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"You can't keep me here forever," Pink Diamond told White Diamond. His voice was quiet, but whether grief or anger muffled it, White Diamond's Pearl couldn't tell. "I'm gonna escape eventually. It doesn't matter how long it takes."
White Diamond's glittering eyes stared down at her smallest prisoner. "And how is that, starlight?" she asked sweetly. "After all, it isn't as though you have the power to escape me, is it? And your little friends are nothing against the might of Homeworld."
White Diamond's Pearl kept her smile fixed tight, but inwardly she cried. It had been a year since Pink Diamond had returned to Homeworld, and in all that time it had been sickening to see how hopeful he was-- how he refused to abandon his faith that his family would come and that he would be rescued. To see such innocence turned sour hurt her, deep in her gem where her Diamond couldn't see.
This last defiance would be his worst, the Pearl feared, and then her Diamond would crush him completely, would peel the organic pulp away to reach the core inside.
Sickening. And yet part of the Pearl ached to see Pink Diamond's bravery, his resolve, his unwavering kindness, even when he knew she couldn't answer. She found herself hoping that even flayed open, his spirit would hold true. That whatever form of Pink Diamond sprang forth from this warm-hearted organic would hold within her some semblance of the boy she'd been for a few short years.
Hope was an unfamiliar feeling to the Pearl; if it had been familiar, her mistress would have detected and crushed it.
As it was, however, White Diamond didn't even bat an eye. All her focus was on her young, recalcitrant prisoner. On his defiance. And how vexing for her, the Pearl thought, to find the one toy she couldn't manage to break.
Pink Diamond didn't answer White's question. Instead he gazed past his captor, into her shimmering cape, and asked, almost offhand, "Do you ever sleep, White?"
The Diamond tilted her head mechanically. "Of course not, starlight. Only organics sleep." And organics are nothing but raw materials.
"Huh. So you've never had that dream where you're walking around and then you realize you're in your underwear." Pink Diamond didn't seem to expect a response to his nonsensical remark. "I dream, sometimes," he admitted. "Sometimes I dream that I'm back home, on Earth. That I'm with my family."
"But you're home now, Pink," White Diamond said with an edge to her tone. "You really must cease with these silly delusions."
Pink Diamond shrugged. "Other times I dream I'm at the core of the Earth," he continued, "and all the shattered pieces of the Cluster are talking to me." He smiled. "They like the company. Even with such a big group, it's nice to have some variety with who you meet. Like mixing pineapple with pizza."
"If you're so intent on speaking nonsense--" White started, then cut off and said in a softer tone, "Starlight. Is there a reason you've requested an audience with me today? You don't seem very reasonable right now."
"There is," Pink Diamond insisted. "I just need to say all this stuff first, okay?" He continued, "In my dreams, I hang out with my friend Connie, and with the Crystal Gems, even when I have to borrow another body to do it. I make plans. And I talk to the Cluster, and they talk to me, and they say that they can escape without harming the Earth as long as they do it a little bit at a time." Another smile. "They say we're friends, and that friends shouldn't leave friends to suffer. They say... they say I just have to be patient, and soon I can get home for real. They said... it might even take a year, but they'd come for me, and I could see my family again."
"Is there a point to this?" White Diamond asked, voice dangerously low.
"Yeah," Pink Diamond said, and a gigantic quake rocked the palace grounds. "It's something Connie said I should say, 'cause it sounds cool." He cleared his throat and grinned. "Next time you should maybe be nicer to your bioweapons."
The palace exploded, and Pink Diamond grabbed the Pearl's hand and wrapped them both in a bubble. Somewhere overhead, the Pearl heard White Diamond shriek.
That was the last sound that reached her ears, before a thousand-colored hand reached down and scooped the bubble up into the sky.
The last sight was White Diamond, glowing with energy and lashing out, with a maelstrom of gem shards circling her like a predator toying with its prey.