Steven roused.
All around him was blackness. He tried to look around, but his senses reeled and everything was confusion. He had no sense of his body at all, whether warmth or cold or the feeling of gravity pulling him downward, nor did he feel hunger or pain or fatigue. He didn't feel anything, just snippets of thought and emotion that flittered just beyond his ability to comprehend.
He attempted to call out, but couldn't find his voice or work his mouth. Under normal circumstances, this would have been where panic would set in, but his emotions were so stunted that he only had a vague sense of disquiet.
With little else to do or see, he fell to waiting. If he was missing or in trouble, he was sure Pearl, Garnet, or Amethyst would come for him. Would Ten? He wondered. Either way, there was nothing he could do as he was now, so he waited.
He stayed where he was for quite a long time, longer than he would ever had had the patience for anywhere else, but here he had no sense of worry or need to fidget or do something. There was no doubt that hours were passing—It might have even been a day, maybe more—but he was willing to wait. The Gems would be proud of him for making the wise decision to wait for them.
Gradually, even with his newfound sense of peace and purposelessness, his mind began to turn to other things. How had he gotten here again? Why wasn't he worried? Where was he, exactly? Maybe his newfound patience wasn't the best thing in this circumstance, but what should he do? After hours of deliberation, he decided he would stretch his senses out and see what he could discover.
On this second attempt, he had a much better understanding of himself and his surroundings. He didn't seem to have a body at all, so that explained the lack of feeling and sensation. Could he not see because it was dark, or because he had no eyes? He was uncertain. Perhaps if he found something with eyes nearby, he could leap into its mind like he had done before in his sleep. It took a few attempts, but Steven discovered how to shift his mind around in the darkness, knowing somehow he was moving despite having no sense of speed and no advantage of landmarks for perspective. Still, his mind flew.
This strange blank void offered nothing of interest to Steven, but his expanded patience allowed him to continue his search hours after he would normally have surrendered in his attempts. Slowly, he became aware of some presence far away. He reached out towards it with his mind, feeling a simmering of powerful emotion. He spent the better part of a day to reach it. As his mind approached, the emotions began to resolve themselves into things he recognized: anger, jealousy, confusion. As he closed the distance, those red-hot emotions washed over him, and new ones, cold and white to his mind, began to bubble up from deeper within: loneliness, sadness, fear. There was certainly somebody here.
Steven puzzled over how to communicate with it. Should he simply move to the center of this ball of emotion? The thought of delving too deep into these emotions frightened him. Maybe he had best reach out with… whatever he was reaching out with. Steven wasn't really sure.
He prodded mentally. There was a reaction, a low thrum in his mind. It felt strange, but non-threatening. He prodded again, more openly, pressing deeper into the cloud of emotions. Again, it sounded in his mind, like a low moan. There was something strangely familiar about it. He supposed the only option was the dive in headfirst and see what happened. Being only a mind, he figured he should be safe.
He pressed with his mind, sinking in. He emerged somewhere that felt different, but was still just as dark and featureless as before. The strong emotions seemed to be dulled here, almost like he was inside his bubble and it held the emotions at bay. He felt something touch the edges of his mind.
"Who's there?" asked a voice in his head. The voice was gentle and deep, familiar to Steven, yet oddly new. It was like he had heard the voice, but had never heard it speak this way. He tried to connect the voice to a face, but it was another slow mental process. He figured it was best not to spend his time on it while he was invading this thing's think-space.
"Hello?" the voice said again. "Are you going to answer me?"
Steven was trying to find the right way to respond. He sent a thought out. "Hello?"
"So there is someone here. Hmm. Are you holding my gem?"
So Steven was talking to a gem. That made sense. "No."
"Then where are you?"
"I don't know. It's too dark to see. Or maybe I can't see."
"You're not sure?"
"No. This is new for me." Steven sensed the presence move around him.
"This is unusual. It almost feels like you are inside my gem."
"I might be? I don't think I am. I think I'm kind of projecting myself inside. Sorry I can't be more specific."
The presence floated away. "That's fine," it said. "I don't mind having company in here for once. It gets rather boring during regeneration."
"Oh, so your body was destroyed?"
There was a shift, a sudden strong suspicion piercing his mind. "How do you know that? You're a gem, aren't you?"
"Sure," said Steven, deciding to keep it simple. "Why? You seem upset about that."
"What are you doing here? Are you spying on me? Are you trying to hurt me, too?"
"What? No, I don't want to find anyone but myself. I'm kind of lost. I was actually looking for help."
The suspicion abated, replaced by a mild confusion. "Find yourself? I don't follow."
"I can't really explain it any better. I don't have a body, but my mind is sort of flying around? Does that make sense?"
"Not really, no."
Steven felt a mild frustration. "That's okay. Where are you, anyway?"
"I don't want you looking for me," said the other. It considered a moment. "Though I suppose it doesn't matter if I tell you I'm somewhere on the bottom of this planet's ocean. You won't be able to find me with just that."
"Why don't you want me looking for you?"
"Because I don't know who you are. I've had neither a warm welcome nor a good time on this planet, so I'd rather be left by myself while I recover."
"How did you get poofed?"
