the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go “what”
i can’t believe Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” wasn’t already mentioned
and also it’s not so much unsettling as more absurdist but “The Leader” by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf
I read Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day” in seventh grade (it wasn’t assigned, I was just going through my textbook for new stuff to read) and as a bullied kid with SAD, it Fucked Me Up.
and this story that I can’t remember the name of and can’t find, though it might be by O. Henry? it’s about a bunch of demons who want to stop Santa Claus from going through with Christmas, and he must travel through the mountains they inhabit to escape their vices? (good christ I can’t remember the name for the life of me)
The City (195) Ray Bradbury. An intense commentary on colonialism and space exploration. I read it for a sci fi survey class.
Another short story I read in that sci fi class was Vaster than Empires and More Slow (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin. A commentary on humanity and how human we believe ourselves to be. Also, an interesting commentary on mental health.
In the Woods Beneath the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom, written in 1947 by Ango Sakaguchi. It made my skin crawl the first time I read it.
Also going to recommend For A Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny, a commentary on whether AI can become human in a future without humans: http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke. (I never re-read it and suspect if I did, I’d find it had issues, but I still think about the ending.)
I had an MRI exam yesterday, I’m waiting on the results now.
My status currently is that I’m in a lot of pain, particularly with crippling headaches that are making it hard to talk to anyone for more than a few minutes, experiencing full body spasms that are making it dangerous to carry hot liquids or sharp objects and so exhausted that I can’t do the most basic things like keeping the house clean or cooking. None of my meds are taking the edge off.
On a slightly more positive note, some friends are visiting from abroad and I’m catching up on my knitting.
This is just a little bulletin to let regular readers know why I haven’t updated in a while.
As you know, my health has been in dire straits for quite some time, and it looks like the reason behind that was a misdiagnosis and I need a hell of a lot of tests done. I’m currently in need of an MRI scan and a lumbar puncture test, and I need to go private to get those done. I’ve had to quit my job and most of my outside commitments and most days I can barely walk.
I’m on a fixed income right now and these tests and treatments are sorely stretching my finances thin, so I have to cut out anything that’s not essential to my livelihood, including things I do for fun. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to writing, but I hope it won’t take too long.
In the meantime, and I have to admit I feel like an awful parasite for even setting this up, if you’ve enjoyed my work and you’d like to see me back writing a little quicker than current circumstances will allow, I have a Ko-fi page right here:
https://ko-fi.com/L3L8TPRU
I will take note of any and all donations and give those people a personalized fiction commission as soon as I can manage, and hopefully I’ll be back in decent health soon. And if I don’t come back full stop, it’s been a good couple of fandom years and I appreciate all the support I’ve had.
Those links for all asking
Deadly history of women using perfume as poison
-Girlhood, medusa and female rage
-The allure of gothic horror
-Essays and thoughts on girls in horror
-Why girls get hungry in horror
-Mothers and witches
-Women in horror
-The female poisoner
-female werewolves
-Monstrous women - Catherine Lundoff
-Female cannibals and consumptive horror
-Horror films directed by women
-Women, killer plants and annihilation
-Female identity within the gothic genre
-Women in horror - the vvitch
-the vvitch, female sexuality in horror
-Angela Carter - The beast is female sexuality
-Body horror/monster reading list
-Consumptive horror
So-and I'm so sorry if this is rude/unwanted-do you have any (non-spoilery) thoughts on how Pearl's are designed? I followed this series for ages, and now that it's pretty much done, I figured I might as well ask some questions that are usually on my mind (only if that's okay!).
Of course it’s okay! I’m sorry it took me a while to respond to this, Tumblr doesn’t seem to like letting me know when I have messages.
The way pearls are designed (according to my own fan-canon and probably very different to the show’s canon) is sort of a hybrid between genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. In essence, the gems managed to synthesize a gem using a different method (water-based rather than soil-based) and pearls are the result, they’re about as ‘genetically’ similar to gems as humans are to chimpanzees. The scientists who invented pearls had more access to their form while they were growing in the water baths (unlike regular gems who stay in the ground until they’re finished growing) and were able to warp and remove the bits they didn’t like while the pearls were still growing, including putting in the spike to disrupt cognitive focus.
What the gems responsible didn’t realize at the time is that the way they designed pearls is incredibly similar to how the zoatox evolved. Zoatox reproduce rapidly and with every new generation, their evolution is changed to work around some new chink in gem defence. So the same evolution strategy that changed bipedal apes into humans over millions of years happens to zoatox in the space of three days, and likewise pearls are warped and rearranged in their water baths and are forced to evolve new ways to communicate with each other while not attracting attention.
Hope that answered your question, I think I rambled off on a tangent.
Note: This is coming out later than I anticipated, I'm under a new treatment regimen so I'm unsure of what writing time is available right now, but will hopefully keep updating on a semi-regular basis. Thanks for your patience.
…..
Pearl ownership turned out to be very different than Slim had initially feared. She had acquired enough cash over the orbits to afford a brand-new one, for her needs were modest, but her natural wariness over being in the company of other gems had her thinking it would be awkward to have a gem, even a gem that barely counted as a gem, permanently in her space.
But the pearl was so unobtrusive she kept forgetting it was there. She could spend entire quadrants going over spatter evidence with such focus that whenever she turned around and spotted the pearl, she jumped. It wouldn't move unless she told it to, so it was more-or-less a constant fixture in the corner of the apartment.
Slim asked it to pick up things, tidy the apartment, even process some of the more boring data for her, but she was naturally self-sufficient and there just wasn't much work to give the pearl. A fleeting thought of using the pearl for her carnal urges occurred to her, but it was gone in the next moment; Slim had never really had trouble with those urges in the first place, and she found the idea of doing that with the pearl oddly distasteful.
It wasn't until a full seven cycles passed since Orthoclase had handed over the pearl that Slim finally hit a breakthrough.
She had been analyzing some crime evidence that didn't seem to make sense. Improvising as she always did, she picked up an object of equivalent weight and heft to the supposed weapon (a small sulphide container) and swung it in the supposed trajectory of the evidence. But her swing was clumsy, and the container was heavier than she expected, it slipped from her grasp.
She had, more-or-less, hurled it at the pearl.
There was less than a single pelmetre between Slim and the rest pod that the pearl had been sitting on, and less than a parsec to avoid being hit. Slim didn't see the pearl move, but it had, and the container hit the back of the rest pod, smashing the control panel there.
“Hm. You dodged it,” she murmured, a little stunned.
“I'm sorry,” the pearl responded.
“No, don't be sorry,” Slim said. Her mind was ticking over fast, as it usually did when she was piecing evidence together. “Why did you dodge it? I didn't have time to tell you...”
“I have a basic self-preservation program in place, and you did not order me to ignore it.”
“I can do that?”
“It's recommended in the manual.”
“Which I never got, because you're illegal,” Slim mused, tapping her forehead. “And your previous owner didn't follow the instructions?”
“My previous owner didn't read the manual. She only owned me for three cycles before she lost me on the tracer.”
“I see.”
