creation. There was no higher honor than basking in the glory of their Diamonds, and they should all be grateful to be considered, they were told.

And then she went through the meagre fifty survivors of the ambush, one by one. Some she was quick to walk past without so much as a second thought, but others, she lingered over before sucking her teeth and shaking her head, moving on to the next. The ones she did choose, she made step out of line and spin around so she could inspect them front and back, and then after a minute or so, she sent them off to their own line away from the others.

When she got to Jasper, her brows were furrowed as her eyes picked her apart piece by piece. “Turn around.” Jasper obeyed, and she heard the sucking of teeth and felt her stomach drop. The idea of being left behind was just as scary as being separated from any of these gems. “Turn around again.” Jasper obeyed, holding her breath.

“Just excessive and unnecessary, some of these Pink gems. Thank the Diamonds you’ve got some Yellow in you. Go get in the other line.”

She was chosen for a chance to prove herself, but she felt deeply ashamed and embarrassed, unsure what this agate was even referring to. And then her closest friend, the thin jasper, was passed over, as was her carnelian friend, much to her dismay. She considered breaking the line and rejoining her, but she was frozen. Just one more jasper was picked to join her group before the agate addressed the larger crowd, saying, “You all are to remain here and await further orders. No wandering off, and do whatever the peridots ask of you. The rest of you, follow me.”

Her friends gave a sad little wave, and her stomach dropped as the word defective came back to mind. She followed after the agate with a group of just eight Beta jaspers, wondering when she would see the others again. They made their way to the warp pad within the Kindergarten and warped far, far away from the sunbaked red walls of her canyon.

The blue sky opened up all around them and Jasper’s stomach flipped as she peered off the edge of a cliff that dropped into clouds. The air was cold and wet here and fed the gnawing hopelessness growing within her. They’d arrived at an ornate sky arena, perched miles and miles above Earth’s atmosphere on the other side of the world from her home. A cacophony of cheers met them as they passed the entry archway, disorienting and alien to Jasper.

The seats that rose above the arena were filled with gems of all sorts – none of whom Jasper could identify. A massive yellow gem in ornate armor stood and the crowd fell silent in an instant. Their agate hissed, “On your knees for Yellow Diamond.”

The Betas all dropped to their knees, and Jasper studied this gem with cautious curiosity. She had a sharp face, cold eyes, and a dominating, commanding presence. The gem to her right caught Jasper’s eye – a pink gem half the size of Yellow Diamond but just as ornately-dressed, watching with a stone-like expression. Unreadable, but just as intimidating. Yellow Diamond said, "You all are a product of a failed kindergarten that resulted in hundreds of off-color, defective gems. You somehow managed to crush that appalling, traitorous ambush the moment you emerged. I want to see how you did it. Prove to myself and Pink Diamond that you're worthy and capable."

And then the onslaught began without hesitation, with citrines and onyxes and amethysts and massive ruby fusions coming at them with all of their might and centuries of experience and training. Jasper made easy work of some of the citrines and amethysts, poofing them within seconds of engagement. Everything was a blur, and her blood quickened as she took out gem after gem, just as she was made to do. Her claws and brute strength carried her through, and she was fearless, eager to prove her worth, and she left five formless gems clattering behind her in thirty seconds.

An onyx was bearing down on one of her fellow gems and Jasper scrambled towards them, knowing the onyx was an unfair match for her. Before Jasper could reach them, the onyx grabbed the other jasper’s gem in her chest and twisted, poofing her in an instant and crushing her to pieces in her hand.

Jasper launched at the onyx in a spin jump and knocked her to the ground with a loud boom, landing on top of her and punching her face again and again and again in a state of blind fury. The onyx tried to throw her off, but Jasper slashed and bit and punched everything she could reach, anything that was thrown up in defense. The onyx rolled over to try to drag herself away and exposed the gem on the back of her neck – a fatal mistake. Jasper formed her helmet and smashed her in an instant, her physical body disappearing as her gem shards scattered across the stone floor.

By the time the fighting ended, three jaspers had been shattered and seven of their opponents were reduced to shards with everyone else poofed aside from Jasper herself. Her ears were ringing as she gazed at the shards around her and the black blood on her trembling hands, the applause and commentary around her a nightmare of noise that she couldn't comprehend.

Why didn’t their blood vanish off her hands when their bodies vanished?

Yellow Diamond was speaking again, something about how impressive and exceptional Jasper was despite her defective origins. How proud Jasper should be for being the best of them all. How she'd go far serving Pink Diamond. It all felt hollow in that moment, and Jasper wondered how many more gems she could destroy before they crush her – if she could get to Yellow Diamond and rip out her throat.

And then the pink gem beside Yellow Diamond addressed her in a soft voice that drew her full attention. "My Jasper," Pink Diamond said, a gentle smile spreading across her face. "My loyal, powerful, perfect soldier. Have her cleaned up, and await my orders for her assignment."

Perfect. Pink Diamond believed her to be perfect. That was worth something, wasn’t it?

– Something… –

Except it was all a lie. She was intentionally assigned to chase false leads, to poof any and all rose quartz gems while Pink Diamond played her little games with all of their lives. Creating gems just to destroy them.

Jasper had been numbly aware of this since the start of Era Three, but as she wandered blindly back to her assigned apartment, the truth of it all was crushing – suffocating. She climbed the steps to the quartz living quarters and slipped past her door into the dark, cool hallway that led into the main room. It was too sunny in there, so she slid down the wall onto the stone floor, nestling herself in the corner beside the front door. Pain had been creeping higher and higher, and she was at her limit, feeling the glass-in-the-lungs sensation once again while her gem’s light pulsed and flickered. The pain hadn’t even occurred to her until she sat down – she’d been so lost in memories that hadn’t plagued her in centuries.

