Chapter Text

~*~

“Maybe... try sticking it out more.”

“Butt? Aw tung?”

“Hmm,” she hummed as she gave this serious matter due consideration. “Tongue.”

“It’sh a’eady ou’.”

“Yeah, but more!”

Lars gave her a look, but extended his tongue until it could go no further. He was only barely managing to balance whilst pulling the most ridiculous pose ever - one leg tucked up and in like that of a resting flamingo, one arm raised high in the air, his pelvis thrust to one side. He felt like a fool.

Connie stood next to him on the bright warp pad, sizing him up. “Yeaaah. Perfect. Hold that.”

Lars glanced around using only his eyes before looking back at her. He noticed as well as she did - the sheer lack of anything interesting happening. She shrugged.

“Maybe, aah. Try thinking of the kindergarten? As though you wanna go there?”

He frowned at her in a meaningful way. As if he hadn’t already been doing just that. Suddenly, she had a bright idea and pressed his nose lightly with the tip of her forefinger.

“Boop!”

He blinked, wrinkled his nose and threw her a questioning look - one of many, this afternoon - but to his credit Lars didn’t break form. He figured she knew what she was doing. They waited an extra moment.

“I really wish I had a camera right now,” Connie said, breaking the silence with a smile.

That was the thing that did it. He pulled his tongue back in, lowered his raised leg and relaxed, standing normally once more.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” he asked, deadpan, mouth dry, hand on hip like it ain’t no thang.

She shrugged and frowned slightly. Even though she’d up until now been joking around somewhat, she was actually a little frustrated. “Well, it helped Steven make a gem thing work one time when he was a kid.”

“Steven is a gem,” he needlessly reminded her. “I’m something else.”

The warp pad they were standing on appeared to be a relatively isolated one that they’d happened upon by chance one day while scouting. It was the first one they’d found that wasn’t at the kindergarten and wasn’t in constant use by gems. It was out somewhere in a remote desert, far across what would millennia later become the United States - they had no idea why anyone had even bothered to place it here, actually. They saw no gem structures nearby, it was a wasteland.

They weren’t mad about it though - far from it! It was the perfect venue for them to try to hack the warpstream without being interrupted, after all.

But it wasn’t working.

Connie glanced up at him once again after a little more thought. “Are you sure you’re thinking of the Prime Kindergarten? Not the one on Homeworld?”

“Creepy Earth kindergarten with the ditched drill machines and slowly overcooking Amethyst still inside somewhere - yes! We’ve been coming back here mucking around with this thing for ages - if I could interface with this stuff, we’d have been there weeks ago.” He huffed and gestured dramatically with one arm, muttering grimly. “So. That’s it - test failed. We’ll never get your hourglass.”

“Naw,” she said at length with a deep exhale. The sun was high overhead and with her protective gloves and jacket on, it was getting a bit warm for her here.

“This only means we get to try for it the hard way.”

The guy held out his gloved hand - the look on his face was skeptical at best. Connie glanced up at Lars who winced and turned away, mentally kicking himself for his oversight. Connie smiled awkwardly up at the other guy as she realized what was going on.

Lars, of course, had forgotten earlier to just have it on his person, like a normal human would. He couldn’t let the actual normal human see that he was about to pull the trade goods from his forehead, of course. The good thing was that he was shrouded in a robe, the hood darkening his pink features to the point where no one had been inspired to harangue him about it. In the instances where it did garner a doubletake from a passer-by, however, the moment was fleeting and he’d usually adjusted the way it hung over his face by the time he’d gathered any additional interest.

Thankfully, the occasional unusual shock of bright pink against the background of this otherwise dusty and earthen-toned walled stone city was quickly forgotten. The people of this place had much bigger problems occupying their thoughts.

Connie, dressed now in a heavy coat, scarf and proper gloves, gave him a depreciating look as he soon turned back, passing her the bag made of woven fibers. She offered it over to the man, who opened it up and after a moment nodded appreciatively at the bounty of raspberries - so rare here in winter, but much easier to find in the warmer forests that lay far to the south where the two friends had just been berrypicking earlier that afternoon.

He ate one and seemed impressed.

Muttering his astonishment but choosing not to question it too closely, he quickly stowed the bag off to the side of his little stall and offered her what they’d come here for in the first place - a little ceramic flask, the top of it corked, waterproof and hanging from a strap which made it easy to wear.

“Thank you!” she smiled happily as she accepted it. “Thanks so much!”

As they moved off, she slung it over her shoulder. “This was such a great idea. Now we don’t have to go all the way back to camp whenever I need water. I can just carry some with me at all times!”

Lars snorted briefly. “You’re way too excited about a water bottle.”

“I know it’s silly, but I haven’t had one of these in a while,” she replied with a slight defensive tone to her voice. “So get on board, okay!?”

“Fine. Um, high-tech... a miracle of contemporary engineering,” Lars hyped. But though his voice oozed sarcasm, he was smiling.

