Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

[omgnochecksyet]

Sure, someone could question just how all that ice cream was staying cold and not-melty without any immediately apparent means of refrigeration?

But really, of all the should-be-impossible things Fandom makes possible on a near-daily basis, this one at least was fairly benign. And delicious. So shh, don't question it, just enjoy it.

[OCD Up! This is the picnic post for general mingling. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

Comments

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"It is!" Okay, consider 'Dot impressed. She was perking up a little bit, in fact. "Peridot, that's what I am!"

It wasn't often she didn't have to spell that one out.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"You're a talking peridot."

She was a little dumbfounded. But the Focus was telling her the exact same thing the Gem it-- herself? Themself? --was telling her. So that statement was half-incredulous, half-statement of a fact.

"This is definitely a first for me," she settled on.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"You should have seen how weird it was for me the first time I realized that it's possible for organic life to also be intelligent life," Peridot replied. "It... took a little bit of convincing."

It had been a hard sell. The first organic being she'd ever encountered was Steven.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy snorted softly. "I can't blame you," she said. "It so rarely is."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot actually laughed a little at that. It wasn't often she heard a human say something like that about their own kind; it was always kind of weirdly refreshing. Nothing like the Gems of Homeworld that she'd spent most of her life around.

So she held a hand up to the human in that handshake gesture she'd been taught since arriving here.

"I'm Peridot. I mean, I'm called Peridot, on top of being one. That's my name."

Part of it, anyway. People mostly ignored her Facet and Cut around here, so there seemed little point introducing herself with it anymore.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

Being an outcast since birth for no good reason didn't do much to make a girl feel loyal to her kind. Or even her species. Or her subgroup.

She clasped Peridot's lower arm for a quick shake - people were fond of that here, weren't they? "You're a peridot named Peridot," she echoed. "At least that's easy to remember. I'm Aloy."

And since no one here had pointed out yet that she was clearly a Nora, she didn't feel a particular desire to bring it up, either.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot blinked, and then grinned a bit.

"Like 'alloy?' That'll be easy for me to remember." Some Gems were technically metals, too. Things got a little weird on Homeworld like that. "So, what brings you to Fandom, Aloy?"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"I fell into a cave in the Metal World and touched the wrong arch," Aloy said dryly. "And then I was here."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

See, coming from a Metal World wasn't hurting that 'alloy' naming convention any, either.

"Ooooh," Peridot replied, blinking. "You're one of the ones who didn't mean to end up here! Me too!"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

Look, the Nora were kind of big on theme naming. She did have a mentor called Rost, and all.

"... Does that happen a lot?" Aloy asked.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"At least a few people every semester," Peridot agreed with a nod of her head. "And just as many who came here on purpose, but who had no idea what they were in for when they arrived."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"And what am I in for?" Aloy asked, raising an eyebrow. "No one's been completely clear on that so far."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"It's all kind of relative, depending on what you're used to," Peridot explained, shrugging her shoulders a little bit. "For me it was a planet that was completely strange to me, surrounded by a sentient species that I still find strange. Some people are more concerned about the weather - it sometimes throws things like sharks around - or the fact that the entire island is some sort of inter-dimensional waypoint that pulls in people from different realities across the multiverse."

Pick one!

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"Uh huh," Aloy said, a thoughtful noise about halfway into Peridot's spiel. "Different worlds, Gratuity told me that. But how does it work? Is there a machine somewhere? Can I use it to go back?"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"There are portals," Peridot offered. "A business in town offers them, but there's no guarantee they'll be able to connect back to where you came from. Worth a try, but when people end up here without any warning, there seems to be a disturbingly high amount of difficulty in fonding their way back."

At least at first. The island tended to ease off once people decided to stay, go figure.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"Portals," Aloy echoed. "Like the arch-- no, the gate. The gate I saw."

Touched and then walked through like a stubborn unguided projectile of curiosity, yes.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"If it brought you here from another place, then probably," Peridot agreed. "They aren't quite are elegant as the warps from home, but they get the job done all the same."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"You have gates like that?" Aloy asked, perking up. "Tell me."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"From Homeworld?" Peridot smiled a bit. "We had warp pads set up anywhere in the universe that we'd ever been. You could step onto the pad, and..." She waggled her fingers around a bit. "Woosh, they'd take you to any one of a number of destinations. Earth used to have a bunch, at least in my reality, but they... they've seen better days."

And Earth was better off for it, too.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"Do you know how they're made?" Aloy asked.

Not that she was, you know. Inclined to tinker like a maniac, or anything.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"I can repair them when they're broken, but I need my flask robonoids for that," Peridot mused, maybe a touch apologetically. "Otherwise, they were slightly outside of my area of expertise. I'm a kindergartener. The warp pads weren't what I was made for."

Which she had thought was very unfortunate back when she was first stranded on the planet.

"However, I'm mostly certain that it wouldn't be possible to create one from scratch within the lifespan of the average human. Not without the right instruments from Homeworld. They're primarily made of crystal."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy shrugged. "You'd be surprised what you can do if you scavenge the right machine parts," she said.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"Scavenging is pretty much all I can do around here," Peridot mused. "I suppose that has to count for something, though I'm not in any hurry to get back to Homeworld now."

She tilted her head a little.

"But I suppose I have plenty of time if I ever do decide I want to build a warp pad."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[not_of_the_nora]

"I'd rather get home than to your Homeworld," Aloy said wryly. "But something like that... it's got to be possible to reverse-engineer that... hm."

Maybe if she found another portal frame...

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2017]

[era_two_triangle]

"Well... I could probably take you to see a warp pad," Peridot offered. "Most of the ones around Earth are in ruins, but there has to be one or two you can look at. The catch is that they'll only work if there's something they can connect to on the other side."