Fuck these gems. She took a long pull on the vaporizer, as long as it would allow her before auto-cooldown, and then held the vapor in until she felt dizzy and lightheaded. Her eyes slipped closed, and she gratefully embraced the rippling, wavering feeling that wiped her thoughts away.

Chapter Text

Lapis was seated on the edge of Amethyst’s drum set, scrolling mindlessly on her phone while they waited for Pearl and Ocean to show up. It was uncharacteristic for either of them to be late for practice, but Lapis just assumed they were held up by the same nonsense, considering they both had volleyball the same day. Amethyst was texting Pearl, and Lapis heard the fwwp! of a sending message just as the metal warehouse door swung open. It was Ocean and, unusually, Zebra, five minutes late, without Pearl.

“Yo, what? Where’s Pearl?” Amethyst said, looking between the two of them. Her phone dinged and she rushed to look. Zebra scoffed, shrugging while the pair made their way to the stage. Amethyst’s phone dinged again, seconds later.

“New girl got spooked, and Pearl chased after her,” Zebra said, sitting on the edge of the stage and sighing. “Can’t wait to actually play with that one.”

“New girl” went right over Lapis’ head, and she saw Amethyst typing quickly with an incredulous look on her face. She sent the message and pressed the phone against her forehead with her eyes closed, breathing in deep and holding her breath. Sliding her phone into her pocket, she looked at Lapis and said, with mock delight, “She’s at Jasper’s place right now! Said she’s fine and not to worry and she’ll see us tomorrow!”

“Oh. Yikes,” Lapis said, looking back down at her phone and scrolling, not really seeing. That was so, so much sooner than she expected Jasper to enter her primary social circle.

“Wish we knew what was wrong. Everything was fine and then suddenly Pearl was wrapping us up early,” Ocean said, slinging her guitar over her shoulder and moving to plug it into the amp, the squeal of feedback sparking briefly.

“A lot is wrong with that girl,” Amethyst said under her breath, testing the drum pedals a few times. Probably less if Malachite hadn’t existed. Irritating. Lapis hated this.

“Pearl said she wasn’t ready for the arena, and then a volleyball freaked her out,” Zebra said, standing up and grabbing a microphone and spinning it by the cord at her side, pacing around the stage. “Arenas were used for public torture by the time she was made. Memories probably hit too hard.”

“Can we just. Get into it already? I’ll just do bass since Pearl isn’t here,” Lapis said, jumping into action, snatching up a bass guitar and plugging it in, hearing it hum to life. The sound of blood rushing in her ears with vague memories that didn’t belong to her of bloody fights in Homeworld arenas still echoed faintly under it all. She didn’t want to talk about any of this; she didn’t want to think! She snapped at Zebra, feeling herself starting to boil over, “Put the fucking microphone away!”

“Oh, so you’re the new Pearl when Pearl isn’t here? Can’t have any fun around here,” Zebra huffed, putting the microphone back in its holder and sitting on the amp that Lapis was using. Relentlessly annoying brat of a quartz.

“You really don’t wanna find out how different Pearl and I are with getting what we want from gems like you.” Lapis looked at the placement of her fingers on the neck of the bass and gave a couple of test plucks. It was a little out of tune, but Lapis didn’t care to fix it right now. She began strumming out a crunchy beat, drowning out whatever retort Zebra had.

—

Amethyst lit a joint and took a long drag, passing it off to Lapis, who watched the smoke trail from it for a moment before taking a drag. The burn, the choking stink, and the soothing relief. Amethyst let smoke trail out of her nose and asked, “Wanna talk about it?”

“Hm. Nah,” Lapis said, taking another pull before passing the joint back. She exhaled and said, “Well actually, no still, but what are you worried about with this? You’re not worried Pearl can’t handle herself, are you?”

“I’m worried that Pearl has been waiting for a chance to get closer to her, and this is it,” Amethyst admitted, looking at the burning end of the joint. They seemed worried about the same thing.

Oh, so you’re the new Pearl? kept echoing in her head while she stewed on the irony of Pearl taking her place as Jasper’s potential new obsession. The thought made her want to scream, to rip her own hair out, to break everything around her. Why is this so fucking hard?!

The doors opened, and Ocean and Zebra came out of the warehouse and were immediately offered the joint by Amethyst.

“Thanks,” Zebra said, snatching it up and killing it in what amounted to a small puff for herself while Ocean pulled out a much bigger, quart-sized blunt and lit it. Zebra looked between them and said, “Your vibes suck so bad right now. Why?”

“Mercury’s in retrograde or whatever stupid shit humans say,” Lapis said, not wanting Amethyst to bring it up. Luckily Amethyst was happily indulging in Ocean’s oversized blunt, but Lapis knew she probably wouldn’t have said anything, either. Zebra could never keep her mouth shut when it mattered, and they all knew it.

“Does that affect vibes on Earth?” Ocean asked with sincerity. At least she was tolerable. Cute, too. Chubbier than other jaspers, with a softer voice that always disarmed Lapis. She took a drag off the too-big blunt that Amethyst had just passed her before she spoke, having to choke on the smoke for a moment while Zebra slipped the blunt from her.

