Hey guys, sorry I'm late this week, It's been a rough week and I'm trying to get my act back together. This chapter was... hard, so I hope that there are some good parts here that you enjoy.
thanks to Squish for betaing, and I will see you guys next week
High middle low
Stevima was far stronger than they had been ten years ago. Before, they had been exhausted healing only three gems. Now they were easily healing a dozen without the excruciating headache they had gotten before.
High middle low
Granted, there were still many many corrupted gems to go but Stevima had finally hit their stride.
High middle low
It was almost boring.
Stevima opened their eyes and smiled lazily at the gems that were shakily getting to their feet. They stepped aside and watched as the Crystal Gems ran to embrace them. There were a few Homeworld aligned gems but the nephrites had been doing a great job of explaining the situation to them. Even though "Air without a Care" wanted to be right in the middle of it.
"Well, that's all my part done." Stevima grinned at Connie and Amethyst who were standing nearby. Connie was home from Empire City this weekend, and Stevima knew that 'Lover Quartz' wanted to do nothing more than to spend the weekend with arms around his girlfriend. But he was willing to hold back for a bit so Stevima could have their fun, he was considerate like that.
"You stickin' around?" Amethyst asked.
"Yeah, for now," Stevima said lazily. "Anyone have any plans?"
Steven had told Domina once that his mom had said that Earth was a place where anything could happen. Domina was a firm believer that Earth was a remarkable planet but it still was just a planet.
This put Stevima square in the middle, even though that wasn't technically how fusion worked.
Earth was just a planet, one that was remarkable because that's all it had to be. Which really was the ideal from Stevima's perspective. They were proud of being free from the anxieties and expectations that both of their components held and just allowed to be themselves. And Stevima enjoyed it, even with how short-lived their moments usually were.
So they pushed aside the thoughts of proposals, shards, threatening notes, and an empire full of problems, and they went to the beach with Connie and Amethyst, then to the prime kindergarten to talk with Peridot and debate with Lapis about who controlled the clouds. And then finally they let go, with their final thought wondering just how much they were like Earth, what were they capable of?
"I mean it sounds like someone's trying to scare you," Steven said. Domina sighed.
"I assume so. But why?" She hadn't told anyone about the notes, not even Pearl, but she had told Steven and Connie. And it helped to take some of the weight of that off her shoulders.
"Maybe they're trying to use it as blackmail?" Connie asked, they were in the living room, all sprawled on the couch where they had been deciding on what movies to watch that night. Until Domina had brought up the message with Beryl 1GZ's name on it.
"If they are, they haven't made any demands," Domina said. "And it's not like that information isn't public."
"Maybe they're just playing a joke on you?" Steven proposed. Domina chuckled.
"Well if that's the case, I can't wait for the punchline."
During these weekends Domina felt normal. Especially with Pearl gone she needed a place to feel safe and like she was surrounded by family, especially since...
"Oh! How's the fleet? You said you were going to see them last week." Connie asked. "Did Mossy decide on which world you guys were going to start terraforming next?" Domina frowned.
"No, Moss Agate and I didn't come to an agreement." Though that was a huge understatement. Steven and Connie looked at each other uncertainly and Domina shook her head, shoving down thoughts about that argument.
"Weren't we going to watch Dogcopter?" She suggested, nudging the box set out of Steven's hand with a gust of wind.
"Right!" Steven said, diving to catch the DVDs. "You make popcorn. Connie, can you get the blankets out of the bedroom? If we're going to be watching movies for eight hours we better get comfortable!"
They slept late that night, and Domina fought sleep to the last possible moment. Not ready for whatever dreams she found herself in.
In her dream, Domina didn't recognize the floor tiles and yet still her mind thought they were all too familiar. She walked alongside... someone, following them, trailing behind with soft footsteps and hands firmly clasped behind her back. The floor tiles were... odd, not as pristinely geometric as the floors in most gem buildings. They were shaped organically as if someone had tried to make a masterpiece of the floors. Domina knew enough to know that she was on a planet, she could feel the pull of true gravity on her form. She wanted to raise her head, to look around and inspect her surroundings but something told her that she had to remain respectful, invisible, to blend in as a diamond should. She stopped as the person in front of her stopped, and there was... conversation? A language of hissing that was once again so unusual but still familiar to a section of her mind.
"-no inconsistencies other than the overcharged capacity?"
