Chapter Text
Spinel skipped lightly along the silent halls in the Diamond Palace. Though her life had changed (and HOW) in the past year since coming to terms with Pink's new form in Steven, and with the Diamonds coming to *her* of all gems for attention, she was genuinely happy for the first time. Before the Big Long Wait, she had a purpose certainly, but she didn't know what things like "catharsis" or "contentment" meant, or any of the other C-words she'd learned in the past year. But she was happy, and she wasn't alone any more. This is why she chose to skip down the hall today.
Two of White Diamond's Amethyst guards standing outside the doors of the throne room caught her eye, and she moved towards them. "Hiya Amethysts!" she called, waving at them enthusiastically from across the hall. Waving back with a cautious smile, the closest one turned to her friend and chuckled about something. Bouncing over to them, she turned around towards them, keeping her hands behind her back as she leaned in to stare at them. "Watcha guys doin here? Holding the wall up?" Chuckling again, the amethyst to her right shook her head, smiling back at her. "Nah the walls are fine, Spinel. Last time I had to hold one up was at Yellow's place a few decades back after it caught Yellow singing to herself and got reprimanded for eavesdropping. We're here for White, but I'm not sure why. Never asked too many questions, so doesn't bother me."
Curious, she looked through the gap between the wall and the door to the throne room, which had been left ajar. Leaning back in her throne at the top was White Diamond, who had one of her giant legs crossed over the other, leaving her dress to spill down to the floor. How Pink ever managed to sit on the throne without being covered was a question Spinel had been meaning to ask Blue next time she saw her.
White wasn't smiling, or even looking at anything in particular in the empty room, Spinel saw as she cautiously walked into the vast room. White looked entirely absorbed in her thoughts as the stared blankly at nothing, and didn't move at all. She didn't even notice me coming in. Is she ok? Spinel thought to herself, walking over, suddenly concerned. While Blue was easy enough to make laugh since she asked for Spinel's company the most, and though Yellow could be found easily working in the same places at the same times, she was opening up more that she wasn't throwing herself wholesale into her work any more, and allowed Spinel's interruptions as long as she was alone.
White had always kept to herself, except when spending time with Blue and Yellow. Both of them, though she thought to herself after continuing to walk towards White. They never meet with her alone.
"H-hey there, White! How's it going?" She said as she waved a little nervously at White Diamond. A few seconds passed until White finally blinked, and turned to her, expressionless still. "Spinel. I was just thinking about you." White said absentmindedly. Blinking again as if remembering that she wasn't alone, White sat up slightly straighter, and smiled as she folded her arms into her lap, uncrossing her legs as she leaned in slightly to turn her gaze down at Spinel, still lighting up the room with her bright, pale glow.
"Aw shucks; just good stuff I hope. What's up?" Spinel played looking bashful, looking back up at White's reaction. Several awkward seconds ticked by, till White blinked her massive eyes again, registering conversation and responding out of sync. "Recently Blue and Yellow mentioned that I should try getting out of my Head more when I'm not working. Processing data records and logs through the ship was more efficient, but it feels better to be more involved with them. Why don't you have a seat?" A block manifested itself underneath Spinel as she sat down, attentive.
"You see, I've been gone so long that most of my colonies became self-sufficient. The Morganites and Sapphires, the Emeralds and Chalcedonies, even the Beryls had gone on to do their jobs faithfully for aeons without even a word from their Diamond. Did you know what happened when I called them for the first time in 7000 years?" she asked rhetorically. Spinel respectfully shook her head in the negative.
White's smile fell. "I had to wait on them to receive it. For nearly a half hour until a Morganite opened the line, and stammered out something vaguely resembling an apology. Apparently, the room used for the Diamond Line with Homeworld had been abandoned for such a long period of time, that a nearby river had worn the surrounding stone down after a few years of heavy flooding and collapsed nearly half the building. They didn't repair it." Spinel's mouth hung open, utterly taken aback.
