Chapter Text
The inside of the pearl's gem was bright white and usually silent; sometimes, if she really strained, Lapis Lazuli could hear muddy sounds from outside. She saved the effort for times when she absolutely had to do something to not go insane. The noises were never clear enough to identify, but at least they were there and gave her something to focus on until her gem hurt so much she couldn't think about anything else.
That was her existence until the pearl pulled her out one day.
"—It'll offer you everything you've ever wanted to know about your fellow Gems and our culture!"
"I must be incredibly important to gem culture."
Lapis peered out through the binding lines etched on her mirror. The pearl as usual, and… a human? A small one. The pearl had said "fellow gems," but that made no sense. As far as Lapis could tell, there were no gems left on this stars-forsaken planet except a very few "Crystal Gem" rebel leaders and a bevy of corrupted monstrosities. She didn't know how the latter had gotten that way; it scared her to think about.
The pearl's first order wasn't even interesting. Lapis curled back into the corner of her mind. Of course she'd seen the Galaxy Warp, she'd spent almost a millennium there staring up at Homeworld's star. She never wanted to see or show the cracking place again! The pearl shook her in frustration, then sighed and—handed her off to the human. She wasn't putting her back in storage?
The human ran out of the house, cheering. Lapis came alert despite herself. Something different today, at least! The beach zipped by, waves glittering in the sunlight. Stars, if she could only reach all that water, those Crystal Gems would never know what hit them. She'd wipe that temple of theirs right out of existence.
The mirror jolted as its bearer crashed into something. Ow! Careless organic—
"Watch where you're going, you little—Sssteven!" an unfamiliar voice broke in.
"Sorry! I'm just so excited for summer."
"Steven" chatted happily with the two new humans. They seemed to like him, even though he'd knocked over their stuff. Lapis wished she could join in. Soon Steven was on his way again, laughing and making funny noises into the mirror. He didn't even seem to care that she wasn't showing him anything. He was just a—what was the word, baby? No, babies were the really tiny humans. Child, that was it—playing with a mirror.
"May-or Dew-ey! May-or Dew-ey!"
Silt. One of those wheeled "van" conveyances, an ugly one at that, headed straight for them. Steven hadn't noticed. He'd get hurt (wait, why did it matter to her if…?), and she'd probably shatter if her gem took any more damage. She'd often thought that would be preferable to existing forever like this, but—
"Watch where you're going, you little—!"
"Huh?" Steven halted. Saw the van. "Noooooooooo!"
The van stopped. Another human appeared, scolding Steven this time, but Lapis didn't pay him much attention.
Did I just…?
She hadn't even thought about it, just grabbed a nearby memory and shoved it at the outside world. Did I know I could do that? The cracked mirror bindings gave her more control of her projections than she'd had in the first years, but she'd never tried to share one unprompted before. Who'd have listened?
The boy's astonished face filled her vision. "What just happened?"
Tentatively, Lapis showed Steven his own laughter. It was a nice laugh. Sincere. Well, what did she have to lose?
Steven's face lit up like a star. "You work! This is so cool! What's it like being a mirror?"
That was easy: "You work!" Lapis echoed through the mirror.
"So you can repeat stuff?"
"Yeah-hah-haaah!!"
"Wow!" Steven ran down the beach. If Lapis had been able to form at that moment she would have done it leaping and shouting for joy. Human, Crystal Gem or some freaky fusion of the two, it didn't matter. This child, this Steven, was actually talking to her!
The "mayor" human was declaiming from the top of his van. Steven made a well-timed fart noise, interrupting the insipid speech. The other humans tittered. Lapis almost projected Steven's laughter again, then had a better idea: she repeated the silly sound herself, then a second time, then a third, until the crowd of people burst out laughing for her. Steven grinned.
"Wow, you picked that up fast."
Thanks! She reached for a memory of a "thank you" Rose Quartz had given the pearl twenty or so years ago, but when she tried to show it in the mirror everything went wavy and painful in a way that had nothing to do with her cracked gem. Blast!
The memory slipped from her grasp. Steven didn't seem to have noticed. He flopped down on the sand, happily chatting to her like…
A new friend.
Hmm. She reached for Steven's laughter again. It was an effort—she hadn't noticed that before, too shocked and thrilled at being able to interact with someone—but yes, these fresher memories were easier to push through the cracks in her bindings. Fine. Even this half-communication felt like water on dried-up clay. She'd take what she could get.
"Have you really seen all of gem history, mirror?"
Not that again. "Nope."
"That's too bad. I'd like to know more about gems."
"You can stop talking about it now."
"Oh. Sorry. I guess you if have to show it to everybody, it must get pretty boring after a while."
"Pretty boring after a while," Lapis agreed. "Boring" didn't begin to cover the crushing ennui, thousands of years with only her own thoughts for company, but it felt good to express something about this prison for a change.
