She had heard the roar of the thunder more than a few times now and willed herself to go back to sleep. But ten thunder strikes was more than the twelve year old could handle. Opening her eyes Connie sat up with a jolt. Heart beating in fear from the loud noises she took a deep breath to calm her nerves which at the moment felt like butter.
"Just take deep breaths Connie, it's just the thunder. Nothing to be afraid of" she whispered in a feeble attempt to make herself feel better. If her mistress Peridot could see this she would probably tell her.
"Woman up Connie. You're not going to be a child forever". No doubt while casually filling out some documents.
Another loud thunder strike sent her hiding beneath the covers shaking uncontrollably. She wasn't too sure how or when she went back to sleep with the constant thunder strikes but it seemed her body was just too exhausted after twenty minutes of tossing and turning and just gave up.
Thankfully the sun was shining through her window. On the down side, it was still raining quite heavily outside. Well at least she wouldn't have to force herself to go back to sleep after all this. Rubbing her eyes groggily she reached for her glasses on the bedside drawer and put them on. Stifling a yawn with her hand she got up from her bed and put on her pink bunny slippers, before heading into the bathroom to perform her morning ritual.
After her bath she got dressed and had a quick cup of tea before gathering all her scrolls and manuscripts. There was nothing the mistress valued more than punctuality, if she could do that she was guaranteed to not be lectured too harshly for any mistakes she made during her lessons. She checked her hour glass and saw that she was going to be late if she wasn't in class in the next thirty minutes, dang she must have over slept again.
Fortunately, she had her trusty wand, phoenix at her side. A quick teleportation spell would get her to class in no time. Reaching into the massive folds of her oversized mage robe Connie pulled out a long Ivory coloured wand. It was carefully carved from top to bottom with the maker's initials carved into it. Waving the wand in her hand she closed her eyes and concentrated on where she wanted to go. As soon as she had formed an accurate image in her head she chanted the ancient text that she read in one of her textbooks.
She could feel the magical energy channelling through her body, but for some reason it felt a bit…Off. Suddenly she inhaled the thick smell of burnt wood and blinked her eyes open. And much to her horror the pointed end of the once beautiful wand was charcoal black.
"Oh no. She's gonna kill me!" Connie said in a panic as she held it closer for examining. There was only one reason for this. Turning it over she stared into a small opening where a green gem stone was supposed to be fitted and felt the urge to pull her hair out.
Channelling magic into a wand without a gem stone to regulate the energy was a sure fire way to get it damaged. How could she be so stupid?!
"Alright just calm down Connie" she said after a deep breath. Her shoulders slumped and she placed the wand back into her pocket. There was no point in gripping about a dumb mistake she made when the real blunder would be being late to the Mistresses. She grabbed her backpack and stepped out of the room. She locked the door with a click before making her way down the long palace hallway.
Much to her dismay the hallway was chalk full of Pearl servants who were all dressed in formal maid uniforms. And as expected they were doing what they were always doing at all times of the day and night, curtesy of their lack of any need to rest or sleep, EVER.
They were basically made-to-order servants that would do things like thoroughly clean and wax the palace floors or hang knew chandeliers, oh and don't forget hang Queen Yellow Diamonds one thousandth portrait.
She could feel their piercing gaze as she passed and tried to keep her nerves in check. It was obvious they looked down on and hated her for her status. After all she was just a lowly human girl, the bottom of the food chain. And from what she'd learned Pearls were at bottom of the Gem Hierarchy right after Rubies and Mercuries which served as basic infantry on the battlefields. Humans were just slaves that spent most of their lives working in Kindergartens as forced labour. Yet this human girl lived a relatively pampered life, and within the palace no less. More than enough to warrant a lot scorn her way.
Making her way into one the large court yards she accidently made eye contact with a group of chatting pearls and gulped when they all glared at her. They really, really, really didn't like her. And she was certain that the only thing that was keeping her from being harassed was the simple fact that her owner was the Queens Sorceress. That and Pearls had a bit of a reputation for being rather quick to fright in any sort of confrontation. Verbal harassment from a distance was the best they could do, usually.
As she made her way to the north side of the palace she climbed up the long stair case and spotted some Diamond nobles walking down from the top, umbrellas raised by some well-dressed human servants to shield them from the light drizzling while leaving themselves completely exposed.
The mere sight was enough to churn her gut and raise bile to her throat. Nobles were the only Gem's that she hated more than she feared the heads of the four kingdoms. Being the only gems that didn't have a job assigned to them from creation they were free to do as they pleased to all the others, be it their own kind or humans, especially humans. The books she had read about their sadism towards her kind, the stories she'd overheard from gossiping Pearls. They all painted the diamonds as repugnant monsters, even when compared to Jaspers who were generally considered to be the most bloodthirsty gems.
