#first time actually getting around to draw amedot

[gingerkingfisher]

@logdate7152 

squish

[howlitecritical]

New character arcs and new back story because canon sucks again

Main 4 cast with notes on characters that need notes for changes to make sense  Garnet: yesyesyesyesyeysyes everything good about this show. There’s not enough garnet centric things where she’s just herself and not about ruby and sapphire. More information on Garnet. Shes stoicly funny and just murders people with words sometimes. show her being rose’s top tactician. turning the tides of the war that were never in the crystal gem’s favor. maybe theres a fun earth thing shes into. Her room is the heart of the temple for a reason now. Its a balance between pearl and amethyst. The bubbles are organized, but she has her own side space with things she does as hobbies. She has a collection of antique books that she likes to read lava side and she often meditates to see corrupted gems and a future in which the CGs encounter them. maybe she even draws them out to combine ruby’s need to Do with sapphire's need to Know. Fusion is still very important to her, but not she has plot relevant interests that make sense with her character. Her character arc involves her being the first of her kind. shes something completely new! just like steven is. and for that not to bind them together is silly. She wants the best for steven and he makes her want to be an even better leader now that rose is gone and shes the only one left. she makes him think about his actions and slows down his hyper activity when he or amethyst are trying to do something reckless. From him she learns that it’s okay to let her guard down more. Homeworld might come back, but it’s not all on her shoulders. the CGs are a family and they’ll protect everyone together. Garnet in jailbreak is the first time we know shes a fusion and before that we get more about her character not just from environment around her, but her reactions to things. Maybe she feels like she needs to be in control because shes afraid that without rose, homeworld is more a danger than ever.

Amethyst: I like most of her progression actually!!! a few things I’d mess with is when she’s unnecessary hurtful to people she loves, like greg, when she shape shifted into rose, and peridot when she all but threw her stuff into the ocean. these things need to be gotten rid of, or addressed by the narrative. I’d also like to see her hanging around Vidalia wayyyyy sooner or to have a reason why they dont. As for reasons, maybe Amethyst did or said something hurtful toward her, lashing out at her for whatever reason that made their friendship strained. while a decade is a long time for a human, for a gem its nothing. so while she feels bad, Am’ isnt going to apologize herself!!! she didnt do anything wrong!!! and maybe Vidalia is the first person steven convinces her to apologize to. Steven teaches her compassion and is, in return, the gem he can relate to the best. He goes to her first with gem issues and she acts like an older sibling, trying to teach him or cover up mistakes so pearl and garnet dont find out. I think i’d like a progression of Am’ refusing to apologize to Vidalia, realizing that she was wrong and apologizing to greg, but he breaks down and can’t move past that, rendering their friendship difficult and strained as a “sometimes apologizing isnt enough and you have to change your behavior“ and then the third beat with peridot either not happening at all, where she doesnt throw someone’s comfort items into the ocean which, i think steven shouldve realized and stopped her from doing anyway, BUT if you just NEED that mistake on her part, i feel like this could be a “sometimes, you dont know how bad you hurt someone and you should apologize when you find out“ with peridot being hurt and not talking to her and amethyst has to do a big gesture to show shes sorry. I also feel like that fleshes out amedot as a ship and while i dont care about who peridot ends up with, i care about story and the way im going to make this story go, lapis will be in that fun moral grey area and i want more options in terms of story telling and of fan choice. Also!!! explore the possibility of her being deep cut and thats why shes a runt. she only looks smaller but has all these strengths because of it!!! it fits in really well and bismuth or peridot maybe because she was made for kindergardening, could tell her about it and watch her get excited because shes not ”wrong“ she never came out “wrong“ shes just different and thats okay!

