While Blue takes Steven to his palace White returns to her head and Yellow to her office. Her pearl rides upon her shoulder, so she doesn't have to run to keep up with her diamond's long strides, a rare and almost unheard of privilege just for her. She sneaks a few glances at her diamond. Though to many she may seem stoic, Yellow Pearl can tell differently. She's been in her diamond's service for much longer than most pearls have lived, and in that time she's learned a few things. For one she's learned her diamond has a near insatiable curiosity, always tinkering, experimenting or reading reports on other gems experiments.

When she's upset or angry, she becomes still, like the stone they emerge from, until she's either calmed or lashes out at the offender. In past instances it was usually Pink Diamond who irked her. Pulling pranks or throwing tantrums, or simply behaving unbecoming of a diamond. She caused her diamond so much stress and extra work, and yet… She was also the only gem who could make her break her stoic facade, smile and laugh genuinely. Yellow Pearl misses her diamond's laughter. No one could make her laugh like Pink could. Aside from a smirk here or there her diamond hasn't so much as smiled once since Pinks supposed shattering.

Now she sees something different on her diamonds face; sparkling in her otherwise indifferent eyes.

Hope.

In her yellow and orange colored office, reading reports, Yellow can't seem to focus. Her mind keeps wandering back to the young diamond sleeping in his palace. Their Pink is gone, there's no doubt about it. No matter how many times she reads the report from Selenite, the result doesn't change. Pink Diamond is gone. Yet he is here. Steven. He has her gem,her powers, yet isn't her. She is gone, he is here, she made him. Why? Why would she give up her status as a diamond, her very purpose and identity. If it was to live freely without status, to protect the Earth, like the Crystal Gems always claimed, then why would she give everything, even her own life, to create a half organic offspring?

Yellow sighs and puts away the report on Steven's gem, bringing up images of him. Organics are strange beings, often made of chains of carbon atoms and filled with water. They're squishy and fragile, Pink always did have a fascination with them, but still… why? She sighs again, closing the x-ray images, leaving her with only the image of a scared, small, wide-eyed human child. Maybe he has the answers, whether he knows it or not…

Or maybe the answers she seeks died with the original Pink Diamond. She resigns herself to the likely possibility that she'll never know, and that she'll have to learn to be okay with that. Pink may be gone, but Steven is here. None of this was his fault, yet he's reaping the consequences.

…

A report labeled urgent pops up on Yellow's screen.

A Roaming Eye ship has been stolen from Pink Diamond's Zoo.

A recording plays before her. The human Blue's Aquamarine had captured makes his way into a Roaming Eye and manages to clumsily pilot it out. She frowns as she recalls Stevens' quiet goodbye with the human. He must've told it what to do to escape. How he would know that himself she questions. She's unable to hold it against the young diamond, he thought they were going to harm him after all, and merely showed a level of compassion for the human even Pink hadn't often shown to her organic pets. She hums to herself as she brings up the tracking on the ship. Thanks to it's main warp drive it's already nearly to Earth, should be there within a day. She sends instructions to the Peridot currently on ship software maintenance, to lock down the ship's weapons and warp drive systems. She doesn't care for one lost Roaming Eye, but the last thing she wants is these Crystal Gems showing up and taking Steven from them.

She refuses to lose him like she did Pink to the Earth.

Hours later Steven groans as he wakes in a strange bed. Sitting up and rubbing his eyes, it takes his mind a minute to catch up. When he opens his eyes and sees the pink and cream colored bed reality slams into him, hard.

Giving himself up to Aquamarine, Lars kidnapped along with him… The trial.. His mom was Pink Diamond! He's drawn from his thoughts, and the impending panic attack, by the room becoming brighter. He hadn't even noticed the lighting dim when he went to sleep. Standing from his bed he stretches and looks around. The room is almost entirely pink, and very very bare. It feels lonely.

"Hey pebbles?" he asks

A small alcove opens in one of the walls, a couple of the pebbles coming out to greet him happily.

