Smoke noticed Rose looking upset and tried to give her an encouraging smile. This would go well. It had to. "Almost our time," she said to the other Pearls, as the speech was given and the other gems cheered. "We can do this. We are fully capable of this, we know what to do and when to do it. Everyone is prepared, right? This is going to be fine." She gave the other Pearls a determined look. This was going to work out, and they would be able to find a brief moment to themselves, with no one ordering them around, no standing blankly, no one hurting them, none of it. It would all be fine.
Carnelian looked to the Pearls. They would be beautiful together, this dance always was, but she was most excited for the fusion. This was an unprecedented number of Pearls dancing together, and something told her this group was a little unpredictable. She was surprised to realize how much she looked forward to seeing the Pearls with more power than their owners. What could they be capable of? Smiling to herself, she signaled the other musicians, took a breath, and began to play.
Rose sighed, watching the other Pearls getting ready to dance and fuse. God, she wished she could join them...to be able to do things with them, to be bigger than their owners for once, to have more power than them...it would be the dream come true. She so desperately wanted to feel that, just once. To be able to do something. To...to...have the ability to do something that no one would see coming! But she could never, because Almandine forbade it.
Tourmaline watched the ceremony and did not think about her own commissioning so long ago. She thought about the delicate Pearl who belonged to Blue Diamond; did she even know that she was going to be volunteered for this? Some of the Pearls looked like they were excited about the dance but Tourmaline couldn't imagine what it would be like to be forced to fuse with someone else. Fusion changed two people with different personalities, abilities and inclinations into a completely different person, and for as long as it lasted the original persons were completely subsumed in the product. The Pearls were being made to engage in the most revealing, intimate and transformative act a Gem could perform with other Pearls they might not even know, not because it was necessary for survival in combat, not as an expression of their own feelings about each other, but rather simply and solely for the voyeuristic amusement of their "betters". Suddenly she wasn't sure she'd be able to watch. If it was beautiful and she took pleasure in it, that would make her a terrible person; and even if it was just as ugly to look at as it was to contemplate, she'd want to do something about it. But Tourmaline had seen enough of her fellow malcontents and miscreants crushed into dust because they were unable to control their passion for fairness and faced the Diamond Authority head on. It was better just to take what you needed--or perhaps a little more--and do just enough damage that it might be mistaken for an act of nature. Nobody ever expected Gems to break the rules, so if you were careful enough nobody saw you do it, because nobody bothered to look for it.
Lavender bounced a bit on the balls of her feet as she listened to the speech. "Ah, sorry but we've got to get going! Maybe later!" she told Rita and nodded at Smoke and Gray and the others. "Let's have fun! That's when we're all the prettiest!" she smiled. A last wistful look to Rose. She would've looked so beautiful among the rest of them... Lavender straightens as she heard the music start and assumes the first position, waiting for the sign to begin the dance.
Citrine's eyes widened, but then she laughed. That explained why she looked so out of place, at least. "Well, if I'm honest, I spend lots of time sneaking into places I'm not supposed to go, either. So we're pretty even on that." Having the stones to go anywhere when you weren't allowed and weren't even combat-ready was pretty damn brave, in her opinion, and she was about to say as much to the little Tech - not to mention ask her name, she couldn't keep thinking her of maybe-Jet - when Yellow Diamond entered the room. Diamonds, she was terrifying. And awesome. Citrine scrambled to her feet with the rest of the Quartzes and ran to her row with the other five Citrines that had come out naturally in the batch. Amethysts were a little more common straight out of the ground, but some of those purple gems changed to the rust-yellow of her kind as they matured. She felt more than saw Yellow Diamond's eyes upon her - doubtless Agate had been talking about her one-hit KO again - and fought down a shiver. She knew that it was good and right to desire your foes crushed to dust, but she didn't really want to break anybody, if she could help it. The speech was perfect, of course, but Citrine slid her gaze sideways to look at the devotion and battlelust on the faces of her fellow Quartzes, and felt very alone. It was almost a relief to kneel and not have to look at anything but the floor. Well, that was it, then. She was officially a soldier. She rose again once they were dismissed, feeling as though somehow she ought to now be more fierce and careless, more befitting of her new rank and title, but she was still confused and lost and honestly a bit sick of feeling as such. She moved to an unoccupied corner and tried to focus on the dance of the Pearls, instead.
Smoke shut her eyes briefly, and mentally prepared herself. Gracefully, she stepped out and took up her position. Just for a second, she wished that Rose and the others who weren't allowed to dance could join in. But that was a thought not conductive to proper dancing, so she cast it away.