“Well, no– I mean, I guess I don’t actually know enough to say? Peridot would know for sure,” Lapis said, her eyes watering, legs numb, and voice thick from the hit she took, losing herself in thought about what she’d learned about human astrology. It was fascinating and based entirely on the most rudimentary understanding of the universe, like many different human mythologies, but Lapis loved to read about it all. Ancient mythology and books on demons and angels and human speculation on aliens and cryptids… a lot of it ended up tying back to gems. Their cultures were more intertwined than Lapis had ever known.

“Man, I love Peridot,” Amethyst said dreamily, and Lapis smiled, feeling her mind lighten. “What’s she up to tonight?”

“She’s making me watch some anime, so, you know,” Lapis trailed off, hoping Amethyst would assume she was invited without having to say so in front of gems who weren’t. Felt rude, considering they were sharing their weed, and all.

“Well, we are gonna go hang out with gems our own size, my small friends,” Zebra said cheerfully, putting the blunt out against the palm of her hand and tucking it behind her ear before striding away. Something about Zebra was so frustratingly… hot… to Lapis. She was grating and seemed to thrive on petty conflict, but she was kinda funny. And, well. Lapis liked how familiar she was, without the risk. That realization turned to disgust that settled in the pit of her stomach like nausea, but her interest was piqued.

Ocean looked apologetic, walking backwards after Zebra and saying, “I’ll see you two later. Thanks for keeping practice on, I really love playing with you all.”

“Dude, of course! We love playing with you,” Amethyst said, and Lapis nodded, throwing up a peace sign with a little grin. Ocean was hot too – but in a different way from Zebra. She was actually sweet, in a very particular “was a crystal gem during the war” sort of way that typically annoyed Lapis from other gems. But, well. Lapis knew she could get mean, rough, and nasty when she wanted – she’d seen her dominate the other quartzes in the underground arena, and she never held back.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Lapis said, waving her off. She felt a little better because she was high, but any time her thoughts drifted to where Pearl was, the edges of her vision shook, and she tasted blood.

Chapter Text

“You can make use of the one who survived the gauntlet. The rest of that kindergarten will need to be harvested, and we will cut out another kindergarten somewhere more stable while there’s still time.” Yellow Diamond typed away at her console, never looking up.

“We have capable soldiers staffing the Zoo, wasting their talents.” Pearl could hear a shiver of anger in Pink’s voice. She resisted the urge to reach out and comfort her. “Why not bring those soldiers here to fight, and send the defectives off to staff that base?”

Yellow paused, seeming to mull the idea over. She went back to typing, and said, “You’re learning to allocate resources. Much too late, and you’re still likely to fail. But it’s a step in the right direction. I’ll coordinate the transfer of gems, and I’ll have that jasper assigned to the Rose Quartz mission.”

“I have plans for that jasper,” Pink said, barely masking her alarm. The last thing they needed was a hunter like that gem sent after actual rose quartzes. Pearl knew Pink had already pushed her luck with Yellow, though, and braced herself.

“Such as?”

“I– well, she’d…” Pink trailed off. Pearl wished she could speak because she immediately had several ideas, but Pink was too flustered to think quickly.

Yellow finally looked down, impatient, and said, “There is no better place for that gem than hunting down Rose Quartz. You saw what she did in the arena. She’s exceptional, and you’d be a fool not to have her on that essential mission. Besides, I’ve already sent off the orders to her overseeing agate. You’re lucky to have someone around who actually knows how to win a war.”

Pink forced a tight smile, and said stiffly, “Thank you, Yellow. I’ll get back to my duties now.”

She stormed off without another word and Pearl jogged after her, lost in thought. That quartz wouldn’t be a long-term risk for the Crystal Gems. They’d faced down much worse than that and had thousands of years of experience on them. Still, she knew that wasn’t what Pink was upset about.

Pink had been horrified to hear that Yellow had gone behind her back and ordered the rush production of a new kindergarten. That she’d combined her own essences with Pink’s in injectors to try to make gems “more warlike than your lazy amethysts,” and ordered the peridots not to worry about standard protocol, to just make things happen as fast as possible. The majority of the gems that came out of that kindergarten were disabled by this, missing limbs or formed in ways that put them at a strong disadvantage in battle. Unfortunate, since their entire assigned purpose was to be war fodder. If they couldn’t achieve their purpose, the other Diamonds saw no value in them.

And though Rose hadn’t said anything, Pearl suspected that she was angry that Bismuth led an ambush on the Beta kindergarten without her knowledge while they were on the moon base doing just enough to keep the other Diamonds from suspecting anything. They lost half of the ambush party that day and destroyed a bunch of defective quartzes in the process, likely establishing this deadly loyalty they’d seen in the arena fight.

They made it to the warp without speaking, but the moment they warped onto Pink’s ship, she broke down, slumping into a chair and hiding her face in her hands as she sobbed. Pearl placed a hand on her thigh, feeling her grief deep in her gem. She said, “I’m so sorry. I wish there was more we could have done to stop this all.”

“I didn’t want more gems made just to be destroyed! I didn’t ask for her to make that kindergarten!” Pink cried, her face twisted with anguish. “More gems who are too young to understand the rebellion, to understand the need for it! They’ll rip themselves apart trying to stop our cause, all in my name!”

“If Yellow Diamond won’t let you assign that jasper, at least you have time to enforce strict guidelines for that mission. Keep them running in circles, make sure they collect any rose quartz gems unharmed. With luck, we’ll keep her far away from us and out of harm’s way,” Pearl said, attempting to sound confident. “And you managed to save the rest of the kindergarten! The Zoo plan was excellent thinking.”

