starseedling | IC RADIO CONTACT

[That's fine. Take your time, Peridot. Steven would be considering offering her something if she ate food, but she doesn't, so instead he just goes to sit down on the other side of the table, waiting for her to sort things out. He starts grooming the puff of hair on the end of his tail with his claws.

What she ends up saying is very concerning, though.]

Oh no... [He sighs. This isn't really fair to the others at all. It's no good.] What happened? She didn't threaten you, did she?

[She shakes her head.]

Negative. But she did impart some... troubling information to me.

[Peridot levels Steven with a serious look, mouth scrunched up in that trademark tight frown. She looks worried.]

Steven! I need to ask you something. You... You haven't been lying to me, right?! About your identity?!

[Directly asking that probably isn't the best way to go about this if it turns out he IS lying, she realizes, but she's pretty sure that he isn't, and Blue implying that he COULD be is messing with her pretty badly.]

Edited 2017-07-10 22:51 (UTC)

[It's probably not the best way to go about it if he ISN'T lying, either - at least if she wants to spare his feelings. The look of bewildered shock is plain to see as she asks that, and his head spins as he quickly tries to figure out the implications.]

No...? Wait, why? What do you mean?

[If she means what he thinks she means... well. He really assumed they were past this point in their relationship.]

[Peridot folds her arms, and snorts softly. Already, that's more than enough evidence for her. Blue's assertion had rung hollow to begin with, but just hearing Steven deny it clinches it, at least in Peridot's mind. Maybe it's foolish to take him at his word, maybe it isn't... The important thing for right now is that she trusts him a thousand times more than she trusts any stupid Diamond.]

I knew it. I knew you couldn't be lying to me. Stupid clodding Diamonds-- [She's spitting her words, ears angled downwards. Explanations? She's getting there.]

Lapis told me about what happened with the three of you... and then she came to visit me at my trailer, I guess as part of this whole "oh, I'm just trying to be professional" act, introducing herself to all the supervisors...[Peridot's lip is curling with disgust.] Anyway, I made the mistake of trying to talk to her. I figured if she was so dedicated to acting the part for the carnival, maybe she'd respect my authority enough to hear me out if I tried to vouch for you. But, big surprise, that sure didn't work! She's just as bad as Yellow Diamond! She was all, "don't forget Peridot, we are our gems, Rose Quartz has every reason to lie to you and every older gem is capable of shape-shifting, unlike you newer era-twos," and I told her that was stupid-- UUuuuuuuughhHRRHRHHGHHHHHH.

[That tirade ends with her face in her claws while she just lets out the most prolonged, agitated groan that she's probably done since the last time she tried to talk to a Diamond.]

[Steven feels bad about how much this seems to be stressing Peridot out, his initial feeling of insecurity fading as he perceives how she's approaching all of this. He's angry that Blue Diamond is making Lapis and Peridot feel this way, more than anything else. Yet, its hard to imagine how to do anything about it without making it all worse.]

... I never did have any reason to lie to you.

[It's just thoughtful, rather than any real attempt to argue the subject. It's just something he wants to say.]

You were... one of the only gems I ever met, who didn't see my mom before you saw me.

[Peridot cautiously lifts her face from her hands.]

I mean... when I first met you, all I saw was a particularly obnoxious alien life-form who was for some reason determined to destroy every last piece of my equipment, but. Yeah. Sure.

[Just being honest here.]

Edited 2017-07-11 13:35 (UTC)

[Steven manages to grin a little.]

Yeah, but I actually did sort of do that, so... you were pretty much right! Those robonoids were really scary! A bunch of them almost killed me, once.

[He'd much rather be resented for stuff he actually did than stuff his mom did.]

Wait-- What? They were weaponless repair drones, how in the stars did they almost kill you?

[They're getting super off-topic but, Peridot can't let that go uninvestigated.]

Edited 2017-07-11 14:42 (UTC)

[Whatever, it's not like the topic is probably going anywhere constructive, anyways. Steven pauses to reflect on the event, for the first time in a while. It seems like forever ago.]

Uh... one of them crashed into my house, and I was kind of wrestling with it? But then it tried to go onto the warp pad, and I jumped on it, so we both got warped - and then there were a whole bunch of them in there, and they pushed me out of the warp tunnel into the freezing void in between!

[It was scary and he totally cried!]

Garnet found me before I froze to death and suffocated, though.

[She just stares at him in bewilderment for a long moment. Imagining anyone wrestling with a robonoid is... Hm.]

...Wwwow. I didn't even think they were capable of such coordinated attack measures.

[She's not sure if she should be impressed or what.]

Anyway! This is all utterly irrelevant to the real reason why I'm here right now! I asked you whether you were lying because Blue Diamond told me something kind of... Disturbing.