"Wh-what? Didn't they send reports back or somethin'? Why wouldn't they care about something so important if they were in your court? That's...wow, jeez." Spinel felt her hand on her mouth, disturbed.
White sat back, lowering her eyelids as her expression fell further. "The Morganite stammered out another apology off to me that I didn't hear, but I distinctly remember what she told me next. She told me that because I had been silent for as long as I had, the local sapphires had taken it upon themselves to organize a council together of nobles from my court on their planet to run operations.
"Yellow had assigned a few Chalcedonies and Zircons to oversee quota demands, but the wasn't a single gem from the first era there. None of the gems I had assigned originally to administer the colony still existed at their last postings. Do you know why this is significant?" Spinel paused, realizing an answer was actually expected of her. She gulped before seizing on an answer her mind offered up to her. "B-because it means that they reassigned themselves without permission from any of the Diamonds? Why would they do that?"
White stared at Spinel blankly for almost a full minute this time, utterly expressionless before blinking again. Spinel shifted on her seat, dramatically more uncomfortable. "You see," White began slowly, almost apprehensive. "The sapphires advised their Morganite all at once that they had a vision. They saw a decrepit colony where every gem was waiting at their last assignment, mindlessly continuing it with the expectation of another order, or new input when nothing would come.
"They told the Morganite and the others assembled that it fell on the local planetary leaders and governors to administer the colony as best they saw fit until told otherwise by myself, or one of the other diamonds.
"They acted accordingly, but correctly. I had been absent. The Authority hadn't abandoned them, but they didn't need us because they never reported any issues. No environmental catastrophes, no resource shortfalls. Every report filed was done perfectly consistent with quota demands, existing laws, and updated periodically. This was done on six of my colonies, where the sapphires absolved the need of any direct input from homeworld because their bureaucracies ran flawlessly. But there was something dreadfully wrong with all of them, Spinel." White leaned in, raising her hands to her chin as she crossed them thoughtfully as she stared down at Spinel intensely.
Spinel was confused, and felt oddly sick as White paused before continuing with her story. "I mentioned that all the first era gems I had assigned there were missing from their original posts. I requisitioned transfer logs over from Yellow, and I found that..." White's voice trailed off as she blinked slowly again, pausing just a bit too long, dragging the note out into awkwardness before continuing.
"I found that each of them had been reassigned to another one of the six colonies. Repeatedly. Each one was logged to have been there for several years at a time and cycled around. Reports from each of them did not contradict themselves, but it is an impossibility for the same gem to be assigned in two places at once, and exist in neither. Yellow was enraged when I brought it up to her, and she has every right to since they slipped this past HER. She told six Emeralds and Chalcedonies to look into this immediately as it was a crisis that so many cornerstone officials had simply vanished. I received their report with her earlier after four months of waiting while we pieced together what happened."
"What did they find? What happened to all the missing gems?" Spinel said anxiously, now worried more than frightened. White blinked several times now, remaining completely still. Ok, something is definitely wrong with her, Spinel decided to herself.
"White, what happened? Are you ok? What's wr-" A violent twitch on White's right eye made Spinel jump back, as it looked almost like her face had glitched. Then it did.
White Diamond dug her nails into the metal of her throne, her furious grip twisting the metal loudly as it dawned on Spinel that what she was seeing was genuine, blind fury that White could barely process, let alone express in her outward form.
"They. were still. Gone. The Emeralds interrogated those in charge, and those whose positions were held by the missing. The Chalcedonies scanned records, and found absolutely NOTHING!" The last word punctuated so loudly that it shook the room. Glancing back, Spinel noticed the Amethysts were nowhere to be seen.
White continued, with her brilliant form twitching and vibrating as she sought to contain and reconcile her outrage. "They documented EVERYTHING. Every date. Every assignment and action checked off and queued properly. But they were missing all the same. A Morganite who was said to be in charge of one of the colonies...didn't exist at all.
She was completely fabricated from documents that she herself wrote and had been verified in triplicated by forty-seven other Chalcedonies and Zircons who had collectively sworn they saw her.
