Homeworld, Yellow Palace
Yellow Diamond's Court
Tanya
After Yellow Diamond had done her brief talk with Blue Diamond, she had resumed her court review for over quite a bit of hours, all of which involved the progress of every gem's duties within the room; Some gems were more successful in their reviews than others, while some few gems were penalized in mismanaging their colony worlds or stations across the territories of Yellow Diamond's colonies.
One such gem that was penalized was a Yellow Jade that was in charge of managing a ring of asteroids of a solar system, a solar system that was within the Northern Sector of the Galaxy, the very same sector that was where the majority of where Yellow Diamond expanded her territories of colonies through; The Jade gem had been complacent in her duty as the overseer of the ring of asteroids, and it ended up with a deficient in gem production that didn't match anywhere near the projected numbers done by Yellow Diamond after she went over the reports.
Suffice to say, the Yellow Jade gem was stammering out apologies before being silenced by Yellow Diamond and was told to expect inspections every decade rather than the stipulated twenty five years to make sure she didn't screw up again. One didn't have to imagine if she failed again…
The rest of the reviews across the board were more mediocre and acceptable results from the other gems of their duties. As Yellow Diamond approached my end of the room while pacing back as she read off from her data slates, she halted in front of me and the other two gems that sat next to me, Yellow Morganite and Beryl.
"Morganite." Yellow Diamond started to say as her eyes glanced down at the dataslate in her hand, while her other arm as folded behind her back, before glancing down at the palace and palanquin designer, "I'll be using you for the foreseeable century in remodeling the palace, some changes are needed and quite a few facilities are in need of renovating. See to it that you go over a list of available Bismuths and meet me within the atrium of the palace." Yellow Diamond ordered with a firm tone of voice and stoic look down at the Morganite.
Yellow Morganite looked close to jumping out of her seat and bowing at the feet of her Diamond, but she settled with doing her best to stand up and gleam an expressive smile of delight while saluting her Diamond, "Yes, My Diamond! I'll do my best to acquire the best of the best of the Bismuth gems I have available, thank you oh so glorious-"
"Yes yes." Yellow Diamond lifted her palm up with an exhausted look on her face, "You can save the compliments for later." she gestured for the Morganite gem to sit down, to which she accepted with an anticipated smile on her face.
Yellow Diamond then proceeded to swipe her finger up on the Data slate in her hand, and focused her attention on Yellow Beryl. "Beryl, I'll be having you sent to the northern sector of my territories, I need you to take on an expedition to find a new solar system with viable planets for colonization." she ordered with a strict tone and expression cast down upon the Beryl gem.
Yellow Beryl stood up and saluted her Diamond with an ever present gracious look on her face as she angled her head up to look directly at her Diamond's face, "Yes, my Diamond! I shall begin gathering my forces post haste!" She announced with fervor, before sitting back down to allow her Diamond to move on.
With her piece said and done with Beryl, Yellow Diamond began scrolling through her dataslate, before walking back to her podium to grab the last one, "Citrine, you had quite the century of work done." She began to say as she picked up her next dataslate and looked like she was skimming through it for a sec, before scrolling back up to the top with her finger.
'That's putting it lightly.' I thought to myself while repressing a grimace as I watched Yellow Diamond go through the dataslate with a scrutinizing gaze, I uncrossed my arms and legs to sit respectively up while placing my hands on my lap. While I doubt I could put forward some new ideas for including new regiments into my forces right now, I'll stick with hoping I didn't fail to live up to my Diamond's expectations of all the campaigns I operated through the century; afterall, I could speak with Yellow Diamond later on the matter of finally getting those Rose Quartz gems out of their bubbles and actually putting them to good use.
Yellow Diamond lowered her dataslate to look directly down towards me, "Citrine, how goes the cabochon and facet mixed regiments?" she inquired with a gaze that seemed to measure my next response.
Responding back to the best of my ability, I swallowed down my nervousness and told the whole truth as best as I could, "While the higher echelons of gem authority figures are more prone to discriminate based on each other's gem type and all manner of other matters surrounding their gems, the common foot soldiers of my armada and regiments are pleasantly fine fighting alongside each other." I informed my Diamond without missing a beat.
