Library, Wednesday

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot was absolutely hard at work today, really.

Honest. She had been. Until, in re-shelving books, she stumbled across some kind of fantasy romance piece about a matriarchal society with a strong affinity for gemstones, and...

She came from one of those, okay? She had to investigate. And investigating quickly turned into settling in and reading, and when she was finished with one book, she realized it was a series, and...

If anyone needed the Gem, she was buried under ridiculous novels.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[glacial_queen]

"I'm afraid not," Karla said, apologetically. "It's an ability that I have because I am Blood and have Craft--a kind of magic that only my people can access."

She raised her hand reflexively to the Ebon-gray Jewel hanging around her neck.

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot watched Karla's hand move to the gem she was wearing, and she squinted at it a little. She... couldn't quite identify that one. Which was odd. Usually she had some idea...

"Most of my people have a similar ability," she sighed. "They tend to only use it for storing their weapons, though."

Guess who also didn't have a weapon.

[glacial_queen]

Almost like it wasn't a rock at all!

"May I ask about your people? Who are they? You're not human--not even organic, it looks like," Karla asked, all curiosity. "Are their aetherspaces very small, then?"

You know who had an awesome pocket dimension. ROSE QUARTZ WAS WHO.

[era_two_triangle]

Sure she did! But it was a hairy ordeal getting access to it. Particularly for whoever wound up as the doorway.

"My people are Gems," Peridot replied, tilting her head at Karla in thought. "For the most part, we aren't from Earth, though of course there are a few exceptions."

Mostly Quartzes.

"I... don't know how to quantify 'small,' really," she added. "I mean, it's a very relative term."

[glacial_queen]

"Gems, huh?" Karla asked, reaching for her Jewel again. "Are any of you Sapphires? Or maybe Tiger's Eye?"

Blood humor. Sorry, Peridot.

"I see your point about small," she added. "Can they hold more than just weapons? Or are they big enough for a weapon or two and that's it?"

[era_two_triangle]

"Some are," Peridot replied with a shrug, because she hardly understood human humor. Blood humor was just a step above and beyond, still. "And... I think it depends on the Gem."

She fidgeted a little.

"I can't do it."

Well. As far as she was aware, she couldn't do it. She'd been surprised once before.

[glacial_queen]

"Oh!" Karla said, looking chagrined. "I'm sorry. Is it a thing only certain people--Gems--can do?"

[era_two_triangle]

"All of the older Gems can do it," Peridot sighed. "And I've been told ever since I was made that I couldn't, that my generation of Peridots was made inferior to the ones that came before, but I was told a lot of things that I'm beginning to question."

[glacial_queen]

"'Different' is not the same as 'inferior'," Karla said, frowning mightily at that. "You're Peridot? Or, rather, a Peridot?" Since she'd just said 'generations' of those. "Did you get the Jewel--I'm sorry, your Gem--" she nodded at the stone in Peridot's forehead "--because you're a Peridot, or are you a Peridot because of your J--Gem?"

[era_two_triangle]

"I am the Gem," Peridot replied, chewing on the inside of her cheek and trying not to think too hard about that 'different' and 'inferior' thing. "This, my body?" She gestured up and down at herself. "It's a hard light projection from it. Solid and functional and mostly here so that I can actually interact with my surroundings."

It would be difficult for Gems to perform a hostile takeover of the universe without bodies.

[glacial_queen]

"Ahh, I see!" Karla said, nodding. "So even if your body were to no longer exist, so long as your gem was okay, you'd be fine? Because this is just the form you pilot around."

Again, her hand found her Jewel and squeezed it. There was a sharp delineation between what was Karla and what was the Jewel, and yet...

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot nodded, wide-eyed.

"Not many humans understand that so quickly," she confided. "My body can take plenty of damage. If it gets too bad, I just retreat into my Gem until I can form a new one."

She paused, and then added, "But any damage to my Gem would be..."

She shuddered.

[glacial_queen]

"Among my people, we have a concept that is similar enough that I can get it," Karla explained. "If my physical body sustained enough damage to kill it, but I still had enough psychic strength, I wouldn't die, exactly. My autonomic functions would cease and my body would be physically dead, but I would be able to continue to use it. I would be what the Blood call 'demon-dead.'"

[era_two_triangle]

The corner of Peridot's mouth twitched a little.

"You can keep using yours? Lucky." She waved a little toward the Gem on her forehead. "We don't die. If we're shattered, our consciousness lives on, in the shards, unable to form a body. Just... stuck, in pieces, forever."

There were few fates worse than being shattered.