fandomhigh | Earth Zoology, Wednesday

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Earth Zoology, Wednesday

"Welcome back, class!" Jenkins greeted, pulling on an enormous, old fashioned fur coat. "I do hope you've dressed warmly today — those of you affected by cold, anyway — and not just because of the nor'easter we're getting. If you don't have any sub-zero rated clothing and would like some, I have a few extra coats and boots. I'd advise you to don them now, as our portal is due to arrive at any moment."

The portal, in fact, obliged by appearing shortly before he finished his sentence. Jenkins clapped his gloved hands together.

"There we are! Hoods up, please. Let us go, then, and meet some of the wildlife of the arctic." He waved the class through, once they seemed to be appropriately dressed for the weather, and they all stepped out onto a snow-and-ice covered field surrounded by craggy, towering mountains, and cut through by a dark, icy waterway. "Stay close, students! You don't want to end up lost or under water here. Welcome to Auyuittuq National Park, in Nunavut, Canada. As you may already know, yesterday was the vernal equinox here in the northern hemisphere of planet Earth — that is the day on which the sun is up as long as it is down. Which makes today the first day in six months that there will be more daylight than darkness, even here near the very ends of the earth. Eventually — in just a few weeks, in fact — the sun will rise on this land and not set completely again until September, though it will remain at such an angle that the temperatures in this area will never get much warmer than it's been most of the winter in Fandom. As you can see, it's quite a beautiful, if barren place, with very little by way of vegetation. And yet, if we're lucky, we can still find animal life. In fact, that's your assignment for today." Apparently someone had clued Jenkins in that modern schooling tended to include assignments as well as lectures. He pulled a couple curled pieces of paper from his coat pocket and passed them out. "Find as many of the creatures on this list as you can. Please be careful and stay within sight of myself and the portal at all times. If you get lost, the rest of us will leave without you."

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Peridot stepped through the portal, and directly into a snow drift that went right up to her armpits.

... It was going to be one of those days, was it?

"Do you require assistance, Ms. Peridot?"

"No," Peridot replied immediately. And then she writhed around a bit. Tried to plant her hands on top of the snow to pull herself out, but they simply broke through the crust at the top of it, leaving her buried up to her shoulders instead. "Maybe."

She glanced around. Maybe in this one situation, she could ignore her pride a little.

"Yes."

Jenkins lifted her up carefully by her upper arms and carried her a short distance away to a rock sticking up above the snow line.

"I hope that will do until we can work out where to get you some Peridot-sized snow shoes."

Peridot reached down to dust some snow off of herself as soon as she was settled, before glancing at Jenkins curiously.

"Snow shoes?"

She was absolutely picturing shoes made out of snow, yes.

"Lightweight contraptions, forming a sort of broad net under your feet," Jenkins explained. "They distribute your weight so that you don't sink into the snow but can walk on top of it."

"Ohhh," Peridot replied, looking intrigued. "Yes, I'm definitely going to need some of those."

Her limb enhancers would have been useful here, but without them, why not see what workarounds humanity had come up with instead?

Edited 2018-03-21 18:20 (UTC)

"They're generally made of wood, I believe," Jenkins said, looking around the field. ". . . Not that there's much of that around here."

Peridot glanced around as well.

"No, I suppose there isn't," she allowed. She looked down at her little socky feet. "I suppose I could simply attempt to find places with shallower precipitate."

Good luck telling that at a glance, 'Dot.

"Or with taller rocks."

"Or those," Peridot agreed, and then attempted to jump over to the next stone.

Apparently this was also Peridot's first encounter with icy rocks, because she slipped, and was now falling backwards into the snow again. This time, she more or less disappeared into it, leaving only a Peridot-shaped silhouette in the snow bank.

Jenkins leaned over the hole. "You know, there are many humans out there who do something rather like what you just did on purpose."

There was a long, baffled silence before Peridot managed to reply, her voice somewhat muffled by the snow that had fallen down around her.

"Why?!"

What was wrong with them?

Edited 2018-03-21 18:48 (UTC)

"Fun," Jenkins said. "Apparently, when you could easily die, it becomes enjoyable to come close and yet survive."

Peridot was squinting some more as she pulled herself back to her feet. This time she was only up to her chest in snow, but she was still somewhat disgruntled about it.

"I have a friend who enjoys jumping off rooftops," she shared. "But that doesn't involve being buried."

Being buried was just inconvenient.

"Ah, but the snow helps cushion the landing."

"I imagine it's a little more enjoyable when you can get back out of it again," Peridot noted.

"Quite possibly," Jenkins agreed, offering her a hand up. "Though really, it's hard to tell."

Peridot was muttering as she reached up to accept the offered hand.

"Water is so inconvenient."

Homeworld didn't have any. It made things far simpler.

"Certainly. But it has a number of uses as well. And its chemistry is fascinating."

Well... that caught Peridot's attention, right there.

"It is?"

"Certainly! Two combustible elements -- one explosively so -- combine together to form a substance that can smother or prevent combustion of other chemicals."

Peridot blinked and tilted her head as she tried to find a solid footing on the nearest rock again. She gave up and simply took a seat, instead.

"I suppose I never thought of it that way," she allowed. "I haven't had an opportunity to really explore the properties of many of Earth's compounds, but there's so much water, now that seems like a terrible oversight."

"It is an absolutely vital chemical for life on Earth," Jenkins said. "We actually worry about not having enough."

"You're worried that the life on your planet has outgrown the resources available to it?"

Yeah, that was pretty standard procedure among the Gems.

"It has certainly outgrown the ways in which we habitually access them," Jenkins said with a small sigh. "And since many people see money as the ultimate resource, it isn't likely to improve much any time soon."

"Money," Peridot sighed. "I've gotten used to needing to have it around here, but I confess I don't understand the reasoning behind it. People have assigned so much value to... nothing. It serves no practical purpose."

"Its importance is entirely cultural, I'm afraid. We've given it a certain value in order to standardize the exchange of goods and services. Efficient, certainly, but there's always going to be someone who decides that they need more of it than anyone else, and ruins the whole system for all of us."

Peridot wrinkled her nose a little.

"I suppose I should just be thankful that I've been able to attain means to procure currency for myself," she sighed, "and just accept that humanity will probably never entirely make sense to me."

"As will gems never quite make complete sense to humanity."

Peridot gave Jenkins a wry little smile at that.

"Up until recently, I didn't even realize that Gems didn't make complete sense to me."

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Earth Zoology, Wednesday

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