Sitting in the highest room of the Great Oak with a splendid view of the entire island, Onyx was watching as he always did. His job was to look for sunspots and alert the fighters in case one grew too big. It was a simple but boring job. Since the Lunarian would only attack during the day and only once or twice a week, he could spend his time observing the other gems. He loved watching Jade concentrate on developing new tactics to defend the island, or peeking at Obsidian as he looked for new materials to make swords near the eastern ravine’s entrance.

Today was a good day though, a sunspot had appeared over the eastern ravine and now Diamond and Bort were taking care of it. And so he could continue to spy on beautiful Red Beryl who was studying in the open field in front of the Great Oak.

This day, however, was about to get worse.

Running in the direction of the school, he spotted Bort, Diamond and Phosphophyllite, the latter being on Diamond’s back holding on for dear life. In the end, they didn’t manage to catch up to the Lunarian platform. As it arrived just in front of the school, just over Red Beryl, several rows of Lunarians began to descend. None of them bothered to use their magic and attack him as he started and galloped to the entrance of the Great Oak, leaving behind several scrolls. The alarm began to ring across the island.

Phos could see the hundreds of Lunarians floating gracefully to the ground holding instruments with their magic. Finally, the platform itself descended to the ground. The biggest Lunarian, a massive white unicorn wearing necklaces of broken gems encrusted in gold came into sight. It levitated the body of a broken gem, held together with magic. He placed the gem’s body in the grass between the first row of Lunarians and the entrance, and then waited.

Bort’s attack came from the back, immediately cutting the big Lunarian in half, who promptly disappeared along with its jewelry. The rest of the Lunarians didn’t vanish alongside it, however. Most of them started kneeling in the direction of the Great Oak and stopped playing music altogether. The three gems looked at the Lunarians with awe. Bort, despite still looking angry, didn’t seem to be able to destroy them as they didn’t fight back.

The moment lasted for a few minutes before the doors to the Great Oak were busted open by the Princess, a worried look on her face. She looked at the broken body sprawled out on the ground, an opaque milky white gem that Phos didn’t recognize. She then looked to the Lunarians, shouting to them in a fierce voice. “Do you really intend to stand in the way of the Princess of this land once again?”

No response came.

“Let me tell you again, it’s useless.” With that, Twilight tapped her hoof on the ground, and the Lunarians vanished like a giant smoke bomb.

With her regular voice, the Princess looked at Phosphophyllite and the others and said: “Please get Rutile here, we seem to have a new gem among us.” Diamond went inside the Great Oak as several other gems came out to gauge the situation. Soon enough, Rutile came back with a saddlebag and started to pick up the new gem from the ground.

Phosphophyllite helped in picking up the unknown gem, but once inside, Rutile quickly forbade anyone except the Princess and himself inside his workshop. For two days they locked themselves inside. Even under Phos’ relentless inquiries, Rutile didn’t answer.

On the third day, during Jade’s morning briefing, the Princess made an announcement in the common room to all the gems. “As you may have heard, the Lunarians came down twice last week—on the same day actually—the second time they left us with a new gem.” A petite opaque white unicorn gem came out from behind the Princess, seemingly afraid of the rest of the gems.

“This is Pearl, he doesn’t seem to remember anything—I mean he doesn’t even know how to speak—so please be patient with him.” Twilight finished, smiling sheepishly.

Chatter began in the crowd. “He’s so cute,” chirped an excited Diamond.

“I wonder if he can teach us about Lunarians?” pondered Alexandrite.

“But can we trust him?” Coldly asked Bort over the chatter. “Clearly, he came from up there. Maybe he’s a spy.”

“Please don’t worry about it Bort, I have already looked into his mind, he really is only a few days old. The Lunarians probably don’t want him because he’s not as valuable as a Diamond—pearls are much more common after all.” Twilight reassured in a pleasant voice. “For now, he needs to be taught language, Alexandrite will help me as always, the rest of you can continue on your daily routine.”

The gems simply went back to work, as if Twilight’s explanation had fully quenched their curiosity.

Phos trotted up to the small new gem. While Phosphophyllite wasn’t as big as the other gems, it seemed he had to look down to see him. “He has the shape of a foal.” Explained Twilight, still standing behind Pearl. “Foals are what we used to call young ponies before the gems came around.”

So it’s a foal… I guess I’m not the smallest nor the youngest anymore, Phos thought to himself. while grinning. With the biggest smile he could muster, he held a hoof to Pearl. “Hello there! I’m Phosphophyllite! Nice to meet you!”

