#anyway yeah meaningful pearl interactions GIMME

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

The Morning Watch

Another quick ficlet sprung from a very specific mental image and to get me out of the headspace that everything I write needs to be a big thing I’ve been agonising over for the past year or something silly like that (giant WIP pile? never heard of her). And also because pearls (and jackets).

Pearl and Pink Pearl, sometime shortly after Change Your Mind. ~1600 words.

---

The Morning Watch

“Here.”

It’s part of her light construct, of course, and not an actual jacket. But with just a bit of focus she can make it solid enough, real enough, heavy and warm enough to match anything she might find in one of Amethyst’s piles. And she knows very well how much comfort can be derived from simple, gentle, enveloping and grounding pressure.

And… well, she hopes the gesture counts, as well. The other pearl’s… Pink Pearl’s shoulders are trembling, and it is just too much, the way her hands grasp at her sides and her arms, the way she is trying to shrink into herself, as if she wants to disappear.

So Pearl makes sure to approach the other pearl from her unmarked side where she can be easily seen, and give ample warning as she shrugs the jacket off her own and drapes it over her shoulders instead. Makes sure to sit at her right, both of their legs dangling off the palm of the Temple’s hand, high above the beach. She also knows to keep from very abrupt movements - perhaps sadly, she isn’t exactly inexperienced in this.

Though, usually… usually it would have been Rose handling this part, with her healing, soothing tears and flowery words full of welcome and promise. Or Bismuth with her easy and warm manner and almost contagious ability to just, as she said, ‘roll’ with most of anything. But, well, this is hardly a usual case. And besides, times change, and Pearl adapts - with no small amount of pride.

“Okay?” Pearl asks, softly, and the other pearl nods, burrowing into the not-fabric as it is carefully wrapped around her. Her hands grasp at the hem and lapels of the jacket now, as the crisp breeze of just before dawn plays with it. It’s just big enough to hide the subtle tremor in those narrow shoulders, even if it doesn’t quite reach fully down her back.

Pearl studies her as she gazes out across the ocean and wonders idly if she even knows what an ocean is. If she’s ever seen one before, on some far off colony visit, before the lapis lazulis got called in to do their work.

She takes in the pale skin with the slightest brush of pink hue, the perfect rolls of rosy hair, and the worried little frown her lips are pursed in. The strange, slightly numb tiredness imprinted around her eye and the webbing of cracks running over the other, marks which the pearl lifts her hand and runs her fingers over every so often, almost as some sort of nervous habit.

No matter what Homeworld may think, they are not the same, and they are most certainly two very different, distinct, absolutely individual persons. But so much of… this feels so familiar, and so much of it like looking in a pink-tinted mirror.

“I’ve never been here before,” that small voice speaks up, so much more like hers than Yellow’s stringent, demanding one, or Blue’s soft whispers. To a discomfiting extent, perhaps.

And of course she hasn’t been to Earth, but Pearl doesn't interrupt, and lets her proceed at her own pace. By the time Pink Diamond got anywhere near her first colony, there was nothing pink about Pink Pearl anymore - in her place, something approaching the ideal pearl, the helpful little doll under perfect control.

Control going even beyond an Order, taking over your limbs, rooting you in place or sending you off to do something without the slightest chance of protest or resistance. So… violating, and especially so after all she’s gone through to win every possible scrap of independence. Pearl has to stop to wonder which is worse, and if something like that should even be compared. Being denied the possible sanctuary of your own mind, your own thoughts, and any awareness at all - or remaining fully conscious of being puppeteered around.

She shudders, and finds herself oddly thankful she doesn’t remember much of their mercifully brief time in White’s head. And then she feels a stab of awful, biting guilt, because Steven and Connie had to face so much on their own in there, and she, their guardian and teacher, failed them both like that…

But then, drawing her back into the moment, a touch. Pink Pearl noticed something off, perhaps - or perhaps she is just drawing comfort from wherever she feels she can find it. Whatever the case, she is pressed against Pearl’s side now, so Pearl takes it a small step further and puts a slow, careful arm around her, reaching over the bright yellow star.

“Is this alright?”

Her response is a nod, and shoulders relaxing the slightest bit under her touch.

