Pink Palace


A set of footsteps echoed in the hallways of the palace, a few gems were walking in a group as they toured the place Pink Diamond once walked through and lived in. Citrine, Orange Pearl, Pink Morganite and Sapphire made up the group as the gems spoke to each other in a casual way.

"As you can see-" Morganite gestured to the clean walls and opulent way the hallways were designed with floral decorations to match the appeal of her late Diamond's taste in how she wanted her palace interior to be, "While it has been some time since the loss of our Diamond, we of her court have saw fit to no less honor her memory in keeping her palace to its utmost pristine condition." She said with pride in her tone and some level of it showed on her face.

While Citrine's eyes wandered around as she walked beside Morganite, she spoke with a thoughtful tone, "I'm pretty sure the other Diamond's would have had you do it regardless." she mused while lifting to cup her chin as she paused in her steps to inspect a four way hallway that had four statues of Pink Diamond in different poses in each of the corners. "Were those commissioned by her?" she asked offhandedly.

Morganite preened a bit at the question to the statues, and walked forward to gesture around at each one of the various pink statues, "These are in fact new, actually, I figured it help give my late Diamond's palace some nice statues of her magnificence, something to show how grand she was!"

"Hmm." Citrine examined each statue, and noted they were in fact almost one to one ratio of size to the real Diamond, going by her estimates of the few times she had been in the vicinity of Pink Diamond and other instances of old records. "You have her in quite the excited poses of exuberance and playful nature." she noted.

Morganite smiled blissfully as she cupped her hands together and sighed at the thought of her Diamond, "My Diamond was such a kind hearted Matriarch, I can't imagine ever being owned or created by any other Diamond, she was the best Diamond to serve under her gracious light~!" she crooned with a melodic tone of delight.

As a moment of silence fell between the gems, Citrine spoke up once more as she turned to face the Sapphire gem with a look in her eyes, "So you say…Sapphire, can you say without a doubt that most gems under her care and court were treated fairly well in contrast to the other Diamond's and their court?"

At the drop of the question, both Morganite and Sapphire traded each other a look, before both nodded and Sapphire looked back at Citrine, "That depends…" Pink Sapphire began to say in a calm tone as she stepped closer to Citrine with her hands resting behind her back, as she gauged Citrine's reaction. "How well does your Diamond treat her court?"

"She used to be very strict…well-" Citrine glanced to the side with a grimace, "She still is…but-" Citrine shrugged and looked back at Pink Sapphire, "For some odd reason I can't fathom, she's lent me her ear on more than one occasion on various rules of gem society I have found to be pointless and outdated, especially given the circumstances of the empire's resource shortage."

"hm…I see…" Sapphire said as she walked around Citrine while keeped her arms folded behind her back, "Perhaps if my Diamond hadn't met her end…she would have enjoyed your company…" she mused as she continued to walk around Citrine, before stopping to stand beside her with an upward glance at Citrine's face.

"But yes, my Diamond was a very benevolent matriarch to her court and gems of lower status, it is why to this day that we're all saddened and shocked that a Rose Quartz would shatter our Diamond." Pink Sapphire explained to Citrine in a calm and reserved tone.

"Hm…" Citrine palmed her cheek while resting her elbow on her other palm, and began tapping her cheek with her index finger as she mulled over the words of Sapphires, "Curious, very strange as well, if not very suspicious…" she narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she glanced off to the side at one of the statues of Pink diamond in a giddy pose while kneeling down, as if she was speaking to one of her gems in an excited way.

While Citrine was going over her brief thoughts of what she told so far, Pink Sapphire and Morganite glanced at each other, before Morganite gestured for Sapphire to go ahead, prompting said gem to speak up and break Citrine out of her thoughts. "Commander Citrine, word is you are investigating the matters behind our Diamond's shattering."

Citrine glanced back down at the pink Sapphire with a raised eyebrow, "Well-" she drawled out with a pensive look on her face, "While I'm not exactly going out of my way into the private investigation on the matter, I am in fact looking into it. Things don't seem to add up with the entire matter." The commander then fully faced the Sapphire with an expression of suspicion.

