Stars and Diamonds

Chapter 2: A Lost Pearl

Yellow held the smallest 'diamond' she had ever had the displeasure of seeing in the palm of her hand. Large orange eyes blinked at her with innocent curiosity as it reached out to her with chubby arms and hands, but she made no move to lay it against her chest as she had seen Blue do when it had made a similar gesture. Instead, Yellow rolled her eyes at this...gem that Pink had made. It didn't speak more than a few words that were thrown around seemingly at random, serving to confuse her gem handlers more often than they aided and tended to communicate with its hands, making wild and hard to decipher gestures, though they were mainly narrowed down to simple grabbing motions. Yellow was absolutely at a loss as to what to do with it, but did not dare to cross White when she had ordered for the gemling to be passed around between them, the four being White, Blue, Pink, and herself, so that she could learn how to be a diamond as well as be properly looked after while she 'grew'. Of course, a select few gems had been hand picked to aid in Orange's care and handling, sworn to secrecy and threatened with a fate worse than shattering if they spoke of Orange to anyone outside of those who already knew of it, but that hardly made this easier for Yellow now. Yellow simply had no idea how this thing was supposed to learn how to be anything when it couldn't even walk on its feet properly without a pearl to hold it up by its hands.

"Pearl, take care of this." Yellow ordered, leaning down and placing the young diamond against Pearl's chest, not even waiting for her to fully wrap her arms around it before she let go, making Pearl scramble to catch the chubby gem and remain holding it while she tried to find her balance at the sudden weight added to her front with a gasped, "Wuh- oh!"

Orange, while relatively tiny in comparison to Yellow, was nearly half of Pearl's size and incredibly heavy. She was no quartz, and Pearl had to pull at everything she had to keep from dropping the Diamond that now clung to her, reaching up with curious hands to grab and tug at her hair, unaware, or perhaps just uncaring, of how strong she was.

Leaning her head back so she wouldn't have it tugged to one side by her hair, she tried to give her Diamond an alarmed and confused look, a futile attempt to convey just how lost she was on her orders, but Yellow only had eyes for the screens projected in front of her. IF Yellow Diamond had said 'take care of this' about any other gem, Pearl would have assumed she meant to either send them away or perhaps even have them be repurposed or, at worst, shattered. However, she had a feeling her Diamond would be less than pleased if she attempted to do away with the...confusing diamond in her arms.

"I, uh, my Diamond, I'm not sure what-" Pearl began but was abruptly cut off as Orange had finally managed to grab ahold of her hair and gave another inquisitive tug. "OW, Hey! Uh, I mean," she paused as her mind quickly realized she was yelling at a Diamond, but at the same time she wasn't? Oh stars, she was not made for this.

"Just entertain it," Yellow glared at Pearl from the corners of her eyes, a throughly displeased frown on her lips that had Pearl feeling fear blooming in her stomach, and she decided she much rather deal with hair pulling than Yellow Diamond's wrath.

"Right, yes, of course, my Diamond."

[Updated and corrected 1/1/21]