Chapter Text
"- wait -" Pink's blush only intensifies as she laughs at it, rubbing her cheek vigorously with the one hand as if that'd erase it - "wait, I - Pearl, shut up -" her elbow knocks a tuning fork onto the floor, sending a C-sharp echoing through the room that matches the way her giggles are turning squeaky and breathless.
Pearl suppresses her own smile down to something tidy and decorous.
"Sorry."
"No, no, no, don't - don't apologise."
Slowly coming out of the fit, Pink picks the fork up and tosses it back onto her dressing-table with a clatter. She nudges Pearl gently in the side, though, in reprimand, and starts searching through a drawer.
"I'll show you what I actually meant. If you want?"
"Mm-hm."
Of course, Pearl would never speak to Pink so casually in public. But they're alone now; and besides, Pink insists. Homeworld's insincerity annoys her - Pearl doesn't.
Out of the drawer comes a rose-gold tiara: small enough it's probably a cute little thing in Pink's hair, hardly formal, but perfectly sized for the head of a Pearl. It's plain metal; no set Gems; but pretty enough for Pink's collection by way of how intricate it is, with soft curves and sharp points and shining spirals, and right at the centre, where it would lie just over Pearl's Gem, is an impression of Pink's Diamond.
In other words, it is totally inappropriate for a Pearl to wear. Pearls are complements to their owners, not decorative pieces of their own accord.
Oh, but they're alone now.
Pink places the tiara on Pearl's head, and unnecessarily smooths down her just-brushed hair with her fingers, and carefully adjusts Pearl's tutu as it spills around her on the dressing-table, making it look just messy enough to be near regal. Pearl stares at her own reflection. And then, captivated, at Pink's; the blush is back, delicate this time, sitting gentle over the bridge of her nose.
Pink traces the soft curve of Pearl's face with the sharp point of her thumb, and smiles at her.
It's pretty, the new Earth Galaxy Warp: set in the middle of flat blue ocean as far as the eye can see, and cotton-fluff clouds in the sky overhead, and Pink in the middle of it, speaking with two Jades and a Sapphire. She doesn't seem to want to be - keeps sending a mix of bored or amused or apologetic glances Pearl's way, whenever there aren't groups of yet more Gems walking in-between them from one warp pad to another - but she's polite, and the conversation keeps going. Pearl can't hear it.
As she stands to the side, just next to the moon-base warp, she can hear another conversation going on behind her. Quartzes of some kind, she thinks; probably Jaspers, based on the gravelly voices.
"She's waiting for someone, obviously, you dolt."
"Who, then?"
"Tch, imagine they left her here."
"How long'd it take to notice, you think? They're not made with brains in."
Briefly, one of the Jades stops a passing Peridot and starts, it looks like, demanding something from her, and Pink bites her lip and shrugs minutely at Pearl. Pearl smiles weakly back at her.
"No-one's going to be leaving one that fancy. Look at the skirt."
"She's not standing very fancy, though."
"Like you know anything about manners."
"Hey, gimme that back!"
The Jade scowls and shoves the Peridot, who rubs her arm and keeps going wherever she was headed before; Pink winces. Then the Sapphire clasps her hands together and says something - which makes Pink's expression stay where it is, bordering on concerned, and she turns to look at Pearl.
"Ooooooh~."
"Yeah, not unless you…"
The voice goes indistinct, then - whispering. Are the Jaspers finally going to keep to themselves? Good. Soon as Pink takes Pearl back to the moon, she's going to complain about their behav-
There's a tug at her sleeve.
"Galaxy Warp security. Who do you belong to, huh?"
The Jasper that asked lets go pretty quick, but stays towering over Pearl as she turns to her friends and laughs.
Pearl looks up at her, raising her chin defiantly.
"I'll have you know, I-"
"How dare you touch my Pearl."
Pink's hand is on Pearl's shoulder then, moving her to stand behind Pink as she squares up to the Jaspers.
"This will be reported to your Agate. And don't for a second imagine you'll get off lightly just because you're not mine - I'm going to inform Yellow of your misconduct so she can take the appropriate measures herself. That will be all."
For several moments, the Jaspers scramble between apologising and saluting and "Pink Diamond! It's an honour to be in your presence!"-ing, but eventually the biggest one of the group - the one that grabbed Pearl's sleeve - manages to drag the others back over to the Homeworld warp and they disappear.
Pink lightly squeezes Pearl's shoulder, and gives her a look that, in any other situation, would be far too tender to risk being seen.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, my Diamond.", Pearl replies. She says the last part just slightly firmer than necessary - a reminder to keep to propriety.
It seems to work, because Pink looks away and nods, letting out a shallow breath.
"I've been excused by that tribe. Let's go back."
She keeps a fairly tight hold of Pearl all the way to the moon-base.
"Hmm… and they're dancing; your court is dancing; it's still a proper ball, although yours is the largest throne in the room and the only one occupied."
Pearl is lying on her front on Pink's floor, feet kicked up in the air behind her, chin resting on her arm. She's imagining - not because she's been told to, but because she's been asked to, and it's a difference she likes.
Pink, however, is waiting. Listening to Pearl, yes, but Pearl is fairly sure she's waiting primarily, for all the pomp and circumstance of Yellow's five-hundredth Crystal System colony to be over with, so she can get back to Earth. She's lying on the floor in almost a perfect mirror to Pearl, except that her free right hand is stretched out in front of her, fidgeting idly with Pearl's left; which is limp, more because it seems presumptuous to return the hold than anything else.
"And… I don't stand next to you. I sit on the same throne you do."
Simply side-by-side, Pearl imagines specifically - but she doesn't clarify. Maybe that's because she assumes Pink will take that as a given; maybe.
