Consequences

3 - How To Care For Your Human

When Steven woke up, he squinted his eyes shut

again. He had a horrible headache, and hunger chewed at his stomach. His gem was a darker shade of pink than usual, and the whole entire right side of him, the side he had rolled onto in the middle of his sleep, was numb from being pressed against the cold floor.

"Get up!" Larimar scolded. Steven snapped back awake, just now realizing that the Larimar soldier was standing right in front of him, the doors wide open. The two gems gaurding the doors stood stoic as statues.

"Wha...?" Steven muttered as he was hauled off the ground. Standing upright, Steven gasped and stumbled backwards, his hand gripping the side of his head. When he stood up, the headache suddenly turned into a migraine, and his stomach shriveled up.

"What are you doing? Come on! Blue Diamond AND Yellow Diamond are requesting you be brought to them at once! Don't just stumble around everywhere!" Larimar grabbed Steven's left wrist again, and the pressure on the already bruised area sent a jolt of pain through Steven's arm, only making him feel worse.

"Where are we-" in the middle of his sentence, Steven lost his voice to his dry throat, and he tried again. "W-Where are we g-going? Didn't we... already...-"

"I told you already, runt! Two Diamonds have requested you immediately and I can't delay for 1 diamond, much less two! Now hurry up!" Larimar yanked on Steven's arm, hard.

"Ow!" Steven yelped, practically stumbling behind the Larimar's quick pace.

"Oh, get over it runt!" Larimar rambled. The rest of her rambling tuned out for Steven, as his head pounding was too loud to hear over.

Once or twice on the way through the long hallways, Steven stumbled, and almost fell, if not for Larimar yanking him back onto his feet, and making Steven's headache only grow.

Hallway after hallway. Turn after corner. The entire place, (Blue Diamond's ship, Steven guessed), was a labyrinth of blue corriders, technologically advanced rooms, and grand halls.

The duo turned one final corner, into the greatest and biggest of the halls Steven had seen yet. At the end were huge, diamond shaped double doors, the metal carved elaborately. Larimar actually squeaked as he hurried down the hall, dragging Steven in tow.

"We're here!" Larimar exclaimed, positioning Steven in front of him. "Do I look okay?" larimar peered into the reflective metal of the double doors.

"...What?..." Steven asked in annoyance. He felt slow and lightheaded, and honestly didn't care how Larimar looked. He cared a lot more about how completely wretched he felt.

"Ah, whatever, I look fine," Larimar concluded to herself, glaring back at Steven. "You, however, look unpresentable. How completely disrespectful to the Diamond Authority! Oh well... not like we have time to fix you up now..." Steven was too tired to even roll his eyes, but he was really getting tired about all this praise for the diamonds. The diamonds were bad! Why couldn't anyone from Homeworld see that?

Although, Steven did look awful. He had bags under his eyes, his skin was pale, and his hair looked as if it had been given about ten thousand noogies at the same time. Just to add to that fact, his knees, elbows and his left wrist were all bruised up.

When Steven leaned against the wall for support, Larimar roughly straightened him back up on his feet again.

"The diamonds will open this door any second, and when they do, you need to at least look-" Larimar was cut off as the gigantic doors slid open gracefully. Fast as lightning, she straightened her shoulders, grinned from ear to ear, and intertwined her arms into the diamond salute.