Tremors

"Hey, you doin' yoga or something?" Amethyst felt the need to inquire, flumping down on to hindquarters in the grass.
Peridot's own hindquarters was raised skyward, her head pressed to the ground with a look of acute concentration on her face.

"Shh," she scolded the purple gem with a hiss. "I'm listening."

"For gophers?"

"For the cluster."

"Wait, you can hear that thing? What's it saying?" Amethyst immediately mirrored the green gem's position, mimicking the gawky downward dog with zeal.

"I can't literally hear the cluster itself," Peridot whispered reedily, eyes still focused. "I can hear…tremors. Movements in the bedrock."

Amethyst's brows furrowed, her lips puckering to blow a tendril of hair from her face. "For real, Peri? I can't hear squat."

"Ugh…you have to concentrate. It won't just happen straightaway; the intervals are irregular. Just…stay quiet and listen."

The quartz's patience soon, (and very characteristically of a quartz, Peridot would later reflect), started to wear thin and it wasn't long before Amethyst was shifting and shuffling with restless frustration. "You sure you didn't just like…hear a car moving or something? Because I seriously can't- hey, wait! Did you just feel that?! I felt the ground move!"

Peridot's hair became comically crumpled as she pressed herself even more vigorously into the grassy hillock. "These tremors are far more shallow than before…and rhythmic…the cluster must be normalising! Preparing to take form! We're all doomed!"
The engineer's rigid but trembling limbs betrayed her contradictory desires; her desperation to take action against their fate and her despairing resignation to it.

Amethyst, for a bare fraction of a second, was just about to share in Peridot's panic, when she noticed something a little odd about the tremors. "Hey Peri? I'm no expert or anything…but these "tremors" sound like they're coming from above ground."

"Whuh?"
Her smaller companion's eyes opened a sliver and focused again in astute concentration as Peridot listened out again. "Y-You're right! These aren't tremors from the cluster at all…"

"Well what are they from?"

"I don't know…but whatever it is…it appears to be getting…closer…"

"You're both going to pull every muscle in your bodies if you keep doing it like that! Keep your arms straight! What have I told you about your posture, Amethyst?"

Both the purple and the green gems practically leapt out of their own holo-forms at the sound of Pearl's voice behind them.

"You also need to keep your backs straight if you want to achieve an optimal stretch," the swordswoman informed them, casting a look of haughty bemusement down at her fellow Crystal Gems. "If you're really serious about this, I can give you a demonstration."

Amethyst groaned, rolling her eyes and shrugging herself back into a sitting position. "We're not doing yoga, P. We're listening for the cluster."

Pearl's look of superiority instantly dissolved into a look of anxious curiosity. "You can hear it?"

"In the form of tremors, yes," Peridot told her and as though she'd said some special keyword and activated some reticent obedience training in the white gem, Pearl instantly dropped to her knees and adopted the same position as the other two. "It takes a particular interval of time for the phenomenon to occur but I can assure you that it will occur."

The awkwardly poised trio listened in an equally mawkish silence for a few scattered moments before Peridot spoke quietly.
Her two fellows were taken aback at the reduced volume of her usual bark and the very subtle but very there note of vulnerability in her words.

"If …if the diamonds are really here…do you think they're really coming here for me?"

For a moment, only the faint rustle of long-grass disrupted the surface of their silence before Pearl noted aloud: "Granted, I'm not quite as acquainted with the etiquette of Homeworld as I used to be…" Her words hovered in mid-air for a moment, bitterness rising and quelling in her throat before she continued. "But to send an actual member of the Diamond Authority here? Especially when the cluster is so close to emerging? That seems a tad excessive…"

"I dunno," Amethyst hummed, a look of false worry painted over her brow. "Peri did drop the C-Bomb on YD…you can't get much worse than the C-word."

Peridot, not quite used to the purple's gem sense of humour just yet, let out a loud whimper prompting Pearl to shoot Amethyst a disapproving glower.

"Amethyst!"

"Hey…just trying to lighten the mood a little! Peri, I'm kidding. Chill. As much as I hate to admit it, P knows what she's talking about. Hey! I think I felt something!"

The odd trinity pressed their heads to the ground once more, listening intently, (and perhaps seeking any kind of distraction from the prospect of the Diamonds coming to Earth).

"Do I even want to know?"

The three of them lifted their heads in surprised unison to see Garnet standing over them, arms folded and head cocked curiously.

