11. Deserter
It was now winter, and the seas had frozen over. Rainbow and Quartz had each packed a few important things, and were asleep in the hibernation chamber as they awaited Tourmaline’s arrival.
Tourmaline had drafted up two versions of his plan: The One Where Rainbow Is Working In The Winter, and The One Where He Is Not. He wasn’t sure if Boracite would’ve gotten a new pair of legs and gone back to work over the course of the year, so it’d be best to play it safe. As he made his way to the shores of the island, he wrapped his spike leg with some spare fabric to dampen the annoying clanking noise it’d make whenever walking on a hard surface (i.e. the entirety of the stone dome) so as to not awaken anyone, just in case the gem working winters was someone not to be woken. He made his way to the hall lined with each gem’s quarters. As it was winter, it was totally empty, or should be, except for one gem. He got to the room he remembered to be Rainbow’s, and found it empty. Okay, so it’s the second plan we’re working with.
He slowly, quietly, crept towards the hibernation room, where all the other gems would surely be. He cracked the door open, just enough to slip inside, and slowly closed it, so as to not make a sound.
All twenty-someodd of the gems were sleeping here, so he’d have to be careful to only wake up the correct two of them. One false move and his beautiful plan would crumble. He took a step forward, and heard the soft crunching of the dried grass underneath the blankets that carpeted the entire floor. Another step, another crunch. Surely he’d wake someone if he went on like this. He stayed very, very, very still. He should probably space out his steps if they were this loud.
About half an hour passed, and he took another step. Crunch…
He waited another ten minutes, another step. Crunch…
He was getting impatient. Five minutes later, he took another step forward. CRUNCH! He stepped on what must’ve been some especially dry grass. Shoot! He heard rustling somewhere further into the hibernation room. Did he wake someone? Who? He didn’t move an inch, not for the next hour. It was, somehow, simultaneously terribly boring and terribly stressful.
He needed to locate Rainbow and Quartz. With any luck, they should be sleeping in close proximity. He’d spend the next day wandering around the hibernation room, one painfully slow step at a time, in the almost total darkness of the room, in search of his friends.
When he finally found the two, his next order of business was figuring out how to wake them up without having them make any noise. He figured he’d take the old “stuffing a blanket into Rainbow’s mouth” trick for another whirl, so he stuffed a blanket into Rainbow and Quartz’s mouths and began to drag them towards the door, very very very very very very slowly. While doing such a thing, the two began to stir. He dropped both of them and crouched over Rainbow.
Rainbow opened his eyes to find Tourmaline’s face about two inches away from his own. “Heeeeeeey, it’s time!” Tourmaline whispered and helped Rainbow up, who then helped Quartz up.
The three then would spend the next few hours making their way out of the hibernation room, one agonizingly slow step at a time, and each one slipped through the doors, not making a sound. Whew, the scary part was out of the way.
“Do you two have everything ready to go?” Tourmaline asked, keeping his voice down. “I hid the stuff in my room.” Rainbow said and made off for the stairs. Tourmaline and Quartz followed behind as they arrived at Rainbow's chambers, where he quietly dragged out a box filled with supplies. Clothes, tools, books, the remaining pieces of Gaspeite, that sort of thing. Then, the three of them made their way back down and out of the dome. They carefully crunched through the snow on this particularly dark grey night, towards the beach, and it was the perfect night to do so because the falling snow would fill in their footprints, leaving not a suggestion as to who came and who left that night.
“Tourmaline,” Rainbow said, now at a regular volume, “Are you certain that you weren’t attacked by the moon while you were gone?”
“Uh, I mean, not totally. But I feel like I’d remember if I was. Why do you ask?”
“There’s a box in the convalescent center full of your pieces.”
“Huh. I guess I was, then? That would explain where my foot went. But why would they take just my foot?”
“It looked like there was more in there than just a foot’s worth of material.”
“Well, there was that one time I lost a few chunks and had to cut my hair to fill them in… maybe some are from that?”
Tourmaline thought about this. If he was attacked by the moon, it would’ve had to have happened while he was unconscious in the sea, which was about 50 years. If he was out for so long, he’d’ve been quite vulnerable, so why would they only take his foot?
“Do you want them?” Rainbow asked.
