#rough gem

Natural rough labradorite gems.

Examples Of Rough Russian Alexandrite

Photo Courtesy: Alexey Buklakov

(via Raw Amethyst Crystal Pendant with Cast Twig 925 Oxidized | Etsy)

Life works in predictable patterns. There is logic behind every illogical thing that happens. It may sound like a complete paradox, but it’s true. There is no true randomness in the world; things happen, and people react to them, and the world reacts back.

That is, at least, how Rough Gem has always seen things. A leads to B, which leads to C and D, perhaps E should things really pick up. It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s practical. You may not be able to predict the future, but you can predict the outcomes, and that’s enough. Of course, sometimes, the least likely possibility ends up coming to pass. Your father dies. Your husband, too. These things are tragedies, but they’re hardly unprecedented.

This was, naturally, all uprooted the instant that she found herself in an office building where her manager told her to kill someone. It only went downhill from there.

Now, she lives in a world that she knows God is real and made clown-animals that are actually angels, and wishing stars are real, and people can be dead but not really, and it’s all really very confusing and quite a lot to take in, and she has decided that she will simply not care enough to think too deeply about it because, well…

What has changed, really?

It’s tragic.

All death is. It will never not be something to be mourned in some capacity. Card Sharp was a complicated person. She took with her words and feelings and sentiments and plans and machinations that everyone in this room may not ever be fully privy to. They were answers that she wanted, that she felt those with wings and halos deserved to know. Even those whose hearts still yet beat in this place deserved to know what they’d almost died for.

What they still might die for, should so many of them continue their vow of silence, their acts of rebellion.

She has always said that they need to take whatever power they have in this place and use it, but alongside those convictions, she has also always said that they need to do so safely. She will not suffer further loss.

Card Sharp had a plan. She had plans that she took with her. This may very well be part of it, this silence, this hope for them to take a risk and have it pay off.

Her eyes flit between a few figures at the table. 

She’d said it before: she never volunteered to put her neck on the line for the greater good.

Rough Gem certainly never agreed to offer up the necks of those she’s grown to care for either. No, she’s quite tired of losing people, thank you very much.

People retire. People get fired. People get transferred. People quit. People simply “stop showing up.”

She will not be someone who simply “stops showing up.”

Her eyes turn to Arrowhead, and she frowns.

“Let’s not be ridiculous. The novarii sees itself as some kind and altruistic being, helping Card Sharp out. Seriously? Fio? If you’re going to pick a distraction…Actually, about that--”

She frowns--perhaps almost scowls, a first for her--and her finger begins to tap against her arm.

“--The novarii will have my loyalty when they prove they’re willing to help us in the same way you’re all willing to help them. To me, you’re all showing far too much kindness towards an individual who has not shown a single, tangible moment of remorse for what they’ve done. What, they cried over notes written after your deaths?”

Rough Gem pinches the bridge of her nose, pushing her glasses up.

“If they truly felt so horrible, they would have done something about it. Do not forget that they were and are complicit in a plot to have us all killed. I don’t care if there was some plan to press a magical ‘undo’ button or whatever deus ex machina they may propose to have had--I did not volunteer to experience death and tragedy the likes of which we have seen here.”

Her jaw clenches.

“I will not be one of you who sits here and waits and hopes that their good nature wins out and they fly in to rescue us. If they want to save themself, they can save us alongside them. So be it.”

Her eyes turn to bore directly into Cloud Nine’s.

“Are you honestly, truly telling me that you did not question for a second that Card Sharp of all people either knew how to apply clown makeup and came over ahead of time with it preapplied and ready to go? For when you both headed to the party? Or did you apply another layer of clown makeup on top of her normal makeup and just…not notice you were putting makeup on makeup?

Genuinely. Explain the clown costumes to me. I’d love to hear it.”

There it is, then.

The answers they’ve all been searching for all of this time are laid bare in front of them, and…it’s so mind boggling--clowns and God and angels, no, Baalatro and misery and horses and chicken managers and a woman standing before them, removing one coat of paint to reveal another--that it…

Well, it loops back around to the same tired exhaustion that consumed her by the end of the last trial.

What is she to do about all of this?

What could she have done about all of this?

Card Sharp--Sunday--says that this is simply the way of the world, that this was all inevitable, that they or some other random group of sorry suckers were destined to become the next flesh ground between the mechanisms of this bloodied calliope. Firmament consumes, the Baalatro feed, and humans are also there. Just there. 

It’s all so…familiar.

Does it make any difference if the uncaring eyes staring down from the C-Suite have cheery makeup applied around them or shadowed wings sprouting from their backs? It’s all just the same. The minions in the lower ranks are just numbers. They’re just profit margins. They’re just assets. She and the people she cares about and even the people she could take or leave when they’re in that stupid conference room? They’re just assets.

It’s comfortable.

“I thought fantastical things like this were meant to be impressive. I suppose corporate monotony and apathy is the same whether you’re in Dell or Headquarter City.”

She says with a sigh, picking at a pill of fabric on her sleeve. There is none of the usual attention she would give to a member of their group during a discussion. Sunday has not earned that from her. If nothing else, her time here has taught her that your respect is allowed to be withheld, even to those in charge.

“Why a killing game specifically? It seems wasteful. You can have hundreds upon hundreds of employees and implement ways to keep a baseline level of misery at some perfect level. You’ll never reach the peak of misery a murder would cause, maybe, but I’d think that the sheer number of people producing misery would make up for it.”

Her fingers pause in their work.

“So, did you grow tired of being the manatee that you decided to turn to making others the thing in the tank instead? Your misery isn’t the manatee’s fault, you know. You don’t have to bring it to the fiftieth floor just to prove you can.”