r

"Does it bother you?" Rose asks.

The pearl doesn't startle. A pearl would never do something so uncouth. But she shifts and now the pearl is staring at her directly. There's no reply.

Rose thinks it over a second. "Does the flower bother you?" she tries. "You're staring at it." Pearls look around a lot, she's noticed, if they don't have anything else to do. The things they stare at for long times are usually messy, and they keep staring until someone tells them to tidy it up. She had first thought they were trying to anticipate orders, but there was one time when after this one had been told it was time to leave she'd cast a glance back at some poorly stacked boxes that Rose had thought seemed frustrated.

The pearl looks at the floor in reply.

This isn't going well. Most of her attempts to talk to other gems don't go well. But they're just all just so interesting she can't help herself. She soldiers on, because that's what she's good at. "I can get rid of it if -"

"That isn't necessary," the pearl says to the floor.

"Oh." Wrong again. And she's managed to annoy this pearl enough to be interrupted.

She sits silently for a bit and then the pearl says, now to the ceiling, "The flower's color matches your hair." After a second, the pearl looks at her again and adds, "It fits with your design. That makes it appropriate to wear. It isn't necessary to get rid of it. Lighter or darker pink would also be appropriate for a gem of your class. And red and maroon."

"Thank you," she says. "I'm not good at that. Do you think sticking to those colors would please Pink Diamond?"

"No," the pearl says.

Rose sighs.

o

The seventh time she's waiting alone with the pearl, she's figured it out. No flowers please Pink Diamond. She had thought the way they opened, sudden new colors appearing from what had been solid green, had a beauty like that of the gems emerging from the ground. She had thought Pink Diamond would see that too. How both could matter. But she'd been wrong, again. It's frustrating that the pearl didn't just say this, but to the pearl, it must have been so obvious.

But in that case, why not tell Rose to get rid of it?

"If any flower doesn't please Pink Diamond, I shouldn't wear one at all," she tries out, looking at the pearl hopefully. Pearls are good at this sort of thing.

The pearl looks away to the ceiling, then says, "That isn't necessary."

But Rose had been so sure Pink Diamond was annoyed she wore them. "Does she not care either way?" she asks.

"She only pays attention to them when you come to speak with her. She doesn't notice otherwise."

She ponders this. "So I shouldn't wear one when I talk to her?"

"Yes," the pearl says to the ceiling. "But in general. Other times. It isn't necessary to get rid of them. She doesn't notice. They look nice."

s

The next time she has a flower again. She goes to where the pearl stands by the door and kneels down, taking the flower out of her hair and holding it out.

"Here," she says.

The pearl stares, looking from her to the flower to her to the flower. She doesn't move.

"You can have it, since I shouldn't wear it in there."

The pearl keeps staring. Her fingers twitch. "Do you want me to hold it for you?"

"I can get another one. I don't need this back."

"Do you want me to hold it for you?" the pearl repeats.

She had meant...but she's not a pearl so how could she know what this one wanted. "Sorry for bothering you," she says, pulling her hand back.

"Do you want me to hold it for you?" The pearl sounds upset. Has Rose annoyed her that much?

"I'm sorry! I thought you might want -"

"I want you to t-" The pearl claps her hands over her mouth, shaking once and then freezing in place.

To what? What did she do wrong now?

The doors are starting to open and Rose, flustered, drops the flower on the ground. "Do - do what you want with it," she blurts out, and hurries into the next room.

e

She doesn't have a flower the next time. The pearl greets her by reaching a hand up to her glowing gem, startling Rose, but instead of a weapon - pearls don't summon weapons, Rose remembers belatedly, they're not like other gems - she pulls out a tiny crumpled brown thing and holds it out.

"Oh," Rose breathes.

She cups her hands around the pearl's and stares down at the dead flower. She fears that one day there will be no more plants, and nothing of whatever moment of understanding she has made here with another gem. She holds that feeling until a tear forms and drops and the pearl makes an astonished sound as the dry flower absorbs the liquid and swells into a blossom again, white and yellow like the star they orbit surrounded by clouds of this place. If everything proceeds on schedule, the clouds would outlast the flowers, but not by much.

But it doesn't have to. There's always hope. "I'll bring another one," she promises.

p

"Do you have a favorite thing about Earth?"