“Well, we’re all the way out here now, it’d be risky to go back inside. We’d run the risk of waking someone up. Maybe another time. I know how to get here and back now, so it’s no big deal.” Tourmaline said. The three continued to walk along the shore.
“So… how’s this year been treating you?” Tourmaline asked, realizing that he hadn’t said much to Quartz this whole time.
“Um, pretty good?” Quartz replied.
“You learn a lot?”
“I’ve even gotten to fight!”
“You know, when I was new, I could hardly speak until I was five. And they didn’t let me fight until I was twenty! Some special thing, you are.”
“Your plan probably wouldn’t have worked if he weren’t so bright.” Rainbow chimed in.
“Aw shucks!” Quartz said.
“Anyways, you’ll be pleased to know the both of you’ll never have to fight the moon people ever again.” Tourmaline stopped, turned and bowed.
“Uh, yeah, about that…” Rainbow started. “I’ve decided to stay a little while longer.”
“Are you kidding me?! What was the point of painstakingly sneaking into the hibernation room to break you out, then? That took me, like, a whole day!”
“Hey, you can take Quartz, just give me a few more years.
“Why would you possibly want to do that?”
“Listen, we’re losing right now. We haven’t gotten any raw material for replacements in years, we haven’t had any real newborns in years, and the moon people have upgraded to throwing bombs at us. If I leave on this note I’ll never forgive myself. I’m not a deserter.” Rainbow said.
“Um… yes, you literally are? This is the definition of desertion!”
“No, this is my retirement. And I don’t want to retire until I’m confident the rest of the guys will be fine without me.”
“How long has this war been going on for, anyways? Tens of thousands of years? More? There’s never going to be a point where the rest of the guys will be fine, that’s why I’m offering you a way out! So take it, man!”
Rainbow’s frown turned into a scowl. “Okay, you know what? I don’t know what it is with you, if you have no empathy or something, but I’m going to need more than one measly year to mentally prepare myself to leave the home and friends I’ve had for the past two thousand years and never return. I need more time to tie up my loose ends and collect more pieces of Gaspeite, hey, actually, did you know that we got more pieces of Gaspeite back? If I stick around longer, they might return some more. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Ugh, fine. But if you get kidnapped before I come and get you, you’ll be sorry.”
“I’ll try not to.” Rainbow went over to Quartz, who had been awkwardly standing around this whole time, and took back the box filled with Gaspeite’s pieces back.
“Okay, how long do you want? Another year? Five? Ten?” Tourmaline asked.
“Let’s say ten and we’ll see where I’m at.”
“Fine, bye. Quartz, let’s go.” Tourmaline said.
Quartz waved to Rainbow and followed Tourmaline. Rainbow turned and made his way back to the dome, and most likely quietly shuffled back to the long term storage room to put Gaspeite back, and then over to the hibernation room to tuck back into bed for the next few months. Quartz and Tourmaline then began to make their way over the frozen sea, both holding a handful of boxes with supplies. It would be a week’s walk back to the volcano, so they had to think of what to fill the air with as they went. The two of them decided to play favorites. They’d been going on for a while now.
“What is… your favorite time of year?” Quartz asked.
“I’m partial to spring. When I was younger I only had seen the part of spring where everything is already blooming, but since coming here I haven’t been hibernating as long so I’ve seen the start of spring too. Everything is dead and rotten and colorless but you know the darkest part of winter is over, so you can only go up from there. And I like that energy. It looks really depressing, but it’s actually full of promise.” Tourmaline said.
“Okay, now you go!” Quartz said.
“Um, hmm… What is your favorite plant?” Tourmaline asked.
“I like the plants in the big pond!” Quartz answered, enthusiastically. “I like that the jellyfish like to hang out with them, because I like the jellyfish too!”
“You know what? THAT’s what we’re missing. We don’t have jellyfish over on the volcano. I gotta fix that sometime.” Tourmaline said. “That can be our summer project! We can dig a pond and then get some jellies to raise ourselves.”
“That would be fun!”
“Oh, you bet. I have so many ideas for what we’re gonna do with the place now that you’re coming home.” Tourmaline said.
The two continued to plot about what they’d do once they got to the volcano, and did so for the whole week, out on the desolate stretch of frozen sea between one island and the other.