"Am I to assume you heard this from Blue Diamond's Sodalite commander, or some other manner in which you found this information out of my private investigation?" Citrine asked with a narrowed eye look while palming her hips as she stood over Pink Sapphire.

Not deterred By the size difference between her and the commander, Sapphire remained steadfast while stepping forward, "Courts like to talk, Commander Citrine, and Sodalite is no different from any other high ranking gem official. But back to the question at hand. Please, tell me, do you have any leads on this investigation you are doing in your spare time?" she asked, while allowing some hope to slip into her calm voice.

Citrine eyed both high ranking gems of the late Pink Diamond, measuring their expressions before fully committing to divulging what she was doing in her private time, "Before we discuss this matter any further, do you have a place that won't have eavesdroppers?" she asked while glancing side to side.

Once again, Sapphire and Morganite glanced at each other, before looking back at Citrine, "I believe we have a place for that, yes." Sapphire nodded with a calm tone and smile.


Spinel

The doors to Pink Diamond's innermost private room opened from one of the few gems given access to her chambers, a place where Pink would spend her time playing games and all manner of other activities; Standing in the midst of the opened secret passage was Spinel as she gazed into the passage room where there was a vanity mirror in the distance, while at lower floors there were all manner of gem game objects Pink would actively use in her spare time to interact with her playmate gems.

Spinel blinked with a listless expression as she walked in with a limp gate in her steps, her hands reaching the ground and dragging across the floor as she sniffled as memories of of the times she and Pink would visit the private room and play, even engaged in roughhousing at times; the private room was the one place she and Pink could actively play to their heart's content.

As the pink gem approached the vanity mirror and the large chair meant for her Diamond's size in stature, Spinel reached up with a longing gaze before gently touching the cushion of the chair, before pulling herself steadily up to sit on the large chair; letting out a soft sorrowful sigh, Spinel looked forward at the mirror and saw her pitiful reflection.

Her appearance was heavily disheveled from the stress of her emotions, her hair was a mess and her eyes had deep bags underneath them from her emotional turmoil of her loss of her diamond. Spinel reached her arm out to stretch and palm the mirror, and as she leaned up to the mirror, she imagined seeing a phantom image of Pink sneaking up on her like all those other times her diamond would do to jumpscare her, before spinel would retaliate back with a tickle war.

Sighing deeply to herself and dragging her hand down the mirror, Spinel let out a whine of remorse before falling back onto the chair.

"She's really gone, isn't she~?" Spinel stood up on the chair to sing a bit, and pulled herself atop the vanity to stand directly in front of the large vanity mirror, "~Leaving behind a trail of memories~" she placed her palms up against, and stared into the mirror, her mind replaying images of her point of view of the times she's played with Pink. "~Memories, that I cling onto with pain…"

Grimacing to herself as a tear drops from her eye as she stares back at the mirror to see her disheveled state, "~Pain that lingers, an ever present ache that tremors in my chest~"

Spinel turned in place to look over the entire private room of her Diamond, "~My world now feels empty, and yet all I can do is remember our good times~"

Hopping down off the vanity, Spinel reached up to palm the chair's leg, and glanced up imagining Pink sitting in it, "~Life moves on, but I still long for her, to hear her voice and say it's all a game…"

Dropping to her knees as she wept, Spinel looked up with a tearful gaze, "~The grief I feel…is overwhelming, I long for the touch of your hand, the sound of your laughter, and the warmth of your presence…"

Crinkling her eyes shut as the tears dripped from her eyes, dark lines stretched out from her eyes while her gem began to shift, "~But all I have left are memories~. Your absence is like a weight on my chest, a constant reminder of what I have lost.~"

Spinel forced herself to stand and began walking out with a melancholy look in her eyes, "~Though you are gone, your presence in my memories remains, a bittersweet reminder of what I once had, but no longer have…"

As she exited out of the private room, the wall closed up as she fell to her knees, "~You left me, but you never left~my~heart~" she finished singing softly as her eyes glistened wet from tears, her gaze directed to the balcony where Pink would oftentimes look out with her to gaze upon the large city of homeworld and its capital.