Pearl: Was white diamond’s pearl, first of all! that makes every interaction more interesting, because no only did she defect from homeworld, but she defected from the Queen of homeworld and everything it stood for basically. We learn more about how homeworld operates and what places in society each gem fits from pearl, because while she doesn’t believe it herself, she isn’t kept from talking about diamonds now and what one she served. in this funky fresh au, she is sent by white to make sure the new diamond they’re cultivating from earth comes out properly (aka where the fuck did russia go) and getting her equipped with all of the technology she would need to properly rule. this is where she first meets a quartz soldier. at first she’s taken aback by the quartz’s forwardness, no one had ever talked to her like... an equal before. shes not sure if shes allowed to speak, though, she knows theyre waiting for a response. Their first interactions always begin with her requesting permission to speak. They have to wait a few more years for pink to emerge and while they’re there they slowly become friends as the life is leeched out of the area. we could have a snapshots of them waiting for together, rose getting bored and convincing pearl to come do things with her, slowly breaking her out of her shell. Pearl’s difficulty and character arc comes from not just rose and getting over her feelings, which is perfectly fine, but doesnt need to be her only trait, but finding out who she is now, not just after rose, but with humanity as a whole. with the war well and truly over. she wants to learn about what rose thought was so important to fight for, to die for, and because of that, we get her partaking in human activities that arent eating or drinking, because she still dislikes them. While Garnet reads and collects books, i think pearl being really into her weapons collection is a good idea to flesh her out more. Where did she get her swords from? Well thats a mystery. She mentions someone she cared about a long time ago made them for her and thus we get some fun bismuth foreshadowing.

Rose:  And rose..... god... we could of had it all by adele plays in the background anytime i think about her. Here we have a very beautiful fat woman. Shes framed as elegant and regal by the show time and time again and i LOVED that. however after the pink diamond reveal, I have such mixed feelings about her. No more diamond bullshit. Shes the first gem that popped out. Technically she’s too early and she goes to stand guard around the birthplace of her diamond. That is where she and pearl first meet. Pearl is the first gem she ever talks to and while she innately knows stuff about home world, shes pick up a lot from the humans that live nearby. theyve shown her kindness and given her furs to wear and in turn she helped them heal their wounded by crying on them. (yes she still has healing powers sue me) she loves the humans and takes to befriending them before pearl shows up. The two of them get close and after pink diamond pops out, rose realizes what the creation of gems truly means for the world around her. They’re killing what was here before them. This isn’t creation. It’s an invasion. Being the only quartz out so far, shes forced into the role of commander for pink. Her favored soldier. And the more she does what she was “made for” the more she hates it and the more she hates the diamond authority. she convinces pink that some humans are worth keeping. As a curiosity, my diamond. they could prove useful to terraforming other planets or moons to accept life and in time, gem cultivation.  She gets poofed while trying to save someone from the group of people she first made friends with. Maybe pink shatters whoever poofed her for not following her orders because of course Rose wouldnt defy her. rose is Loyal, unlike the rest of you lack luster garbage. Rose comes back with her iconic dress and shes here and queer and shes fucking Done with this shit. she hears about the shattering on her behalf and she goes to pink and asks why and she feels sick to her stomach because star, my diamond, she isnt Worth it. she isnt worth the cost of someone else’s whole Life!!! Oh rose... you’ve always been soft hearted. in this time, Pearl is quietly there. waiting to be called back by white as pink pearl has just been sent to take her place. And this is it. This is the moment rose decides to rebel. according to homeworld, her life should be no more than any other quartz. her life shouldnt be traded for that of others. So why? Why did pink do this? Do the gems in her court mean nothing to her? This is the first time a gem has ever summoned two weapons. A Sword and Shield. A knight turning on her master. She tried to attack pink. to poof her. to send a message right here and now that gems are all equal. that a lowly rose quartz is strong enough to take on a diamond! She fails, but only partly. she manages to strike a blow, but pink stays in tact long enough to strike on of her own, sending rose retreating into her gem. This is when pearl has to make a choice. No matter what she’d be shattered. Pink’s wrath when she reforms, white’s when she finds out about what happened. This is a death sentence. But if its a death sentence, its one she’ll choose for herself. she takes rose’s shield and uses the face of it to shatter pink herself, scooping up rose’s gem and getting as far away as fast as she can. This is the start of a war.

