Amethyst looked around. Inactive diggers littered the place, making gem-shaped and gem-sized holes into the Earth. For the first time she noticed a whole clump of them were down, collapsed and smashed as if something... Or someone, Amethyst corrected herself... Had destroyed them upon instinct.

Amethyst took a deep breath and placed her hands on their smaller knees, calming anxious jitters that were starting up the longer she took to answer. They were impatient, she noted.

"Nah, buddy," she said finally. "I'm different. I'm good. Like you, right?"

She pushed down the hem of her dirt-colored shirt, exposing the twinkle of her gem.

Her eyes widened a bit as, in response, ghost-robes were pushed aside as well. A smile was blooming on her lips, thinking it was a joke, thinking that it was just following her actions. There would be nothing there. And maybe if they were a left-behind experiment, then they could be friends. She wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

The synthetic cloth was pushed aside, they leaned forward, exposing the space between their collarbones.

Amethyst was met with an abomination.

What looked to be two gems growing together, on each other, like overflowing paint turning a murky greenish color. The top of a gleaming spire-shaped white gem connected awkwardly, wrongly, with angular pointy shards sticking out like simplified light rays. Crystal spikes grew outwards from the meeting point, cramped and sandy. It was blue and orange, white and red, polar opposites stuck with each other, clinging, grasping, writhing, struggling, reaching and mashed -

Amethyst screamed and fell back, scrambling to get away.

"You okay?" They said. Their voice sounded much better now, still with that tin-like quality to it, but much more composed. "Buddy? You okay?"

"I'm fine!" Amethyst squeaked. 'Are you?'

"I'm fine, thank you," they said - corrected? - , like reciting a nursery phrase. Sitting there, looking down, three eyes wide and innocent, they looked so harmless. Like a newborn Earth gem, before they go through their first drills and lose that curious, what-am-I-going-to-be? look in their glow.

Amethyst suddenly felt a pang of guilt hit her like a boulder.

On the floor, looking up, she blinked her eyes hard and exhaled. Her hands still on their knobbly knees, she hung her head in shame and drew circles in the dirt with the tip of her shoe.

A small, orange-striped hand rested on her shoulder.

"You know what, buddy?" she said, brightening up. "You need a name. Umm."

She looked around. Inspiration. Recklessly, dangerously, Amethyst grab hold of the joints on their body and pulled herself up. She climbed and crawled onto their back; they didn't seem to mind. A few strands of off-white hair floated down gently as she clambered up onto her new friend's shoulders. They didn't seem to mind that either.

"You need a name," she repeated, eyes trained on the sunrise. "Have one?"

"No," the nameless one said, voice cracking.

"Well then... Hmm," the reddish sky broke and gave way to blues and whites, signaling the beginning of the day. Amethyst inhaled deeply and held it there, humming in thought.

"Buddy."

For a moment they stayed there, staring at the cliffs that surrounded them.

"Buddy," the newly named one said.

And that nightfall they would be Eve. In the next mornings, Dawn, which Amethyst had a good laugh about. Then it was Luna, Solaria, and Amazon, before they finally protested, months after, with a whine that they weren't a full woman. Then it was Rocky. Waddles. Then Tyrone.

Then, after a series of lucky events, it was Pines.

-CP-

The next part might be a bit late.