"I wish the gems would tell me more about gem culture. They think I'm too young to know anything!" Steven pouted. "It's really annoying. I'm a Crystal Gem too, y'know."
"What a shame," Lapis deadpanned in Pearl's voice.
Steven shrugged, not seeming to catch her meaning. "Dad says they'll take me more seriously when I'm older. Hey, you wanna see the rest of the beach?"
"Yeah-hah-haaah!!" That was more like it!
The last good day before this one had been hours before she got caught in that battle; she'd actually been having fun, flying around the sloppily-formed beta kindergarten and thinking about how she could improve on the next section of it. Whatever terraformer had been there before her had obviously rushed the job, but this planet had a lot of water. She'd wanted more than was near the kindergarten though, and had taken a not-exactly-authorized side trip to the ocean. She'd returned to absolute chaos. Crystal Gems everywhere. She'd washed some of them away in a panic, but the guards assigned to her were nowhere to be seen. Then—poof.
She didn't show Steven that memory. He seemed to think she'd always been a mirror. Didn't he understand what powered a gem-powered item?
To her surprise, he'd accepted her reluctance to "talk" about gems. Instead, he spent the afternoon running around, showing and telling her all about his life in Beach City. Later they went back to the beach and he tried to teach her something called "knock knock jokes." Lapis wasn't sure about those—too much repetition—but Steven was so obviously thinking about things she could do from inside the mirror that she just couldn't bring herself to be irritated.
"Mirror, we're going to have so much fun this summer," he was saying. "Tomorrow you can meet Connie! Maybe she can tell us more about 'school' and summer vacation! Or we could go get ice cream! Oh wait… you can't eat ice cream."
"Can't eat ice cream," Lapis echoed sadly. She wasn't sure what ice cream was, actually. A special kind of human food? It sounded fun. She wished she could ask Steven.
"Oh, I know! We could go to another speech! Mayor Dewey gives tons of speeches."
"Pbbbbt!" Lapis teased.
Steven laughed. "You got a lot of mileage out of that joke. You're pretty funny for a mirror."
Hey, it was his joke too!"You're pretty funny for a mirror."
"I'm not a mirror!"
Hmm. She’d gotten used to the effort it took to "talk" like this, now. Maybe…
"You're pretty funny for a—" She switched memories. "—Sssteven!"
Steven lit up like a star again. "You made something new! Say something else!"
"Sssteven—is—a new friend!"
"Really?!"
"Yeah-hah-haaah!!" Lapis cheered. She would have hugged herself and Steven if she could have. "Friend"-make gems, spinels and a few others, weren't common back home (and Lapis ranked a little too low to merit one), but she knew the word meant she wasn't so desperately alone in here anymore. Trapped, yes. But not alone.
"This is great!" Steven exclaimed. "I gotta go tell the gems."
Her joy turned to terror. "Noooooooooo!"
"Don't be shy, they'll love you!"
"Noooooooooo!" Lapis screamed in Steven's voice. More words, she needed more words! If the gems put her back in storage now she was going to corrupt under the strain!
"Oh, don’t worry. They're a good audience." Steven ran up the beach. Lapis growled and screamed in her mind, but she'd lost her concentration. The mirror was silent.
She didn't bother to "say hey" to the Crystal Gems, obviously.
"Li'l buddy," Steven prompted, sounding confused. "…Excuse us."
She glared at him the only way she could: with stillness and silence.
"Come on," Steven coaxed her. "You want to come out, don't you? You have so much to say, and funny noises to share from across the ages. Are we not beach summer fun buddies?"
Did she want to come out? Oh, Steven, you have no idea. What she wouldn't give to show those dull, selfish gems a piece of her—
"Pbbbbt!"
Steven laughed. "Just couldn't help yourself, huh?"
Nope. She'd done it again without thinking. Far off at the edge of her glass she could see the Crystal Gems staring, but weirdly enough it didn't bother her. "Just-for-you! —Sssteven!" She made the mirror laugh. Why not?
The fusion who called herself Garnet approached with a stern expression. "Steven, you should just give us back the mirror." The amethyst piped up, wanting to bubble her.
"Noooooooooo!" she yelled.
Through a sandstorm of panic she heard Steven arguing with the Crystal Gems, holding Lapis/the mirror away from them. "It doesn't want to go with you! Don't you hear it screaming?"
"Steven, it's just a mirror, a tool. It can't want anything."
I want to go home! Lapis couldn't scream. I want out! I hate you! I hate being your prisoner! Why won't you let me go home?!
She didn't have words for any of that. Steven seemed frozen to the spot and Lapis of course couldn't run or fly away. It'd been an impulsive mistake after all, letting them know she was more than a mirror; they'd never take her out again after this, they'd never let her near the one person who treated her like she was real.
