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Gems were the most perfectly designed lifeform ever to exist in the known universe.
Gems didn’t need to do anything that organically evolved life did; they could go their entire lives without the need to eat, sleep, connect, or even breathe. They simply became with everything they would need to be functional. Gems were almost akin to a machine in that sense. They were an endless, efficient powerhouse that performed whatever its designated task was to the utmost letter. Flawlessly. Peridot once prided herself on this notion of perfection.
The Peridot from one hundred years ago, still enwrapped in the values of her home planets, would scowl in disgust at the mere sight of Earth. The Peridot from right now, however, buried herself further into the blankets she shared with a smug snark on her face while the wind howled outside.
The Peridot from one hundred years ago was an unevolved, uncultured clod. Also that Peridot’s limb enhancers sucked. Hers were cool.
Peridot grinned and watched a small tendril of steam coil out from her jaws to the ceiling.
It was very cold outside of the barn as of late. In fact, Lapis had discovered the ends of her wings becoming glittery with frost earlier during the week, which evidently had a negative impact on her flying based on her lackluster attempts at it. Something about unbalanced weight made her drop mid-air rather ungracefully.
While Gems didn’t technically feel temperature changes the same way organic beings did, nor did it have any impact on their ‘health’, they still remained at the whims of the elements in small ways that hindered daily behaviors. Like her barnmate’s iced wings. Or the inability to dig into the soil properly as it froze. Along with the growing distance between the planet and its star bringing such weather sensations, Peridot had discovered that there was a comforting sensation that came from making one’s own cozy temperature in defiance of the planet’s natural weather. An act of rebellion. And a rebel she was now, after all!
Another burst of wind rattled the wooden walls of their home, and Peridot followed the sound with half-interest. The wind strength hadn’t lessened a mile all day.
She eyed the barn doors with suspicion as though they would swing open from the force of the gyres, though that was impossible with the multiple locking mechanisms they had added. Lapis had pulled them shut earlier that day after a particularly gnarly wind gust had blown her drawings into a scatter, using several Gem words that Peridot had cackled at to describe her feelings about the situation. She had offered to help her roommate clean up the mess– once she had stopped laughing of course– but Lapis had gotten prickly, not an uncommon sight to see, and insisted that she not touch any of her things. Peridot had shrugged and gone back to watching a documentary about an Earth animal called ‘praying mantis’. She liked those. They were green.
Gems were the most perfectly designed lifeform.
But the things that evolved on Earth seemed so much happier than any Gem she had ever seen. And they also had the most brilliant invention in the universe: the blanket.
Peridot went to tug the topmost blanket she was buried under further up to her jaw, only to be met with no yield from the fabric. Her brows pitched in annoyance and she tugged harder. Still nothing. The blanket refused to obey, worn seams taunting her from just far away enough to be inconsiderate. There was only one explanation to the lack of a blanket where she wanted a blanket.
“Lapis,” she hissed, “you’re hoarding the blankets again. Give it.”
Lapis Lazuli didn’t respond.
“Lapiiiis.”
Still nothing.
Huffing in indignation, Peridot flipped onto her right side to chew out her barnmate for ignoring her. She expected to see the telltale mischievous grin on the blue Gem that happened only when she was getting a kick out of being annoying. Lapis had a nasty penchant for bothering her, either by messing with her hair, flicking water at her from a distance while she worked, and most villainously of all: hoarding the blankets.
“I don’t make any heat of my own,” Lapis had said once, back when the Earth season called ‘winter’ was fully rolling in, smirking from her alcove of plush fabric. “You do. It’s only fair that I get to have them.”
“It is not!” Peridot had argued, listlessly pawing at the pile with claws deliberately retracted, lest she tear anything, “I called dibs! Which in case you have forgotten, is a sacred Earth claiming rule! And this one is green! Ergo, it's mine! Besides, you don’t need heat to live, you insufferable clod!”
“Says who?” Lapis had cackled, wriggling away from any attempts to steal the blankets back. She was insufferable. Insufferable roommate. Curse her and her form being taller.
They had spent an embarrassing amount of time chasing each other around the barn in a blanket rivalry that afternoon. Lapis was fast even with a wad of treasure in her arms but Peridot knew she could be faster. Peridot had refused to admit defeat even when the ex-terraformer had perched– with every single available blanket they owned in the entire property– up on the ceiling rafters and stared down at her cheekily. Peridot snickered at the memory. She had been so confident relying on her then-unfrosted wings to win. Lapis’s face had been absolutely priceless when she had simply walked up the walls to get to her.
