Amethyst soon returned from her ice cream hunt. She was carrying an absolutely MASSIVE white box!
"Oh! Oh my…" Hibiscus looked up at the thing, slightly overwhelmed. "Amethyst? What IS that?"
"It's your order Hibiscus!" Amethyst let the sides of the box fall revealing an absolutely obscene mountain of ice cream in a over-sized novelty dish. "TA-DA!!! All 34 flavors from the local shop! They call it the "Grande Sundae"!"
"…" Hibiscus looked at the massive pile of food with an odd mix of excitement, nervousness, and embarrassment. "Amethyst…how-how much did this…THING cost?"
"Don't worry about it! Greg pays for everything these days anywhos!"
"I- don't think I can eat all this…"
"I know! That's why I swiped THESE!!" Amethyst held up an entire cup full of miniature taste-testing spoons.
The Pearl put her hands on her hips. "AMETHYST!! You STOLE them?!?"
"Naw…not….technically…they're FREE!"
Hibiscus looked stressed. "Did you leave some for the other customers at LEAST?"
"BAH…they'll be FINE! They can just use the regular spoons if they have to!"
The Surface Pearl put her hands on her face- blushing with absolute embarrassment. "I-it's fine….I can just return them later-"
"No ya can't! You're under "house arrest"! Remember?!"
"UGH…" Hibiscus sighed in defeat. She supossed she could have Garnet return a good majority of the plastic spoons when she came home.
Still…it was a terribly mortifying situation. Hibiscus was unsure why the stars she was so surprised- she had seen Amethyst pull off stuff like this in the past. The Pearl internally thanked her good graces that at least some politeness had been programmed into her own system.
Not much she could do about it NOW though… "Don't take so many next time…alright?" Hibiscus shook her head in disappointment.
Amethyst frowned. She supposed that this Surface Pearl would be similar to her OWN Pearl in various ways. In actuality, it was kind of a relief seeing an identical copy of her friend acting more like her over-bearing self.
A taste testing of the ice cream mountain was soon underway!
Hibiscus would try a flavor, and if she disliked it- Amethyst would eat the remainder. It seemed like a good system for such a massive thing.
It was soon discovered that the Pearl did NOT like toppings or mix-ins. She took great unpleasantness in expecting just the cream- only to have a nut, piece of chocolate, or massive array of sprinkles in her mouth in addition.
Steven noted that (much like the beach sand from earlier)- the Surface Pearl found a bit of comfort in uniform, expected, surfaces. Ice Cream SHOULD be soft.
Lion SHOULD be fluffy.
Snakes SHOULD be smooth- and so on and so forth.
The small boy figured this odd obsession had something to do with the REAL Pearl's attention to detail and "putting everything in its rightful place"? How very interesting! Steven wondered if food with lots of different items- like burritos or sandwiches would be snubbed by Hibiscus on the spot?
To Amethyst's absolute pleasure, Hibiscus was not a fan of MOST ice creams.
Mint had chocolate chips.
Strawberry had frozen pieces of the fruit inside.
Her LEAST favorite HAD to be the "Cookie Dough" though! Stars! She gagged horribly when she realized that synthetic pieces of the dough bits had been stirred into the cream. It felt like a cruel prank! For a while she was slightly terrified of eating the remainder of the ice cream- concerned that the fake dough was real, raw, and had contaminated the whole pile!
It took some convincing to reassure Hibiscus that the "dough" was "safe for consumption" to which she replied in confusion:
"Why would Humans want to pretend to eat undercooked food in the first place?!?!"
Steven attempted to explain that some people liked how the dough tasted- even at the risk of eating something with raw eggs in it.
Hibiscus stuck out her tongue sourly.
Not surprisingly, vanilla ended up being a favorite- as well as REGULAR chocolate (without extra chips or fudge pieces), and the various flavors of sherbet.
Despite having no mix-ins- the "Coffee-flavored" ice cream was snubbed quickly.
"I don't like this one! It has a bitter aftertaste!"
The one thing she didn't seem to mind was any food which included a "sauce" type topping- such as caramel or chocolate syrup.
In the aftermath Hibiscus looked full and exhausted. She had only enjoyed small bits of a couple of flavors- but claimed to feel :"weird" and "full…but not in a good way."
Amethyst shook her head. "You barely finished ANY of the flavors!"
"Oog…." Hibiscus moaned in discomfort.
"It's not good to eat too much ice cream….maybe you should just take a break and lie down for a while?" Steven guided Hibiscus to the couch. She nodded in agreement before lying down and napping again.