Hello! This is the current installment of my series Finding Stars in Desolate Skies, and I'll be posting updates here and on AO3 simultaneously from now on-expect them about once a week or so. Also, please feel free to come say hello and follow me on Tumblr (you can find me under the same username)!

Yellow was loath to admit it, but their descent to Earth was more of a controlled crash than a proper landing. They had put the escape pod through a lot more than it was meant for, and she was mostly just glad they got to Earth.

She pinpointed the location where the renegade Pearl had been according to the file and, once they were close enough, aimed them in that general direction, hoping they wouldn't have too much searching to do. She only had minimal knowledge about the inhabitants of the planet, and it was probably best to avoid them if possible.

Regardless, their landing wasn't terribly jarring, and she and Blue were strapped in well enough to avoid getting flung around too much. They were on land, thankfully, atop some kind of small hill, though they could see ocean on the horizon.

"Okay?" Blue asked immediately after they'd skidded to a complete halt.

"Yeah, you?" Yellow unbuckled and tried to run a diagnostic on the escape pod. It failed to even start, so she figured it was a safe bet that it wouldn't be usable anymore.

"I'm fine." She got up and stretched a little. "Where do we go now? Are the maps still working?"

Yellow flicked her fingers over a different screen, and a projection of the Earth flared up on it, a small yellow dot indicating their location. "Seems like it." She frowned, then projected the image of the file from her gem, comparing the two. "We're in the correct region, if nothing else."

"I hope this is actually where their base is," Blue said worriedly. "Otherwise I don't know how we would track them down."

"We should get out and take a look." Yellow opened up the door and for a moment they were both taken by how green the planet was.

Blue led the way outside and spun in a slow circle, taking in every inch of the Earth she could see. "It's so beautiful."

She murmured agreement, eyes trying to catalogue everything in front of her. It was overwhelming. She almost missed Homeworld's sparse practicality.

She turned back to look at their battered little ship, taking in the damage that seemed much more substantial now that she was seeing it from the outside. She said a silent thank you to the machinery that had held up long enough to get them here safely and then glanced at Blue.

"Let's…scout the area," Yellow suggested uncertainly. "The ship can act as our base until we make contact with the Crystal Gems."

Blue nodded in agreement, kneeling to touch the green plants and small colorful petals on the ground. She liked the way the light fell on them, and she looked up, immediately captivated by the planet's sun and blue, blue sky. Everything seemed so much more organic and alive here, even the colors she was accustomed to. "Which way?"

Yellow shrugged. "There?" she suggested, pointing away from the human-built structures since that would undoubtedly lead to interactions they had no way of predicting.

"Sounds good." There was no question as to whether they should stay together or not; they both knew it would be foolish to separate. Blue rose to her feet once more and started towards the trees, one hand clasped in front of her gem and the other clutching her wrist. "Do you…Do you think we'll find her?"

"I hope so," Yellow replied, mouth set in a firm line. If they didn't find the renegade here, if they didn't find any gems here, they were likely stranded. She wasn't sure she'd be able to get the escape pod running again even if she had all the necessary supplies, and she didn't. Earth was, for the foreseeable future, their only option.

The two of them made their way through the trees, distracted by the vivid colors and life around them but not lingering for too long. They had a job to do. They had Pearls counting on them, waiting for them.

The renegade Pearl, or any sign of her presence, was nowhere to be found. Neither of them was particularly surprised, but after searching for quite some time it was still rather disheartening. They walked in a wide arc around their ship and then made concentric circles inward, arriving back at it just as the sun appeared to be slipping off the edge of the horizon.

Blue did her best to look optimistic as they sat down on the grass and tried to formulate a better plan. Yellow suggested that they observe the humans, perhaps go to them in disguise to ask about the renegade. Blue was a little unnerved by the thought, both at the prospect of such a fragile lie and the idea of interacting with the humans the renegade had so fiercely protected. What were they like? She wouldn't know how to speak to them and, even with practice, someone would surely notice they didn't belong there.

Together, they watched the sky darken, both with the absence of light and the coming of clouds overhead. Yellow was the first to notice the small droplets that began falling from the sky and she leapt up, grabbing Blue by the arm and hauling her back inside the broken-down escape pod.

"What is that?" she asked nervously.

"I'm not sure." Blue gravitated back to the door. "Is it… Is it water?"

"How should I know? Don't touch it!"

The other Pearl ignored her, stretching one foot out and nudging the damp grass with her toes. "It doesn't seem dangerous."

"And Pearls don't seem like rebels," Yellow huffed. "Get back in here before something goes wrong."

Blue hesitated, then stepped fully outside, hands placed protectively over her gem as she craned her head up to look at the clouds. The droplets slid over her, running down her arms and legs and dampening her hair. She smiled faintly, pushing wet bangs to either side of her face so she could see better. "It's safe," she called. "Come see."

"I'd rather not."