A blanket truce had been bartered on the ceiling.
Today, Lapis Lazuli was in violation of it.
Peridot was hellbent on reminding her of this fact. However, it became readily apparent to Peridot that Lapis’s ignorance was unintentional when she saw why there hadn’t been any response.
The blue Gem was on the opposite end of the hammock, her chest rising and falling gently in the pseudo-breathing mimicry Lapis liked to have. She was still. Asleep. A very faint shine of cerulean flickered in and out of view from her gem– according to the others, that meant she was dreaming.
Unfortunately for Peridot, the blankets seemed to have sided with her slumbering barnmate for the time being, as any movement to retrieve them was for naught.
Fine, Peridot sniffed, rolling onto her back and shimmying further down the hammock to make up for the lack of blanket room. Preposterous. Insufferable blanket-hoarder.
Her eyes wandered, bored, landing on the scratchy wood lines on the wood rafters above them. When she was still learning about life here, Steven had told her that trees on Earth could live for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Maybe not quite Gem standard impressive, but definitely far longer than most living things from this planet. This planet moved so, so fast. If she tried she couldn’t catch up to the motion of everything here; that was very clear when she had attempted an insect terrarium.
Maybe there was a tree somewhere out there that was as old as she was. The tree whose wood now made her home surely hadn’t been. And even if it had, it didn’t matter now. Now it was the barn instead of a tree.
Her snout curled up, brushing her teeth on her lip.
She reached out an arm from the blanket zone, intending to beckon her tablet over to her whims. While primitive, the databases constructed by humankind did help when it came to facts about Earth specifically. She was going to research the economic uses of trees, when a small, quiet, chirp-like noise broke the silence she’d been adjusted to. What was that?
The hammock shifted.
Peridot briefly prepared to be sent to her death on the floor a la falling out of it, cursing the fact that acknowledging the trees’ previous existence may have alerted them to her use of their flesh. Peridot had seen living plant armies here. She grabbed at the nearest thing to prevent the imminent doom of the cold wooden floor– which, to her dismay, happened to be Lapis.
“Sor-” she began, before cutting herself off. Lapis was still asleep from what she could observe. The breathing pattern hadn’t changed, her form was otherwise still, and no irritated scoffing was coming from being awoken.
Lapis must have been the one to rock the hammock, just a little, to flip over onto her other side. She had her gem facing toward the wall, shutting the blue hue out of sight, arms wrapped tight over her face. Not the trees coming back for vengeance. Peridot would live to see another day.
Her bristled fur settled back down with relief. Cautiously, the technician released her grip off of her barnmate’s arm, watching her face for any sign of waking up during the procedure. She didn’t want to cause distress to her from physical touch, even accidental. Though, to her surprise, Lapis’s skin still felt cold under the blankets even with her limbs curled into herself. Maybe she really hadn’t been exaggerating about not generating any heat of her own.
In truth, Peridot knew little to nothing about Lapis’s Gem type. She knew that she was a flier-Gem, and that Lapis Lazulis were designed for the various types of terraforming required for planetary takeovers. Especially water. This had all in the brief sent to her on her original mission down to Earth alongside information about Jaspers. Eugh. Jasper.
But none of the intricacies of how Lapis worked had been included in her file. She knew Pearls, Quartzes, and of course Peridots with all of their associate Gems; but not Lapis Lazulis.
She had never interacted with Blue Court much throughout her time serving Yellow Diamond. There had never been any real reason to have read about them. Peridot’s antennae twitched curiously, mind flashing to eons of different files she had had to delve into. Blue Court was probably wildly different from Yellow. Based on what she had seen of Lazuli and the Sapphire, they were a quieter, intense lot that reflected what rumors she had heard of their Diamond’s personality. Was everyone in Blue Diamond’s roster chilly all the time?
Palm open, Peridot placed her hand back onto her barnmate’s shoulder as gently as she could. It would really suck having to explain what she was doing if Lapis woke up.