Slim wanted to test the pearl's reaction time, so naturally she didn't give any warning when she struck out and slapped it across the face. To her shock, the pearl didn't even attempt to defend itself.
“What...?” Slim sputtered. Her hand stung, she hadn't held back. “Why didn't you block me?”
“I'm sorry. Did you want me to block?”
A deep purple bruise was already blooming across the pearl's cheek. Looking at it, Slim felt a little sick.
“Well, yes!” she said, fiddling with her hair as she always did when she felt on edge. “You just told me you have self-preservation programming, I assumed you'd stop me and I wanted to see how fast you could...”
“You're my owner. I can't defend myself from you.”
“Even without me ordering you to let me beat you up?” Slim snorted, incredulously.
“Of course. It's a basic rule.”
Slim made a little noise in the back of her throat. She had assumed the pearls that had been mutilated by their murdered owners had been ordered not to defend themselves, but she hadn't realized that all pearls were programmed to be helpless towards their owners in particular.
“Okay,” Slim sighed. “I'm going to hit out at you again, and this time I do want you to try and avoid getting hit. In fact, I want you to avoid getting hit by anyone or anything from now on, okay?”
“I understand.”
Slim held off for about half a quadrant before she struck out again. This time, the pearl had been idling by the corner of the apartment and the only way to avoid Slim's fist was to jump over her.
She did.
It looked to Slim like the pearl had disappeared into thin air, with just the slight air displacement that set Slim's hair floating to indicate she had moved at all. Slim's fist just about glanced the wall, and the pearl was behind her.
That's interesting.
Slim knew from the evidence she had found that a pearl's physical strength was nothing compared to even the weakest of gems, but not much had ever been written about their speed. It made sense for them to be fast, they had considerably less mass than normal gems, but it seemingly had never been utilized in any real way.
A little shiver ran down her spine. The great advantage that the zoatox species had had against gemkind had been their unbelievable speed. Breeding, growing and attacking had all happened in the blink of a gem's eye, and every time gems managed to gain some upper ground the zoatox evolved and attacked in a new and more vicious way. Diamond Core's great and horrific sacrifice had just barely managed to stop them.
Whispers across Homeworld were saying that these murders bore the hallmarks of a zoatox attack. Perhaps they did, but pearls had been compared to zoatox more than once and for good reason.
Slim was just about to download the most recent pearl ownership manuals when her holocast rang. She didn't even have to look at it.
Another one.
…..
The markets were so busy when Slim made her way to the far quadrant it was hard to believe a gem had been shattered.
Let alone two.
Well, one and a half. We can't register a pearl as a gem shattering.
On the surface, it looked like the pearl was mere collateral damage. According to the witnesses (who were talking rapidly in the constructs about the little they had seen), whatever had struck Hematite had gone through the pearl. Slim inspected the perspex box the pearl had been inside, measuring the cracks.
There goes my theory.
Her mind had just been starting to come around to the idea that a pearl had committed these crimes, perhaps on the order of some gem that had seen possibility in their speed. Whatever had hit those targets had been long and thin, and could only do serious damage if they were used at high velocity. But she couldn't imagine a pearl destroying another pearl in the process.
On the other hand, pearls didn't seem to be capable of going against orders even at risk to their own safety, why wouldn't they destroy a pearl if they were following orders?
I don't know enough about pearls for this.
And that was probably why Orthoclase had handed over the pearl.
Lavender. That's its name. Her name.
“What are you thinking?” the commanding Amethyst asked her. “Turf war?”
“Unlikely,” Slim mumbled. “Hematite's had this shop here for seven hundred plus orbits.”
“So?” the Amethyst scoffed. “This whole quadrant changes hands every couple of orbits. Maybe she was a holdout.”
“Whatever you say,” Slim said, rolling her eyes.
The attack trajectory was once again coming from the ceiling. It had gone through the upper corner of the perspex box, through the pearl's gem, out of the base of the box and through Hematite's shoulder. The pearl wouldn't have felt a thing, but the Hematite had been in enough pain to scream, loud enough to attract the attention of every gem shopping in the district. By the time anyone was in direct line of sight, Hematite was shattered and whatever had attacked her was long gone.
All within the space of three parsecs at most.
No gem was capable of that kind of speed.
As far as they knew.
“Aw, they got the pearl too?”
A Spinel was lingering by the door (probably just released from the evidence constructs), staring at the perspex box with vague dismay.
“I'm afraid so,” Slim told her. “But even if it wasn't, it would have been taken in as evidence.”
“I know that,” the Spinel groaned. “I wanted to get dibs when it gets released on the pre-owned circuit.”
“Why? What's so special about this pearl?”
“It's freaky,” Spinel said with a cheerful grin. “Hematite used to sell tickets.”
Aha.
“Freaky how?” Slim asked, feigning disinterest by rummaging through her toolkit.
“Like, it's been dead the entire time she had it,” the Spinel explained. “Except sometimes it used to move when you weren't looking. Hematite kept it in that box to show she wasn't making it move. It was seriously spooky,”
Curiouser and curiouser.
“How shattered is it, exactly?” Spinel asked.
“Completely.”
“Ah, slag it,” Spinel muttered and slumped away.
Two mutilated pearls and a dead one that moved.
The squad dealing with the case were packing up and moving on. No doubt they'd be pinning this as a turf war between rival gangs and Hematite as an innocent bystander. Slim, of course, knew it ran much deeper than that, but she also knew they wouldn't listen to her.
…..
Slim lingered around the market stalls for a little longer than was comfortable for her. In the past it had been a good place to pick up rumours that lead to case facts, so it was worth the mild anxiety being surrounded by so many gems tended to provoke. They never clocked her for a patrol Amethyst; at her size, she was usually mistaken for a strangely-coloured Jade.
Even so, the cycle had nearly ended before she heard anything useful.
A downstreet stall selling offcut compound mixes was a quiet corner in the otherwise-crowded market, a steady stream of gems stopped by to drink compound and chat to the Iolite running the stall. Slim camped out there for a while before a Larimar stopped by and, over the course of three compounds, told her entire life story. Slim half-listened right up until she heard something interesting.
“She just hasn't been the same since,” the Larimar moaned. “It's like, nothing's really exciting anymore!”
“Well, why don't you hit the backstreet? They've got that blind pearl, it's supposed to be pretty nifty...” the Iolite responded. She sounded bored.
“We got banned from that place,” Larimar groaned. “She got carried away....besides, when you've seen the Murder Pearl take out old zoatox veterans everything else just pales in comparison.”
Murder Pearl?
“Better you than me,” Iolite shivered. “Personally I find the whole idea of murder pearls creepy.”
“Lucky for you there's only one then,” Larimar laughed. “But I asked and Hematite says she has no idea when the next fight is going to be. She says the pearl is down for maintenance, but like I believe that...”
There were many Hematites on Homeworld, and a good number of them involved in criminal activity, but Slim knew exactly what Hematite this Larimar was talking about. Only one Hematite was known for hosting underground fighting matches. She paid large amounts of cash to the Amethyst squadrons to look the other way.
…..
“I don't have it,” Hematite growled. “Don't you need a warrant?”
