Chương 196: LOG-081.

"That should be the last of the secondary foundations set down!" Her light tone prompted an amused chuff from the elder, his head turning to take in the assortment of dwellings taking shape near the edge of the alien forest. Though Brim supposed that in this case they were the aliens, actually. Huh.

"You have done more than enough. Go, rest." Frowning slightly, the Lapis Lazuli tilted her head, even as the elder rubbed a singular talon along his beak.

"But... we're not done! I still haven't finished filtering out the reservoir and I know that some of the hunters got sick-" Something becoming worryingly common, even if it had been expected. An organic species did not spend thousands of years living aboard sterile starships in the void and then suddenly make contact with countless forms of bacteria and other contaminants on a world filled with foreign life without issues cropping up, after all.

"-while moving through the forest. I could-" A sharp click from the old bird's beak silenced the Gem, his tone turning admonishing.

"You are tireless in body, but the mind is another matter entirely. Rose Quartz has promised to return soon and provide some of those tears of hers to aid the ill. The hunters will be fine, and they will be celebrated once we have our first proper meal in this place." Leaning forward, the former ship captain brought up his feathered arms, gently batting her backwards.

"Now go do something else. Either rest or find some distraction you might like, so long as it isn't more work." Hesitating slightly, she tried to peer past the elder as a handful of her adopted kindred carried some strange, furry creature with bony potrusions sticking out of its head into the midst of the camp, others opening up containers that some local humans had gifted them.

"But-""Brimming River, I will not repeat myself again. Go and relax! We'll send Talon to find you when you're needed for something important." She was older than him by several lifetimes, had been present when he'd hatched from his egg amidst the rest of his clutch, and was far more powerful than him with even the slightest access to some form of water besides. She'd literally watched the crotchety old bird grow up.

And yet despite those various irrefutable facts, merely uttering her full name in that damned mothering tone of his was enough to send the Gem scrambling away. It always was, somehow. In the deepest, most private parts of her mind, the Lapis Lazuli reasoned that it was because it reminded her of her first father, even though he'd been a soldier of the old world, rather than the captain of a warship.

"Going! Going!" It was annoying but... maybe the elder had a point. A little break probably wouldn't kill her in the end, and she could take the time to look around the forest for materials suitable for a new nest! Considering her old one was probably little more than stardust at this point. Yes... yes that would work. Maybe she could even go and bug Viridian later!

Brim's 'little' break had, somewhere along the line, escalated. She wasn't quite sure how she'd gone from searching for potential nesting materials to lugging around her lightform's volume in loose twigs, but that was simply the reality of her situation right now. Was it primitive compared to industrial heating blankets and pillows? Yes. Did she care? Not really. It was an experiment in nest building after all! Crack. Blinking, the blue Gem paused, setting down her latest find and glancing around warily.

She hadn't wandered too far from the Enclave, but it was much darker than it had been before. Maybe some local predator was sizing her up? The sound of something moving a few paces away all but echoed through the air, drawing her attention and prompting the Lazuli to draw some water out of the canteen she'd taken to carrying around with her, eyes narrowing. Only for said eyes to promptly widen right up at the orbs staring back at her from the shade. Luminous green, with a bleeding red ring layered atop each one.

"... H-hi?" Was it some kind of animal? Feathers, what if it was one of those 'corrupted' Gems? Sure, Talon (and some of the former Imperial soldiers) had been dealing with those things near nonstop since the big fight, but it wasn't necessarily impossible that she'd missed one, right? Hesitation wracked the Lapis for a moment, long enough for the apparent owner of those eyes to step out from the shade with a rumbling sound that she interpreted as a chuckle.

"Hello." Stolen story; please report. Brim looked up. And up. And up. The figure was a Gem. A Gem that had been crouching to fit in amidst the shrubbery while silently watching her. And now that she wasn't crouching, her eyes were able to flick over the newcomer's multicoloured lightform, taking in the myriad of features making up the tall stranger's existence.

"Uhhhh-" Then she finally noticed three rather important details. Namely a pair of very familiar Pearls neatly stacked together in the middle of what she now realised was the fusion's torso, alongside an Emerald embedded in her chest....

Her hands went up to her mouth, palms flat against each other, thumbs beneath her chin, and fingers barely brushing the tip of her nose, because apparently Viridian, Vermilion, and the Emerald admiral had all fused, and now that fusion (who looked almost exactly like Green Onyx except... bigger) was staring down at her with what almost seemed like a hungry look-though that might have just been her incredibly biased imagination and maybe she was just reading the situation completely wrong and oh she needed to say something but what could she possibly-"Brim, say something."

"Huubuhuubauwhuu." Her response was elegant and refined and perfectly comprehensible, though for whatever reason it caused yet another deep chuckle to escape from the fusion, even as the Lapis felt a long since familiar heat all but surge up her neck and settle at her cheeks. Forcibly moving her hands to sharply tug at the sides of her hair in some effort to get her wits back around her, the Lazuli plastered on what she hoped was a friendly smile.