Gems didn’t possess blood like Earthlings did. They had no real need to generate their own body heat for survival (even if feeling toasty in the cold felt nice). Those that did radiate natural heat from their physical form– like Peridot herself– were simply a result of how their Gems were developed. Some were just simply hot to the touch, like the Ruby, or even Jasper.
Peridot couldn’t remember ever meeting a Gem that wasn’t so. She generated heat. Amethyst did as well. Even the Pearl had some radiated warmth hovering about her, albeit faint. Garnet’s perfectly neutral temperature didn’t count in this matter. One of her components was the Sapphire, who’s frosty element would realistically negate the high temperature radiating off of the Ruby into a modest, temperate balance.
Peridot flinched her hand away at the prospect that she and her barnmate would possibly be similar if they ever–
Lapis seemed to scowl in her sleep from the subtle motion of the hammock by Peridot’s moving, or rather as close as to what her unconscious personality could muster. An exact replica of the chirp from before echoed from the terraformer’s throat.
Huh. More sleep noises.
Lapis made a lot of sleep noises for such a quiet Gem during her waking hours.
Peridot smirked at the state of her barnmate’s hair. The static friction from laying in the hammock had taken its toll, causing a wild and positively unruly mess of deep blue. She viciously bit back the urge to dig her hands into it and ruffle in revenge for her own dignity. It would have been incredibly satisfying to mess it up further. It would only be fair.
But… that would almost guarantee waking Lapis, thus risking Peridot being banished from the tentative blanket truce for eternity on the cold wooden floor.
Her hair looked so soft though by the way it curled over her eyes.
Maybe just once couldn’t hurt. One gentle, small ruffling of her hair. Peridot would have to think of a word for it later. She observed intently for the opportunity.
Lapis Lazuli looked remarkably more peaceful sleeping than she did when she was awake. There wasn’t a dragging movement to her shoulders as she breathed, and the muscles in her face were flat and relaxed. It was jarring to see the first time Peridot had seen her sleeping.
Once certain that Lapis was still completely asleep, she gently reached out again, this time to the side of her scalp, just beside where the bridge of her fin sat on her skull. Aha! She was right. Her hair was so soft. Peridot brushed her thumb along one of the rich blue curls, enthralled by how silky it was. It was far softer than her own!
That isn’t even fair! She has so much less of it than I do! She thought bitterly, though her facial expression was more akin to a feline having found a patch of sunny grass. Peridot’s mane was rougher, more resistant to the labors of endless task assignment, more permeable to heat and steam and debris scatter.
What was the intention for this? She wondered, comparing any potential plus to having soft hair to what else she knew about the ex-terraformer. Was this trait something that Lapis Lazuli chose to have, like the pseudo-breathing thing she had picked up from the human children, or was this something built into her design by her Court? Peridot wasn’t sure what Blue Diamond’s aspirations for her Court were; though it seemed likely they were far less focused on pristine efficiency than her own ex-Court. Every blue Gem she had ever seen was decorated in a skirt, which was suited incredibly poorly for technological work.
Maybe Blue Diamond liked to 'breathe' too. Her antennae twitched in perplexment again, the base of them grazing the top of her visor's lens.
Her visor.
Peridot used her other hand to play with the edge of it, leaving the other hand still loosely playing with blue curls.
Her visor lens was tinted yellow. Had she picked that? Was it something that came to her mind when she formed originally? Or had that just been an integral design point chosen for her? The technician hummed, pinching the sharp corner of the lens, the corners of her mouth curling in disdain. She was thoroughly accustomed to the visor of course, even with the lack of connection to her limb enhancers’ screens, but it was not a thing built for comfort. If she pressed down any harder with her touch-stumps it could reasonably slice right through her skin. Efficiency over comfort. Tasks over curiosity. The Authority over her individuality.
She pinched the visor.
A small rivulet of hazy, rust colored froth swelled up from her pointer finger before evaporating back into the lowest atmospheric layer surrounding her new planet. Gems don’t have blood.
In a sudden burst of anger, Peridot whipped the visor off.
Her eyes immediately watered from the sudden shift in ocular focus, and she began swiping at them with her forearm and blinking rapidly. Strange, wobbling block spots danced across her vision as her eyes adjusted to the sudden lack of yellow sheen… and by the luster of the dead seas, everything was so ...colorful.
“Holy smokes,” she breathed, eyes widening at the sights around the barn. The visor made a soft clink as it was discarded to the floorboards.
