Author's Note: Better publish 3 chapters today, XD.
"Well, I think I'm done exploring," I said to nobody in particular while eating some chips I had stored inside my gem, making sure they wouldn't expire this year.
Shaking my head, I walked back the way I came; I was already close to where Blue Diamond was. I didn't know what to do unless I jumped to the nearest planet, and I doubted that was the most feasible option.
I observed the giant door in front of me and thought:
How the fuck do I open this?
After a few minutes, the door opened slowly. Blue's Pearl looked at me with curiosity, barely showing her face between her long hair.
"What are you doing?" the Pearl said, confused.
"No idea," I answered honestly.
...
We both stayed quiet, observing each other.
"My Diamond requests your presence," she said after a few seconds.
"Here I am, aren't I?" I said, raising an eyebrow.
She simply let me pass as I walked into the main room. Blue Diamond was focused, seriously observing several screens, until she finally noticed me.
"Oh, hello, Justin," Blue Diamond said with a smile. Her holograms were beginning to deploy while Blue Pearl followed her attentively, controlling the systems her Diamond had left behind.
"How do you like my ship?" she asked with curiosity, more to herself than to me.
"Well... it's pretty," I said slowly. "But I feel like it lacks life," I added as I looked around.
"Life? Organic life?" Blue Diamond blinked, confused.
"Not necessarily organic life," I clarified before she brought in mutants or some shit like that. "More like something that makes you feel there's intention behind everything. That not everything is perfect, symmetrical, and eternal. Something that makes whoever sees it think, question things."
How philosophical, damn, I said to myself with pride.
Blue Diamond frowned slightly, observing my gestures.
"For example," I continued, pointing to some of the huge statues and structures inside the ship. "These pieces are impressive, but they all convey the same thing: perfection, power, control. And after seeing so many, it feels... monotonous. It would be more interesting to see something that breaks, that transforms, that has an unexpected element—I don't know, like a rock or something, what do I know."
"Unexpected?" Blue asked, tilting her head.
"Yeah," I replied, walking slowly through the illuminated corridors. "Something that triggers different emotions, that makes you feel the world isn't perfect. Statues that don't look complete, shapes that don't follow strict logic, designs that aren't just Gems. Things that surprise you, that spark curiosity and raise questions, not just admiration."
The silence grew heavy for a few seconds, broken only by the soft hum of the ship's systems.
"So, according to you... these imperfections are important?" Blue asked finally.
"Yeah," I answered. "It's not an error. It's discovering life and intention in places where you didn't expect them to be. That makes everything feel more alive, more interesting. Even if they are small or strange things, like patterns that don't follow exact rules, or incomplete figures. That gives it character."
Blue Diamond remained silent, carefully observing one of the structures surrounding the room. Blue Pearl held back a small smile, as if she were starting to get the point.
"Interesting," Blue said, for the first time in a tone that was neither serious nor severe. "It seems... human to think in such a way."
"I know," I answered with a small smile. "I'm amazing. I notice small changes, flaws, unexpected details... and they make me feel something."
"Hmm... perhaps I will allow an experimental room," Blue Diamond said cautiously.
I just put on a blank face, not knowing why she was suddenly talking to me so much.
"Don't get excited," she responded. "It will be temporary, and you won't decide anything. You will only give ideas."
"Obviously," I replied quickly. "I'm just thinking about how to make space interesting."
Blue Pearl let out a suppressed laugh, and Blue Diamond noticed but didn't reprimand her.
"Stay close, Justin. I haven't decided what to do with you yet," Blue Diamond finally said.
Shit, I muttered as I sat down there, letting the weight of my body drop as if that could clear my thoughts.
"Where are we going?" I said, raising an eyebrow and looking sideways at Blue Diamond as the ship continued its silent course through space.
I was going to treat her like someone close until proven otherwise.
"To a place where you can rejoin your organic squad," she answered with complete calm, as if she had just told me we were going for a short walk.
"Oh damn," I said almost out of reflex, raising an eyebrow even higher. "So I have a distant cousin there?"
Blue Diamond blinked slowly, as if my question had gone through several filters before reaching her mind.
"Cousin... what?" she asked with slight confusion. "What is that?"