“Put them out of harm’s way, but drag a bunch of citrines here to suffer in their place,” Pink said, and mingled frustration and fear twisted in Pearl’s stomach. They needed to move, not dwell on the things that were out of their control until they, too, spiraled out of control. Oh, but it hurt Pearl to see Pink hurting, too.

“My– Rose, do you mind if I send off some urgent messages in your stead? I’d like to ensure that Yellow’s agate trains that jasper in nonviolent retrieval methods,” Pearl pleaded, already moving towards the console.

“Please do,” Pink said, her expression softening as she looked Pearl in the eyes. She sighed, wiping her tears and quickly sobering. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’d do without you, my Pearl.”

—--

Pearl knocked gently at the door of the simple stone apartment that Jasper resided in, hoping she came back home and would answer. She half-expected Jasper to ignore her, and that would be fine. It’d be foolish of her to assume what, in particular, made Jasper react so strongly to a ball coming her way. Of course, nobody asked Steven to share the explicit details of what happened between them. But based on the massive crater they found when she and Garnet went to assess the area, she could guess. It made her feel sick to speculate on, though she knew her feelings about it weren’t nearly as important as Jasper’s or Steven’s.

Still, she couldn’t help the whirlwind of screaming panic that threatened to destroy her peace – the feeling that she’d failed Steven, and ultimately, failed Rose. She couldn’t protect him from every horrible thing that led him to shatter another gem – one of Rose’s own, one that Rose tried to save, one that Pearl was unable to help. Pearl waited a minute before trying to knock again, a little louder this time.

The door cracked open, and Jasper peered down at her, tired golden eyes bright in the darkness of night. Pearl asked, “Can I come in?”

Jasper left the door open and wandered away, deeper into the apartment. An unspoken invitation to enter. Pearl closed the door behind her, saying a little, “Thank you,” as she followed Jasper into the darkness. A switch was flipped and a string of lights that bordered the ceiling flickered on, twinkling prettily and adding a warm glow to the space.

The space was modest and comfortable, the equivalent of a studio apartment for a gem as big as Jasper. There was a huge, squishy bed strewn with blankets of all different colors and textures and pillows of every shape and size in the center of the room. Pearl was intrigued that she definitely had more of these comforts than usual or necessary, at least for the average gem, and wondered when Jasper found an interest in blankets and pillows. She also had a formidable collection of blooming cacti and succulents sprawled across her gray stone balcony, bringing it alive with color. Pearl beamed, taking in all of the gorgeous personality around the space. It wasn’t like she told anyone, well, much of anything at all.

“What do you want?” Jasper asked in a tired voice, seated on the edge of her bed. Pearl snapped back to why she was there in the first place, her smile faltering.

“I wanted to check in on you, see how you’re adapting to life in Little Homeworld,” Pearl said. This was the first time the two of them had ever been alone together, and it felt strange. She didn’t fear this gem, but there was an awkward sort of guilt from the moment Jasper showed up back on Earth with Peridot and Lapis.

Jasper seemed to consider her words for a moment, battling some unseen battle only noticeable by the subtle shift from anger to sadness in her eyes. She said quietly, “I’m failing at it.”

“Why do you say that?” Pearl asked, her pulse quickening. She didn’t expect vulnerability.

“Seriously? You saw what happened today,” Jasper said, looking up at her, brows furrowed. She really was visually striking in a way Pearl always struggled to ignore.

“I saw a gem remove herself from a situation that distressed her. You did exactly what you needed to do.”

“I was afraid of a stupid ball.”

Pearl hesitated, hoping she wasn’t pushing her luck, asking too much. “Was it really the ball…? Or did the ball bring up an unpleasant memory?”

Jasper’s eyes slid back down to the floor. “Does it matter?”

“No, actually. Either would be fine, and neither would mean you’re a failure,” Pearl said, cautious, “but if it was the latter, well… half of the volleyball players have had some sort of public reaction related to unpleasant memories taking them somewhere horrible. I—I’ve had plenty of my own! You reacted so reasonably, you—"

“I’m not me anymore. I haven’t been me since the moment I realized I was going to be shattered. I don’t know who I am,” Jasper said, her voice hollow, aching. Pearl didn’t expect any of this. She wanted to reach out and hug this gem, but, stars, that certainly wouldn’t be appropriate.

“I—that’s understandable.”

“The fact that I’m just. Telling you—anyone! All of… this. I’m not me. I haven’t stopped feeling afraid since that day. It’s disgusting.”

“You survived something so, so horrible, Jasper,” Pearl said, her voice quiet, chest tight.

“Survived? I was destroyed, I— did Pink Diamond order the ambush on the Beta kindergarten?” Jasper’s voice wavered and Pearl froze, her blood turning to ice as she processed what Jasper was asking. Nothing could have prepared her for that question coming so soon, especially when Jasper barely spoke to any of them.

“No, no, she could never…! That was… well, she and I were on the moon base doing the bare minimum to keep the other Diamonds happy and away from Earth. A group of Crystal Gems who disagreed with Rose’s nonviolent approach organized and executed the ambush when she wasn’t paying attention,” Pearl said, neglecting to mention it was she, herself, who slipped that particular idea to Bismuth. She didn’t expect the conversation to be, well, here, so soon. The gem Pearl was back then cared only for Rose – even if that meant going against Rose’s wishes and destroying the gems she refused to destroy. Of course, that backfired horrendously. The guilt twisted her guts into knots, and she felt sick.

Jasper was looking at her with an unreadable expression, but then she laughed – a low, miserable chuckle. “Do you know why I wasn’t on Earth the day the war was lost?”