"Hey, uh, is there somewhere I can clean up?"

A door on the far wall appears and opens for him, no sign of the pebbles who made it. The two who'd greeted him return to their alcove after he thanks them, the little entrance vanishing behind them.

He smiles sadly, Blue had explained to him that Pink made the original pebbles, that the other diamonds allowed them to remain, despite their small ugly appearances, as long as they stayed out of sight. They've since proven incredibly helpful and now they're all over Homeworld repairing and maintaining many of the structures, keeping old buildings looking like new.

Stepping into the room the pebbles had made for him he finds it's a sort of bathroom. Very similar to the ones on Earth, with a tub and a sink and such. He quickly cleans himself up. As he leaves the now steam filled room he's greeted by a gem holding a small tray full of fruit from the Zoo.

"Greetings my Diamond!" she says, voice cheerful and bubbly. "I have some food for you."

"Oh, uh, thanks!"

Steven walks up to her and shyly takes a purple apple shaped fruit. He looks closely at this new gem while he eats. She looks a lot like Pearl on Earth except she has pink hair in two buns on either side of her head, a pink leotard with a gossamer skirt, and her gem is in her stomach, like his. The most startling thing, though, is the cracks along her face, obscuring her left eye.

Swallowing, he can't help but ask, "Are you okay? How did that happen?" and gestures to her face.

Her eye widens and for a moment her bright smile falters, before being plastered back on. "Oh I'm fine! This happened a long time ago."

She bows and salutes him, her arms making that diamond shape he's grown somewhat familiar with by now, "I am Pink Pearl, my diamond. I served the former Pink Diamond and now I serve you!" her smile grows again.

He quickly puts two and two together, and his eyes widen as he blurts out, "Did she do that to you!?"

Pink Pearl falters, smile fading again. Worried, he pushes, "Please. Tell me."

Pink Pearl sighs, smile fading completely, as she hesitantly explains, "Pink Diamond used to… throw temper tantrums when the other diamonds wouldn't give her what she wanted, or ignored, or punished her. She had a somewhat… explosive temper at times." As a look of horror crosses his face she quickly raises her hands and waves them in front of her, "Don't worry! She was really, very sweet! We'd play games, pranks sometimes, plan parties together and tons of fun stuff!" She smiles sadly, "It was my own fault for standing too close."

"She'd gotten tired of Yellow and Blue Diamond refusing her a colony, so she went directly to White Diamond. White told her she wasn't ready of course." Pink Pearl takes a deep, shaky breath, "When she got back I greeted her, and she just… screamed, cracking the nearby walls and, like I said, I was too close. So you see, my Diamond, it was my own fault." she perks up again, plastering that, now obviously fake, smile back onto her face.

Steven drops the fruit he'd been trying, and failing, to eat while listening to her story, and rushes to her, hugging her tight around the waist.

"It's not your fault! She hurt you! Badly!"

Shocked, she stands still as a statue as he hugs her. Slowly tears begin to stream from Pink Pearl's good eye. No gem has shown her this kind of understanding and kindness before. Not even her beloved Pink. She was just the pearl who failed to do her job, failed to keep her diamond happy. She was lucky she wasn't shattered for it!

Instead she was reassigned to White Diamond and suddenly 8,000 years just became… nothing. When she awoke again, she was informed of everything that occurred, and what Pink Diamond did. She's barely given any time to process when she's told she's been assigned to the new Pink Diamond, Steven.

She'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit, a part of her is resentful, even angry, at her former diamond. She hurts her, abandons her to White's control, gets a new pearl, finally gets her colony, leaves, starts a war, then just disappears, letting everyone believe she's dead, and leaving everyone to grieve? Without taking an ounce of accountability for her actions? It hurts, so so much. Why wouldn't Pink fight for her but she would fight for the Earth?

All these feelings flow around her, through her mind, and slowly fade, at least a little, as the words of her new diamond, and his soft, warm arms wrapped around her waist brings her comfort and validation. She kneels and tightly hugs her diamond, her Steven, back.

