Library, Wednesday

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot didn't intend to be late for her library shift today. It was just that Jenkins had assigned a report in his class, sort of, and by the time she was finished writing about the Earth creature that intrigued her the most, half of the day had gone by.

So by the time she was making her way in for her shift, a few of the books she read most regularly were huddled by the door, wondering if something was the matter. She gathered them up as she stepped inside, carried them over to the circ desk, and spent the rest of the day trying to console them. She hadn't forgotten about them! She still cared! They were really very useful books!

[OOC: ... I forgot it was Wednesday. Open!]

Comments

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Awww," said Summer. "That'd almost be cute if it weren't for the fact that they seemed to be trying to kill you every other week."

Yes, she was quirkiness an eyebrow at you, books. But she had a lopsided smile for Peridot. "I'm glad they're being nice, though. How'd you like the tip?"

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot tilted her head in thought at that.

"It was snowy," she shared. "And there were large mountainsides to fall down. I'm still not entirely certain what the appeal is to flinging yourselves downhill at high speeds..."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I think it's an adrenaline thing?" said Summer, shrugging a shoulder. "I don't know, it's probably just something rich people thought up when they were bored one day. It can be kind of interesting if you're really good at it and can do, like, tricks and stuff, too, I'm sure."

There was the slightest of pauses, where Summer shrugged again.

"I was mostly into it for the cool clothes and cute medics."

Ugh. We know, Summer.

[era_two_triangle]

"I didn't get any of those things," Peridot sighed, shaking her head. "Not even the cool clothes. There were boots? I kept those."

... Those were rentals, Peridot.

[somethingwithturquoise]

And Summer side-eyed Peridot just a little, because, she could have bought her own, but somehow, Summer was feeling like that was not the case...

"Either way, I'm glad to be back," she said. "A fancy-ass trip like that was kind of fun at first, but I was kind of...disappointed? That nothing, you know," exciting, "weird happened? Like, you'd think, on a Fandom High trip, like...the woods were infested with actual Yeti. Or the hills were literally alive with the sound of music. But nope. Just skiing. And skiing stuff. Shouldn't I be glad for that? Is it weird that I wish it was weirder?"

[era_two_triangle]

"Well... are you used to weird?" Peridot shrugged and set her romance novel to the side. "When I first arrived here, the island itself was doing the travel. We landed on places like molten planets where the indigenous wildlife wanted to eat us, and I had no frame of reference for how strange it was. It seems to me like this place doesn't know how to find a happy medium."

Between off-the-wall dangerous or so normal it was practically boring.

"Maybe next time there's a school trip, we should go make our own adventure."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"See, now that's the sort of thing I'm used to on a trip," said Summer, who realized how ridiculous it was that she sounded longing about that, but here they were. "Like, this place was definitely cool when we were a part of the Galactic Federation, but now sometimes I wonder if I'd have been better off staying at Harry Herpson."

But she regretted it as soon as she said it. "No, that's not true. The people are much cooler here and the classes are significantly less terrible, even the awful ones. But sometimes I wonder what I'm missing at home. Like, what sort of adventures is my brother getting to go one right now? Like him and Grampa Rick are probably, I don't know, traipsing through Atlantis or some shit right now.

"But I like that," she finished with a grin. "If the next trip is lame and boring, we can make a pact now to go find some way to make it exciting and really weird."

[era_two_triangle]

"Yeah!" Peridot had no idea what Atlantis was, but she was following the general shape of it all. She pursed her lips for a second, and then offered, "We could go back to my reality's version of Earth. There are plenty of old Era One Gem ruins to explore there, or we could go looking for fusion experiments and corrupted Gems."

She leaned in a little, and then said, "Now those are weird."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"What's your reality's version of Earth like, anyway?" Summer asked, trying to picture it, figuring it probably had to be pretty different with how Peridot was always so confused and/or fascinated about everything here, or maybe she just hadn't spent much time there. "And what's a corrupted Gem? How do they, like, get corrupted?"

She was pretty much just picturing Peridot, but with an Evil Goatee or something, which she knew was dumb and couldn't possibly be it (well, it could, maybe), but it was still amusing, shut up.

[era_two_triangle]

"Not very different from this one," Peridot replied with a shrug. "Some of the geography is different, I think our Earth still has some of the scars of the war against the traitors. Uh. Rebels? Against the rebel Gems who protected this place."

There was a giant crater filled with seawater where Russia went. A 'few' scars.

"And a corrupted Gem is like... a monster. They're monsters. Something happened to them at the end of that war, I think, and they've been that way ever since. Big, stupid monsters. I'd never seen anything like it until I came to Earth, though."