“State of the art, ultra-modern,” she agreed, nodding. “How many berries do you think a phone costs?” she wondered aloud. Some passers-by glanced over at her, a little confused about the odd term, but she smiled disarmingly at them and turned back to Lars. “Do we need anything else from here right now?”

“Naw, no.” He shook his head - he had something else on his mind. They were presently moving through a space that didn’t contain so many people though, so he soon felt more free to talk about it.

“Anyway, the thing we were talking about - say we get it, somehow. What if, once again, neither of us can get it to work because we don’t have gems. What then?”

She pondered this one a long moment as they made their way through the city. “Steven told me he used the hourglass back when he didn’t have full control of his powers yet. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

It wasn’t much, but it was all this plan had going for it right now. He shrugged. “Suppose it beats asking a gem to help us.”

She had to laugh. “Hah! Oh yeah. That would probably mean we’d have to tell them everything for them to even consider helping us. And then they’d also have to somehow forget they even saw us. Or maybe things snowball and suddenly we don’t exist because the colonization was successful. Or... maybe frogs take over the world instead - gems and humans be damned. Who knows!”

He considered laughing, but grit his teeth instead. “You know, gauging how well you’re doing based on whether you exist or not is a massive mindscrew.”

They walked in silence a handful of yards, heading toward the city’s exit.

“I guess the trick is to try not to think too deeply about it,” Connie finally replied.

They were on a mission, penetrating south into territory they couldn’t reach by portal because of Lars’ complete ignorance of the landscape. But as always, the more ground they covered, the more options opened up between their makeshift home on the cliffside and their faraway destination.

And, as always, they returned every late afternoon to their shelter on top of the beachside cliff in what would someday be Delmarva before picking back up where they left off after a post-breakfast portal jump.

“Tell me something else stupid about you,” she asked as they walked endlessly, endlessly into warmer climes over undulating terrain, through forests and rivers, over mountains, and down into ever-increasing amounts of swamp.

“Hoo boy, I’m scrapin’ the bottom here, buuut... I owned three pairs of crocs.” He hesitated and tilted his head slightly. “Will own?”

This drew a laugh. “What - all at once? Everyone just gave you the same terrible birthday gift?”

“Naw,” he blushed and scratched his head as he elaborated. “There was a period of like five months during puberty, before I became painfully self-aware, where my feet just grew and grew. Like the rest of me.”

“So you didn’t learn after the first pair and just bought more on purpose each time your shoe size-”

“Augh, don’t say it aloud,” he groaned.

Connie chuckled once again. It was okay - they were fairly sure they were well away from anything that could pose a threat to them. It was infectious though, and he soon found himself joining her in laughter.

They’d learned long since that these games were better played without direct reference to the people they knew and loved.

Eventually, after a long hard slog southward, they hit a coast - a wide sandy beach that looked out over a vast body of water. But it was all wrong - they could tell that the ocean lay in the wrong direction.

“Here’s another fun fact about me,” she started as she glanced off toward the ocean horizon. “I’ve got a good memory and I like maps, but I’m not the kind of person able to remember the exact details of a map verbatim.” She sucked air in through clenched teeth. “I think we got turned around somehow.”

He was understanding about this. “Welp, the last time either of us saw a map was maybe like a year ago, now. Y’know. Back when there were maps.”

“When there will be maps.”

“Touché.”

“Aw, buddy,” she said reluctantly, making sure the jacket was still tied around her waist securely. It was far too warm for that noise. “I think we still have a ways to go.”

“Wanna birds eye view this?” he suggested.

She made a face like dropping briefly from a portal placed high up in the sky didn’t appeal to her. “Ugh, not right now. Just ate.”

They opted instead to follow the shoreline for now, heading south. There were clouds overhead but it was still warm. A muggy kind of warm that Connie didn’t really appreciate. She stopped and stooped down after tolerating it a while to roll up her pant legs, and then undid the jacket from around her waist and held it out to Lars.

“It’s so horrible,” she whined. “Can you jam this in your face for me?”

One glowing forehead later, he stowed it away through his head into whatever had become of the Pink Dimension. He imagined it still there, out of sight, but cold and dark. Empty. The thought of it freaked him out a little.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked her, trying to focus his thoughts on something else. “Gimme the sword.”

“I’m fine, it’s just the heat.” She shot him an envious glance as she unshouldered the scabbard. “You must be cold blooded or something.”

“Another exciting fact about me? My blood is dark pink and has the consistency of syrup now,” he said as she handed him the sheathed sword.

“I know. I’ve seen you get injured heaps of times.”

He stowed that away in his head too. “Are you ready?”

“Not yet. Water me, please.”

He smiled softly. His forehead was seeing so much traffic right now, it was insane. Out from his head he pulled the little ceramic flask. She took it, uncorked it and drank deeply.

“I bet you don’t miss all this annoying stuff, right?” she asked after he put it back away in his head and they were walking unencumbered once again. When he glanced down at her in confusion, she elaborated. “All this, you know, feeling thirsty, hungry. Getting too hot or too cold.”