The Princess chuckled at Phos’ antics. “I’m glad you’re already getting to know each other, but I don’t think he understands much. For now, I suggest you go back to your reports”

Phos remembered that it was the first time he actually spoke to the Princess since handing in his first report. He immediately was taken by the urge to run, but the Princess spoke before he could make his escape. “About your report on Rutile…” there it is… “I am proud of you Phosphophyllite, it came out great.”

Phos was surprised to say the least.

“It could have been better, I mean—but it is a good start!” Twilight’s voice was filled with encouragement. “I expect regular reports similar to this one from now on, since you seem to get the hang of it.” the Princess declared with a smile on her face, before leaving Phos and taking Pearl with her to her study.

Sunset came around once again and Phos went back to his room after taking the time to write part of Diamond’s entry. He thought about the Princess’ words. Regular reports sounded bothersome. Phos looked outside his window and once again he spotted the little lights flickers on the beach and thought about them awhile. Maybe he would check it out. After all, there was still time before nightfall.

Phos trotted on the beach, looking for signs of those flickers of light. It will be night soon, so I have to be quick before I pass out. After going all the way to the ravine’s opening, he still hadn’t found anything that could have been the source of those shimmers. I can’t be imagining those, can I? He questioned his sanity.

Music suddenly came from above the ocean. Phos turned and saw a Lunarian ship appear from a sunspot. “H-h-how?” He thought out-loud. They are supposed to only come during the day. Lost in thoughts, he didn’t see the arrows coming straight at, only noticing them when it was too late. Keeping his eyes closed, he braced for the faithful moment where they would impact. He thought about Onyx and how he probably stopped watching for sunspots this late. He thought of Pearl whom he would never get to know. He thought about Rutile who had finally opened up to him. He thought of the Princess and how his duties towards her. How could I hope to protect her if I can’t even protect myself?

Seconds passed, but no arrows pierced his body. What he did experience, though, was a barrage of deafening sounds. Explosions. Opening his eyes, Phos saw a gem fighting right in front of him. He had a moderately long red mane that seemed to float in the air, like the Princess’. Phos couldn’t see a horn or wings, which was pretty rare. Isn’t Jade the only ‘earth’ gem?

The stranger didn’t have a weapon and seemed to summon explosions around himself like magic. The red gem simply cried in voice full to the brim with rage at the Lunarians as a massive explosion destroyed the platform they were standing on. As a result, all of them vanished.

He turned to Phos and looked at him. This stranger did have a horn, at least he clearly used to. At the top of his head, there was the base of a broken horn, from which there seemed to flow trace amounts of a silver liquid.

“Three point five, what are you doing here this late?” He asked Phos, calmer but also colder. “Are you just flaunting your beauty to the Lunarian so they take you or something?”

Ignoring the snide comments, Phos asked “Are you Cinnabar? You’re the one who fought these Lunarians?”

“Are you crazy to go out at night? Go back home before the Princess comes to look for you!” With that outburst, Cinnabar pounded his hoof to the grass.

crack

A moment later, Cinnabar’s hoof broke away from his torso and fell limp to the ground. Silver liquid flowed from the joint which held his forehoof to his body. Bells rang. Phos turned to see some gem galloping towards him and Cinnabar. Before they arrived, the red gem with the broken horn disappeared from view along with his broken hoof.

Once again back at Rutile’s workshop, under the jellyfishes’ light, Phos was being examined by the doctor. “It seemed you met Cinnabar.” He said, while applying some white power on Phos, where it seemed to have rubbed off.

Phos didn’t respond, he simply seemed to ponder the events of the night.

“He doesn’t mean harm, you know. He doesn’t seem like it, but he cares about all of us. It’s why he must stay alone, far from us.”

“He seemed to hate me the most,” Phos finally said, voice wistful. “He just… Had this hatred when he looked at me, talked to me. I didn’t know a gem could be like that.”

“He lost so many of his friends, as well as himself, over the years. He doesn’t hate you, Phos,” reassured Rutile. “I don’t know everything about what happened but he chose to stay away. Alone in the night, his silver poison is the only thing keeping him awake. He chose to protect us if Lunarians came during the night, yet they never visited him since they took his horn.”

A heavy silence fell upon the room once more.

“Where did you find him anyway?” Asked Rutile. “I thought he hid himself in the ocean or something, since we don’t hear a lot from him.”

