Rose Quartz looked out over the water, her fingers twisting tighter around her sword's intricate vine-patterned grip. She felt the tears begin to flow from her eyes, and absently brought a tiny glass vial to her cheek, collecting every drop she could. If this war goes on much longer, she thought bitterly, I will have enough tears to fill the greatest fountain in my garden.

The enemy lay before her, defeated; her gem was broken almost into three pieces, and her body flickered slightly, and her wings were gone, but Rose had stayed her blade before finishing the pitiful creature.

As the defeated enemy stared out at the newborn ocean before her, Rose drew her sword to point out the bodies floating in the newly-formed harbor. "Do you know what each of those is?" she asked, and she saw the frail, beaten Gem's shoulders slump.

"Our empire is a shining jewel," the blue Gem said, her voice distorted and wavering. "And they are but dirt upon its face."

Rose drove her sword hilt-deep into the dirt, desperately trying to pity her enemy, forcing herself not to hate her. "You recite those words to me? Here, above your ocean of the dead?"

The blue Gem said nothing. She dropped her gaze to the ground, no longer able to maintain her form well enough to give her eyes detail; when she looked back up at Rose, they were nothing but a pair of silvery mirrors.

Rose pulled her sword from the earth, towering over her enemy. "A puppet," came Garnet's voice from behind, "Led astray by loyalty, not malice."

"A monster," countered Pearl, her anger high-pitched and well-worn. "Who drowned half a continent to please an even greater monster. Shatter her gem and we'll toss it into her precious sea."

Rose wiped the dirt from her blade, leaving long streaks on her tattered white dress. She sheathed her sword and stood beside the defeated Gem. Without looking down, she offered a hand to her, and she took it.

"You fought for your home and for your people," Rose said, raising her other hand to silence her companions. The blue Gem looked into her eyes, her own tears streaming down her face, her body barely intact.

Rose closed her eyes, unable to meet her own gaze reflected in the two blank pools of the Gem's eyes. "...But you are too dangerous to allow you to retain your freedom."

And saying this, Rose drew forth an item from her Gem, the last thing she had kept from home: a small, silver-backed mirror. "You repeated the words of those who commanded you, but you did not think to consider the consequences."

The enemy tensed, but Pearl and Garnet seized her thin blue arms before she could flee. "Traitors!" she cried, her body partially dissolving from the effort of her struggle. "You love these animals more than you love your own sisters! You will all–"

She was fused to the back of the mirror with a wordless shrieking sound. Rose turned the mirror around in her hand, examining the cracked blue teardrop which had been the enemy's gem; nothing else remained. Rose handed the mirror to Pearl. "Teach it about our history," she ordered. "It will repeat whatever it is told."

Then she gathered another tear for her garden, and turned away from the sea.