Greetings again, my lovelies. Sorry for that dramatic pause, I was feeling rather uninspired. I deleted the entirety of this fic by total mishap. Everything I had previously written was poofed. All the chapters of smut I had scribbled for later use, all the little conversation bits and plot elements were gone. But everyone's sweet words really has kept me going.
So I guess I dedicate this one to all of y'all that's been sending me love. It's very appreciated, and inspiring. Your words mean a lot to me. And I hope this next chapter can help ease your hiatus blues.
Peridot awoke from her snooze with quick start. She took in the scene around her, scanning her now twilight surroundings. The dipping sun threatened to lull her back to sleep. She was so damned tired. Her organic tech was rather draining. She needed to recharge soon or abandon her add-ons.
She shuttered at the thought of parting with any of her bio tech gear. Sure, it sapped her of her natural energy, but damn did it make her a good soldier. A better soldier. What she lacked in strength, her tech made up for in stamina.
Napping in the Earth's giving sun had recharged the bulk of her gear. Irritably enough, that did not include her planetary positioning contrivance. She was literally wandering in the dark. Sleeping by day to conserve energy. The sun here offered a feasible amount. She just had to bask in it for hours on end. Like a lizard on a hot rock.
The thought of never returning home was a constant terror looming on her shoulder. Her anxiety sapped her dry, and at times she could scarcely think over the sound of her own crying. It'd come in bouts and then dissipate as soon as it had arrived. Misery forgotten, She'd hop up and be back on her way. Gods only knew where her way was.
Peridot sat up, brushing dirt and tiny insects off. The ground here stunk of wood and bugs. Everything here was alive. She felt almost out of place. She looked humanoid enough to blend, but not to belong. But in the forests, there seemed to be no humans.
She released her fingers from their stasis field, conjuring up her system console, scrolling through rudimentary stale data. The same logs had been there for a month. As long as she'd been deserted on this hunk of rock. Nothing but obsolete information from the last day she'd been on Homeworld.
She attempted, futility, once more to connect with something. Anything. Commander Jasper's dreadnought had surely fell from orbit and plummeted to Earth. Peridot and long ago mourned the loss of her Commander. She had most likely been defeated or sealed away by the Crystal Gems.
Peridot had hoped from the beginning that she could make her way back to the fallen ship. Make repairs, fix any severe damage. She had to forget about the cluster. They too, were most likely dead. She hadn't been able to save them in time. They'd needed incubation. It was too late to mule over it now.
Only the knowledge that they'd felt no pain eased her woes.
Insects croaked shrilly from all directions. What had first been a nuisance, was now somewhat soothing. The constant buzzing helped keep her mind preoccupied. Tonight the buzzing was uproarious. If she closed her eyes she could feel their vibrations. Tiny waves of sound resonating through the woods.
"Put your h-hand in-!"
Peridot shot to her feet, whirling around. Was that a voice just now? Humans. They sounded near.
"Who's there?" She barked, sounding fierce. Just like Jasper would "Show yourself!"
"KNow this-this-"
The voice sounded closer, like in her fucking vicinity close. Panic rose like a smog in her throat, her body trembled slightly from fatigue. Her entire form ached but she held steady.
"Show yourself!" Peridot challenged, her fingers sucked into her arm and she readied a shot. Her plasma canon heated quickly and she held it poised. She could feel its tremendous power ripping energy from her very sinews. She aimed for whatever loomed beyond the gnarled trees.
"-know this thing is woooooo-"
Peridot shouted in surprise. She quickly turned angry at her own fear. "I said show yourself!" Her voice cracked.
"i GOT-GOT-OOOOT IT!"
The voice was a hissing right beside her. No no, in front of her. She swung her canon in all directions, carelessly leaving open spaces for an attack. Where was this goddam-
"Peridot?"
Peridot let her arm fall to her side. The molten plasma seeped onto the ground in a singing puddle. Flora around it shriveled and gave off smoke.
"Jasper?" She whispered. The night grew utterly still. The voice was...in her head. No, not her head! Peridot's fingers flew to her comm panel, scrolling through a short feed of incoming data. A shout escaped her lips.
It was a goddamn message! Her knees buckled in absolute relief. Jasper was alive..and trying to find her?
"Commander! Stay where you are! T-tell me your coordinates, let me map them, I-I'll-"
"Periiiiiiiiidot...ca-nnnnn-you you YOUhear me out there?"
The incoming signal was absurdly hard to track, it was so...obsolete. So archaic. The data coming in was a rough language she didn't recognize outright. The audio was coming in scratched, like the message would end at any second.
"Yes! I can hear you just fine. Just tell me where you are and I'll come find you!" Peridot cried nigh frantically into her comm panel. She exited her current feed, instead trying to find a local orbiting satellite to lasso the connection to. Maybe it'd boost the current, she could find the location easier that way. Like following a rope to a destination.
"Try putting it-it onnn your head!"
A rather familiar voice cracked across the air. She couldn't place whom.
"Like this?"
"Commander, can you hear me?" Peridot asked, craning her neck to scan the skies for above, for something. Fucking-anything! Growing frustrated, she leapt leagues into the air, arm pointed straight up. Nothing. "Just hang on." She swore.
"Periii-ri-RII- must be there, right?"
Muted voices came through in a glitchy jumble, she couldn't make anything out of the mess. Background noise.
"I'm here, gods I'm here..." She pleaded aloud, looking to the further sky for that all too familiar blinking red light. Humans had managed to heft enormous antiquated balls of rubble into their orbit. Sometimes one would pass close by and she could pull the tiniest bit of data from them. Unimportant things like images of humans or little messages.