“Actually, I don't. I have authority to raid at random,” Slim responded. “I don't really feel like doing that, though.”
“Okay, what do you want? I can give you a few thousand...”
“I don't want cash, I just want you to answer some questions. All off the record.”
Hematite cursed under her breath, rubbed her temples and sighed.
“Okay, fine. I'll tell you what I can. Off the record. If it goes any further, I'll deny everything.”
“Deal,” Slim shrugged. “Tell me about the pearl.”
“It was a joke, okay? It was just some old broken pearl I got off the black market, got it rejigged and set it up in the arena. It was supposed to get smashed. It was never meant to fight.”
“But...it did fight?”
“It did. It fought and it won. Over and over.”
“How is that possible?” Slim asked. “Pearls aren't built for fighting, and from what I understand you get really tough gems volunteering for this kind of thing...”
“I don't know how, it just kept winning. It just...always found a way to kill them.”
“What orders did you give it?”
“I didn't give it any orders,” Hematite moaned. “I just said something stupid, like 'try not to die too quickly' or something, I don't know! I never had a pearl before, Larimar had a bunch of them...I didn't know what I was doing, okay?”
“Okay,” Slim agreed. “So, where is this pearl now?”
“No idea,” Hematite growled. “Orthoclase borrowed it and never returned it. Not that I want it back, it made me lots of money but it scared the slag out of me...Larimar left me for a while because of it....why do you want to know, anyway?”
I am super-unwell right now so in lieu of an actual update, here’s this meme featuring Murder Pearl, my readers’ (apparently) favourite OC from the Breaking Down universe.
1: * She was on the black market before being bought for the underground fighting rings for roughly 210 orbits. *Her spike is still functional, but she has developed an immunity to its effects. *She doesn’t communicate using song-weaving like the other pearls, she just listens in. *Her average attack force is measured at around 70mph. To put that in perspective, the animal on earth with the most powerful punch is a mantis shrimp which punches at 50mph, hitting with the force of a rifle bullet. That’s why all of her enemies died very quickly. *When not actively looking/following orders to murder gems, she sabotages Homeworld’s chemical refinery systems.
2: “The ones that toy with my life are my enemies. I have been given the means to destroy them, and so I shall.”
3: ‘ Specifically, it was a pearl that had been deliberately trussed up to look as fluffy, dainty and harmless as possible. Steven had seen porcelain dolls in the windows of old antique shops that had that same delicate, highly breakable look by design. Her short aqua hair was festooned with a little white ribbon and her ruffled dress was a shade of pink slightly darker than her skin tone. She looked like she would shatter as soon as the green gem looked in her direction.’
4: “The pearl is not a threat to you,” she told Hematite. “Although it will instinctively protect itself from harm if you raise your hand to it. That cannot be disabled as it is a fighting unit.”
5: Spindly-figured, pale pink skin with short pale aqua curls, usually dressed in white ruffles to play up the ‘delicate’ look. No real expression on her face besides a vague smile from time to time. If she is smiling at you, it’s too late to run.
6: Non-existent. The only thing she’s in love with is murder.
7: Wears what she’s told to wear. Mostly fluffy, frilly frocks. Sometimes accessorizes with makeshift stabbing weapons.
8: Arguably her only bad habit is killing gems violently and not getting caught, but that’s a matter of perspective. She doesn’t think it’s a bad habit.
9: If she was capable of dreaming, a nightmare would probably involve having her memory wiped and being resold.
10: Only one item would be needed; a pearl to send the message via song-weaving.
11: Like all gems, she has no concept of birthdays. If she had to pick a gift, it would be for something she can make a weapon out of.
12: Again, no birthdays, but she is very fond of giving other pearls the gift of their owner’s violent demise.
13: Currently, her whereabouts are a mystery but she could be absolutely anywhere. Including right behind you.
14: Murder Pearl doesn’t really have any secrets except regarding her fugitive status and just how many gems she’s killed so far.
15: She might have enjoyed creating havoc during the zoatox war. (On the zoatox side, of course.)
16: Something very destructive, to take out as many gems as possible in one blow.
17: She would thrive during a zombie apocalypse, no matter whose side she was on. She did miss Homeworld’s equivalent of a ZA, but if the zoatox menace ever does happen again she will do very well indeed.
18: She would likely enjoy being a zoatox. Failing that, her old job as an undefeated deathmatch combatant was lots of fun for her, she might get to go back some day.
19: Something along the lines of ‘They all deserve to die,’ from the Sweeney Todd musical.
Note: So news! My health, which regular readers of my stories know is in a constant state of tanking and recovering, is tanking again, which means I'm going to be housebound for a while and that means I get to update more often. Every cloud silver lining etc.
I have not seen the latest episodes though, and as always this is going to spiral away from canon in a big way.
…..
“I have half a quadrant and then I need to be crosstown,” Orthoclase said, walking out from behind the surgery curtain.
Her pearl handed her a chemical wipe and she draped herself across the low couch across from Slim. The pearl perched neatly on the end.
“This won't take long,” Slim assured her. “I just need to pick your brain about something.”
“Let me guess...some gem boosted some pearls and some other gem got shattered in the process?” Orthoclase drawled. “I haven't heard of any new merch on the black market...”
“No. A gem lost her life but her pearl was untouched.”
Orthoclase's eyebrows shot up. Even the pearl looked a little stunned, if that was possible.
“It happened in bright midcycle, in the quad by the Silverdene. Lots of witnesses who didn't see anything. Whatever it was, it attacked from the circulation mesh without damaging it. Pretty strange stuff.”
“I'd agree,” Orthoclase hummed. “But what do you think I know about it?”
“The victim's pearl,” Slim continued. “At first I thought it was injured in the attack. It was missing some fingers. And I got the feeling it wasn't telling me the truth.”
“Pearls can't lie,” Orthoclase said.
“I didn't say it lied,” Slim retorted. “I just think it was keeping some information from me. It knew more than it was letting on.”
Orthoclase sighed, rubbed her temple.
“So what do you want me to do about it? There's no programming or procedure in the galaxy that could get a pearl to disclose something it's ordered not to...their privacy intra-programming is too broad. The only way around it is to just learn to ask the right questions.”
“I'm done questioning it. I just want to know about the missing fingers. The pearl said its owner did it,” said Slim. “Why would she do that to her pearl?”
Orthoclase sighed again, and made some vague gesture to her pearl. The pearl rose and retrieved something from a nearby shelf.
“It happens a lot more than you might think,” she began, holding out the object for Slim to look over. “You can get these on the black market easier than a barrel of filler.”
“Alum shears?” Slim queried. She'd seen them in the course of work before...
“Modified,” Orthoclase explained. “There's a different charge current loaded into the barrel, it reacts with the pearl's spike. Normally, if you cut off parts of a gem's body they'll retreat into their gems and the body part will reform, right?”
“Obviously,” Slim drawled.
“The charge from this makes the alteration permanent. It only works on pearls, and it can only be reversed by an underground remodeler.”
Slim's brow gently furrowed as she stared down at the shears. Why would anyone intentionally damage their own pearl?
