The other Pearl and I went to the servant's quarters, quiet as we walked down the long hall. She looked at me, eyes wide and disbelieving. I'm sure my face mirrored hers, in both expression and just about everything else.

"I can't believe you're here," she said. "I thought I would never see you again."

"I know. I can't believe White is allowing me to catch up with you. I thought she would be—"

"Stricter?" We passed a portrait of all of White's Pearls, who stood in three rows and held austere poses. I didn't look for long, but each of them faced toward the painter, presented in hues of white that varied from servant to servant.

"I thought she would have been stricter too, but she doesn't really seem to care, as long as you do as you're told. Get your cleaning done, stay out of trouble, and you're fine." She put her hands on her hips. "I thought you were serving Blue Diamond, but it looks like you've changed courts. What happened?" A crooked smile came onto her face, not necessarily malicious, but curious—mischievous.

I answered, "Yellow Diamond wanted me to watch her, and keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

"Oh, she fucks her bodyguard, right?"

I stopped walking about two and a half steps later. So did she.

"What? Doesn't everyone know? I mean, none of us have any proof, but," she approached a room, turned, and hit me with a grin showing most of her teeth. "Well, is it true?" Before waiting for me to respond, she opened the door and polluted the air with chatting and noise. I followed her in and walked into a sea of eyes, grey and silver, all of which laser-focused onto both of us.

The talking ceased, and I stood before an entire room of miniature White Diamonds, each Pearl perfectly round and iridescent. Like her, their gems held a rainbow of colors and had untamed hair in varying shades of grey. Dressed beautifully in their airy uniforms, the twenty of them lounged around parts of the room, upon crinkled sheets or even the cluttered floor, all interrupted from talking trash, all staring at me.

"Holy shit," one said and stood, coming to touch both of my shoulders. "There's another Pinky! Are you going to live here?"

"No, I'm just—"

Someone came and touched my hips, while tangling her fingers into my hair.

"Wow, how did you come here?"

"And where have you been?"

"Were you her personal Pearl?"

"Were you a house Pearl too?"

"Look at her bow! She had to be her personal Pearl!"

"Ladies, please. Stop touching her." The other Pink Pearl took their hands off of me and sent them away, but I was still the beacon that drew their attention. My entire body felt both sticky and violated, and standing there, I became aware of the ruined curls that tickled my cheeks. My stomach turned.

"This is my friend from Pink's court," my mirrored and distorted twin told them. "She used to be My Diamond's personal Pearl, so maybe you sluts could have some class?"

"Fuck you, Pinky!"

"Yeah, fuck you!"

"We want to talk to her! Why does she get to be your friend?"

"We served the same Diamond!" 'Pinky' took my arm as more than one of the other Pearls continued fighting. So many of them yelled, I couldn't understand what any were saying, other than the one-word insults and monosyllabic whining.

Pinky pulled me out of the room and back into the hallway, where the riot disappeared behind the door, and we started walking away.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I thought we could talk in there, but I didn't think they'd react like that. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Honestly, my head was still spinning, high on the shock.

My company stopped for a moment to set my curls back into place. Her fingers moved gently, barely brushing past my skin. "They're such fucking animals. There's too many for White to pay attention to anymore, so they get away with murder, or at least molestation. She doesn't even need all of these Pearls, so they get bored, and rowdy, and then they pull this shit." She adjusted my bow and we continued. "Luckily there's a little room around here everyone has forgotten about. We use it for relaxation, but it shouldn't be as full as the quarters."

"Thank you."

"Yeah, no problem. I want to gossip with you anyway, and that's not going to work out in there."

I wished I would have gotten a chance to talk to her when we lived together.

We approached another door, which Pinky held open for me, and inside were two Pearls on a couch, sitting very close. Both white, one had a hand on the other's leg and turned to me, blushing and incredulous, as if they had a right not to get caught.

"You two should know better than to be making out in here," Pinky slid past me and entered the room.

"Where the hell else are we supposed to go?"

"I don't know, but I need a quiet place to talk to my friend. I might not get to see her for a long time, so if you'd let us chat here, I'd really appreciate it."

One of them sighed. "Fine, but we both want a favor."

"Done."

That was all it took to get them to stand. They slid their hands together and walked toward the door, where both stared me right in the eyes and after a pause, left.

The now-empty room, with the lonely sofa in the center, looked old and smelled vaginal, with a few stains on the floor I didn't bother inquiring about.

"Sorry," Pinky said, "there aren't many places a Pearl can go in this palace, and some do come here to fuck. I wish we could have a nicer place to sit, but there's just nothing else around."

"I understand. Do you know what this room was for originally?"

"No idea," she walked to the couch and sat down, leaving space for me on one side. "I think it was locked for a while until someone pried it open. It kind of seems like no one else knows about it, so if you could keep it a secret…"

"I won't tell anyone." I sat next to her and both of us released relieved sighs.

"So, tell me about that Morganite. You like it at her place?"

"You first. You haven't told me how you've been."

"Alright," she leaned back and gave me another crooked smirk. "I don't know if there's much to tell, really. I went from cleaning Our Diamond's house to cleaning White's, and I feel like I get away with more here, but I have to say, I'm not any happier. I miss Our Diamond a lot. She was sweet, and you know, she gave a fuck. White Diamond—any of us could go missing and she'd hardly notice. I see this look on her face sometimes and I think she wishes it was her instead."

