“Additionally, I expect a full transcription of today’s proceedings in my inbox before this cycle is over,” Yellow says as they turn a corner, quickening her pace from a slow, purposeful stride to a brisk walk, quite uncaring that her Pearl is sprinting to keep up with her now. “You may use my personal code to access video feeds of the prisoner before her escape; I want every moment she dared to defile these halls available to me in your report.”

“Of course”—the Pearl huffs—“my Diamond!”

Her fluffy hair bobs wildly with each exaggerated motion of her body, her scissoring hands an awful approximation of a windmill.

“And, Pearl?” Yellow abruptly stops in front of a pair of intricate golden doors, her gloved hand reaching out to hover above the faintly glowing interface. Unable to slow her momentum, Pearl smacks into her Diamond’s right leg.

She falls backwards, dazed, and Yellow half-patiently waits until her wide eyes have focused before she continues.

“Sorry, my—“ She stops mid-sniveling apology, violently remembering that her Diamond can’t stand sniveling apologies. “Y-yes, my Diamond?”

“No gratuitous doodles on this one.”

“N-naturally, my Diamond.”

Yellow types in the code—still unchanged after thousands of years—and closes her harshly lined eyes as the doors slide open with a pneumatic hiss.

Clever to be a Pearl—that’s what her Diamond says anyway—Pearl understands this to be her dismissal—rises to her feet, bobs her nervous head, and turns to leave, but Yellow thinks of one last request. It comes to her suddenly, like a lightning strike.

“Pearl?” Steam wreathes around her towering form, envelops her in a welcome embrace. She hasn’t made a movement to enter the sauna yet, her tall hands clenched tightly by her sides, the lines of her knuckles sharply defined even through all the fog.

Pearl pirouettes once more, eyes her Diamond with that always curious blend of apprehension and adoration.

“Yes, your Lustrousness?”

“I would like a report on Blue Diamond... how she is...” She hesitates, catches herself. “... what she is doing. She is not to know that I’ve asked. Is that understood?”

“Yes, my Diamond!” Pearl bows, and Yellow Diamond nods once before vanishing into the haze.

The doors grind to a solemn shut behind her.

They say she relaxes in there.

Rumor has it that she comes out a new gem.

—

Palms pressed flat against the wall, Yellow Diamond steadies herself against the accusation that that perversive Zircon so pointedly leveled in their faces.

That Pink’s shattering was not perpetrated by Rose Quartz.

That one of them, a Diamond—a Diamond!—could have had something to do with it.

That she or Blue… or even White… could have ever lifted a sword against their youngest member, who once skipped around the palace with flowers in her hair, who sang for them on long nights when the stars were dim and their gems were hollow.

She had a lovely voice, high and clear, like the pitching of a bird.

She would perch on Yellow’s shoulder and hum.

How dare she?

How dare you? She should have growled. She should have shattered that nervous wreck on the spot.

Should have made an ornament out of her shards and let her pieces be a deterrent to anyone who dared to cross her.

But… a common gem like her could never know… could never experience… the bonds which coexist between members of the Diamond Authority.

So she zapped her, bubbled her, and will forget about her soon enough.

There are more pressing matters at hand, and press against her they do, thousands of invisible hands clambering across her armor, welling up the column of her throat—choking her. The steam swells around Yellow Diamond, too, builds into a crescendo, a cloud, a hissing wave, a storm… but does not quite crash down upon her person.

As though it is waiting.

Watching her every frenzied action.

Which is an absurd notion in and of itself because it’s steam, and it adheres to no hard and fast physical rules, but her mind is racing against the heat, and her gem pulses gold in the harsh outline of her chest.

“You don’t want to get to the bottom of this!” Blue seethed when it was all said and done, her gait dangerous and slow, that of a predator cornering its prey. “You want to wrap everything up—her, me, all that has ever happened to us—in a nice, shiny bow and go on with our eternal lives! You’re callous, Yellow. You’ve grown mean.”

Yellow laughed in spite of herself, and the sound was harsh even to her own ears—metallic, clanging, cold.

“You’re deluded—more so than you usually are—if you think I’m going to take a morality lesson from a gem who has neglected her entire court for thousands of years because she can’t even rouse herself to stand,” she snarled, stepping forward as Blue lurched back. This was their tango, horrible and vicious and loud. “You sincerely wanted to hear more of that Zircon’s drivel about how we could have shattered her?! Did you wish to invite even more guilt on your conscience because I sure as hell—” She stopped short, but the damage was already done, the admission already choked from her gritted teeth.

Guilt.

She was drowning in it.

(She damn well knew Pink wasn’t ready to have a colony.)

“Yellow,” Blue whispered, her tall features crumbling upon themselves, dark eyes pooling, oozing with the sympathy Yellow so detested in others, much less her equal, her companion.

It was sickening.

Unbearable.

Blue Diamond extended a long hand, a tender one—perhaps making to rest it upon her cheek, her gem, her shoulder—but Yellow caught her wrist before the touch could land.

“Don’t.” It was quiet.

It was not kind.

The other Diamond wrenched her hand away, stung, her refrain clear in her arctic eyes.

“You’re callous, Yellow. You’ve grown mean.”

In the sauna, Yellow Diamond rears her right hand back and slams it against the wall.

Her palm caves inwards, chips the quartz, and little golden shards fall to the bench below.

Embed themselves into her hand.

Shattered.

The room is.

Pink is.

Sometimes, she very well could be.