A young, feminine figure sat on a rather uncomfortable wooden chair. Her pink hair, that reached past her knees felt tangled from being sat on and she brought a short-fingered hand to calm the wavy, but not curly hair. The sleeve of her orange and green dress got caught and she pulled it free ripping some strands of hair in the process. It didn't hurt much; the physical body was only an illusion.

Realising she should be pay attention to the lesson, Rose gazed up to their teacher babbling on about something. She still couldn't believe that she would be stuck here for 50 years, she loved learning but she felt it was excessive. None of her classmates in the two desks in front of her, or her deskmate, Onyx where even remotely paying attention either.

Taking a tune into the lecture, she realised that it was things her group had learnt when they were only small gemlings, perhaps the second or third class. It was all for the other Rose Quartz gem's sake she reasoned. Had he ever been to school? She gazed quickly behind her at the boy with the fluffy black hair which was uncharacteristic for their gem type. He was in plain, obviously authority issued clothing. He had plain white shirt with a black diamond in the centre and long shorts. He was also wearing shoes, she noted. Many of the gems here didn't use shoes, their feet being tough enough to forgo them. This hum-an half of him must be weak.

The boy seemed unused to the clothes and shoes, occasionally breaking his intense concentration on the lesson to pull at his socks and rub at his bare lower legs with his good arm. He shivered as though he was cold. Rose had noticed the temperature of the room had gone down somewhat, which didn't bother her. It was when his teeth started chattering violently, which Jadeite sniggered at, she raised her hand.

"Excuse me, Aventurine" The green haired, orange skinned gem turned her head, flipping her straight hairdo that was just long enough to tuck behind her ears. She motioned the gem to continue with a nod of the head, despite looking annoyed at her for interrupting her lesson. It didn't seem as the gemlings would listen today anyway though.

Rose sat up straighter in her seat "Steven appears to be cold" she explained. This was an already cool planet but they had some rain and hail in the past few days and the temperature had dropped dramatically. Aventurine gazed at the only male in her class, last time she checked on him he had been listening attentively. Now he was pale and shivering, his arms hugging his knees and his lips going blue.

As only a teacher for the younger groups, she had no firm grasp on biology any more, she assumed it wasn't good though. "Marble, would you please inform the 23rd group leader that you will be joining them for an early recess, I need to help Steven." Their break was the one after this, so the gemlings smiled at the prospect of having double break. All of them were excited, except for Steven and Rose.

As the 9 other gemlings filed out, Rose stayed as her teacher started to lead the lethargically cold Steven to the healer's bay. Steven's eyes stayed half open but drowsy, leaning over to try and curl up to warm himself. The boy from warm beach city wasn't built for cold weather, even with his gem half offering protection.

Aventurine told Rose that she should go to recess with the others, which she ignored. She walked with her new friend and her teacher down the hall, stubbornly but compassionately, pushing Steven back the few times he started to droop sideways tiredly.

Finally reached the Healer's bay, Rose went in ahead. She found the bored looking healer gem sitting beside the single bed, gems barely got sick or hurt enough to come here. The small pink gem arms got tangled slightly in her hair as she made several hand gestures to illustrate her explanation, an explanation the healer gem was captivatedly listening to. Until Rose mentioned the Steven was half animal, then the older gem slouched, bored again as Steven was brought in.

The healer, Amazonite started to pull something from her green, round cut gem on her left hand then paused. She reached in a cupboard and produced a large blanket; many poisons caused the chills so the institute always had a few. To poison another gem is to stray from the path, so it hadn't happened in centuries. These blankets were some of the few protocols still in place if it ever did happen. Items summoned made purely from gem power could disappear after a while and Steven would probably need it more than once.

The healer placed the male gemling on the bed and placed the blanket around him. Amaz quickly shot a hand out to Aventurine, the other green gem pausing as the healer felt a cold and smooth arm. Rose felt her pigtail get brushed to behind her shoulder blade as the healer felt her too; the green gem's nimble hands were cold but not uncomfortable, or very noticeable. A curt nod by Amazonite followed the quick exam.

"I don't know a lot about mammals but they should be warmed up gradually" The healer was reluctant to warm the blanket magically, not knowing the right heat yet. She told Rose to sit close to Steven because she was the warmest of the three. The two older gems were as cold as their gems on a winter's day.

She sat there for a while, discussing random things and asking about humans. She smiled as Steven's teeth slowed their chattering enough to answer. He regained colour to his cheeks and was finally coherent enough to tell Amazonite how high to heat the blanket. Rose, glad she helped, hopped off the bed and upon Aventurine's permission, began to head to recess.

Steven remained there, no longer shivering but silent. Until he spoke out

"Thanks Rosie" He said in his loud way, his voice squeaking slightly on the last syllable. Rosie smiled at her newly acquired nickname, every other gem often called her by her full name or simply Rose. It felt nice to be set apart from the other Rose Quartz gems, aside from Steven, who needed no distinction.

The gemlings sat on the benches, talking quietly amongst themselves. Rose joined her classmate Onyx, a loud and proud black and white gem who wore her gem just above her knee. Onyx was speaking animatedly about a rainforest on Sateda that she had visited last break. Rosie had never seen trees outside of a green house before and simply couldn't imagine so many growing by themselves close together.

As the bell to their actual recess rang, Steven ran over to them. He wasn't wearing a blanket anymore, instead wearing a thick black jumper and trousers which he explained were brought in by authority guards after she had left.