She knew the Beach City's coordinates. She just didn't know her own...but she might not have to. A scarlet light flashed in the corner of her eye. Lo and behold, a satellite made its habitual trek across the sky, ebbing slowly.
"F-you're there lil green-get here hereee SO-soon. Half ass-fu-ckINKG. You're you're YOU'RE strong."
"If you say so." Peridot huffed, tapping her fingers against her tech, nodding through to the message input once more. The same picturesque symbols dotted the screen. Unreadable to her at the moment. She scanned for an access point and could feel her body drain as the seeker signal flared into the sky. Imperceptible to humans. It snagged onto the orbiting satellite. She immediately attempted a piggy back.
"Jasper? Commander, can you hear me now?" She should be able to. The connection was good, for now.
The message was silent. A quiet static whispered from the receiving end. If she had a heart, it surely would have sank to her toes. A dread washed over her so much stronger than before.
The best chance she had of getting home was gone. It'd only took seconds. And a terribly shady connection.
Seconds ticked by. And minutes crawled. And her hopes all but vanished with the drifting satellite.
She wanted to drop to her knees and sob like her first days here. When that hopelessness had really sunk in deep. That first night sleeping on the cold dark ground had been agony. And terrifying. She'd refused to sleep after sunset from then on. Good thing the sun here offered generous amounts of solar energy.
A whirring pop fired from her receivers and an ominous wail hollered for an uncomfortably long period. Her hackles were indefinitely risen. Then the signal came back to her in full force. It surged across the air and into her feed with a surly kick to her skull.
"Peridot. Do-n-nt know if you're there. Are you?"
Her commander sounded...strained. Tired, just as she was.
The message was a smidge more clear now. Though not by much. The satellite was hurtling further out of her reach. Not much time left.
"I am here Commander! Can you hear me no-"
WHAT-whaT the fuck is that noise?
Jasper yelled from her end, and in the background she could hear other cries of distress. The message quaked something nasty and she feared it might cut out again.
"Trying to TALK-WIth us!"
Someone in the distance shouted. She knew that voice. It was the steven. So Jasper was with the Crystal Gems? How long had she been in their capture? For the entirety of the month, perhaps? If they'd touched her...
"Steeeeeeev-en says you're trying to communicate here!Maybe he's-"
Jasper was shouting above something Peridot could not message blipped out once more. Only for a second's time.
"NEED-to talk about things, Peri!"
The feed crackled sharply in her ear, and blanked out entirely. Not so much as static came from the other end.
"Yes, Commander." Peridot promised, 'tugging' the tether on the satellite, pulling one last bit of information from it. Sweat beaded around her gem and rolled beneath her visor. An action so simple drained her drastically. Her energy consumption was peaking.
How many times had Jasper berated her for her upgrades? Insulting her organic tech, tech that'd taken centuries to find proper funding for.
'You need to rely on your gem for such simple things.'
But their gems were so different. Even something as minute as the cleavage and faceting on their gems made for a world of contrast. She couldn't even explain it herself. Jasper was simply made for combat. Peridot? Not so much. At least not on the front lines of a squadron.
The data the satellite provided was grainy, but legible. It didn't read any latitude or longitude. Instead it was a literal trail and marker set up. She was at point A. And Jasper was way waaaay over in point B.
But she was alive.
And that information was enough to raise her hopes again. She could return home. It was merely a long ship ride back. And she'd enjoy every languid second of it. She'd gotten quite used to this planet's stars. They shifted from time to time. But she'd quickly grown bored with them and their simplistic patterns.
She had to admit the varying sun sets were a wonder to behold. She'd seen a pink one the other day! Amazing, honestly. Homeworld offered the same pale green setting star each dusk. Hazy yellow clouds would disperse in the same direction every night. Everything was artificial. A simulation. There was no need for the real thing.
Their system's Mother Stars were further and gave off very little heat, almost not reaching Homeworld at all. They were bright and visible from their long distance, but only slightly.
So the warmth of a real, living star was...comforting. Earth had its silver lining.
Peridot saved the freshly mapped course on her comm. She couldn't believe it. Jasper wasn't just alive, she was looking for her. She wanted to find her. Wanted to take her home. She was almost too excited to move. Or maybe that was just exhaustion. A contented smile cracked across her lips and it felt so foreign and so nice.
She leaned against a towering oak, and sank easily to the ground. Just to catch her breath, and to untangle her thoughts. She knew her intentions, what her next steps were. The comm panel blinked out and the screen went black. Peridot sighed, feeling debilitated . That little bout had depleted more energy than she'd had to spare. She could scarcely walk.
She needed another resting to catch up. Tomorrow. When the sun was high, she'd start her journey. The map didn't read in a way that she could decipher distance. Jasper could be on the opposite end of the planet. Or she could be just at the edge of this forest. Peridot snorted. No way in hell.
Peridot eased to a setup, propping her head against the tree's trunk. She could hear tiny insects far beneath the bark, crawling around and whispering things to each other. It was a nice sound. It really was something else here on Earth. Even the living things had living things inside of them!
If she didn't know herself, she might have said she could actually get used to it here. The night didn't frighten her, at least not this one. Not when tomorrow held such promise.
The crick in her neck and the dirt in her joints professed. Her visor was waning in front of her eyes. It dissipated into a stream of code and then into nothing. Peridot closed her eyes. Night air rolled across her exposed skin, kissing her heavy eyelids. Luring her back into a rest.
She cracked her eyes open, glancing at her surroundings a final time. The fauna that lived here in these woods seem to overlook her almost entirely. They gave no inclination towards aggression, so she felt moderately safe. For a while at least.
Peridot flickered her gaze up to the sky above the treetops. She made a wish on a shooting star, but it was just a satellite.