He was silent for longer than she expected - he typically had some smartass comment ready for things like that. She started to wonder if he’d heard her, but before she could say anything else, he belatedly replied.

“Actually? I, uh.” He lowered his voice. “I miss all of it.”

Connie blinked in surprise and glanced over at him. “Oh! Um, I didn’t-”

He shook his head and interrupted her sharply. “Whatever! That counts as a fact. You owe me two. Tell me more stupid facts about you.” He demanded, shrugging now and refusing to make eye contact.

She walked alongside him a few paces before thinking of something. “Well, I broke a boy’s arm once when I was at school. Did I tell you this one already?”

This gathered his surprise. He shot her a sideways glance. “You’re a bully?!” he asked in a false seriousness.

This was more like the Lars she knew.

“Nooooo! It was an accident, I swear,” she replied in an over-the-top manner while smiling. “I felt super guilty for a long time!”

He smirked. “Sure. What’d this kid do to deserve that?”

“He existed. And touched me. Accidentally. He just kind of jostled me in the hallway. And at the time I was deep into combat training with Pearl, my instincts sort of took over. I flipped him,” she mimed the action, stopping for a moment in the sand to do so. “And... I snapped his ulna in the process.”

Lars whistled, impressed. “The second fact? You’re a hard, cold woman.”

She pushed him playfully. “Stop!”

Lars staggered sideways, crying out, clutching his torso in mock pain. “Ow! Stop, you’re breaking my ulnas! All six of them!”

“Here’s a fact about you - you only have two ulnas, you dink.”

“I’m magic. I could have six. You don’t know.”

“Do you even know what an ulna is?”

“It’s like, near your spleen or something?”

She gave him a look of unending disparagement as they picked up their feet and continued walking along the beach.

“Since it’s my turn to say a fact, I wasn’t what you’d call a good student, dude.”

After a few weeks of this, they hit a southern coast. They weren’t in the business of being stopped by stupid mundane things like large bodies of water, though. After kicking off his boots and jamming them into his head, he picked her up and carried her straight over it.

Half a day of this proved a challenge, however. Connie found she hated being carried like this and, although Lars possessed the resilience and strength for it, it got old fast. So they called it a day and when they were back at their Delmarva campsite a few seconds later, they took the rest of the afternoon to brainstorm and began to draw up plans in the dirt for a boat.

They each in their own way assumed that it would be relatively easy. They had tools and the will.

“Question,” said Lars finally.

“Yes, I am taking questions.” She smiled, tucking the stick she was using to create the diagram behind her ear, for all the world like it was a pencil.

“Uh. This is… fascinating, and all. Great job. But do we actually need a boat boat?”

Lars finally wrenched his gaze up from her complicated blueprints in the dirt. The whole thing seemed intimidating and hard, but most importantly, a waste of time. “Or can we just, like, get a log?”

She stared up at him, incredulous look on her face. “A log.”

“Well. Yeah?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You want me to just float on the sea, sitting on a log while we look for this thing. What if it sinks-”

He quickly became frustrated. “We’d hollow it out first, obviously. C’mon. Logs don’t sink anyway. Plus, you’ve got me - I definitely don’t sink! We’ll tie a rope between us or somethin’. Look, I just think you’re overthinking the whole boat thing. We don’t need a massive trawler-”

She smiled again, happy to correct him. “Oh of course not. This is more of a little skipjack.”

“H-how do you even know so much about boats!? Whatever! It’ll take forever - We might as well try building the Sun Incinerator! Dude, can we just hollow out a log? Easy to build, easy for me to tow around the damn sea, and easy to sling through a portal without bein’ destroyed. Right?”

Connie furrowed her brow as she considered his points. “Hm. I guess I can see why they made you captain.”

Lars frowned hard as he watched her come around. “Fine,” she said at length. “Let’s do your thing.”

Over the coming days, they found and felled a suitable tree, long and straight, with the axe they’d pinched from the gem battlefield months and months prior. It was a badass weapon of war, to be sure, and using it for lumberjacking purposes only made whatever the mundane task was at hand seem all the more awesome.

They had over time acquired other tools, however, to make the smoothing and hollowing-out process go a lot simpler and more efficiently, and it didn’t take them long to reveal the canoe that had been waiting inside it for so long.

On the cliffside, yet more seasons rolled past. They experienced the oncoming spring, summer, autumn and around again briefly every morning and night, in between their daily wanderings around the eternally tropical Caribbean Sea.

There were no oars. There was no reason to have them. Lars, barefoot, simply pulled the canoe along by rope as Connie sat inside, both peering into the waters and around them, searching as they went.

They had no use for weekends, so the only days they took off their task was when the sea was particularly rough. One time, Lars had had to pick the entire canoe up with Connie inside and forcibly throw it all, including himself, through a portal to avoid everything being smashed by gigantic waves in the middle of a raging, black storm. They didn’t complain about sitting that day out in the relative safety of their campsite. They even went down to the beach below the cliff, deciding to appreciate the mild seaside experience for once - moreso than usual.