"That's an interesting game you're playing," the tall gem remarked, her voice its usual cool velvet, trimmed with a touch of amusement.

"We're, uh, listening for the cluster," Peridot told her, cheeks slowly darkening to a pronounced forest green. "There are resonating tremors. The epicentre is still low but the intervals are getting shorter…"

"Still can't hear it yet though," Amethyst chimed in, adding a quick: "Just sayin'" in the wake of Pearl's irked glare.

"You'll hear it. Just keep listening," the green gem told her, sighing.

"And what're your readings of these movements?"
Garnet was speaking seriously, lowering herself into a similar posture upon the ground. Given the seriousness of the situation, the hilarity of her posture was admittedly forgivable.

Peridot swallowed with an audible gulp. "The sequence in which the tremors are pulsing can only indicate that the cluster is pulsing against the Earth's mantle. That means it's expanding…trying to take form…"

"Do you think we have much time left?"

"It's…it's hard to say."

"Do we have more than twenty four hours?"

Peridot chewed on her inner mouth slightly, seemingly weighing up probabilities. "…we should, but that doesn't necess-."

"Good. We need to start looking for the Kimberlite and that other Peridot who was with her as soon as possible. Today, if possible. Regardless of Sadie's observations…this pair don't seem all that acquainted with humans so it won't be long until someone gets hurt."

The smallest of the foursome let out a low whine, her legs curling up beneath her as her cheek pressed flat against the grass. "What if Yellow Diamond really has come here? Or what if she's on her way?! On her way to obliterate me- the infamously verbose Homeworld traitor- as an example to gems everywhere!? I've only just become a hero! I don't want to be a martyr! I-eep!"

Peridot let out a birdlike squeal as Garnet's hand came to comfortingly pat the span of her shoulders.

"Let's just cross each bridge as we come to it. There's no point in worrying about anything prematurely." The Crystal Gems' leader raised her gaze to survey the others in their small, (awkwardly positioned), group. "Sapphire knows from experience that the Diamonds would never let the Kimberlite out into the open on Homeworld let alone here on Earth."

"And certainly not without a heavy entourage of soldiers," Pearl offered, her voice quietening a little as she added: "That was always the way it was done when moving aristocrats around so I can't imagine the Diamonds' personal med-pack would be treated any differently…"

Amethyst lifted her head from the grass a little, a small jolt of surprise running through her and turning her waiting torpor to interest.
It wasn't often that Pearl ever spoke about Homeworld or her personal experiences with it.
Gem history? Sure.
Gem culture? Of course.
Her time on Homeworld? Once a century and only if the situation so perfectly called for it.

If Garnet had noticed this too, she was certainly not going to bring it to notice because the next words to leave her mouth were: "All very true."

"But why is she even here?" wheedled Peridot, her legs buckling slightly as her arms tried desperately trying to keep her torso upright. "Even with the help of a superbly formed engineer, how did she get to Earth from Homeworld without anyone noticing? Why would a Peridot even be sent to escort her?"

"Well, we're not going to know until we find her right?" Amethyst pointed out, reaching out slightly to give Peridot's wrist a squeeze. As troublesome as the shrieky, little nerd could be, it was hard seeing her so frazzled. "So chill out, Peri. We got this."

"Right. First, we've got to think about how we're going to track her down," Garnet stated authoritatively, seeming trying to keep the conversation as mission orientated as possible.

"She's bound to be relying on Homeworld technology for her transportation needs," Pearl said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps using some of the older artefacts back at the house, Peridot and I could fashion some sort of scanner?"

"Or we could just go to the Big Doughnut today."

The gems all looked up, only to see Steven, crouched down on the ground with them, bottom high in the air in imitation of his team-mates.

"Sadie texted me to say that she'd be there today and she wants to talk to us," the boy went on, smiling widely. "So…are you guys doing yoga?"

Before anyone could reply or pass any kind of comment, the bright, lime-tinged grass beneath their fingertips suddenly turned to black, the air around them simultaneously becoming cold.

A colossal shadow was suddenly draped over them, prompting all five of them to crane their necks upward in an effort to see what was obscuring the sun.
They did not have to look very hard though.

"Ok, what is that?" Amethyst brushed her hair aside, deciding that both eyes were necessary to examine the monstrosity above them.

"Looks like…a giant bat?" suggested Steven, his voice quivering a little. "Or an albatross? Maybe some kind of monster seagull?"