“It's an acquired taste,” Orthoclase said, knowing exactly what she was thinking. “Most gems who buy these things try it once then bring their pearl in for repairs and never do it again. There's a few sick pebbles out there though, it becomes a habit.”
“I don't get the appeal,” Slim mused, gingerly picking up the shears.
“Hey, Ginger,” Orthoclase called to her pearl, who slid across the couch to her side in response. “Let's say I put one of your fingers in this contraption. How would you react?”
“Crying and screaming,” the pearl answered, deadpan.
That was curious. Slim hadn't been around many pearls, but from the little she did know she gathered they didn't show emotion of any kind as a rule.
“And why?” Orthoclase prodded.
“I'd assume if you were going to cut my fingers off outside of surgery, you'd want me to cry and scream,” the pearl responded.
“So...there are gems deliberately destroying their pearls but want them to react badly to it? Isn't that kind of going against a pearl's nature?”
“Pearls do what they're told to do,” Orthoclase shrugged. “If I told Ginger I wanted her not to make a sound while I cut her fingers off, she wouldn't. But it doesn't really start there...what kind of gem was shattered?”
“An Emerald.”
“Zoatox war veteran, am I right?”
“Yes, as it happens.”
“And have you ever known an Emerald to keep only a pearl for company? Especially a wealthy war vet? Look up her last few hangers-on, I bet you'll find plenty of gems that wanted her gone.”
“That's incredibly helpful,” Slim said sincerely, although internally she squirmed at the idea of having to go talk to any other gems. “Thanks.”
“No problem. But before you go...”
Orthoclase rose and grabbed a sack, rummaging around in it before finding what she was looking for.
“Consider this a gift,” she said, handing the object over.
A pearl.
“No thanks,” Slim retorted, trying to hand it back.
“I mean it, just take it,” Orthoclase insisted. “It might come in handy for your investigation.”
“Hm...and where did you get it?”
“It's untraceable, if that's what you're worried about. Just keep it away from checkpoints.”
“No, I think I should leave it here...”
“Please.”
The sudden sharpness in Orthoclase's tone stopped Slim in her tracks.
She knows something.
But trying to get information Orthoclase didn't want to give would take orbits that Slim didn't have the patience for.
“All right,” she mumbled, taking the pearl. “My apartment is small, you know that?”
“Pearls aren't picky. And you're a decent sort for a slag-picker.”
As she walked Slim to the door, Orthoclase called back for her pearl (Ginger) to start packing for their next job.
“You named your pearl?” she asked with a low chuckle.
“I see a few hundred pearls every orbit,” Orthoclase explained. “Had to tell her apart somehow.”
“Okay, but ginger? What in Core's name is a ginger?”
“No idea,” Orthoclase shrugged, pushing Slim out into the street. “By the way, yours is named Lavender.”
…..
Slim had originally met Orthoclase on one of the rare occasions she had gotten caught with stolen property. Unlike most Amethysts, Slim had a grudging respect for Homeworld's seedy underground characters, and that respect was mirrored back at her. She often managed to get information out of gems that had withstood imprisonment, bribery and threats of shattering merely because of this mutual respect.
Orthoclase was let go in return for hinting, indirectly, that a group of Rubies had been responsible for hijacking a lost-and-found station and attempting to pass off the stolen pearls as the newest series on the market to make some hefty cash. She never officially gave anything away, but Slim knew how to connect the dots and they found the culprits within a few cycles. Without Orthoclase, it might have taken orbits.
Since then, Slim had made a habit of pretending not to know what Orthoclase was doing, dropping by her workshops every now and then for a 'friendly chat.' If she happened to get some gossip about some other gem doing something illegal, then that was a pleasant surprise.
It struck Slim as grim but funny that the criminals she associated with in the course of her work got along better with her than her so-called squad-mates. Still, those same squad-mates often did things on the job that were considerably worse than the criminals (in her opinion, anyway.) So perhaps it wasn't so strange.
…..
The Larimar had a weak, wavering voice when she answered the holo-com, and when Slim was ushered in she took notice of how she trembled at the slightest noise.
“I assume I'm not the first Amethyst that's stopped by here?” she began.
“Actually, you are,” Larimar replied with a shrill bark of laughter. “They called my holo-cast to tell me. Half a quadrant ago. After nearly three hundred orbits, all I get is a holo-cast. Sums up our entire relationship, really. I always figured she'd get herself in trouble some time, but shattered? She still manages to surprise me....I mean, she did surprise me, I mean...she used to, sometimes....”
Slim slowly held up a hand to slow down Larimar's babbling. She was on the edge of hysteria, Slim could always tell when an interview was about to go south.
“I'm sorry you weren't told in a more empathetic manner, my colleagues aren't known for their sensitivity...”
Larimar snorted, and smiled weakly.
“...but I'm here to try and find out who's responsible for it, and I think you can help me. Could you tell me about your relationship with Emerald?”
Larimar sighed deeply, took a bracing sip of her compound mix, and began.
“We met when she came back from the zoatox war...she was with a Carnelian back then, but she used to stop by the store I worked in all the time. She was so charming, and funny....she invited me to all these parties but I never had time to go....And then one cycle she marches in and tells my supervisor I'm quitting and moves me into her apartment, and I'm like, what about Carnelian...”
Slim listened intently to Larimar's long rambling musings on the relationship, trying to pull out little details about Emerald that might have been important.
Outwardly charming but callous. Domineering. Played mind games with her partners.
“...it was pretty great, she took me everywhere with her, even though Carnelian was still singing at the Silverdene and it was awkward...and she bought me anything I could have wanted, she was so good to me...”
Deliberately flaunting new partner in front of old partner. Buys affection from gems.
“We had our problems, sure, but what couple doesn't? It wasn't anything really that bad...”
At this point, Larimar stopped. Slim knew she wanted to say something but was holding back. It seemed like she had been trying to convince herself more than Slim that it had been a good relationship with a pleasant gem.
“Did Emerald ever hurt you in any way? Physically, I mean,” Slim asked bluntly.
“No, of course not!” Larimar gasped. “Why would she? I did everything she wanted me to...”
She trailed off. Slim simply stared at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“...well, okay, there were a few things that happened....”
Here we go.
“...but it's not a big deal, okay? She was a commander in the zoatox war, for Core's sake, she saw some really messed up things. She kept it all bottled up, so it was bound to come out in some way, right?”
Slim said nothing.
“It happened mostly when we were...you know, intimate. She grabbed me a little too hard, you know how it goes when you get carried away with something...” Larimar continued. “And a few times she'd be teasing me, just joking, right? And she'd go a little bit too far, but she was so big, she didn't really know her own strength.”
“She was ex-military,” Slim suggested. “I'd say she knew exactly how strong she was.”
Larimar mumbled to herself uncomfortably, grasped the material of her shimmering blue-and-white gown.
“Okay, there were a few times when it seemed like she was getting a kick out of it,” she finally admitted. “She said I was beautiful when I'm crying....I thought it was a joke, you know? She stopped when I said I was going to leave. And she never, like, made me retreat into my gem or anything...”