They briefly discussed the idea of portaling to the city and trading for something that would give them a buzz and turn this into a real work vacation, but ultimately they decided against it on the grounds that it would be too easy. That maybe they’d willfully and with arms and eyes wide open fall into a spiraling habit.

An escape from all this.

No, they concluded. Alcohol dependency was the exact last thing they needed while they were stuck here.

So they settled for water instead and whiled away the days until the storm passed.

They didn’t exactly know what they were looking for, but they had an inkling. It was a domed, see-through building - Connie had gleaned that much from Steven, years and years prior. It was will be underwater in the distant future, just off the coast of what would eventually become Hispaniola, according to what little she had gathered from Buddy Budwick’s journal. But nowadays?

Nowadays, she couldn’t say. She didn’t know.

They’d been roaming what would much later become known as the Caribbean Sea for what felt like forever, when finally they found it, by chance, far below them, in the water.

They could even see it, hazy and vague, from above the surface - they could make out the domed ceiling.

“Is that it?” asked Lars, pointing. He had a rope tied around his waist - it connected him to Connie, and another rope also tied around his waist was connected to the prow of the canoe, all in the name of water safety since they couldn’t barter for life jackets in this day and age. Connie shuffled around and leaned over the edge of the canoe.

“Maybe. Hm. If it is, I guess it was just always underwater?” Connie shrugged before smiling widely up at her friend. “Anyway! Target acquired! Do your thing, guy!”

Barely able to contain his excitement, he attempted to yell up a happy portal - but to his surprise, nothing happened.

Confused but still smiling, he tried again and for the second time, no portal swirled into being.

“Huh?” He lost the smile.

Connie frowned. “Lars? What’s wrong?”

“I. I don’t know.” A third time didn’t help - once more, his shout died impotent in the air in front of them, without generating a portal.

“Well. This is embarrassing,” he said as he tested the water below him with a bare foot. As always, it repelled him - keeping him supported rather than letting him submerge, and for the first time it occurred to him that this magical perversion of the laws of physics seemed to extend to his portal power as well. “I guess water really hates me.”

The expression on Connie’s face fell “But. We spent years on this! We made a canoe and came all this way only to be stopped by your complicated relationship with water!?”

He sighed as he stared miserably down at his own reflection. “Thanks, Padparadscha.”

They stared down into it - the moving water below them, the domed structure they’d come all this way for was tantalizingly close and yet so far. Connie grit her teeth.

“I’ll swim down and check it out.”

Lars laughed. He appreciated the joke, but Connie raised an eyebrow at him.

“What’s funny?” she asked as she started taking off the longsleeve that was protecting her from the sun out here, and suddenly he realized she was being serious.

“Uh, no you won’t,” Lars said matter-of-factly. “That sounds dangerous and dumb.”

“What’s dangerous and dumb about it!?” She was undoing her boots, now. “It doesn’t look like it’s too far down.”

“I can’t believe you’re making me explain this! For one, if you get into trouble, there’s no possible way for me to get down there to help you. Also... sharks, much!?”

Connie laughed as she limbered up. “Oh, c’mon. There are way worse things than sharks out there.”

“The- Are you hearing yourself? That plays into my main point even more!”

Lars watched with mounting concern as she stood up in the rocky canoe and undid the rope at her waist - shedding herself of her connection to both Lars and the canoe.

Desperate, he tried to appeal to her once more. “Connie, no. I’m calling a sidebar for real. We’ll call it for today and talk about this back at camp-”

But she was determined. “No sidebar. I’ll be right back.” They’d come all this way, after all.

He looked on helpless as she took a breath and dove from the side of the canoe into the water and swam deep down into a place he couldn’t follow.

Saltwater stinging her wide-open eyes, Connie struck out with her arms and legs and with each stroke she pulled herself further and further down.

It must have been the right place. It was the structure Steven had described once, long ago. Will describe, forevers from now.

The fuzzy building became more and more solid as she approached. The neatly-arranged hourglasses she could see inside it only served to eliminate any remaining doubt that it was the right place.

She made the mistake of laughing out of pure joy, though, and hurriedly changed direction in order to pull herself back up to the surface for some much-needed oxygen.

Lars sat cross-legged on the surface of the sea, keeping a close eye on the depths below him. He saw her approach and moved out of the way as she broke the surface of the water.

She opened her mouth and inhaled deeply, grabbing for Lars’ hand as he offered it. He towed her over to the canoe and helped her climb back inside to crouch as she spent a few moments more catching her breath. Lars watched from where he was standing, bobbing up and down gently on the ripples she’d created.

He squashed down his mixed feelings of annoyance and relief in order to ask, “So. How’d it go?”

“I could see inside. There’s so many hourglasses. And, I think I know which part the entrance is. Let me catch my breath and I’ll-”

“No! I hate this idea!” he spouted loudly in desperation. “We should try warping in again!”

