A/N - I almost regret abusing dashes the way I do, as I went through this very quickly to try to fix them and stop them all being hyphens instead, so I apologize for all the ones that I missed and also that I don't know how to format them at the end of a sentence
It's not that Pink Diamond sets out to start a rebellion against herself, exactly.
But it's just so frustrating! Earth is supposed to be her colony, isn't it? So Pink Diamond should be in complete control of all decisions regarding the planet, shouldn't she?
But every time she tries to alter the colonization plans (she so lovingly, carefully made, barely suppressing squeals of excitement as she worked with her engineers to plan her very first colony, oh!, it was going to be great), every time she tries to suggest that maybe it is a bit of a waste of resources, after all, that human zoo (is an absolute necessity, there won't be any more organic life on the planet after the colony is complete and if Earth really is her planet then she's entitled to keep this little bit of it for her own personal pleasure millenia after), Blue and Yellow Diamond just overrule her.
She explains to them that there's just too many organics on Earth, that the planet is run amok with the things, it'll be nearly impossible to turn the place into a suitable Gem colony.
(Yellow Diamond laughs at that. She's being a silly little fool; an abundance of organics is a good sign in a potential colony. That means the planet is overflowing with the necessary resources to make well-cut, defect-free Gems-resources that are currently being squandered and wastefully tapped by those primitive eyesores. Besides, it's the job of her engineers, her architects, her soldiers to sort that out. She needn't worry about it being difficult.)
She explains to them that the organics just have too strong a foothold on the planet already, that some of them - the humans - are almost even like Gems, it's like Earth is some kind of colony already, they even have cities that will need to be razed, and primitive though they are they fight back -
(Blue Diamond shushes her. There's no need to fret. She's inexperienced, yes, and this is her first colony. But it's not as if none of the other Diamonds have ever encountered these sort of setbacks before! These little obstacles will be overcome, if only she perseveres and conducts herself with the proper attention to duty, as a Diamond should. She mustn't keep trying to throw off her responsibilities like some common Gem the moment it becomes the slightest bit inconvenient.)
Earth is different, though! Earth - and its strange and beautiful abundance of organic life - is worth protecting! If only Pink Diamond could just get them to see that…
"I mean, has anyone else even stopped to look at this planet?" she demands, pacing around the privacy of her personal palanquin. "Everyone's all so busy building the colony, they haven't even seen it!"
(Pearl stands tucked in a corner, lacing her fingers together and closing her mouth on instinctive offers of a song, a dance, something to soothe her Diamond. Her Diamond does not want to be soothed, she wants to vent - loudly, at length, with passionate and sweeping arm gestures - and Pearl can appreciate that.)
"But I'm sure if I could just get my Gems to open their eyes -"
Pink Diamond stops short in her pacing. Because that's about the moment she has a brilliant, terrible, wonderful idea.
–
Even then, it's still not a rebellion, not really. Pink Diamond certainly doesn't think of it as one.
But she can't, she decides, just stand on the steps of her palanquin and announce to all of her court that Earth and all its organic life is beautiful and amazing and worth protecting, go out and see it for yourselves, and then let's leave this place and build a new colony somewhere less teeming with life.
It takes time to fall in love with Earth, she knows that. It takes time to be startled by it, and surprised by it, and for its worth to work its way under your skin.
It will take a lot less time for one of her court to send a message to Blue and Yellow Diamond, informing them that Pink is once again shirking her duties, acting irresponsibly and unbecoming of a Diamond, and needs to be put back in her highly-elevated place.
So she'll have to work her plan in secret. In disguise. Not as a Diamond, but as a common Gem, just one of hundreds, of thousands.
If all of them working on the colony, all together, decide to stop - decide to chose Earth, just as it is, instead of a Gem colony built upon a sterile foundation of empty kindergartens and hollowed-out crust - then Pink Diamond's colony will certainly never be completed! Blue and Yellow Diamond will have to accept that, the way they've never accepted Pink Diamond's other "excuses," and Earth will be saved.
That's all she has to do; it's as simple as that.
And she has the perfect disguise, she realizes, studying the facets of the gem at her core. She won't even have to hide it, not really, so no one will be able to catch her in the act. No one will ever notice she's anything but another ordinary Quartz soldier.
She'll go to the Prime Kindergarten, and she'll talk to the Quartzes there. She'll tell them what she's seen, ask them what they've seen, get them to look at the glorious, living world outside the kindergarten's walls…
They'll be just as entranced as Pink Diamond is, she just knows it. They're right here, on the planet, in the middle of it all. Not like Blue or Yellow, looking at their colonies from afar in their ships or from their moon bases, studying the organic surfaces of their planets through the overlay of blueprints for a perfect, finished colony. No, Earth will certainly win them over.
And it's going to be great.
"I don't like this," Pearl says, matter of fact, looking up into her Diamond's eyes. Though she doesn't have to tilt her head as much to do so, now, when those eyes belong to a Rose Quartz.
Pink Diamond - Rose Quartz - sweeps Pearl up into a firm hug before she sneaks off. Because they both know Pearl's only real objection is that she hates the idea of being left behind here, of not being there beside her Diamond - just in case the plan goes wrong.
–
The plan doesn't go wrong. Though it does take more than a few clandestine trips to the Kindergarten. But thanks to that one odd and oddly persistent Rose Quartz, Pink Diamond's Quartzes are looking now. And they're talking.
They haven't exactly reached the same conclusions yet that this Rose Quartz has. But still, they're talking so much that word of it reaches their supervisors, and then their supervisors, all the way up the chain of command to Pink Diamond herself. And then, well, Pink Diamond has no choice but to bring her concerns about the matter up to Blue and Yellow Diamond.