Steven: Oh boi. So i love steven, but theres moments where hes just... not good and the story doesnt stop him from doing that. So if were gonna say hes a kid with emotion based powers, we know hes soft and sweet and excitable. sometimes he pushes people too far because hes trying to do what he thinks is best. I want him to wrestle with the fact that his mom, this person everyone says is good, killed someone. she did something so horrible and she never killed anyone again, but she still did it once. I’d like him to get bits and pieces of his mothers memories and so we get to see the world and flashback things that happened in real time. Maybe he tries to talk to pearl about it, but she still wont instead of cant. He feels like an outcast and everyone would rather his mom be there, but they have him instead. basically a lot of his earlier character arc stuff before garnet and pearl talk to him about how homeworld was. They dont think hes old enough to hear about war, but it seems war is coming back and hes unprepared to face it without learning more. he facilitates more interactions with the townies and now its not just a war of gems against gems, they have humans on their side too and they’ll win!  

[mage-cat]

New Beginnings - Ch. 1 - Rebuilding

I’m trying for a bit of an Unbubbled reboot here, but you won’t see anything familiar from that until chapter 3 or 4. For now, enjoy Bismuth and Peridot planning their reconstruction of the beach house and Bismuth being a blatant Amedot shipper.

Link to AO3 through here.

Chapter below the cut.

Peridot blinked at the sight of the unfamiliar stone room she had regenerated in. She was seized by momentary, panicky thoughts of capture until she noticed Bismuth at a workbench with a pencil in hand and an easy smile.

“Hey there. I hoped you'd be back soon. I want a second set of eyes on these plans before I start anything. Glad to have those diamonds off your form?”

“Yes,” she said emphatically, fingering one of the stars at the hem of her new tunic. She had paired it with leggings and boots in her usual shades of green. It was all structured with angles that echoed her gemstone but still comfortable and practical for gardening and tinkering. “Where' s everyone else?” She asked as she looked around. There didn't seem to be any other people here, but there was a staggering variety of weaponry.

“Lapis Lazuli is next to where you were,” Bismuth answered gesturing to the shelf Peridot had been standing in front of. “Everybody else is taking care of Diamond diplomacy on Homeworld. Me, I gave two seconds' thought to the idea of smiling politely at the tyrants and decided that the best thing I could do was make sure Steven came back to an intact house.”

“Phrase it like that and I'm glad that I got left behind too.” Peridot hadn't been surrounded by this much metal since before she had first tapped into her powers. She found herself smiling. “What is this place?”

“My forge. I had been keeping near the Temple, but that Ronaldo guy was hanging around nearby. I decided to go somewhere else before he started to try and tell me how to do my job again. He has very strange ideas about armor. I don't really want to hear how he thinks building construction works.”

Peridot pulled a tall stool over to the workbench. “He has strange ideas about gemetics, too. Steven told me he was interested in the subject, so I tried to teach him some things. It seems that, once he thinks he's right, he's very stubborn.” With Peridot seated on the stool, the two Gems were much closer to eye level with each other. “This is small compared to how Homeworld builds workshops, but I'm impressed.”

Bismuth beamed. “I learned a lot building this place, the first thing that was ever really mine.”

Peridot sounded slightly wistful as she said, “There is something special about that.”

“So, gemetics, huh? You were a Kindergartener?”

“One of the best in the sector.” It wasn't bragging if it was true. “It's why I was chosen for the mission to Earth to check on the Cluster. Well, that and I think Moss Agate was happy to not hear from me for a while.”

“Just what is the Cluster anyway? With everything happening, no one had time to explain it to me.”

Bismuth's eyes widened as Peridot filled her in. “That's...”

“Horrific. I know. But you know how Homeworld is. We're not people, we're resources, and that goes double if we're shattered.”

“I really hate the Homeworld system.”

“I'm willing to bet that you would like the Era 2 version even less. Now let's see these plans.”

Bismuth began to describe how much of the beach house was still standing, the urgent structural repairs needed, and the improvements she saw room for before Peridot began to introduce refinements and her own ideas. She cackled when she heard that the Diamonds' Hand Ships were also wreaked on the beach and available for salvage. There were materials Bismuth had never heard of in there that they were free to use.

During a lull in their planning, Bismuth said, “This is just me getting my bearings, but are you and Amethyst an item?”

The line Peridot was drawing faltered as she lost then regained her grip on her pencil. “Wha... what makes you say that?”