She glared at him as she wrung out her ponytail. “It’s right THERE, man! And guess what - I can reach it!”

“But the warps-”

“Neither of us can use them! Have you already forgotten how much time we wasted on that?”

“I mean, I’m sure I can do it, I’m magic aren’t I? I just- I’ll try harder!”

She gave him a very realistic look. They had spent weeks on that, years ago, and it had resulted in nothing. He knew it too, so he continued desperately trying to spitball ideas. Anything to change his friend’s mind.

“W-well, we could ask one of the gems to take us! We just have to get one alone. Maybe Garnet?” He frowned as he lapsed into thought. “Yeah. She’s chill. She’s sure to listen. She knows how fickle the future can be-”

She eyed him suspiciously. “You don’t really want to ask a gem. You’re just saying that to get me to stop. Also, we don’t even know where they’re based right now! Good luck finding them.”

He waved his arms around emphatically, trying his best to level with her. “Connie, this idea is going to get you killed.”

“I know what I’m doing. Besides, I’ve been a Crystal Gem for years. I outrank you.”

He tensed his fingers. Why was she being so stubborn! “I was a spaceship captain!”

“Was!”

With that, she took a deep breath and dove back down while Lars loudly and explicitly vented his mounting frustrations into an uncaring sunny day.

She quickly realized she was still a bit tired from the first visit to the sea floor - luckily this part of the floor wasn’t that far down, but it was still enough to put a strain on her body and lungs by the time she broke surface again.

And of course, she felt the pressure increase the further down she got. Not for the first time, she wished she had some kind of power besides her own physical strength and determination, but at last after a mountain of effort she made it to the entrance.

The hand-shaped panel was there, waiting. She imagined that it had been waiting centuries for her. For this moment.

There was nothing else for it - she placed her hand upon it and waited for as long as she could, until she could start to feel her lungs burning.

Nothing.

He’d been holding his breath for as long as she’d been submerged, trying to keep track of the seconds as they passed. He had an inkling that people could hold their breath underwater for two minutes. Or was it three?

It definitely wasn’t four, was it?

He jumped violently as she emerged again, not far from him. She gasped deeply for air, and in this moment he realized that even though he hadn’t taken a breath since she had, he was just fine.

Pushing that down, he spun around and held his hands out - she grabbed them and drew deep breaths as she floated there.

“Hey,” she said at last between gulping breaths.

“Hey,” he replied, trying not to lose it.

“There’s a hand panel at the entrance,” she was eventually able to say with relative ease. “It doesn’t wanna work for me.”

He exhaled as patiently as he could. The look on her face told him that this wasn’t over, and he was right.

“Maybe I can smash my way in,” she continued. “Give me my sword.”

He gave her A Look™.

And she sighed deeply, more than able to conclude for herself that her vague plan was terrible.

She was soon re-hydrating from her little ceramic flask in the canoe as they deliberated on the matter, Lars pacing back and forth on the surface of the open sea.

“Maybe...” He exhaled. “Maybe we really do talk to a gem. It doesn’t have to be anyone we already know, right? In fact, maybe it’s safer that way. See if we can get one to help us. Surely-”

“Listen, I know the warp pad was a farce, but maybe you can get me in.”

When he looked absolutely blindsided by this ridiculous statement, she explained. “You’ve got diamond essence, right? Well, diamonds are pretty important. Maybe whatever system is running the place is capable of sensing the, uh, diamond-ness, or something."

He spun on her, frustrated. “What are you gunna do - saw off my hand!? Dude - I can’t go down there! It’s physically impossible!”

He jumped as high as he could and landed hard on his feet on the surface of the sea. All it did was cause the canoe to bob up and down more on the waves it produced. “See?!”

"Calm down, man. Maybe I don’t need your hand. If I went down there with, say, a lock of hair...”

It took some convincing, but she was determined and eventually Lars agreed.

Connie swam back down, making a beeline to the entrance of the facility, her friend’s lock of hair clenched tight in her hand. She somehow managed to weave the hair around her fingers before pressing down upon the hand-shaped panel.

She would have held her breath... if it wasn’t imperative to her survival that she already did so.

To her surprise and disbelief, the panel lit up beneath her hand and she nearly lost the air she was holding in her lungs as the door before her opened up. She figured whatever diamond essence or whatnot lingering in her friends hair was indeed enough to make certain pieces of gem tech to lose their mind - but not others?

But whatever! After striking out with the warp pad and having that aspect of gem civilization closed off to them, she was happy to finally, finally get a win! She didn’t want to question it too closely.

Suddenly, a bout of indecision struck her. This was the ideal result - of course it was - but a fear had sprung forth from the dark recesses of doubt that always lingered in the back of her mind. She thought of Lars, waiting anxiously above her, unable to see her in the murky depths of this place - the state of helpless madness he was sure to drive himself into the longer she stayed down here. She also thought of him, long-lived if not immortal, like Lion.