The wood, now lacking the bright haze of her visor, seemed so rich in tones of beige and brown. The tendrils of tree-age were so much more prominent to her now. She could count them if she wanted to, imperfections and all. Even in the dark, she could see just where the scuffs and scratches of the past marred the walls and floor around her. Had there always been that many, or had some been from them?
Up in the rafters above she could make out chips of long gone paint– or maybe those were just splatters from Lapis’s attempts at what Steven had called “watercoloring”.
So many of their knickknacks, too, had become bolder; brighter. Her paint cans had a distinct metallic shine under the vivid orange paint stripes. Lapis’s favorite leaf was a brilliant tone of burgundy that reminded her of the rich-iron canyons on long-past missions. The baseball bat propped on the wall had a dull chartreuse stain on the end from scraping against the grassy hills she hadn’t even seen before. Light blue ribbon tied around what had once been a tape recorder stuck out in the darkening barn. Her plush green alien almost glowed with its harsh, inorganic green dyed fabric body.
Peridot looked down at her own hand. She, too, was so very, very green.
Wow.
“Per…?” Lapis mumbled, and Peridot snapped out of her colorful reverie.
The technician yanked both of her hands back to her center of gravity, startled from the sudden noise. A distinct imprint of brushing was left in Lapis’s hair where her hand had been just moments before, but she hadn’t appeared to notice.
Had Lapis always been that mesmerizingly blue color?
“Uh… yes?” Peridot strained. Please don’t ask about the hair. Please don’t ask about the hair. Please don’t ask about the hair.
She impatiently waited for a reply, observing her barnmate warily. Perhaps the trees were, in fact, sending vengeance to the great and loveable Peridot through the form of Lapis kicking her out of the truce. Peridot waited. Peridot observed.
Lapis’s eyes looked cloudy; an odd glassy shimmer to her irises glinting in the setting sunshine. There was a pinching confusion in them. She had just barely lifted her head up to look in the direction of her companion, and yet, her deep blue eyes didn’t seem to lock onto her. At all. In fact, she seemed not to be looking directly at much of anything, brows and snout scrunched up into uncomprehending blankness.
“Are you… awake?” Peridot asked quietly, perplexed by the out-of-sorts look on Lapis Lazuli’s face.
The terraformer didn’t respond. She blinked a few times, eyes seeing nothing. After a beat, she settled back down; exhaling loudly in content under the weight of the blankets. Her eyes drifted shut again without losing the cloudy haze in them.
“Guess not?” Peridot said, this time a bit louder with relaxed shoulders. She must just be in the weird part of the sleep cycle.
Pearl had explained sleeping to her once, as they were the only two that didn’t actively partake in the activity. It had been a long and boring night out on a surveillance mission with the others snoozing. Peridot had verbalized her doubt around the behaviors, which sent Pearl into an informational spiral. Apparently, while Gems didn’t have brains, they acted similarly to how humans did when they slept. Sleeping had multiple periods in one cycle. The act of sleeping allowed rest to the physical form and the mental wiring to process all that had been happening during waking hours. Humans needed to sleep for at least a third of each planetary cycle in order to function properly. Too little sleep was detrimental to their health, but as was too much sleep. Longer times spent in a particular sleep stage sometimes resulted in strange side effects, such as sleep-talking, dreams, pseudo-wakefulness–
Peridot flinched when cold enveloped the entire right side of her physical form.
Lapis had shifted again unnoticed while she pondered. With the visor off, her barnmate definitely appeared more blue than before.
And, bizarrely, the barnmate in question was very much contradicting her typical need for personal space by burying her face in Peridot’s collarbone.
Lapis’s hands were tucked up into her own chest protectively, having dropped any unseen grasp on the blankets prior in favor of holding her own palms. Her hair, still locked in the Earth term ‘bed-headed’, even though this was a hammock and not a bed, sprawled across most of her face out of sight. And she was entirely leaning onto Peridot’s physical form.
This close, it was apparent Lapis was a lot smaller than she looked.
Perhaps the visor’s function was to regulate the heat generated by technical Gems, as without its presence, Peridot felt the skin on her face get very, very warm.
“...Lapis?” She whispered. Though, Lapis actually answering her seemed far more embarrassing than this already felt.
