“What do you think about Mo?” Amethyst asked after we had sat for what seemed like an eternity.

I let myself fall, my back hitting the ground as the murky sky filled my view. “I don’t know. I want to say that I believe Garnet and Pearl, but Bismuth is so sure that she didn’t hurt anyone. And… the only reason anyone knows about Mo’s betrayal is because of…”

“Rose,” Amethyst mercifully finished. She drew her legs to her chest, hiding her chin behind her knees.

“Yeah, mom.” When mom was involved, things got… complicated. When I was younger, she was perfect. Everyone talked about her like she could do no wrong, a paragon of virtue and love. Rose was the fearless leader, the bringer of freedom, the force that would drive back eons of dictators’ rule. I believed that with all my heart. My mom was perfect, if not a little odd. I wanted to be just like her.

The first time I thought that image was wrong was around the same time I met Bismuth. It hadn’t seemed possible that mom would lock away one of her closest friends for thousands of years, not saying anything to the ones that thought Bismuth was beyond hope. I tried to understand. I convinced myself mom had bubbled Bismuth because she was dangerous with her obsessive ambition. I mean, Bismuth wanted to outright shatter someone! Why wouldn’t mom be afraid? I told myself she did what she could in that situation. That she was still good despite her horrible choice. For a time, that forced image held against the tide. And then it shattered when Eyeball told me about Pink Diamond’s death. Mom had shattered her… she had killed Pink Diamond. How could she do something like that? How could she take someone’s life and then punish Bismuth for trying to do the same thing? I was confused; I couldn’t be mad at her but that flawless image was beyond destroyed. No matter how much Garnet tried to reassure me that Rose only did what she thought was best, I couldn’t think of mom the same way ever again.

During the trial on Homeworld, I had the briefest hope that maybe the stories were wrong, that mom hadn’t actually shattered Pink Diamond. I clung to that hope only to have it ripped away again. In the end, mom had never shattered anyone. She became someone else, casting aside her title as a Diamond and fully embodying the rebel Rose Quartz. Mom chose her family, causing the other Diamonds so much pain that they were permanently damaged. That choice, that reckless decision to throw away her life, lead to three grieving Diamonds avenging a death that never happened, unleashing a plague across the world that would leave Rose’s allies and enemies alike suffering for thousands of years. Because of mom, all those Gems were Corrupted after fighting a war against herself.

It must have been horrible. Mom had to poof her allies that were too far gone, her healing powers unable to cure an illness caused by three Diamonds. Maybe… maybe she had to confront her demons every day as they tracked the Gem Monsters and bubbled them, sealing them away to prevent them from suffering. After all of that, she must have learned the error of her ways. She had to see what her choices did to people. Or, as I had recently come to learn, maybe mom was simply beyond help. After all, she had thrown away people when she grew tired of them. Spinel had been a victim none of us had known about, cursed to her fate because she wanted to make mom smile. Mom had broken a Gem that was filled with joy by leaving and making her unable to progress. She stripped away Spinel’s future for eons on a whim, never looking back afterward. Sometimes, when my mind drifted to darker places, I think that mom gave up her form for me just because she couldn’t bear any more mistakes. I know that’s too much, that even my mom wasn’t that heartless. Still, sometimes the thought clings to me, unable to let me forget.

“Is it bad that I want to believe that she told the truth?” She mumbled into her knee, keeping her eyes forward. “Even though it means Mo lead to hundreds of Gems being shattered, some part of me wants Rose to have told the truth. Just this one thing, just to see if she could.”

“I know what you mean. Sometimes, it feels like everything we’ve fought for was just a lie that she cooked up.”

Amethyst released a sigh, sounding more exhausted than I had heard in years. “It really sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.”

We didn’t go back to the Temple. Every few hours, one of us would warp back to check-in. Without fail, we returned to the Pearl and Garnet still locked in an argument with Bismuth, their distress unchanged. At some point, Peridot and Lapis had disappeared. I don’t think the three of them even noticed that we had left. Amethyst and I wander aimlessly through the depths of the Kindergarten. After passing rocks faces with the same pattern of holes for miles, I was hopelessly lost. Amethyst never was, her footsteps tracing some invisible trail that carried her without hesitation. She pointed out some landmarks and some of her favorite spots occasionally, but mostly we just talked to each other. The topics kept changing, sometimes about random things like cartoons or mundane events. At other points, we passed the discussion of Rose and Mo between us, trying to unravel a puzzle that neither of us had enough pieces to complete. We slept and chatted, what may have been almost two days passing by behind the Kindergarten’s frozen sky. I had snuck back into the Temple to use the bathroom and grab food, the argument still raging as it shifted between different stages of intensity. Thousands of years' worth of doubt and strain had bubbled to the surface, and it wasn’t letting up any time soon.

I checked my phone, noting that night was creeping closer. I looked up, but the clouds yielded no information. I tried to relay this information to Amethyst, but she cut me off, freezing as her body tensed. “Did you see that?” She asked over her shoulder.

I followed her eyes to an empty space of rock. “I don’t see anything,” I replied.

The moment the words left my mouth they were rendered false. A figure stepped through the spot, phasing out of the stone as if it didn’t exist. The lime green person kept walking, staring at a holographic screen that hovered in front of her face. She typed on the screen a few times without breaking her stride. A semicircle of hay-colored hair framed her head, the cut off perfectly level with her chin. Amethyst tried to jump in front of her, but the mysterious person didn’t react. Then, she stepped through Amethyst as she had with the stone. That’s when I noticed her gem, an olive green jewel on her lower back.

“She a Peridot!” I gasped as I connected the dots.

“Great, another Peri,” Amethyst mumbled. “What are we going to call this one? Halfdot? Pericle?”

“Semidot,” I said instantly. “We’re calling her Semidot.”

Amethyst shrugged, her care-free smile returning after hiding away when the argument started. “Whatever you say, man.”

Semidot continued to ignore us, walking away without sparing us a glance. We had to jog to keep up, her stride brisk and hurried. Another look at our surroundings made more questions pop into my head. What’s a Peridot doing in the Kindergarten? Why is she in such a hurry? What does she want? Semitdot only picked up speed, almost breaking into a run as a nearly illegible line of symbols flashed by on her screen. There were a few times where Semitdot vanished inside another mass of stone or phased through a collapsed section. Amethyst managed to find her again thanks to her knowledge of the Kindergarten’s layout, but I had to float in the air a couple of times when the olive Gem’s path became erratic.

When we found her again, Semidot had started speaking. Her eyes never left her screen, which had a panel with a line that crackled with the tone of her voice. She’s recording. “Status Update: the bizarre phenomena affecting the Sigma Kindergarten have progressed. An adequate specimen has yet to emerge. Estimated outcomes with positive results have diminished. Current Suggestion: terminate the expansion of Kindergartens on this planet immediately and re-evaluate the incubating conditions. Stand by for another update.” Semidot ended the recording with a flick of her fingers, somehow continuing to accelerate.

Amethyst and I glanced at each other, both of us equally confused. “Do you know what’s she’s talking about?” I asked Amethyst.

“How am I supposed to know? Just keep following her!” Amethyst returned. We kept our eyes on Semidot as she turned a corner, overlapping with the corner momentarily. When we made the turn, both of us stopped cold.

The route had opened into a round opening, free of rubble and few Injectors insight. The space was massive, large enough to accommodate the Temple and have room leftover. And that space was filled with Gems.