Wendigo (Steven Universe Fanfic)

Chapter Two: Lost Cause

The next morning, the gems began their desperate attempt to track down Sapphire.  The whole world was near dumbfounded by the fliers with the strange looking girl.  Any town that was near a warp pad was subject to having fliers plastered all over lampposts and street corners, as well as  intense interrogations from the Crystal Gems.  Although Steven was by far the best at this, it didn't stop the others from trying.  Pearl was nowhere near a close second, as she wasn't very good at talking to humans at all, but she did give a decent description of Sapphire's personality.  Amethyst was a little to vague, her speech was parted with quite a few unsure hums and "I think she likes this, and I know she loves this."  While Ruby, bless her heart, couldn't say a single thing about Sapphire without sounding like a poor kid who lost her first crush.  Actually, she was told countless times, "It's over for ya' kid, let her go," and "I'm so sorry for your loss, but things happen."  

They stopped in Spain for a quick lunch, which was primarily enjoyed by Steven and always ravenous Amethyst.  Ruby, however, had no interest in stopping.  She continued to march through the town shoving the flier in people's faces, sometimes they burned a little in her hands, and begged them to tell her if they've seen anything like Sapphire around anywhere, but as hope dwindled, she grew more and more frustrated more and more frustrated with every response.  She couldn't take this, it made her want to find some way up to Home-world just so she could be captured, and possibly shattered, but she didn't.  She continued to question the townsfolk until Steven found her sobbing by a statue of a man on a horse.

"Hey Ruby," he smiled awkwardly,"we... we found out that you've managed to finish up this whole town, and we're about to head to the next place on the list, which is in Russia."

Ruby sat up a little, but didn't even look at him, instead she stared at her own reflection in the mirror like water that surrounded the statue.  Her eyes were sullen, reddened from tears, and her lip quivered.  Perhaps those people were right, maybe Sapphire had indeed left her forever, never to be seen again.  If Sapphire were there, she would have wrapped her arms around Ruby's neck in a comforting, cool embrace and nuzzled her shoulder.  She would have sang that all too familiar tune, and kissed Ruby's cheek swearing it was going to be okay.   She wanted the blue gem's comfort right then and there, the thought only made her more irritated, any tears she shed immediately evaporated from her cheeks.  They just stayed there for a while, until Amethyst finally spoke, rather than her typical sassy comments, she was sullen.

She cuffed the back of Ruby's head gently, "Hey, we'll find her soon Rubes."

Ruby glared up at her irritated, she was no better than the townsfolk with their petty talk about letting it go and finding someone else.  Ruby felt another wave of sorrow coming over her when until Steven spoke as he were reading her mind.

"And if we don't find her this time, we can always try again," the boy yawned loudly, "even if it is a lot of work.  It's kind of fun to see the world."

Pearl looked as if she wanted to retort, but took one look at Ruby's miserable face and nodded in agreement, "But we are defiantly going to need more fliers."

After restocking the fliers they set back to work, but still found nothing that was of any importance.  At one point they got lead to the house of a poor albino girl who's parents were quite confused as to why anyone would be looking for their daughter.  The gems got chased out of that town with pitchforks and cops.  They were forced to abandon that town and move on the next, and the next, and the next with no luck.  As they made their way back to the warp pad from the last town they visited Ruby hoped that this was all for nothing.  She hoped that Sapphire was just back in the temple waiting for them to return from this silly quest, but her heart broke a little more when her love was nowhere to be found in the temple.  

She couldn't help but feel helpless, like a lost dog who's owner had left never to return.  The thought that there was no sign of Sapphire at all was just too much for her to take, but Steven insisted that they all take a few days back at home to rest.  This only made Ruby feel even more helpless.  She started to question everything, was it worth the trouble, surely Sapphire will just come back when she feels like it, when she's calmed herself back down again.  But it never took this long before, which is what scared Ruby the most.  The whole "Rose Quartz was really Pink Diamond" thing did upset Ruby a little, but she still helped them escape from Home-world, and she certainly didn't lead like a diamond, so Ruby wasn't all too worried.  Sapphire had been the one to overreact, yelling at Ruby, running away, and being gone for so long.  There were no doubts in the red girl's mind that what Sapphire needed was a chance to talk this out, maybe they could reach an agreement, but if she was going to act the way she did then she did need some space.  It just wasn't like her.

Ruby sat down on the couch and picked up one of the few left over fliers and stared at her drawing of Sapphire.  It was nowhere near perfect, but it was Sapphire so it was, Ruby couldn't shake of the thought that she was out there somewhere,  the question was where.  She had no idea how to answer this question and that only drove her even more crazy.  She hopped to her feet an started to nervously pace the floor until the floor boards started to singe so, she had to walk out side.   The air was damp and warm, but it was more heated around Ruby.  It didn't seem like things could get much worse when an all to familliar and aboxious voice cut through the air.

"Hey you!  Yeah you, little red gem lady!"