Pearl shook her head, and Jasper explained, “I made a report that I’d managed to corner the Rose Quartz, but she slipped away. In that report, I said that the renegade pearl that accompanied Rose Quartz shared a strong likeness with Pink Diamond’s own pearl. I’d only seen you with her once bringing in a batch of poofed rose quartzes, and only from a distance, but I knew it was you.

“I was dragged in front of the hessonite in charge of the mission and humiliated for believing a Diamond’s loyal pearl would ever betray her. She’s always by her side, I was told. The other Diamonds would have noticed, she said. In the end, I guess she was right about the first part; you were always by her side. I was punished for allowing Rose Quartz to slip away, and before I could be sent back, we got word of a mandatory evacuation of all Homeworld gems. Pink Diamond was shattered by the Rose Quartz I allowed to escape.”

Pearl was biting back tears. Would corrupting on Earth during the Diamond blast have been a better fate than being dragged back to Homeworld to face blame and torture? Fidgeting with her hands in front of her, Pearl squeaked out a little, “I’m so sorry. None of that is fair.”

“Why are you sorry? Your purpose was to serve Pink Diamond, and you did that better than any of us,” Jasper said with a twinge of frustration.

“Half of the point of her rebellion was that she didn’t want gems serving her. It wasn’t just about protecting Earth, it was about letting gems choose their own destiny. About freeing gems from servitude and torture and objectification.

“This is what Pink Diamond wanted, not just Rose Quartz or Steven. The Diamond you served wanted this for us all,” Pearl said, imploring. “It took me until just a few years ago to really understand how to be my own gem, despite spending thousands of years by her side. I’m sorry that innocent gems like you got dragged into this mess.”

Jasper was looking down at her hands. Pearl knew she had likely heard summaries of this all since the beginning of Era Three, but had she ever actually listened? Without looking up, she said, “You were her most loyal soldier, and she left you behind.”

Pearl smiled, but felt the sad little ache in her chest that never really left. She’d heard that a thousand different times from a thousand different gems, like picking at an old scab that never went away. “And here I am, not letting it destroy me. It was awful at first, I’ll admit. I hated humans for taking her from me, and I struggled to be an appropriate caretaker for Steven. Who knows where I’d be if you all hadn’t arrived to drag him off to Homeworld?”

“I think about that a lot,” Jasper confessed, looking up with a hint of a grin. “Wonder what sort of punishment I would have gotten for assaulting Pink Diamond once they realized that his gem wasn’t a rose quartz gem.”

“If they ever would have realized without destroying Steven and his gem,” Pearl said with a shudder. She’d had disgusting, writhing, choking, private cries in her room once they’d made it back home over all the horrible things that might have happened to him if they made it to Homeworld while his powers were still developing. “The other Diamonds never recognized Pink’s voice or aura in Rose Quartz, despite coming close to them several times, calling out to them. While you were corrupted, Steven went on trial in front of them and he was sentenced to shattering before escaping. They never paid close enough attention to Pink, as much as they loved her, in their own way.”

“That time I cornered her, I felt it. Her aura,” Jasper said, looking up at the twinkling lights on her ceiling, a softness creeping over her face. “That’s what threw me. I was about to lunge but then… she was different from the other roses I’d captured, I felt– I felt love, overwhelming love for her when she looked me in the eyes, the kind I’d felt in the direct presence of Pink Diamond. And then you had a sword ready to gut me, and you both managed to escape. I couldn’t understand why this rose quartz was different from the others, how she somehow made me defy my mission and my purpose just by looking at me.”

“If you felt her love, it’s because she felt it for you,” Pearl said, watching the string lights twinkle in Jasper’s brilliant eyes. “She didn’t want to fight you; she didn’t want to destroy you or bubble you. She wanted you to survive, to have a chance to become your own gem one day, the same way she did.”

Jasper frowned, brows furrowed, still looking up at the lights. She blinked rapidly as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. With a shaky sigh, she covered her face with both hands and curled up on her bed, scooting back so her legs weren’t dangling off, trying to stifle sobs that wracked her body. Pearl hesitated for a moment, still thrown by the direction this all went. She wandered up to the bed, climbing onto the edge and sitting beside her. She asked gently, “Would you like me to stay?”

Jasper shrugged and then tried to scrub the tears from her eyes, but they wouldn’t stop coming. She shuddered and mumbled, her voice thick, “Whatever you want.”

Well, Pearl wanted to help. She kicked off her shoes, mildly annoyed that she hadn’t at the door, and crawled around the bed, collecting pillows one by one. She tucked a soft round yellow one into Jasper’s hands that she immediately buried her face in, another big rectangle under her head and some more in every shape and color bordering her to form a barrier of squishy pressure. She dragged over blankets and pulled them over her, piling them onto her one by one until she was cocooned under eight separate blankets and peering over her round yellow pillow with a look of utter confusion. Muffled, she asked, “Do I need all of them at the same time?”

“I didn’t know which you liked best,” Pearl said, grinning and straightening out the top blanket. And absurdity is an excellent distraction from pain. Aaaand pressure is calming. She picked up a remote control off the bedside table and wiggled it, asking, “Can I put on some music?”

“... okay.” Jasper wasn’t crying anymore, but her face was red and eyes puffy when she pulled her pillow from obscuring her face. Some of her hair had gotten wet with tears and was stuck to her cheeks and forehead in little swirls. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why not? I think you deserve some comfort,” Pearl said, lying with her back against the pillow halo and hitting the power button, turning on a projector that lit up the ceiling with an imitation of Earth’s night sky. A little menu popped up that let Pearl navigate to a music app and she saw an acid rock playlist in her recent history, and she chose it with a big smile, happy they liked something in common. Greg had shown Pearl this genre and she really liked the calm but experimental nature of it, particularly when she played along on the bass.

