Stars and Diamonds

Chapter 21: Missed

Yellow's foot tapped the floor impatiently as she waited for the Diamond's personal line to connect for the third time.

"Where in the blazes is she!?" The matriarch's voice echoed in her command room, her pearl shrunk away slightly, gazing up at her in fear as she slammed her hand down onto her desk, surprisingly not leaving the dent Pearl expected. There was another intense glare at the waiting call when the screen filled with static, sound coming through before the picture cleared to show a rather frazzled looking Pink Diamond as she hurriedly sat down at her throne.

"oh thank goodness." Pearl whispered.

"Ahh! Uh, Yellow." Pink glanced away from the screen to something to her left before returning to meet Yellow's narrowed eyes, "This is a surprise. I wasn't expecting a call."

"Obviously not! Where were you?"

Pink's lips quirked up in an awkward smile as she gave a force laugh, "I, you know, with that rebellion on my colony, I've just been so busy-"

Yellow's whole face contorted in barely contained anger, "You mean you're still on your moon base!?"

"Yellow, why are you yelling?"

"You were supposedto get Orange Diamond today!"

Pink's eyes widened as recognition dawned on her face, "What? Today? But Pearl hasn't reminded me-"

"Then obviously your pearl is slacking in her duties, and should be punished!" Yellow banged her hand down on her desk once more, making Pearl jump at the unexpected sound so close to her. "Never mind your Pearl's abysmal failures in her sole purpose, how could youforget what today was? You should have left yesterday and been here already. Orange and I have been waiting."

The screen moved as Pink got up from her chair, following her as she moved to reach for the communicator and pick it up, "I'm sorry, yellow. It's just so hectic with everything going on. I'll prepare my ship and come get her."

"Don't bother." Yellow waved at her flippantly, turning away from her to look momentarily at another screen with many lines of gem script scrolling downward, typing a command in and sending it away only to be replaced with another.

"What?" Pink paused, halfway down the steps that led to her command chair, Pearl following suit behind her, stopping to look up at her with concern.

Yellow took a moment before turning back to look at Pink, her lips turned down in indignation, "Orange Diamond has requested to go to White Diamond instead of waiting, and White has accepted."

The screen shook as Pink stamped her foot down on the ground, her brows knitted together as she yelled, "Yellow! This is my time with Orange, you can't just-"

"This is your own fault, Pink." Yellow pointed a patronizing finger at her fellow diamond, "Those silly gems shouldn't be giving you such a hard time. Destroy them, already. This is unacceptable."

The anger fell from Pink's face, leaving tears shimmering in her eyes, "Yellow. Please, I can come now and-"

"It's already been decided Pink. Take care of whatever it is that's going on with that colony of yours, and do it fast. Goodbye."