I Don't Have Time For This!

Okay. Peridot was packed. She'd delivered the robonoid that Kaidan had requested to the C.I.C. so that he could do... whatever with it. She hadn't actually thought to ask. And, since she had no idea when she was going to be back, or if she would even manage it within a human lifetime, she had one more stop to make.

Peridot made her way to Jason's dorm room door, a plastic grocery bag containing a weird, lumpy object in hand. There was a ribbon tied around it.

Occasionally, the object in the bag said, in a recording of Peridot's own voice, "Quack."

She looked down at it for a moment. And then she knocked on the door.

[OOC: For one!]

Peridot was a Gem on a mission.

Not even the mission where she had to rub the rock-licking thing in Jason's face because it was a totally normal thing for geologists to do. That mission, she was going to save for later.

No, no, her mission today was to smuggle something into Jaylah's room. Something big. Something beautiful. Something distinctly fishy and prone to singing happy songs about being put back into the water or not worrying or whatever. Not that she was being terribly secretive about it, what with the way it was tucked unceremoniously under one armpit, her tool kit sitting on the floor beside her as she thumped on Jaylah's door with one little green fist.

"Jaylah! Hey, Jaylah! Open up!"

Yeah, this wasn't going to end in disaster at all.

[OOC: For she of the shouting and beats!]

Time since Peridot's adventure in the Beta Kindergarten had passed by fairly uneventfully. She had Lapis had taken to bonding over episodes of Camp Pining Hearts, and when they weren't doing that (or making more meep morps), they were experimenting in farming. And tonight, Steven was coming over for a sleepover, which was the perfect time to show off their agricultural pursuits.

Steven arrived while Peridot was hard at work... mostly just driving around.

"Steven! I'm on a tractor!"

Peridot liked tractors. It was Paris' fault.

( Length and Spoilers! )

[OOC: Last of the canon, for now! Taken from Gem Harvest, or the first five minutes or so of it. I'm not writing out the awkward Thanksgiving dinner with the bigoted uncle, you'll have to watch the episode yourself for that.]

It was supposed to just be a quick visit.

( Cut For Length and Steven Universe Spoilers! )

[OOC: Little bit of canon catchup time! Just a little bit, though. This post was taken from the Steven Universe episodes Beta and Earthlings. There will be more to come, mostly as I get brain to scrape together posts. Two more days of work-crazy, and then I can sleep for a week... NFB for distance, but open if anybody wants to give 'Dot a phone call or something!]

It had all started with the Crystal Gems taking a break. A break! In building the drill! To save the planet! The work was so tantalizingly close to being done that Peridot had complained to Steven, vehemently. It had involved waving a little power drill in the air for emphasis. Which had, as most things around here seemed to do, inspired Steven to sing.

The difference is, this time, Peridot made an effort to understand why. And the whole thing had culminated in all four Crystal Gems sitting with their backs to the barn as Peridot showed off her take on the 'singing' that Steven had introduced her to.

"I guess we're already here,
I guess we already know.
We've all got something to fear,
We've all got nowhere to go.
I think you're all INSANE!
But I guess I am too...
Anybody would be
If they were stuck on Earth with you."

That one got a little grin from the trio of gems who were watching, and a cheer of triumph from Steven. None of them really noticed the portal that opened up nearby while Peridot was singing.

( Incoming Fandomites, Boop Boop )

[OOC: MORE CANON... more or less. Getting into the It Could Have Been Great chunks of canon, and will be pushing all the way through to Gem Drill as we go. Preplayed with the fantabulous sith_happened, studyingfear, intotheout, and kenselvren, and there is plenty more to come, which will get dumped into the comments as I code it or liveplayed in here. After work. La.]

There was a light. A bright one, and out of it grew something that, if briefly, resembled a doll growing out of a green, triangular gemstone.

Peridot's feet planted squarely on the floor, her arm raised, her hand in a fist.

"--the Cluster, you insufferable half-formed traitor mega-clods!!"

( Wait. )

[THE CANONING CONTINUES. This time pulling from Steven Universe episodes 'Catch and Release' and 'When it Rains.' Those familiar with canon can probably tell when my hand started to feel like it was burning, but eh, whaddaya do. NFI for distance!]

Peridot's brilliant 'get back to Homeworld before the traitors or the Cluster kill me' plan wasn't going so well. She hadn't gotten any reply at all from the distress signal that she'd sent out, and by the time she'd returned to the Communication Hub to see what had gone wrong... it had been demolished. Smashed to rubble and beyond repair.

Now she was at the Galaxy Warp, trying to fix the shattered warp pads. All she needed was one that would get her off of this planet. It could go anywhere that the Gems had ever been to, and she'd take it!

( Stupid broken warp... )

[OOC: The CANONING continues! This post has been brought to you by the Steven Universe episode, "Friend Ship." NFI establishy goodness!]

"Log Date, 6-4-2. The island that my escape pod landed on continues to travel from world to world, and Homeworld remains out of sight. As long as the fragment of Earth that I'm trapped on continues to land on planets that aren't Earth, I should have plenty of time to try to locate a Homeworld warp, or at least some means of communicating with somebody back on Homeworld. In the meantime, my efforts to piece together a rudimentary understanding of Fandom Island's local human population remain ongoing. The Gratuity has been helpful in assisting me with finding materials for better understanding the local written language, and the Rufus explained to me the concept of human aging. I find the process to be... disturbing on multiple levels, though his explanations do fall in line with my admittedly limited understanding of human bodily operations."

She frowned thoughtfully, walking back and forth a few times with a heavy 'clank clank clank' every time her feet fell while she waited for her screen to stop glitching on her. When it stabilized again, she continued her recording.

"There are... flaws... in the human design that make me wonder how they continue to persist as a species. But my recent expedition into the local settlement of 'Knothole' reaffirms that those flaws are consistent to most organic life." She wrinkled her nose. "The local species here do differentiate themselves from the island's human population in that they immediately recognized me as non-organic, and their immediate hostility toward me when I confirmed their observations leads me to hypothesize that this planet, Mobius, must have had interactions with Gems before."

Or something something... robots. Peridot frowned and paused in her recording to tap experimentally at a crack on her visor. She'd missed a lot of what the local organic beings had been saying as the blue one spun at her in a way she'd only ever seen certain varieties of Quartz do before. Much of it had sounded mocking and jubilant, but none of it had seemed terribly inviting.

"Make a note to learn what a robot is. In the meantime, I have no intentions of visiting Knothole again. There's a largely non-organic city on the horizon that looks far more inviting, anyway. Peridot, Cut-5."

And then she closed her screen and started stalking back toward the island.

She hated this mission.

[OOC: Open! Feel free to bump into the grumpy Gem as she stalks back to Fandom from her short-lived visit to Knothole!]