So… Friendly reminder that Rose is Pink Diamond in this fic, and the diamonds are normal sized gems! Ao3!
“Log Date, 2/09/78. This is Pink Diamond, reporting in about the new pearl I had been given by White Diamond. As my previous reports have stated…” Unable to help herself, Pink paused. Her lips pursed and she ran a hand through her hair, fingers tangling in the locks and tugging her way through slowly and carefully. A sigh slipped free and she grabbed the holopad off its stand, shifting it in her grasp. “I don’t know why I’m being so formal with this. No one else will ever hear it. It’s just a personal log, White Diamond doesn’t care about how Pearl is fairing.”
She glanced towards the doorway a moment later, lips pursed in thought and thrumming her fingers lightly against the cool metal. She wasn’t expecting Pearl to wake up any time soon, so she wasn’t sure what she was worried about. Even if she did wake soon, she wouldn’t be worried about Pink and her holopad. Not right now, no. She’d be more worried about keeping the geodes warm, or maybe getting something to gain her strength back up. She couldn’t be sure. Though she had done her research on geode and gemling care, it never really talked about how the carrier gem felt. It hadn’t mentioned the stomach pains Pearl had felt, or the need for affection. It sure as hell hadn’t mentioned the mess labour would make, something Pink had found out the hard way earlier that day.
She had only left Pearl alone for a moment, really. It wasn’t that long. A couple hours, maybe three at most, no more than that. A warm and affectionate kiss to the gem was all that was needed for Pearl to be reassured she would be back soon, and she had every intent to be back soon. It was just a simple meeting after all, talking to a couple of peridot technicians about the development of local Kindergartens. However, when she had got back, Pearl wasn’t there to greet her at the door like normal.
Admittedly, it had given her quite the scare. Despite telling her multiple times that she didn’t need to stand by the door and wait for her while she was out, Pearl always insisted that she wanted to, if only so she could make sure to greet her when she had gotten back to her home. It was endearing and incredibly sweet of her to do, and over time, she had gotten used to it, even if Pearl carrying kicked back up her protests. She didn’t want her to stand for too long, especially not if she could be out for hours at a time, and after a long argument between the two, she had eventually moved a chair over so that when Pearl got too tired from standing, she could make herself comfortable in the seat while she waited for Pink to return.
It had taken awhile for Pearl to stop being so stubbornly set in her ways, but by the time the geodes were starting to weigh her down, Pink had finally managed to convince her to take a seat when she needed it. A few times in the beginning, Pearl would jerk upright when she came back, scrambling to her feet as if Pink was one to punish her for sitting down. However, by the end of the gestation period, Pearl was comfortably seated in her chair and waited patiently until Pink offered her a hand to help her stand before she would rise out of the chair.
She had gotten used to Pearl being the first thing she thought of when she entered the house, and as such, was completely shocked when she wasn’t there. It left a bitter taste in her mouth and an uneasy feeling bubbling up in her gut. At the time, Pink had no clue why Pearl wasn’t there to greet her, and the worst scenarios were the ones to pop to the forefront of her mind. Perhaps an assassin had gotten in somehow and made her reform and destroy the geodes, or she had been tricked into going outside and being kidnapped, or she was still inside the house and being held captive, or she had fallen off the chair and cracked her gem. The possibilities were endless, and for a moment, everything froze. She was only relieved once she realised that the door had still been shut and there were no gem shards around to be found.
The only other place Pearl could have been would have been the nest she had made in their room, and that was the first and only place she had to look. She found Pearl there, naked and covered in disgusting laying fluids, while curled around sixteen geodes that shown brightly. The simple sight made her breath hitch in her throat, and she found tears streaming her cheeks as she realised that she had missed it. The big moment, the laying of their young, and she had been away in a meeting. A dumb meeting about kindergarten placement with a couple of peridots that really should have been able to handle it on their own. Instead, they had requested her help, and she had missed her wonderful and lovely Pearl laying because of it. Pink had left the room then, if only because she didn’t want to wake the other gem after such a strenuous event with her silly tears.
A couple of hours had passed since then, and now, she made her way to their room to look at the geodes and Pearl again. The holopad was light in her fingers, barely noticeable, but her heavy heart made up for it. She couldn’t believe she had missed being there with Pearl while she laid, and shifted the holopad so that it could capture the image before her, of her beautiful Pearl curled up with their geodes. She hated that she missed being a supportive mate for her, after telling her countless times that she would be there for her and help her through it. Instead, she had missed it, and Pearl had to do it all alone. She felt horrible, and couldn’t even apologise right now, not without waking her up.