Spinel sniffled and used her arm to wipe her tears, before a different emotion welled up with her, making her grit her teeth in anger as she clenched her teeth, "You better hope you didn't survive whatever the Diamonds did to Earth, ROSE QUARTZ, or mark my words, I'll hunt you down and shatter you myself!" Spinel shrieked with a maddening look in her eyes as her gem finally finished shifting and her gem body shifted colors to match her mood.


Lapis

While she opted to join and tour the place unnoticed, Lapis went ahead with the suggestion of keeping an eye on Spinel; Citrine had asked her if she'd be willing to follow the gem without alerting her much, and without nothing else better to do, Lapis when ahead with the plan of looking after the pink gem.

Going by the earlier incident with that one Pink Opal, Lapis was expecting the crazy gem to follow Spinel and harass her, but lo and behold the gem was nowhere to be seen during much of Spinel's trek throughout the palace; going by the interaction that the Opal had with the Pink Sapphire, there was some hierarchy that still existed within Pink Diamond's court even with the matriarch gone.

What Lapis didn't expect during the entire time she stayed out of sight, was Spinel to be able to access a private room that looked like it was meant only for a Diamond and her pearl; with that thought aside however, Lapis stuck to following after Spinel and using her water illusions to cast over herself and reflect light from allowing her to be seen from a certain angle. As Lapis entered the room and stuck to the walls, Spinel surprised her again when the gem accessed another part of the room that made the wall open up to a private area.

The mere fact that Pink Diamond of all gems needed an actual private room for herself and whoever else, the mere thought made Lapis ponder what sort of actual matriarch Pink was if she needed her private space away from prying eyes.

What was going on between the Diamonds? Was Pink not treated fairly amongst her fellow Diamond? So many thoughts ran through Lapis's mind and more even as she leaned in to glance into the massive room with a lone vanity mirror in it.

While the little song the gem sang her heart into was a bit touching, Spinel's appearance was something else entirely; whatever inner turmoil was brewing in the court jester's mind, it was affecting her appearance.

Lapis made it back out of the room with the door still having been left open, allowing her to drop her water illusion and lean against the wall next to the doorway to stay out of sight while Spinel walked out to finish her little somber song she sang to herself.

As Lapis leaned back around the opened doorway, she witnessed the tail end of Spinel's appearance finish its shift after the gem promised violence toward Rose Quartz; Lapis lifted a brow of surprise out how violent the gem was acting, and opted to lean back away from the doorway. "...Citrine's got one heck of a problem gem on her hands.' she thought to herself incredulously with wide eyes.


Citrine

"So far, my evidence over the entire matter has left many questions than answers." Citrine explained as she sat at a simple round pink table within a spartan room with no windows and little to no lighting, save for the luminescent flower that hung from the ceiling and lit the room up with a pink tint.

At the center of the table sat a simple holoprojector, displayed above the table were various actual eyewitness memories of the event; all of them were a bit shaky at times, while others were a bit too far from the scene, but all painted an odd picture. "What I don't understand is why Pink Diamond did not have a guard unit of soldiers lined up around her during a rebellion on her own planet. It also galls me that Rose Quartz managed to somehow just come out of the palaguin and stab Pink Diamond and shatter her at the same time, none of this is adding up!" Citrine explained with an irritated look on her face as she sat with her leg crossed over the other and her arms crossed.

Gesturing to the images above the table, Citrine point to one that was the most clear and least shaky, "And as you see here as well, the dress seems off as well, along with that gem stone she has on her stomach, it doesn't match the exact color one to one, or even the right amount of angles for its facets, it's as if-"

"It was a staged assassination…" Pink Morganite spoke with an enraptured gaze at all the images she saw of her late Pink Diamond being shattered, as well as the images of one Rose Quartz. "But that's-"

"Impossible…" Sapphire finished saying with gritted teeth and a tear dropping from her one eye under her bangs, "My Diamond had a few of Blue Diamond's sapphires on hand at the time to help her."

