Changed for the Worse (Stevinel)

Conviction

Spinel...?" Steven whispered.

He peeked over the edge, while now laying flat on his stomach. The moon brightened half of the hollowed out area, while a shadow overcame the other half. The gem appeared to be near the central peak of the bottom floor, making her body almost silhouette to the darkness of the shadows. Had he not been lucky enough to catch her from the corner of his eye, Steven would've never seen her there. He came to a recognition of her apparent soft voice, but something was bugging him now. That burning sensation he felt just recently had just, as he puts it, vanished into thin air. Which was weird for it to come and go in the first place, as he had never felt such....weird emotions, not even when around or near Connie...But that didn't bother him much at the moment. As what bothered him was the gem sitting in the crater. Spinel.

How did she get here? That was the question that came to mind. And he wasn't just talking about down here in particular, but on Earth. There were no obvious signs of any type of spaceship (or Injector, thank goodness) at view. Even if there was one, someone would've alerted him by then. So that crossed out of his mental list of scenarios. There was a slight chance she could have warped here. It was the only logical answer that made actual sense. Perhaps she's done this before and he's only now found her in the act. He barely went for evening walks, especially ones so late at night. Still, nothing about this made any sense. She couldn't just have warped here without anyone taking notice of the obvious light beaming from the sky. Even so, which one did she come from? And not only that..

Why is she even here? This was the next of many questions that popped up. He had just thought of this particular gem not too long ago, only for her to suddenly appear right in front of him. Just when he was trying to walk off the situation in the first place. It was just too coincidental. Spinel should be light-years away from the Earth. She should be on Homeworld, at the palace with the Diamonds. Not here.

Surely this was just some sort of dream or nightmare. That, he wanted to believe more than ever. It wasn't an ideal answer, and he knew that. Even so, there had to be something he was missing. All night, he's been fighting this strange feeling, yet here he was. Steven's mind went back and forth on whether he should confront the gem to get any answers, that thought held merit. After all, she did come here unexpectedly without any type of warning.

At the same time though, being too upfront wasn't the best choice either. The young adolescent didn't want to easily scare her off or worse, set her off. The last time he talked to Spinel, was when she told him how she wanted a fresh start elsewhere. Along with the Diamonds' surrounding her, supposedly he presumed the pink gem was learning for the better. Yellow and Blue were more considerable emotional factors for her, but White Diamond was.. something else. Not sure if she played anything into this, but the teen definitely wasn't in the mood for another altercation. It wouldn't take a year to change oneself entirely, but progress was what mattered to Steven the most for those who wanted to change. If the Diamonds could somehow change their ways, so could she. The pink gem should have a good reason to be here then, she wouldn't just come out of nowhere randomly. Up until tonight at least.

Steven puts his attention back to Spinel. Her viewpoint was a little more clear as the moon's reflected light from the sun shifted drastically, allowing more of its light to peak over to the shadowed area. From what he could see, she had the same clothing outline and her hair was still in two ponytails. But it wasn't puffed up as he had seen them before. Nor were they in heart-shaped buns. They looked as if they were laid flat on her back. Although the gem was turned away, he could tell something was wrong. She seemed to be on the ground, huddling into herself. He remembered that same type of posture from her "not-so-violent" moments. It was that same night when she had ran off from the "Sadie and the Killers" concert. He had found her at his warp pad while her memories were slowly coming back to the surface, her eyes displayed a sadness Steven still has dreams about or maybe it would be more accurate to call them nightmares. That was right before they went to where it all started. The Garden.