Rosie introduced Onyx who began to ask all different questions about humanity. Steven, after a few minutes stopped as the questions got in-depth and uncomfortable. Steven looked up then, frowning as he looked around.

"Why is no one playing?" He asked curiously. Rosie and Onyx were confused and let their expressions speak instead of their mouths. The male gem thought for a moment.

"Onyx, can you shapeshift?" Onyx grinned at that statement, nodding as proudly and boastfully as possible for a gem.

"Okay, let's play Steven tag!" He began to explain the rules.

The other 8 gemlings of their class and the gems of the class above and below them watched curiously as the young gems started running and shape shifting, laughing as they did so. Onyx and Rosie had run a bit slower than they could, they recognised that Steven was slower than a gem. Rose didn't like not having her long pigtails flowing in the breeze but she was having fun. After they were caught, Steven walked up to Jadeite and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Tag!" The green gem wasn't amused as he pushed Steven away.

"Get away from me, you filthy hybrid!" She screeched. Onyx, seeing Rose and Steven's hurt faces, quickly called out to see who else wanted to play. Seven other students out of the twenty eight not playing cautiously stood up, going over to Steven who began to explain the rules again.

After they had begun playing for a while but before Steven had caught many, an eleventh gem came up to him and tugged his sleeve. The small gem, barely up to Steven's shoulder, had dark blue straight hair, reaching halfway down her back and light blue skin. A hexagon shaped Snowflake Obsidian was embedded in her neck.

She spoke softly but swiftly, not shy at all. "I can't shape shift yet, can I still play?" She asked. Steven smiled and blushing, summarised the cat fingers incident to her. Snow laughed and Steven let her play as second person that was 'it'.

"Okay everybody!" He called out "You are running from Snowflake too now so watch out"

Eventually it had begun to be a race, the people tipped by Steven became him and the gems tagged by Snowflake became her, once the last gem was tagged they would tally up who got the most gems. It was possible to be tagged more than once so the gems already tagged could still be allowed to run around crazily.

Suddenly Steven stopped in his shoes. Rose ran over to him, shape shifted into Snowflake.

"Are you okay?" She asked, absentmindedly pulling at her now straight and too short hair.

"Wasn't the sky blue before?" He pointed at the sky which was now a shimmering purple. Rosie assured him not to worry, they were simply testing the shields which happened sometimes.

The black haired gem dismissed his concerns and quickly tagged Rosie before she could run away.

…

Peridot had returned to work that day due to Steven being a school and out of their hands for most of the day. She hoped he hadn't gotten himself into too much trouble. Lapis had tagged along to the workshop, being bored out her mind in the castle after she had dropped off Steven.

The guards wouldn't let Lapis touch anything though, which was probably for the best. Quite a few of the prototypes were not waterproof yet. At least she had managed to convince the water gem to pull in her wings but she wasn't able to quell Lapis' childlike curiosity.

The blue gem was constantly looking around, twisting her head to look at things in way that made her short hair whip around. Peridot thought it was cute but after a few times of her and Ruby being interrupted she was tempted to keep Lapis quiet tomorrow by leaving her in the castle with a ball of string.

She couldn't blame the gem for wishing to have almost constant interaction, from what she understood, Lapis was in that ornate mirror for a vast majority of her life, only barely out of the second institute when she left. She probably didn't want to be alone any more.

"Why are there fighter-jets being built?" The water gem finally asked. This, amongst Lapis' other question's, most of which had become a not irritating, but certainly not calming hum in the background had caught her attention.

Peridot hadn't believed she would recognise them for what they were, to the best of her knowledge they were made here and then were stored in various garages throughout the empire. Gemkind hadn't seen a war in perhaps hundreds of millennia to her knowledge; so many jets had never been used.

"I don't know. How is it you know what they are?" She asked stepping away from a broken console to walk towards her friend. Lapis furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"You really don't know about the earth war?

Peridot, startled at the question stood still and speechless. She wrinkled her nose. "We fought humans?" In Lapis' eyes that looked on the surface to be filled with a silent pain she could also see amusement. The blue gem chuckled before reassuming a calmer, collected stature.

She gazed into Peridot's eyes sadly, "It was a civil war, over the harvesting of earth for gems and other raw materials. Many gems, including Steven's mother believed that earth was to be protected, especially due to it being home to sentient beings…. I was a scout because I was small and most powerful near their Oceanside hideout" Lapis faltered and Peridot placed a hand of the shorter gem's shoulder, letting the gesture give strength and let Lapis know she didn't need to continue.

"I was caught by a Crystal gem guard, Jet. He…trapped me in the mirror… so I could give information. General Rose thought it was wrong and sent the mirror back through the warp pad… where they thought I was corrupt. They sent me back…. They sent me back."

Lapis sat down, her head against her knees as she shook, as she remembered being alone for thousands of years, looking at the same warp pad every day. Then, memories of being taken back by the crystal gems where they would give her commands, dismissing her as malfunctioning when she tried to speak. She glanced at her hands, tears falling onto the shaking body parts.

Then Peri hugged her and whispered into her ear.

"You are safe now; you'll never have to be there again." Peridot could get Steven back on her own, Lapis needed to be here. Peridot held Lapis tighter, feeling the blue gem still quivering but embracing the alien gesture.

…

Hi guys, here is a longer chapter just for you guys to make up for yesterday. I will probably be doing another one today…if I can figure out how to transition to the next plot point… Hmm… should I visit the issue of Connie and the gems again? I am afraid all I can do is make them sad though…