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

[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.