“Just a feeling I got, and I'm guessing that means 'no'.” Bismuth smirked. “Though that blush tells me you kinda wish otherwise.”

“Amethyst and I are close, but not like that.”

“Hey, there is nothing embarrassing about being interested. I've had a lot of fun with Quartzes. Strong curves that get soft in interesting places, eager hands, and there's something about all that hair, and you were lucky enough to find one just your size.”

The blue blush was creeping to cover more of Peridot's face as details of Amethyst flickered across her mind's eye. “I never thought about things like that before I came to Earth. I'm still getting used to it. One of the first things I ever liked on this planet was making Amethyst laugh. I'm not sure she feels the same way though. It might just be the usual Quartz gregariousness.”

Bismuth shrugged off the topic. “Maybe. You've spent more time around her than I have. Speaking of things you've been around to notice, do you know why they made the living space so far above the high tide line? If it's just to line up with the Temple's door, then I have some ideas for the space underneath.”

After they had discussed more details of the rebuilding plan, Peridot asked, “So you have a lot of experience with relationships?”

“I've had a lot of friendships that could get very... intimate. Nothing as serious as Ruby and Sapphire or Pearl and... Rose. Dang, what are we even supposed to call her?  But I was the smith, so everyone met me soon after they joined up. Since everyone knew me, plenty of people thought of me when they wanted to... explore their new freedom. I was really popular with the Quartzes. I'm big and brawny enough that they never had to worry about hurting me if they lost control, but the way builders like us tend to think and the way soldiers tend to think are different enough that it made me interesting.”

“So you never had serious romantic feelings for anyone?”

“I had a hopeless crush on someone who was too devoted to someone else to notice I was flirting with her.” It was Bismuth's turn to blush.

“It wasn't Ruby or Sapphire was it?”

“No. Stars, no. My type may be more mental than physical, but I do kind of have of a minimum height requirement. No offense.”

“None taken. Trying to figure out if Amethyst is flirting with me is romantic distraction enough.” She gave a long look at what they had drawn up. “We should get back to the beach so I can see exactly what we can salvage before we go any farther.”

The beach was still littered with pieces of the barn. Some of the wood fragments had actually broken off the beach house, but while the hole in the house had been covered with a large, blue tarp, the contents of the barn were less protected. Even at a glance, Peridot could catch glimpses of objects she had thought were gone forever.

“I had hoped to see the barn again, but not like this.”

“You attached to the place?”

“I lived in it for most of my time with the Crystal Gems. At first we were all temporarily camped there while working on the drill to reach and disable the Cluster. When that finished, I wanted to stay a while longer to repair some damage that happened in the interim. Before I could really start on that, Lapis needed a place to stay, and the barn was the best option. She wasn't a Crystal Gem, but she didn't have anyplace else to go. I decided to make it my mission to convert her. I bent over backwards, literally, but she still left at the first sign that the Diamonds may have been coming. She took the barn and everything we both had made with her.”

“It seems like Lazulis have a way of getting to people. I knew a Crystal Gem during the War who worked with one and was real broken up about not getting her to defect when she did.”

“Maybe that's why Jasper got so hung up on her too,” Peridot mumbled to herself.

Hours turned into days. Salvage turned into construction. When Steven and the Crystal Gems returned from Homeworld, they found Bismuth, Peridot, a beach house that would have been completely repaired and finished if the two hadn't gotten perhaps a touch carried away with expansion ideas, and Lapis still regenerating in her gemstone.

[mage-cat]

Unbubbled, Chapter 2

This chapter would have been a lot easier to write if I didn’t think making it very clear some of the things Bismuth does and does not know going forward was so important. It also would have been easier if it didn’t feel like the world was falling down around our ears just now, too. Anyone who’s read any of my Steven Universe fic will be utterly unsurprised that there’s Amedot in my Bispearl story. I hope you enjoy them as an established couple

Chapter under the cut.

Chapter 1 here.

AO3 link here.

