Chapter Text
Steven woke slowly. Usually he didn’t sleep a lot, worrying his dad, but when he did, he slept really deeply and long (worrying both dad and Pearl). So he wasn’t particularly surprised to find himself in a new location. Pearl often moved him when he fell asleep somewhere, usually to his bed, but he sometimes found himself tucked away at another place if she needed to complete a task and didn’t want to leave him alone.
What was surprising was that his bed was moving slightly and when he opened his eyes, he saw that he was laying on soft white strands of hair. He moved his head slightly, only to see that he was actually resting on the loop of hair belonging to the gigantic blue diamond.
It was surprisingly comfortable and he blinked in astonishment.
A quick glance told him that surroundings were now a cool blue. Giant pillars made of a dark blue obsidian lined, what he could only assume was, a throne room. Water fell down the ceiling collecting in pools alongside a clear glass path. Geometrical patterns were etched in the glass and curves of green obsidian decorating the edges. When the light fell through anything, the whole place would look ethereal.
He was in such awe of the space that he startled when he looked up directly into a pair of blue with diamond-pupil eyes. The gigantic gem quickly pushed her fingers against him, preventing him from falling and a soft smile fell on her face.
“Pink! It is good to see you awake.” She held out her hand for him to step on and he tentatively did so while slightly rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Hi.”
His voice was quiet, but the diamond seemed happy regardless. “Uhm… Where are we?” A giggle escaped blue lips and her other hand petted him gently on his poofy hair. “We are currently in my throne room.”
Her arm swept wide. “This is where I hold court regarding Homeworld matters and where I do most of my work.” He couldn’t hide his awe at the room. With the sweep of her arm, somehow fountains had sprung up, and where the water reflected the light, the room was bathed in otherworldly light.
It was truly beautiful and he could see the proud smirk appear on Blue Diamond’s face. It was only when she let her arm rest on the nearby armrest that he realised that she was sitting on a gigantic throne and that the blue pearl was standing next to the seat.
She gently put him in her lap and he couldn’t help but snuggle closer to the giant being. Said gem led out a coo and he looked up at her confused. “Nothing sweetheart. You just brought up some good memories.”
At the mention of memories, he got even more confused. Why would she have memories of him? As a matter of fact, why was he still here and not in a prison? Or worse? Why was he being treated so fondly? Steven however knew that the only way to find out was to ask, so he gathered up all his courage.
“M-miss Blue Diamond, what exactly is going to happen to me?” The gem looked down at him now with confusion in her eyes, before she mumbled something under her breath. He could only catch the word ‘rejuvenated’. Maybe it was related to the rejuvenator thingy that Yellow Diamond had shown him?
She began to pet him again and he let himself be comforted. “You are going to be just fine Pink. Yellow and I will make sure of it.” That sounded vaguely threatening, especially as he just barely caught something dangerous in her eyes, but it was gone too quickly, so he may have imagined it.
He however had a more important question to ask. “But why?” A fond smile graced her lips and she picked him up again to give him a kiss as well as point towards his gem. “Do you know what gem that is?” His confusion returned with full force. “A rose quartz?”
He felt himself blush as the white-haired woman shook her head. “It is a pink diamond.” Somehow his thoughts became even more muddled. “But my mom shattered her? Didn’t she?” The blue being’s eyes became impossibly sad. “Sadly, we don’t have all the information about what happened, but I can assure you of one thing.”
Her eyes focused on him and he was taken a little aback at the intensity. “Nobody is going to be even let close enough to harm a single hair on top of your head. You are going to be safe Pink.” In an effort to his blush, unsuccessfully, he voiced the first thought that popped into his head.
“Wait! I have a pink diamond, so that’s why you call me Pink!” Another fond chuckle left her lips. “That is exactly why and it also why you get to call me Blue.” He got an additional kiss for his comment and was brought back towards her lap.
He slowly let the situation sink in as he once more snuggled into her lap, letting the blue fabric slightly envelop him. His thoughts began to calm now that he was assured that he was in fact safe and nothing was going to happen to him. If anything, Blue seemed to really like him. She has the same look in her eyes that Pearl and dad always have. She also had the tendency to occasionally stroke the top of his head and look down as if checking if he was still there.
Sitting in her lap and holding enjoying the cuddle he could now remember that Yellow Diamond had said that someone was going to pick up Pearl. This led to relief flooding into his body and he relaxed even more. He had no doubt that Pearl would know what to do. So, he could also put any worries regarding his family or the future aside.
None that all his worries were sated, this left him unsurprisingly bored. He didn’t have anything to do except cuddle and while it had done a great job at uplifting him, it was the most exciting activity. So the only thing left to do was look around.
