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The Beta kindergarten is not improving Jasper's mood – but then, she doesn't typically go there when she feels like her mood deserves improving. The dry Earth landscape, the uneven, misshapen holes of the gems who emerged here, the scattered metal bars left behind from her ill-fated attempt to capture an army of corrupted gems... It's all a pretty miserable picture. Even the hole she emerged from, testament to her supposed perfection, only serves as a bitter reminder of her failure to live up to her shining potential.

She doesn't always think like this. There are some days on Mask Island when the sun rises and the sea is lapping at the sand and it's quiet and she actually appreciates it. Some days she even finds herself thinking this is how things always should have been, that this planet where she was born should have been her home. Sometimes she allows herself to just be motionless and enjoy the peace, feeling the wind in her hair or submerged in the ocean for days at a time until her guilt or her shame or the restless need for action that quartzes are made with catches up with her.

She doesn't go to Beta Kindergarten on those days, though.

Her boot scuffs against the ground, hard rock and dust underfoot. She lost to Pearl. She lost to a pearl. There's no reassurance she can offer herself that makes that alright. It was a close fight, but even if she'd won a close fight against her obvious inferior, in the one area where she was made to excel - there's no excuse for it being close. It doesn't prove anything except how pathetic she's become.

She almost wants to crawl into her hole as if the rock might reclaim her, but Jasper's hole isn't cosy and lived-in like Amethyst's – she burst forcefully out of it as soon as she was finished and never looked back, and its proud shape and glossy walls are no reassurance, only a reminder that nothing she's done since she emerged has been as impressive as emerging itself was.

Instead she's pacing the floor of the failed kindergarten, fists clenched, jaw set, her mane of hair still unkempt from the fight she lost. Every now and then she stops to smash something, which if nothing else probably makes her fairly easy to locate.

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It's been... a while, now. Maybe a few days. Or, actually, more like eight days and eleve hours. Steven's concern was the first voiced among them, but it had gripped Pearl immediately. The guilt, the self indignation, the shame—she'd let Jasper get to her, and had subsequently humiliated her to prove a point. She'd stepped on Jasper's ego to gratify her own—possibly undoing progress! And in front of the others, too. It was almost worse that they probably understood why.

"Oh, Steven," Pearl had said with mournful eyes, gently holding his shoulder. "I'll find her. I need to be the one who talks to her."

That was about four hours ago, back at the temple. She walked with light steps, on the tips of her toes, carefully scaling the edges of the various plateaus for better views, trying to find the estranged quartz soldier.

When Pearl finally spots her, thanks to...a pretty rowdy noise cue, her eyes widen—and she carefully leaps down, soundless, some meters away from Jasper. And she carefully approaches, not intending to impose, but also not wanting to sneak up on her.

"Jasper," she ventures with some hesitation, her voice gentle, her hands curled by her collar bones. She isn't sure what to say.

She doesn't have her guard down, exactly, but she doesn't want to set Jasper any further on edge than she already might be. She's also prepared to pursue her. She's...done this kind of thing more than once.

"I—we...need to have a conversation."

Jasper draws back a little – eyes narrowed, fists tightening, shoulders squared. She looks like a wary predator.

"What, you want to go again?" she growls. "Long way to come for round two."

"No!"

Mildly exasperated, Pearl rolls her eyes, lifting a palm in a passive, hapless gesture.

"Why would I say we needed to have a conversation if what I was looking for was another duel?"

She scoffs. "What's there to talk about? You've made your point."

"Yes," she concedes, blushing mint. She holds up a finger somewhat weakly, ashamed. "The wrong one! I—I acted inappropriately, and—"

Ugh. Jasper is just going to parse that as Pearl being as submissive as she's meant to be. Frustrated by the thought, she curls her fists, taking a deep breath.

"That. Is not my message. That is not what I want to—illuminate to you."

Edited 2017-01-25 02:52 (UTC)

...???

Jasper stares at her, confused and angry and angry that she's confused. She likes to think she understands the gems on Earth better, now, but... What wasn't inappropriate about Pearl defending her own dignity, when that's something that she's apparently allowed to have here?