They were Tyrants, they were despicable, they were standing right in front of her. The obnoxious chatting had ceased and they were now regarding her from halfway across the staircase. Immediately remembering what the mistress had taught her about treating nobility with respect and immediately got down on her knees and bowed her head down until it touched the soaked ground.
"Greetings Mademoiselles" she said respectfully. She could hear low murmuring from them and frowned.
"Augh, aren't those royal garments. How repulsive" a feminine voice said from within the group followed by another one.
"I don't know, young human girls tend to look cute in gem clothing"
She remained perfectly still and prayed they'd lose interest soon and move on, she was already three minutes late and the mistress hated waiting.
She heard the shuffling feet indicating that they were moving on and exhaled in relief. Next thing she knew she felt a pair of arms tug at her hair and yelped in surprise. Raising her head up reflexively she saw a tall fancily dressed blue diamond noble-woman with short blue hair and eyes smiling down at her, the look in her eyes was one of childish amusement.
"And her hair is so soft and well-conditioned, I should do this to all my human servants" she said happily while some of the others let out unamused groans.
"Don't touch that Aqua, you don't know where it's been"
"Oh come on, just feel her hair for a second. Trust me, you won't regret it" she said causing her friends to exchange glances before gathering around Connie. /p
This wasn't a new experience by any means. She'd been treated like a common house appliance lots of times back when she was just a slave girl. But that was more than three years ago. And now she was once again feeling the humiliation, the way the gems tugged at her long ebony hair hurt and she wanted to fight back. She wasn't that weak submissive girl anymore. But she also knew that fighting back would the same as playing with fire. So she swallowed her pride and remained perfectly still.
She felt an arm on her face gritted her teeth in anger as they robbed her of her glasses.
"Oh these are a nice pair of specs. And their medicated too. I wonder who her owner is?"
"Let me try it on."
"No way, you were too busy hogging her hair to notice. Finders keepers, as they say"
"Instead of bickering over what Aqua has, why don't you just check her backpack for something else" said third lady who was clearly annoyed.
What, they actually wanted to take her stuff? Wasn't it clear by her clothing that she was already owned by someone, stealing from her was the equivalent of stealing from her Mistress.
She wasn't about to let this happen to her, they could man handle her all they wanted but she wasn't about to let them take the glasses her dad made for her, the last memento from her family. She was about to swat their hands away and stand up when she heard an audible cough which made all diamonds momentarily stop their raid on her hair.
"Ahem!"
"Oh, its you" said one of them, and she didn't sound to pleased.
"Don't the rest of you have something more important to do than 'THIS'" said a calm monotone voice, but also with and air of authority. She really couldn't see much of anything with all the females crowding her.
"Oh, come on. Were just having fun"
"Fun? You do realize who's human that is don't you?"
"Like it matters. Were all members of blue diamond's court, we outrank everyone else here".
"But you don't out rank Yellow Diamond" the voice said causing some of them to gasp while some of the more stubborn ones huffed in disbelief.
"Oh please the only servant Yellow diamond has is a single Pearl, she has no human servants" the one named Aqua retorted.
"But her Sorceress does. I don't think Peridot would be too pleased to hear that you inconvenienced her by harassing her servant while performing her duties, now would she? Especially considering her new status as of this morning's announcement" the voice said with that same air of calm, but with a slight firmness in her tone.
"Wait, this is. T-T-That Witches Servant?" Aqua said as she flung the glasses off her face letting it crash on floor, cracking one its lens in the process. The rest of gems released her hair quickly stepped away from her.
"Come on girls, we have better thing to do than waste our time on this trash" one said as she rubbed her hands on the suit of one the human servants in an attempt to clean Connie off. No doubt in their eyes she was equal to a filthy animal.
She heard the retreating footsteps and let out a sigh of relief. Reaching for her glasses she froze when a blue hand reached down and grabbed it. Glancing up with an anxious look she saw petite court diamond dressed in a flowy blue dress. She must have been the one that stood up for her. But why?
"Are you alright little one?" she asked as she cleaned the lens with a handkerchief before handing it back to her. She stared at it momentarily before raising a shaky hand to grab it.
"Um yes. I-I mean yes Ma'am" she said nervously. This behaviour was so abnormal, why do this for her. After all she was just human.
"That's good to hear" she said as she helped dust off all the dirt on Connie's robes before helping offering a hand to help her back to her feet, Connie accepted it reluctantly.
"Why did you do this for me?" Connie asked when she was back on her feet. At her full height they stood shoulder to shoulder, she couldn't help but take a little bit of satisfaction from the fact that they stood on equal footing. Well kinda.
Smiling at her warmly the noble replied.