After a while, Garnet declared that she and Pearl had to leave on a mission, the remaining Crystal Gems staying behind at the temple. Amethyst said she was going for a walk, Peridot quickly stated an insistence on joining her, and Steven and Bismuth were invited along. Steven quickly agreed and went to grab his ukulele while Bismuth stared at the congealing brown ring at the bottom of her mug until Amethyst waved a hand through her field of vision.

“Come on,” she cajoled. “We can fill you in more on how things work around here now, and you can pay us back with stories about what Garnet and Pearl were like before they started trying to be good examples.”

“I'm not sure this is a day for telling war stories.” Bismuth's smile was returning, if looking a little tired.

“So no fighting stories. I know it wasn't all battles all the time.”

“We'll see what I come up with while we're walking.”

Peridot spoke up as they walked down the stairs. “I may need to apologize for a part in why you weren't unbubbled sooner.”

“Why's that?”

“Garnet was waiting for me to reform, under the understanding that you were unlikely to trust what I had to say while I was still wearing my old Diamond emblems. She didn't actually tell me that until afterward, but even if she had, it is unlikely that I would have volunteered to have my form forcibly dismissed to hurry the process along.”

“Well, I can't really argue with Future Vision, and I've seen what it takes to get a Peridot to poof. I wouldn't want to put myself through that either. Why did you switch sides anyway? I always love hearing those stories.”

Reaching the foot of the stairs, Steven steered the group in the opposite direction from where Biggs had momentarily been that morning.

“The Crystal Gems' attempts to thwart my original mission, while not being sure what that mission was, succeeded in leaving me stranded on this planet with no means of escape or communication while knowing that the whole place was a time bomb about to go off. By the time of my capture, I was desperate enough to work with them. There were many things I was willing to do for Yellow Diamond back then, but dying was not one of them.” Bismuth's smile was looking less tired now, turning into an approving smirk as Peridot continued. She had seen plenty of Gems who did not draw the line at dying for their Diamond.

“Around the time we completed the drill to reach the Cluster, I managed to acquire a Direct Diamond Line. I thought that, if I presented Yellow Diamond with some theories I had developed about how to extract resources from this planet without harming the biosphere, she would spare Earth.” A pained look crossed her face. “She wouldn't. She said she wanted the planet gone, that she didn't care about resources or potential. She's supposed to care. What's the point of a Diamond that doesn't care about the well-being of the Empire or the Gems created to serve her?” Peridot shrugged. “So I called her a clod, cut the connection, and she remote detonated the communicator. I am most definitely not welcome back even if I wanted to go, which I don't.” She held her hand up to her face, almost as if inspecting it. “I'm done with being lied to.”

“You called Yellow Diamond a clod? To her face?” Bismuth barked out a laugh. “I wish I could have seen that!”

“It was pretty impressive,” Amethyst said as she nudged Peridot's shoulder with her own. “Even if she did curl up into a ball right after and stay that way for a few hours.”

“So what's your story Deep Cut?”

It was Amethyst's turn to shrug. “There's not much of one. I was the last Gem to come out of the Prime Kindergarten. Five hundred years after everyone else with the war already over. That's why, you know...” Amethyst pressed the flat of her hand against the top of her head, emphasizing her lack her height. “Which I gotta say beats my alternatives. Still, it was just me and a bunch of lifeless rocks for who knows how long until Rose found me. I guess you could say I've been a Crystal Gem as long as I've been anything.”

“Now that is amazing. I always wondered what a Gem would be like who never heard all that upper crust nonsense about her proper place. You fight pretty good for someone who wasn't in the war. Who trained you? Ruby?”

Amethyst laughed. “Good one! Like Garnet was going to unfuse often enough for her to train me. I got some training from Rose. More from Pearl until we both got fed up with each other over it. Mostly I work from instinct. That's enough to get by when it comes to monsters at least. Now that we're looking at facing down soldiers again, sparing with this guy is really helping.” She jerked a thumb towards Steven, who added, “Pearl's done pretty much all my training, but fighting with Amethyst is fun!”

“But, ya know, as far as what a Gem's like without Homeworld influence, it mostly just means I ended up with different damage.”

Peridot linked one arm around Amethyst's, leaning into her. “Well I think you came out great. Especially for a first test case. The problems stem more from the neuroses of the Gems raising you then anything else.”