"The development of non-gem life is unique to this planet," the pearl says after several seconds.

Rose laughs. "But what do you like best?"

The pearl is silent, then projects the image of a tiny human that begins to grow larger. It rolls onto its belly, then pushes itself onto all fours, then lurches backward onto two legs, takes shaky steps that become more sure and confident. The now freed hands grasp a dull rock that shaves down to a sharpened one that grows outward into a spear that narrows and shrinks as a bow forms around it. The figure draws the bow and arrow, fumbles, tries again.

She claps her hands together in delight. "Me too! Aren't they amazing?"

e

"Have you been to the seashore?" she asks the pearl. "I love the way the waves sound, and the feeling of the spray, and the sand."

"I've been to the Lunar Sea Spire five hundred and seven times," the pearl says. "I could hear the falls and whirlpools, and there was a mist in the air."

"Oh, the shore so much nicer than that," she says. She wishes she could make images like a pearl, or that she had the talent for explaining things of a sapphire. "It's not beautiful the same way as the Spire, but...the sand is made of hard, spiky pieces but it's soft, and the waves are like...are like the sound of plucking a string, but so much slower. And there are these birds, seagulls, and they sing constantly along with it. And they're really funny! They're, well, the humans call them gluttons, they always want to ingest other organic matter. I gave one raspberries and she kept swallowing them until she could barely fly. I don't know if she'd have ever stopped. Do you know seagulls? They're big white birds."

The pearl makes several holographic birds, but Rose shakes her head at each one. "That's an albatross," she says to the twelfth one. "That's a lot like them, but bigger than they are."

The image scales down until Rose says, "Yes, they're that big," and then the proportions change, with the wings shrinking further compared to the body. "That's really close! So you have seen them?"

"No," the pearl says. "The weight of the bird correlates closely to size. Weight is a factor in determining wing size needed for flight." The image splits apart into two different birds, one with longer wings and one with stubby ones. "Their wing size would likely within this range. Is-"

The door starts to open. The pearl's hologram disappears and she goes silent.

a

"How did you know what birds need to fly?" Rose asks the next time.

The pearl doesn't respond immediately. Then she makes another image, this time of a skeleton. The bones flex like it's trying to fly. Strings of tendon and muscle appear over it, and then feathers layer on top. Rose waits to see if this will be accompanied by an explanation. It isn't.

"Aren't their physical forms so interesting?" Rose says eventually, as the pearl builds the rest of the bird in the air and sets it flying. "The way all these complicated parts fit together, like a machine that builds itself."

"A group of heliodors said some of the physical structures of Earth life are interesting. They think they can use similar structures in new robot designs."

"Oh. Were they looking at bird wings?"

"No," the pearl says.

"What was it they were interested in, then?"

The bird vanishes. The pearl closes her eyes. After a moment, it's replaced by a human hand, showing the muscle and bone laid out in marvelous detail. But then the wrist starts to grow outward in little stuttery jumps. When it reaches the elbow ribbons of dangling skin spread out and beyond that the muscle is covered. Before the pearl gets to the shoulder Rose screams at her, "Stop it!" and the pearl claps her hands over her gem as if she has to push the image back inside.

Pointless tears roll down Rose's face.

"She didn't think it was interesting," the pearl says, her eyes still shut. She's shaking all over. "She said to get back to work. She said to clean the mess up."

r

Rose brings a woven bag with her as well as a flower the next time. "I'm really sorry I yelled at you," she tells the pearl, holding them out. "You were just answering my question."

"The information was given poorly," the pearl says. She doesn't take the bag or look at Rose.

"No, it was...it was very, very clear," Rose tells her, feeling even more terrible. It occurs to her now that a pearl has to try to understand other gems all the time as her actual purpose. The worst that can go wrong for Rose is being told to go away and get back to work. "You answered it well, Pearl. It upset me but you didn't know it would."

The pearl murmurs something, sounding distressed.

"What?"

"I did know it would," the peal whispers, barely audible. "I didn't mean to show the rest. That wasn't what you asked. It was an error."

"I still shouldn't have yelled at you." Rose tries to think of how to explain. "None of it's your fault."

"I watched the whole thing," the pearl says. "I just stood there."

