"You love her."
Steven blinks once before turning his head to glance at Sapphire who had just spoken and was sitting to his right on the grassy cliffside above the temple. The blue gem is staring straight ahead through her flawless white bangs, watching Connie and Ruby play a few feet away, a soft smile on her lips.
Steven smiles himself and turns back to watch Connie and Ruby as he had been doing before Sapphire had to state the obvious. He leans back on his hands, takes a deep breath through his nose, and nods.
"I do." He responds. "What about it?"
"She's purely human."
Steven purses his lips and nods. He knows where this is going, still he prompts "And?"
"You'll likely outlive her, by several human lifetimes. Yet I still foresee you marrying her even knowing the sort of heartbreak you know you'll feel when she's gone…"
Ruby squeaking in surprise as Connie tackles her and they hit the ground laughing makes Sapphire stop speaking for a moment to watch her own love fondly for a moment.
"Your father knew of the heartbreak he'd feel losing your mother when they decided to have you, which I believe is part of why they never married. And even before that your mother made an attempt to cut things off with your father early on so she herself wouldn't feel the heartbreak of outliving your father as she had outlived so many other human lovers." Sapphire sighs, "So what I'm asking is, why, even knowing all of this, are you still choosing to marry her?"
Steven takes a moment to think about how he wants to word his explanation so the gem can understand before he speaks.
"It's because I love her. I want to spend every last moment I can that I still have in this lifetime with her… I… Sapphire, if gems could die of old age and you knew you would out live Ruby, would you stop fusing with her only because of that?'
Sapphire doesn't hesitate to shake her head.
"No. I need Ruby in my life for as long as she'll have me in hers." The gem responds.
"That's why I still intend to marry Connie no matter what… so long as she says yes." Steven tells her.
They watch their loves in silence for a moment after that. The sun is beginning to set dying the sky a rich pink-orange color. Ruby throws her head back to laugh and the setting sun's warm colors reflect off the gems red body nicely.
Sapphire normally wouldn't like being unfused like this, but it is nice to be able to watch her love like this from time to time. She could admire Ruby's beauty, watch the happyness roll off Ruby in waves that was so contagious made her grin the a fool.
"Steven?" Sapphire eventually says, "Do you think Gem's could get married like humans do?"
Steven smirks and looks at the blue gem out of the corner of his eye.
"I don't see why they couldn't." He can see Sapphire blushing and chuckles, "Why? You want to ask Ruby to marry you?"
"I… I think I do. Yes."
Steven laughs happily.
"That's awesome. Though you may want to be careful bring it up with Pearl, you know she'll want to help plan it all out."
Sapphire looks directly at the twenty year old man sitting next to her.
"Like she'll plan yours?" She asks.
Steven's jaw drops slightly.
"Pearl plans my wed… wait. Does that mean-?"
"Connie says yes." Sapphire confirms.
Steven sighs in relief.
"Thank you, that makes me feel a lot better." he admits.
"You were worried she'd say no?"
He nods frowning a little.
"Yeah, I was afraid she wouldn't want to marry me since she knows herself she's likely to outlive me. I can see her saying no thinking she'd be sparing me some kind of pain."
Sapphire shakes her head.
"No, you'd be more likely to do that to her. Just like when you were children and you tried to break off your friendship with her so she wouldn't get hurt being around you."
Steven winces, "I guess that's true."
"Do you think Ruby will want to marry me?" Sapphire asks after a moment.
Steven blinks in surprise, looking between Sapphire sitting next to him and Ruby who's letting Connie win at arm wrestling.
"Why wouldn't she?"
"Because we're gems, and marriage isn't something gems really do." Sapphire responds without hesitation.
Steven bites back a groan. He's heard that excuse more times that he can count.
Gems don't do this normally, or gems don't do that. He really should have expected it.
"Sapphire…" Steven sighs, "I'm sure if getting married will make you happy then Ruby will be more than happy to get married to. She clearly loves you more than anything. I mean, you two are fused all the time."
Sapphire blushes and looks away with a small smile.
"That is true, we wouldn't even have unfused today if Connie hadn't begged to take our pictures for this photography class of hers." She admits bashfully, hands coming up to partly cover what little of her face that wasn't covered by her snow white bangs, likely in a poor attempt to hide her growing purple blush.
"So are you going to ask her to marry you?" Steven asks as he watches his shadow grow longer with the night nearly upon them.
Sapphire nods.
"Yes, before we fuse again tonight, I'll talk with her about it."
Steven grins and stands up.
"Good. Now we should probably get those two to help us clean up out here so we can all head inside. It's gotten pretty late." Steven suggests.
Sapphire stands herself.
"Actually, let's let them play a little longer… You and I should be able to cleanup here just fine."
Steven glances over at Connie and Ruby, then looks back at Sapphire with a nod.
"Sounds good to me."
So this was something I started writing a couple nights ago at random, it just seemed to flow nicely and was somewhat inspired from the Ruby and Sapphire wedding keyrings, so I decided to post it.
If enough people seem to like this I may try to write more to follow this up with Steven and Sapphire purposing to Connie and Ruby, and maybe something with the actual weddings.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!