"I was hurt badly. Thank you, my Diamond."

Steven gives her another gentle squeeze. No one's ever thanked him before. He's used to helping the gems deal with and work through what his mom did, but never once has anyone thanked him. Well except for maybe Peridot and Lapis, but they didn't really have anything directly to do with his mom. He feels a warm soft spot open up in his heart for this soft spoken and sweet gem crying and hugging him back.

They sit together and chat while he eats another fruit. He tells her about himself, how he loves singing, dancing, and music in general. She, in turn, tells him about herself, specifically that she loves to make clothing for the pebbles, since pebbles don't have the ability to form their own appearance modifiers. The pebbles themselves come out to greet her, expressing their confusion over Pink vs Steven. Pink Pearl and Steven explain as best they can to the small gems answering any questions they come up with. Once it sank in they all seemed so sad, they loved Pink, their creator, more than anything. They adjust quickly, however, and happily spend some time climbing all over Steven, nestling into his hair and giggling.

"Pink adored the pebbles, she always encouraged their creativity and loved watching them build. In turn they always knew just what to do to cheer her up when she was down, something even I struggled to do sometimes." that sad smile returns to Pink Pearl's face as she looks at the small pebble resting in the palm of her hand.

A chime sounds throughout the room startling the pebbles, who rush to return to the walls and floor. Pink Pearl stands and explains that the chime is announcing Yellow Diamonds Pearl is at the door. She walks over and opens it, standing to the side as Yellow Pearl salutes Steven.

"Steven Diamond, my Diamond requests your presence in the throne room to continue yesterday's discussion."

Steven thanks her and as a small group they head to said throne room, Yellow Pearl acting as Stevens guide while Pink Pearl follows behind him.

"As is proper for a diamond's pearl." she explains.

He doesn't like it, but silently acknowledges he's not on Earth, and things work differently here.

The throne room is massive! It mostly consists of open space with a gigantic set of doors on one end and four colored thrones on the other. It's sparsely decorated, only a few solid colored tapestries hung upon the walls break up the monotony. Though there is no obvious light source aside from the open doors the room is brightly lit, barely a shadow in sight. The three elder diamonds each sit comfortably on their matching throne as they wait for him.

Steven arrives with the two pearls who announce his arrival, salute, then leave to join Blue Pearl outside the doors. The diamonds have designated this meeting confidential and private. As soon as they leave, the three other diamonds rise primly from their thrones.

"We're going to the back meeting room. It's completely private and we have much to discuss." Yellow says as she steps forward and lowers her hand for Steven to step onto.

He hops on and holds onto her thumb to keep his balance as they walk into a back room hidden behind their thrones. The room itself is spacious, though to the diamonds it's fairly average sized, occupied by a single square table and four chairs. The three diamonds sit at their chairs while Steven makes himself comfortable on the table in front of Yellow. This way he won't have to yell to be heard across it.

Yellow folds her hands on her lap and starts, "First off, is there anything about your organic nature we should be aware of?"

Steven hums as he thinks, "Well since my physical form isn't made of light I'll need actual clothes. I'm also still growing so eventually I'll grow too big for what I have now. Plus I'll need a way to wash my clothes so they don't start to stink… Um… You already know about needing food and water… The pebbles already built me a room to clean up in, attached to my room in the palace so… I think that's about it?"

White claps her hands seemingly pleased, "So you won't always be so tiny?"

Steven chuckles a little, "Yeah, though not sure I'll ever be able to catch up to you guys."

Blue giggles, covering her mouth with her hand, "Pink was fairly small as well, not to worry."

Yellow allows a small smile to grace her face, it's been so long since Blue has giggled like that.

"Well your pearl is very skilled with coverings. When she was new under Pinks service she helped design the style of appearance modifiers most gems today are programmed to emerge with. Consult with her on some new 'clothes' for you." White states.

Steven nods in understanding. He likes Pink Pearl, she's very sweet, he still can't imagine why his mom would just throw her away after hurting her.