"I don't understand." She's scowling. "What do you want"

Pearl momentarily holds her temples.

"Reconciliation, Jasper," she sighs. She then looks at her, fanning out her hand demonstratively. "As well as a mutual respect for one another. I realize I've been‐" Pearl bites her lip. "—um, well, quite..."

She doesn't want to use words like 'willful,' or 'rude.' She doesn't want to even faintly stimulate those associations, yet.

"...a... jerk."

There you go.

"But! I also want you... to understand that I'm a person, too."

"A... jerk," Jasper repeats, perplexed – and mountingly indignant with it. "What, because you beat me? I didn't have to fight you. I wasn't a – helpless victim."

"No!! Because—I've been frustrated with how you treat me like I'm some weak thing," she says loudly, her voice wavering in that way it does when she gets all shrill and frustrated. "undeserving of your heel!"

She rests her hands on her collar bones, then. "So I've been...unfair, to you. I didn't trust you, and you aggravated me. I should have never challenged you, no matter the outcome. That... isn't how we're valued, here."

For a few long moments she doesn't reply; she's heard that sentiment, that how strong you are or aren't doesn't matter, here on Earth, too often by now not to be irritated by it. It always feels like either she's being chastised for wanting to hold onto something familiar, or a pathetic attempt at consoling her. She hates it.

More than that, it strikes her as unfair that Pearl gets to seize that victory, put her in her place, and then scold her with this platitude for being put in her place.

She looks away with a brisk little huff through her teeth. Pearl's trying to apologise, she reminds herself, not scold her. She... should at least listen, right? Steven would want that.

"I don't think there was anything wrong with it," she says gruffly. "I didn't believe you. You showed me. That's what I would've done."

The reaction is leagues less hostile than it would have been even just 8 months ago.

"Yes," Pearl says carefully, steepling her fingertips. "...I suppose I felt that a quartz soldier might understand, but I didn't care as much as I should have. I know it makes sense to you, but I'm still...I'm sorry."

Pearl doesn't want to bring up how it was unnecessary that she humiliated Jasper—she doesn't want to make any wounds any sorer. A pause.

"Also, Steven misses you. He's concerned."

Jasper makes a noise that sounds kind of like 'hmpgh'. She folds her arms, defensive, and still doesn't look back at Pearl. "He shouldn't be. You can tell him I'm fine."

A pause – and then she does look back at her, kind of curious but still frowning. "... How'd a pearl learn to fight like that, anyway? If you want to – reconcile, or whatever. You can tell me that."

"...Oh."

That's something Pearl actually has a lot of pride in. Jasper's interest is...validating, in part. She adjusts her footing, looking almost sheepish—but bright eyed and attentive.

"Well..."

Pearl had been trying to restrain herself, but she can't help but smile, folding her fingers together.

"I worked very hard at it, for thousands of years! I studied and trained tirelessly, and timelessly; I was desperate for strength. Initially, I had guidance from Rose Quartz; she is the foundation in my talent, power and elegance."

She laughs.

"Why, before her influence, I didn't even know how to hold a sword!"

"Huh."

Desperate for strength, huh? #relatable

Kind of, anyway. Jasper can't fully imagine that from the perspective of a gem who wasn't made to be strong...

"So... Rose Quartz taught you? But you don't fight like a quartz."

"Yes!" Pearl's reaction is giddy, seeming delighted by Jasper's observation. How had they never talked shop on war bullshit before, this was clearly their path to bond. "And in many ways, neither did she! Oh, she was so innovative. Nothing about her was conventional! Of course," she continues, gesturing down her body with her hands. "I can't fight like a quartz. So she thought about how I could fight."

Which should, Jasper knows, be ridiculous. But she's seen Pearl fight, and it works – or at least, it works against Jasper. Maybe that's not so much of an achievement.

She's quiet for a moment again, considering, one finger twitching where it's tucked in against her bicep.

"...Teach me how to do it," she says, at last. She is fully expecting the answer will be no, and honestly she's kind of asking because she wants to resume being surly.

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