Tourmaline was surprised to see a Lavender Pearl who looked strangely familiar on the dance floor--bouncy and smiling, as if she really did want to be there. Well, maybe it did make a weird kind of sense. It was at least an opportunity--forced fusion and all--for the Pearls to express themselves freely, without being constantly berated and criticized. Pearls were one of the things about Gem society that confused Tourmaline most. They were created, so they were slaves, but...everyone else was also created, in the Kindergartens, and people who came out defective were crushed unless they could pass for the standard. Pearls never had to worry about passing for the standard because they were created to match the specifications of the Gem who ordered them. Theoretically, they were all perfect, and yet they were held in the lowest esteem. And even though their mistresses were able to design them, to specify the cut and the colour and the skills and the personalities, some of their mistresses were cruel and constantly punitive--punishing their Pearls for being exactly what they had ordered! Tourmaline wished sometimes that she had the power and resources to order a Pearl: someone who would wander with her through the colony worlds and even explore beyond the bounds of the Diamond Authority, enjoying whatever good things were still left outside Gem space for the little while till they were inevitably destroyed. It would be amazing to have someone who would hold blind obedience, cruelty and pointless suffering in the same contempt that Tourmaline did. (Though, probably, even placing an order like that would attract enough attention for Tourmaline to get herself killed, no matter how big her fortune grew over time.) Why would you ever be unkind to someone who had been created to be exactly what you wanted, someone who was skilled at all the little things you lost track of, someone whose only thoughts were always to support you? It made no sense at all. Tourmaline had stolen Pearls before, but they were always sad. No matter how terrible their mistresses were, it seemed that they always missed them. That was the thing that had really killed her fantasies. Not her fantasies about having a Pearl, but her fantasies about Gem society ever changing for the better. It was now perfectly acceptable to create people who were not just formed to a standard, but were rather designed in exact detail to be exactly what their purchasers wanted, only to punish them over and over for doing the things they'd been formed to enjoy. It didn't really get any more perverse than that. When organics were cruel they were often fighting for access to food and water where these were in limited supply. Gems needed neither. There was literally nothing Tourmaline needed other than to travel and learn and explore things; she didn't need food, she didn't need water, she had no reproductive drives. She was completely self-sufficient. As were all of the other Gems who served the Authority. Why?
Tektite frowned as Citrine made her way towards the other Quartzes. Damn, and she'd thought she'd managed to make a friend. Making friends was hard. Then again, she supposed Citrine had to go up there. She was being sworn in, this was a ceremony for Gems like her and she had every reason to be up there. Tektite just hoped she'd be back--she seemed pretty nice, especially for a Quartz. She hadn't interacted with many Quartzes, to be fair, but she'd overheard a few horror stories from the other Tektites and Peridots that she worked with, and her own encounters with Quartzes had been less than pleasant. Not as horrible as some of what she'd overheard, of course, but they all seemed...well, rather rude, intentionally so. Tektite had been told she often came across as rude herself, but at least in her case she didn't mean to.
There was a Tektite in the hall. Sitting by herself, doing her best to be unobtrusive, which meant she probably wasn't running support for this show. Which meant she was not supposed to be there. Which was interesting. And not boring. And possibly even meant that the Tektite liked to do things because they were fun, and not just out of devotion to Law and Authority and Order. Maybe she was even here to make trouble. In which case, Tourmaline wanted in on it. She knew she would be risking her very existence even to pull a Kindergarten prank at an event like this, but she'd be lying if she told someone she hadn't been thinking about it since she'd walked in. Even silly things. Like firing an arrow with a suction cup on the end and hitting Yellow Diamond right on the gem. Or even on her silly looking pinched up nose that might have been cute if she ever did anything other than sneer with it. Or...doing a flip off the gallery to dance with the Pearls, maybe fuse with the cute little Lavender one. (She wasn't sure she remembered how, though; she hadn't fused with anyone except some other Tourmalines, long ago when she was in training. She remembered that there had been a blue and yellow Tourmaline that she had liked fusing with once in a while, though.) Now she wasn't going to do that, because it would get her killed, but there had to be some way to make this event less dreary after the dancing was over. Tourmaline slipped through the edges of the crowd, going round the long way, and sat down close to the Tektite, but not so close as to be threatening; she was much bigger than the Tektite was. "Hello," she said in a low voice.
