Doing nothing bothered Phosphophyllite. It made him feel useless, and after three hundred years, he finally had something to do. He still couldn’t believe it! And yet, it seemed so boring. The cyan unicorn didn’t know where to start, and so, he sat in the common room of the Great Oak, looking at his entry about Rutile; how could he show this to the Princess? She could only laugh at how he failed even this simple task.

“Oh wow, you haven’t written anything else in 2 days?” Asked the pink-maned figure who’d appeared behind Phos.

“Hey! I just have no idea where to begin!” Phos whined defensively, hiding the clipboard with his magic. “I’m the youngest one around here so I don’t even know everyone yet. My only friends are, like, the Princess and uh, this tree.”

“Well you could ask your senior around, most of us don’t even know each other that well. Yellow Diamond and the Princess are the only two who actually try to befriend everyone.”

“Yellow hates me since I rebuilt his hooves upside-down so that’s a no,” remembered Phos. “And Princess Twilight will again lecture me about how I need to do this on my own if I ask her.”

“If you have to learn about the older gems there’s Cinnabar that can tell you about them” Goshenite intervened. “By the way, Morga, the Princess wants us on cleaning duty for a year.”

“WHAT! So unfair, we were just trying to not bother the rest... “ Morganite complained.

Phos ignored Morga’s comment and responded to Goshe. “Cinnabar? You mean that Cinnabar?”

“Yeah why don’t you ask him, he’s been here longer than anyone else still here.”

“No way. He’s super creepy and hides from the rest of us, how could he know anything?”

“Well like I said, he’s the oldest, excluding Padparadscha, and he wasn’t even such a loner a few centuries back. Wonder what changed?” Goshe thought out-loud before leaving Phos and dragging Morganite to the main room.

Ugh… Cinnabar, thought Phos to himself, why do I have to resort to this... Well, I’ll ask the others and get to Cinnabar last.

Phosphophyllite went around the Great Oak asking gems about themselves and trying to make reports about them. It turned out that writing good reports on this topic was much harder than he’d anticipated. Most gems were too busy with their work to take the time and answer Phos’ many questions about themselves. And so, he quickly gave up on that idea.

“Ugh… Why does it have to be so difficult. No one seems to have the time to help me with my report,” complained Phos, sitting inside Rutile’s workshop while the older gem was working on making white powder.

“How about asking the gem who don’t have anything to do, then? I’m busy and unless you want to look yellow, please let me work in peace,” answered the doctor coldly.

Silence fell in the room as Rutile continued working on the white powder that covered the gems’ body. Its main purpose was to hide their natural reflection so that they didn’t blind everyone. Phos sat on the wooden floor, pondering about his records, wondering who to report on next.

And so, after a few more minutes, Phos broke the silence: “Hey Rutile, tell me about your cutie mark.”

Rutile looked at his flank, there was a set of carving tools as his cutie mark. “Well, it’s been a while since I told this story. Why do you want to know? Want to have the same?” teased Rutile.

“Well, not really, I really want to do a good job for the Princess, and I thought I could add more to your entry than that.” He pointed at Rutile’s entry, it was indeed a pretty silly entry and Phos knew it. Maybe he could learn more about people by finding out how they earned their cutie marks. “So? How did you get it? Was it while you were cutting open a gem?”

“Believe it or not, it was while helping a gem” Rutile started, as he put his tools away and sat in front of Phos. “You know Padparadscha right? I mean, obviously not personally, since he hasn’t woken up since you were found, but you’ve already seen me working on him, right?” Rutile pointed to a wooden box in the corner of the room. Phos knew that inside was Padparadscha’s body. “When he was born two thousand and four hundred years ago he had some pieces of him missing. Seven pieces to be exact, mostly from his chest. For a time, the princess took care of him, doing her best to keep him awake by filling the holes in his body with other gems.

“But as time went by, it became harder. About a hundred year after I got here, I teamed up with Padparadscha for about fifty winters before he fell asleep once more.” Rutile sighed with sadness. “He was the first want to fight with me. He taught me to take care of all of the other gems as he had seen old friends get taken by the lunarian.” Rutile paused for a moment, lost in thought as he just looked at Padparadscha’s box. “It took me a hundred and thirty years, but I managed to wake him up for about three years before he collapsed again. When I woke him up the second time, I received my cutie mark; the tools I’d used to carve the gems that filled his body.”

“Can we wake him up now?” Phos asked innocently.

“If only it were so easy,” laughed Rutile. “Maybe if we find something pure and close enough to his type he might. But each time it’s harder than the last.” Again, Rutile sat without another word, saddened by the memory of her old friend.

After what felt like an eternity, Rutile spoke once again. “Well, now that you know: get out! Go find Cinnabar of someone else to bother!” Phos felt himself getting lifted up by Rutile’s magic and thrown out the room in an instant. “And remember to make a good report about me!” And with that the door to Rutile’s workshop was closed on Phos.

Phos went to his room. He rarely spent time there. It was a cozy place, sure, but he always preferred the outside and bathing in the sun, rather than staying in his room. After all, he already spent his nights here as the gems were motionless without sunlight to power them. Before dark, Phos changed his report on Rutile. He may not have been much of a scholar, but he made sure to write something good enough for the princess. He then trotted to her office and simply slid it under the door. No need to talk about it today, he thought.

While fighting off sleep, he saw a shimmer of light on the southern beach from the window of his room. Tomorrow he’d have to ask around again and find someone else to report on…

Name: Rutile

Mane color: Red and Yellow

Age: Around 800 years old.

Hardness: 6.5

Cutie mark: A set of carving tools.

Personality: Rutile is a former fighter who learned from Padparadscha to care about the other gems and started fixing them after discovering her cutie mark, which she got trying to wake Padparadscha up.

Author's Note

Short chapter this time, next one is longer don't worry.

This time Phos do a better job and submit his first report to the Princess.

Alternative Title: Report.