Thumbnail Art: https://www.deviantart.com/whisperswillow/art/Garden-Of-Lies-752090425

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The warp pad at Rose's Fountain glistened alive with light. Steven and Pearl had been searching for Sapphire for the whole day. This was the last place they could think of.

After Sapphire had warped off and Ruby had drooped to the ground, Steven had felt the sudden urge to cry. Garnet was gone. She was their leader, but now she had been torn apart. He had had no idea what would happen now.
"Ruby, I'm so sorry," Pearl had said guiltily.
"C'mon Pearl, help me explain everything to Sapphire," Steven had remembered responding.
"Right," Pearl had then answered, walking towards the warp pad as Steven regained balance from his fall.
Steven then had half-glided and half-slid on the ice towards Ruby, had placed his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "Sit tight Ruby," he had said. "We'll go get Sapphire."
"O-okay..." Ruby had responded quietly. As she had looked up at Steven, tears spilled from her eyes.

Steven swore he could still hear Ruby's aching sobs even after he had tore his gaze from Ruby and left the Temple with Pearl by his side.
"Maybe she's here..." Pearl said wonderingly, though a little tiredly. It snapped Steven back into reality from his thoughts and he wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered at the cold. Flecks of snow dotted the sky, and there were ice crystals sprouting everywhere from the ground and the fountain. At the base of the fountain, was a small huddled figure on the ground. Definitely here, thought Steven.

"Sapphire!" Steven called out as he and Pearl ran towards her. Without even looking up, a cold icicle burst across the ground and upward in Steven and Pearl's direction. Steven backed up warily.
"Everything we were running from, she was right there all along..." Sapphire said weakly, face still buried in her arms. "Using us for her little war, smiling at us with those knowing eyes, making me believe in a better future that I couldn't see, because it wasn't real..." she trailed off. "...and here we are," she began again. "friends shattered, and corrupted." Steven and Pearl walked towards her.
"Of course she was a diamond," Sapphire went on bitterly, looking up with her singular blue eye. "What a long road she took, to torture us like this." And she ducked her head again.
"It wasn't like that," Steven cried, sitting down beside Sapphire and raising his hand with reason.
"You know she didn't want anyone to get hurt."
"I don't know that!" Sapphire snapped, and as she lifted her head, Steven saw tears falling from her eye. He lowered his palm respectively. Sapphire close her eye painfully. "I clearly don't know anything." Steven placed his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. Just like I did with Ruby, he thought.

"You deserve to know everything," Pearl said unexpectedly to Sapphire, who looked up at her desperately. "I was given to Pink Diamond just a few thousand years before she was given the earth," Pearl started. "I was supposed to make her happy, I just... never could..."

** end of pt.2 **
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Edit 1: sorry, I just noticed the wonderful thumbnail art was missing!!
Part 2 done and dusted! Whew!
((Aww pear, I'd forgive her. Wouldn't you? Sapphire: Hmmm...)) so maybe things don't work out as they do in cartoons...
Pearl's been through so much tbh

~Btw found these on old Season 1 episodes... hehe~
B l e s s e d i m a g e

And after everything she's been though...
B l e s s e d i m a g e 2

It's a very Serious Steven indeed...
Damn but that mural though... what's going on over there?