A/N: Now that we're going to get some more backstory about the origins of the Crystal Gems in the next Stevenbomb, parts of this might become non-canon. That's okay, though, because canon divergence is a thing!

I think we've gotten the most detail so far on Amethyst's origins, but there's always more to the story. I also think that her child-like personality in the past was partly due to having spent the majority of her life completely alone until she found a new family of people who were older and more experienced than her, and since Gems' aging might be related to how old they feel, she felt like the baby of the family. Until Steven came along, that is.

The world is huge, and dark, and cold, and empty.

Oh, sure, there's plenty of things in it. There are lots of rocks, and a bunch of weird machines scattered about, and the giant walls surrounding the place are covered in holes just like hers. But there are no other things like her.

She knows how she got here – she was inside the wall, waiting for the right time to come out, and when it came she made herself a body and burst out, leaving behind a perfectly her-sized hole. And now, she supposes, she lives here.

Amethyst. Her name is Amethyst. This she knows.

Right away she sets off exploring. The place seems gigantic to her and she assumes this must be the whole world. The cliffs stretch impossibly high, farther than she can crane her neck to look. The rocks are big, but not too big to climb – which she does, standing on top and looking out over the landscape, and gazing up into the sky.

Since nobody else is here, she reasons, this must be her world, and she rules it. She is the smallest thing in the world, but she is also the only thing that's alive.

She didn't know what exactly her physical form was supposed to be like, but she had a rough idea of it already ingrained in her mind, and so she went off that. Now, looking at the other holes, she notices they're all bigger than hers. Oh, well. If anyone else was here before her, it's their fault they decided to leave without waiting for her.

Time passes. The sky turns lighter and darker and back again. She looks for ways to pass the time.

She tries to change her shape, just to be a little bit taller. She squeezes her eyes shut and concentrates hard, and when she opens them she's sure the ground looks farther away. She resolves to keep working on that.

She studies the big machines. They look like they might have once been alive, or just moving. It looks like they have legs at the bottom that they'd skitter around on, and those shapes on the top were probably their heads, but they don't have any faces. She wonders how they became not-alive – the word dead pops into her head – and if they looked different when they were walking around. Now they're just standing still, clinging to the walls and standing on the ground, and there's some kind of stuff inside them but she doesn't know what it's for. It's probably not important to know or she would already have the answers in her head, like with certain other things.

There's also a raised platform up on a cliff, but she can't get up to it. She can't tell what it's supposed to do, either, so she leaves it alone.

She practices her shapeshifting a bit more. There aren't many shapes to shift into, so she works on changing herself to her exact desires – she makes herself a bit taller, and makes her hair a bit longer, and tries to make her arms bigger but still can't break a rock with her fist.

She tries out what else she can do. She feels like she should be strong enough to split a rock in half. She gets the idea to stand back and rush at it, but only succeeds in making her head hurt. Then she gets the idea to roll into a ball and finally makes a sizable crack.

Good enough.

The rocks here aren't like her own, which used to be her whole body but is now on her chest. Hers is purple and shiny and clearly special. It's not a rock, it's a gem. It feels warm when she touches it and she gets the feeling there's something in it that she can pull out. It doesn't sound like it would work but maybe—

She concentrates on sticking her hand in her gem and grabbing whatever's in there. Nothing happens, but she keeps at it. To her surprise her fingers finally close around something solid and she yanks on it.

She finds herself holding a rope – well, it's more like three ropes, connected by a handle and each one tipped with a purple stone. It feels right in her hand, like a part of her, and she whips it at that rock with a big crack in it and—yes!

She grins at what was once one rock, proud of what she did.

As soon as she lets go of her whip, it disappears, but she knows how to get it back. She finally split that rock!

Amethyst suddenly realizes that there's no one else around to tell about what she did, no one to be proud of her for what she did but herself. She realizes for the first time that she's lonely.

One day, something new happens.

She doesn't see these people arrive, but she hears a strange noise and almost immediately hides. Not that she was afraid or anything, just that she was planning a sneak attack and didn't want whatever was coming for her to know where she was.

She hears voices, and is confused but curious.

"There's probably nothing here, this place looks like it's been dormant for ages…"

"Still. You never know. I've heard of Gems that emerged late from Kindergartens. All sorts of things can go wrong with operations like these."

Gems. Kindergartens. She's never heard those words before, but she thinks she might know what they mean.

The voices are getting closer. "But would a late Gem be dangerous, or would she be less aggressive, because she was alone in here for so long?"

"Again, we don't know. Keep your weapon at hand."

Okay, Amethyst is scared. She tries to pull out her whip again, but nothing happens. She's panicking. She tries to calm down, but she can't—

"Garnet! There is something here!"

And now she's looking up, way up, at two very tall people. She knows somehow they're Gems, but neither of them look like her. One is pale and thin and agile-looking, holding some kind of stick with a blade on the end. The other has square-shaped hair and powerful legs and shiny glasses that cover her eyes, and has big gloves on her hands.

"Hm," says the Gem with big gloves. She does something to make them disappear. "This one doesn't look dangerous."

"Yes," says the other one, though she still has her spear. "But she is a quartz—Rose!"

Soon, an even taller Gem joins them. She has lots of pink hair and a long white dress and she looks like their leader, if size is any indication, but she doesn't have a weapon. "Oh!" she says, smiling. "It appears we have a late arrival in this site, don't we?"

Amethyst gets to her feet, trying not to look intimidated. "Who're you?"

"I'm Rose Quartz," says the pink-haired Gem. "This is Garnet, and Pearl. We're not going to hurt you," (Pearl's spear vanishes after Rose says this), "we're going to help you. We're Gems, just like you. We are the Crystal Gems, and—if you don't mind—we'd like you to come with us."

Amethyst considers this. She does want to go with them—she feels like she belongs with them, since they're the same kind of thing as her. And Rose seems nice. Still, she doesn't quite trust them yet.

"We can teach you things," says Garnet. "You can fight to defend the earth, like us. It's our home, too."

Defending the earth sounds good to Amethyst, if it is her home. "Can you teach me how to make a weapon?"

"Of course," says Rose. "We've all had to learn how to summon our weapons."

"I only did it once," says Amethyst. "But I used it to break that rock over there into two rocks!" She grins and points at the two halves.

"Very nice," says Rose. She smiles again. Amethyst decides she likes her.

"Okay," she says, "I'll go with you."

"Rose," Pearl says, quietly. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," Rose tells her. "She's young, and she's never been part of a quartz army. She wasn't even there for the war."

"What war?" Amethyst asks.

"It's a long story," says Rose.

"I want to hear it," says Amethyst.

"We'll tell you later," says Pearl.

"I want to hear it now," says Amethyst, not really because she wants to hear it right now, but because she feels like Pearl isn't going to tell her ever.

"You'll hear it soon enough," says Rose. "Come, follow us."

"Okay," she says. She looks back at the rocks in the valley, the only place she's ever known. Her home.

"I'm Amethyst, by the way," she says, hurrying after the Crystal Gems.

"I see," says Rose. "Take my hand." And then she jumps straight into the air and lands on the platform on the cliff.

"Whoa," says Amethyst. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

"You'll learn eventually," says Pearl, landing neatly next to them, followed by Garnet.

Amethyst grins at her. "I hope so."

Pearl wrinkles her nose. "You should get cleaned up a bit before you start exploring the temple."

Amethyst ignores her. "So what does this thing do?" she asks, looking down at the platform.

"It's a warp pad," says Garnet. "We use it for instant transport from one place to another."

"Cool!"

"Get ready," says Rose.

Amethyst closes her eyes and holds tight to Rose's hand.