Thankfully, once again, her questions went unheard and unanswered. Instead, the extremely blue-colored Gem stretched her limbs against the hammock– and by extension, Peridot, who griped about the sudden movement risking tossing them both out of the thing– before becoming dead weight. On her. A cold arm was now draped across her too, rich blue contrasting against the pastel greens and teals of the topmost blanket.
Lapis was, in no sense of the word, an affectionate Gem. Peridot very much understood why. Life had been rather unkind to the terraformer, especially in the last thousand years or so. Throughout their time at the barn she had only ever seen Lapis give four hugs in total; three to Steven, and one half-hug around the shoulders to Peridot on a particularly positive day for the two. Outside of those outliers, her barnmate preferred to keep her space her own, and that was fine! That was entirely logical for her to want!
But that observed history completely disarmed Peridot’s rationality from Lapis, for lack of a less humiliating Earth word, snuggling on her . Silky-soft curls were pressed against her shoulder and under her jaw, and she could feel Lapis’s fake-breathing through her own nonexistent ribs.
What is someone supposed to do in this situation? Waking her up seemed unfair– and would surely make this event all the more awkward if Lapis realized what she had been doing. Or, the somehow scarier option appearing in her mind, is that Lapis was aware, and Peridot wriggling away would be received as a rejection. Which she guessed it would be in either sense.
Did she want to push her off?
We should wake her, a part of her said, She probably wouldn’t want to do this if she were awake. The blanket’s warmth isn’t as important.
You would be shattered for this.
She looks really peaceful like this, another said, swatting away the Homeworld-drilled panic coiling in her non-existent ribcage, Just leave her be. She trusts you.
You would be shattered for this.
She trusts me.
You should be shattered for this.
Did she want to push her off, really? Or was that what she thought she was supposed to do?
Peridot scratched at the hammock’s itchy fabric. Not Homeworld. Nobody ever slept on Homeworld.
Pearl had said that generally, for someone to get to sleep, they had to feel comfortable and safe. Sleep-state left you vulnerable to the world while you recuperated. Lapis only ever napped in the barn because of that, favoring the corners where she could duck and hide in quiet comfort.
Lapis had fallen asleep mere inches away from her under the truce blankets.
A flicker of pride crawled its way out of the panic and into her head; Lapis really felt safe around her.
Her yellow teeth bared in a grin imagining the look on her old manager’s face if she found out what her least favorite worker bee was doing right this instant. She had scoffed when Peridot was given the Earth assignment. Well, she sure showed her! Peridotite would never have the guts to stand up to a Diamond like she, PERIDOT, did. Peridotite’s flask robonoids were poor quality anyways. Peridot could do much better. Peridot had done much better since finding her new home. That poor chunk of coalesced rock had no idea how terrible her life was, full of menial tasks, pathetic technology, a terrible Diamond, and loneliness. Peridot’s life was great!
Those clods would try to shatter me out of pure jealousy! I, a vital member of the Crystal Gems, am on Earth! Away from them all! Enjoying my life!
That cloddy manager would never have what Peridot had. Serves her right for being a clod.
Lapis made an almost imperceptible humming noise that tickled her shoulder. The skittish Gem trusted her, and the notion made Peridot smile. Yeah. Earth life was nice. She didn’t notice the cold sensation emenating from Lapis much now either. It was a comfy temperature under the blankets. The technician settled further into the hammock– and by extension Lapis– pulling the blankets up without any resistance. It was remarkably easy to balance in the thing when they shared a spot on it.
She lost the mental battle against herself to resist rubbing her face into the unfairly soft blue hair. Maybe Lapis had chosen that trait for herself just to feel nice.
They stayed there for some length of time she couldn’t be bothered to track.
Peridot watched the light change through the small crack in the barn doors. Her right arm was wrapped loosely around her barnmate, carefully avoiding touching her gem. She didn’t mind the weight of Lapis on her. It was comforting. Perhaps she would have to give the ‘sleeping’ thing an experimental trial sometime.
Whatever had been left of the sun-star’s visibility gradually faded, becoming hidden away under the dark skyline. Eventually, the only shine trickling through the slits in the wood came from a dull, moonly glow. Based on how bright that moonlight was, Peridot was certain that the windstorm had whipped away the clouds above. Moonlight was such an incredible silver without her visor on.
It made Peridot’s skin such a lovely earthy green.
It made Lapis such a lovely shade of blue.