The soft yellow color of the sunlight in the strawberry field was warm; I would like to say almost as much as Pearl's new attitude after "that talk" with Adrian. If she could be honest, Pearl was still not entirely fine, but the way Adrian handled these kinds of sentimental issues was incredibly insidious, yet she could not deny they worked when she saw firsthand how Pearl recomposed herself before her eyes part by part this last week.
As much as she wanted to complain or feel bad when he exposed SO many things that made her question many of the interactions within her family, that damn smile of peace and a bit of bitterness he gave her made her keep her complaints to herself. You know, he had that ability to expose the rawest truths in such a surreal way that it makes you question everything, making you forget all else and face things by giving you the time, the patience, and the damn right words for everything to fit like a puzzle, forcing others to look where it hurt most while giving them the option to choose or not. For as manipulative as the boy she had fallen in love with was, he never forced anyone to choose a path they did not want; he only forced you to reach the path where the ways branched out.
"By the stars, I am already talking like him" she thought while a small smile took hold as she stopped paying attention to the banal talk full of praise between Pearl and Amethyst.
I could only sigh, mentally, while remembering with a smile on my face how I treated him that day; I slapped him before almost screaming at him, while he stayed there waiting for the punishment I had in my head. I hugged him and then gave him a kiss for what he did before telling him that "he was grounded" and that she would be the one to decide his punishment; in that order, of course, and she was still thinking about what punishment to give him.
But continuing with the train of thought, the week has been very strange. Although it was not what she expected, neither more nor less, it was not something bad for that reason. The tension had been resolved... or at least most of it.
I noticed that Pearl still had those moments of melancholy, but now she does not force herself to smile in front of others with that clear fake smile so easy to see, or be completely submerged in sadness reminding others of her own hardships. No, no, Pearl has been truly smiling, doing more things, and looking more like what one could expect from a... mother? "I have to stop thinking about that" was what I could think while stepping onto the warp with the strange vision of my father and Pearl kissing and how this made my stomach churn, though I could not say if it was because of the unnaturalness of the thought or because it did not cause me annoyance that those two would get together. Ha, do not think about that, think about something else.
"Healthy thoughts, think about good things" she said to herself, switching to the next topic on her mental list, and since she was already thinking about Pearl, she could only think that her actions were a sign of improvement, I guess. The strangest thing was seeing that they no longer looked at Adrian as if they were in a constant psychological war. Now, Pearl's look toward him reminded me suspiciously of the one my father gave when he saw us together: a mix of resignation and something more complex that she preferred not to think about. It was already the second time she had to think about something uncomfortable this day; she would not expect a third time not to happen.
"Earth to Nora" Amethyst's sarcastic voice pulled me from my thoughts. We were already crossing the warp network.
I was about to respond with a sarcastic comment, but because the strawberry field, due to the season, was a sea of white flowers and pollen floating everywhere—well, sneezing cannot be considered the sarcastic response I wanted.
"Achoo!" The sneeze was so strong that my head popped out for a second from the warp transport current.
The sudden change in light, temperature, and a tiny bit of fear left me disoriented for a second before I could focus a bit on the other warp flows, and there I noticed it: among the many lights of the other warps, a small blur was moving rapidly. I could not see more because Garnet's hands returned me to the reality inside the warp.
My expression could not have been worse, as the three gems who were still at my side in the warp flow froze while looking at me expectantly. By the stars, I could not wait for them to ask me what happened; I simply spoke while sighing with some resignation.
"I saw something in one of the warps" and there went the relative tranquility of the week. Damn, at this moment she only wanted to go home and curl up with her boyfriend while they watched a bad horror movie, while she made him fear more every day for his long-awaited punishment until they ended up laughing at the movie.