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“No, no, like this.”
Steven took a deep breath and held out his finger to Peridot. The bowl of water in the soft sand nearby already had many tiny hairs dotting its surface, but he was determined. Again, he concentrated, letting his gem's power flow with the image in his mind's eye.
His finger glowed, just like before, and reformed with a pop into a perfect, miniature cat's head. Calico again. It also hissed somehow. Steven didn't know where it was getting the air to even hiss at all, but he was used to his gem creating more questions than answers at this point. The irritable cat finger must have been tired of forming and un-forming, too.
“So?” Peridot sighed. “What good is showing me transfiguring your manipulatory stump into a popularly kept organic wad of biting hair another hundred times? I can't shapeshift. That's how we Era 2 Gems are. Insufficient resources...” She sunk into a slump. “... mean insufficient powers.”
Steven felt an ominous tingle and then the familiar prickle of hair creep from his changed finger towards his hand. It was quickly dunked back into the water. Normal Steven finger, again. Steven would never stop sighing in relief after each cat finger.
“But you can move metal with your mind,” Steven countered, gesturing as if he were performing some telekinetic act of his own with wiggling his fingers from his head. “That's pretty amazing!”
“Just my tablet.”
Steven carefully scooted next to his green companion, facing the ocean gently lapping the beach. The night was beautiful, with a perfect, cool breeze that wasn't too cold and the shimmering moon rippling on the waves. He made sure Peridot left her tablet inside the temple and despite her protests, she complied.
“Peridot, you remember what Amethyst said, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That means I like you for you, too. And I couldn't summon my powers really well at first either. I'm still learning. If I'm a Gem, you could be the same and Homeworld was just telling you you can't.”
Peridot remained a small huddle. She did not respond.
“Peridot. You can do it if you practice and try really hard.”
“What if I've tried hard enough?” Peridot exploded, lunging into Steven's face. He flinched, then quickly scooted away. Sure she couldn't do much, but she could be... careless.
Peridot hotly continued: “What if those limb enhancers you sorry clods discarded were all I've ever known and you've taken that away from me?”
“I just want to show you how to shapeshift,” Steven said, looking the angry, puffing Gem in the eye. “I really believe in you. You need to believe in yourself.”
“What part of 'Era 2 Gem' isn't registering in your unbelievably impenetrable electrical mass? We can't shapeshift. What if I don't even want to?” Peridot looked down at her hand, wiggling her fingers, then wrinkled her nose. “What if I find the whole concept a superfluous novelty?”
“You could turn your finger into a screwdriver,” Steven suggested. “Or a powerdrill! You could build things without tools! That'd be really cool! You wouldn't have to steal from people when you lose them.”
“We, no, I saved your sorry rock. My ingenuity! I should be entitled to anything from these unaware, ungrateful savages.” She looked down at her fingers again, as if trying to imagine Steven's suggestions. “And they do that. The limb enhancers are better.”
“Who?”
“The Era 1 Peridots. They do that with their fingers. Shapeshift them into tools.”
“Then you can too, Peridot. Just... hold still. I have an idea.”
Peridot was ready to shoot Steven down again, her pointed lip pouted forward with another pointed remark, until confusion had her watching him licking his hand and reaching out to her face. She recoiled in disgust.
“What are you doing with your disgusting pre-digestive secretions?”
“Hold still, Peridot. I know this is really weird, but trust me, okay?”
To Steven's relief, Peridot did: The spit-slickened palm pressed against the smooth, warm surface of her gem, and she flinched. She then made a strained, shivering noise in her throat, and she shuddered, falling back into a slumped sit.
“Maybe you were cracked and you didn't know it,” Steven said, carefully watching the Gem's reaction.
Peridot looked relaxed as the effect of his spit passed over, or so Steven thought. She swayed in the wind, half-melted in some kind of trance. Who knew what was going on in her gem? Why didn't he feel any different after spit-shining his own? He found himself giving his belly button a quick glance.
“Uh, Peridot? You okay?”
“I don't know.” Her voice drifted. “What was that?”
“My healing spit! Do you feel any better?”
Peridot made an odd, sort of concerning gurgle.
“Peridot?”
Steven reached for her shoulder, until she slapped his hand away.
“Steven! I feel amazing. Is this what an Era 1 Peridot feels like? Is this what Era 1 Gems feel like all the time?”
Suddenly, Peridot lunged forward, body solid again, and grabbed Steven by the back of his head to press his face into hers. Her fingers dug painfully into his scalp and her eyes were wide, boggling. Her small, pointed nose jabbed into his. Steven groaned in discomfort, trying to wriggle away but she was unexpectedly strong.
“I think I can shapeshift, Steven.”
“Um, okay, Peridot? Ow, you're hurting me...”
"Oh."
Steven was shoved away, and Peridot held up her finger in a perfect imitation of his prior demonstrations. She concentrated. Loudly.
“Hnnngh!” She gasped. Panted. “I got this! I (hng!) can do it! I'm (nngh!) going to shapeshift!”
Then, her finger glowed.
Steven leaned forward, heart pounding in his ears in his cautious excitement, scalp still stinging from her grip.
The shape began to sway, distort. It wavered. The hand shook, as Peridot mustered all her gem's might into that single point of her form.
Pop.
Peridot collapsed forward, still holding up her finger to the night air. Steven gawked, jaw dropped.
“Peridot,” he breathed. “You did it.”
Peridot mumbled something into the sand.
“You turned your finger into a screwdriver!”
She mumbled into the sand again. Steven ran over to her side and pulled her up into a sit. Strong or not, she was extremely light, not unlike setting one of his stuffed toys back upright on a shelf, or maybe Steven was that strong himself. Her finger was still a perfectly formed screwdriver tip.
“Look!”
Peridot did. She wiggled her whole hand, just to be sure. There was the green end of a screwdriver (a flat-head, Pearl would've noted) capping off the finger nearest her thumb. Her mouth was a thin, trembling line.
"Uh, Peridot?"
Peridot screamed.
The bowl, already toppled in one of her earlier outbursts, went flying as she ran along the beach, proclaiming her feat to everything in her wake: a big rock, another rock, the seagull picking at a wrapper and then flapping away in terror, a little patch of windswept grass, a large seashell...
Steven still remained in his sit on the sand, watching the little, screaming speck proclaim her superiority as she. Could. Shapeshift. The speck bounced back, holding up her finger high in the manner of an Olympian carrying a torch. She was catching her breath. Steven was grinning ear to ear.
“So, Steven,” she wheezed, voice hoarse.
“Yes, Peridot?”
“How do I turn this back to normal?”
FIN