"Hah, t-that was intentional! Mhm. So ah... when did this uh... yeah?" It was almost insidious, how quietly a Gem of that size could move, though she could probably chalk that up to the union being composed of not one but two Pearls. If she'd learned anything since her first meeting with Viridian and Vermilion, it was that the servant caste Gems were almost scarily graceful at times.

"Viridian and Emerald wanted to form Green Onyx for a while. Vermilion kind of got caught up in things, and now here I am." The (MASSIVE SUPER BIG WOW) figure shifted her posture, arms all but flowing around her as she leaned down to stare at Brim with those spooky eyes of hers.

"Then I had some time to think, and my components all decided it would be nice to come see you." Blinking rapidly, the rogue terraformer slowly gestured to herself.

"... Me?" The fusion spread all four of her arms wide, fluttering her long lashes.

"Yes. We all-or rather I, in this case, wanted to go talk to my pretty Lapis Lazuli. Talon was very helpful in pointing out where you went, lovebird." Her pretty Lapi-? Oh.... Oh. She had less than a second to feel a second blush begin surging upwards to replace the first at that comment (nicknames? They were doing nicknames now?!), only to promptly let out a horrifically embarassing squeak as two of the fusion's arms drew forward, hands big enough to encircle her entire damned waist slipping around her lightform and lifting her into the air as if she herself were just a twig. An instant later and she was being smushed up against the far larger Gem's chest, two hands holding her up by the legs and a third resting against her back, keeping her pinned incredibly close to the amalgam's own lightform...." Eeeeeeek!" She was going to explode.

This was it for Brimming River, first and last of her name. Thus ended her one Gem lineage, with her stupid stupid thoughts prompting her to sound out a courting call without even thinking. But to be entirely fair she'd already done that with Viridian, so at this point was there even any dignity left to lose? Even worse was the fact that the green Pearl's portion of the merger clearly remembered the meaning behind it, considering the wide smirk now stretching the fusion's features apart.

"Hm, your hair is shorter than Emerald's. Softer though." Finally, she realised what the fourth hand was apparently being reserved for, just as a set of dexterous fingers began to gently play with her locks.

"I've settled on Jade Onyx as a name, by the way." An incoherent noise escaped her lips as one of those digits just barely brushed against her gemstone, intentionally or not.

"Hm. You're really such a vocal thing. Beautiful too. Maybe I should just call you songbird instead?" Beautiful. She hadn't been called beautiful by anyone in-oh feathers. Pat pat.

"Mhm. Songbird might be more fitting." Her only response to that was to start thumping her head against Jade's chest, even as she internally pondered whether her whole face was a different shade of blue at this point." You're being mean..." The self proclaimed Onyx merely pat her head a second time at that statement, yet another rumbling chuckle sending shivers through the Lazuli's lightform.

"Would you like me to stop?" It took less than a second for her to wrap her arms as far around the fusion's chest as she could, incidentally pressing her cheek against the Emerald gemstone directly in front of her.

"No!" She went completely still as the hand messing with her hair moved, a single large yet elegant finger slipping beneath her chin and drawing her gaze back upwards. Those eyes looked a lot less intimidating from her current position, for whatever reason. Maybe it was the downright sultry smile Jade was sporting. Or maybe it was the distinctly softer look the fusion was now shooting her way. But hey, what did she know? She was just a pretty Lapis!

Hehehehe-"Well, then I certainly hope you're alright with a bit of a transition. I've had my fun for now, I think. Time to let the others have a more direct go." Brim blinked at that, slowly running the words through her head.

"... Wait. Wha-" Light.

Fuuuck if that wasn't a rush. Alright, back to... back to just me. Just Viridian. Two arms, two legs. Check. Overwhelming sense of strength and comfort gone as well? Yes. Yep, back to... being a Pearl.... Yay. Stars I was going to need to work on not getting addicted to that... that feeling of power- Right! Focus. Quickly blinking away the usual sensory aftermath of a fusion (this one was definitely on the upper end of things) as I slowly processed the jitters from the sheer...

intensity that had been my brief existence as Jade Onyx, I finally relaxed. Then my perfect recollection made itself known. I remembered the plan my fellow components and I had agreed on while floating around within Jade's mind, after all. Without leaving even a second to doubt myself, I lunged.

"Ack-!" Brim could do little but yelp in strangled shock as a pair of Pearls all but stuck to her sides, right before Emerald wrapped her arms around all three of us. It was in that horrendously mushy group embrace that I idly pondered the knowledge I'd gained while part of that union. Namely that Vermilion had apparently developed a thing for our resident Lazuli at some point, something made all the more evident by how tightly she was clinging to the terraformer. Good for her. And for Brim, probably.

The blue Gem in question remained silent for a moment in the face of our combined assault, shock written across her face as she slowly glanced left, prompting a smirk from me, then right, getting a shy smile from my batchmate in turn, and then upwards at Emerald's nonchalant stare, before finally returning to just looking directly forward with a blank expression.... Huh. Had we perhaps gone a little too far-?

"... THIS IS BULLYING!" Ah, she was almost violently hugging back now. Good, everything was fine then, even if the hug itself was-oh fuck that was definitely getting more than a little tight-ow!

"Brim. You're squeezing the Pearls."

"Eeeeeeek!"