"Yes, yes, and it's performing much better than the trials with graphite."
"But surely it's still brittle?"
"Inspect for yourself." A scaled hand grabbed her chin and pulled her head up. The lights were bright and she couldn't see the face but there was a fingernail tapping her gem. She wanted to snarl, yell, jerk away, hit back but something kept her rigid, whether it was programming or fear.
"Hmm, fascinating." The hand moved, prodding the hair of her form, "All that power and still capable of holding a form this delicate." The hand moved and continued to run through the hair, touching underneath to hold the back of her head. She felt scrutinized and she certainly didn't like that. She jerked her head back and the hands went away. There was a chuckle and the one she had been following cuffed the back of her head disapprovingly.
"Of course that still doesn't keep us from glitches causing insubordination. Perhaps the next model will prove to be more stable." They began to move again, and she followed eyes on the floor, as the two beings spoke as if she wasn't there. Finally, she managed to look up, to look through a window and see a world of red dirt and low green trees. And Domina saw her reflection, face white, and narrow, her hair, pale and iridescent pulled into an intricate pattern tight against her hair, framing her face. And she stared into her eyes, pale, white with diamonds at their centers.
Domina woke up with a shout. Thankfully Steven and Connie slept heavily and didn't react with anything more than a grumble as they curled closer together, while Domina caught her breath, the ghost of her heart thrumming in her chest. That wasn't the first dream like that she'd had. Domina's dreams had been full of moments like that, scenes from... a past that wasn't hers. Ever since she had reformed, ever since she had spoken with her mother, she felt like she wasn't entirely herself.
And those thoughts were hard to ignore when she was sitting in the dark, essentially alone. So Domina got up and stepped on the warp pad to go up to the temple's hand. It was a cloudless night and the moon was already starting to set, it would be daylight in a few hours. Domina stepped off the warp pad and sat next to the washer, White Pearl must have started it recently because it was humming. Making a mechanical noise that was more soothing to her than the crash of waves and the sound of crickets chirping. The warp pad chimed and White Pearl stepped off, carrying a basket.
"Domina?" She asked with a puzzled frown.
"Hello, sorry, couldn't sleep." Domina lied, "Or slept enough, I can't tell."
"Ah." White Pearl said awkwardly. Domina stood up and awkwardly smiled at the gem. Their relationship was still as odd as it always had been. They sparred with each other still, and Domina knew that White was among the legion of people Pearl had drafted to keep an eye on her. But they didn't talk much.
"Did Steven propose to Connie yet?" Domina asked in an attempt at small talk.
White Pearl smiled softly. "No, he says he's waiting for the right time but he's been saying that for the past few months, I think he's worried she'll say no." Domina snorted.
"I think he's worrying over nothing."
"Most likely, he and Connie are so close and..." Pearl trailed off. Domina hesitated.
"Would Rose Quartz have liked her?" She asked. Pearl smiled.
"Of course, Rose loved everybody." Rose Quartz was still a touchy subject around the beach house but after all this time the Gems really did seem to be healing.
"Even Pink Diamond?" Domina asked with a slight smile. Pearl rolled her eyes.
"That's a complicated story."
"I've heard it several times and it doesn't get any less complicated."
"I've lived it and can assure you it does not." White Pearl asked. Domina nodded and looked up at the sky.
"Do... do you ever worry that Rose might be somewhere in Steven?" Domina asked. "Just sleeping?" Pearl froze and stared at Domina. She had heard about what had happened after she had shattered, and when Steven healed her gem. She knew that her mother had almost reformed. And she knew that Steven worried about the same question. That maybe he wasn't alone in his gem, and Domina had done nothing to help him put those worries to rest.
"I used to," Pearl said.
"And you don't anymore?"
"I knew Rose Quartz for over six thousand years, and as much of her as I see in Steven it's just... just echos." Pearl's eyes watered slightly before she wiped them away and her voice went firm. "She's gone." Domina let those words hang in the air for a bit. And tried to make herself believe them as well. She had to, it couldn't be more than echos left in her gem. She let her hand ghost over the facets unthinkingly and then felt a hand on her shoulder. "Domina, White Diamond is gone, I knew her for longer." White Pearl said, in a tone of voice Domina usually only heard when she spoke to Steven. "And I can assure you, she's gone. You are yourself, no one else."