Edited 2017-07-11 15:58 (UTC)

[His more relaxed expression dims with a grown at that - ah, yes. The topic more disturbing than the casual discussion of his brushes with death: Blue Diamond. What on earth could she had said to make Peridot so upset, though?]

...What did she say?

She sighs and wraps her arms around her chest, glancing away.

...It was when I was trying to prove that you're a hybrid. I wanted to tell her about your immunity to the destabilizer weapon-- which is a weapon that no true gem should be capable of resisting. But as soon as I started to explain, she cut me off and told me that any testimony I wanted to give wouldn't matter because...

[She pauses to growl with frustration. It just really doesn't make sense, no matter what way she she tries to slice it, but...]

Because you had already willingly returned to Homeworld with one of her Aquamarines. And that you were on trial there, and that you confessed in front of the Diamond Authority to being Rose Quartz, and to shattering Pink Diamond.

... I never did that.

[Except, he always knows why it doesn't make any sense to him. It's probably because it's something that's going to happen in the future - and that Blue Diamond must have arrived from a time after he left. That means that almost anything could have happened - it could be a trick on their part. It could just be Blue Diamond misunderstanding something. It could be that he actually did turn himself in, and lie about his identity.

But, he doesn't know. That uncertainty is momentarily dizzying.]

Not... not before I came here, anyway. [He looks up at Peridot, searching.] It's like... how time travel's weird, between here and home. Maybe Blue Diamond saw something we haven't even done yet?

[Peridot sits up a little straighter. She's looking agitated again, not at Steven, but just in general.]

Yes! That was my precise theory as well. It's the only feasible explanation, I mean, you would have told me if something like that happened. But that still leaves us with the big, big problem of why? Why in the cosmos would you ever do something like that?

[The look she ends that thought on is one aimed directly at him, pleading for some kind of explanation.]

[It's not really a fun thing to think about, and that shows on his face. It's really just been a matter of time until something brought them against Homeworld again, isn't it? Especially considering...]

I... I kind of told Eyeball that I was Rose Quartz? But that was just because we were probably dying in space and I guess I wanted to try to make happy... but then she just tried to stab me and stuff.

[He crosses his arms, frowning.]

Maybe... I didn't have a choice?

...That... I don't really want to think about the implications for Earth, if that theory turns out to be correct.

[She kind of sinks onto the table, one hand in her hair.]

It's bad enough that Blue Diamond is here at all, but I really don't like the fact that she's apparently so far ahead of us in the time-stream. It puts us at a significant disadvantage for combating her.

Edited 2017-07-12 01:49 (UTC)

I don't like it either... I didn't even realize she'd seen me before. She didn't act like she had! But I guess Lapis told her I was here first, so I didn't really see her first impression or anything...

[It's not like she's very easy to read, he guesses.]

But what are we supposed to do? I feel like I need to... stop her? But she isn't even doing anything!

Like I told Lapis, I think our best bet is to use her own weapon against her. Figuratively speaking, of course.

[Steven gapes.]

She has a weapon?!

What-- NO! Figuratively, I said FIGURATIVELY! You know-- [She flaps one hand.] Like a metaphor!

[AKA those things that she's kind of terrible at detecting in most other circumstances.]

Oh! A metaphor!

[Okay, he knows what a metaphor is. That totally makes sense. He puts a hand on his chin and nods, like he is totally on the same page as her now.]

I see! But, um... what is her... figurative weapon, then?

The Ringmaster, obviously. She's using her deal with the Ringmaster to put us at a disadvantage and get something that she wants, so it follows that one or more of us could sign a new contract to do the same thing.

Oh... right.

[That gives Steven a great deal of pause. He'd been considering the same thing, ever since talking to Blue Diamond... he hadn't even considered asking for something of that magnitude. Probably because usually bringing people back from the dead like that doesn't seem possible. Maybe gems work by different rules, though?

There's so much that he could ask for, though. Couldn't he ask for Earth's protection from Homeworld? Or something that would allow him to heal the corrupted gems? There are so many things. The idea of staying here only one year seems impossible, sometimes.]

There are so many things we could ask for... [He sounds more subdued now, like the concept makes him uncomfortable.]

There's just so much that still needs to be fixed, and it doesn't feel like I can do anything about it, back home. If Pink Diamond really came back... would it really be that bad? It's been so...

[It's caused so much pain.]

[Peridot frowns at him.]

I'm not saying we undo that. [Muttering:] Mostly because I don't think the Ringmaster would allow us to counteract another person's contract by having her do the exact opposite. We wish for something to prove your innocence, or make it so that the Diamonds all collectively forget about Earth. Something like that!

That second one sounds nice, actually.

[Steven frowns, looking contemplative as he stares off at the floor.]

Even if it means having to work here longer...

[Which he's sort of uncomfortable about, at the moment. A year is still a long time for him.]

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periphrasing - 2017-07-17 04:28 (UTC) - Expand