“Did you leave her?” Slim asked.
Larimar laughed bitterly.
“No, I didn't have to. I got her a pearl for her hatchcycle. She spent all her time with it. I don't even think she noticed when I packed my bags.”
…...
Slim was on her way back to her apartment when her holo-cast rang. She let it ring three times and then read the message that came up.
We've got another one. Upper west quadrant, building G5, apartment 10G.
Answer your Core-blasted cast!
She made her way there leisurely, stopping for a sulphide package along the way. By the time she arrived at the apartment, the supervising Amethyst looked ready to shatter her.
“No sign of forced entry, same kind of attack as the last one. Get on with it so we can get out of here, okay?” she growled.
Slim nodded, and then took her instruments out of her bag and slowly tinkered with them, pretending to adjust them. The supervisor had no idea what they were even for.
The blood spatters across the floor leading to the remains of the victim indicated that the attack had once again come from above, but when Slim looked up all she saw was smooth marbled ceiling. There was a vent that lead to the main air circulation system, but it was on the other side of the room.
As was the victim's pearl.
Ignoring the victim entirely, Slim approached the pearl as all the other Amethysts started gathering up their evidence to leave.
I just have to ask the right questions.
The pearl smiled faintly as Slim sat next to it.
“I don't suppose you saw anything?” Slim began.
“I did not,” the pearl replied.
“Was there anyone else in this apartment besides you and your owner?”
“No,” the pearl answered.
“Even during the attack?”
“No. There was no-one.”
“Did your owner have any enemies?” Slim asked, switching the subject.
“I wouldn't know, she did not talk to me and she did not bring me outside.”
Great. Even if I do ask the right questions, this pearl has no information.
“I am sorry I cannot be more helpful,” the pearl said quietly.
“That's okay, it's not your fault,” Slim assured it.
The pearl moved her hand a little to the side, and in this small movement Slim caught a flash of discoloration on her arm. A long, deep furrow had been dug into the pearl's skin. Slim gingerly took hold of the arm to inspect it.
“Did your owner do this?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she enjoyed it.”
Even though pearls weren't real gems and couldn't really be hurt by such things, Slim felt bad for it.
“She used one of those black market alum shears?” she asked.
“To make the cuts, yes. She also used hydrochloric acid to make them stay.”
“How many do you have?”
“Sixteen.”
Sure enough, when the pearl pulled up the hem of its skirt at Slim's request, its legs were covered with similar furrows. Slim barely suppressed a wince.
…..
When she finally arrived back at her apartment, Slim had forgotten all about the pearl Orthoclase had given her, so when it regenerated while Slim was stacking up her evidence folders it scared her nearly into her gem.
“Don't do that,” she gasped in the newly reformed pearl's direction, clutching her chest.
The pearl blinked slowly at her, standing in the middle of the room with a stillness that had always struck Slim as eerie.
“Okay,” she began, gesturing to the pearl to sit down on the edge of the rest pod. “Look, Orthoclase insisted that I take you, I've never had a pearl before so I have no idea what to do with you. Any suggestions?”
The pearl said nothing, just stared at her.
“Great,” Slim grumbled. “Why in Core's name did she want me to take you so bad, anyway?”
It was meant to be a rhetorical question.
“She intends for me to protect you,” the pearl answered.
“Protect me?” Slim barked out a laugh.
The pearl was a head taller than Slim, but less than a third of the width of her. Its skin was white with a purple tinge to it and it had long curls the colour of the night sky. The dress it was wearing had three layers of stiff ruffles and loose fluttering sleeves. Even for pearls, it was the definition of dainty. What could it possibly protect Slim from?
“She said your name is Lavender,” Slim said, wiping the tears of mirth from her eyes. “What in Core's name is a lavender?”
“I don't know.”
“Then who gave you the name?”
“A visiting quartz. He knew what it was, but he forgot to tell me.”
He? What's a he?
“Right, okay,” Slim mumbled, rolling her eyes. “I'll find some use for you. Since you're here to protect me, how about you keep guard while I work?”
The pearl complied, and after a little while Slim forgot it was even there. When she did turn around, she half-thought the pearl was shirking as it had its back turned to her and was about to scold it. But then she noticed what it was looking at.
In the aftermath of several strange incidents on Homeworld, an investigative Amethyst with a knack for seeing the little details finds herself looking into the grisly murders of several pearl-owning gems. Could it be the return of an old foe of gemkind? Or something a little more unexpected?
Spiderweb
Note: Between the busy holiday period and a wee bit of writer's block concerning the epilogue of Chorus, I figured it might be better to just begin this new fic. The epilogue will happen eventually, I promise.
…..
Slim was a private gem by nature, few acquaintances from both before and after the zoatox crisis and the rebellion really bothered to keep in touch and she worked largely from her apartment, rarely having to leave it. The last time she'd had reason to leave was when that abandoned down-district factory exploded and everyone in a three-district radius had to evacuate while it was investigated. The resulting scandal when the authorities discovered the remains of an experimented-on pearl and traces of zoatox matter was a good reason to stay indoors for as long as possible.
So, whenever anyone did seek her out for any reason, it was a good sign that they were desperate.
She let the initial holo-call ring out, waiting for the message. The gem calling her tried three times before giving up, and the message they sent was pretty annoyed.
We have an incident in district fourteen, upper west near the Silverdene. Get your brittle mass over here or I'm sending a crew to pry you out.
Slim delayed for as long as she could, tossing back a compound mix and selecting her tools slowly, meticulously. If she were to guess, this was some sort of heist (the Silverdene was popular with upper-class gems) that had an unusual component; she'd need magnifying scanners, a metronomical, perhaps her pitch sensor.
She didn't lock the door before she left, thinking she'd be back within a quadrant.
She was wrong, for once.
…..
“Took you long enough,” the Amethyst squad leader grumbled as Slim arrived on the scene.
“Apologies,” Slim replied insincerely, rummaging through her toolkit. “You didn't mention what kind of job this was, I wasn't sure what to bring...”
“I would have explained if you answered your holo-cast. Never mind, you're here now. What do you make of this?”
The squad leader had walked her right up to the crime scene; cordoned off by macro-screens, surrounded by the little evidence fabricates where other Amethysts were interviewing witnesses, the unfortunate victim's ruptured mass was covered by a tarp. A halo of rich purple nitrate blood fanned out across the ground.
“They didn't go for the gem,” Slim mused.
Most standard thieves and grudge-holders attacked the gem of their victim, to finish them off quickly and give them less of a chance to retaliate. If you pierced the mass just enough to get them to retreat to their gems you could rob them with ease. However, this attacker had gone for a shattering by ruptured mass, an especially difficult and rather sadistic way to kill a gem. Slim had never seen such a thing before, but it was unmistakable.
“Every gem we've talked to says they didn't see anything,” the squad leader said. “At least one of them is lying, it's just a matter of finding out who.”
“Maybe not,” Slim mused, lifting the tarp and gently wincing at the state of the gem's remaining mass. “What do you think happened?”
