The first of the pair!
This is Pearl, she’s an era 2 gem who belongs to Amethyst, the subject of my next post. There’ll be lore under the Read More sign!
Context warning for cannon-typical depersonalisation, kidnapping, systematic murder system and other dystopian themes. Fun Homeworld things.
| Basic Information
Okay, so Pearl. Pearl is an era 2 gem, made after the gem war for a Spessartite Garnet as a reward for some great thing she did, probably conquering a planet with feisty organics on it or something, it’s not super important.
I’d say that Pearl doesn’t really know anything about the Crystal Gems at all. I don’t think she even knows that there was a war in the first place- Homeworld keeps what happened under tight wraps, and if you are a new gem you won’t really know about it unless an older gem tells you. And, of course, Pearls have no business knowing about such things in the first place.
| Background Information
You may or may not have noticed that Pearl’s gem has a few big nasty cracks in it! Oh no! Not entirely healthy for a gem to be having. So, the tea:
When Pearl was being incubated (since Pearls are organic- they are made in the Shell instead of in the ground. This is going into hc territory, but I don’t think Pearls made for gems who are not super high class present as flowery and nice as Diamond Pearls do- I think they’re a little more… mass produced? Like a string of Pearls is created, they’re taken out of the Shell by some gem (Peridots?) then nursed until ready to sell. Does that make sense?), the Peridot transporting her and a couple other Pearl gems to the nursery dropped them. See: top left corner of the image.
Most of the string shattered, but Pearl was fortunate, her gem fell on top of her now dead sisters. She still got a couple of cracks, though. Since Pearl was still so new- I mean she hadn’t even formed yet- once in the nursery the Peridot filled her cracks with some glue stuff so she wouldn’t fall apart.
However, now she’s been cracked and parts of her gem have been sloppily replaced by glue stuff. Not exactly ideal. She’s got some behavioral problems (which for Pearls is like- crying one singular time or showing anything remotely akin to uncomfortable) and some memory problems, which is pretty important for Pearls to have to like… do their job. As a result, she’s clumsy, forgetful, and often loses things in her gem if asked to store them.
She’s still Pearl-y though, very polite, obedient, loyal, good at dancing and singing, friendly albeit a bit talkative, so the Peridots thought it was probably okay. When Pearl was given to the high-class Spessartite Garnet she was made for, the Garnet had her for like a WEEK before crankily giving her back and demanding a new one.
The Peridots really didn’t know what to do with her. They COULD shatter her, but Pearls made for high-class gems are made with better quality materials, and it would be such a waste of a relatively okay Pearl. They could probably sell her to a lower class gem for a low price, but god knows what those low class barracks gems would do to her, and again, she’s made with good quality materials. They were so torn over it they actually consulted Yellow Diamond.
Yellow said ‘why are you even talking about this to me. Shatter her, send her to a harvesting plant. I don’t care’. So, in the harvesting plant she went.
| Meeting Amethyst
So she’s is in there, sitting on the conveyor and waiting for her demise. She’s feeling fine, it’s a shame that she had to go so fast, but she’s okay. Well, that’s until she feels something sharp jab into her back, so she releases her form and goes into her gem.
When Pearl reforms, she’s in an unfamiliar place, she’s sitting on a desk with a sheet over it and where the actual hell is she??? Hello??? She slips down and crawls under the desk where it’s darker, freaking out a bit because she’s just been kidnapped. She is so freaked out, actually, that she didn’t even notice the Amethyst quietly watching her in the corner of the workroom.
| Present-ish
Since the day she was kidnapped from the harvesting facility by Amethyst, Pearl’s been hanging around her. What other choice does she have, really? Pearls are objects on Homeworld, she can’t go out and live on her own or anything, so she’s kind of stuck with her.
Amethyst isn’t too bad to her personally, in fact Amethyst is quite nice to her, but Amethyst does some shady business. Amethyst is a police officer who also dabbles in the Homeworld equivalent of the black market. Amethyst has a weird infatuation with Pearls, and since again Pearls are objects on Homeworld, Amethyst likes to buy or borrow Pearls to experiment on? Which Pearl just has to deal with, no complaints, because she’s just a Pearl! No matter how awful it makes her feel on the inside to have to help with that.
As her and Amethyst’s story goes on, Pearl grows more comfortable in herself and works on her ability to have her own opinions and thoughts. It doesn’t end with her leaving Amethyst- again, there’s nowhere for her to go until era 3- but it does end in a more healthy relationship between the two.