Him, enduring the endless centuries before him.

Without her.

Of him burying her, cold and still, someday.

Time was pressing - as it always was. She fought the urge to seek air instead, set her jaw and swam inside. The transparent door slid shut behind her - in front of her, another glass wall.

Eyes wide open, trying to keep the panic at bay, she made the decision to believe in the universe for a few solid moments even though her lungs were screaming at her. All her instincts begged for her to swim upward, but she knew that wouldn’t save her. She instead fought against herself to trust in this gem tech, despite the fact that it wasn’t built with her best interests in mind.

She almost collapsed anyway as she realized some unseen system or other had started draining the water from the small enclosure she found herself in. She found her head breaking the surface as the water level dropped and soon she fell to the floor soaking wet, a sobbing mess, choking and gasping to catch her breath as she did.

She noticed the wall in front of her rising and suddenly she had access to the interior of the Sea Shrine.

Making sure she still had Lars’ hair in her possession, she at length picked herself up and took a couple of careful steps forward, into the Sea Shrine proper.

It was dark and there was an atmospheric green haze about the place, due to the algae and such growing on the outside of the window walls. Lining these walls were shelves, upon which sat a myriad of hourglasses in all kinds of shapes and sizes and levels of detail.

The biggest one, much taller and wider than herself, standing alone on the tiled floor, was most obviously out. Steven had told her how little it was, that he could hold it easily in his hand. Her heart panged for him - if only she could just talk to him. If only she could see him, even once...

She did her best.

“Hey stranger.” A voice behind her caused her to turn.

Her brain placed Steven there. He was smiling widely, and she smiled back. Her eyes shone. His smile always made her happy. “Steven...”

“You never call anymore so I came over.” He blushed suddenly. “I-I hope that’s okay!”

“I’m sorry I haven’t called in a while,” she said, smiling slightly less. “It’s just that, well, you’re not even born yet. And phones don’t exist.”

He lowered his eyes and, pursing his lips, exhaled gently through his nose.

“Y’know how it is,” she added as nonchalant as possible, shrugging.

He cast a glance around and seemed surprised to find where they were. “The Sea Shrine? What are you doing here? Also-” Here, he smirked, “What are you wearing?”

“Hide shorts are all the rage these days. Hard to swim in, though.” She smirked back. “The singlet is some kind of plant fibre, like cloth but worse. And the glove-things are just cool. Listen,” she said, “Help me, Steven. Which one is it?”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pink jacket. “So the thing is, uh, I’m not really here...”

Her smile faded slightly, her forehead furrowed. The light in her eyes dimmed. “I. I know that.”

She knew she was only talking to herself.

“But maybe you can still help.”

He smiled. “I’ll try my best,” he promised as he glanced around. “It was small. And cute.”

Connie’s smile faded the rest of the way. “That really describes a lot of these things.”

He frowned and scratched at the back of his head. “Sorry my drawing of it was so bad. I was looking forward to showing you the real thing, but I... had to destroy it instead.”

“Wait, you told me an alternate version of yourself destro-”

“Oh, oh yeah!” He nodded grimly. “Either way, it had to be done. Apparently.”

She snorted. “It’s okay, Steven. All I have to do is pick correctly. I just have to pick the one that you would pick. And I’ll see you again soon.”

Small and cute. Small and cute. She sailed about the room, looking with her eyes, careful not to touch any of them lest it be the wrong one. Her steps echoed through the chamber, every breath she took stood out like lightning against the silence.

Steven stood there, off to the side of the chamber, watching her as she performed her search.

“How are you doing?” he asked suddenly. “How are you getting through this?”

“Me? I’m okay, I suppose.” She shrugged non-committedly. “Oh hey, I met your mom briefly. That was a while ago, now. She looked good. Seemed busy.”

She turned back to see him staring straight at her. Through her.

“But, you didn’t ask about your mom...” she muttered with a sigh. Deciding to level with this apparition, she added, “Steven. I’m not doing so well.”

Steven’s lips tightened, his gaze softened. “Connie-”

“I mean, I’m here now, so things are looking up. But it’s taken so long. It’s been years, Steven. And it’s been so hard. I’m older now. I just hope when I get back, that-” She shuddered as the thought of two very important people pierced her mind like a freshly sharpened blade.

“Will - will my family will still know it’s me?”

She hesitated. Their faces were emblazoned on her brain, now. Every wrinkle, every grey hair they had, their smiles alternating against expressions of worry, for her. She frowned.

“Will they recognize me like this?” she asked the empty room, her voice strained, croaking slightly. “I. I have scars. And I might be a little uh, malnourished. And, oh boy do I cry. A lot. Sometimes, all I do, is cry. And, and will you still...”

Her words caught in her throat. She took this pause to briefly try to arrange her messy, messy thoughts.

“I used to have all these things I wanted to do - graduation, college. I wanted to get into politics, and space... and space politics! I wanted to travel! I wanted to do it all, Steven. All of it... with you. I wasn’t afraid of anything.” He eyes widened. “But now I’m so scared!”