"Yes…" Citrine drawled out with a narrowed eye look as she cupped her chin, and tapped her lip with her finger, before speaking up, "Unless of course Diamond's have a predisposition to not be seen as clearly in the future visions of sapphires."

Pink Sapphire gulped, and sweated a bit, "...that's…actually a good point, most of us Sapphire's do in fact have a more foggy vision when we view a Diamond's future, but it's mostly left up as the future being as it always is…always changing."

Citrine then leaned forwards to look at Morganite and Sapphire with conspiratorial gaze, "I'm also troubled by the fact that it all happened so suddenly, no one bothered to yell out for Pink Diamond to move out of the way, there's also the fact that her pearl is nowhere to be seen as well, and we all know Pearls have a heavy predisposition to stick close their gem owners."

Morganite leaned forward to slam her fists into the table with gritted teeth of anger, "What the shard is going on here! What could this all mean!" she clasped her head in disbelief.

Citrine let out an annoyed sigh, before leaning back into her chair to cross her arms once more as she looked between Pink Sapphire and Morganite, "As much as I hate to say it, it seems like the entire event was an inside job from somegem high up, and I dare say it may well be a Diamond level height of conspiracy."

All of the gems quieted at that notion, especially Morganite and Sapphire as their expressions were of varying modes of panic, before Sapphire spoke up with a cracked voice, "T-t-that's impossible, Pink, our Pink diamond was adored by the other Diamonds."

Citrine glanced between the two, before shrugging to herself, "But who liked her the least, should be the more prominent question, yes?" she prodded.

"...White…." Pink sapphire breathed out with a look of disbelief as her brow raised, "White always disliked my Diamond's way of behaving."

"Are you sure about that?" Citrine asked Sapphire with a pointed look, "I would have gone with Yellow diamond, my Diamond, she's the one that seemed the least tolerant of her antics, if we are to go by the records of the last few times the Diamonds interacted with each other."

Morganite gave Citrine a look of disbelief, "You'd accuse your Diamond of such a thing?" she said in an incredulous tone and wide eyed look.

"We can't dismiss anything after all," Citrine slowly looked over at Morganite with a look of seriousness, "And beside, like I said before, this all seems like an inside job beyond belief, and for all we know, this could have been operated by some unknown organization that exists within the Empire."

With the way Citrine worded out her explanation of 'some unknown organization', both Pink Sapphire and Morganite glanced at each other with quick gazes, both unsure what to say next as silence fell within the room.

"But." Citrine began to say as she pulled herself up out of the chair she was in, and gave the two gems a nod, "This is what I've been able to come up with so far, and I thank you for giving me the time to know what sort of Gem Pink diamond was amongst her court, it helps a paint better picture of what I have so far of what happened all those years ago…"

With some trembling in her voice, Sapphire spoke with caution, "So we have a conspiracy within the empire…"

"More than likely, keep in mind to watch yourselves." Citrine warned, to which both gems nodded in agreement. Lifting up her arm to pull out a holo tablet, she checked the time, before putting it back into her pocket, "I think that's all the time we have for now, if you have any more evidence to help me, you know how to get in touch with me." she said, before glancing at Orange Pearl.

"Come Pearl, let's try and look for Spinel and see if she faring any better." Citrine said as she headed to the exit of the room, the door swiftly opened up with a hiss afterwards.

Orange Pearl gave the two pink gems a respectful bow, before excusing herself to follow after her Citrine.

Once Citrine left the room, with Orange Pearl following after her, the door closed, leaving the Sapphire and Morganite to themselves; after a few moments of silence passed, it was Morganite that spoke up, "Do you think the council had a hand in this entire mess?" she asked with a fearful look on her face.

After a bit of thinking on her part, Sapphire spoke with a troubled tone as she looked up at the luminescent flower hanging upside down within the room they were in, "Like Citrine said, this could be deeper than we first thought." she softly spoke out with a troubled voice.


AN; Yeah…don't know how to feel about the attempt of Spinel singing…I was just thinking up words that would work somewhat in a somber song.