** Author's Note: This chapter was written as part of a special two-part release in celebration of reaching this huge milestone - for the story as a whole, and particularly, for reaching this critical moment in the plot. Please be sure to read Chapters 30 and 31 as a pair.
Additional note at the end of this chapter.
31. Feeling Blue (Double Bluff)
Steven was coming undone. He had asked himself a lot of questions, most of which were never answered – a lot of why, a lot of when, a lot of how, a lot of what. And sometimes, as is human nature, he would ask questions that would have been better left unanswered. What is this pink palanquin, abandoned in the middle of Korea? How come nobody told me about Pink Diamond? Why did mom shatter Pink Diamond? Why did mom bother to have me at all? Why am I the "key?" What was the point to the trials, the experiments?
After he had heard his sentencing broadcast across Homeworld, a singular question rose above all the others. It was simple, but somehow, it was not, and it would repeat in his mind again, and again, and again.
Does it hurt to die?
Does it… hurt, to die?
Does it hurt to die?
And as it turned out, this was a question that he did get an answer to, and the answer was yes.
Yes, Steven told himself, it hurts very much to die.
His sweats had turned to shivers, laying against the hard earth, as his body remembered how cold it was here, and though his chattering teeth were uncomfortable, the chill actually helped him to concentrate.
With the back of a shaking hand, Steven wiped off the spit and sweat from around his mouth and peeked through his lids. He was vaguely aware that someone was yelling, but he was relieved that it didn't seem like, for once, they weren't yelling at him.
Steven licked his hand and tried to heal the Rose Quartz gemstone… but it didn't work. Honestly, he hadn't expected it to; he had never been able to heal his bodily injuries with his spit, so it came as no surprise that he could not heal his magical injuries either.
After another wave of pain crept up from his navel, Steven let himself lull into a peace for a little while. If he tried to remain very still, it hurt less, so he closed his eyesand listened to his shallow breathing.
At some point he was interrupted – it could have been a minute or it could have been an hour – when someone gently gripped his shoulders and was pulling him out of dirt, away, into the air. Steven actually didn't mind the change, a little softer on his aching muscles than the rough ground pushing up against his spine, so he let himself be moved and kept his eyes close
For some reason, the grasp reminded him of someone. Someone… new, but… someone who was hurting, or… no, what was it? Those fingers…
"Dani…?"
But when he turned his head to check, it didn't look like Dani, so he just let his mind continue to drift. His brain still didn't feel right, so he was content to watch his breath mix with the soft mist in front of him; the cold bound the two together, a sweet and wrong harmony of air that fused together.
They came to a stop, so Steven released a shuttering breath as he was placed on the ground again. Turning his head to the side, Steven wondered what was happening. Maybe Heliodor had come back? He was pretty sure he saw something orange… It took him a moment to realize that he was higher up now, overlooking the long stretch of canyon that had nearly become his grave. Though he knew he should just stay still, Steven dragged himself closer to the edge of the plateau, looking down into the haze, blinking as figures started to come into focus.
Blue Diamond was literally consumed with emotion, so ensorcelled that she was laughing, crying and seething; she looked truly mad. To her left was the outline of Yellow Diamond, a little further away and harder to see, but her posture lacked all of its usual dignity and authority. She was leaning backwards, almost falling into her own palanquin as she backed up slowly, but they were the least interesting sights in the vale.
This time, Steven was sure he had gone insane – he guess his mind must have cracked along with his gem as a ghostly voice echoed through the Kindergarten.
"My, my, you've both grown quite seditious since I first reared you from the dirt. In fact, it was conditions much like this that spawned the both of you." Each word sounded murderous, each pause gave him goosebumps, and each reverberation seemed to swell in the fog.
Steven squinted and even rubbed his eyes to shake off the illusion, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest that threatened to asphyxiate him. It wasn't possible, but yet, he looked over the valley and watched White Diamond easily stride the length of the plane, her bright eyes dangerous in the darkness.
