Chapter One: To Know, To Begin
Peridot stood in front of the gaping tear that she had caused. She would have asked help from Lapis, but she had retreated to the silo where she would sit and stare into whatever. The barn had been damaged by a Peridot who had different intentions long ago, and now that same gem rubbed her chin, pacing back and forth as she formulated a (ge-)mental plan to fix the destruction.
Steven and the rest of the Crystal Gems had left. Garnet, the perma-fusion as Peridot called her (a double-edged name, really), assured her with a stern smile that if ever another one of those Homeworld vessels come back with a band of Homeworld Rubies(or worse), they will be right back to start all over again... In their FACES! Amethyst added with a punch into an imaginary gut. With more of our shenanigans... Pearl rolled her eyes. Waves of parting hands were exchanged, and Steven, who was happy that Lapis agreed with a mixing tolerance and reluctance to allow Peridot as her new-found 'barn mate'. She only wanted one condition though: Just not near her. The ocean-blue gem turned her head away.
And so the last words left the half-Rose Quartz gem and they rang: 'You be good you two!', and Peridot responded, waving away to the flashing light of an activating warp pad. A wide smile reflected the crystalline glow. 'Don't worry! We'll be the best!' She said, and with that, hands on her hips, she looked up to Lazuli to show the blue gem her enthusiastic grin, but the only blue she saw was the sky's. The familiar liquid retreat of aqua wings furling back ended at a place not too far and not too unfamiliar: the silo.
Peridot stopped pacing, and that was where she looked. Atop its domed metal surface, sat Lazuli, hugging her knees as she looked out to some far off place with an indiscernible contemplation. Peridot scratched the triangle that was her hair. It seemed that this planet possessed a force that compels gems and lifeforms to stare into places vague and distant. She had observed it first-hand and in most of the good-to-worst entirety of Camp Pining Hearts. She wondered when that will take hold of her, and she remembered that it already did.
But that was not important. She looked back at the damage she had created. She had cleared out most of the broken wood that had initially surrounded the area— splinters to prove it— and had removed the dusted cloth that covered the tear to block the bright sunlight and most of the flying insects (winged-crawlers as she would still name). The only problem now was, irritatingly, the technology. The bulk of the tools that she had been using during the construction of The Drill ran on the power taken from the extra car batteries of Greg, Steven's strange-smelling father.
With his similarly scented and ancient vehicle he called a van gone, most of the tools were turned useless. Except for the hammers and such, but that ran on the power of strength, something her gem-class specifically sacrificed for technical knowledge. Her short easily-tired arms and 'compact' build wouldn't take her far. If only we had Gem-tech, if only I could get my hands on a drone-augmented constructolizer... Then she had found herself still reminiscing her non-traitor times using the manifestations of the Gem race's galactic progress, and still cursing the archaic makeshift work of this planet they called 'technology'.
She sighed and held her hand up in front of her mouth, clicking the record button that wasn't there. And then another sigh, hand-in-hand with a frustrated groan and a melting slouch. It just wasn't the same without the tape recorder. She fell on her back willingly, and, pretending that the smooth metal of the recorder was still on her palms, she said: "Log-date, ughhh. Facet-ughhh. I miss you, tape recorder, the one chronicler of my descent to madness and my ascension to... understanding. Hopefully when I find the sanity to repair you, we'll pick up where we left off, officially archive the logs we produced, and..." And her hand slumped to her side, clicking an imaginary button to stop an imaginary recording. No work that can be possibly done, nothing to log meaningless sentimentalities, and nothing to watch (whatever there was left to watch was objectively garbage now anyway).
Huh, garbage. That's what Lapis called it before she broke her precious tape recorder. It dawned to her. Peridot pulled herself up, her small palms pushing against the soft sun-kissed grass. She looked towards the silo.
It wouldn't be a tape recorder that she needed to talk to.
II
Lapis Lazuli lay on the dome end of the silo's roof. The thin metal beneath her was sun-filmed hot on her skin.
There was something soft about their togetherness, she thought. When was the last time she had a group to trust, to confine, and laugh with? She couldn't quite remember and didn't bother to. They seemed so happy; those Crystal Gems, those warriors of a terrible war long past, and Steven, the young one who saved her... and Peridot, her interrogator now turned turncoat. The mere thought of her spawned ghostly sounds of her calling her name like she did once before she presented her 'apology'. Maybe if she closed her eyes shut and put her thoughts away to something more important...
"Lazuli! Hey, Lazuli!"
Realizing that they were real, broke the calm within her gem. What now? She mumbled as she turned her body to one side, an annoyed grunt following her. Then, she covered ears with the arms that gripped to her head, hoping to cage away the incessant voice.
There won't be a Steven to convince her to come down there in front of her interrogator this time, and yet the calling would not stop. "Hey, Laaaazuli! Come down here, Lapis! I wanna talk to you!" Anymore of this, and it just might remind her of her life spent being stuck in a mirror for an unspeakable amount of time: a perpetual tragedy.
Peridot's calling stopped, and before Lapis could defuse the anger inside her with a sigh, her voice returned . "I'm coming up there, Lazuli! So... please don't push me off!" The silo shook tenderly to the moving of Peridot as she climbed the ladder. She could hear her grunting with every small step she grabbed and left. "Stupid steel cylinder-stepping rods...You could produce the same effect with..." She heard her say, then diving her attention into that whirlpool of annoying discomfort that stirred in her gem. Great, exactly what I wanted, another disturbance to my peace...
