White Diamond took her away. They hadn't told anyone that they were going; she had merely showed up, dramatic and unannounced, to spirit Blue away.
"I don't want you to look," she said. "It's a surprise."
So Blue sat next to White in the co-captain's chair, blindfolded as they outraced the red-shifting stars. Though Blue couldn't see, White held her hand, tracing over her heartlines with the point of her nail.
They landed and White led Blue from the ship, leaving scratches along her palm as both of their feet entered the sand. It was warm like the sun above them, like White's skin. In the distance, waves tumbled and crashed; wind wet Blue's blindfold. Carefully, White removed it.
"Oh, White." The wind salted their hair. "It's beautiful."
White looked to the sun in the distance and the foaming waters ahead. "Do you understand, Blue?"
Blue didn't speak, but smiled, like the ocean bucking upward with the crest of a wave.
"You do understand, don't you?" White had come so close, hands all over her. "This world is to be yours."
They were close to kissing, but didn't, lips only a breath apart. Before long, White let her go, having left pressure marks along her arms, where her nails had dug in.
Every time White gifted Blue a planet, she would show her in the same way, grasping her shoulders, taking in the air she had just released. It didn't matter the location. White would bring her to deep jungles, or the center of crystal deserts, worlds she had raked over and made beautiful already, or places so entrenched in nature they were black with it. She would always blindfold Blue and watch her reaction closely as though she were recording the angles of her smile. She would grin wider and wider every time her paintings grew in abundance, every time White dug deeper with her nails.
"Oh, Blue," she would whisper. "How beautiful you are."
One day, White blindfolded her again, arriving after Blue emerged from a bath. "There's something I must show you," her words left physical indents upon Blue's lips. She could feel their fire, spoken so roughly.
"It couldn't wait? I was naked a moment ago—"
"Do you really think I would have come so urgently if it could wait?" Blue's freshly warmed skin collapsed more easily under White's nails. She bled, but only a few drops.
"I suppose you wouldn't have," Blue answered, and followed.
They went to White's chambers. Blue recognized them by the sound of her feet as they echoed down the main hall, and the scattered chandelier light leaking through her blindfold. White walked quickly, pulling Blue along until the salon doors slid open.
Blue nearly heard White laugh as she unveiled the room, and Blue, looking down, found a little pink gem with a little pink diamond embedded in her stomach.
For a moment, both gaped. White, with her hands on Blue's shoulders, spoke. "Our Starlight—she was a surprise. Can you believe it? Another Diamond."
Blue, hair wet from the bath, skin dewey, stared down at Pink, staring up at her. "Starlight?" She uttered.
"Oh, isn't she cute? Couldn't you just love her forever?"
Over the course of another silence, Blue took in Pink's mound of fluffy, curly hair, her wide eyes, and slightly open mouth. She stared at her shoes, with ridiculous puffs above the toes, so silly that they had to be endearing. Had White asked her to wear them?
"I certainly could," Blue finally answered. "It's nice to meet you, Pink."
Her back tingled with surprise when Pink made an enthusiastic, but surprisingly deep-voiced reply, "It's nice to meet you too."
Suddenly, White began blindfolding Blue less. She had stopped coming with surprises; her unannounced visits lessened. Yet, every time she saw Pink, there was always a new story. "White gave me a Pearl," or "We're beginning the design of my ship." A ship, no doubt, that White had commissioned.
During meetings, Pink would sit next to White, kicking her legs in a boosted chair that leveled her with the rest of them. White teased out her curls. Looping them around her index finger, she would discuss newly found worlds, which ones would make good colonies, and what would belong to whom. Abundance flowed through her lips as constantly as her finger played in Pink's hair.
"Can I have a colony?" Pink asked.
"Soon, Starlight."
Blue rolled her eyes, and Yellow, hiding her grin behind entangled fingers, stopped herself from laughing.
They spoke later, in the vast waters of Blue's bath tub.
"She gives her whatever she asks for, and things she's never asked for at all. It's as though her very presence attracts gifts." Blue spoke with her hands as Yellow massaged the knots from her back, making small waves between splashes.
Straightening out Blue's shoulder blade, Yellow said, "I'm not sure why you're upset. She did the same for you."
"She didn't."
"She did," Yellow pinched. "White hasn't given Pink anything that she hasn't given to you, or me."
"That's not true."
"Name one."
Blue paused. Despite Yellow's rising volume, she had kept working, squeezing Blue's shoulders as if wringing out a rag.
"She hasn't given me a nickname," Blue answered. In the silence between them, her voice echoed, branching outward like the waves she had made. "She always calls Pink 'Starlight,' but I've never heard her call either of us anything but 'Blue' or 'Yellow.'"
"She's called me names other than 'Yellow,' but I wouldn't consider them nicknames." She stopped massaging. "If you want one so badly, why don't you ask her? I'm sure she would oblige." Yellow turned around. "It's my turn. My back is killing me."
The day Blue went to ask, she arrived unannounced at White's chambers. She had gone after her responsibilities, telling herself that she would go, that today was the day, and found herself waiting like a peasant before two unending silver doors.
The Pearl outside, losing her footing at the presence of an unexpected Diamond, had asked for her patience as she contacted White. Waiting, Blue listened to the doors and the nonstop humming inside them. They whispered with the electricity that could open or close them at any moment, in perpetual readiness. Perhaps they had veins too, teeming with light that ebbed when touched. They glowed before opening, when that little Pearl placed her hand on the panel.
The snapping open still shocked Blue. The Pearl poked her head in from one side to say, "White awaits you in her leisure room, My Diamond."
"Thank you, Pearl."
Even from the mouth of the long hallway, Blue could hear distorted words. Whatever was said, it tinged with musicality, as if spoken to someone young about something exciting, like teaching a baby her colors.
Blue kept walking, despite the hollow in her stomach. Bordered on both sides by ancient artwork, she moved closer to the source of the light and noise, where White was laughing.
"There are many unique challenges to colonizing, Starlight. If any gems become mouthy, they must be punished."
Blue paused, hidden within the shadows before the lip of the leisure room. There they were, White with Pink in her lap, looking over a hologram of a blue and green planet, glowing dully above White's fingers. It rotated, lethargically displaying its lush continents and plentiful oceans. Like a feast open for taking, it helplessly advertised the things a Diamond could do with it, the gems she could make, the metal she could extract, the glory she could bring.
Blue jumped again as White turned to her. Pink followed shortly.
"Oh, Blue. Thank the stars you're here."
She stepped into the light.
"Starlight is soon to receive her first colony. You'll assist her, won't you? Surely, she'll look to you for guidance, should anything go awry."
"Oh—"
Pink was gaping at her, eyes wide and sparkling. She looked excited, glittering as much as White, yet she was no larger than the projection of her first colony.
Blue swallowed, "Of course. I'd be happy to assist her."
A pause, in which no one spoke.
"What was it that you needed to ask?" White boomed again, more than anticipated, more than seemed possible.
"It's nothing. I can come back later—"
"Surely it isn't nothing, if you came all the way here."
Still, Blue choked. The words, 'I want a nickname,' passed by countless times, but her voice wouldn't take to them. They rotated, like a storm along an equator of a planet, blowing with a gust at 'I' and smoothing out by 'Nickname,' but she failed to grasp them every time. Blue stood frozen, occasionally opening and closing her mouth, a fish misplaced by a hurricane.
White smiled at her. "You're clearly struggling. Come back another time, Moonbeam."
For a moment, Blue lingered, caught in a flurry of words. "Yes, thank you." With that, she turned away.