A slow drum beat and warbling guitar came from speakers that surrounded the room, the droning bass notes reverberating gem-deep. Jasper radiated a warmth similar to Bismuth’s and it made Pearl want to reach out, but that would be incredibly inappropriate. Her voice was soft when she said, “I’ll stick around for as long as you need.”

“I don’t know what I need,” Jasper admitted, gazing at the sky projection. “This is the most I’ve talked to another gem since… Steven.”

“I know it’s a lot to face, but getting to know other gems will give you so many reasons to keep going,” Pearl said, rolling onto her stomach and propping herself up on a pillow. Jasper truly was magnificent to look at – she always had been. Her pulse quickened and her chest flooded with a heavy, tender warmth. Despite the heaviness of the moment, she couldn’t help but appreciate how far of a leap forward this all was – how trusting Jasper was, how she was baring everything with little hesitation.

Jasper peered up at her, her gaze soft, her energy seemingly wiped. Her eyes slid from Pearl’s gem to her eyes, and she said, “I still wanna fight Zebra in that arena.”

“You still haven’t figured out what she’s actually interested in, have you?” Pearl had to stifle a laugh behind the back of her hand. “I’m not going to stop you, but I’ll warn you: She’s going to try to come onto you if you fight her.”

“What do you mean, come on to me?” Of course she hadn’t taken more advanced relationship classes yet, she only started coming to classes days ago.

“She’s… how do I put this. I guess in most basic terms: she thinks you’re attractive and is interested in getting to know you on a more intimate level,” Pearl said, gazing at the thick, wavy mane of hair that framed Jasper’s face, messily falling across her eyes. Franky, she completely understood Zebra’s interest, but she kept that to herself.

Silence for a few long moments, and then Jasper said, “Sounds unlikely.”

“Why’s that?” Pearl grinned, watching her struggle to work out that another gem might find her attractive. A common struggle among gems like her, but still amusing, considering, well, everything about her. She was aesthetically profound in every single way, in Pearl’s mind.

“C’mon. That’s… not what is going on. She probably knows I’m from Earth. She’s challenging me because she thinks I’m weaker than her, she said I look…,” Jasper said, faltering, seeming more and more unsure with every word. She said you look interesting and called you gorgeous, gorgeous. She looked wide-eyed up at Pearl and whispered, “Seriously?”

Oh, she’s too cute. “She picks fights with different gems for different reasons, but all with the same goal. It’s how she flirts. It’s how she and Ocean ended up a pair, but they’re both open to other gems,” Pearl said, watching Jasper’s entire worldview crumble as she stared up at the ceiling with wide eyes and a slight flush to her cheeks. “Now you know. Now if you choose to fight her, you know what you’re up against.”

“I– I don’t– I can’t– I probably would have stood more of a chance before knowing that!” Jasper pulled herself from under her mountain of blankets, sitting up and looking down at Pearl with urgency, like she was her only hope to save her from this mess.

“You don’t have to fight her! You just need to be aware that the volleyball girls fight to bond, not to prove anything to each other,” Pearl said, gentle and sincere, again feeling the warm pulse of affection heat her blood. Jasper sighed, crossing her arms.

“As if I’d ever back out of a fight,” She grumbled. Pearl smiled wide, wondering if that was Jasper’s subtle way of consenting to Zebra’s flirtation.

“I can at least make sure she stops flirting, if it’s making you uncomfortable,” Pearl offered, deeply curious.

“I can fight my own battles, thanks,” Jasper said, the red in her face deepening and her gaze turned.

Pearl took that as a request to not intervene. She knew better than to try to push this gem to communicate more directly. Any amount of communication was a gift at this point, and she was deeply encouraged by the growth they’d made in just an evening. Maybe being one-on-one with her would have helped this entire time, or maybe the timing was more important than anything.

Bzzt. Her phone was vibrating, and she felt like things were calm enough that it wouldn’t be rude to check. She pulled it out and saw that it was a few minutes past the start of band practice. She sucked in air between her teeth, quickly sliding open the message from Amethyst that read, “If you’re getting laid instead of coming to band practice when me and piss were ON TIME good job!! but also I hate you :)”

She typed quickly, “Sorry I didn’t text, had to help a student. Safe at her place for now.” And sent.

And then she typed another quick message, “Not sure why I’m being vague but it’s Jasper, I’m at her place and there’s no need to worry. Sorry that I’m not getting laid tonight, and it’s “Piss and I”. See you tomorrow!” And sent. They’ll find out eventually, might as well be from her. She looked up and saw that Jasper was scrolling on her own phone with a calm little grin.

“Would it be okay if I saved your number in my personal contact list? You’re in the school alerts list, but… it’d be nice to check in every now and then,” Pearl said lightly, and her phone buzzed again.

Jasper looked up at her, looking surprised, and said, “Okay. Sure.”

Smiling, Pearl looked down at whatever Amethyst had to say. “Oh cool, don’t get laid then please. Ew.“

Rolling her eyes, she slid open her document organizer and found Jasper under the school contact list and copied her directly into her phone contacts. She typed up a quick little, “Hello!” And sent it, and she heard Jasper’s phone buzz.

“And now if you need to reach me for anything, and just me, you can, any time,” Pearl said cheerfully, sliding her phone back into her pocket. 