"She could not be found. A governor of the third oldest colony in the entire Gem empire didn't exist.
"Everything was confirmed with every official to have been documented correctly, and there were even recordings of this individual during events, opening new districts, even overseeing the introduction for four new gem lines during the Inclement era.
"Yellow ordered this individual to be found, and the head of planetary security for the past three and half THOUSAND years came up to her, holding air, and told her straight to her face that she had found the missing Morganite. Every other native of that colony that was present saw her, but none of the others did. I almost shattered them on the spot for mocking us. Yellow...Yellow..." Spinel stood up, alarmed as White closed her eyes, and focused on stabilizing herself. When she opened her eyes again, she had raised her hand to cover her mouth, covering disgust. A tear fell from her right eye, and promptly reversed itself back into her eye.
"Yellow asked very calmly why this particular Beryl had thought it worthwhile to stage such a large joke in the middle of a serious investigation. The Beryl stepped back, looked to where she was holding, and repeated that the she was holding the Morganite here, and she would explain herself. There was a crowd there, Spinel. Hundreds of gems, and do you know how they reacted? They laughed. They thought YELLOW was making a joke.
"They acted as if the governor was right there, responding to silent, invisible cues. We thought we had finally lost our minds. Our attendants assured us before we were rebuked again and lost our temper that they were not seeing this individual either, and were equally confused. A Peridot we brought with us for appraising technical issues suggested that the population might have been tampered with in some way, or had their perceptions overwritten by some illusion or technology."
Spinel cautiously sat down, and watched White Diamond maintain her composure despite the rage dripping from her words. Reminding herself that she was with a friend who wouldn't hurt her if she could help it, she spoke up. "That would be a logical assumption, especially from a Peridot. What happened next?"
White shivered, with her eye twitching slightly. She remained silent and glared at the entrance to the hall. Spinel gulped again, and spoke up, trying to help this time. "Is...there anything I can get for you to help? You're upset and...well, I'm worried for you." Taken aback, White sat up and inhaled sharply, looking down at her as she blinked rapidly a few times, muttered something to herself, and cleared her voice as she settled down as quickly as she could manage.
"No...no thank you. I'm sorry, but this is very upsetting to me, and I need to be more considerate of how I'm acting. It's from being alone so long...I know you understand. It's why I appreciate you being here to listen, dear."
Cautiously, Spinel walked over to White, and laid a supportive hand on the giant Diamond's foot despite barely coming up past her ankle. Smiling generously, White returned the gesture by reaching down and gently patting her on the head with two fingers. Giggling from relief, Spinel hopped back to her seat.
"If you're suuure it's ok, you can keep telling me about this, it's alright."
White sighed, and sank into her throne, resting an elbow on the left arm of the throne and covered her face before rising up again to continue.
"Naturally Yellow had already been open to this idea since it had all been off since the beginning, but again...I had been gone for such a long time. I hadn't gone off-world since before you existed, even. Yellow was helping keep me in my depth, even though neither of us would have said it openly to each other.
"We went went back to her ship and called a few more of the bewildered officials back with us to have them tested. Nothing was wrong with them physically. The Peridots were beginning to get frustrated as they so easily do, so I suggested that the particular Beryl from earlier be cross-examined by one of our Zircons.
"Old 7, as he is named by his peers, was a first-era gem, and is one of the finest legal minds and philosophers in the Empire, and likely the finest cut of Zircon to ever exist. I requested him personally on this investigation, you see." White had shifted back to a more comfortable position, and her gaze turned to the entrance, where several more Amethysts had gathered, and were talking to each other attentively.
"Seven, being one of the few pure white Zircons left, then asked the Beryl when the first time she met this Morganite was. The Beryl looked at her and said that she was absolutely certain that it was era Two at exactly 478 cycles prior, on the eighth Apex during the Circumpolar Advent. She was assigned there after serving on Homeworld faithfully for 222 cycles as and adjunct administrator for an Axial cut Sapphire of Blue Diamond's court. Blue confirmed this immediately after we asked her remotely.