"It's a gem beast," Garnet declared through gritted teeth. "One of the corrupted Obsidian geodes."

"But we sealed those in the rock caverns over a year ago!" Pearl cried, already lifting her hands to her head in preparation to summon her spear. "How did it get out?"

"The tremors must have shaken them loose," the Crystal Gems' leader speculated, groaning slightly. "I knew I should have bubbled them when I had the chance. Ok, looking for Kimberlite's going to have to wait."

Peridot's eyes had practically turned to satellites. "Gem beasts! You have gem beasts on this planet!? Why do you-?! How do you-?! What do-?!"

Amethyst drew her whip forth from her gem with flourish, chuckling slightly. "You have no idea, home-girl. You have no idea."

Steven took Peridot by the arm, tugging slightly and trying to smile. "Come on, into the barn…it took me a while before I was ready to join in with these things…"

As the huge winged beast's crimson gaze swivelled down upon the small group below, the two smallest of the group had it just made it into the barn door.
Beneath frantic breathing and a lot of shuffling and barricading, Steven's smile finally found its way on to his face when he heard Peridot mutter:

"Hey. Wow. Thanks."

The Morning After

"I…uh…ah…"
Sadie's voice became strangled, catching in her throat as the young woman desperately tried to come up with something rational to say.

There her mother was, standing at the top of the stairs that lead down to her room.

And there she was, sitting upon her bed…with a complete stranger sitting beside her.
A complete stranger who had clearly spent the night.

True, the futon was spread out on the floor but it didn't look even slightly slept in and Kimberlite looked comfy as a cat in a sock drawer, perched on the bed beside her.

Barb Miller's face wasn't as angry or shocked as her daughter may have speculated that she would be in this situation.
If anything, the most prominent emotion to mark her features was confusion.
And there was a slight glint in her eye.
What was that little sparkle, lining the very corner of her pupils?
Was that…intrigue?

"Good morning," Barb said eventually, leaning against the wall beside the stairs. "Just thought I'd come in to see if you were up for work." Her eyes flicked over to Kimberlite and back to Sadie again, eyebrows raised. "Didn't know you were planning to have a friend over, though."

Sadie kneeled up abruptly. "Uh, good morning, mom! This is-!"

Before the younger Miss Miller could say another word, Kimberlite was on her feet, stumbling across the floor with surprising speed for one so ungainly.
Sadie was reminded fleetingly of a video clip Steven had once sent her of a baby duck running after its mother.

Kimberlite was upon her mother in seconds, kneeling in front of her on the steps with a wide smile on her face.

"Good morning, mom of Sadie! My good mom. Most gracious mom. I apologise, I've yet to consult with your Sadie on the proper terms!" She grabbed Barb's hand with both of her own, looking up at her with awestruck earnest. "I must thank you for your hospitality and wholeheartedly apologise for any imposition! Sadie offered me temporary shelter here and after her saving me from what would have been certain death, I found accepting her offer to be the wisest option. I am not of this place, you see and Sadie has been nothing short of diamondesque in her kindness to me."

"Woah, woah, woah…hold on a second," Barb said, incredulous as she stooped to Kimberlite's level. "Sade saved your life?" She grinned widely, returning her gaze to her daughter. "That true?"

The gem nodded, her long hair jostling over her shoulders. "Yes! Entirely true! I fell into a large body of water and Sadie plucked me right out. She also remained with me until my Peridot could come to take me back to safety…"

"Ha ha! That's my Sade! See, I told you all of those beach safety classes would pay off one day!" She looked back to the gem who kneeled before her, smiling encouragingly as she stood up. "And there's no need to grovel, hon. Up we get." She helped Kimberlite to her feet. "You can forget all the fancy titles too. Just call me Barb. What didya say your own name was?"

Sadie let out a long, full-bodied sigh of relief as her mother proceeded to guide Kimberlite upstairs once more, chattering animatedly with her the whole way.
That whole situation could have ended so much worse.

Dressing quickly was a staple of Sadie's morning routine, (as she enjoyed her sleep a little too much on occasion), but she found herself counting the seconds a little more astutely than usual.
She couldn't quite rationalise why she wanted to be there for Kimberlite and her mom's first official conversation.

That said, pretty much none of her behaviour as of late felt rational.
Not unnatural but not rational by a long shot.

For example, as she passed her vanity mirror, having tossed her hairbrush aside, she found herself peering at her sleepwashed reflection's face.

