You and Pearl had just encountered a gem mutation while out in the forest- for context, Garnet took Amethyst and Steven while Pearl took you and split up to search for Crystal mutations. Well, the mission wasn’t a… complete fail.

The mutation caught you off guard and pounced on you from beneath, poofing you almost immediately. You didn’t know what happened after that. Time just paused and everything was a blur. Sooner or later, you reappeared back in the temple in the living room— otherwise known as, Steven’s room with his bed not far over the couch.

“Your awake!” Pearl let out a relieved sigh as she took in the appearance to see if you made any changes- which you could do because every gem could change their physical form in the gem. This was due to the body being a physical illusion, so it wasn’t hard to just change the way one looked. “The others haven’t returned yet. I took the mutation and bubbled it, it’s been 2 hours which is… longer than you usually take. But, it did catch us by surprise so,” she let out an awkward chuckle to keep herself from asking why it took so long to come back. Typically, you were back within 10 minutes of poofing- and that’s if your actually hurt! This mutation just caught you off guard, not hurt you, so the time didn’t really make sense to her.

She adjusted the plant on the table to be completely centered as she cleared her throat, “I know, I know. Don’t worry about you. Independence and all, but I can’t help but wonder why you took so long.”