Everything felt strange; it was as if the world had shifted slightly, everything just a few inches to the left. She should know this place, and yet...This hill felt familiar under her feet, but she couldn’t remember having climbed it before. The barn’s silhouette brought feelings to the surface, but without the memories to back them up. She shouldn’t even have been here. Garnet told her to stay in the house, but she couldn’t bear it; there were too many not-memories there.
She remembered who she was - or, rather, what she was. A pearl, made to serve. Except that felt wrong to her for reasons she couldn’t quite grasp. There had been a war - how long ago? She’d fought. She was a pearl and a soldier all at once; she was something impossible. She’d fought with Garnet, and - and - Rose. Rose. The name was like a punch to her gut. She couldn’t remember why.
The green Gem with the awkward smile wore a diamond on her chest; it made Pearl want to cringe instinctively, want to reach for her weapon, even though logic told her she should be wearing one too. A servant and a soldier. Which was she supposed to be?
The peridot’s words slid through her, around her, draining through the holes in her memory like water through a sieve. Robots? Drills? Her mind told her she didn’t know how to build those things, even as her hands tingled with the phantom memories of tools held in her grip. She’d hoped - she’d hoped that walking around would help, that speaking to others would bring something back, but...
“I’m...sorry,” she said, more mechanically than with any real feeling. “Garnet says that I was stung by a corrupted Gem and lost my memory.” It sounds like a report more than anything; the name Garnet still sits strangely on her tongue, another half-memory, familiar and alien all at once. “I don’t remember any of those things, I...Why were we building a drill?” The question tasted of uncertainty, a vague attempt to connect, to put the pieces together in her mind; her hopes weren’t very high, but maybe it would make the peridot feel better.
