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Verneuil Process
noun /(ˈ)ver¦nər-, -nə̄ē, F vernœœy\
1. The first commercially successful method of manufacturing synthetic gemstones
To say that Peridot was not built for battle would be a massive understatement.
Then again Pearl supposes that would be the pot calling the kettle black, or however that human saying went. She hadn’t been made for battle either and here she was a hundreds of years later still fighting.
Life on earth, more specifically their life on earth, was a lot different from whatever life Peridot had led on homeworld and adjusting was slow-going. Pearl could certainly sympathize; it had been hard enough for her to adjust and she had Rose Quartz to stand beside her, to remind her just what they were fighting for.
The tall gem can’t even begin to imagine what it was that made Peridot stop trying to contact homeworld and ask to join them. But she does know that whatever it was it must have been important. No one abandons home, even a home that doesn’t care about you, for nothing.
The gem shard monster that had attacked today had been nothing too peculiar to fight and bubble for them; in fact it had almost been nice to go back to battling shard monsters rather than crazed fusions or space invasions. The only major damages were to the porch which was broken in several places (it would have to be rebuilt, again) and a few of Peridot’s fingers that would need to be repaired.
The thought of the strange make up their newest companion sent a twinge of sadness through her and Pearl pauses in picking up debris from the beach to look up at where Peridot was sulking near the broken railings. She can’t imagine what it was like having to manually repair the most fundamental parts of her body without the aid of her gem. A gem’s hands were integral to all that she did from summoning a weapon to fusing, to be so vulnerable-
She shudders at the thought.
“You should talk to her.” Garnet supplies out of nowhere, the deep timber of her voice jostling her away from her staring. She should really just expect Garnet to pick up on everything she thinks she’s being stealthy about by now but somehow it still catches her off guard each time.
Pearl shakes her head and looks away. “Me? I’d think I’m the last person she’d want to talk to right now."
Amethyst snorts and rolls her eyes in a fashion she knows annoys Pearl to no end. “Com’on P; you’re her favorite, she follows you around like some kinda weird space duckling.”
“I thought I was Peridot’s favorite?” Steven asks while chucking a piece of wood at Amethyst who catches it in her trash bag like some kind of game of trashbasketball.
“Steven is everyone’s favorite.” Garnet supplies, giving said boy a high five when he ‘woomps’ in pleasure at such a statement. Conversely, Amethyst makes a fart noise at being proven wrong.
“See? So it doesn’t even count. And that's beside the point.”
Pearl gives her a dead look. “I wasn’t aware you had a point.”
“Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn.” Steven chirps.
Pearl feels Garnet lay her hand down on her shoulder, feels the gem nestled there cool against her skin. “Peridot is going through something only you can understand; you should talk her through it.”
Pearl suffers no illusion what she is, what she was. Long before she was Pearl, crystal gem and doting guardian of a precious half human boy, she was just a pearl, one of thousands made to be of service to other, better, gems. Defying her design and choosing her own fate was something no one had thought a pearl capable of. It had been scary and hard in those early days, even with the support of her friends, to go against everything that she had known, everything that had been ingrained into her core from creation.
Garnet was right: It was something only she could understand.
“Alright, I’ll give it a try, but no promises.”
“Good luck Pearl! Have fun!!” Steven calls out enthusiastically as she makes short work of the winding path up to the house.
In comparison to previous fights the damage to the porch isn’t as bad as it could have been, just a few blown out supports, nothing they couldn’t fix in a few days; future missions and shard monsters willing. “Well, looks like we’re going to need to replace the railings again.” Pearl announces in lieu of an introduction.
From her spot sitting on the edge of the porch, hunched over her tools and her broken fingers, Peridot snorts. “I don’t see why you don’t invest in a fence to keep out whatever it was that attacked us.”
“That’s what I keep saying but for some reason no one wants to listen.”
“That’s because you’re the only one with common sense on this dumb plane-ugh no! What are you doing?” She breaks off yelling at the small robonoid whose, for lack of a better word, fluids are now coating her fingers in thick drips. “A little bit! A little bit I said!” The green gem growls in frustration before hurling whatever tool she had been using down to the beach below. The robonoid wisely encloses in on itself again and scuttles back into the house before Peridot can do the same to it. “UGH, why is this so hard to do without a stasis-stabilizing field?” She slams her fist down on the wooden panels only to yelp at the pain.
Pearl has no idea what that is but assumes it was just another thing Peridot had given up to remain on Earth. From this close it’s easy to see just how shaken by the fight she really was; her usually orderly hair was fluffed awkwardly and there were a few dings and dents in her prosthetics, as well as a couple of tears in her clothing. All of her movements had a slight tremor to them and Pearl is instantly moved to guilt at not being able to protect her better.
She knew better than anyone what it was like to be a gem never designed for fighting suddenly plunged into battle, how terrifying inexperience made everything. Garnet was right; this was something only she could help Peridot with. The older gem vows not to make that same neglect again.