I didn't reply and she continued, "You know, back in Pink's palace, some of the Pearls would fuck each other, but not as many as here. It's like an orgy. You'll walk into the quarters and find them in a pile, naked and moaning—in front of everyone. Those two you just saw—those are two of the decent ones. They might actually be in love, but the others? No. They all do whatever they want and as long as they clean well enough, no one gets in trouble. Not like I want it strict, but come on, you know? I shouldn't walk into our room and have to see someone's pussy hanging out. Like I said, animals."

The way she put it made me laugh. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn't help but giggle, and how she talked with her hands only made it worse.

"You think that's funny, huh?"

"No—" I spat out, and tried (and failed) not to keep laughing. "No, that's honestly terrible. It's just—"

"I know. Pussies are funny things." We both shared a chuckle until she tapped me once upon the shoulder. "Alright. I told you and now you tell me. What does your lady get up to? Is it true she fucks her bodyguard?"

My face must have turned pinker, because my forehead started to swim.

"I see. I figured that one was true."

"That one?"

"Yeah, I mean. There are other rumors too. Like she's taken other gems to her office and fucks them right there."

It took me a moment to respond. "No. If that were the case, Yellow Diamond wouldn't need me to spy on her. Don't you think she would have been caught or told on before now?"

She shrugged, "Probably. That's why you can't trust all of these rumors, you know? You have to assume that at least two-thirds of them are total bullshit, but you have to admit, they're entertaining." A pause occurred, where both of us looked at one another. "The only reason any of the Pearls care about Morganite is because they see her come in from time to time, sometimes after she's had a cozy conversation with one of the guards outside."

"I think if she were going to fuck one of them they would come to our residence, and I would have seen it. There's no way she's stupid enough to call gems to her office, if that's what she has in mind."

Pinky put her hands up, half in a shrug and half in defense. "I don't think so either, both of those are just what a bunch of bored Pearls come up with." Her lips pursed and she paused. "Can I ask you about one more?"

I sighed, "Sure."

"Have they…fused?"

"No," my reply came too quickly. "I've never seen them do anything like that."

"At least not in front of you."

That made me angry. I didn't follow Morganite everywhere, but where on Homeworld would they go to fuse? I'm sure together, they would have become so enormous there would be no hiding, and even if there were, how could My Lady just pull Jasper away whenever she wanted, without a vision or a reason? My mind calculated like an angry typewriter as I sat there, saying nothing.

"Hey, I didn't mean to piss you off. I'm sorry." She put her hand on my shoulder.

"Where did you even hear these rumors?"

"From Goshenite's Pearl. I don't know how she found all of this out. Now, it seems like she might have been embellishing too. I guess she listens in when they talk—"

"But they don't talk. They don't need to. Whenever Goshenite comes over, she and Morganite only hold hands, because of their powers."

"Oh, well. She probably just wanted to impress the rest of us, then. Thanks for clearing that up."

We sat amongst another silence, where I picked at my nails in that smelly little room. "Listen," I started. "You won't tell anyone the truth, will you? I'd like to stay where I am, and if someone finds out…"

"Hey, don't worry. I won't say a thing. If the other Pearls ask me, I'll just tell them you haven't seen anything, but Blue Diamond's was that bad, huh?"

"It was miserable."

"I'm sorry about that. It can be pretty miserable here too, but it's not that bad for the most part. Like I said, you can get away with a lot, but I still miss her. I think she really loved us. She'd even still scoop me up sometimes, pat me on the head. White barely looks at us."

I put my hand on her shoulder then. "Please don't say anymore."

"It still hurts, huh?"

My body made a sharp breath I didn't want it to, and I answered, "Yes."

"I know it does." To my surprise, Pinky hugged me, and both of our wild curls brushed against one another. Hers tickled my face, and I embraced her back.

"I worried you might have hated me."

"Hate you? No. Some of us were jealous, but no one hated you. Come on." She tightened her arms. "I mean, someone had to be her personal Pearl, and I never took that personally." Pinky laughed.

I did too, though the next words came through choking. "Do you, I mean—" I hesitate to admit how much I struggled. "Do the others blame me?"

"For what happened?" Something distraught lived on her face, but eventually she said, "Nah. I can't speak for everyone, but I never blamed you. It wasn't your fault. Really, I'm glad I found you today. I still think about you from time to time, and I'm happy you're alright."

"I'm happy you're alright too."

We held each other a while longer and then stopped, taking up our old places on the sofa. Our conversation went on a while longer, about her life, about my life, and even about the future, until she felt it was time to go and we both stood to leave. Before we reached the door, however, she stopped, leaving me steps ahead of her, and said, "Hey, your lady…" I stared at her, perhaps more intensely than I intended. "She hasn't tried anything with you, has she?"

"No," I said, "she hasn't."

Then we left the room, entering the hallway without speaking much more. It turns out her timing was on the spot, as another Pearl came to tell me that Morganite was waiting in the main room.

I hugged Pinky again before I left, looking back at her every few seconds as I returned to My Lady, so we could leave.