I stayed silent for a few seconds, processing that an ancient entity had just asked something so basic.
"...Seriously?" I said finally, incredulous, with an eyebrow raised.
She didn't answer immediately; she just observed me, waiting for an explanation. I sighed softly and spoke quickly, mostly so as not to test the patience of this ancestral Gem.
"Well," I said, adjusting myself a bit. "It's like... I don't know." I turned my head and observed Blue Pearl, who looked up upon noticing we were talking about her. "Her, what is she to you?" I asked, pointing at her with my head.
"Someone useful," Blue Diamond answered with a slight tilt of her head, as if there were no other possible answer.
"Uh-huh..." I muttered. "Well, besides that. Not the technical stuff, not the functional," I clarified calmly. "More like... someone who is there. Who accompanies you. Who listens to you."
The silence stretched across the room. The ship kept moving forward, oblivious to the conversation.
"Someone who listens to me?" Blue Diamond repeated in a low voice, almost as if she were thinking out loud.
"Exactly," I answered. "Let's say a cousin is that. It's family, but not so direct. It's not like a father or a mother. It's someone close, with whom you share something, even if you aren't together all the time. Something... related by blood, so to speak."
Blue Diamond remained silent, observing the void of space in front of her.
"I understand," she said finally, though her tone wasn't entirely sure. "I think..."
I leaned back a bit, looking at the ship's ceiling.
Great, I thought. I'm explaining human family relationships to a Gem who rules entire planets. This trip is definitely getting stranger and stranger.
"And tell me more about these humans you currently have. I really have some curiosity about the organics my friend had preferences for," Blue Diamond said, though her tone became slightly dimmer at the end of the sentence.
I stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking about everything. It wasn't easy to summarize something as chaotic as humanity in a few words, especially in front of someone who saw the universe as a perfectly ordered board.
"Well," I said in the end, "there are fathers, mothers, children... which is what I am."
"A hierarchy?" Blue Diamond asked with curiosity, barely tilting her head.
"Not at all," I answered calmly. "Though there was one a long time ago."
"And what happened to it?" Blue Diamond said, now completely absorbed in my explanation.
"Well," I began with a chibi face and a microphone pulled out of nowhere. "During the Middle Ages, roughly between the 9th and 15th centuries, across much of Europe, there was a system called feudalism."
I made myself comfortable as I spoke. "There were kings, nobles, knights, and peasants. The ones at the top gave orders, and the ones at the bottom obeyed. Most were born and died in the same place, with no option to change anything."
Blue Diamond observed me attentively, while some screens around her displayed data she was probably relating to my words.
"Over time, that started to break down," I continued. "Revolutions, wars, new ideas. People got tired of a few deciding everything. It wasn't fast or clean, but bit by bit, that hierarchy ceased to be absolute."
"I see," Blue Diamond said as she observed some records and judgments that seemed to arise in her mind. "A slow but constant change—organic things."
I nodded slightly.
In Blue Diamond's mind, thoughts flowed calmly.
It was interesting. A human being and its organic form—so fragile, so different from us, beings of light. Not something to become attached to, but enough to understand. Perhaps that's why my sister felt curious about them. Though, looking at that 'Justin's' explanation, it was clear that humans of the past weren't the same as those of today.
The ship continued its journey, silent, while both of us remained deep in our own thoughts.
Steven was observing from a privileged position that few people, and even fewer Gems, could say they ever had. He was sitting on none other than a Diamond's shoulder. So yeah, he was comfortable, or at least he would be for as long as it lasted, because he was pretty sure that, at the very least, he would end up causing a civil war when they reached Homeworld.
A civil war?, Steven thought, cracking a faint smile.
The idea felt strangely comforting, almost ironic, considering where he was and who was beneath him. The ship's silence was heavy, constant, interrupted only by gentle vibrations running through the structure.
But amidst that silence, Steven felt another tug.
A sharp, sudden shudder, straight from inside his gem, as if something invisible were pulling him from within.
Sons of a..., he thought, unable to finish the sentence.
He didn't get to complete the thought, because suddenly he felt everything fade away once again, dragging him back into another memory.
End of Chapter 79.