They sit immersed in the quiet for a while, until Pink Pearl speaks up again uncertainly. “This is her planet… this is where she…?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about what happened. About... her. Everything.” The eagerness purely because she can now is only a part of her desire to share this, and with this Gem in particular. This pearl she never got to know, but with whom she seems to share so much.

“And she’s really… gone?”

“Yes,” Pearl confirms slowly again. There is such a finality to it now, to something near-unthinkable that she’s been struggling with for what feels like so long. Even if, in the end, it was merely a blink of an eye in Gem terms. And even if it ended up being so strangely, frighteningly simple. Gone. “Yes, she is.”

“But then… what do I do now?”

Lost, so lost.

Pearl meets her wide, worried eye, strained with the beginnings of tears, and decisively stomps down on the painful sense of familiarity. Instead, she gives her best encouraging smile.

“Well, first, it might help to know that there’s no rush. You don’t have to do anything just now. Taking your time is… perfectly fine. In fact, I recommend it.”

Pink Pearl looks away, frowning, but Pearl presses on, free hand gesturing excitedly.

“You can stay here at the beach house with us for as long as you want. Forever, even! We can certainly make room, or make a room, and Bismuth, oh, that one’s always itching for new projects. But there’s also an entire world out there to get to know, with all sorts of people and Gems in it. And then - if we just get you a ship, which really shouldn’t be much of an issue anymore - an entire universe!”

Pearl stops herself just a bit too late, noticing she’s gotten carried away and has slipped far past overwhelming, and her pink counterpart is drawing back into herself.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says more softly, and sighs, rubbing gentle circles where she’s holding the other pearl’s shoulder. “Listen. What I mean to say is just… I know ‘whatever you want’ seems unfathomable, and, well, impossible. And entirely unhelpful when it feels like you want nothing in the galaxy as much as you want some simple direction. But it’s the truth. We can start off slowly, and find something you like, and work from there.”

Pink Pearl nods, and for a while it seems like that’s the end of the discussion, the rest of it packed away for some other day.

But then: “I liked the juggling,” Pink Pearl pipes up, rather suddenly, sitting up and almost dislodging both Pearl’s arm and the jacket.

“I really did, I wasn’t just saying that to make her happy. I even...” She trails off, and after a moment continues in what could almost be termed a conspiratorial whisper, a shy bit of blush painted across her cheeks. “I tried to learn how to do it myself, while I was alone during council meetings… it was supposed to be a surprise, maybe, but I never got to-- I wasn’t very good at it anyway, it’s so much harder than it looks.”

Pearl blinks for a moment, then latches onto the opening provided by more (and more lively) words than she’s ever heard Pink Pearl speak. “Well, that’s… that’s excellent! There you go, something to start with. A bit unorthodox, perhaps, yes, but an interesting challenge, and one that requires quite a bit of skill and perseverance. We’ll just… make sure you practice outside the house.”

It’s enough to prompt Pink Pearl’s first real smile, small and hesitant though it may be. Pearl feels a grin pull at her own lips and a sense of victory bloom in her chest as they both turn back towards their lovely ocean view.

“It’s very quiet here.”

“It’s a bit early for the humans,” Pearl explains, then reconsiders. “Did you mean that as a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I’m not sure.” Pink Pearl squirms under the jacket a bit, and pulls at it where it starts to slide down off her shoulder. “Good, I think. For now. But I don’t think I’d want it to be quiet forever.”

Pearl hums. “No, I wouldn’t either. As relaxing as it can be, one does appreciate the distraction, eventually.”

The horizon is tinged with the start of morning light, the slightest bit of purple already spilling over and mixing in the sky. The stillness does indeed begin to ebb (though thankfully still free of seagulls), and there, not too far off, a fishing boat returning mars the calm surface of the sea as well.

“You know,” Pearl begins, echoing the earlier slightly surreptitious tone, “if we stay here a little while longer, we’ll get to see something wonderful.”

“Oh?” It’s a very soft sound of genuine curiosity, and Pearl feels an immense need to nurture and encourage every bit of it.

“Oh yes! We can watch the planet’s sun rise over the horizon. It’s quite a sight, and the particularities of the atmosphere add some lovely elements to the visual. Would you like to see?”

A moment of consideration, and pink hands worrying at the lapels of a jacket, then straightening them out.

“Yes. I think I’d like that.”