Chapter Text

Jasper sat on her bed with her legs crossed, unsure of what to do with herself. She was exhausted, but she never really figured out that whole sleep thing. Pearl had only left her apartment – her space – a few moments ago. Everything was too strange for her to relax. Had she ever relaxed? She couldn’t be sure.

The playlist that Pearl picked droned on, and Jasper lowered the volume. Confusing. These gems made no sense. Pearl had no reason to trust her enough to be alone with her – she certainly didn’t trust any of these gems, no matter what tactics they used to get under her skin. Jasper had no desire to harm Pearl, but she had no clue what Pearl’s motivations were. The weight of what they discussed was heavy, and she felt a spike of grief whenever her mind wandered to her new perspective of Pearl as Pink Diamond’s most fierce protector and most loyal soldier.

The role Jasper was created and trained and tortured for, fulfilled by a gem with no natural advantages, driven by her fierce love for her own Diamond – who dragged them all through horrors for nothing – Pearl included. What had that been like? Designed to be a Diamond’s pearl, limited in physical strength and social status. Carrying a human blade better than any human Jasper had encountered, adapting to defend her Diamond from warriors ten times her own size…

The more she considered Pearl’s situation, the more agitated she grew. How old was she? How long had she been with Pink before the war began? Before Pink gave up her entire self to become Steven? Jasper scowled, blinking back burning tears as confusion rippled through her very being. She never really thought much about the fates of other gems – there was no time to concern herself with others when her own miserable life was as grim as it was.

Pearl had no scars, showed no outward sign of corruption, shattering, or any other damage. She’d certainly survived more horrors than most gems without so much as a scratch, fulfilling her role as Pink Diamond’s servant while defying her limited design, evolving far beyond her intended purpose. And there Jasper was, a supposedly “perfect” warrior in aesthetic design. A “perfect” warrior who failed every purpose ever assigned to her and ended up corrupted and shattered both. How many gems could claim to have failed so utterly and completely as she had?

The war was a farce, Pink Diamond was never in any real danger, and it was very likely that Steven would only grow stronger and stronger as his organic side continued to develop into full maturity. Her entire creation had been a reaction to a lie. Maybe she actually fulfilled her purpose of protecting Pink Diamond by failing to capture Rose Quartz, by failing to capture Steven, by failing again and again until it was proven that her entire existence was a lie. It didn’t matter either way, and her shattering scars were flaring up, spiraling into a zap attack, fast.

She gently slid to the edge of the bed, wincing from pain as she got to her feet, shuffling across the room and pulling the balcony door open. The night air was cool and humid and carried the smell of plant life in bloom from the nearby greenhouse, almost sweet on her tongue. Sweet like rot. She took a deep breath, sliding the door closed behind her and sitting in the simple metal chair by her several potted cactuses.

Steven instructed her to care for them, as they’d have nobody to do so what with him leaving. Strong, defensive, sturdy, but bloomed delicate flowers and fruits to carry on their species in the same way most Earth organics created life. They couldn’t handle too much water, but neither could Jasper. She pulled her vape from her neckline, taking a long, burning drag and exhaling with a sigh, her eyes slipping closed. Relax. The gnawing, burning pain eased off, calming the buzzing in her mind.

It was six hours until sunrise, and Little Homeworld was quiet. There were plenty of gems that didn’t sleep, but they kept their volume down out of consideration for Earth’s sun-obsessed culture, and for the gems who chose to sleep like humans. Or with humans, apparently. Jasper couldn’t understand gems forming such relationships with one another, much less with humans. They were fragile and their lives were short, and gems would outlive them again and again forever until the end of time. Why put yourself in that position, to have the ones you love perish and disappear?

The thought was too discomforting, and she shifted instead to gems with other gems, how strictly forbidden certain relationships and mutual actions had been for her entire existence. She knew, of course, about gems from the same kindergarten growing too close and needing to be separated, or gems that fused too often who were destabilized for their disobedience and indulgence. They would be reconditioned, tortured by agates, humiliated into solitude, sent to opposite corners of the universe from one another, or shattered and harvested.

Yellow’s agates taught her, with the use of whips and electric tools, that inappropriate relationships between gems were treasonous. The Crystal Gems engaged in fusion between multiple kinds of gems, developed Earthly affections and behaviors that were unnatural for gems, and this level degeneracy led to the destruction of a Diamond. Fusions were allowed only by gems from the same Kindergartens and only for specific jobs and time limits. Gems were to show respect and reverence only to gems of a higher rank than themselves. And, of course, only interact with gems of equal or lower rank for work or punishment purposes.

Her agate Yelloweye really liked to rub in that she’d never have difficulties with fusion, since they’d shattered and harvested her entire Kindergarten. Yelloweye attended that event herself, she claimed, and loved to comment on how brittle her vein on quartz was while whipping her in the face, in the gem.

If she ever resisted, they’d cuff her arms behind her back and bring out a shock collar and make it much, much worse. So, she learned to go inside herself, to shut out everything and remain calm, detached, and inexpressive until she could take anything without flinching. Lightheaded and dizzy and hollow and filled with a burning fury, but fine.

She never cared to get to know any other quartzes she worked around and ignored those acting a little too friendly. It wasn’t her business, and she wouldn’t risk her position with needless reports. And in the beginning, she was assigned again and again to missions she wasn’t meant to come back from, to dangerous planets with dangerous lifeforms much worse than anything she’d seen on Earth. No use getting friendly with anyone, with jobs like that. Salute your new Diamond and keep your head down. Survive and endure and try not to get digested by an acid beast on some fucked up swamp planet.