"Seven told her in no uncertain terms that this was a joke, a test, or anything other than a serious investigation directly being run by the Authority. The Beryl asked for that to be repeated, and Yellow stood up and barked-erm, forcefully stated that the Zircon present was of adequate volume, and someone in the Beryl's position obviously should not have an issue with understanding such a straightforward statement."
White paused, and looked down at Spinel, suddenly looking more concerned. "I know you're here to listen dear, but this subject would be considered to be a bit technical to most, even if it is bizarre. Are you alright so far?" It was Spinel's turn to blink this time.
"I uh...hehe I'm actually ok. I'd done a lot of technical reading in...in the garden, of all places. Ooof, ok gimme a minute here." Spinel shivered a bit, remembering her least favorite place in the universe.
"I didn't just...wait. There's an archival repository there for reading since it's technically a leisure palace, so if I couldn't stand...standing...I'd read. Mostly dry technical manuals written by peridots, law written by Zircons, blah blah blah regulation this or record 7854489 that, but it was all there. I didn't...I couldn't leave. She told me to wait, and well...I was made for her. I had nowhere else to go.
"I learned a lot, and it helped me stay." White had raised an eyebrow, and nodded approvingly.
"Commendable I admit, but from what I have come to understand, it was unnecessarily cruel to you. Starlight...Pink, actually didn't take very good care of anything we gave her. It was what she made that she ended up-oh dear, now I'm doing it again." White laughed, in her reflexive, practiced, and still utterly flat tone, then sighed again, circumspect.
"You are here as my...as my friend. I suppose we should have considered the value in that before making only one of you."
"You...what? Only one?" Spinel repeated.
"Yes. You are unique." said White. "While Amethysts and others certainly have the personality for guarding minds and hearts as well as anywhere they're assigned in a professional capacity, you were designed specifically for Pink. Yellow and I had considered making another Spinel for Blue, but we agreed it would simply remind her of Pink too much, and dropped the matter. We lost track of you after the rebellion, and since you never came home of your own accord, assumed you were lost with Starlight when she, ah...left."
Spinel swallowed the kernel of anger that had risen back down her throat. "Wasn't there anyone at all? Anyone who needed another Spinel?" White paused, and closed her eyes as she smiled. "Looking back on myself, I certainly could have done better with you from the beginning." Spinel blushed.
"Aw shucks boss; that's sweet, thanks." With both of them laughing now, an Amethyst strolled into the room, and cleared her throat to get their attention. "Yellow Diamond requests to come see you, White Diamond." the unusually tall Amethyst stated formally. White paused again, almost frozen as the seconds ticked by without a response. Finally, she tilted her head and smiled. "Certainly; she is bidden to come see me in the throne room. Tell her that Spinel is here as well, we have a story to fill her in on."
Yellow Diamond marched up the steps to the Diamond Palace as she had countless times before. Yellow Diamond marched almost everywhere still, and was more self-conscious than most about the way she walked; always careful to maintain the image of the consummate professional to be relied upon, even if such things as armed conflict and judicial matters had relaxed significantly since the reforms. She wasn't ready to relax as easily as Blue, but was still better at it than White.
Yellow thought to herself as she heard White's voice coming from the throne room talking to Spinel again.Speaking of White, I'm glad she's getting out more. She wasted her talents staying inside her head all the time like she used to.
Marching over to the entrance to the Throne Room, Yellow faced White, giving a curt bow without saying anything. Looking up briefly to Spinel, she smiled warmly.
"Sunlight dear, do come in. I was telling Spinel about the incident on Carses I."
Yellow grimaced before she spoke. She tried to grimace less these days, but it was still the face she found herself wearing too often.
"That mess...In any case, it relates to why I'm here. Your Zircon had been reviewing records with Blue and I, and we've made a breakthrough." White's eyes picked up on this news, focusing her gaze intensely on Yellow Diamond.
"Report."