As White Diamond strolled the length of the valley, every molecule in the atmosphere seemed to vaporize, turning the mist into noxious gas. Steven had to resist the urge to cough, too mystified by what was happening.
She came to a stop in front of the other Diamonds, who had all but fallen backwards in shock, and placed her foot over a boulder uninterestingly.
"Yes, this ground was once rich with potential. So long ago… What is that thing you always say, Blue?" Long white fingers trailed her chin and cheeks, appearing thoughtful.
"Right, yes. A pity." She pushed her foot down, the stone easily disintegrating under her mass.
Blue had become hysterical.
"No – no! You're dead, dead, you murdered Pink and now you're dead. You can't be here – I'm imagining it, yes, ha, yes…" she pulled up her hood and started to laugh, a desperate, crazed laugh.
White did not seem amused. "Tsk. You're wrong on all three counts; I would have expected better from you." She lifted three fingers and marked them off.
"I am very much alive, you are misled by what happened to Pink, and I'm sorry to say you're not imagining any of this. Well, not as sorry as you might be." Her voice had turned to pure ice.
Now it was Yellow's turn to challenge her, denying White the chance to ridicule her again. She reached out her hand to summon her yellow bubble from earlier, full of white shards. "This is another of your illusions, a trick! You're right here."
That made White stop her advance, and they all became very still. She tilted her head to one side for a moment, looking at the bubble, and then turned and walked away. They both looked a horrible mess of relief and distress with her no longer staring at them, qualities not characteristic in either of them.
Steven, however, felt his own stress manifest as White Diamond sauntered towards him. She was so massive he only came to level with her neck as she stood in the valley below, her face huge by comparison as she examined his battered form carefully.
She frowned. "I'm glad you have the sheer force of will that you do, Steven, or else we would both be dead." He was just staring at her, wide-eyed and breathless. What?
She turned again and paced around the empty space, her long strides and towering form giving her the appearance of floating through the fog like a specter – which, Steven hadn't ruled out at this point. Musing to herself, much like she had done back in her throne room when she gazed out at the stars, White Diamond was as casual as a professor lecturing her students.
"How do I explain when you are governed by your own foolishness?" She paused and looked at the other Diamonds. "Your quest for false justice supersedes your own brilliance, blinding you to greater things. Had you bothered to listen," she waved a hand lazily, spawning colossal, disembodied hands from the fog and that pulled Yellow and Blue down to their knees. They had both started to shout, terrified, when more hands rose out of the miasma to cover their mouths.
"You might have understood the potential I see in this child. How better, I figured, than to show you what he is capable of?" She paused, elegantly lowering a hand as a display of her own form.
Unable to believe it himself, Steven blurted out from the cliff-face. "What?"
White Diamond raised an eyebrow and turned towards him, white eyes dancing with energy.
"It's true, Steven. Did you not believe me when I said you were the key? Your organic body… it possesses components that act in symbiotic harmony with the capabilities of the Rose Quartz gemstone. Under the right conditions, that is." Approaching the other Diamonds again, more ethereal hands materialized in the frosty air and grabbed their heads, forcing Blue and Yellow to face her as she studied them with her piercing glare.
She clicked her tongue, like a mother who had caught her children in a lie. "How disappointing you both are. After so many millennia and you can't even stage a coup. I do not need a Sapphire to tell how obvious your plot was," she stood at her full height and shrugged, looking upwards into the sonorous darkness.
White Diamond's indifference just made the whole speech that much more intimidating. Everything about her was always inverted, every sign of body language backwards, every word a riddle, and Steven watched the other Diamond's – literal tyrants – be rendered powerless at her whim.
"Maybe it was my maternal instincts, hoping I was wrong… but I am never wrong, even when I want to be." She bent down so her gaze was almost even with them, eyes narrowed into inimical slits.
"I wanted to give you the chance to correct your failings, to overcome your petty sense of justice on your own, to aspire to greater things than conventional ideals of power and authority. But you failed."
White Diamond returned to standing and leered over them, enjoying herself. She gazed to her left when a yellow bubble floated innocently in her periphery.