“Hired hit,” the squad leader shrugged. “By an Aquamarine, maybe... or a Spinel. Something that got in quick and vanished.”
“Definitely not,” Slim told her, taking out her metronomical and measuring the blood spatter. “At this angle, the attack was from above.”
She pointed upwards for emphasis, at the mesh covering the quadrant's air-purifying system. The squad leader barked out a sarcastic laugh.
“From up there? Mid-cycle? Come on...”
“It would have to be a small gem. Or light, anyway...” Slim continued, ignoring her. “The mesh would warp otherwise...”
She raised her magnifying scanner and, sure enough, there were very small, almost imperceptible, indentations in the mesh. It was whole though, it hadn't been torn or bent to allow a weapon through. Curious...
“This quadrant's crawling with gems all cycle, especially at mid-cycle,” the squad leader scoffed. “Don't you think any of them would have noticed a gem up there?”
“I wouldn't know, I haven't asked any of them yet,” Slim shrugged.
…..
Even though the fabricates were supposed to be soundproof for the sake of confidentiality, Slim could hear the Carnelian sobbing from the crime scene. Once inside, they had to wait for her to calm down before they could get a straight answer out of her. Slim observed the little drops of blood on the hem of her sparkling gown; she was roughly four pelmetres from the victim when the attack happened, Slim estimated.
“I told you already, I didn't see anything,” Carnelian sniffled at last. “I only turned around when I heard the screaming, oh sweet Core...”
“You were in front of the victim, then?” Slim asked.
“Well, yes...” Carnelian stammered, taken aback by Slim's monotone. “I always leave straight after a set, and she paid her bill before she left the...”
“Did she have any enemies you know of?” Slim interrupted.
“No, of course not! Everyone knows her, she's always throwing parties...though not anymore, oh Core...”
“Did you hear anything unusual, by any chance?”
“Aside from the screaming?”
“Before that...”
Plainly irritated that Slim wasn't fawning over her the way the other Amethysts had, Carnelian dropped the melodramatics.
“No, I didn't hear anything,” she hissed.
That in itself was odd. Summoned weapons made noise, so did handheld ones.
…..
“I wasn't doing anything,” the Spinel grumbled. “Just my job.”
“So you say,” Slim nodded. “A shortcut, was it?”
“It's quicker to go round the upper-west than north, every delivery-gem knows that!”
“Even at mid-cycle?”
“Especially at mid-cycle! Every gem's moving in the same direction...”
“Look, you're not on the hook for this...”
The squad leader frowned at this, but she said nothing.
“...if you tell us the truth maybe we can talk about clemency for anything else you've done.”
The Spinel squirmed in her seat. Slim could tell she wanted to talk, but she wasn't sure if Slim could be trusted. That was fair.
“It's far more important to the Diamond authority to get a potential danger out of the quadrants, especially in light of what's happened recently...” she said.
Zoatoxes. Someone was messing with zoatox matter. She left that unsaid.
“Some petty thievery doesn't matter, if you can help us out,” she continued.
“Okay,” the Spinel mumbled reluctantly. “I was there to scope out pearls. I wasn't even going to take any, I was just reporting back...”
“I see.”
Slim didn't even ask who Spinel was scoping out the pearls for, which went a good way towards gaining her trust. She didn't say anything, just waited for Spinel to speak.
“The Silverdene's a good place to scope out pearl owners, and they're usually careless enough to get away quick. There's new models on the market...”
“And did you see the victim leaving the Silverdene?”
“I wasn't watching her,” Spinel admitted. “I had my eyes on her pearl.”
Slim sighed, and turned to the squad leader.
“You didn't tell me she had a pearl with her.”
…..
Pearls made jobs like this so much easier, in Slim's estimation. Their recall was excellent and they were incapable of lying, and this one had the bonus of belonging to the murdered gem. Slim would be back in her apartment before aftcycle, she was sure.
It was faintly smiling when she was brought into the fabricate it was stored in, and Slim wasn't surprised that the Amethyst squad hadn't thought to interview it. As far as they were concerned, it was about as useful as the broken holo-corder that had failed to get any footage of the attack.
Still, Slim winced, they might have washed a little of the blood off of it. Poor thing looked like it'd been dipped in the stuff.
“I'll arrange for a iodine wash and a full repair before we find you a new owner,” Slim assured it. “We'll make this quick...what did you see?”
“I didn't see anything.”
Slim's fingers paused over her notes. Pearls almost always walked just a few steps behind their owners. Surely it saw something...?
“Nothing at all?” Slim asked. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“My owner instructed that I keep my eyes on the ground.”
Slim groaned, rubbing her head. Just her luck to get a pearl that had been ordered not to see anything.
“I am sorry I cannot be more helpful,” the pearl said, neatly folding its hands in its lap.
That little action lead Slim to notice something unusual...
“Your fingers,” she said, taking out her scanner to inspect closer. “Did you tell the Amethysts you were injured?”
“I was not injured in the attack,” the pearl told her. “My owner removed my fingers.”
Now that the scanner had her looking more closely, she noticed other ways the pearl had been 'modified'. Its gem was too pristine to account for gaps in its mass; the excised pieces of its bodies were cut too cleanly. As well as missing three fingers on one hand and four on the other, a slice of its ear had been taken out and there was a long furrow running down the left side of its face that Slim had initially thought was dried blood.
So the assailant had directly targeted the victim, but left the pearl untouched even though it was just a few steps away? Even though the pearl could have reliably informed on them? It didn't make sense.
Slim wouldn't get much out of this pearl. Unless she used its inability to lie to find out more.
“I think whatever attacked your owner came from above. Would you agree?” she asked.
“Yes,” the pearl answered.
“But the mesh above the air-purifying system wasn't damaged. Why do you think that is?”
“I think the weapon used was long and thin enough not to break the mesh.”
“It would have to be very long and thin, though, wouldn't it? The gap between the mesh and your owner would have been eight pelmetres at least.”
“My owner was lifted off of the ground by the weapon.”
“I thought you said you didn't see anything?”
“I didn't,” the pearl responded. “Her mass was dropped on me afterwards.”
“So whatever it was had the strength to lift her off of the ground using something thinner than a strafing pole, at least.”
“Yes.”
“And what do you think would be capable of doing something like that?”
“A zoatox.”
There was something a little off about the pearl, to Slim's finely-tuned instincts. Her responses seemed almost rehearsed, but pearls rarely interacted with any gem besides their owner. Could the victim have planned her own murder?
All of Homeworld had talking in whispers about zoatoxes after details of the illegal experimentation on pearls using zoatox matter were leaked into the bulletins, but it seemed too easy somehow to blame a zoatox for this murder. During the war they had killed countless gems, but they had infested and laid their eggs in many more. Their strength had always lain in how quickly they could breed. Just one working alone wouldn't settle for killing a single gem.
Had this one somehow learned to lie? Was that even possible?
Or was it infected?
Slim simply didn't know enough about pearls to tell. She'd need the opinion of someone else.
…..