Soon, the vibrations faded away into steps on the surface where she lay. "You really want me to exhaust myself, huh?" Peridot said, exasperated. Her small footsteps paced near her then a metal sliding was heard on the curved roof of the silo. "Woa- Woah!" Peridot managed to regain her footing. She let out a relieved breath. "Phew. For a second there I thought we were crashing into Earth again." She chuckled. No response. "That wasn't a particularly fun experience, was it? So, anyway, I needed to tell you that-"
"I thought I told you not to come near me." Lapis said, gem turned towards Peridot.
She cleared her throat. "Well, with your back turned to me, I don't see why my distance matters."
A sigh. Steven's voice lulled an echo into her gem. Get to know her before... "What is it?"
There grew a pause filled with unprepared bits of stammering. Lapis pieced it together. Peridot didn't think that she'd get this far.
"It's the... barn. I need your help fixing it."
"Why should I? I won't be living there. I'm fine here."
"I'm not saying that you have to live there. I just need help, you know. The power required to run the tools I would normally use is insufficient."
"So what do you want me to do? Water away your problems?"
"Um... Yes, a-actually." She held a finger up. "We agreed that we would share the barn as a home, so I don't see why you wouldn't want to fix it. I mean, look at this place! There's absolutely nothing here, not even paint cans! Well, hay maybe, but that won't be of much use, and up here, it's slippery and angled, and-and windy!"
And away from you. Lapis would have savored the thought as spoken words, but instead of spitting them out, she slapped them back away. Get to know her, Lapis. She sipped a heavy breath, pushing out a suffocating reluctant feeling in her gem, and pulled herself up upon her feet. The wind brushed to her hair and onto her face which stilled at a bored plane of indifference. The looking eyes of Peridot stayed at the side of her cheek. She could feel it, both Peridot's expectant stare and the pulling discomfort of turning her head to the gem that shredded away the information she needed with jolting needles.
But the way she spoke now, from cold and monotone to... this, her insistent cries of being different and new, all the actions that she had done to prove it, and what Steven said... everything was given, except, perhaps, a chance.
Lapis turned her head to Peridot, weighed eyes to meet wide ones. A silence filled the gap between them. Lapis broke the pause with a sigh. "Fine. Let's fix it."
A smile formed on a lime-green face, and the joy and relief that Peridot felt rang through her voice. "Alright!"
"So, where should I— I mean— we start?"
Peridot stood up, eyes closed and finger pointing up, eager to introduce and explain the technicalities of her plan. "First of all, we will be gathering all the stock wo-woah!" Balance left her feet and Peridot yelped in surprise, the sound of her scream cut short as her chin hit the curved metal surface. Her body slid down, hands clawing to climb back up as she did the first time it happened, but now she was too steep down the dome and falling too fast before another word could be said.
A rush of water against a surging wind interrupted her next scream. The clutching feeling of a fall dissipated to a warmth holding her right wrist.
Peridot clenched her eyes shut to the inevitable, but feeling her weight carried and her gem safe from a fall-induced poof, opened them once again. The empty field between the barn and the silo painted a green canvas of a countryside beneath her; grassy plains grazed by the feet of dancing winds and colored only with the dwindling warm green of Summer. As a reflex, she pedaled her feet but found only empty air and no ground. Then, she looked up. Lapis focused out in front of herself, aqua wings soaring, the wind against her hair, and both her hands on Peridot's wrist, keeping her suspended and safe.
"Holy smokes." The once-screaming gem said under a taken breath.
Soon after, they've come still in the air and descended. Peridot felt soft grass upon her feet and the warmth fading from her wrist.
They landed. The same liquid retreat of water sounded with the patting of blue hands. Lapis stood in front of her and looked down with eyes not straying from the usual blankness. On her face, there were the lips giving away a rare smile. "Maybe we should start by being careful." She said.
The smaller gem did not give a quick answer as she rubbed the wrist where Lapis had held her. Peridot looked with a forgetful tilt weighing down on her head. A pause gripped the fulfilling air. Then, she stood up straight, lifting her curious slouch with a point of a finger held upward. "Yes! We should! Thank you for saving me from my doom! I'm forever grateful!" Another pause. Peridot half-expected to see her smile tuck away, but it did not.
"Don't even mention it." Lapis faced up. Now they stood in front of the great tear that gaped at the wooden walls of the barn. "Wow. That looks like a lot of work."
Peridot turned behind her, hands on her hips. "Yes, it will be a lot of work, teamwork. With your water and my plan, we can finish it together within the day. A little bit of bwoosh! and bwooshaw! and chachachinngg! and it'll be done like it's nothing!" Peridot said, acting out her appropriate sound effects and finishing it with a conclusive side-ward sweep of her hand.
With the mention of water, Lapis glanced at the lake. It stilled, clear and stagnant when once it had been a hand swatting a Homeworld vessel like a fly. "I said that I was taking a break from water." Peridot looked at her, worried that a change of mind was at hand. Lapis turned back at the little gem, shrugging her shoulders. "But I guess I'll make another exception."
Peridot smiled, and the worried shade lifted into a bright shine through her eyes.
AN: First SU fic, a little side-project. This happens directly after Hit The Diamond, with a slight adjustment since Steven used the warp pad at a different time during Steven Floats.
So yeah, not much to say. I really liked Barn Mates, and I wondered: what happened to Lapis and Peridot? So this is what I think of it until, well, the next episode involving those two changes it.
Anyways, thanks for reading this one! I'll try to update it from time to time, short chapters and all. If I got anything wrong, be free to tell me. Constructive criticism is welcomed, flames nope.
See you on the next one!