Was that a pimple? Damn.
Maybe a little foundation and powder wouldn't go astray today?

"W-wait, what?" Sadie stammered, shaking her head and laughing aloud. "What's got into me?"
She hadn't worn make up to work in well over a year; what made today so special?

She was still smiling faintly to herself about her own bizarre behaviour as she tucked her cellphone into the pocket of her jacket.
"Heh…there's no point in wearing make up to work anyway. With the air con in the break room, I'll just end up sweating it off by lunch anyway."

Still though, that thought didn't stop her from stopping to take a second glance at her reflection before she made the ascent to her kitchen once more.

She could hear her mom and Kimberlite's voices before she even made it to the door.

"So, I just hold down this button here?"
"Yep, until the little light turns green."
"And that's what makes the liquid hot?"
"That's it."
"Prodigious!"

Barb couldn't help but stifle her chuckles at Kimberlite's fascination with the coffee brewing machine and was in the process of giving her a demonstration of its use when Sadie resurfaced from her bedroom.

Barb Miller had always had a natural knack for reading people. She seemed to instinctively know that someone like the green and grey flecked stranger at her side needed a little extra patience than most other people.
But , being a woman of experience, Barb could also tell that Kimberlite was completely and utterly harmless too.
Quirky but harmless.

"Coffee for you too, Sade?" she asked her daughter as the latter took a seat at the table.

"Uh, yeah sure," came the reply, Sadie having to actively tear her eyes away from the back of Kimberlite's head.
How did she get her hair to fall so perfectly? There wasn't a single split-end, tangle or kink aside from where the gem's hair curved into natural waves.

"That's three mugs then. Do you wanna pour them out, Kimberlite?"

The living stone's eyes widened as though she'd been granted some kind of great honour. "May I?"

At Barb's nod, Kimberlite let out an excited squeal and went about locating vessels for the coffee.

This afforded a chance for the elder Miss Miller to talk with her daughter.

"Sorry about this mom. I would have told you last night but I didn't want to wake you," Sadie told her quietly.

Barb shook her head, still smiling. "You're an adult now. If you want to have a friend over, I'm not gonna stop you." She raised an eyebrow. " 'Course, you know my feelings about total strangers…then again, I think I can trust your judgement." She smiled widely, watching their house guest gingerly pouring the coffee. "And Kimberlite seems like a real sweetie." Barb leaned on her elbow, cradling her chin thoughtfully. "Is she a friend of Steven's? She kinda reminds me of-?"

"No," Sadie told her mother. "But I think she's from the same place as them…"

"Ah."

"Yeah…"

"She's a nice girl," Barb commented offhandedly. "She's pretty keen on you too. Sang your praises earlier."

Both Sadie and her mom had to stifle a small giggle when Kimberlite reappeared with three wineglasses full of hot coffee.

Just as Beach City's most dedicated postwoman was waving them out the door, she leaned out to offer her daughter a hug.
And just as her mouth was level with her daughter's ear, she took the opportunity to mutter:

"To be honest, I'm just happy that the first person I caught you in bed with wasn't that red-headed, sass-slinging slacker…"

Sadie didn't think her face had turned quite as red as usual until she noticed that Kimberlite's strange bubble from the night before hovering over her head.

"Oh, it's not going to rain again by the looks of things," the human woman told her gem companion. "There's no need to do that."

"I thought the sunlight might be bothering you," Kimberlite replied, smiling unassumingly. "Your complexion was a little flushed."

Sadie laughed and shook her head, suddenly not feeling embarrassed in the slightest. "You know what? It is a little hot out today. Thanks, Kim."

The gem's eyes practically sparkled and taking a deep breath, she felt the need to petition Sadie a little further. "Forgive me, but there is something that I must ask of you."

God, her Medieval Fair way of talking was really starting to grow on Sadie.

"Oh yeah? Ask away."

"This morning, your mom referred to me as…your friend…"

"…uh, yeah, she did."

"Do you…consider us to be friends?"

Sadie stopped in her tracks, stumbling a little against the wall of the bubble and Kimberlite obligingly dissipated it.
The gem's eyes were completely serious and her face was lined with anxiousness.

"Well, sure I do. If you want us to be friends…then, sure we are."

It definitely wasn't Miss Miller's imagination that the gem upon Kimberlite's forearm gave a brief but brilliant flash as they continued their walk.

"…I...I…thank you!"

"No prob, Bob."

Thank you for reading!
It's a bit short but I wanted to give an update.