Yellow cleared her throat, still looking annoyed. "It seems that after the council was called by the Sapphires present on Carses that all kindergarten activity was finally ceased, although this was expected from projections and happened precisely when it was supposed to. What we didn't expect was to find that a mere week prior to the shutdown, all but a single Peridot from the Prime Kindergarten on Carses were severely injured or shattered in an industrial accident."
Spinel's gaze followed White Diamond's eyebrows as they climbed above the gem on her forehead. Yellow continued.
"Seventy-three Talcum workers, eighteen Rubies, two Topazes, and...one Sapphire and Chalcedony." The names of the last two were left hanging in the air as a wordless understanding passed between the two giant Diamonds. "The Chalcedony...what was her designation?" White asked warily.
"Chalcedony AP-05, Equatorial cut. Assigned by you in Era 1."
White held her gaze with Yellow for several seconds before a loud crunching sound filled the hall, as her hand crushed the stone making up the armrest underneath her hand, which was now shaking.
"The Chalcedony...and one of the local sapphires killed. She could have seen it coming. She wasn't duped she was...oh no. Yellow, which is the most recent Sapphire Blue Diamond visited with on homeworld?" Yellow's eyes narrowed.
"Sapphire 201, Axial cut A. From Carses."
Blue Diamond was blissfully relaxed. Her pearl was combing her hair from her shoulder as she soaked in the pool, as one of her Sapphires sang to her. This older sapphire had an exquisite voice, and was encouraged by her peers to express it as a gift to Blue Diamond as part of the New Talents initiative, where Steven had encouraged Gems to cultivate abilities outside of their profession, even if they wanted to continue working where they were comfortable.
Her aches and worries flowed out of her, gently filling the room with the glow of her ease and contentment as she let herself relax. She noticed that even though there was still just the single sapphire singing, she could hear several voices from her, overlapping one another as part of the sublime melody she was hearing. She could not quite place it, but it was familiar to her in a way she couldn't explain. Her thoughts drifted off, and she ignored the insistent tugging of her Pearl entirely now. She could barely feel a thing.
There was only the song.
Spinel rested on White Diamond's shoulder as they traveled in the bubbled together with Yellow Diamond, whose fists where shaking in rage and sparking electricity. "I don't know WHAT they're planning, or WHAT has actually been going on beneath our notice, but they WILL NOT harm my Blue. This Sapphire will regret deceiving her Diamonds!"
White was remarkably calm, Spinel noticed. She wasn't shaking, twitching, or showing any of the emotional tics from earlier. She was completely in control.
"Sunlight, I need you to restrain yourself. We are going into a complete unknown, and we cannot react to anything in any way other than logically and decisively. The Sapphire may not have hostile intentions, or even be aware of what is going on. Calm yourself, for Blue's sake."
The shaking subsided, but the lightning from Yellow's fists did not abate, but instead traveled up her arm to her Gem on her chest. It crackled with energy as Yellow's eyes cut a focused glare in front of her, ready for anything.
"I will restrain myself insofar as I will not rush to judgement. But I will NOT restrain my wrath if Blue is injured. I will defer to you after that."
The bubble opened in front of Blue Diamond's quarters, and Spinel gasped as she saw the entire facade had frozen solid. An ice wall meters thick blocked their passage. Yellow's eyes flew open, and with an ear-splitting roar of fury she drove her fist into the ice wall, cracking it into a spider web of fractures that quickly attempted to seal themselves with the surrounding moisture.
Rearing back again, Yellow's lightning arced out from her gem and covered her arms, pooling in unimaginably bright points of light at her fists. With the sharp scent of ozone in the air and the servant and wall gems that could move ducking for any cover they could find, Yellow cried out, blasting the offending ice wall with the full strength of her lightning.
"HRAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"
Blinded for a few seconds, Spinel coughed as the vapor from the former ice cleared, with a smoking crater on the top half of the door and a terrified looking Statue gem having barely missed obliteration.
Now running forward, White and Yellow slammed both the doors open to Blue Diamond's chambers, and stopped short.
