She froze. The thin veil between her future sight and reality torn, unable to act. The prison's alarms blared rhythmically and echoed down the long corridors. The Topaz drew her destabilizer. White Sapphire felt her hands going numb. There was a flash and a roar as the air between them superheated for an instant and the Topaz fusion fell apart, its component gems dissipating and clattering across the floor. Wiss looked up as Fors slid her Energy Rifle back into her gem then grabbed her hand firmly.

"Run."

And they did. Wiss closed her eye as they sprinted, focusing on the moment. Fors' hand. Their footsteps as they ran. Her sight eased back and she pushed it away. She couldn't afford to get emotional again and lose herself. Her grip on Fors' hand tightened and she took the lead and in moments she was pulling Fors behind her as they zoomed down the halls, her bare feet tapped away but were drowned out by the alarms. The pale yellow halls were just streaks of faint color around them.

They whipped around a corner, angling for the entryway that was so far beyond their reach. Wiss remembered the layout, she knew how far it was but if they could just get back onto the main passage-. And then they were met by Topaz Guards. She turned, dragging Fors around another bend into another group of guards. Down the path they had come from she heard more boots marching. They were surrounded.

She released Fors' hand and flung herself forwards, taking one of the Topazes by surprise as the sheer momentum of the tiny gem took her off her feet. She materialized her dagger and tried to slam it down into the yellow gem's chest but she brought a single hand up, managing to grip Wiss' thin wrists to hold the strike just inches from the target. Behind her she heard Fors' Energy Rifle fire several times, roaring as it cleaved a path into the Topazes down the other two paths, holding them back for just moments.

She gritted her teeth, her bangs dangling down and splayed out around her watering eye. Their gaze was locked. Emotions bared. Fury and desperation marred the 'delicate' Sapphire's face. The Topaz' eyes were wide as her lips quivered, Wiss seeing equal measures of shock and terror. An explosion rang out behind her but she couldn't look away. She forced the dagger's point down slowly as it parted the Topaz's form and dissipated her, dropping the short gem to the ground with a painful thud.

She forced herself to stand, willing her legs to ignore the aching and exhaustion, dagger gripped in trembling hands. Fors was backing up towards her as more Topazes approached, but that wasn't what she was staring at. She was locked onto the source of the explosion.

Yellow Diamond stood down the long corridor, looming both in size and presence despite the distance between her and the fight. Her posture, her expression. Those eyes. It was like a ripple of electricity had arced through Wiss as she met that glare. Just a flash of warning from her future sight. She grabbed Fors' hand and bolted as an arc of yellow energy blew a hole in the ground where they had just stood, sending the Topazes flying away from them- not that they would have caught them anyway. She opened her sight fully, focusing on her and Fors, together in the Writing Room. She could see that future. She latched onto it. She would never let it go.

Her sight opened up as branches opened and closed, the chaos weaving a route directly to what she wanted and then the noise just fell away. Left. Right. Three hundred meters. There was a large open window sealed with a destabilizer field. She skidded, releasing Fors' hand again a dozen meters early and summoning her dagger. As she slid she spun the blade around and drove it into the emitter. Her left hand slammed into the field just before it shut off, sending a painful jolt through her form as she lost both feeling and control in her left arm but she couldn't slow down.

"WISS! Are you-" She grabbed Fors waist and stepped up into the window, and she stepped up with her. Fors' mouth opened and closed a couple times before she got out "Can you float us in-" but she stopped herself. 'In your condition.' she wanted to ask.

She looked up to her, her wonderful engineer, eyes blurry. She had no idea. But this was the path of her vision. She couldn't start questioning now. She stepped into the air and they fell.


So much wasted time. She sat on her throne now, surrounded by guards of various types. Behind her more gems worked, busy repairing the hole she had blasted in the wall, overseen by several bismuths. So much wasted labor, all over some off-color defect. She stopped drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair, she was driving herself to aggravation.

"Call White. Mark the message as urgent. Tell her I'm coming to the Palace." Her Pearl saluted and immediately began typing, following her Diamond as she stood and started the long march to the Palace.

.

The throne room was dim when Yellow entered. She gestured for Yellow Pearl to stay by the door before marching down the long hall to the thrones where White was seated. She forced herself to relax her fists as she approached the glowing Diamond. Her form was towering and elegant as always, her gaze piercing and cold despite the facade of her welcoming smile.

"Yellow, to what occasion do I owe the pleasure?" came her rolling greeting as if she had not already heard of the breakout somehow, like she always knew everything that occurred on Homeworld as soon as it happened it seemed.