With a slight scowl he asks, "How could mom just throw Pink Pearl away after hurting her so badly? Especially if she's so skilled and useful, and… and… doesn't Homeworld value usefulness over a lot of other stuff?"

The three diamonds look at each other with guilt on their faces. White holds out her hands for Steven, when he hops on she lifts him to her face. Light gray eyes with white diamond shaped pupils lock with his own brown ones.

"Please don't hold it against Pink. We were not always particularly… kind to her. Many of her actions and behavior were a direct result of our treatment and punishments, I believe." She looks to the two diamonds at her sides, "In the case of her pearl, the fit she threw was because of me, then after, to punish her, I took her away from Pink before she could have the chance to make it right."

Steven looks between the three diamonds around him and thinks he understands, "Moms actions may have been a result of your treatment of her but this right here is the big difference." He gestures to the guilt stricken diamonds, "You're here, taking accountability and trying to make things right." He takes a deep breath, "She never did that. Even when it was clear things had gone too far, she just kept running from the root of her problem."

Steven looks down at his sandaled feet, "She maybe wasn't a bad person, but she still made some very bad choices that now I have to live with."

Determination fills his eyes and as he looks at each of the diamonds they flash a dark pink color.

"I can't fix what she did, but maybe together we can all heal and move forward better than we were before. We'll make something really good come out of this bad situation."

…

"Blue, Please stop using your power. I can't see." Yellow wipes tears from her eyes.

"I'm not." Blue replies, a full, bright smile on her face for the first time in eons.

Steven giggles at Yellow's embarrassed expression, an orange blush flushing across her cheeks, while White looks on with a proud smile. She places Steven back on the table and clears her throat.

"Onto the next business."

They spend the next several hours discussing Steven's future role in the empire. The diamonds each walk him through their own roles. Yellow's being primarily colonization, military, and research and development. Steven briefly asks her about the gem experiments, expressing his horror at the torment the gem shards experienced.

"They're still conscious!? That's not possible, there shouldn't be any self awareness in any of those shards, just basic programming… That's why the Cluster is classified as a weapon, not an actual gem… You and I will go over this in more detail later. I need any information you can provide." Steven agrees, intent on driving home to her just how horrific her experiments with those gem shards are.

Blue's role is primarily colonization, and diplomacy. She regularly travels between her, Yellow and White's colonies, to maintain order, enforce laws, and resolve any issues. She often acts as mediator between aristocrats during disputes, or judge for any trials.

White's role is to oversee all gemkind on Homeworld and maintain her few colonies, leaving the majority of the active roles to her fellow diamonds. In some cases she will be conferenced in to consult and advise her fellow diamonds in performing their roles.

"We'll need to assign you some gems to teach you our laws, and proper etiquette. I will assist as well of course," White states, staring at a nearby wall in thought.

"One of my Pyrope's would be excellent in teaching etiquette and laws." Blue offers.

"Hessonite, the war hero, would also be an excellent choice in teaching basic rules, as well as gem history, given that she's lived through much of it." Yellow adds.

White nods in agreement, "Periodically, Steven, you and I will have one on one meetings where you can show me what you've learned. I'll assess your progress and determine what else is needed."

"Oh!" Blue claps her hands together, "After a few lessons you can join me on some of my diplomatic excursions, where you can see for yourself our culture, and put into practice what you learn from Pyrope!"

Steven can barely hold in his excitement. These three diamonds are so eager to teach him. They seem almost unwilling to leave him alone for too long, so excited to spend time with him. Something he's wanted desperately from his family on Earth for so, so long. To learn about gem culture and history, the thought leaves him giddy with excitement. The Crystal Gems never really wanted to teach him, except for Pearl, but even she gave up quickly after the debacle with Lapis and the mirror… he's always been eager to please, and eager to learn, and now he's going to get that chance!

