Backstage Protection
A Steven Universe Fanfiction
Chapter 9
A/N: I am legitimately surprised to see how many people are reading and enjoying this story. Thank you so, so much to all 88 of you that are following this. I decided to switch around this chapter and the next (this was originally supposed to be chapter 10/11) because the next one centers around Steven and I didn't want to take too long a break from Peridot and Lapis.
Peridot was becoming progressively more and more worried the longer she carried around the gemstone and Lapis didn't regenerate. Occasionally, she would begin to feel herself starting to doubt that her companion would ever come back at all, though she always pushed these concerns down to the back of her mind and continued to do her best to keep hidden.
Being idle so long was causing her to occasionally dose off and black out, and she assumed that this meant she was going into a sort of sleep mode. This was what was happening in this moment; with the lapis lazuli cradled in her arms, she could feel her eyes start to close and her thoughts going blank.
However, a sudden massive vibration in her arm shocked her out of her doze. She felt whatever she had to substitute for blood run cold; she was not supposed to be receiving any transmissions. Her technology that she had kept for aesthetic reasons wasn't even supposed to be working.
The green gem sucked in a deep breath and moved her fingers into screen formation. To her surprise, rather than her leader's face, a strange code she had never seen before filled the pale green of the tech. She could tell it sourced from Homeworld, though she couldn't understand exactly what it said.
Peridot narrowed her eyes, not sure what any of it meant. Was there an upgrade in the last three weeks? She thought to herself, shapeshifting a pen out of a finger on her other arm and copying down the message onto her thigh. She could tell that the power was draining from how numb her hand was becoming, and she wanted to know what the message said.
Sure enough, just as she was copying the last of the characters onto her skin, the screen went completely blank and her fingers once more went to their usual place floating just off of her hand. She sighed heavily, for a moment wondering how she was going to get anything done without her technology, but quickly decided that wasn't important at the moment and quickly went to studying the code.
"Interesting," she mused to herself, tracing the careful strokes gently. "It looks like it has roots in the written language, but is a little bit altered. There was definitely an update to the language." Peridot shook her head a little and went back to trying to decode it.
"It appears as though some letters could be either one. I should be able to figure this out in a few days," her internal monologue continued as she shapeshifted a pen again, ready to write what she had decoded on her other thigh. "Hopefully it's nothing urgent."
She hummed a little bit, figuring out that the first letter was an 'a' and writing that down. She was, in a way, relieved to have received this transmission; she needed something to do that wasn't just hold the lapis stone near to her and wait idly.
She worked near around the clock, occasionally glancing up to make sure nothing had changed with her friend's gem. She must have been hurt pretty badly if this is taking so long, she thought to herself, continuing her work in silence.
"If you don't come back soon, I may have to force you," she spoke jokingly, though her tone was dry as it tended to be when she talked in jest.
Of course, there was still no reply, and she sighed heavily, resuming her decoding. As she quickly scribbled the translations onto her skin, she barely registered when a third party had entered the small space in the tree.
Peridot glanced up to see an earthly creature – a squirrel, perhaps – holding a certain blue stone and nibbling on it lightly. "Hey!" She snapped, immediately getting defensive. "Put that down!"
This only startled the small mammal, and it took off with its treasure, probably thinking that it was a nut or some other food source.
The green gem gave chase almost immediately, not catching herself grumbling about how people always mess with her stuff.