"Right," she says with relief, glad they understand each other now. "You didn't do anything." She opens up the bag. "You probably didn't get to go to a shore yet, so I brought you sand so you can feel what it's like." The pearl finally takes the bag carefully. She swirls her fingers through the grains and they seem to almost follow in her wake, like iron filings trailing after a magnet. "I don't know how I'd bring waves or seagulls, but sand's pretty good."

l

"She's tired of your insubordination," the pearl announces one day.

Rose wonders if Pink Diamond could possibly be more tired of this than Rose is. She holds out the flower. "The humans call it a rose," she says. "We made it together."

"She'll replace you," the pearl replies, staring down at the pink petals sitting on her palms. "She doesn't want arguments. She wants you to do what you're told. She wants you to stop wasting her time. To stop doing other things."

"Well, she can always get another me." Maybe it isn't right to have bothered Pink Diamond so much, but with everything Rose has done, has had to do, for her diamond, compared to how easy she'll be to replace, it seems unfair to give Rose all the blame.

"She's tired of your insubordination," the pearl says, not looking up. "She's tired of the one who talks about flowers and humans. She's tired of that one doing things with humans instead of what she's supposed to do. The one who is wasting her time. There isn't another one doing that."

"I must be defective," Rose says flippantly.

"You must be defective," the pearl says back, which stings.

"I'm sorry it'd annoy her so much to get another. Does it cause you trouble too, is that why you're angry with me?"

"That isn't important."

"Then I don't understand at all." Sometimes saying that to other gems will get her an explanation, and now and then it's even one that lets her understand.

The pearl is still looking at the flower. "There's only one gem whose rose this is," she says. "There won't be another one."

"There won't be any of it if she won't listen to me!" Rose shouts. Useless tears are forming in her eyes. She could cry over the kindergartens for ten thousand years and nothing would change.

"She doesn't like the organic life."

"But if I can just get her to reconsider..."

"Every time you argue with her, she hates them more, for making one of her gems so tiresome. She would have to be gone to stop this."

"So you think all I've done is make things worse."

"She would have to be gone," the pearl says. "If she is here she will ensure the colony is completed."

Rose laughs bitterly.

"She would have to be gone," the pearl says. "To stop this, she would have to be gone."

"That'll never happen," Rose says. She doesn't see any point in pretending she hasn't thought about it, in dark moments as she wonders what she can possibly do, so she continues, "All I could do is annoy her with how long it'd take to shatter me for it. My shield-"

"She's aware of your capabilities. But she wouldn't expect an attack. This would give you an advantage." She holds out the rose in one hand. "And if you had this with you, she would be angry. Even more angry if you told her about how it was a rose and that you were with humans. She doesn't pay attention to anything else when she's angry."

"Having the element of surprise wouldn't be enough," Rose says, ignoring how the very fact the pearl is saying this shows she'd have no such thing. Why not humor them at this point? "She's Pink Diamond. The greatest of the greatest. I'm just a rose quartz. How could I possibly defeat her on my own?"

"What if you had other weapons?"

"I don't have other weapons!" Was this what her diamond spent her time on, imagining elaborate ways gems could turn on her? Was she so bored?

"What if you had other weapons?" the pearl repeats, still holding up the flower like she expects Rose to actually take it, march in, and deliberately provoke their diamond into a towering rage.

"Did she tell me to come just so you could ask me this?"

"You were taken off the schedule for today. She changed her mind." The pearl shivers. "What if you had other weapons?"

"Am I allowed to go then?" Rose snaps. "Is she satisfied with this?"

"She's going shatter you. And the colony will continue. The colony will complete. What if you had other weapons?"

Rose doesn't know if this is true or just part of whatever test this is. She isn't sure she cares. She'd known the risks she was taking. "I don't."

The pearl's arm trembles at her side, the hand flexing as if wrapping around something invisible. "What if you had other weapons?" she insists.

"Does it matter?"

The pearl projects an image of Rose and Pink Diamond. Rose has the flower again. Pink Diamond gestures widely, her mouth open as if yelling. The image skips to show a sword hilt in Pink Diamond's back, and then a gemstone falling to the ground. It's an absurdly optimistic scenario.

"I have a shield! I don't have a sword, that's not how it works!"

"What if you had a sword?"

"You mean," Rose starts sarcastically, "if one just materialized in front of me-"

The pearl holds the thin blade out as if for her approval.