“I may not be a stasis-stabilizer, whatever that is, but maybe I can help?” Pearl doesn’t wait for an answer before kicking away debris and folding her legs under her to sit at Peridot’s side. She holds her hands out before her and waits for instructions.
The green gem flushes a darker shade of green that fans out delicately from the bridge of her nose to her apple of her cheeks. “If that’s what you want to do.”
The curious thing about Peridot, Pearl noted very early on, was that instead of asking for help she’d much rather suffer in silence. And when someone did offer help she’d do her best to make it seem that she didn’t want it but was obliging them by allowing them to assist.
It was a rather adorable trait not that she would tell her fellow gem that; it would only fluster her further which was the opposite of what she was trying to do. So instead she smiles and plays along. “It is.”
“Suit yourself.” The younger gem shrugs and plops her arm into Pearl’s waiting hands. “Just hold it still for me. The gel from the robonoids will seal the cracks until I can build something to repair it properly, but it makes me a little-” Peridot makes a face of distaste. “-twitchy.”
“Oh!” Almost on cue several of her fingers spasm and Pearl has to scramble to hold her steady. A peal of nervous laughter bubbles through her. “You weren't kidding about that!”
Peridot doesn’t say anything as another tremor shakes its way through her form and Pearl holds on just a bit tighter.
This is not the first time Pearl has had the opportunity to touch Peridot but it is the first time she’s been able to really use the time to examine her strange make up so close. Her fingers are cold to the touch but she can feel the thrumming of whatever gemtech that powered them just under the surface; like blood under the skin but not quite. The organic parts of Peridot weren’t like that, they were just as soft and warm as real flesh.
It was an odd juxtaposition of textures that was so much like Peridot herself: Hard talk covering soft vulnerabilities.
As a particularly rough tremor causes her to gasp out, Pearl blurts out “Does it hurt?” without really meaning to.
The dead stare she receives is answer enough but Peridot is not one to use a single expression when she can use 20 words instead. “Does it hurt she says? I thought pearls were supposed to be smart? Of course it hurts, for all intents and purposes its fluid on exposed electrical nanodes that are attached to my arm.”
Since her companion is in pain Pearl graciously lets the dig go. “Sorry.” Instead she runs her fingers along the flat base of what served as Peridot’s palm. “That might have been a little condescending.”
“You think?”
“Honestly they’re very interesting; you’re very interesting Peridot. Have you always had the prosthetics? Rather is it a lowercase peridot feature or an uppercase Peridot feature? I’m a little behind on the biogeological trends on homeworld, for obvious reasons.” Pearl knows she’s chattering to fill up the awkward air between them and Peridot knows it too.
“You can’t be that dense.”
Pearl swallows a heavy gulp of unnecessary air. “I figured you like me not to assume again.”
Peridot scoffs and looks away but she still leaves her arm in Pearl’s hands, a literal connection between them. The older gem holds on for dear life. “I’ve always had them, all peridots do. After the issues homeworld had with the pearls going defective-” Pearl flinches but says nothing. “The next generation of service gems had to come with a few more ‘precautions’ to make sure those issues weren’t repeated. The result was us. Me. Whatever.”
The way she spits out the words is evidence enough of how much esteem she held the thought in.
“Precautions?” The idea of deforming masses of gems on purpose, because of something she had a hand in, was sickening.
“Remotely deactivated limb enhancers, no specialized combat skills and no connection links to other peridots.” She still can’t or won’t look at her which is probably for the best because Pearl doesn’t know if she could handle the shame if she was watching.
It’s been such a long time since Pearl had been linked to other pearls but she can still remember the feeling of being connected to her kind deep in her core. Before she had Rose and the Earth and the Crystal Gems to ground and accept her, the constant presence of other pearls on the edge of her consciousness are what kept her sane. For a gem to never know that connection, to walk the galaxy completely alone-
It must have been a nightmare.
“And your hands? Enhancers?” Pearl clutches the metal limb to her chest to stop the trembling that seems to have worsened: whether from the sealing gel or the force of Peridot’s emotions she isn’t sure. “They can be taken away? Why would they do that? That doesn’t make any sen-”
“It makes perfect sense. It’s hard to raise your hands against Homeworld when your hands don’t belong to you.” The sound Peridot lets out is supposed to be a laugh but there is no joy in it, no mirth. “But here I am doing that thing. And the crazy thing is I never even thought about how insane it all was until getting ditched on this planet. For such a smart gem I was such a dirtclod, to just- are you crying?” Her voice goes extra high pitched at the end when she finally looks at Pearl who is sniffling and trying to not to get her tears on her fingers lest there be more damage for her to suffer through.
