Steven Universe: A Bridge Too Far

Chapter 4: The Lost Story

Space, Planet Bune

Steven Universe, Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst are running across the desert as fast as they could, the stone temple slowly becoming closer and closer. But it proved to slightly difficult running across sand, feeling their body give way when their presses down into the sand and going up and down steep hills.
The human boy is feeling winded already, even shivering as the sky turned dark blue, Steven remembers something in his pocket had fallen out. Looking he sees his glow in the dark stick poking out like a flower in the sand near the warp pad. As much as Steven wanted to retrieve since it was his fathers gift. The wind howling across the desert hills, sending grains of sand blasting into the Crystal Gems' faces. Amethyst caught a large amount in her mouth, the burning sensation and texture of this sand rapidly dries her entire mouth. She spurted out the sand and cough loudly "GAH! Why does this always happen to me!? STUPID SAND PLANET!"

Pearl chuckles loudly "Weren't you the one excited to see what this planet had to offer?"

"But I-...you! UGH! Shut up!" Amethyst shouts with an embarrassed blush, still spitting out the sand.

Steven chuckles while running at Garnet's side and looks up to her "Garnet? If something happens to any of you because of me...I wanted to say-"

Garnet quickly interrupted Steven's words "Don't say you're sorry, but all I ask from you Steven is that you need to eventually tell us what these shards will do once together if you know?"

"I...don't know what it'll do Garnet but what I do know is that it'll be way better in our hands than in Yellow Diamond's hands. And yeah...I will tell you if I know anything, I promise."

Garnet slowly smiles and gives a thumbs up "Thank you Steven-WAIT! Everyone stop!"

Pearl snaps her head forward and makes an immediate stop, her expression becoming serious and make her spear appear "What's wrong Garnet?"

Amethyst somehow trips into the sand face first, slowly getting up her mouth is completely filled with sand and makes a muffled scream having another yet drier mouth.
Garnet slowly kneels down and stares at the ground, slowly rubbing some sand off something which makes everyone curious. Steven looks down puzzled "Um, what're you doing Garnet?"

Garnet uses her fingers and pulls something out of the sand, it's made of stone "Hmm, this may look like stone from a glance. But if you look closer, you can see it has carvings on it."

Amethyst spits more sand out of her mouth and looks at it "Cool! Spoils from Bune!"

Pearl kneels down to look closer "May I Garnet?" she asks holding her hand out.

Once she feels Garnet putting the stone into her hand, Pearl brought the stone close to her eye. Steven stares greatly interested by Pearl doing this, she is not just looking at it closely (admittedly a little funny) but she is trying to find little details that could mean a lot than most would think about.
Pearl softly hums to herself and goes quiet "Ahem, this is definitely a shock. This is handcrafted, there is some patterns that I never seen or even understand what they mean. And it's obviously ancient...No Gem would've ever made this."

Steven touches his face and gasps, his eyes turning into stars "You mean there is some aliens on this planet!? Not a Gem!?"

"Well in theory Steven, the sand helped preserve this small thing. It seemed to be chipped off of something big, whatever that is I can only guess. And yes, there may or may not be other living beings on this planet."

Amethyst sits on the ground, folding her arms and gives a confused look "hold up, you said that a Gem could never have made that? How can you sure? I thought Gems are kinda like spread across the galaxy for thousands of years?"