“I was near the entrance of the ravine when they arrived and he saved me.”

“No wonder he’d be there then, it’s where its last partner, Heliodor, was taken all those years ago.”

Lately, Phos had been finding himself much more often in Rutile’s workshop than he liked. He decided to leave quickly, determined to face Cinnabar again the next day.

Just when the sun came back the next morning, Phos began to canter to the beginning of the Ravine, where he’d met Cinnabar yesterday. He had to do something; it seemed so wrong that someone would spend all their time alone, without any other gems around.

Going across the Great Oak, he was met with the surprised faces of Morganite and Goshenite, both still cleaning the seemingly never-ending rows of scrolls on the walls of the common room. “Hey! Why are you here so early?” Asked Morga with a grin, but Phos promptly ignored him and went straight to the exit.

After a few minutes, Phos arrived at the place he had been attacked the night before. With the sun’s light clearing up where the battle had taken place, Phos could see the damage caused by Cinnabar’s attacks. There were holes in the dirt where the explosions had occurred, as well as patches of dead grass wherever he had walked.

“Hey. Didn’t you learn your lesson last night?” Cinnabar’s voice asked, as he appeared behind Phos. The red unicorn seemed to have re-attached his hoof to his body. His horn, however, was still missing.

“Ah! You! Why are you here, then?” Phos retorqued. “You should know it’s the place Helio got taken away, why do you keep patroling here?” At the mention of his former partner, Cinnabar seemed to tense up.

“Indeed, it happened here,” Cinnabar started. “I am waiting for the Lunarians so they can take me to the moon. It’s not like I’m useful here anyway.”

With some anger in his voice, he continued: “But you; you just had to show up one time almost during night and they came. How lucky.”

Phos couldn’t even apologise. He didn’t understand Cinnabar.

“He was a good gem.”

“What?” Phos asked, surprised by Cinnabar’s sudden speech.

“Heliodor. You want to make some reports? Do one on him,” he ordered ”He had a hardness of seven and a half and yet still accepted to be my partner for so many years. Me. The weakest of gems.”

“What?” Phos said again, dumbfounded. “I am the weakest you know? Three and half and all, even you know that.”

“Well you’re wrong, moron,” replied Cinnabar. “Among the twenty eight of us-”

“Twenty-nine!” Phos shouted to correct him.

Looking even more annoyed, Cinnabar continued: “Among the twenty-nine of us, I am the weakest. A hardness of two. You witnessed proof of that yesterday, when I accidently broke my hoof. Thankfully, Rutile came and helped me fix it. Anyway where was I?”

“You were talking about Heliodor,” said a surprisingly attentive Phos.

“Yes. He valued work above all, even if I was weak my magic was the best, and that made us such a great team.”

Cinnabar talked for a long while about his time with Heliodor and their friendship, even the times when they’d argued and fought. The cyan gem listened carefully—mostly because he’d forgotten his notepad—to the red gem’s story. Cinnabar seemed really happy while reminiscing about his past. The day went on and before they knew, Twilight’s sun was slowly setting over the horizon.

“...and this is how Helio and I were banned from the library by Alexandrite, at least until Twilight let us back,” concluded a now smiling Cinnabar. “Well, time sure flies. You should get back to the Great Oak, three point five.”

“Wait! Why can’t you just come back to the Great Oak?” Asked Phos, he had learned a lot about Heliodor, more than enough to make a report on him. Yet he still didn’t understand Cinnabar. Why would he want to get taken to the moon if he had so many good memories? “There’s the new one, Pearl, I’m sure you can get to know him too!”

“That’s nice of you,” started Cinnabar. “But I won’t,” he started trotting away, leaving Phos alone.

I can’t just let him leave, I have to find something for him… Thought Phos.

“I’ll bring them back!” He finally shouted to Cinnabar, who looked back to him at his declaration. “You won’t go to the moon because I’ll bring them all back from the moon! I’ll find a way! Heliodor, Red Diamond, Aquamarine, Topaz and all the others! I swear!”

This earned Phos a surprised look from Cinnabar, who took a moment before regaining his composure and trotting away.

Name: Pearl

Mane color: Opaque white.

Age: a few days old according to the Princess.

Hardness: 4.5

Cutie mark: None (Yet!)

Personality: A curious foal (that’s what Twilight called him), he seems eager to learn new things.

Author's Note

In which a promise is made.

Alternative title: Defenses.