Slim was one of the last hatches from a planet that had proven too weak to support proper gem growth. Almost every hatchling from that planet shattered within a few cycles, and the ones that survived weren't fit for purpose. The Jaspers were too small and spindly, the Larimars were dull and homely, the Rubies weak and fearful, the Sapphires blind and the Peridots stupid. The one useful thing the planet could be used for was its large supply of fresh water for pearl production.
Slim was added to the ranks of the new Amethyst squadrons, but she failed most of her training. The rest of her squad often left her behind when they went on patrol, to file evidence or fix the equipment. Over long boring cycles that turned into long boring orbits, when there was nothing to do but look at the evidence again and again she developed a knack for seeing things that other Amethysts overlooked.
Even for all the cases that were solved purely because of her, all the black market operations she cracked and all the criminal leaders she had brought down, the other Amethysts thought of her as a failure and treated her as such. They brought her into cases begrudgingly, always with a hissed under-the-breath insult.
Homeworld did not take well to inferior products. Once she had enough money saved to move out of the squad barracks and work from a distance, she resolved to only step outside when absolutely necessary.
…..
The pearl was the one who answered the door. Somehow, Slim wasn't surprised.
She was ushered in without a word to where Orthoclase was buried up to her elbows in the chest cavity of another pearl.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your fine company?” Orthoclase drawled.
So we're finally at the end of Chorus (minus the epilogue, which will be forthcoming), thank you all for sticking with the story all the way to its sporadic, stumbling conclusion. Since Murder Pearl and the Orthoclase/Ginger pair have proven so popular, I was thinking my next longform multi-chapter would be a Homeworld-set detective story featuring the three of them prominently. Thoughts?
…..
The journey back to Lapis' mansion was deathly quiet. Orthoclase was unusually grim and tight-lipped, and though Ginger was as blank-faced as she always was, Steven could sense a tension in her. Of course, Steven himself was keeping his mouth shut because he was sure if he opened it, he would collapse into a gibbering mess.
There had been six of them on the outward journey. Of those six, one was incapacitated, one was dying a slow, painful death and one (the dangerous one) had taken off for reasons of her own. The one they picked up to take back with them was gravely injured. The only one who could possibly fix what was wrong with her was good, but didn't know if she was that good. She wouldn't be able to tell until she got back to the mansion where her full stock of equipment was waiting.
Who wouldn't panic, under those circumstances? Distantly, Steven gave himself a little mental pat on the back for holding it together for as long as he had.
When they finally arrived back at the mansion, Orthoclase practically kicked the door in. Every gem gathered in the living room looked up, but she stormed past them without a word. She made her way to the table she was using to operate on and started prepping it, as Ginger rooted out her surgery tools.
“What happened?” Amethyst demanded, looking Steven up and down for signs of injury. “Did you get her? Where's the other two?”
“We got her,” Steven told her. “But...it's pretty bad....Orthoclase is going to operate...that thing hurt Buttercup and Murder Pearl stayed behind to kill it....”
“What thing?” Amethyst asked. “What did it do?”
Steven opened his mouth to answer, but he couldn't find the words. Amethyst stared at him, waiting, increasingly strained-looking.
“Amethyst,” Garnet called, strangely calm. “Leave him alone.”
Ginger had pulled out the box of lead shavings they'd used to hide Pearl, and Garnet watched carefully but from a respectful distance as they pulled her out of the box and onto the table. Steven saw her fists clench but she clearly knew even as capable as she usually was, she was as good as useless in a situation like this.
“Holy shit,” Amethyst spoke in one harsh exhale. “What did they....what are you...”
She sputtered for a moment and fell silent, watching Orthoclase peer into the crater left in Pearl's gem by the black tendrils. Ginger rubbed some sort of oil on a long thin skewer and handed it to Orthoclase, who slowly and carefully slid it inside the gem as far as it would go. Pearl's fingers briefly twitched, and then she was once again deathly still.
“What can you do?” Garnet asked, as Orthoclase pulled the skewer back out.
“Honestly?” Orthoclase answered with a bitter edge to her voice. “Under any other circumstances I'd be telling this pearl's owner to get her processed and get a new one.”
Steven felt the bile rise in his throat, and one look at Amethyst told him she felt the same way.
“That's not an option,” Garnet said tightly.
“Don't I know it?” Orthoclase laughed harshly. “All the contacts, money and other pearls that I tossed into this...project. You'd think I'd have more to show for it...”
She was full of bravado, even now, but her heart wasn't in it.
“In professional terms,” she began to explain. “She needs those fragmented tendrils pulled out, they've penetrated the subdermal layer and are fused to the core composite, which means I'd have to excise the upper layer before I get them out, but she'd need a fully-functional gem to even think about doing that...and she doesn't have one.”
“Can't you get the ones in her gem out first?” Steven blurted out. “And you use filler, don't you? For pearls that don't work right...”
“Pebble, there's barely anything left of her gem,” Orthoclase told him. “The tendrils are holding it together like scaffolding, if I take them out now the whole thing is dust. If I try putting filler in now, it'll just cement the tendrils in there and most of it will fall through the gaps. I don't have that much filler to spare, I don't think even a repair centre has that much filler to spare. I'm sorry.”
“I can use my healing spit,” Steven tried, though he knew if that was an option they would have done that first. “I can...”
“That would reactivate the tendrils. Not to mention what's left of her spike,” Orthoclase told him, gently but firmly. “She'd shatter straight away.”
It's not over. It can't be over. We got her back.
It felt like all the air was being sucked out of the room. If they'd gotten to her sooner, she might have been okay...but with everything they had to do to get to her in the first place they couldn't have gotten there sooner...
It's my fault. I waited too long. I should have gone for her sooner.
“Try using live filler.”
Ginger spoke quietly, but it was like a gunshot breaking through the tension. A small shot of hope.
She was peering into the crumbling wreck of Pearl's gem, solemn as a grave. Who knew what she was thinking? Orthoclase scoffed incredulously, raised her arms to the ceiling in a gesture of frustrated helplessness.
“Live filler?” she laughed without humour. “From what donor?”
“Take your pick,” Ginger shrugged. “You can start with me.”
Amethyst covered her eyes, but not before Steven saw relieved tears escape from her eyes.
“For the love of Core,” Orthoclase swore. “That's more filler than one pearl can give, and even if I had done the procedure before, even if it had been done outside of simulations...”
“It's experimental, not impossible,” Ginger cut in. “If any gem can do it, you can.”
“Well, as nice as it is to hear your confidence in my abilities...”
“Can't you try it? Even if it doesn't work, it's something, isn't it?” Steven cried.
Orthoclase turned to him, as if she couldn't believe they were ganging up on her like this.
“I could, pebble,” she said. “I could do all sorts of things. Problem is, this procedure probably won't work, plus if I get it wrong it could kill the pearl that's donating the filler. How many more pearls are you willing to throw away for this one?”
Steven couldn't answer that.
Ginger, however, could.
“Any one of us would be happy to give our lives for her,” Ginger said. “Ask them if you don't believe me.”
For the first time, they all turned to look at the pearls gathered in the living room. None of them had attempted to get any closer, but they were keeping a close vigil on what was going on.