Pink Diamond knows, of course, that the organic lifeforms on Earth don't serve any purpose-not the way Gems do, and not in the perfect and flawless order that the Diamonds bring to the universe. But even so -
Yellow Diamond laughs at that. "What, we're just going to leave this planet, and waste all of these resources that would benefit Gemkind, just to spare a few useless organics? That's absurd."
"And that's why you must be a strong leader, and set a good example for your Gems as a Diamond," Blue Diamond says. "Because you know better."
(This meeting isn't going the way Pink Diamond thought it would, when she requested it. She keeps her head down, fights the urge to squirm and fidget.)
"What is the cut of that Rose Quartz, did you say?" Yellow Diamond asks, idly, her attention on something other than the viewscreen of the Diamond line. But Pink Diamond doesn't miss the way she gestures to the Pearl beside her chair, or the way Pearl readies to take note.
"Oh, um -"
"No," interrupts Blue Diamond with a wave of her hand. "It's not as if she has the other colonies to rely on that we have, Yellow. It would be better to avoid wasting such resources at this time. Just tell that Quartz that if she returns to her post, attends to her duties, and keeps her mouth closed, you'll be merciful and forget her insolence."
"Yes," says Pink Diamond.
And she returns to her colony, to her palanquin.
But she doesn't forget.
–
"I've been practicing," Pearl says. "When you've been gone."
Pink Diamond opens her mouth to ask what, exactly, Pearl's been practicing, but what comes out is something more like a breathless squeal. Because right in front of her Pearl's physical form glows, and changes, and becomes -
- a Quartz, just like the other Quartzes of Pink Diamond's Kindergarten, just like the Rose Quartz that she herself has changed into.
She presses both hands to her mouth, but it's not enough to hide her huge grin, or the way her eyes go wide and starry with excitement.
"If I just hide my gem, it will be fine, won't it?" Pearl is saying to her uniform boots. "I want to come with you…"
Pink Diamond's instinct is to scream yes, to take Pearl into her arms, to laugh until there's tears in her eyes, to have the pair of them dash off to the Kindergarten immediately. Of course every Gem has the innate ability to shapeshift, but it certainly isn't encouraged among Pearls, not unless her owner has ordered it, and certainly not for a purpose like this.
It's amazing.
And -
"No," whispers Pink, whispers Rose. Quiet and serious, and she lowers her hands from her mouth.
Pearl looks up at her, startled and changing back to her own form with just the slightest stagger, but Pink Diamond can't see it through the brilliant, terrible, wonderful idea she's just had.
"No," she says again, stronger this time, with a conviction you could crack a diamond on. "You should join me as Pearl. Just Pearl."
Because Rose Quartz has seen things in that Kindergarten. It's gotten under her skin, the same way that Earth has - and how could she never have seen that before?
All of those Quartzes that Pink Diamond made to serve her, made to fill specific roles and fit specific purposes - they're just like Pearl, aren't they? With their own thoughts, with their own interests, with their own things they'd be doing if only they weren't just doing what Pink Diamond told them to do, and she wants to know what those things are.
This is her colony. And she says -
Earth, and its life, is worth protecting. Earth, and its life, should be free from the leeching, the influence, the control of the Diamonds. Earth, and its life - all its life, organics and Gems alike - should be free!
None of them - Pink Diamond, Pearl, the Quartzes, all her other Gems and all the lifeforms on this beautiful absurd planet - shouldn't have to answer to - anyone! They should all be free!
It's all so simple. How was it so hard to see all this time?
"You won't belong to anybody!" Rose says to Pearl, who's still standing there wide-eyed. "Can you imagine it? Everyone's going to see how amazing you are, all on your own, and they'll all realize that they can be whoever they want too!"
Pearl stares for a moment longer. It's one thing, in the privacy of the palanquin, or when it's only the two of them alone and lost in the strange and foreign wilderness of Earth. What her Diamond is saying, what her Diamond is asking -
Pearl laughs a little, presses her face against Pink's - Rose's - arm. Curls her fingers tight around it. "You're ridiculous," she murmurs. "I can't - I'm not anything like as amazing as you."
"Pearl," Pink - Rose - says, urgently, taking her by the shoulders and holding her at arm's length, bending down so she can see her face. "That's not true. You and I are the same, no matter how we're made. You can do everything I can do, if you give yourself the chance. You can do everything you want to do! Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."
Pearl stares at her, her lips just slightly parted. Pearl flushes. And Rose can't keep a grin from cracking through her serious expression a moment longer.
"Renegade Pearl," she says, letting go of Pearl so she can clench her hands in front of her and shake them in time to her chant. "Renegade Pearl. Renegade Pearl. Renegade Pearl - !"
"Alright," says Pearl, laughing. She wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes, and takes a deep breath that straightens her back, and meets Rose's eyes again, and grins. "Alright!" she says, clenching her own fists. "I'll do it! Renegade Pearl."
Rose claps her hands together and presses them to her mouth again. The noise she makes is absolutely undignified and completely unbefitting of a Diamond, and she doesn't care.
She picks Pearl up in a hug and spins her around, pressing their foreheads together, kissing her -
Pearl braces her hands against Rose's shoulders, laughing, and protests, "My Diamond - !"
"No," says Rose, "you'll have to get used to calling me 'Rose' whenever I'm like this." Because this is going to be their secret now, and it's going to be great.
Pearl lets their noses brush together one more time before she says, "Put me down, please...Rose."
The warm feeling she has, as she sets Pearl lightly down on her feet, Pink Diamond wouldn't call that rebellion, really. If she had to put a name to it, to what they're about to do, about to start, she'd call it, simply, love.