"Poofed?"
"You know, destabilized."
"Ah. I got into a fight with someone that I thought might have cared about me, but I was wrong. She ended up destroying my body."
"Aw, that's sad," said Steven.
"She probably didn't even know she did it, either. She just gave me one good punch, sent me flying into the ocean."
"One punch? Wow, she must be pretty strong."
"Amazingly strong. Stronger than she knows, I think. That's why I respected her. That's why I wanted to be together." Steven felt the mental equivalent of a shrug. "Not meant to be, I guess. It's too bad. We were a spectacular fusion."
"Wait, a fusion?"
"Yeah. Together we were so powerful. We could have owned this planet as Malachite."
"Malachite?" Steven's mind spun. "Wait… Jasper?"
There was silence. Then a stifling wave of suspicion and anger swept over him. "Who are you?! What are you doing in my head?!" The emotions roared like an inferno. "ROSE QUARTZ?!
"I was just—"
"GET OUT!"
Steven's consciousness was flung away by a tide of hatred, pressed against the wall of this consciousness, and forced through, back outside the orb of roiling emotions. The orb now seemed as bright as the sun to his mind's eye, searing him so that he couldn't look at it. His mind snapped back suddenly and he felt himself racing away from the orb, back to where he had started, and felt oblivion embrace him.
Time passed. Steven awoke once more, still lost in the darkness and nothingness. He found now that his lack of a body was irritating to him. At the least he wanted to be able to see.
Maybe if he focused hard enough he could see something. He thought of sight, of the viewing of trees and rivers and the sun and of the faces of friends. Posters, movies, paint, food, anything he could imagine, trying to will himself to remember how to see, but it was to no avail. He didn't know why, but he was confident he could see again if he just remembered how it was done. Maybe he really did need eyes?
How did his eyes look? He recalled his face as he would see it in a mirror. Slightly chubby, curly brown hair, happy. What of the eyes? Black. Friendly. Often open wide to take in the wonders around him.
He felt a twinge of something, a physical sensation. That was new. And was it just him, or did the darkness seem a little less black? Maybe a slight redness to it? Was it because of his eyes? He focused on his eyes again.
To his amazement, his vision began to return little by little the more he thought of his eyes. First it was darkness, then it began to lighten, then clearly it was turning pink. After hours of this, both of his eyes seemed to be working again.
He observed the odd place he was in. As far as he could see, pink clouds stretched away from him; they were like a light mist or fog hugging the ground, but also hung in the pink sky above. He looked around, noticing there was something just slightly out of focus to his left. He tried turning to face it, but it moved with him, staying in the same spot in his vision. Was it a problem in his eye? He tried to move his mind around to get a better look, but found he could no longer do that. Was it because his mind had anchored to his eyes now?
…Eyes? He turned his eyes elsewhere and the little white object spun. He looked right, noticing a second blurry white orb. Was he looking at his own eyes? Were his eyes just floating there? He crossed his eyes, the two orbs spinning to face one another. While blurry, there was clearly a black spot in the center of each.
Gross, he thought to himself, but he was certain that those orbs were his eyes. If he could will his eyes into existence, then surely he could do the rest of his body as well, right?
He decided to focus.
Steven wasn't sure how much time passed. It was certainly days, maybe even weeks, but his body was finally as whole as he remembered it. He had even managed to bring his favorite shirt and pants back into existence. He still didn't know where he was or where to go or even if he could leave this place, but at least he could do it as a whole person.
The area kind of reminded him of his mom's room in the temple, but he couldn't create anything he wished for here. What he did know, however, was that if any of the other gems were coming, they would have found him by now. He would have to strike out on his own.
He stepped cautiously, the first step he had taken since he created this body. The clouds below were soft and spongy, but he was able to move across them well enough. He started walking.
Hours passed. He was able to walk without tiring, but now that his body was back, he found his supreme patience was fading away. Still, while he held onto it, he walked.
After nearly a day of walking, he slammed face-first into a barrier. There was little warning, just suddenly he could walk no further. He rubbed his face in irritation, then he turned and moved along the barrier, keeping his hand on it. It seemed to move straight along for as long as he walked. Maybe he was imagining it, but it seemed to curve slightly.
His patience began to wear thin all at once. His pace picked up until he was running along the wall, his hand sliding against the barrier as he went. If it was curving like he thought, he was just going to go in a huge circle. He broke away from the wall, running directly away from it. He ran as fast as he could, faster than he ever would have been able to in his normal life. He jumped impulsively, launching like a rocket into the air. Normally he would whoop and holler and the excitement of the speed and height, but here he was reserved. Here, he was just searching.
He sped along, leaping through the air and looking around for any change of the landscape. He sensed the barrier ahead this time and leapt into it feet first. He struck it hard, but it didn't budge in the slightest. He pushed himself off, launching in the opposite direction, continuing to run and leap, hoping for something different.
He did not know how long he did this, but he was just starting to feel the beginnings of hopelessness when something caught his eye: in the distance, far, far above, was a dark pink splotch in the sky. He made a beeline for it, leaping as high as he could to get a look at it, but even his incredible jumping feats didn't bring him close enough. He looked around, trying to find another way to reach the splotch, finally noticing a series of clouds that rose toward it, though they were drifting away from one another.
