Blue Pearl

Blue Diamond has many pressures on her time.

There are reports to read, orders to issue, courtesans to court, politicians to quarrel with, scientists to scheme with. Sometimes she meets with her fellow Diamonds, though in-person councils have become rare. Instead, they rely on holographic conferences, beamed across the stars.

Often Blue Diamond brings her pearl along. Other times she does not bother. A pearl's purpose is to be pretty and to impress, and Blue Diamond accomplishes both on her own.

So she leaves her pearl alone, and Pearl has meetings of her own to attend.

This Pearl has power by proximity. She is never stopped or detained. Never questioned. She has some degree of freedom. Not enough, of course, never enough. But more than most.

Pearl waits in front of an ancient tapestry depicting Blue Diamond's might, still and silent. Another Pearl appears down the hall. Pearl doesn't even shift until the other is standing right in front of her. This one is orange, with large shoulder pads, hair swept to one side to reveal her ear-gem placement. Just as expected.

They nod at each other.

Pearl rarely speaks. She's gotten out of the practice of it, in the millennia serving at Blue Diamond's side. And speaking has its downsides. Risks being overheard, being betrayed. She keeps her secrets in silence.

Instead, the gem at Pearl's breast glows, and a projection appears in front of her face. It says, REPORT.

Planet 46X-JL-6 has begun ST-4 colonisation, the other Pearl responds, with a hologram of her own. Pearl harvesting operations are being mobilised on two of its moons…

And so the report continues. This orange pearl is responsible for most of the information Blue Diamond's Pearl gets from Yellow Diamond's court and command centre. (Not all the information, of course, but most). She gives updates on factories, fleets, inventions, resources, scouting. Losses to their causes, but victories, too. The number of new recruits.

They communicate in hologram, their messages appearing only for milliseconds, then vanishing out of existence— too quick for almost any passing Gems to see, let alone comprehend. A necessity, when briefing can only happen in snatched moments. A necessity, when in such danger. A necessity, when hiding in plain sight.

Only after everything else has been addressed does Blue Diamond's Pearl ask, And what about the Cluster?

No updates.

Pearl's brow furrows, though the expression is hidden both by her hair and the holographic screen.

How about the rubies?

No response yet.

A fractional pause, as Pearl considers.

She's been following the case since it first resurfaced. Since Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG first submitted a flask-robonoid malfunction report after deployment to the planet Earth.

Then, it had just been procedure. Yellow Diamond was growing a geoweapon, and they needed to know about it.

And it was Earth. Even if Pearl had long-since resigned herself to its fate, she couldn't forget the place where this had all started.

Then another report had come in, smuggled to her with great difficulty and risk by one of her informants. They said that Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG had made successful contact with the Earth's alpha-kindergarten, but hadn't been able to access the fusion experiments. Something had stopped her.

What, exactly, wasn't known. But Yellow Diamond was doing all that she could to suppress that information, and that alone was enough to pique Pearl's interest.

Then there'd been a lone Lapis Lazuli. Found flying through space, unregistered. Very tight lipped, but claiming to have only just escaped from Earth— a planet supposedly abandoned millennia ago. She'd only barely been on Homeworld for a handful of Cycles before she'd been taken into custody, for the charge of sending forbidden correspondence and high treason.

Her people hadn't been able to secure a record of that communication. Or so it had seemed. Then a Pearl— a veteran of the War, almost as old as Blue Diamond's Pearl herself, stationed at Proxima Centuri— had made contact through old, almost forgotten channels, with a full transcript of the Lazuli's message. A message, a warning, to Gems unknown on Earth.

The Lazuli and the Peridot had been assigned to a Jasper. A well ranking one. Another Earth War veteran. They'd taken a ship, set off for Earth…

… and never came back.

No updates. No reports. Nothing at all.

Then there had been a sudden black sport in Pearl's information network. Something had happened, something that Yellow Diamond wanted absolutely no one to know about.

A few Cycles later, Yellow Diamond had sent off a squadron of rubies to the Crystal System. Official duty: retrieve Jasper. Pearl was certain that was just a front.

Pearl had not expected their mission to go quickly. Rubies were hardly the most efficient of Gems, and that Yellow Diamond was using them for this suggested she didn't much care. Or— and this seemed much more likely— that she wanted it to seem as if she didn't care. That she couldn't risk any sign of weakness to the other Diamonds.

And now, Cycles had passed, and the rubies still hadn't reported. Strange. Telling. Pearl wondered what Yellow Diamond would do next.

Ma'am? the other Pearl asks. How should we proceed?

Behind her bangs, Pearl blinks. A part of her wants to send a scout herself. A small ship to Earth, to see if it's just a jumbled mess of space debris, or somehow, still, something more.

But— but. She does not have legions of spaceships at her command. She does not have supplies to squander. She does not have people she could send, at least not without them being missed, noticed. And she has other things to consider— other schemes, other planets, other Gems, hundreds of them. She can not risk them. Can not allow herself to be swayed by sentimentality.

Continue monitoring the situation, Pearl orders. Her hologram winked out.

The other Pearl does not bow or tilt her head. Just brings her hands to her chest and forms a circle.

Blue Diamond's Pearl, commander of the New Rebellion, responds in kind.

oOoOo

Author's Note: AND WE'RE BACK!