"The last topic, I suppose, should be your court." Blue has a pensive look as she rubs her chin in thought. "When Pink… Left… everything was in shambles. Her court had to be dismantled and the gems in it split and reassigned to roles in ours. We cannot simply return them to their former roles, that would cause undue chaos and unrest."

She, Yellow, and White pause to think when Steven's stomach lets out a loud growl.

"What was that awful sound!?" Yellow asks, clearly somewhat disturbed.

"Just my stomach. I'm hungry and need to eat." Steven explains.

"How often must you do this… Eat?" Blue asks.

"At least three times a day. I also need to sleep at least 8 hours every day to stay healthy."

White straightens in her chair, "Very well then, Steven, why don't you return to your palace, eat, then spend the rest of the day relaxing and exploring. Establishing your court can wait."

They all stand, Blue picking Steven up to carry him back to the throne room. Outside, Yellow lifts her pearl onto her shoulder and, saying something about catching up on reports, walks toward her own palace, a massive Yellow structure visible in the distance between several gray colored towers. White returns to her head, which Steven just now realizes is literally the giant white bust made in her likeness in the center of the main part of the city. Blue, her pearl, Pink Pearl and Steven return to his palace.

He realizes that yesterday he was so exhausted and terrified he never really took a proper look around when Blue brought him to his palace. Taking the opportunity now he can see a somewhat rounded blue structure in the distance, surrounded by gray, green, and even some purple structures, across from Yellow's palace. That must be Blue's own palace.

As they near his palace, the pink structure surrounded by equally pink walls, his mind is blown. On Earth he barely even had his own room, now here he is with an entire building to call his own. He puts together a mental map of, roughly, what the main city of Homeworld looks like. White's head in the center, then Yellow, Blue and his palaces equal distance from the head and each other, with various colored structures and spaces between them, making for an absolutely massive kaleidoscope.

After making sure he's safe Blue and her pearl leave to attend to their own duties.

"Oh, I'd be delighted to design your appearance modifiers! I'll draw up several designs for different occasions, for you to choose from!" Pink Pearl claps her hands excitedly.

She asks the pebbles for a chair, then pulls out her hard light tablet and starts working, while Steven eats. She scrunches her face as she focuses, drawing rough sketches of Steven and muttering to herself. Steven smiles contentedly and enjoys his lunch while looking around the room. Aside from his bed there's really nothing. Just some pale curtains that match the cold pink walls. He never thought he'd associate the color pink with cold, but it makes sense when everything is made mostly of metal and stone.

Finishing his food he decides to customize things a bit. So he spends the next few hours walking around his room, pebbles riding on his shoulders, requesting slight changes, furniture and decor. He changes the door to his washroom to a pale blue with a small sign on it that will change color to indicate if it's occupied or not. He had the pebbles change the curtains to a glittery white, then add a rainbow of colored tapestries to the walls. Maybe later he'll ask if there's any artist gems who'd help with more complex decorating. He finishes his changes with an assortment of rugs, couches and chairs. All in all the room is much more homey now, a rainbow of color and comfort. He loves it, even if it kind of looks like a unicorn threw up on the walls and floor.

"You have a lovely voice."

Steven jumps as Pink Pearl speaks up quietly. He'd been so focused he hadn't realized that he'd started humming to himself.

"Oh! Uh, thank you!" he grins.

"My diamond, why don't we go explore the area? It'll be good for you to learn the layout of Homeworld for the future." she suggests.

"Sounds good to me! Though please, just call me Steven. I get that out in public it's a polite, manners-type thing, but in private I'd like to be just Steven."

Pink Pearl frowns a bit, "May I be honest?" she continues when he nods, "I'm not very comfortable doing that. Not yet at least, my diamond."

Though disappointed, Steven can't help but smile at her. It took a lot of confidence and trust, after all she's been through, for her to be this honest and informal already.

"Alright, at least until you feel more comfortable."

The sparkle of small stars in her eye tells him more than words could. He'd said the right thing. Made the right choice. There's a lot he's got to learn about Homeworld and the culture his mom left behind.

Good thing he's a fairly quick learner.