Her asocial existence left her poorly prepared for the moment she walked in on a rough yellow citrine thrusting into an elegant blue chalcedony in a ship jail cell. That was a vivid memory that was burned into her mind, as hard as she tried to forget it. It’d come to her on a particularly boring night, or if she saw a gem she was so sure was one of the pair, or if a gem smiled at her in a specific way. Every time, her stomach would twist, and a molten hot weakness would flood her physical form, her limbs would become heavy and unstable, as sudden and jarring as being knocked off her feet by a charging enemy.

The feeling terrified her at first – worrying her that she was as bad as any traitor, as bad as the gems who had shattered her Diamond, even. But her agates had clearly sensed this particular weakness in her when they initially received her, because she quickly learned through grueling, torturous conditioning, that she could shut those feelings out, a lingering embarrassment and shame in its place. There were times when she’d allow herself to dwell on the memory once she secured her status in Yellow Diamond’s court, allowing herself the shameful little indulgence that she’d broken a rule for purely selfish reasons. Yellow’s court was full of citrines, and she’d gaze at one during a boring guard shift, hearing the memory of skin on skin while heat reared up in her belly, allowing the heat and the shame to meld into something even more all-consuming.

But in this new era, this behavior was considered normal. Encouraged, even. Nobody would stop her from remembering it perfectly, with crystal clarity, thousands of years later – no punishment could come from the memory.

Jasper had followed the sound, so sure there weren’t any prisoners on the ship, and stood frozen in shock. The citrine had her teeth buried in the chalcedony’s shoulder, growling and grunting while she thrust her hips, erratic and animalistic. She felt the fiery hot, all-consuming weakness then, too, and she couldn’t move. The chalcedony’s half lidded eyes slid over to her, and the soft sounds puffing past her parted lips with each thrust trailed into an inquisitive little hum. She smiled and asked, husky and breathless, “Here to join us?”

The citrine looked up and immediately started begging her not to report them, leaping up and pulling clothes back on in a frantic panic while the chalcedony was naked on the floor, still looking at Jasper with a challenging grin while she slid her hand between her icy blue thighs. The blood was starting to flow back to her brain with all the citrine’s panic, but she didn’t know what to do and couldn’t look away.

A little hitch in the chalcedony’s breath that Jasper’s body mimicked without thought, her blood boiling. She needed to leave, now. She couldn’t move. Her heart was racing. The chalcedony’s eyes rolled back a little before she asked, her hand rubbing slow circles, “How long are you allowed to watch me do this before you’re complicit?”

Jasper turned and walked away as quick as she could without running while the citrine called after her, “Please! I can’t lose her!”

The chalcedony’s heavy, low voice had the hint of a laugh behind it when she said, fading as Jasper turned into the hall and kept walking fast, “Mm, she won’t tell. Did you see how she was looking at me?”

She didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t care enough to waste her time reporting frivolous nonsense like this, and part of her couldn’t forget the last thing the chalcedony asked her. There were cameras that would have footage pulled if she made the report. Footage that would show her staring without making any action to stop or interrupt or report them for a good thirty seconds, which was an eternity as far as most agates were concerned. Certainly long enough to be marked a traitor, especially with her origins as an Earth gem.

The last time she’d reported something significant was when she suspected the Crystal Gem Pearl to be the same as Pink Diamond’s pearl, and she really couldn’t be bothered to put herself at risk of torture for making a report ever again. Of course, she hadn’t known then how right she was, and she did feel a little validated now that she knew the truth.

Now, in Era Three, the Diamonds hosted lavish parties where they engaged in everything they once banned and more, debauchery and hedonism beyond Jasper’s socially-stunted imagination. It made her feel insane if she thought too much about the torture she endured for the constructs that they abandoned with such ease. The things she’d heard of Yellow Diamond doing, publicly, with gems far below her rank… Madness.

It was the first time since she returned to Earth that she’d remembered the citrine and the chalcedony, and all because she realized another gem was interested in her. A gem she knew to be particularly physical with other gems, in public and otherwise. It was almost too much to consider – the sensation that she could melt into a puddle of molten stone was overwhelming. It was easier when she believed that Zebra was challenging her to establish rank and status within the group. And as much as she didn’t want Pearl fighting her battles for her, she also realized that maybe she wanted this option open once it threatened to close with Pearl’s offer to intervene. Do I want this?! Do I actually want anything?

She’d spent some time watching these quartzes from afar and only days up close, and none of them showed any hint that they’d received anything close to the Era Two torture that she had. Which made sense – all of them were from Kindergartens off-planet and bore corruption scars, which made them all Era One gems. They’d also been part of Little Homeworld from the very start, a mix of old Crystal Gems and Homeworld war survivors who had nothing better to do, working together to build this town while she’d been off trying to keep herself busy in an effort to not shatter herself. Bonding like wild earthlings for years at this point, fearless and comfortable.

She thought of Zebra’s eyes trailing over her, lingering on hips and chest in a way she assumed was gauging weak and unconventional design. It was something she had always hated about herself, that she looked more like she belonged among rose quartzes than other jaspers. Zebra was lean, her body was hard, she was a pure weapon. And the hot weakness flooded her once again and she stared up at the sky, taking a drag on her vape as she thought of that arrogant monster showing her exactly what a real jasper was supposed to look like – stripped of any uniform, bare, mocking. That smug fucking smirk. She sighed shakily, leg bouncing with anxious energy, wondering who she even was anymore. What she was. The warrior never truly existed, and the farce was stripped away when she was broken. She was nothing, nobody. And nothing, nobody, was starting to get interesting.