Connie Diamond

Well, maybe you don’t have to go down right away. You take a moment to look around your room.

Your bed stands out the most, being an old piece of human furniture your dad brought in once you moved out of his house. You didn’t get to keep most of your other things when you moved, but that’s okay. You won’t need human stuff while you’re training to become a powerful gem leader. Besides, you have a lot of new things, now!

Along with your human clothes, you have a lot of gem uniforms to wear. They all look the same, but that’s why they’re called uniforms. They’re all hanging on a rack next to your bed. Your human clothes are kept in a box, since you don’t wear them as often.

Then you have a shelf with all your books. All nonfiction, and all very advanced. You’re proud of that. Most human kids your age wouldn’t be reading physics textbooks, but you’re not a human kid! You also don’t really understand most of what you read, but that’s okay, you’re working on it.

Your holocomp is sitting in a corner, a tall, electronic device with its projector turned off since you aren’t using it. Back before the war, it could connect to the informational database of all of gemkind, but now it only connects to the ship’s database. It’ll still take you, like, ten years to read it all. Okay, maybe you’re exaggerating, but it’s a lot. Sometimes you wonder why you even need the textbooks.

The green walls are bare. You’ve tried taping pictures and stuff to them, but the tape didn’t stick very well, and then you got yelled at, so you didn’t do it again.

Other than that, you don’t have any toys or anything. You used to, but that was all frivolous human stuff. You didn’t need it, not really.

Downstairs, you can hear a voice calling you. “Connie! It’s time to come down!”

You have just gotten out of bed, and you have big plans for today. Today, the gems are starting your training, so that you can go on missions with them!

You’re really excited for this, even though your dad had to cancel your playdate with your friend for it. Your dad’s been pretty nervous about the whole thing – but your mom was a great and powerful leader, one of the three rulers of gemkind. You’ve got her gem, you’ve got to have some of that power in you!

…right?

Squinting in the mirror at yourself, your hand unconsciously traces the edges of the yellow diamond in your chest. It’s big. Your dad said it would always be too big for you. He sounded awfully sad about it.

You wonder what your mom would think of you.

You shake your head to clear it. There was no time for complicated feelings. The gems were expecting you down right away.