A couple of tears spilled out.

“It was finally, finally peacetime. But here I am, in the past! And I-I’m skulking on my belly around the fringes of the biggest war the Earth has ever seen! Why? I dunno! I’m so confused. We’re so lost, and no one’s looking out for us. Heck, I don’t think anyone would take us seriously much less recognize us even if we could approach them, which we can’t! Because - hellooo! We could ruin all of history!”

She shuddered and held herself as she sobbed.

Steven frowned and took a step towards her, his hands left his pockets and he reached for her. “It might not seem like it right now, but you’re still the same old Connie. I know you are. And you can do this! You have to.”

He smiled, so confident. And she melted.

“Steven, I...” She ran her fingers though her hair. “I should have just asked you out. I was going to see if you wanted to but, w-when I kissed you, I got all bashful-”

She trailed off, cheeks burning as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, once again. She crammed the bases of her thumbs into her eyes and rubbed them hard, as if that could ever help.

“I’m going insane. I just need to focus. Lars is up there. He’s probably thinking I’m dead already.”

“Oh, Lars!” said Steven, perking back up. “How is he?”

“Most likely freaking out.” She sighed. “He’s so annoying, with that. Doesn’t he know I’m trying to save him!? Ugh.”

Inhaling deeply, she took a long moment to center herself. When she opened her eyes again, she knew she had to make a decision eventually. She cast around once more as Steven stood to the side. There were so many options, scattered everywhere, and the burden of this decision was hers and hers alone.

Suddenly, decisively, she chose. She plucked it up quickly, as if hoping the room wouldn’t notice. It was still, as silent as ever. She locked eyes with the visage of Steven and they exchanged wide smiles.

“I. I don’t believe it,” she said as she stared at the small, triangular hourglass in her hand. “I chose correctly!?”

As soon as she finished talking, the room began to rumble. Her pupils constricted as she realized she’d spoken too soon. A second later, high above her, the topmost glass panel in the center of the dome just straight up disappeared.

“Oh no,” she spluttered as she stumbled back out of shock.

Steven’s face was also a mask of surprise. She imagined him doing his best to stay strong for her, though, and he turned back to look at her. “Connie, listen to me - you are going to be okay!”

How!? Tears and sweat poured down her face, but not nearly as hard as the ocean crashing in through the ceiling.

“No! I failed! I-”

“CONNIE!” Steven was screaming. “Grab everything you can!”

It was a solid plan. Connie dropped the hourglass she’d been holding - it was obviously the wrong one - and made a mad dash to the nearest small, ‘cute’ hourglass she could find, grabbed it, and cast about for the next one, and the next - anything she could imagine Steven going for. Her progress gradually became more and more slowed down by the raising water level, which was starting to lap at her hips now.

Despite that, she started thinking that maybe she had enough time to grab them all, but then suddenly more panels disappeared.

A roaring cacophony of water spilled through - and there was Steven, in the middle of it all.

“STEVEN,” she screamed, shuffling her load around and tucking it under her other arm as she tried her best to make a dash for him - nearly impossible in the rising water. “GRAB MY HAND!”

He smiled at her. A sad, yet hopeful smile. “Connie. You know I’m not here, right?”

Her eyes budded anew with tears as the waves crashed around him, wiping him out.

He was gone. And for the first time since he’d appeared, it truly hit her that he’d never actually been there. She took a breath as the wave crashed over her head, too.

“Y-yeah, I know,” she said once it settled and she was able to break the surface again for air, her words tumbling out of her as a choked whisper as she found her feet could no longer connect the floor and she found herself instead bullied by the turbulence of the water, tears streaming from her face. The waters continued to rise rapidly around her as she clutched her precious load into her torso - she did the best that she could with one arm. She needed the other free to be able to tread the water.

She tried to keep her breathing calm and tempered as the water level rose further and further toward the domed ceiling. She kept an eye on where the hole was, in the top center of the dome. As soon as the chamber filled up, she’d be able to swim through it, she figured. She just needed to squash the rising terror and encroaching feelings of claustrophobia until that point.

“I’ll see you soon, Steven,” she told herself, barely audible around the raging waters, before at last taking her final breath.

Every inch of his clothing was soaked through as he pressed himself against the surface of the sea, as close as he could get. He could tell something was happening down there - something important. Something terrible.

Lars’ morbid curiosity quickly turned to helpless fear as he noticed the water seeming to quietly implode around him - like a kind of mild earthquake, but with water. Escaping bubbles from below blubbed and globbed upwards to plop on the surface around him.

In the midst of a panic, he tried his best to dig. He found that if he tried, he could stick as much as most of a hand in, but whatever he scraped away instantly filled back in and he kicked himself mentally. How stupid was he? That was never going to work.

All he could do was watch out for her, and wait. And mentally attempt to prepare himself for whatever the aftermath could be.

He tried not to let his imagination run too wild.