Each Pearl but one having taken her position, silence fell across the great hall. Each Gem who owned one of the dancers held their breath, hoping that they would not be cast in an ill light by a poorly trained servant. Then Blue Diamond's Pearl moved gracefully from her mistress's side, and the music swelled. They moved in perfect tandem, each arching step and en pointe shoe slow and sure to begin with, arms lifted in joyous balance as tribute to their beloved leaders. They lowered each palm to one another with domino precision, and paired off - each of the lesser ranking Pearls pairing with each other, lifting once and dipping in unison then moving with increasing steps still paired, in a great circle, while the Diamond's Pearl pirouetted and spun like a planet in their orbit, tiny and blue but fierce with her intent. The lights in the hall turned low, and soon the only illumination was from the steadily growing pastel glow of the Pearls as they synchronized. This was not a battle fusion - no rush was required, no desperate need, no rude and eager laughter. Simply hand to hand and cheek to cheek, like holy palmer's kiss. One by one, in order, the pairs became great tall singles, and taller yet - twelve Pearls became six, then became three, giantesses with their fingers brushing the ceiling of the hall as they still circled, right hands touching in the centre and left hands out like platforms for the last, tiny scrap of blue against their myriad expanse to choose. Blue Pearl would make her choice, and the denied Pearl fusions would unfuse and retreat to form the background for the final duet. That was the plan. Except...
In spite of her best intentions, Tourmaline was enthralled and amazed. She just desperately hoped the Pearls were enjoying this as much as they appeared to be; she knew they were excellent fakers when they needed to be.
Red Topaz, from her privileged spot in the front row among Blue Diamond's court, watched the proceedings with a satisfied smile. The crop of Pearls dancing in the circle were truly gorgeous specimens. Her own servant, an extremely specialized custom order Opal, would of course never join something like this - while still a servant, she far outranked Pearls - but it was still a beautiful sight. "What a show," she murmured to Almandine, standing beside her. "I know you hate for your Pearl to join in things like this, but don't you think it's lovely?"
Rose smiled, a bit sadly, at Rita. "Well...that's very sweet of you, but honestly I should probably just stay where I am...if my mistress saw me doing something else, well...she would...she would...." Rose shook her head, not wanting to finish the sentence; there would be a punishment of some kind, she implied, possibly even being poofed for a day. And honestly, there was nothing Rose would rather have been doing than dancing and fusing...but she wasn't allowed, Rose reminded herself, and wishful thinking would get her nowhere. Almandine hummed in quiet agreement with Red Topaz. "It is lovely," she agreed. But heaven forbid my Pearl show off for such...common soldiers, or fuse.
Celestine clapped politely as the commissioning went forward. She hadn't particularly wanted to attend this event, but as a relative rarity and member of Blue Diamond's court it wasn't as though she could decline. Hopefully, the event would wrap up quickly. She kept her eyes on the Pearls as they began to dance. Despite herself, she felt a bit of pity for them - misplaced, maybe. She'd been called upon a few times to perform aerial dances at Blue Diamond's request (once, even, in front of White Diamond) and it had always been a trouble (though, of course, for Blue Diamond's needs it was hardly so.) She couldn't imagine what it would be like performing so often, as the Pearls did - then again, she had been made to help in combat, not perform, whereas the Pearls were each custom-made. Perhaps they had the same joy in serving their Gems that she did in flight. That had to be it - the Diamonds, wise and flawless as they were, could hardly lead an empire that created Gems that were unsuited to their roles. It would be unreasonable, otherwise.
Smoke had never thought she'd feel disappointed about leaving a fusion, but... Oh well. It was nothing. Next she'd dance with Lavender, and they'd fuse, and nothing would be wrong. It would go fine.
Black Opal kept her eye forward as the dance went on. Hm. The Pearls all seemed ready enough to join in - even Blue Diamond's Pearl, who Black Opal had never known to take much interest or joy out of festivities, though it wasn't as though any of them had a choice in the matter. She frowned slightly as one of the Pearls gestured slightly to another - that wasn't following the choreography as she'd read it, odd. Hopefully the Pearl's master wouldn't notice, or at least not punish her severely for that.
When she left the big fusion she got ready to dance and fuse with Smoke, which was lovely, but... It saddened her that Rita and Rose were missing out. During each turn she attempted to catch Rita's eye and each of her sweeping arm gestures seemed to beckon the other Pearl closer. Please just join us, she thought, please! It would never be perfect without everyone enjoying themselves! Just before she would have twirled to fuse with Smoke she held her hand open to where the other two Pearls had stood. A subtle enough deviation from the script, the choreography, but deliberate. She smiled, trying to encourage either of them, to join her in her dance.
Gray could not control her slight eyebrow raise when Lavender, who was supposed to fuse with Smoke next, instead opened her hand to Rita and Rose. A dangerous move. She couldn't wait to see what would happen, though. She twirled an extra step in, opening her arms to Smoke, who looked slightly confused that Lavender wasn't about to fuse with her. She tried to put as much "don't worry, it'll be fine, I know it's not the plan but it'll be fine, trust me" into all three of her eyes as possible.
Smoke managed to keep in step, if barely. This was not the plan, what was happening? She noticed Gray opening her arms, and thankfully joined her. Gray was a solid anchor, this would still work out. It had too!