She couldn't stand it. She couldn't. Desperately Lapis screamed and screamed the only word she had left for this living nightmare: "Noooooooooo! Noooooooooo! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
Steven jerked her away from the Garnet fusion. "It wants to be with me!"
Smack. Garnet's visor clattered to the floor. Lapis fell silent in shock.
The look on the fusion's face was murder.
"Aah! Aah! I'm sorry!!" And Steven ran.
He's helping me? He's helping me! Oh, stars, we're cracked. One human boy had no chance, not against three, no, four combat-hardened gems. No sooner had she thought it than Steven ducked behind a rock, panting. Sands blast it, this planet had so much water. She could level their pursuers in seconds if only…
"What am I gonna do? What's their problem with you?"
That would take way too long to explain with a mosaic of borrowed voices. Lapis raced through every memory in her immediate reach, everything she'd seen and heard today. She had to ask Steven for help; she was never going to get another chance.
"Are you trying to say something?"
Stars, help me, Steven, please help me, I'm so far—
"—Away from home," Lapis said. "Let—me—out!"
"I don't understand!"
Break the mirror! Get my gem out! What are you waiting for?!
The pearl yelled in the distance.
"Come on! I want to help you! What can I do?"
Lapis brought every shred of focus she'd ever had to bear on the mirror, ignoring the pain in her gem and the sizzling in her mind. She didn't have a memory for this, but she knew the shape of the mirror and she knew what Steven looked like. She couldn't tell him what he needed to do, but maybe, just maybe, she could show him…
The boy nodded, flipping the mirror over. Yes! Hurry!
Small fingers pulled on her gem. Lapis strained against the magical walls of her prison, reaching for the ocean. Please…
The water answered. For the first time in millennia she felt it, coalescing into channels, imitating the mirror's etchings in the sand around her new friend. Now those lines magnified rather than constrained as together the two of them pulled and pulled and pulled…
And the mirror shattered.
Light and sound vanished. She thought she'd shattered, for a moment. But no. She knew this feeling, remembered it; the energy in her gem swirled out and she let it flow, shaping it into hands and feet and hair and face… into a physical form.
Lapis dropped, exhausted, onto the sand.
She was free.
A familiar voice gasped and footsteps ran up to her. "Th-thank you…" Lapis rasped. It felt strange to speak with her own voice after so long. She staggered to her feet. "You didn't—" She tried to summon her wings for balance, only to stumble from the sudden sharp pain in her gem. Pudgy hands grabbed her arm, steadying her.
Lapis blinked through still-glassy vision at her rescuer. "You actually talked to me!" she said wonderingly. "You helped me! It's—Steven, right?"
Steven nodded, looking amazed.
"I'm Lapis. Lapis Lazuli."
Steven smiled and stuck his hand out in front of him. It didn't seem to matter to him what she was. He hadn't even looked at the diamond motif on her clothes.
This made no sense. "Are you really a Crystal Gem?"
"Yeah!" Steven said proudly.
"But… you set me free."
Steven squinted, looking confused, and opened his mouth to say something.
"STEVEN!!!" the fusion's voice rang out.
"Wait!" Steven ran up to the gems, arms out in a "stop" gesture. All of them had summoned weapons. So they wanted a fight?
They could have one.
"You," Lapis hissed at the Crystal Gems. The ocean lay at her back; it answered her call as readily as it ever had. It made her gem hurt like fissures, but Lapis didn't care about pain. "You three knew I was in there, and you didn't do anything. Did you even wonder who I used to BE?!"
Millions of carats of water slammed down, flattening the fusion and sending the other two flying. The pearl screamed at Steven to run, but he only turned around to gape at Lapis. "What are you doing?"
Lapis felt the fusion struggling under her hydro-kinetic grip. Mirror, was she? Tool, was she? "I'm Lapis Lazuli," she roared, "and you can't keep me trapped here anymore!" But they would try. She looked to Steven. "They're not gonna let us leave."
"Leave?"
Us. I said "us." She'd planned her escape from Earth a thousand times, but never accounted for caring what happened to the gem/human/whatever he was who'd let her out. He'd be punished for sure. Besides, she'd never had a friend before…
"Steven, come with me." He probably needed to breathe, or thought he did, so Lapis parted the ocean.
"Where?" Steven asked.
Didn't he know? "Home."
Steven started stammering, looking from her to the Crystal Gems with obvious concern. He didn't want to go. He didn't want her to hurt them.
They were his friends. Not her.
"Fine," Lapis snapped, releasing the ocean. "Don't trust them, Steven… Goodbye."
Steven and the fusion both jumped at her, but Lapis seized a wave to knock them back and sweep her into the current. She steered into a riptide, letting the water soothe a nebulous ache in her chest as she headed out to sea.
Goodbye, Steven.
So much for beach summer fun buddies.