Tens of yards away, after a long and breathless moment of interminable waiting, the surface of the water broke violently like a window in a thunderstorm. He snapped his head around - she was there, obviously exhausted and struggling with one arm, as though clinging at something precious with the other. She struggled to yell out for him but nothing came out - a second later, he dropped from a portal onto his knees beside her.

It was like she was bouncing in the water, kicking aimlessly as she tried to keep her head above the surface. But she was weighed down, compromised. He missed her the first time, and she bobbed back under - forever out of his reach.

But only for a moment. One more fatigued kick with her legs later, she resurfaced and he lurched to grab her with both hands by the hair and the top of her head. Chest heaving with emotions, he pulled her up, grabbing desperately for more and more of her as he hauled her upper body further and further out of the water, onto his folded knees.

He was here, he was real.

Relieved beyond words, she clung to him as best as she could as he tightly held her there with him. The armload of hourglasses she’d managed to escape with jabbed them both viciously as she coughed up saltwater and cried loud and ugly, all in between big sobbing gasps of ragged breath.

He couldnt help but begin crying too.

Around them, the sunny oceanscape continued not to care.

Later on, Connie walked over to her usual place, opposite Lars at the firepit. He was poking at the fire glumly with what had long ago been a gem-crafted spear which they had found, discarded on some ancient battlefield or other. He was sitting cross-legged on the dirt, his chin resting on his fist.

They’d spent the afternoon messing around with what Connie had managed to escape the drowning Sea Shrine with.

Needless to say, not a one of them appeared to be the correct one.

Connie had wanted to throw the useless things into the ocean and be done with them, but Lars convinced her that maybe they'd be useful someday. The armful of tiny hourglasses therefore ended up in a burlap sack, stowed away in his head.

It was good enough for Connie. She never wanted to see them again.

She dropped down to her bottom and tucked her legs in front of her. On her lap, she placed the little stone star she’d been working on. Lately she’d been attempting to smooth its surface - it was a slow process without sandpaper on hand. She instead had another rock, a smooth one that she’d been slowly grinding it down with.

There was silence for a long while, save for the crackling of cooking meat, the low roar of the fire, the smoothing of stone.

Eventually, Connie piped up, her voice small on the air between them. “Lars?”

“Yeah?”

“I know I don't deserve it. But, I... I hope you can forgive me someday.”

He moved the hand out from under his chin to wave it briefly as if trying to actively dispel this notion of hers. “You don’t need forgiven. Don’t be weird.”

She blushed. “But I. I ignored you. And I messed it all up. And the shrine won’t reform again for a hundred years, so we’re actually screwed for real, now.”

He eyed her evenly. He couldn’t have her breaking down on him over this. “Fact about you? You tried. And you were badass brave about it." He hesitated before admitting, "I admire that, you know. It’s not like you gave up when you first picked wrong, either - you grabbed like a ton of them!”

Connie watched, tears pricking the corners of her already salt-stung eyes as he spoke.

“We wouldn’t have had a chance if you didn’t,” he continued. “Besides, I woulda messed it up, too - I can’t even pick matching socks out of my drawer.”

“But-”

He shook his head. “We didn’t even have a clear description of the thing! Small? Cute!? That describes literally everything, especially coming from Steven.” He sunk at the shoulders. “Forgiveness? Whatever. You don’t deserve to feel guilty about it. You tried. And you tried your best.”

She lowered her eyes back down to the stone shape in her hands, flicking in the firelight. She couldn’t bring herself to smile at his words. “Thanks, Lars,” she said at last, without really feeling it.

After a moment, he spoke again. “Listen. Connie, I’ve been thinking.”

She glanced back up. “Hmm?”

“You should go find a family.”

She locked her eyes on him, still bleary and red from the saltwater they'd been exposed to, but functioning well enough. “What are these words from your face, now?”

He finally raised his up from the fire to regard her. “I mean, you’re getting older-”

Instead of getting mad, she pointed out something that wasn't too obvious. “So are you!”

“I’m. Huh?”

“Actually, If I’m keeping track of the days right, I guess you’re twenty-five, now.” she smiled. “And I’m twenty.”

Lars wore a face of shock. “No! What!? We’re that old?”

“Yeah. Deal with it.”

Lars looked shook, but comically so. Connie laughed, and he shortly joined in.

The strange levity of the moment soon collapsed swiftly under the crushing weight of the very thing it was designed to distract them from and their laughter died uncomfortably in the space between them. Lars poked at the fire once more, sending sparks and ash specks aloft by the rising warm air.

“I guess I just don’t wanna think about how you’re getting older,” he said. He blinked at the flames, his face looking the opposite of laughter. “Or how I’m... not.”

He'd had plenty of time to stare down at his reflection in the water as he'd waited for her.

“Not really,” he added quietly.

Connie shifted uneasily where she sat and dropped her stinging eyes back down to the stone star in her lap.

The aging woman and the unaging man sat in awkward silence for the remainder of the evening.