2. Peace Offering
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Later that night, he’d finally gotten to sleep, as snug as one can get in an enormous snail shell full of dead grass, under the soft light of one of the moons. He began to stir when a sudden patch of darkness appeared over him, and he opened his eyes.
What greeted him was a fearsome, person-shaped thing, far taller than himself, and covered in spikes, blocking the entrance to the shell, looming over him, seemingly having appeared out of nowhere.
He screamed as bloodcurdling of a scream as one might imagine, even though he had no blood to curdle, the sight giving him such a fright that his crystal structure took on a static charge and began to ignite the dry grass he’d been sleeping on. This, in turn, gave the terrifying shadowy figure enough of a fright to take off and run.
Once he’d calmed down enough and patted the burning grass down into smoke and ashes, he carefully crept out of the shell and poked his head out of the aperture. So someone does live here, then! Well, this was perfect. Someone to help him figure out what’s going on and where he is. But where did this guy go? He looked left and right, and saw nothing. He, very carefully, stepped around the shell, and caught a glimpse of the figure. He was about to approach it, when he slipped a bit and made some noise as his hands scratched the surface of the shell. The figure jolted in surprise and dashed away once more. So, this time, he ran after it. He began to jog around the shell, and the figure did so as well, except the mysterious figure had an advantage being tall and he had a disadvantage missing a foot, so this didn’t work out well. Instead, after a short while of running, he stopped and turned around, waiting for the figure to make another lap around the shell.
And so it did, and he was there waiting for it to run right into him. The figure rounded the shell and, noticing he was in its path, failed to stop in time to turn back around, slipped in the dirt, and fell right onto its back.
He made his way over to the frighteningly tall figure, who at this point was in good enough light to be discerned as a fellow gemstone. He was a light beige or yellow color, it was hard to tell in the moonlight, and covered in spikes and unpolished grainy crystals. The force of his fall managed to break off one of his arms, and he appeared to be stunned and motionless on the ground. He had no clothes or even eyes, and looked just like any newborn gemstone. Though, since this island had a distinct lack of any services to polish and clothe him, he could be any amount of years old.
“Um, I’m sorry for scaring you. You scared me.” He leaned over and waited for a response.
“Hello? You in there? Can you speak?” Still, nothing.
“Is that shell your quarters? Sorry for intruding.”
“Can you hear me? HellooOOoOoooo?” He said, getting quite rather close to the other gem’s face. He backed up a bit and shifted to a more comfortable sitting position.
The spiky gem continued to do nothing. Typically, gemstones can remain conscious if they lose limbs, even most of their bodies. Going out cold from losing just an arm seemed a bit outlandish. Perhaps he was just stunned.
“My name’s Tourmaline. Do you have a name?”
Perhaps he could give him one. He thought for a bit. Well, this is a volcano. What sorts of minerals form from volcanoes that are kind of yellowish and break easily? That could be any of them, no? He remembered in his schooling learning about all kinds of minerals that form crusts on the outsides of deep sea volcanoes. He didn’t even know that land volcanoes were a thing, so his studies probably wouldn’t apply here on land. Plus, he wasn’t shiny enough to be a metal sulfide. Something else. Any specific ideas seemed to escape him, though. Sulfur, maybe? Sulfur is yellow and soft, right? But sulfur crystals aren’t quite so spiky as this guy, and this guy isn’t quite yellow enough. What else, then? He thought some more. And as he thought, he was brought back to reality when he discovered that the spiky gem had gotten up and ran away again without him even noticing, leaving his arm behind.
“Hey, wait!” He shouted, got up, and frantically looked around. The guy was nowhere to be seen. He looked down at the arm and sat back down. He figured that maybe the spiky guy would come back for his arm later, so he would camp out in front of it. If he wanted his arm back, he’d have to come see him again. Perfect! And in the meantime, he studied the arm, and tried to come up with ideas as to what it was made of.
Eventually, Tourmaline fell asleep, still sat up against the shell.
The following morning, the spiky gem returned to the shell, just as he was expecting. He had woken up a little while ago, but was pretending to sleep as he noticed the gem approaching. The spiky gem came right over to the arm, picked it up, and turned around. He began to head towards the volcano, and Tourmaline allowed some time between the spiky gem leaving and him getting up to follow him wherever he was going, which, in this case, was up the slope of the volcano.