"Hm." Yellow Diamond raised a curious eyebrow at my answer, and lifted her dataslate back up to go over whatever Data I most likely submitted to her throughout the century of my work. "But none of your Hessonites or Emeralds have disobeyed your direct orders of working at peak efficiency?" she asked with continued curiosity.
I blinked at her question, before answering her with a nod, "Well, they don't exactly hinder each other at surface level, it's still easy to see moments where the leaders of my forces would call each other out with worded insults at worse, but I have yet to see any of the cabochons or facet gems actually attempt any form of sabotage towards each other."
"Interesting…" Yellow Diamond mused while looking to the side in thought while cupping her chin, "Perhaps the discrimination is just more prevalent in Blue's court than in mine…" she spoke to herself, before looking back at me. "Give it another century, until then, keep working on that social experiment of yours." she ordered.
Just as I was about to respond with a respectful response and salute, the Diamond chime rang, which made Yellow Diamond release an annoyed breath before looking back at her podium to look at the remaining dataslates, "We'll continue this tomorrow at the same time." She announced before placing her dataslate in her hand down on the podium to gesture at the exit, "Those of you that I've addressed, you can return to your stations and colonies, the rest, stay for the next court meeting." she commanded.
As one, and along with me so as to not stick out, every gem stood up and gave their diamond salute to Yellow Diamond. "My diamond!" Every gem and I replied back, before everyone began exiting out while Yellow Diamond picked up a holopad up from her podium and allowed a hologram to project out from it inspect the data that was flowing in through the hologram screen with a gaze of scrutiny.
Already, both Morganite and Beryl were heading on out to leave, and seeing I might as well leave to check on Pearl and Spinel to see how they were doing, I made my way for the exit as well; just as I was halfway to the exit, Yellow Diamond spoke up while still seemingly focusing on the hologram of data. "Citrine, stay behind, I still have a few other matters to talk with you about." she ordered without looking directly at me.
Looking back from Yellow Diamond to the leaving forms of Morganite and Beryl, the two gems waved at me to which I reciprocated with a wave back before turned around to stand over by Yellow Diamond and wait for her to address me once she was finished. After several minutes of complete silence passed between Yellow Diamond and me, the Diamond Matriarch finally finished reviewing whatever had her attention and began heading for the exit. "Follow me." she ordered.
As I followed Yellow Diamond out into the hallways and through the palace, I stuck to keeping up with my Diamond while walking behind her; while she continued to walk, she spoke up without looking back at me, "How goes the situation with Pink's Spinel gem?" she inquired, and if I wasn't mistaken, some curiosity seeped into her tone of her question towards me.
Thinking back to how erratic Spinel's mood swings are and her coping depression being all over the place, I responded back to my diamond with a measured tone of thought, "It's too soon to say she's gotten over the news of Pink Diamond's…er…demise…" I winced a bit when I saw Yellow Diamond's fists subtly clench while she had her arms folded behind her back as she walked, "She can also get unstable during her anger phases of grief."
Yellow Diamond
"Phases of Grief, you say." I spoke with a measured response back to my little Citrine while continuing to walk through my palace hallways; it was about time to remodel the palace up a bit after a few thousand years had passed, it was starting to get tiresome to walk through the same scenery of the palace, a change of scenery would probably help my mind cope with all the work that has been piled on top of all my duties as a Diamond.
While I continued to walk through the hallways, the sound of my Citrine's footsteps echoed after mine as we both walked through the palace; Thinking back to the matter of Diamond duties and Citrine's mention of Pink, I couldn't help but hold back an emotional expression. As a Diamond, my station demanded perfection and the appearance of an ever imposing authoritative figure.
As much as I wanted to grieve like Blue had, there was too much work to be done with the massive size of the Diamond Empire; When I first heard of Pink's shattering, I wanted to deny the truth, and when the truth came to realization, I did all I could to make sure Citrine and her forces retreated off from Pink's planet before all three of us Diamonds retaliated against that dirtball of a rock.
Breaking myself out of my thoughts, and glancing over my shoulder to look back down at Citrine with a sideways look, "How unstable does she get?" I questioned the Citrine gem of mine.