Blue shrugged and ignored her, walking a little ways out into the rain. She knelt in the wet grass and looked up at the clouds again, smiling as the droplets rained down on her face. Part of her had felt like crying ever since they landed—from relief, from fear, from anticipation—but the Earth was doing it for her. The water ran over her, soothing and simple and clean. This was not Homeworld. They made it.

It seemed like ages before Yellow joined her, stepping out tentatively and then hurrying over to Blue. Her legs folded beneath her as she sat, her hands closed tightly around the ends of her skirt. She lost herself in thought watching the rain, enough to startle badly when Blue reached out to take her hand.

"Sorry," she murmured, pressing their shoulders together like they used to when they shared the projections in secret. How long ago had that been? The memories seemed both close and distant here.

"It's fine." Yellow pressed back against her reassuringly, and they watched the rain in silence after that.

Even when it was too dark to see, even when their hair started to hang in odd, wet strands that dripped water onto their necks and shoulders, even when the clouds seemed to have spared all the rain they were able, they sat and watched.

The night sky was different too, and Yellow could easily map out the stars above them. She wasn't sure if she liked that, a part of her thought she might prefer Blue's apparent wonder at the view instead of her own calculated eyes. The moon was bright, near fully lit by the now-absent sun. There's a base there, she thought. That might be important later. So many things might be important, in a rebellion.

She couldn't help but feel like this whole plan was so fragile that they were just getting their hopes up with thoughts of a rebellion, a revolution, something real. But they were here, on Earth, and that was half the battle. If they could do that, then finding the renegade was well within possibility.

She just hoped it wouldn't take too long.

The two of them retreated to the escape pod in the middle of the night, Blue wringing out her hair before entering and shaking it out again. She wished it would stay back, out of her face, but it was designed to fall forward in imitation of her former Diamond, and she needed to conserve her energy for more important things than shapeshifting.

Instead, she focused on cataloguing all of the items they had with them on the ship, taking one of the destabilizers they'd stolen and strapping it around her waist securely with the standardized belt it had come with. It fit loosely, not meant for a gem of her stature, but when she made it as tight as it could possibly be it hung safely on her hips, the heavy weight reassuring.

She offered one to Yellow too, and she took a second belt, ignoring the intended use and wrapping it twice around her middle instead so it was snug. They both knew destabilizers would do very little to protect them here, but it was something, and they had gone far too long without anysomethings to pass up this small chance at self-defense.

Next, they reviewed all the files they had access to on the pod—many of them got corrupted either in the initial data transfer or in the crash and were useless, but they memorized all they could about their new environment. There was very little about anything on the planet itself beyond the basic land structures and oceans, but that was to be expected. Earth was meant to be a colony, and the designs of the finished project made it clear that no gem would have needed to worry about trivial things like environmental changes and the lifestyles of native species.

When the sun came up in the morning, they both agreed to restart their search. This time, they ventured out farther in one direction, towards the ocean. They kept walking until the trees gave way to a sandy, deserted beach. The grains beneath Blue's feet made her think of tiny broken things like the Pearls' remains she kept within her, piling up year after year after year.

Yellow seemed to notice her hesitancy to go any farther, so both of them lingered just off the sand, feet dirtied with mud that reminded her of the rain last night and was comforting in the way it clung.

"Well, they're not here," Yellow said finally, arms crossed resolutely. "We should go back and try a different route."

"You're right," Blue agreed softly. She peered down the beach, wishing some sign of life would appear there, that some clue would point them in the right direction. There was nothing. "We could walk away from the sun," she suggested. "Back towards the city."

Yellow agreed reluctantly; neither of them really wanted to risk it, but they didn't want to waste time either. Perhaps someone there would know if there were other gems around.

This decided, they made their way back in the other direction. It was a long, repetitive trek, and their initial interest and enthusiasm about Earth was starting to dampen. The sun was getting higher now, impatient with their lack of progress. Soon they were nearly back to their base.

Yellow's eyes darted around the clearing, like there was something different there despite its apparent emptiness. She rubbed at her shoulders, one at a time, the way she had started doing on the ship when she was nervous. Blue would have inquired about it, but she felt on edge too, like something was going to happen or should happen or—

"Hello!"

Blue gasped and spun around to see where the voice was coming from, automatically placing herself in front of Yellow, not that she could do much. She grabbed for the destabilizer she had strapped to her waist but froze when she saw who it was.

A small gem, little more than half her height, standing next to a Pearl. He turned and shouted back over his shoulder. "Over here! We found them!" Looking back at the two of them, he asked, "Are you guys okay?"

Blue couldn't quite hear the words, couldn't quite move, eyes locked onto the Pearl and stinging with a rush of emotion she couldn't possibly put a name to. She's here.

Yellow's hand was on her wrist and squeezing too tightly, but she barely noticed.

They found her. Against all odds, after so many years of just imagining her, she was right there in front of them. She was real.

The renegade Pearl.