“So,” she said quietly to the device in her hands, shifting it a bit closer to her face so that it hopefully wouldn’t wake Pearl while she was talking, “here is Pearl, and our geodes. They’re wonderful little things, aren’t they? They’re glowing so bright… I can’t wait to see them hatch. I missed them being laid though, and I hate myself for it. I was in a meeting, and she must have went into labour while I was gone. Sorry she’s a bit messy, if anyone else is actually watching this. She hasn’t woke up yet, and I don’t want to wake her.”
Pearl slept peacefully as she recorded her, still naked and curled around the geodes. It was hard to see them really, but they were definitely glowing in a warm way that melted Pink’s heart. Carefully, she moved to sit down and shifted the holopad to record her face again, sitting in such a way that Pearl’s head was still in the shot, sleeping peacefully. She didn’t like getting into the nest, not without Pearl’s permission, so she sat outside it. Countless times before Pearl had told her it was okay, but she was asleep, and could quite possibly be feral when she woke up. Even if she was the sire of the geodes, she had no clue what Pearl might do if she was feral and Pink was in her nest with the geodes. While she was sure she wouldn’t mind, it was still at the front of her thoughts, and she couldn’t be sure that nothing wouldn’t happen and she wouldn’t be hurt because of it if she were to get in a feral gem’s nest. She wasn’t sure if Pearl would be feral or not, but it was better to be safe rather than risk being mauled by a gem trying to protect her geodes.
“I think this is good enough of a family shot for now. I’ll make sure to take another when she wakes up if she’s okay with it, and another when they hatch. I want to record every little moment of their lives once they do, but I obviously can’t do that. Pearl doesn’t like the recorder much, and I can’t blame her. Poor thing. If nothing else, I’ll take pictures every month or so. The data I read said that gemlings take a long time to develop to maturity, maybe ten, twenty solar cycles I believe, but I can’t really remember exactly what the time frame was. Regardless, I’m going to take tons of pictures.” She paused as Pearl squirmed in her sleep, if only to open her eyes and shift to put a hand on Pink’s lap.
“Pink Diamond?” Pearl mumbled softly, and Pink raised a brow, watching Pearl smile at the sight of her mate. It was good to see that Pearl wasn’t feral, and seemed to be anything but. She was still the same warm gem that Pink had fallen in love with after the last hundred years since Pearl had been gifted to her. Pearl’s original duty had been to carry her geodes and produce potential heirs, but she had never been one to force a pearl to do anything, let alone force her to be her mate and produce gemlings. This pearl was no different, especially since she was her Pearl.
“Yes, my Pearl? Do you need something? I can go get you a cup of water, or some nutritional gel. Or, if you’d prefer something else, I can get you something else for food, it wouldn’t be a problem. Some muscle tissue from those funny little six-limbed things on Athera, or some of the blue plant reproductive organs you like from Lotharic?” Pink offered, only for Pearl to shake her head and yawn tiredly.
“No… Not right now. I just want you to sit with me. Please? The nest is plenty big enough, I made it so you could sit with me too,” she rasped quietly, her voice cracking occasionally. It made Pink wonder if perhaps Pearl had screamed herself hoarse when she had been laying. Given what she knew of her from the times they had mated, it sounded like Pearl. Once Pink had gotten her to open up, Pearl had quite the mouth on her and loved to use her voice whenever she got the chance, however loud it may be. It was a good thing that Pink had been the one to receive her, she couldn’t imagine how the other diamonds would have reacted to having a pearl so loud, not that Pink would have changed a thing.
With a nod, Pink stood and carefully stepped into the nest, sitting down and being extra careful with making sure she didn’t jostle Pearl or the geodes. She didn’t dare disturb them, even if she was sure that Pearl wouldn’t mind or protest if she did. She never seemed to mind what Pink did, and part of her wondered if that was healthy. They had plenty of time to work on that though, and she had every intention of trying to change the way Pearl acted towards her. “There we are. All situated. Is this better?” she asked, only to receive a nod in return as her lovely Pearl shifted to put her head on her lap.
“Much better,” Pearl murmured, one of her hands shifting and tugging at one of Pink’s, pulling it away from the holopad. She shifted to hold it in one hand, her fingers interlacing with the spindly ones of her splendid Pearl. Their hands laid to rest on her lap beside Pearl’s head, and Rose realised she desperately wanted to run her fingers through her locks and feel them between her fingers. She decided that there wasn’t much left to record then, if only so that she could really appreciate the warmth emanating from her mate. It was natural, after all, since Pearl was going to be incubating the geodes against her and needed to keep them warm.
“I’m glad to hear it, my love. You should rest now, alright?” A smile was shared between them then, with a small nod from Pearl, before she was knocked out again, put into a state of exhausted resting by her gem’s low energy state. With a warm smile, Pink turned back to the holopad and shifted it to get a good view of her adoring mate and their geodes. “Well, I should get going now… I don’t think I have much to say. Pearl’s asleep, and I just want to lay here with her a bit before she wakes up again. Pink Diamond out.”