The Citrine Gem Commander looked like she was going over her thoughts, before finally answering, "Not as bad as you might think, I don't have to always break out my destabilizers or use my gem powers to actually poof her before her anger gets too much most of the times, but there are some instances where I have to get rough in putting her down to get her to recoup from her emotional outbursts."
'She's almost as bad as Blue when she first heard of Pink's shattering, an entire wing of her Palace was decimated.' I thought to myself as I led the way to a set of elevator doors, with how massive and multileveled my palace was, some transportation was needed to get to other floors without the need for a large stairway to suit my size.
I still remember a time when my palace did have many stairways, it was exhausting to use them all to get to any one of the floors of the massive palace.
Just as I turned to speak with my Citrine gem after approaching the elevator doorways…I really should think about installing teleports within the next century or so…the palace walls and floor shook a bit with some hairline cracks forming on the walls. I glanced down at my Citrine gem to see her sweating from what looked like nervousness, while I glanced around to look at the damage caused by the tremor.
Hmm…when was the last time I actually had the palace walls fortified for such an occurrence? Blue's aura was already a signifier that the palace needed heavy renovations, whatever caused the tremors was most likely… "Citrine, follow me." I ordered sharply, before taking the elevator to go down and check on the soldiers' quarters.
General Quarters
"Oh Stars!" Yellow Pearl fretted as she watched the tail end of Pink Diamond's spinel make a mess of joining the rowdy quartz soldiers, after an escalation of roughhousing between the Diamond-rated Spinel gem and every other Quartz soldiers, Yellow Pearl could help but imagine why the court jester was capable of defeating so many gems in such a short time frame.
While Spinel seemed happy and full of giggles as she kicked her feet while sitting atop a pile of gem bodies who groaned in pain, she glanced around with what seemed like anticipation of excitement. "That was fun! Who else wants to play! I don't know why, but I feel somewhat better after-" Spinel twisted her upper body of her torso a few times, before extending her arms out to lift herself in the air to unwind her lower body back in place with her upper body, "unwinding with you all!" she giggled before leaping off from the pile of gem bodies and allowed the defeated opponents to begin picking themselves up off of each other.
"Was she always like this?" Orange Pearl asked as she stood beside Yellow Pearl, "The capability to do this, that is."
Yellow Pearl glanced back at the other Pearl and shrugged with a confused look on her face, "Why are you asking me?! Pink Diamond's spinel gem never visited here before until now." she crossed her arms, "Most of the time Pink Diamond would play with her in her garden, I highly doubt she was this violent with her Spinel gem."
"So…Pink Diamond never came back looking haggard?" Orange Pearl questioned back with an uncertain look on her face.
Yellow Pearl gave Orange Pearl an annoyed look while Spinel could be heard asking for others to continue and play with her, "Listen here you, I'm Yellow Diamond's pearl." she palmed her chest with a miffed look on her face, "Not Pink Diamond Pearl…" she then realized something with a wide eye look, "Well, that is to say, I'm not one of her pearls." she nodded to herself with a satisfied look on her face.
Crossing her arms, Yellow Pearl continued to speak with a proud look, "So you can stop with the questions, I don't know everything about the late Pink diamond, I just know some things from the spare times I've seen her in passing when she conversed with my Diamond." she nodded to herself at finishing her explanation.
"Late Pink Diamond…" Spinel spoke aloud with a listless expression, as she glanced over in the direction of the two pearls with a manic angered look.
"What?" Yellow Pearl asked with a confused look on her face, while Orange Pearl slapped her hand on her face, and groaned.
"Pink's not late!" Spinel yelled with an angered look directed at Yellow Pearl, who looked puzzled at such 180 degree turn of personality in the court jester, "RAAAGHH!" Spinel screamed at the top of her voice as she leapt into the air and dove towards Yellow Pearl, "Take it back!" she screamed while making a grab for Yellow Pearl as she flew through the air from leaping at the pearl gem.
"Oh Dear/ Stars!" Orange/Yellow Pearl both said at once as the Spinel gem hurled herself at Yellow Pearl.