The entire room had been covered in ice. Several meters thick in some places, Spinel gaped in horror at the sight she saw at the back of the room. A ring of Sapphires, all made out of ice surrounded what was Blue Diamond's bathing pool, with a massive, life-sized replica of Blue Diamond lying peacefully back in the pool.
Her Pearl had poofed, and was encased in a similar ice replica, with her gem rapidly being absorbed into the ice sculpture. It had begun to crack.
"BLUE WHA-" Yellow started, before being completely shouted over by White Diamond.
"THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!" she yelled loudly as light shone out of her eyes. Throwing her arms outward in front of Yellow she blasted the room with her light, instantly nullifying the magical ice that had overcome it.
Cracks appeared on every surface rapidly before the ice instantly reformed back into water, flowing back into the pool or disappearing into the moist air. All the Sapphire replicas and Blue Diamond had disappeared, and the gem of her faithful Pearl tumbled through the air, down towards the hard floor.
Leaping off of white on her corkscrew legs and extending as far as she could reach, Spinel pushed her flexible body to its painful limits as she grasped for Blue Pearl's gem before it could shatter on the ground. Grasping it tightly, her elasticity snapped her forwards and she tumbled forward into the wall, sumersaulting before crashing into it, clutching Blue Pearl to her chest.
"Oof...gotcha! She's al-YIKES that's cold owowowow-" Spinel flinched as the malicious frost that had tried to dig its way into the crevices of Blue Pearl's gem attacked her hands, and she felt herself gently but swiftly picked up by White Diamond.
Dropping Blue Pearl into White's floor-sized palm, beams of pure white light shot out from her eyes, scouring the cursed ice off of her pearl. The cracks were still there.
"Quickly, into the pool!" Yellow shouted as they all clambered inside. White moved her hand over to Yellow who grasped it shakily, as they closed their eyes and carefully lowered the Pearl into the water, concentrating. After a few seconds, they lifted her out of the water, with the cracks healed. With a soft but steady light, Blue pearl emerged outside of her gem, shaking on White and Yellow Diamonds' hands.
"There there, dear Pearl; you're safe now. Tell us what transpired" White said gently.
Pearl was not responding, and continued to shake violently, clutching herself.
"Your Diamonds are here now. What happened here? Where is Blue?"
Chattering, Blue pearl began to stammer softly.
"I...I...I can't...so cold...I tried...no more..."
Yellow leaned in, urgently now.
"What did the Sapphire do? What happened to Blue? WHERE ARE THEY?!" She began to yell, causing the small pearl to shriek and cover herself, making Yellow back off in alarm.
"Spinel...perhaps someone smaller?.." White intoned at her.
Spinel knelt down to the terrified Pearl, gently resting her hand on her back.
"It's ok, you're safe now. The Diamonds are here. How can we help you? Do you need to be warmed up?"
Still shaking, the Pearl nodded slowly, and White handed her over to Yellow Diamond, who held her gently in her hands, heating them. Blue Pearl's shivering finally stopped.
"T...thank you. I'm so sorry...I couldn't stop it...I tried to warn her please don't be mad! Her voice...the Sapphire's song put her to sleep, and I couldn't wake or move her, then the ice...the ice came..." sobbing into her hands now, Blue pearl wailed in despair, until Spinel came over again and gave her a light hug.
"Nobody's mad at you; you tried to help even though you couldn't. We're just glad you're still alive; did the Sapphire say or do anything after the ice came?"
Pearl's crying slowed down as she tried to speak through the tears.
"I can't...she...the ice covered everything so fast, but..but she wasn't there. She kept singing that lullaby, and she split. I never saw where her gem was, even after she turned into the ice dolls. They held a final...note? A word I can't remember, and overtook the entire room in ice. It...it pushed My Diamond's form back into her gem, and when I couldn't wake her, I tried to defend her from attack. One of them grabbed my gem around my stomach...Oh stars it was so COLD! The cold...no..."
Squeaking and falling into her shoulder, Blue Pearl began sobbing again as Spinel held her, looking up at the Diamonds, worried.
Blue Diamond had vanished completely, without a trace.