Pearl knows that the human term ‘heavy heart’ is a hyperbole used to explain the elevated levels of distress and anxiety that humans often felt when confronted with great sadness, but right now she wonders if there is any basis for the saying in reality because her entire chest feels heavy with guilt. It’s easy to think of your actions only affecting you when it's your existence on the line; but it's so much harder to learn that those actions had consequences on others over a millennia later.
“H-hey stop that! Stop that right now! No one gets to cry about me but me! Ugh, this planet makes everyone so soft! I didn’t tell you my sob story because I’m mad Pearl.” She shifts to face the other gem completely so that they are on the same eye level. “Well, I’m not at you. This is the only me I’ve ever known so even if it is unbelievably annoying to maintenance on this dumb space rock; it’s mine.”
Somehow this doesn’t make Pearl feel better.
With a great sigh Peridot takes a different route. “Look Pearl, I’m brilliant, that’s not me bragging that’s a verifiable fact. And it doesn’t take a genius like me to figure out that you probably had something, or everything, to do with the pearls being redesigned. I don’t blame you for that. Statistically speaking, Homewrold is running out resources so it was inevitable that there would be, lets call them 'cut corners'. Even if you hadn't rushed it along, it probably would have happened anyway; don’t give yourself so much credit.”
A watery chuckle escapes Pearl without her permission. Peridot was good at getting that kind of reaction from her.
Taking a smug tone at the small victory she continues. “Why would I even be mad at you? You stood up and said no to everyone. Meanwhile I was just going to take it for the rest of forever. If anything I’m mad at Homeworld. But you, you’re wonderful.” The light blue blush returns to Peridot’s cheeks at such an accidentally tender sentiment. “So....please stop crying, before you waterlog and ruin even more of my things.”
‘You’re wonderful’
In another life Pearl had said those words at the brink of war to the person who mattered most in the world, the person who made her see she was worth more than what was expected of her. In this life it’s being told to her by someone who didn’t think her perfect but who saw her as someone to strive toward, an example of what she could be like if she tried hard enough.
The urge to repeat history is strong, to be that pillar for Peridot; they’re already holding hands in the wreckage of a battle; it would be so easy to reach out and say it. ‘My Peridot’ It may even be the acceptance Peridot is looking for, taught that belonging to someone was what constituted love.
But she can’t do that to Peridot. To herself. Pearl is no one’s Rose Quartz and Peridot isn’t the same lost pearl she once was; this isn’t the same thing, not by a long shot. But she supposes that that’s good. Pearl is tired of living in the past.
The tremors running through the younger gem’s fingers are few and far between now and the robonoid sealant has them looking near healed so Pearl takes Peridot’s other hand as well and clutches them both tightly to her chest. “No Peridot, you’re wonderful. Standing up and fighting alone is so brave, braver than anything I did.”
For the first time since their exchange began Peridot’s smile isn’t sarcastic or forced, rather it's small and awkward but genuine. “Idiot, I’m not alone. I have you.” At the realization of yet another tender slip up Peridot inelegantly scrambles to cover it up. “AND! And the others! Not just you obviously, I have all you clods for as much good as that’ll do me.”
“Spoken like a true crystal gem.” Pearl says letting go of one of her hands to smudge away the wetness of her eyes. She doesn’t let go of her other hand though and they are sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder, much closer than when this conversation started. Neither one moves away.
“It gets easier.” The older gem admits quietly. “The fighting I mean. It'll always be a struggle to convince yourself that what you were before doesn't have to be what you are now. And after a while you forget that you weren’t designed for fighting; everything just falls into place until its second nature. If there’s one thing I’ve learned on Earth it’s that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant; it’s what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.”
Peridot rolls her eyes. “You stole that from one of Steven’s movies.”
Caught in the act of having watched one of Steven silly VHS movies and being moved enough by it to quote it, Pearl’s entire face bleeds teal in embarrassment which only causes Peridot to cackle. “Oh hush! I’ll have you know it was an extremely prolific film!”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure.”
As laughter and indignation die down the two gems are left sitting side by side in the dying sunlight, the dark reds and oranges painting the beach in calm tones. It’s nice. After a few moments of nothing but the sound of their fellow gems cleaning and the rising tide below, Pearl realizes something. “Peridot?”
“Hm?” the other gem answers vaguely.
“You’re not twitching anymore.”
There is a small pause before the green gem answers. “.....No I’m not.”
“Do you want me to-” Pearl moves to let go of her digits, not wanting to overstay her touch’s welcome.
“-No!” Peridot grips her long fingers under her own, tightly pressing them against the skin of her thighs as if to capture her there; as if she thought the older gem would try to escape her touch at the first chance. “Just....don't.”
Luckily for Peridot escaping was the furthest thing on her mind. “Alright then, I’ll stay.”
“If that's what you want.”
Pearl smiles, scoots just the tiniest bit closer, and laces their fingers, both metal and illusionary flesh, together.
“It is."
Peridot squeezes her hand tightly and nothing else could ever fit so perfectly.