“Thanks, Per-bear, but you're biased.”

“I would not have formed my bias in the first place if I had not first logically concluded that you were an extraordinary individual.”

That got a small laugh. “You are such a nerd.”

“Yes, but that's what you love about me.”

“True,” Amethyst said as she leaned over to blow a raspberry into Peridot's cheek. After a moment of giggling they remembered that they had an audience, and Amethyst looked over saying, “Okay. Show's over.”

“Oh,” Steven said, “are we going to be seeing Fluorite soon?”

Peridot and Amethyst glanced at each other before Peridot answered, “Not today.”

“Yeah,” Amethyst added, “there's filling Bismuth in, and then there's introducing her to walking information overload.”

“Once Fluorite starts talking it's hard for her to stop,” Peridot explained to Bismuth.

“And she'll say whatever she's thinking, which could be, like, everything,” added Amethyst.

“She's like the Anti-Garnet!” Steven exclaimed. “Wait, that makes her sound evil.” He looked like he was trying to think of a better way to phrase it. Peridot broke his train of thought, saying it really was accurate enough.

“So, Peridot,” Bismuth said, “outside from fusion, have you been learning to fight, or are you sticking with a support role? There's always stuff to build, but what's the point of rebelling if you just keep doing the things you did before?”

“Mostly I've been working on getting my metal powers under proper control. With them I can occupy a ranged attack role that the team has been lacking up until this point.”

“Wait,” Bismuth stopped short to look at Peridot more carefully. “Getting them under control? How had you been working without having done that already? You can't be that new if they were sending you out on solo missions.”

Peridot scrambled up a nearby rock and sat on it. “It's an Era 2 thing. The story is that Homeworld is experiencing a resource shortage and Gems cannot be produced to the old standards, mostly characterized by lack of powers. For Peridots, this is counterbalanced with technology that is worn at all times. Arm Enhancers come equipped with tractor beams, which fill in for the missing metal control and then some, along with database access. I even configured mine to have a blaster function. I was a pretty fair shot.”

Amethyst chimed in, “Then there was the electrical feedback you shocked me with that time.”

“And a few other functions that led to the Enhancers being clunky enough that, to prevent them from dragging the ground, Leg Extenders were also required. After I was captured and they were…” she seemed to side-eye Amethyst, “discarded, it took me some time to even adjust to being this size. It didn't help that my mass was still distributed in anticipation of carrying the weight of the Enhancers. I overbalanced a lot. I really hope I'm going to fall on my face much less now.” At a gesture from the green Gem, a discarded soda can floated up to her shoulder height and began to move in lazy figure eights.

“Anyway,” she continued, “if what I had been told was completely true, I wouldn't be able to do this at all.” The can flew in a quick series of loops before coming to a still-floating halt. “I'm sure there really is some resource shortage, losing this colony did hurt Homeworld, but, as to how much it actually affected my potential...” She shrugged, the can raising and falling an inch or so with the motion. “If I ever figure out shape-shifting or weapon summoning, I won't be as shocked as I was the first time I moved metal.”

Bismuth looked slightly stunned, “I think that might actually be more twisted than the whole Corruption thing. I mean, how long have they been keeping that up?”

“Longer than I've been around. Which means more than 3000 years. And don't forget I was a Kindergartener. Lying to me means that they are mucking with the technical manuals regarding Gem formation. The more you think about it, the worse it gets.”

Bismuth looked down to where Steven and Amethyst were standing. “Remind me why shattering the Diamonds is a bad idea again.”

“Because desperate Diamonds are more dangerous than we can handle,” Amethyst answered.

“And it would be wrong,” added Steven.

The smith gave a half-nod of assent before turning back to Peridot. “Anyway, if you're sticking to that training regimen, could I make you some better ammunition? What have you been using?”

“I would actually appreciate that. This planet has plenty of scrap metal I can use, but I know there would be benefits to something more uniform. My skill with raw materials lags well behind my engineering abilities.”