She snapped, "One of YOUR Sapphires has gone defective and broke a rebel out of my Prison!"

White's head tilted just every so slightly, her expression unchanging. "And what type of gem was this off-color rebel?"

She narrowed her eyes slightly. 'And how do you know it was an off-color.' she thought but she breathed in. She needed to be calm. "A 'Forsterite' it called itself. Some off-color Peridot. Does it even matter White?"

"Mmm. How irregular." White might have been out of her own Head finally, but it was hardly an improvement as far as Yellow was concerned. It simply meant they had to endure her incessant politicking first-hand now, which was infuriating. She was sick of it.

"I am deploying my forces across Homeworld. They will scour every inch of the planet and I will make an example of this White Sapphire and her Off-Color cur." She declared, nearly spitting as she yelled. But White continued to remain, stagnant. Pondering.

Then White spoke with some delicacy. "Why is it, do you think, that such a high class gem would side with an off color?"

"Pink." she sneered. "Her game has gone too far, this is open rebellion. You and Blue can not deny it anymore-"

"Pink is gone." Yellow balked at White's tone. "My Starlight's name will not be tarnished further." She stared up at her silently as the smile returned to her face, albeit more strained than it had been. "Her son however, Steven. He is an issue. He is not our Pink-" she leaned forwards, making Yellow feel even smaller. "But he IS a Diamond. And he must learn what that means. His reckless transmission has lead to thousands of shatterings already." She turned her head and frowned, giving Yellow a side glance.

"What is it you have in mind?"

The smile returned, "I want you to take your forces to Earth to escort Steven back home to us." Yellow started to protest but was cut off again. "He must be unharmed. And you will see to it that his organic needs are met. Blue is likely more familiar with... those concerns." The Matriarch paused for a moment, her settling aura sending a chill down Yellow's back. "In the meantime, I shall deal with this defect within my own court. Personally."


16,000 years ago.

Her slow fall abilities were weak, and new to her. Just like her future sight. She was only able to slow her descent a little. She wasn't meant to be a White Sapphire. That's what they said anyway but she knew they were wrong now. When she emerged from her hole she scared the ordinary sapphires, who were already shaken as they tried to adapt to their future vision. The Kindergarteners had yelled about nearly ruining a whole batch of the rare gems, before she was dissipated.

They thought she was off-color.

Her gem was taken to Homeworld. They had to be sure after all. When she reformed for the first time she was nearly catatonic they said. Wouldn't respond to the testing. So they dissipated her again. Was she simply a colorless sapphire, or a true White Sapphire? They drilled her for hours in the vaulted chambers of White's Palace. Gems brought in, told to attack her. Trying to trigger the unique future sight her gem should possess. Other White Sapphires, the scant few there were, were brought in to examine her. To compare.

Finally the Musgravite overseeing her examination had to make the call.

"You nearly do match the others. Nearly." Her voice was all feigned sweetness with a venomous undertone. White Sapphire knew they were going to kill her then. "However you seem to lack the proper. Abilities. Required of a true White Sapphire." Musgravite waved a hand and several clear White Quartzes approached from their station at the door. She backed away, unable to even speak. Desperately trying to be what they wanted. Trying to see how they wanted. Her fight or flight instincts kicked in. And she ran. She didn't consider what she was doing she just acted.

She ran away from those Quartzes and that horrible Musgravite, onto the balcony. She stepped up onto the balustrade, bare foot arching and she pushed herself up and then over. She stepped into the air and she fell.

Her slow fall abilities were weak, and new to her. Just like her future sight. She could see now, she knew they were wrong because she could see. But it was too late. She was only able to slow her descent a little. The ground rushed up at her rapidly but the height of her fall gave her a long minute to come to terms with it. With her short, horrible life. And then she hit the ground.

.

There was an endless expanse of white. Pure, clear white. The air around her felt fluid. She was warm. She was in her gem. She was alive. Why?

She floated in a daze for a long time. She didn't know how to control her form, what to do or how to do it. Where to even begin? She felt wrong. She let herself form with no conscious effort to stabilize a shape. Whatever she looked like would be wrong either way.


Forsterite sat cross legged there for a long time. Waiting. She didn't understand why really- it was a stupid idea. Whatever kind of gem this was she wasn't going to like Fors. She was perfect. A gleaming white gem without a speckle of discoloration or fogginess. Perfectly translucent. Not like her at all. Fors' own gem sat on her right shoulder, a dull desaturated olive green thing speckled with dots of faint blue. She was supposed to be a Peridot.