He didn't hesitate. He ran to the lowest one, jumping as high as he could manage and striking it face-first halfway up. He clambered up the giant, fluffy pink mountain until he could find good footing. The next cloud rose off to his left, so he jumped to that one, then the next, slowly rising higher and higher, the pink object always the center of his attention.
Finally, he reached the top cloud. His goal was above him and far away. The clouds must have drifted further that he thought. It didn't matter. He backed up along the cloud until his feet sloped toward the edge, then sprinted forward, launching himself off the cloud and directly towards the thing. As he approached, he saw that it was some sort of large, pink crystal suspended in the air. He sailed towards it, finding he had actually jumped too far and was in danger of passing clear over. He waved his hands and feet, trying to slow himself down, and soon was gently floating downwards, his hovering powers kicking in.
He sank towards the crystal. He could now clearly see a dark shape inside. He landed and wrapped his hands around the point at the top to keep himself from sliding off. The surface of the gem was so incredibly smooth that it felt unnatural to the touch. From where he was, he could tell that whatever was inside was a person, but that was all he could tell. He couldn't get a good sense of the shape or color.
He felt around for a handhold somewhere lower on the gem, but each face was perfectly smooth save for the points at the top and bottom and the edges between facets. As he slid his hand across one side, he noticed that the surface of the crystal cleared, like what might happen if one wiped condensation off a window. He tried doing the same on the top surface so he could look down and in, but it didn't have the same effect. Maybe the top was too thick.
Adjusting his grip, he was able to swing his legs toward that side of the crystal and rubbed them against the window. He was certain that at least a quarter of the window was clear, but to get any more than that would be impossible while holding on to the top of the crystal.
He wanted to strike his palm to his forehead as he thought of the obvious solution: shapeshifting! Why was he always so slow to remember his powers? No matter. He stretched out his legs, using them the clean up the fog on the window, sliding along every inch of the crystal. It was an uncomfortable process as the crystal was oddly warm to the touch and it felt like he was disturbing a thin film of slime, but eventually he was confident that he had done as much as he could. Now he merely had to stretch his arms, ease himself down, and look inside.
As he lowered himself, the figure slid into view from the bottom up. First was something large and white, billowing outward on all sides. Soft. A dress. She was wide and tall. And pink. Her face pulled into view. His eyes widened. He body went slack in surprise, and his hands slipped from the crystal, his body hovering gently downward as he merely stared up at the crystal retreating into the sky above him.
Was he dreaming? No, that was impossible. He had been here for days, weeks even. This was certainly a real place. But where? Where could it be that this person still existed? For when her face came into view—her large, painted lips, her tiny nose, her eyes closed in quiet repose, and her mountain of curled pink hair spilling all down her back—there was no doubt that he had seen the face of his mother.
Rose, the Rose Quartz of Earth, partner to Greg Universe, mother to Steven, was here, sleeping, sealed within a crystal. How?
Comprehension dawned on Steven. Where else could she be? Where else could he be? Memories came back to him, of Emerald and Amethyst, of the dagger piercing his stomach. He reached down and felt for the wound, but it was not there. Of course it was not there. He had fixed it. Or rather, he had created a new body that was undamaged. Because he had repaired himself. He had regenerated.
He had regenerated because he was inside his gem. He could regenerate! This was amazing! He laughed and spun in the air, feeling the strongest surge of emotion since he had awoken in his gem. He had to tell the Gems!
But as quickly as that giddiness came, it was washed away by uncertainty. Why was mom trapped in here? Was it because he was using the gem? If that was why, that meant that she had done this to herself, didn't it? That was not a thought he was comfortable having, but it was the only thing that made sense. She had said she was going to sacrifice herself to create him. Is this how she did it? Could she be woken up? And if she was awoken, what would happen to him? Could they share the gem? Would she be put in control and he crammed into that slimy crystal? Would he simply cease to exist?
Whatever the case, he was not going to make any attempts to awaken her. He knew nothing of what would happen and, since he was a unique being, neither would any of the Crystal Gems. There were too many questions, too many hypotheticals, and frankly, he didn't want to consider any of them. What he did want to consider, now that he knew where he was and he was fully regenerated, was how he was going to get out of his gem.
At length, he reached the cloud floor below and sat down, considering his choices. He wasn't supposed to break out, clearly: if this was even an actual place and not just a construct of his mind, he probably shouldn't break his own gem to escape. That would be counterproductive to say the least. He could try willing himself out, since using pure will to do things in here had proved effective so far. Or he could… no, that was silly. Could he really just… ask? It was absurd, but something about that option struck him instinctively as the right choice.
He looked up. "Gem?" he said, his first spoken words sent into the pink expanse of mist. "I'm ready to go. Can you let me out?"
He was greeted with silence. At first, he thought he had been mistaken, but then the clouds began to glow with a soft pink light. It brightened steadily, but quickly, and soon he was blinded by its brilliance. Then he was floating upwards, his emotions and memories flooding in unfettered by the dampening effects of his gem space, and could feel his body at long last entering the physical world.