fandomhigh | Library, Wednesday

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Library, Wednesday

It seemed to be raining in the children's section today. Not just a little rain, either. The library could probably handle a bit of drizzle now and again. Maybe?

Still, no, it was something more of a torrential downpour. There was a lake in the children's section. A deep one. Peridot was sure the books would be fine-- the library wouldn't damage itself, would it? But she still had to take a moment's pause when a honey pot floated by, with the bottom end of a yellow bear sticking out from the top of it.

"Oh, bother," the bear said, and then he floated around a corner and out of sight again.

Peridot stood there on the dry floor near the periodicals for a moment before going to fetch a 'Caution: Wet Floor' sign. What else could she do?

[OOC: Open!]

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Not having much to do today (especially after having so much to do in China), Summer realized she hadn't made a library visit on a Wednesday in a while, and decided to head down, since she hadn't had a lot of time to see what Peridot thought about the trip.

"Yo, Peridot!" she started with her usual call as she stepped in, "where you a--"

And stopped there a moment to gawk at the sign and the water seeping out from the kid's section, and then her eyes followed the path of dry land.

"So....not a boring library day today, huh?"

"When is it ever a boring day at the library? There was a rabbit on waterskis an hour ago," said Peridot, who had only just learned what rabbits and waterskis were about an hour ago. She squinted toward the water again from where she was perched over at the returns desk. "And gremlins wearing tubes around their waists. I'm not sure what that was about."

It was about not drowning, 'Dot. Many organic beings had to worry about that.

"There have been plenty of boring days here," Summer countered, and then remembered that Peridot could spend her day with her nose stuck in a book and not be totally bored, so she amended the statement. "Well, uneventful ones, anyway. I know; I report on them, I've even come in on some where the books behaved, so..."

Her head tilted slightly. "This isn't because of the books, is it? Someone didn't leave Aquaboat Up open overnight or something, did they?" That seemed like a thing that could happen. Her eyes danced upwards. "Is there a pipe broken somewhere?"

"I looked," Peridot replied, frowning a little. "I'm pretty certain it's just... rain."

It was still falling, even. From not-quite-the-ceiling. There was a little raincloud floating around over there.

Peridot had no clue where it had come from. But it wasn't like she understood weather well enough to be able to say for certain that an indoor raincloud was strange.

And Summer just had to take another moment to stare.

"That can't be good for the books, can it?" she asked.

Peridot shrugged and looked back toward the books. A few of them were actually surfing.

"They don't seem to mind."

This library was weird.

And Summer just shook her head. "I think," she said, "things were, like, way too normal before we left for China. And then we go to China, and we're gone, and it's almost like this place remembered, oh, yeah, let's do some goofy shit, because there has been a lot of it this morning...Like, on my way here? There was, like, this giant hole in the hallway, like, what the hell? And I didn't even notice it, I guess because I was texting, but I got halfway over it, so I'm just standing there, suspended above some rando hole in the hallway, and I swear, the moment I realized it...bam! Fell right into it. I'm totally fine, it didn't even hurt, but the hole was gone, like, two seconds later."

Peridot tilted her head a little at that, considering Summer, and then looking toward the book flood.

"I'm still not great for figuring out what is and isn't normal for this planet," she confessed. "But I'm fairly certain gravity doesn't work like that."

Sure, she'd had a sort of loose relationship with gravity back when she'd had her limb enhancers. But that was different. That was technology.

Edited 2018-03-14 19:22 (UTC)

"Yeah," said Summer, "this place is worth balls if you want to know how things normally work, but it usually get gravity right."

She shook her head a little.

"Anyway, I didn't really come here to talk about. I didn't get a chance to talk to you, like, at all on the trip. How did you like it?"

If Peridot was perched on the periodical desk, Summer was going to go ahead and hop up to sit on a table. Where she was standing was fine, but she wasn't going to get her feet wet if it started creeping and it was more comfortable anyway. Unless Peridot gave her a disapproving look, then she'd hop right back down.

In a library like this? Peridot didn't much care who sat where, really. She tilted her head a little, and then shrugged her shoulders.

"There was a big wall," she offered. "Homeworld has bigger."

Peridot was not easy to impress, apparently. "I did like the cave we visited near the end. The lighting was most impressive."

Food wasn't exactly a draw for this one, no.

Summer's shoulders sunk a little to think that Peridot might not have been nearly as impressed as she was, but she could understand, to a degree. But she better have her mind blown the fuck away if she were to ever see Peridot's Homeworld with a lukewarm reaction like that.

"Bigger as in taller? Because that doesn't seem that difficult, but bigger as in longer? Thing's pretty long..."

Summer's brains might end up blown the fuck away, but it would unfortunately be in a very literal sense. Homeworld wasn't exactly welcoming to organic life.

"We have roads that span the entire diameter of Homeworld," Peridot replied with a shrug. "Towers that reach well above the atmosphere. Spires made of crystal and warp pads that can transport Gems clear across an intergalactic empire built in its image."

It wasn't really bragging, no. She could never go back, herself. Maybe there was actually a bit of homesickness in there, though.

