noicemagazine | (no subject)

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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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.