The blue pearl was currently looking at a holo-screen while her fingers moved around busily at what he thought was maybe a holo-keyboard? He shook his thoughts away and upon a second look around the stunning room he had enough of that sight as well. Said second look was around half an hour long, but that didn’t matter!
So the final thing to look at in the room was the being whose lap he was sitting in. When he looked up he saw that she was also immersed in what seemed to be more than a dozen of holo-screens. He squinted at one of them and realised that all of them were written in Gem Glyph… Which was kind of obvious as they were on Homeworld.
As he observed the screens, he was silently glad that he had learned the language, but it didn’t help a lot as he understood very little of it. No matter what screen he looked at he just couldn’t fathom what it was about.
One of the screens he could maybe get what they were getting at, but he still didn’t quite comprehend it. He thought that some of the words may be names, but he didn’t know exactly what they meant. He did get the numbers and what the columns represented, so he just watched them change.
Though he was getting really curious about its purpose. The problem was that if he wanted to know, he would have to ask. And while Blue was being really nice right now, he didn’t know if it would last. But he really wanted to know…
Or at least stop feeling bored.
…
He just had to gather some courage first. That’s all.
…
“Soooooo….. Blue? What are you doing?” He pointed towards the screen he had been looking at. Meanwhile Blue looked down on him with shock as if she had forgotten he was there.
“I-I’m currently checking and routing resources.” He felt his head tilt sideways. “For what?” She blinked and mumbled something again about memories, but she did give him a tentative smile.
“Do you know what we diamonds do?” Now it was his turn to blink up at her, before shaking his head. “They are like kings and queens, right?” At her confused look he elaborated. “They’re the leaders?” A finger gently patted his poofy hair. “That is correct. Us diamonds are the leaders of Gemkind.”
She seemed to consider something and a new screen appeared before her, on it was a picture of a star. To get a better view of the screen he scrambled upwards, only for blue to lift him towards her hair loop again with a soothing chuckle. “Now Pink, to really understand why we are the leaders, you should know the origins of Gems.”
He leaned forward excitedly. “White Diamond was the first of us. She emerged from a white hypergiant star.” At his confusion she elaborated. “Some hypergiant stars are so massive that it could fit about 10 billion of your Earth stars.” His eyes widened. “One day the star suddenly collapsed causing a hypernova and instead of forming a supermassive blackhole, White Diamond emerged.” She laughed openly at his wide eyes and the screen changed. A white figure with spiky hair stood amongst small figures.
“She then found this planet, which we call Homeworld and began creating the very first Gems. As the creator she oversaw everything. From gem-production to civil conflict, however eventually her people grew so fast that she began to create new gems to for example keep order, settle disputes and lead innovation. She began to delegate these tasks to the corresponding Gems specifically created for the tasks. For example, an Agate to lead a group of soldiers.”
Steven’s eyes could barely keep up as the images flashed across the screen, but a feeling of awe settled in his gut. “This led her to having more time for important tasks and bigger decisions, and yet her people grew even bigger. So while the gems expanded into space, she gave the order to look for more supermassive stars under specific conditions. She knew she could not lead her gems by herself for much longer, so she decided to create other diamonds. Her Gems found three stars across large swathes of time. First a yellow one, then a blue one, and long after that a red hypergiant.”
The screen changed to a photograph and he couldn’t hide his astonishment. The stars were absolutely beautiful. “Yellow was the first to emerge from her star and she quickly took over the military as well as development. Then I emerged and I found myself more diplomatic than my counterparts. I typically handle diplomatic issues, justice as well as inter-colonial connections, such as resource allotment. This left White to focus on domestic affairs. There is of course always overlap, but that is our main focus.”
Steven stared for a few more seconds at the screen, before turning his head upwards. He felt confused and sad. “You said that the last star was red.” He said it as a statement, but the question in it was obvious and Blue’s face become inexplicably sad, and began to hold him gently. “We feared for the red star actually. It was the last one to be injected and all of us were excited for you to join us. However red stars are usually already at the end of their life-cycle and problems soon arose from this. It was having multiple giant eruptions and began expelling large amounts of mass. We feared that the star would collapse into a blackhole without the hypernova and thus ceasing your existence.”
She hugged him tighter. “The three of us began to discuss the situation in depth and we made million upon billions of simulations. We consulted all of our sapphires and none of them had good news. So we decided that we were going to trigger a hypernova.” Blue paused in her story and he began to feel the inexplicable heaviness that her words carried. “It was a risk, but it was the only thing that could help you survive. All of us watched the hypernova and every gem celebrated your emergence.” She held hum up to her eye. “You, Pink, are the greatest miracle that we created.”
He blushed.