She knew this was a bad idea but she couldn't help herself. She'd seen the gem fall from the skies, seen her crash into the ground, her physical form twisted and broken before it dissipated. Maybe it was pathos or curiosity or a dangerous mixture of both but she needed to know about this gem.

She'd scooped the gem up and ran, fleeing deep into the tunnels under the Palace as the sounds of Shattering Robonoids buzzed overhead. The dim abandoned halls of the Under Palace were filthy but warm, and the Robonoids had never entered them that she had seen anyway. It was safety. It was home. And she was putting it in danger by bringing this gem here.

She stared down at the gem, watching the dim overhead lighting play off it. She'd been here alone for so long, hundreds of years at least. Hiding from Homeworld right under it's seat of power. Tinkering with the abandoned and forgotten pieces of machinery. Salvaging parts from some systems to repair others so she could control the doors and lighting.

Suddenly she was snapped back to the present by a glowing light- the gem was reforming! It drifted up off the ground as it lit up and rotated into place, a mass of white light forming with them gem on its belly. A short body with a billowing dress and her hair in a bun, then another form that made the dress look somehow deflated and with her hair down, then finally a tattered dress with wild hair. Fors scraped backwards still on her rear as the gem fell to the ground hard and collapsed in front of her without making any effort to catch herself.

The shorter gem pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and gazed across to Fors, nearly face to face and only a few feet away. 'What should I say? Oh stars umm.'

Fors tried to speak but her voice was croaky and she had to clear her throat before trying again, "Hello?" The white gem pushed herself backwards, scampering further away when Fors sat upright, so she paused and held her hands open. "Easy, sorry. Didn't mean to ah, scare you? I just ah. You, fell from the sky so I. Um." She was at a loss for words. It had been ages since she spoke to another gem. "My name is Fors- or Forsterite."

No response. Nothing. She was silent for a long time, Fors couldn't even see her face because her bangs hung over it as the smaller gem stared down. At her own gem? Maybe something was wrong, what if she was cracked- no it wasn't cracked earlier so what- No. She heard the white gem sniffling, whimpering. Her hands shook as she brought them up to her face and broke down. Fors had no idea what to do, she felt like her mind was just seizing up. Like when she tried to repair something and just couldn't figure out what to do next, her thoughts stalling. Stuttering. It made her feel useless.

They sat like that, together but apart, for a long time as the smaller gem wept. Eventually the crying slowed and she settled into silence, with only occasionally sniffling breaking the quiet. It must have been an hour before either of them moved, it certainly felt like it. But finally they did. The white gem ran her hand roughly trough her hair, brushing the mess locks of frizzy hair off her face to reveal her singular eye, reddened from the tears they had shed. And she spoke.

"Where am I?" came the hoarse and timid voice, barely louder than a whisper.

Fors swallowed before answering "We're under the Palace. Gems don't come down here anymore." She added hastily when the white gem flinched. "You ah. Fell from the sky."

She finally spoke up again, "Why am I here?"

"I- well you um. I brought you here after you fell, so you'd be... safe." She shifted back into her cross legged position, one which was soon mimicked by the white gem. "My name is Forsterite by the way- wait no I already said that didn't I?"

She thought she caught just the faintest hint of a smile at that, but it vanished when the white gem spoke. "I'm... White Sapphire."

She felt her jaw threatening to drop off. "Bwa- a what!? A White Sapphire!? Why were they trying to kill you, you're like worth a million of me!" It made so much sense, she knew she recognized that gem type but she didn't know why. A panic started to set in. What she just, a trap? A spy? Was she going to report her when she left?

White Sapphire looked down, tearing up again, "They think I'm.. d-defective. Off-Color." That. Made no sense.

"They what!? No no no that, that makes no sense why would they think that, you're perfect!" She felt her face warming, "I mean like, your cut and the translucence of your gem, its pristine. How could they ever think you're wrong like-" Me.

"I... wasn't meant to be a White Sapphire. I came from a Kindergarten of normal Sapphires... And when my future sight wasn't working th-they.." She started crying again. "I can't I just.. They're going to find me and shatter me." Fors didn't think she just moved, shuffling forwards on her knees and pulling the gem into a hug. She felt like her mind was stuttering again.

"Look we- It's... It's ok. Really. It'll be ok. You'll be safe. I won't let them." She swallowed hard, damn it. She couldn't guarantee that. She couldn't even guarantee her own safety down here. If they came looking for her, which they probably would given the rarity of her gem then...

"Why?" White Sapphire pulled away finally to look Fors in the eyes.

'Mind stutters. Why mind stutters.' She stared blankly for a moment before answering. "I have no clue."