Peridot was ecstatic to see Steven return; a couple hours without the ability to obnoxiously point out things Pearl had missed and moan about Yellow Diamond's rejection had rendered the Gem downcast and sullen.

They were less excited, however, about the method the boy used to heal their Gem. They were still shuddering about it later on, when it got too dark to easily work on the drill and they all sat around a campfire, telling stories, laughing and looking at the stars.

"-And then, I saw Amethyst and Garnet lifting a big thing of tungsten right out of the ocean!" Steven was saying. "It looked really heavy... maybe Lapis would've been able to help."

The purple Gem chuckled. "Don't worry about it, dude. That was nothing!"

"Don't worry, Steven." Garnet adjusted their visor, and then smiled gently. "We'll release Lapis once we've defeated the Cluster. But right now, we have two new Crystal Gems who need to get used to life on Earth."

"Yeah!" The boy leaned over and gave Peridot a crushing hug, causing them to start. "You two are gonna love it here!"

"Nyeh..." The green Gem tolerated the contact for a few seconds before shrugging their shoulders. "Now get your touch stumps off of me, Steven."

"Touch stumps?" Aventurine raised an eyebrow. "Is that what Homeworld calls 'em now? I remember them just being regular old fingers during the war."

Amethyst snorted. "What, did you hear them saying that a lot or something?"

"Probably more than most of you Gems." The cloaked Gem spoke in a softer tone, looking into the fire, and Amethyst quickly turned away.

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"Aventurine?" Steven looked up. "Do you have any cool stories from the Gem war?"

"Steven!" Garnet growled. "So many Gems and humans were broken in the fight for Earth. Their stories are not something to be talked about around the campfire."

Aventurine shrugged. "Eh, fighting for the Crystal Gems wasn't so bad. It was everything that came after that was the bad part, heh."

"Hmmmm..."

"You wanna hear a story, Steven?" Aventurine leaned forwards, their cloak almost touching the campfire. Peridot raised their eyebrows, their interest piqued.

"Sure!"

"Wait, you two." Pearl glanced anxiously towards the cloaked Gem. "This isn't going to be anything... right?"

"Don't worry, pearl: I'll lie about all the stuff that's not Steven-friendly." They winked (well, they only had one eye but it felt like a wink). "Now, what to tell, what to tell... Oh! This is a good one.

I told you I was a scout, right? Yeah, my team was tasked with scoping out this forest for any Homeworld attackers. It was relatively low risk and it was a big area, so we split up and went looking on our own. I dunno what the other guys did, but I found something... interesting."

"What was it?" Peridot demanded. "A human?"

"Nice guess but humans were just cannon-" Aventurine glanced at Pearl. "common foot soldiers in our army, mostly. No, what I found was an escape pod.

Pearl frowned. "An escape pod?"

"Yup. It was pretty big, with Blue Diamond markings and it'd taken down a good few trees when it crashed. I'd imagine it was from some higher-up Homeworld ship.

Aaanyway, I was a pretty young Gem back then, and I didn't have the sense to get the heck outta there. Instead I went exploring into it, which resulted in me quickly finding three stranded, desperate Homeworlders and getting the dirt beaten out of me. I think it was a Lapis, an Apatite and her Pearl."

"Lapis?" Steven asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, that Lapis you guys were talking about; I don't know if they're the same person. I mean, they both tried to kill me, haha!

Anyway, they locked me in the escape pod for... oh, I don't know how long, but it was the dead of night when I heard the hatch being quietly turned. I looked up, and there was Pearl!

She started talking to me real fast about how she'd heard about the Crystal Gems on Earth and how much she'd like to get away from a life of servitude but oh my stars what was she doing disobeying Apetite... at least, that's what I got out of her later. I had to quickly cover her mouth up because Lapis and Apetite were sitting right there. It was a bit too late though, they already saw us."

The entire group was hanging on their every word. Aventurine grinned in the firelight. "So you wanna know what we did?"

"Yes!"

"Well, it wasn't actually that difficult. I wasn't being ambushed in that cramped little pod, so I ran rings around the little blue bloods. Pearl just kind of sat there, staring, but she helped me carry them back to base when I pinned the two to a tree. After that I didn't see her for a while – she was in combat training – but when she passed with honours the two of us got put in a team together, right up until... heh. Whad'ya think of the story, Steven?"

Steven's eyes were starry. "That was awesome! And you two got to be in a team together, like the Crystal Gems!"

"Well Steven, they weren't 'like' the Crystal Gems." Pearl pointed out. "They were actually in the Crystal Gems. And this sort of story illustrates just how well Rose organised us!"

Amethyst punched the cloaked Gem. "Nice one, dude."

Garnet gave a silent thumbs up.

"Thanks, guys. I like to have my talents recognised... and what about you, Peri?"

Peridot jumped. "Oh, me? That account was... very interesting. Was that the general method of recruitment?"

"Oh, no." Pearl clasped their hands. "We had other methods, though it seems via escape pod is much more common than I thought!"

"Nyeh?"

"Psst." Aventurine grinned. "They're talking about you, pieslice."

Peridot tried for a smile. "Wow. Thanks."

"Hey, Aventurine..." Steven broke the moment. "I think your cape is on fire."

Garnet reached over and covered Steven's ears.

Aventurine looked down in surprise, where they saw the dark garment had indeed started to catch. "Oh, jeez! Fire!"

This was then followed by a series of sugar honey iced teas and king elfers as the Gem struggled out of the burning garment and threw it in the fire.

"Aventurine!" Pearl covered their mouth, their cheeks going blue. Next to them Amethyst was cracking up.

"Whoops." Aventurine summoned another cloak, and wrapped it around themselves. "I guess I just hate fire, eh?"

"Man," Amethyst snorted. "And I thought I was the bad influence!"

Steven ran to the cloaked Gem and hugged them. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Steven." Aventurine looked up at the sky. "It's getting late. Isn't this your... sleeping time? Man, I've got to try that sometime when I have a couple hours to waste."