"We watch the dancing together, and we speak to each other. About the ball - about everything. I say something funny, and you laugh, and the ball keeps going on before us exactly as normal."
Pink interlaces her fingers with Pearl's, softly, and traces her thumb up the outside of Pearl's own and down the inside, and from there across her palm.
"The ball's over, now, and we've left. I have enough of those. Tell me what we do after."
"You-"
"We."
"We," Pearl corrects, "go walking around the Greater Courtyard, admiring the statuary and the engravings. But this time I'm walking next to you, and there's no dull guide to lead us around - you make a cutting commentary on some of the less tasteful pieces."
"I'd expect that you do too. You're clever."
Pink's thumb trails delicately up the inside of Pearl's wrist.
So Pearl flips their joined hands over to make it easier for her - the first she's participated since allowing Pink to grab it with a declaration of boredom. She smiles coyly at her.
"Thank you, Rose."
The Crystal Gems are fundamentally in opposition to Homeworld and the Diamonds, and thus fundamentally in opposition to hierarchy around a leader: and, therefore, the Crystal Gems have no hierarchy.
Except for the fact that they do.
Nothing resembling the caste system, to be fair; there's no separation kept between Gem lines beyond what Pearl can only assume are extant circles of friends; and besides, she's pretty sure near no-one else has noticed, or somebody would've commented. Still, she can see it. The newer Crystal Gems, the ones who've joined since the rebellion really gained momentum, avoid Rose: in camp, they keep mostly to themselves, and it's not a terrible system from which to pick out natural leaders for use in battle. Then there are the group that Rose actually addresses by name - Serpentine, Crazy Lace, Beryl, Tiger's Eye and so on - who orbit a radius around her, easily on hand but not spoken to more than several times a day, and half of those for little tasks or military instruction rather than social.
Then there are Rose's inner circle: defined in Pearl's mind by the confidence to sit with Rose at the campfire without invitation. There are even strata within that; currently Bismuth, Biggs, and Little Larimar sit opposite Rose, and Garnet is close at her left, and Pearl - Pearl leans against Rose's right side, head resting on her shoulder, with Rose's arm around her waist. Pearl is keeping her hands to herself, of course. But Rose's thumb is running idly up and down against her side.
Bismuth laughs along with Biggs.
"Oh, man, yeah. More like Demand-oid, am I right? I'd be out there - five, ten degrees below freezing? - and still pulling thirty-six hours straight of scaffolding, scaffolding, scaffolding. 'Til I didn't want to see another metal bar in my life, and I like scaffolding!"
"So-" Biggs gestures at Rose, and then puts her hands up - "wait, I forgot, you're a Prime Kindergarten girl. You didn't have the commanders we did - whoo!"
Then she looks, quite on purpose, at Pearl. That doesn't happen often; Rose tends to pull attention to herself; and Pearl prefers it that way.
"You? Ever met the infamous Demantoid 6EP?"
"I…"
Nervously, Pearl twists her skirt around her fingers. The answer is yes; she has. And found her quite annoying in how theatrically obsequious she was to Pink, and disliked the gaudy way she dressed her own Pearl. But she can't say that.
"She's shy.", Pink - Rose - fills in, pulling Pearl slightly tighter to her side.
As Bismuth and Biggs exchange a look, and Garnet snickers, Pearl feels her face grow warm, and she's not sure which caused the other. Or if it's all because of Pink's hand still holding her waist.
Less than a couple seconds later, Bismuth offers Pearl a hand up - she pauses a moment, to brush her hair out of her face, before taking it, and pulling herself back to her feet.
Bismuth grins at her.
"Five-nil."
"You're over five times my size," Pearl points out, "and have been wielding weapons since you emerged."
"I ain't the one with the three-foot deadly-sharp swords. I should be shaking in my boots."
This time, Bismuth doesn't go whatever number of paces it is away - she stands just in front of Pearl, and picks up a long stick from the ground, waving it threateningly like a sword of her own.
"If you aren't thinking about where your feet are going, you're gonna keep getting knocked down. Don't just panic and stab - use your dance training for something, princess."
"Stop calling me that."
Pearl moves herself deliberately into a more stable stance.
"Make me."
Fine. Pearl swings one sword at Bismuth's stick, cutting it clean in half - Bismuth dodges to the side - Pearl follows her that way, aiming high with a view as to make her duck - the end of the stick hits her lightly in the chest and off-balances her, sending her strike wide. She pauses.
"Make your centre of gravity low.", Bismuth instructs. "If you don't want to end up on the ground and shattered, you've got to keep your balance."
"Well - thank you. I know that. It - but - I, um…"
Lowering her swords to the ground, Pearl looks down at her ballet slippers. She can dance, sure. But no-one's ever tried to knock her over while she was doing it - much less has she been expected to attack back at the same time.
"… I don't know how to do that and also focus. I just - I just can't."
Bismuth tosses the half stick over her shoulder and transforms one hand into a mallet, slamming it into the palm of the other.
"Then we keep practising, and you figure it out over time. I can't tell you how to operate your own body - I don't live in it - but I can help you teach yourself."
"… Okay.", Pearl concedes. Nobody's ever told her that, before - her own body. Nobody's ever pretended that before, anyway. She takes a few steps back, readying her swords and setting her stance again.
There's a sudden call from the other side of the hill - "Pearl! D'you have a moment?"
Pearl stands up straight again and stores the swords away in her Gem.
"Sorry, I have to go and…"
She gestures vaguely in the direction Rose's voice came from.
"Yeah.", Bismuth shrugs. "Sure."
"Bye."
And Pearl allows herself a little wave at Bismuth before she turns and hurries toward P- Rose. She’s Rose. It’s different now.