Stars and Diamonds

Chapter 22: Rose Quartz

Orange was laying on her side, head supported by one hand while the other held loosely onto a display that she was supposed to be working on, but had since abandoned in favor of interacting with her Pearl. Or more precisely, the news she had brought with her from the archives, at her DIamond's request. Around them was a holographic scene that illuminated the room in off-white and light blue constructs, canceling out the natural orange tint of the chamber walls, all being projected from Pearl's gem. Giant marble obelisks jutted up into low hanging clouds, polished slabs of stone made up the floors, reflecting the white light that represented the sunlight breaking through the clouds. All around the room were the vague shapes of pastel colored light forms, representing various gems with few of them having much detail, all of them moving about and mingling, unseeing of Pearl as she knelt on the floor in concentration, multiple holographic gems moving through her in their natural walking path.

It was a recording of a recording, overlaid with commentary of the one who had taken the recordings in the first place. It was blurry from movement and choppy, as if certain things had been omitted. It was one step away from being hearsay, but because of what was caught in that recount is what made it the talk of the moment. Even White seemed to be somewhat agitated about the gossip spreading through her own courts, and it hadn't even happened here on Homeworld!

Depicted in the white-blue scene was the procession of a court gathering, aristocratic gems grouped together. From the prospective of where the recording had started, one could quickly derive that this person was also one of them, as the view seen turned from face to face of one royal or another, until it came to stop on a palanquin of deep blue, decorated in delicate silks and intricate lattice work. It was this that made it clear to any watcher that this was Blue Diamond's court.

From there, they watched as a small Ruby squad marched through the center of the cleared walkway, their charge was a Sapphire, one Orange noted was familiar but she couldn't quite place where she knew her from. Said gem moved forward, briefly being stopped by massive Prase soldiers that guarded Blue's palanquin, and then she was being spoken to by Blue Diamond herself. However, their recountant was not nearly close enough to them to pick up what was being said. Rolling her eyes, Orange motioned to her Pearl to move the scene forward.

It was only slightly more amusing to see everything skipping forward, fast movements, jaws moving so rapidly but with no clear audio to be heard, before suddenly all hell broke loose, rubies were sent flying and Prase guards were being destabilized by something that moved incredibly fast.

"Stop!" Orange shouted and the footage Pearl was projecting halted to a standstill, and Orange was momentarily awestruck by the image of a new gem she had never seen before. She was tall and broad, built like one of the finest Quartz soldiers that could only be produced on Homeworld itself, but dressed in an incredibly large and flowy white dress. Her curly hair was just as large as everything else about her seemed to be, hanging off her shoulders and cascading down her back en masse. In one hand was a round, pink shield and in the other a pink sword, and it certainly looked like no toy. She had a smug look about her, perhaps amused by the ruckus she dared cause right in front of Blue Diamond, or maybe it was the way she put the high class gems around her into a panic, especially when her speedy little friend had started poofing gems like it was some kind of game. Orange half expected to see them graphically shattering these gems at some point in the recording.

Orange remained staring at the still of this gem, this over glorified rebel, who unknowingly stared back into her eyes, that same smug expression now turned on Orange. The scene itself upset her, sparking a want to jump into a fight that had long since been over, but it was the smug grin of this shallow cut clod as she and her party crasher cohort spread fear into gems that were far more important than they could ever have hoped to be is what really set Orange's blood to boiling point. She hardly noticed when the display she had been fidgeting with shattered and crunched in her hand, sparking briefly before the light faded from it.