Just as Spinel was about to make a grab at Yellow Pearl while in midair, the appearance of Citrine blurred into view beside Spinel with her arm raised and hand crackling with yellow static, before slamming her palm down onto the backside of Spinel. "Spinel, We've talked about this!" Citrine said with an angered tone, while Spinel's body crackled with yellow circuit lines, before poofing, her spinel gem clattering to the floor afterwards.
While Citrine let out an annoyed huff as she picked Spinel's gem up off the ground, both Pearl froze on the spot when they heard Yellow Diamond speak aloud behind them from within the open doorway.
"Hm." Yellow Diamond mused with her arms crossed, and inspected the wrecked site of the soldiers' quarters with a look of casual inspection, "Pearl, when was the last time I had this portion of the palace renovated?" she asked with a calculated look directed at the walls and infrastructure of her palace walls, floors, and ceiling.
"What? Oh, right away my Diamond, looking into it right now!" Yellow Pearl responded as she pulled out her holopad and skimmed through it, before pulling out a record, "Ah, ten thousand years, by this record." she responded in a crisp manner.
"Right…" Yellow Diamond narrowed her eyes at the room and all the years of accumulated structural loss and integrity, her palace was built with longevity in mind, and ten thousand years was most likely pushing the limits of allowing the palace to go any longer for a full on reconstruction of the entire palace. "Pearl, have Morganite penned for a another appointment, it looks like I'll be having all of my palace reworked and redesigned." she ordered.
"Yes, My Diamond!" Yellow Pearl responded with a smile while standing up on her toes, before letting herself stand back on the flat of her feet; afterwhich, Yellow Pearl began going through her holopad to pen in the appointment with Yellow Morganite.
Turning on the heels of her boots, Yellow Diamond began to head out of the room, but not before stopping in her tracks to look back at her Gem commander, "Citrine, take Pink's spinel to the pink Palace, perhaps taking her there will help hasten the speed of her grief." she ordered, before fully exiting out.
Meanwhile with Tanya, she thought to herself as she held Spinel's gem with her hand while glancing around the soldiers' quarters, 'I'm not sure if that would do any good, but anything is better than having to keep on dealing with Spinel's constant and random angry outbursts of grief.' Tanya mused as she glanced around at all the damage done by Spinel…or at least hopefully it wasn't all her fault, Tanya hasn't exactly been down in the soldiers' quarters before until now.
"Hey…" Lapis greeted Tanya as she walked around piles of groaning gem bodies, some of which had some gems without their bodies after having been poofed by Spinel's roughhousing with them; Tanya glanced over at Lapis and greeted the Lapis Lazuli gem back with a nod, "I didn't take you the type to be down here." she noted as an observation.
"Meh." Lapis spoke with her arms crossed as she stood across from Tanya, and glanced over her shoulder to look back at the recovering quartz soldiers, some of whom were giving Spinel's gem in Tanya's hand a surprised look. "Rather down here, than amongst the common elite of Blue Diamond's court." she replied with a look of reminiscing, "It's like dipping my toes in running water rather than stagnant water."
Tanya gave Lapis of look of questioning, to each Lapis responded back with another shrug, "It's and inside joke I share with my gem line sisters, the aristocrats and their balls are a quite boring, while the common riffraff of the lower caste seem to know how to have a real good time."
"hm.. . quite the metaphor." Tanya realized with a look of slight amusement, "Well, seeing as you're here, you want to join me and Pearl in taking Spinel to Pink's palace for a visit?" she questioned the lapis lazuli gem.
"Mmm, why not?" Lapis shrugged with a haphazard smile back at Tanya.
"Anyone else want to volunteer to see their Diamond's home palace?" Tanya cupped her mouth for the other gems within the room to hear, only to see various Amethyst gems from the Prime kindergarten of Earth and other gems from the beta to raise their hands as if their life depended on it. "I'm pretty sure that's all of you…" Tanya remarked with a bit of an amused look on her face, even noting that Jasper seemed to have retracted her arm back down so as to not be seen and feel embarrassed.
Tanya didn't choose to comment on it, as she was pretty sure Jasper was more of the type to look tough on the outside, but she was sure the gem still missed her Diamond.