“Why would he go up that thing? Isn’t it all molten inside?” He wondered. He still followed, at a considerable lag, so as to not frighten him. This time, he’d be careful. The spiky gem eventually made his way all the way to the top, and went right into it. Tourmaline scrambled his way up and then slowly peeked over the edge. What was he doing? Won’t he melt too? But the sight that revealed itself wasn’t quite what he was expecting. Instead of molten rock, the top of the volcano was actually rather quiet. It had been fully sealed over, and was covered in neon yellow crusts and vents oozing with molten orange stuff, the whole situation lazily smoking and steaming. He’d never seen anything like it before. He locked in on the spiky gem, waiting for his next move.
The gem approached a vent, squatted down, joined his severed arm to the stump where it broke off, and stayed like that for a time. It seemed like a long time indeed, but he stayed still, and so did Tourmaline as he watched intently. Then, he moved away, and his arm was back on the rest of him.
“He can reattach his limbs! That’s so cool!” He thought. That was so cool, wasn’t it? Everyone else he knew had to be glued back together, and the more you had to be glued together the weaker you’d be, filled with tiny fractures. But this guy, as he was made of volcanic stuff, could mend his wounds with the volcanic stuff circulating in the air. Even if he’s soft, that would be no matter to him. If he had been born on the big island where Tourmaline was from, truthfully, he probably would've been let to dissolve in the sea as he'd be so much of a liability to the others. But here? He was in just the right place for a soft crusty guy like himself.
His next order of business was to figure out what he’d do aside from stalking him. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought that far. Sure, he could ask him what he was made of and what he was doing, but he realized that this guy probably didn’t know his language, so that was kind of futile. He couldn’t mime out any actions or draw anything either, since he had no eyes and his vision was probably rudimentary, just enough to get around but not to do much else requiring precision. So, he had an idea. A very interesting idea indeed.
Tourmaline began to scratch and scratch at one of his eyes, trying to loosen it. He got a fingernail lodged beneath his eyelid and then bashed it in with his other hand, and CRUNCH! Out it goes. Okay, that’s part one of the plan. Then, with an eyeball in hand, he hopped over the bowl of the crater and did his best to slide down the slope to meet his hopefully new friend.
Well, his best wasn’t that great because a few seconds later he tripped, dropped his eye, and began an embarrassing tumble down into the center of the volcano, kicking up a great big cloud of dust, and gaining an unsightly yellow streak all over the back of his clothes.
When he reached the bottom, he rolled around helplessly until he got his bearings and noticed that his eye had rolled all the way over to the feet of the spiky gem. Well, that kind of ruined his plan. Or did it? He quickly got up and hid behind a crusty rock, sneaking around the side, to get behind the spiky gem. He was squatting down, looking at the eyeball, rolling it around. It was the perfect opportunity.
Tourmaline jumped out from behind the rock, right behind the unsuspecting gem, and with a swift CRACK! to the neck, popped his head clean off, his pieces crumbling onto the floor. Yes! Perfect! Tourmaline picked up his eye, turned the guy’s head over, popped his eye into the empty socket, and tried his best to rearrange his pieces so that he’d regrow in the right shape.
“Okay, there we go." He crouched over the pieces. "You'll be grown back together in no time!" He just hoped that this guy wouldn't mad at him, or scared. He just wanted a friend to hang out with, yeah?
He had a pretty solid idea. Gemstones are made of rock, yes, but the thing that makes them alive is a colony of microbes that live inside of them and store important information like memories and personality. If you transplant a piece broken off from one gem onto another, the gem will gain some microbes, and, as a result, memories. So, by that logic, Tourmaline figured that by breaking off one of his eyes and the surrounding piece of gem, he’d not only be able to give this gem the gift of sight, but also a little bit of the knowledge that he had. Ideally, the ability to speak. Now that would be mighty convenient, wouldn’t it?
He climbed up the volcano bowl again, and made his way back down into the field, to give the other gem some privacy as he regrew. He waited and waited, and eventually got bored so he went to sleep.
Meanwhile in the crater, the spiky gem awoke, and for the first time ever saw a starry night sky above him, the six bright moons shining onto him and all around.
