The First Princess
Chapter 1: Welcome
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Massive heels paced on the hard tile floor, the clacking echoing off the smooth featureless walls. The whole building was clean and sterile; not an iota of organic life crawling on the blank surfaces. It was about as perfect a hospital as gemkind could build. This was the Gemology and Geology Institute, established a few years after the Terran Compromise was made. The Compromise allowed for limited colonization of Earth, which helped ease the resource shortages that had plagued Homeworld for the past five-thousand years, at the cost of loosening the heavy-handed control on the common gems. The Institute itself was used for research on gems and their biology; a decent portion of advances in the era past had been focused almost entirely on military and weapons, not healing.
Yellow Diamond was typically seen as cool and collected by her newer followers, even though any gem older than fifteen would remember the negotiations for Earth. The matriarch wasn't exactly proud of her little... meltdown during the first conflict, though that wasn't exactly what was driving her to pace now. Her... consort, as many called her, had been the first gem to have carried a pure gem child in possibly ten thousand years, maybe longer. After the Kindergarten system had become common, natural production had all but faded in the centuries following. A good portion of the reason why she hadn't been more careful was because, as far as the Diamonds knew, they were incapable of conceiving. Naturally, it had occurred right after the Earth conflict had been resolved. Yellow Diamond wondered if this was what that "Greg" human felt like as Steven was born.
The door she was pacing near slid open, a Jade peeking into the hallway, "My Diamond... She's ready to meet you."
Yellow Diamond wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this. Red Jasper, a gem rivaling Pink Diamond's Jasper in terms of physical perfection, was laying on the bed, exhausted but otherwise no worse for wear. She smiled and gave her clutchsire a salute, for as much as she could with what she was holding. In her arms was a bundle, and the matriarch's eyes widened. Why was there only the one, and where was the eggshell? The empress worried something had gone wrong, and she demanded answers from the Jade on duty,
"Were there any complications?"
"No, My Diamond. The child seems to fare well. Her size may not seem much compared to your own, but Orange Diamond is a fairly large gemling for a newborn," the Jade's calmness in the face of the harshest Diamond was commendable, though that wasn't exactly what got her attention.
"Orange Diamond?!"
"Ah, yes, My Diamond," the Jade seemed to not notice the matriarch's shock, "She is much too large to be any sort of Quartz, and the tests have shown her gem to be more along the lines of yours and the rest of the Diamond Authority. If you would allow it, perhaps you should see her for yourself?"
Dumbfounded, Yellow Diamond set her hand next to the bed, and Red carefully placed the bundle into the palm of her hand. The thing in the bundle began to wiggle and whimper, knocking the blanket off. Yellow Diamond held her hand closer to her face, observing the gemling with fascination. The child's skin was a warm and dull shade of orange, her hair being a darker auburn that fell flat on her head. Her gem was placed dead center in the middle of her torso, right above the soft part of her abdomen. Her tiny hands were balled up into fists as she began to cry.
On the outside, Yellow Diamond didn't seem to notice, but internally she was panicking. "What do I do? What did I do? Oh stars, why did I have to pick her up?!" Meanwhile, Red Jasper carefully took the wailing baby out of her sire's hand, shooshing the child carefully. She looked to the matriarch with a quirked eyebrow and a smile, her expression giving the message clearly, "Really? It's just a baby." Red Jasper was not much of one to talk; many even questioned if she could talk at all. It served her well during the, ah, courtship, though now it was a tad irritating. "Don't look at me like that," Yellow Diamond muttered, embarrassed.