"Ah yes, there I am." She cradled the delicate orb in between her hands for a moment, looking at the way the white shards sparkled beneath the yellow protection, and smashed her hands together with so much force Steven winced. When she splayed her palms outward, the twinkling dust of her own gemstone drifted from her fingertips, and they all stared at her in utter disbelief.
"Isn't it fascinating, Steven?" She called from over her shoulder, turning to speak directly to him once again.
"Your biology creates a organic compound called 'EGF'. Oh, Pink would have just loved the science behind this," she reached out a finger like she was going to poke him, but instead he found himself weightless once again, suspended in a white bubble. This was a marked improvement from his previous posture, so he didn't protest even if the whole experience was terrifying. Without gravity, there was no weight and pressure pushing on his body. It still hurt, certainly, but it also numbed the tearing he felt in his chest every time he tried to breath.
No wonder we bubble gems when they're poofed…
Returning to her scolding, White paced the canyon with Steven floating in her palm, her tone ripe with disdain. "When you are trying to be the best leader you can be, you must take every precaution. For example," She stopped and looked into the dirt below. The green face of her lutetium chamber shimmered lightly at the tip of her boots, so she took a small step backwards and lifted her free hand in front of her.
There was a loud groaning sound as the packed dirt started to come apart, shifting and creaking with pressure as the plane of green started to detangle itself from the ground. What Steven had thought was just a abandoned piece of gem tech grew taller and was wider as White Diamond lifted her hand, and he furrowed his brow in wonder and surprise, squinting down as a glowing green box filled with dirt emerged from the depths below.
From Steven's height and awkward angle, there wasn't much he could see of the geometric oddity other than it was packed on all sides with opaque minerals from the ground below, though the top looked mostly clear.
Following a course set by White Diamond's shifting hand, the glowing verdant container floated to a stop and landed off to the side of the now massive, cubical crater below. Both of the restrained Diamond's looked confused and afraid by whatever could be within.
Steven was confused, looking up at White Diamond and then back to the box. This whole thing felt like a weird dream, like he might have been thrown into the black pits by that white Sapphire, back in another trial room, but the dull pulsing in his arm suggested that this was still very real. Then, with a simple flick of her wrist, the mineral and dirt inside vanished and Steven covered his mouth in horror.
"Let the pawns move first, and then capture them all, one by one."
With the green chamber now above ground, there was enough residual light that Steven could see through the walls, although his view was distorted by the bubble and again by the layers of alloy that confined them. It was them – the Gems – and he felt like his heart had stopped beating.
Connie, Ruby and Amethyst were all pressed up against one side of the translucent cube, their faces green and difficult to see but it was them. He couldn't see Pearl or Peridot, but one of them looked like they were sitting against the opposite wall, head in their knees. Sapphire looked amess, crumpled on the ground next to Ruby, and Lapis was floating just above the others, her hands resting against the ceiling. He could see her better than any of them, and even though it looked like they were moving and maybe even shouting, the dark ravine remained deathly still.
In a show of mercy, or perhaps just misunderstood malevolence, White lowered his bubble down near the ground so he was only feet from them. It was so difficult to see them, their faces etched in pain and fear and joy – so much joy to see him. How could they want to see him, after all he's put them through? Garnet may be split up, but Ruby was smiling and it looked like she was laughing as she slammed her hands against the inside of the barrier, Sapphire moved her bangs to the side and had tears streaming from her cheeks, though he couldn't tell if they were happy or sad. And Connie was there, eyes shining and giving him a smile that made his heart flutter uncomfortably; her hair was short and she had some cuts across her face, but she was still so beautiful. Next to her, Amethyst was shapeshifting herself into… words, maybe? It was too distorted to tell, and she didn't think to invert them so he could read backwards, but her smile never left her face. The purple gem, so happy, so full of life… maybe he would at least get the chance to apologize in person for what he did to the Famethyst…
That made him freeze up – what had happened to Holly Blue? Steven tore his eyes away from them despite how much it pained him and examined his scarred arm – it just continued to get worse. Now, the blue was etched like cold, opalescent tendrils over the radiating white and yellow, the latter of which had spread further to the tips of his fingers. It sort of looked robotic, the little nubs at the bottom of his hands glowing beneath the skin; he shuddered.
