Stars and Diamonds

Chapter 41: Start Of Something New

Orange sat up in her bed, breathing quickly and feeling cold and boxed in. Sweat beaded on her body, leaving the sheet clinging to everything she touched. Groaning, Orange rolled over to throw her legs off the bed, bowing to put her head in her hands, holding it there as she took deep breaths. After she believed she had calmed her breathing to an acceptable rate, she ran a hand through her hair, turning to look out the window. The sun was already rising up visibley in the sky, painting the tops of the sky rises and spires in pale light, signifying she had slept to at least late morning, if not into the early hours of afternoon.

The Diamond's eyes flicked from building to building, taking note of how the tops tinted a beautiful pastel pink, soon to be replaced with the yellow light that was beginning to dominate the color as the day cycle began to come into full swing.

There was a soft chime from her door, and Orange looked up to see Pearl enter, who smiled as greeting when she saw Orange sitting up and looking at her.

"Good to see you up." Pearl commented, stepping over to the table where there was already a plate of tablets waiting for her, and Orange wondered when Pearl had already had the time to come by. "You were out much longer than I have seen you in a long time. How are you feeling?"

Orange sighed heavily, rubbing a hand over her forehead and eyes, feeling the small aches still lingering in her body. "Like i decided it would be a good idea to challenge Iris Agate to another fight. I can still hear the sound of her laughing at me."

It had been a little more than two weeks since she had earned her freedom from confinement to this room, but she still found herself spending more time in it than she cared for. Mostly sleeping, and less time with Pearl, or watching the cityscape, but she was still here. White had started her on a small training regime with gems she chose herself, with no say from Orange, not that she would complain with her choices, Orange had just wanted more input in who she would be working with. White had at first found her request to be trained silly, outright laughing at her request and calling fighting like that for common soldiers, but Orange had managed to persuade her to allow her to at least learn the basics of hand-to-hand combat, with the argument that it did not reflect well on the Diamonds if she could be one upped by a simple soldier in a fight.

At that point, she had a new teacher in the form of an Iris Agate, who Orange knew enjoyed running her ragged despite denying such claims. She also sparred with two Gray Topaz soldiers with Iris Agate's oversight, both of which Orange had become rather fond of. The Topaz soliders were capable, sturdy gems, able to take a beating from her just as easily as they were able to give one back. Orange had been limited on her use of her powers, a limitation placed not by White Diamond, but Iris Agate, which was honestly fine with her. She didn't want to destabilize the Gray Topaz by accident, and her goal was to learn technique and build her endurance up. She could learn how to combine the two in a fight later, after she could throw a punch that didn't threaten to damage her just as much as her opponents. She was so unaccustomed to the physical exertions of hand-to-hand combat, it often only left her with enough energy to crunch on some tablets before she was passed out for long hours only to repeat the process.

During her new schedule, she had managed only once to squeeze in time to sit with Pearl to catch a sunset, but she had, upsettingly, fallen asleep during it. She had apologized the next day to Pearl who was more pleased that she was actually sleeping than bothered by her falling asleep on her. Orange didn't know if she was more embarrassed to have actually fallen asleep on Pearl, or the fact she had blurted out that she made a comfortable pillow. Pearl had been nice enough to laugh off her embarrassment, but that didn't change the fact Orange felt she was becoming more self conscious of what she said around her, and while it confused her why she felt the need to filter everything, Orange easily enough chalked it up to being overly tired whenever she had a moment alone with her.