The Taken Ones
Nobody knows what happens to gems that are taken away. They just—go.
Ruby hasn’t been around more than a few centuries, so there is still a lot she doesn’t know yet, but she does know this: she never wants to be one of the ones who disappear.
Rumors swirl around the concept like mist, quiet and opaque, obscuring it from ever being truly looked upon and understood. The taken ones are refurbished into power cells for the technology they all use every day. They’re shattered and recycled. They’re forced to fight each other for the amusement of the Diamond Authority. The taken ones never come back, and they’re certainly never heard from again, so it’s all just hearsay passed from trembling lips to worried ears in the brief moments of relative peace between raids on safe houses.
Homeworld never used to be like this.
Stars only know what caused the Diamonds to change their minds, but a little over one-hundred-and-fifty years ago gems started disappearing—asymmetrical gems, in particular, seemed to be the targets of their sweeps.
“Tremolite!” gasps Epidote. Her eyes are wide and frantic as they dart around the small space. “I can’t see Tremolite!”
“Keep your voice down,” Ruby hisses. They and two others are huddled together in the shadows of a second story overhang (neither of which, Ruby notes, are the bright green gem that Epidote is referring to). Nevertheless, all of them are holding their breath as the patrols jog by with their flashing lights and keen eyed gems. The idea—the hope—is that the searching gems won’t think to look up, and if they do the ledge the four of them are all standing on will do its part to obscure them from view.
“But Tremolite, where is she? She’s not here—”
“Shut, up,” Ruby orders in a growling undertone. She gestures to the other two gems with them. “Do you want to be the reason we’re all captured?”
“No, but T—”
“If she’s smart, she’ll avoid them and we’ll find her at the safe house.” When Epidote opens her mouth again, Ruby issues a sharp, “Shh!”
“But—”
Ruby, fed up, grabs her by the throat to silence her. Her hands are big, and they wrap around the other gem’s windpipe with ease. She doesn’t make it hard enough to choke, but she does squeeze just enough to make Epidote shut the hell up. She’ll take her lectures on common courtesy later—right now, Epidote’s continued babbling might literally end up being the death of them, and Ruby is not ready to find out what happens to the taken ones firsthand.
The other two gems with them don’t say a word. At least they understand the gravity of the situation.
They wait. It doesn’t take much longer for the patrols to move on, but those few moments are ones in which Ruby’s fingers quake around Epidote’s throat with trepidation, and her gem becomes heated and hammers out a scared, unsteady rhythm in her palm.
Ruby doesn’t know what caused the Diamond Authority that governed Homeworld to change their mind about the asymmetrical gems that have always lived amongst and worked well with the rest of the populace. Perhaps it was the overcrowding caused by the rapid expansion of Kindergarten locations and their subsequent outputs—Homeworld used to be a much smaller place, once upon a time—or perhaps it was something else entirely, some secret danger to asymmetry that Ruby’s own near-three-hundred years hasn’t revealed yet. She doesn’t know why everything suddenly changed one day, all she knows is that she is being hunted with a will and like hell she is going to go down without a fight. If that means gripping a fellow asymmetrical gem by the neck for a couple of minutes to avoid everyone’s capture, then so be it. Epidote will thank her later, after they’ve all made it to the safe house.
Ruby waits until the sounds of the patrol and the glimpses of their lights have disappeared. Then, just in case, she waits a few minutes more.
Epidote gasps dramatically when she is released. “Were you trying to kill me?” she demands in a harsh whisper.
“If I was, you’d already be dead,” Ruby replies through gritted teeth. She’s already regretting not doing just that. How do gems as annoying as that manage to survive so long without being captured, anyway? “You were making way too much noise.”
“That’s only because Tremolite—”
“Isn’t here. Who knows, Epitote? Maybe she went on without you because she thought you were going to get her captured.” Ruby stands, and the other two gems rise as well. She gives a quick look up and down the pathway—checking for any stragglers—before hopping down to the street.
It’s a trap. Maybe Ruby would have realized it, if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with wanting to continue strangling Epidote, but as things are she is caught off guard by a gem she truly never expected to be there. She must have heard Epidote during the initial sweep, because she had been hiding under the overhang on the ground level, waiting for this moment.
Because it’s only one patrol-gem, Epidote and the other two manage to run, but Ruby was unlucky enough to not only jump down first, but also to touch down closest to her. If she had seen this coming, she probably would have been able to fight it off—very few gems can match her Mohs, after all—but because she’s caught off guard the patrol-gem has the advantage, and she manages to poof Ruby with three swift jabs of her sword.
Nobody knows what happens to the taken ones.
Ruby supposes, in the split second before her damaged projection retreats into her gem and everything goes dark, that she’s about to find out.