"No real reason, I suppose I just couldn't stand by and watch them abuse you like that" she said. Due to overgrown hair her eyes were completely hidden making Connie wonder just how she could see anything.
"I see, thank you". She wasn't sure of how to talk to the noble-woman. She had always viewed other Gems as indifferent to the pains of humans, and now a blue Diamond noble of all people was standing up for her.
"That and it would probably do them some good to not bother you, what with the Sorceress's new promotion.
Promotion? What promotion? Come to think of it that was precisely the reason why those nobles left her alone, well that and they hated sorceresses.
"A promotion? I didn't know my Mistress was promoted"
"Well I suppose you wouldn't be aware since most humans would be… What's the word?... Sleeping at that time of the night. But yes, it would appear Queen Yellow diamond left the palace yesterday along with a small platoon of Rubies and Jaspers. She appointed Sorceress Peridot as your kingdoms temporary ruler until her return" she explained. "And by the looks of things I imagine Princess Jasper's going to raise some trouble for her"
This was a lot to take in, her mistress was promoted last night and she didn't even have the slightest clue.
Normally a promotion was meant to be a good thing but if there was thing she knew about her Mentor it was that she was a creature of habit, content with where she stood in life and wasn't interested in changing it in the least. There was no doubt that she wouldn't be too thrilled about her new status, but she also wondered how this would affect her classes.
"Well, it was nice meeting you little- sorry but what's name?"
"Oh, um it's Connie my lady"
"I see. Well my name is Sapphire, It was nice talking to you but if I loiter here any longer Blue diamond may begin to notice my absence" she said as she lifted her long dress and made her way down the staircase.
"Yes my lady" she said awkwardly. Now that she was alone again she noticed that all the nearby gem's had paused their work to stare at the little exchange, some looked angry that she had emerged from the Diamond nobles relatively unharmed, but most of them just looked shocked that a noble woman from Blue Diamonds inner circle had stood up for her.
She herself was still trying to process the information. But then she remembered that she still had a class to get and shook the thought out of her head before hurrying up the stairs.
When she finally made it to the Alchemy lab she was panting uncontrollably from all the staircases she had to climb. But she was also relaxed. No servants ever visited this part of the castle, it was reserved for her mistress only. Not even the snobbish Pearls could decorate the room with useless ornaments or pictures of any diamonds.
There were however a few portraits about ancient Mages and historical figures. Both human and Gem alike that had changed history. The wall made from a mix of rock and Cement with a few gem tech enhancements to make it more durable. Occasionally there was a Knight standing by a wall. All of this combined with the scent incense gave the place a really gothic feel to it.
She said it was supposed to help ward off spiritual monsters that were attracted to the vast amount energy within the room as well as make her magic easier to control during training sessions.
Honestly Connie was just glad to be rid of the constant smell of cement.
After taking a brief moment to catch her breath she reached for the knob of a huge wooded door and pulled it open before making her way into a huge room with book shelves that reached as high as two stories, all lined with books neatly arranged from left to right of each row there were about five of them in total with a few tables which she used for studying.
Adjacent to the door was a large table that had some large cylindrical containers that contained some dark chemicals, there were also a few dissected centipedes and some herbs. And opposite to her was a large desk with a large pile of paperwork and spell books. Lastly there were a few windows around the room that kept it well illuminated.
"For once, she's the one that's late" Connie muttered as she adjusted her cracked glasses and closed the door behind her, she then proceeded to dump her bag on the closest table before walking over to the desk. The mistress normally left notes on her table for Connie to find in the rare event she couldn't find time for their classes. It was usually just simple things like researching certain monster species, or ancient civilizations.
"Here it is" she said as she grabbed a small paper for her.
'Unfortunately, I won't be able to make to our class today due to circumstances that you're probably aware of… This is so ridiculous. Me Ruling the kingdom in the Queens absence is an unfortunate turn of events, but regardless I expect you to continue your studies on earth history as you normally do…I'll try to find time to see you for dinner Connie. Oh and please refrain from falling asleep while working again, I didn't set up that bedroom for you all for nothing.'
She smiled slightly before putting the paper down. Her Mistress had a really indirect way of showing that she cared for her well-being, always trying to keep things formal and professional. At first she just thought that the mistress just wanted her to remain as healthy as possible, lord knows how many human slaves had died on the first month of 'employment' due to the poor living conditions of the Kindergarten.
But she was way too kind for that to work. She knew for a fact that even the Gems that valued their slave's longevity wouldn't go to this extent to make her comfortable, after all it was her health that mattered not her happiness. Minus the constant glares and loathing she got from Pearls she probably had one the best deals a human could hope for under gem rule.
"Alright, where's that history text book?" she muttered before pulling a chair from one of the tables and pulling out her scrolls.
_
And here's the next chapter, hope it was too your liking an please review if you feel so inclined.