“Fine,” Orthoclase growled, then turned to the gathered pearls. “Do any of you want to let me stick a pipe through your core circuitry to harvest living nacre from your manifest bodies directly? Bearing in mind if I stick the pipe wrong on the first try you're as good as shattered?”
She clearly wasn't expecting every hand (or other working limb) to be raised, but perhaps she should have. The pearls had already proven themselves willing to sacrifice their lives for the Renegade Pearl. Orthoclase sighed, rubbed her temples and groaned.
“Okay then,” she grumbled. “We'll try it. I'm not making any promises, but we can try it.”
The relief hit Steven so hard he nearly fainted. Shakily, he sat down on the ground beside the operating table. Pearl's hand was dangling slightly off of the side, and he reached out to thread his fingers through hers. They were cold, but if he concentrated hard he could almost feel a slight pulse of life in them.
Ginger handed a long tube and a sharp needle-like instrument to Orthoclase, and turned to pull her hair to the front.
“No,” Orthoclase hissed, just loud enough for Steven to hear. “You're not going first.”
…..
The first five times, Orthoclase got the placement wrong. It shattered the first pearl (Blackberry)and stopped the next two (Lemonade and Jane)from moving. They crumpled to the ground like puppets whose strings had been cut. Orthoclase managed to get some of the strange shimmering liquid she needed out of them, but it wasn't much. The pipe fed it directly into Pearl, the forceps held her jaw open to receive it.
The procedure was unpleasantly close to violence. All the Crystal Gems looked away when Pearl's jaw was cracked, uncomfortable as it was to watch it done to a regular pearl it was unbearable watching it happen to Pearl. The cannula Orthoclase used to pierce the donor pearl's core spine had to be thrust downwards at the exact spot with enough force to go through the several layers of the manifested form. It looked uncomfortably like Orthoclase was stabbing them.
After the fifth pearl (Meg) only lost the feeling in the right side of her body, Orthoclase perfected the technique. The sixth pearl (Rosemary) was hit in exactly the right spot, and the tube filled with nacre almost instantly.
“Holy Core,” Orthoclase whispered, more to herself than anyone. “This might just work...”
Slowly, Pearl's gem began to reform itself. As soon as one pearl began to wilt, the cannula was pulled out and she was replaced by the next in line. Ginger was deep in concentration, pulling the tendrils out of Pearl's gem by micro-measurements, as soon as it was safe to move them a little. She had excised some of the skin on Pearl's face to inch away the black strands there. Orthoclase was fully occupied with her stabbing and monitoring the flow of nacre.
When almost twenty pearls had been drained, a curious thing began to happen. Pearl's gem started flickering, projecting a broken image up at the ceiling. Steven tried to make it out, but it was too blurry to be seen properly. Her hand was a little warmer now, but Steven thought that might just have been the heat from his own hand.
When the image did clear enough for him to see it, he didn't recognize it. It was a projection of a tall red gem in a strange puffy outfit, laughing and talking to someone. Pearl had shown him a lot of things from Homeworld over the years, but he had never seen this gem before.
“That's one of mine,” the pearl who was slumped over next to him (Dandelion) piped up.
“One of yours?” Steven asked.
“The monster took most of her memory,” she explained. “We're giving her ours.”
Simple words, but the weight behind them hit like a sledgehammer. Those little blue cubes she'd been stacking in his dream, trying to keep the monster out, telling him that he couldn't be there...
“She kept yours safe,” Dandelion assured him. “She protected your memory as long as she could. It's still there.”
Pearl's gem flickered on and off throughout the procedure, the images becoming clearer and clearer as more nacre was pumped into her. They were filled with little exchanges, smiles and songs and touching hands. Stern commands, whispered secrets, casual indifference. Steven saw, for the first time, what gesture-speak looked like to a pearl's eyes, fluid and clear and beautiful as prayer.
What he didn't see was any note of harshness, any of the myriad cruelties visited on pearls by the gems that subjugated them. It was all joy and kindness. They hadn't just gifted Pearl with their own lifeblood, but given her their best, most treasured memories.
Ginger was the last pearl to give her nacre, and Orthoclase did hesitate, just a little, before stabbing her with the cannula. She turned her back to the images projected by Pearl's gem for the first time; for all her talk of wanting to know what Ginger was thinking, she didn't want to invade her privacy so directly.
Perhaps she would have been surprised to know that Ginger's most treasured memories were of her. Or perhaps that was exactly why she turned her back.
…..
“It'll take about ten cycles, maybe more,” Orthoclase said when she handed over the lead-lined box where Pearl's recovered gem was stored. “I don't know how long it'll take on your planet. It's anyone's guess.”
A shuttle had been sent down for them from Lars' ship, once the procedure was finished Orthoclase advised them to get off of Homeworld as soon as possible. Murder Pearl would likely be making her move on the lab soon and once she did whatever she was planning, the skies would be strictly monitored. She and Ginger brought them to the drop-off point; Steven had barely enough time to say goodbye and thank each of the pearls and the other gems that had helped them.
Lapis had scoffed in her haughty manner when he thanked her, but bid him a fond farewell all the same. The pearls seemed taken aback that they were being thanked at all. The temptation to try and smuggle a few of them back to Earth was so overwhelming that Garnet insisted on holding his hand as they left to stop him.
At least Blinky, let's bring Blinky, so she doesn't have to go back to...
“You'll look after them, won't you?” he asked Orthoclase, as the shuttle's doors opened for them.
“Of course,” Orthoclase assured him. “Won't be nearly so easy without your healing spit, but no matter. If you ever change your mind about going into remodeling...”
“I won't,” he cut in.
“Shame,” she shrugged.
“They will miss you,” Ginger told him. “Even the ones who didn't get to meet you.”
“They won't say anything, will they?” Amethyst asked, sounding a little panicky.
“No,” she answered. “We are good at keeping our secrets.”
Orthoclase snorted with good humour, and all the while Steven tried not to cry. He hated Homeworld and the awful things he had seen there, but his love and gratitude for Orthoclase and Ginger were so forceful he couldn't stand the idea of not seeing them again.
“You can come to Earth with us,” he said suddenly, ignoring the stares from Garnet and Amethyst. “The shuttle's big enough...”
“Our place is here, pebble,” Orthoclase said, gently but firmly. “We have work to do.”
He hugged them both before he was pulled away into the shuffle. It didn't feel like nearly enough to express how much he loved them; they had risked their lives multiple times for his sake, done their best to accommodate him despite never having seen a human, much less a child before. Their absence would leave a hole in him that could never be filled.
He watched them from the shuttle window as they rose into the clouds. Orthoclase's long lean figure looking up into the sky, Ginger's petite frame stuck beside her like a mismatched set of salt-and-pepper shakers.
Someday, he might come back and find them. They would be fine, middling along doing the most illegal of things right under Homeworld's authoritative noses and getting away with it. They had promised they would message him.
This is the best explanation I could come up with for why it takes me so long to do updates sometimes when, at other times, I’m typing them up like clockwork.
Update: after I reblogged this someone messaged me offering me tickets to the sold out Hausu screening with a Q&A and autograph session with the director