Amethyst climbed up the rock to sit next to her. “I'm glad to have you watching my back, and to know that if we need an attack with more range that my whip and more punch than Pearl's laser blasts, we don't have to rely on Opal.” She rolled her eyes toward Bismuth. “Miss Pearl-fect and I don't always get along well enough to fuse, even if an archer would help.”

“I guess with so few of us, fusion is a more important tactic than ever, huh?”

“I guess. I don't really know how important it was during the war so I can't compare. You ever fuse with Pearl or Garnet?”

“I... uh,” Bismuth's mind stumbled over the memory. “Yeah, a couple of times. With Pearl. Never quite worked out with Garnet.”

Steven had pulled up a seat on one of the smaller rocks and begun tuning his ukulele. Bismuth took the hint and settled in, using Peridot and Amethyst's perch as a backrest. They passed a few hours that way, swapping stories. Peridot related the epic tale of scavenging materials for some attack drones she had made. Bismuth talked about how hard Pearl had been on her swords before Bismuth had perfected the design for them. Amethyst described her involvement in the local wrestling league, and the fight she and Steven had had with Garnet and Pearl over allowing her to continue. Bismuth learned a round that Steven had written and Amethyst and Peridot already knew. In the end, the three younger Crystal Gems did more of the talking than Bismuth did. She was more than willing to tell stories about Garnet and Pearl, but too many stories included the shattered and the corrupted. On another day, she might be able to tell those, but the pain was still too fresh.

The sun was just starting to tint the western sky a faint orange when Peridot said she would have to leave soon. “I told Lapis I would be back before dark. She's more stable than she used to be, but I still don't like leaving her alone for too long.”

“Lapis Lazuli?” The name conjured up some less pleasant memories, but mostly Bismuth wondered why they hadn't mentioned another Gem around. After all, what were the odds that they were talking about the same Lapis she was thinking of?

“A Homeworld loyalist who was mistaken for a Crystal Gem during the war and put in a mirror for interrogation. She was abandoned and cracked while still in it during the final evacuation,” Peridot explained as she descended from the rock and headed towards the Temple and its warp pad. The rest of the group went with her.

“I got her out and healed her,” Steven chimed in.

“Yeah, but between one and the other, she stole the ocean for a while,” Amethyst said, “because being so cracked your mind is too scrambled to be corrupted means you're willing to try out some really bad ideas.”

“She went back to Homeworld after,” Steven continued, “and sent us a message that Peridot was coming back with reinforcements after her scouting missions where we first saw her. If it wasn't for Lapis, we wouldn't have been ready at all.”

“'Reinforcements' makes it sound much more dire than one ship with me, Jasper as an escort, and Lapis as an unwilling informant. Anyway, that day ended with me on the run and Lapis holding Jasper captive in a fusion. It's rather amazing how long it was before Malachite split, longer than I managed to stay one step ahead of the team. That's when things got complicated. Jasper's bubbled now. I'm working on getting Lapis to convert. She's warmed up to me and would do just about anything for Steven, but she's civil at best to Pearl and Garnet.”

Amethyst said, “And she doesn't seem to mind me hanging around the barn. Of course, it probably helps that I usually bring books and interesting junk for her and Peri to use for art projects.”

“You've been doing art?” Bismuth asked Peridot, honestly curious.

“Apparently the exact human term for it is 'conceptual sculpture.' I still like the word Lapis came on for it, 'meep-morp.' Anyway, once the drill project had fulfilled its purpose, I found making things without concern for utility very freeing. Also, I find that creative endeavors aid in emotional processing, and everything I've found out since coming to Earth has given me a lot to process. Oh, do you want these,” she said referring to the now four cans she had floating beside her. “They're aluminum, very pure aside from the added pigment.”

“Humans figured out aluminum extraction? I'm impressed. That's tricky work on this planet.” Bismuth considered the offer. “You keep them for now. I'm going to do an inventory at the Forge.”

Once Peridot had used the warp pad to reach a point nearer her destination, Bismuth moved to do the same. Amethyst asked, “Are you really gonna leave right now?”

“Yeah, Pearl and Garnet aren't even back yet,” said Steven.

“Unless you need me for something. I've got an inventory to do and things to think about.” She stepped onto the pad. “You all know where to find me.”

Chapter 3 >