Looking around, he was relieved to see she wasn't anywhere nearby, lost or maybe – hopefully? – poofed during the chaos. White Diamond seemed interested in his reactions, pausing while he caught up to speed. She waited until he looked up at her to continue her monologue.
Turning her head to direction of the other Diamonds, White kept her eyes down, never looking away from his face. "Don't be afraid to use your knights, you will likely need them."
Her crushing victory only became more thorough as she extended a hand to a nearby cliff-face, and Heliodor and White Pearl climbed into her open palm. She placed them atop the green enclosure like tiny medals, and those within looked up at the feet appear above as the pair saluted her fiercely.
"Their caliber and loyalty should never be overlooked. Heliodor was never yours, as much as she was never mine. She was Pink's subject, but by rights, you are all mine." She swept spindly fingers across the open plain, her expression intense as it flashed over every one of their faces.
"Castling is the best strategy to keep up to pace – two moves in one, with the proper timing. Move your rook," she gestured indiscriminately at the world above, speaking on subjects beyond their understanding.
"And your King," she reached down and lifted Steven's bubble back up, high into the air. The Gems looked terrified and pounded deafly against the green wall as he was carried away.
"At the same time. Then, with a little patience, you can capture anything. A bishop, a king… a queen." She turned to face Blue and Yellow Diamond.
Steven watched as their eyes go wide, looking just about as scared as him. White pressed her lips together as they looked up at her, still forced to their knees before her. She was thinking, considering, always two moves ahead.
She released Steven's bubble high in the air, letting him float freely. Then she lowered herself to their level again, her gaze shattering Blue's resolve, the leader sobbing openly at White's feet. Steven had been crying anyways as he looked between the cataclysm and the Gems, but her sobs mixed with his empathic powers, and his tears started to come twice as hard, unnatural and heavy as they poured from his cheeks.
White waved a hand, and the vice on Blue's mouth disappeared.
"Why, White? Please, don't do this."
She titled her head to the side, pretending to consider. Blue could sense that White had not a single shred of compassion in her.
"I'm afraid you've left me no choice," she wiped a finger across Blue's face, catching a few tears. With her other hand, White ripped the diamond from her chest.
They all froze – Steven, the Gems and Connie, Yellow Diamond, even Heliodor and Pearl's eyes went wide as blue smoke billowed around White's intimidating frame. She looked thoughtfully down at the perfectly cut, perfectly formed creation in her hands and frowned. Power and passion were never a wise combination, she thought, and looked up towards the only other remaining Diamond.
Yellow was staring at the gemstone in her hands, refusing to meet her gaze blue smoke gave way to white fog. She had stopped resisting her restraints, and her eyes had started to swell with their own emotion.
"And then there's you…"
White's tone was deadly, knowing, and Yellow tried to look away but her head was held too tightly by the incorporeal hands, forced to face her in the wicked mist.
In White Diamond's right hand, she held Blue, and with her left she clenched her sinewy fingers hard on the outside of the yellow twin rooted in her foolish daughter's chest. She didn't bother to poof her, using nothing but sheer force to crack, splinter, fissure and shatter the failure that she raised, watching the life leave her eyes as her birthplace became her grave.
**A/N: Wow, how did we get here? Chapter 30 (and 31)?!
Thanks for everyone's patience as I worked on these chapters - heck, this whole story. I wanted you all to know how much I appreciate all of your support, so I hope it's been worth the ride to get here! The comments, subsriptions, kudos and hits are all very in their own way encouraging, and I hope I can continue to keep you guessing as we dive into the next chapters.
Coming up in the next few chapters, we will *finally* learn what happened to the Peridots (CG and HW), the rest of White's intentions will become clear, and we will have our first Connie and Steven moment.