"Yeah, okay," Summer acquiesced after a long moment of what looked like a few false starts for arguments, "I guess that makes sense why you might be a little meh about the whole thing, but, hey, take it into a little context. You know how primitive our technology is now? Well, that was was built, like, a billion years ago, when our technology was a billion times worse, so, I mean, in context, it's not bad for a bunch of primitive nosepickers like us."

She did kind of wonder why she felt the need to defend humans so much all of a sudden, but, then again, for the most part, outside of this place, most of the aliens she met were kind of dicks, even if they had pretty sweet technology.

But humans were pretty much all dicks, too.

There was a long pause while Peridot processed that.

"They built it with their hands?"

Okay, she could acknowledge that it was at least slightly impressive, then.

"What about their mineral army?"

"What, those terracota warriors?" Summer asked, head tilting. "Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they had some tools and stuff, like maybe some hammers and picks and that goopy stuff people use when they build walls, but I'm pretty sure it was all pretty simple stuff. Pulleys and ramps and stuff, but, oh man, if you haven't, you should probably see the pyramids, too. I haven't seen 'em myself, but I bet they're even more impressive than that big wall, and...I...think done even before the wall? I don't know, history hasn't always been my strong point.

"What did you guys build all that stuff with if not your hands?"

Pyramids? Peridot tilted her head thoughtfully, making a note of that.

"We've got technology that can take us from one galaxy to the next in a matter of hours," she replied. "Tractor beams, that sort of thing. When I still had my limb enhancers, I could lift entire piles of boulders without having to touch them."

She gave a wistful little sigh.

"I miss my limb enhancers."

She could have face-to-face conversations with people when she was wearing them.

Summer frowned, a sympathetic look toward Peridot, because while she might not know exactly what she was talking about (like it was even that hard to guess!), she could tell it was a bummer.

"Man," she said, "if my grampa wasn't such a total ass, I think you'd like to meet him. But why can't you just make your own limb enhancers?"

The idea that there was something Peridot couldn't make was just...weird to Summer.

"Well, first," Peridot sighed, "I would have to make the tools. And then there's a matter of raw materials. You know Earth has a completely different mineral composition than Homeworld?"

She paused, looked thoughtful, and then clarified, "At least Fandom does. It's complicated."

She paused a moment more, and then added, "He's an ass?"

This was creating some very vivid mental images, which were helpfully being displayed for all to see in an actual, physical manifestation of a thought bubble.

"Wha--"

For all the things Summer had experienced, actual physical thought bubbles was definitely new, and if that was a thing that was happening today, she was going to have to make it a point to avoid some people or else she'd wind up having to go die somewhere from embarrassment.

"Er." Feeling a little cloud of thought start to bubble from her own head, she shook her head fiercely to chase it away (an action that seemed to provide a little squeaky noise like someone erasing something from a chalkboard) and altered her focus.

"No, not like an actual ass," she corrected herself, "but a metaphorical one. In the way that humans sometimes use the word ass to mean someone who's a jerk. He's not very nice. Completely brilliant and absolutely amazing in a lot of the things he does, but he can come off really heartless and cruel. I mean, I know he only does it because he's actually really afraid to let people into his life because he feels he just ends up hurting them and he can't handle the guilt, so he drives people away by acting like he doesn't care, but that's a whole 'nother story."

She bit her lip, looking at Peridot thoughtfully, and it was like her forehead went translucent for a moment to show supposed gears grinding away inside her skull.

"I wonder if he could get any of those materials for you. I mean, I'm sure they're pretty unique to Homeworld, but at the same time, he's got access to endless dimensions and planets..."

The real hard part would probably be just convincing him to help.

Peridot really didn't want to get her hopes up. Not even the distraction of Summer's see-through head was enough to save her from that particular hope, though.

"I... I could make a list," she offered, tentatively. "And if he can find those things, great, and if not, I can figure something else out..."

Like stilts made from paint cans. Those were... functional.

"It doesn't hurt to try, right?" Summer offered, though, honestly, she would have to do some major heavy lifting to get Rick to even consider it. However, she also knew that he had a threshold, and she knew quite a few ways on how to push him past that threshold by now. "Besides, I owe you still for those phone upgrades. And maybe it might not be exactly what you're looking for, but he might know of something that could still work similarly."

Peridot's eyes widened a bit at that.

"New materials? If he can't get me the same thing, I'd be thrilled to get my hands on things that Gems haven't had any experience with, yet."

Because she was a teeny tiny nerd.

Ohmygod, it was great when Peridot got all teeny tiny nerdy like that.

"You get me that list," Summer said. "I'll see what I can do."

"I can do that," Peridot chirped, jumping off the desk to go and get a piece of paper and a pen.

... And landing knee-deep in water.

"Right."

Hey, at least knee-high on Peridot wasn't really actually that deep?

Summer winced a little, biting her lip so she didn't laugh.

"Want me to run grab some towels for you for the rest of your shift?" she offered.

"That won't be necessary," Peridot sighed, making her way to the next desk over and hopping (or, well, scrambling) up to get the pen and paper. "I'll dry off quickly enough."

It wasn't as though she was wearing clothes, after all.

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Library, Wednesday

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