The glint at the corner of their eye matches it easily, and if Phosphophyllite weren’t used to that shade and color and feeling, they would have dismissed the light quickly. But they don’t, and instantly search for it, until their eyes look upwards and for a moment it’s there, surrounded by translucent wings, and maybe it’s their desperate need to see someone, or something, or just that one specific person that forces their legs to move and follow those wings.
The ten minutes that go by after that feel like an eternity, even for one who has lived four hundred centuries, but when the wings disappear and that being starts to fall, Phosphophyllite’s senses enhance as if it were themselves who were falling. They are going to shatter, is their immediate thought, for such a height there’s no way even a Lapis Lazuli of hardness five would survive.
It all comes naturally, then - approaching the gem as much as possible, and at critical condition Phos’ arms extend and shift into branches that take hold of the fallen Lapis with the most utmost care. They have done it before, after all. Even if their arms are now severely limited, they couldn’t just let this change pass them by. They couldn’t.
But when they set the other down, they don’t need to approach them any closer to notice that one isn’t the Lapis they know - isn’t the Lapis they had hoped to see. Right. Because that Lapis Lazuli is on the Moon, and they haven’t quite restored them yet, and they wouldn’t have a head. Of course. How desperate even is, Phosphophyllite, to commit such a mistake?
No– that doesn’t matter. Because if this gem could do such a thing as fly away, then maybe. Maybe they could convince them to take Phos to the Moon. Away. And if that meant being far from this place, then maybe Cinnabar, too– “You are… a Lapis Lazuli, right?” The same species of gemstone from that one Rose Quartz they have met before, they guess. Not that it matters. “You can fly?”
In the span of fifteen short minutes, Lapis Lazuli realizes she’s trapped again.
When her wings form without trouble, she assumes it will only be a matter of time before she’s broken free of this planet’s atmosphere and on her way back to Earth, where Steven and Peridot and yes, perhaps even the Diamonds are waiting for her. No matter how long it takes, she’s determined to finish what she started, if she only could.
When her wings disappear and the moisture in the air ceases responding to her will, she’s hardly even surprised. Of course something would go wrong, she thinks. Of course she’s trapped here on another unfamiliar planet. Of course she’s in danger again. Of course she’s going to hit the ground and poof, alone as she’s ever been.
Instead, she falls into the arms of a gem she’s never known.
It takes her a moment to gather her thoughts upon landing. At first, her gratitude overwhelms anything else she may feel ( save perhaps the shock of it all ). “Thank you,” she murmurs, soft but sincere. “That’s never happened to me before. I...”
And then she sees them and all her thoughts evaporate.
They are not a gem like she is. They are like the first gem she met, that Cinnabar, whose entire body is made from their gemstone. But this one is different, as they have the head of a Lapis Lazuli like herself and the body of everything but. Golden arms, agate legs, a torso that’s translucent and green — they are unlike anything she has ever seen and it’s horrifying.
“You...” She takes a step back. “What are you? Some kind of fusion experiment? A living Cluster?” She wants to put more distance between them but she’s frozen in place. All she can do is look on in horror as the words tumble from her mouth. “Who made you? Why would they do this?”
vaporwave
areudirty
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
janainaart
