Chapter Text
Night turned into day. Lapis could see the sun slowly fill the room, around the tarp haphazardly strung by Peridot. Peridot didn’t seem to notice, still staring at the TV, only breaking from her focus to swap out the episode, or glance over at Lapis. Despite everything, Peridot watching CPH wasn’t as grating as Lapis dreaded it.
Peridot stands, extracting the VHS tape, and placing it back into the disorganised cardboard box.
“It’s morning, by the way.” Lapis quietly comments, breaking Peridot’s trance.
“Oh- Oh!” she quietly exclaims, obviously not noticing until now, “Of course, yes.” She leans over, and turns off the TV, stacking her notes papers into what would best be described as a wad.
Lapis considers asking Peridot what she will do, but chooses against it, sitting and watching. Peridot places her wad of CPH notes down beside the box of tapes, and looks at them. She makes a thinking noise.
“Well, I believe it’s time to engineer a superior container for these entertainment-bricks.” she declares, outloud. Lapis blankly watches.
She runs over, scaling down the ladder, and runs to the centre of the room. Lapis moves to sit on the arm of the couch closer to the edge of this upper level, still watching. Peridot gazes around, before locating a pile of scrap wood.
“Yes, this lumber will be the optimal material.” she says, pondering, assorting the lumber on the wooden floor. She then runs over, and acquires several more items – a metal can labeled nails, an unlabeled plastic bottle, a claw hammer, a saw, a chisel and a plane. Assorted, she nods, and begins arranging the planks, before having a thought. She runs up to the ladder, scaling it, and carefully grabbing the box containing the CPH tapes. She walks it over to the ladder, before realising her critical error. Awkwardly, she walks back to where Lapis is sitting, and places the box down, touching her fingertips together and avoiding making eye contact. “Lazuli, I require this box on the floor… if you would be so kind as to lend me a hand?” she asks, a little embarrassed. After an uncomfortable pause, Lapis shrugs, grabbing the box, and using her wings to slow her landing, placing the box down directly beneath. Peridot smiles at her for a moment, before running off, scaling down the ladder oncemore, and sliding the box near her other components.
After some measuring – which itself took three separate trips to grab the two required items – and some cutting, she finally begins to construct a new box. Lapis watches from the top floor, eventually choosing to lie down on a blanket on the floor to do so. Measuring, cutting, planing, gluing, nails – after about an hour of work, Peridot triumphantly stands. She’s constructed a pair of wooden boxes.
“Behold, Lazuli! My vertimodular cuboidal entertainment containments!” she says, throwing her hands in the air. She certainly celebrates her achievements. Lapis looks at her, blankly.
“Well, Lazuli, it’s in the name! Vertimodular – they stack – cuboidal – it’s a box – entertainment – it’s for CPH – containments – it’s a box!” Peridot answers, to Lapis’ implicit question. Despite the clarification, it only makes a little bit more sense to Lapis.
“Cool.” she says, flatly.
All things considered, it seems the most normal thing she’s seen Peridot construct. Despite only being around her 3 days, such a list is surprisingly long.
“Lazuli,” Peridot continues, looking over to her, gesturing to the clamps holding the various planks together into the form of the boxes “These are what are called clamps. These simple metal brackets are capable of applying large pressures over long periods without expending extra energy!” she explains. Lapis doesn’t get it
“According to my research,” Peridot continues, gazing down at the back of her left hand, where some numbers are scribbled “These human-made clamps are holding this box together each applying 861 thousand pascals to the contact circles! In your language, that’s the static pressure experienced 85.8 metres beneath the ocean’s surface.” she informs, calculating the latter number in her head.
Lapis feels the hollow feeling brew in her chest at the reminder. She decides now’s a good time to leave. Wordlessly, she deploys her wings, dropping to the lower level, before walking out of the open door, and flying off. Peridot waves as she leaves “Oh, bye!” she calls, a little surprised at the sudden exit.
Peridot wonders to herself what she’s doing wrong. Lapis should totally be on-board with being a barnmate, but she’s barely even talked to her. Is she talking too much, too little? Lapis doesn’t much appreciate physical gifts… perhaps she would appreciate a different kind of gift? Peridot walks outside, as her little creations take their time to set.
Lapis takes to the sky, and flies over the forest. She enjoyed the flight with Steven, and decided to do it again. She enjoyed flying, even in Steven’s absence.
The morning sun ahead shines down, illuminating the trees and their green, yellow, and orange leaves. The air is cool today, and smells of… something. Lapis still has no idea what most of the Earth smells are. She’s not sure Steven does either, to be fair. Her water wings flap in rhythm, the air rushing through her hair as she flies.
Between the verdant grass, sunny sky, and the fluffy clouds populating it, Lapis can't help but smile, just a little bit. It’s peaceful and pretty.
She decides to go see the clouds up close, jerking up and flying out above the landscape, ascending vertically. She’s flown through clouds before, but not on her own in a very long time. Despite Steven commenting during their flight about the different “species” of cloud, Lapis didn’t really remember them; she doesn’t really understand how humans could be so confident in categorising clouds, when they don’t have her hydrokinesis. As she flies up into a cloud, she can feel it around her: the size of droplets, the density of the cloud, and where it extends to – atleast to some range. She crests just above it, hovering in place, gazing at the large, white mass before her. She pulls and pools together some water from the cloud, a moment later she’s being hit by a dragging, hollow feeling in her chest; she remembers the water chains she held down Malachite with, that she held herself down with.
She ceases her flapping, and falls from the sky. She’s unbothered from the freefall, catching herself as she nears the canopy, flying away, along the treetops. She flees from nothing in particular – there’s no one around – but she runs regardless. The feeling gnaws at her, filling her with dread, and occasional sharp pains. She tries to push the thoughts from her mind as best she can, to limited success.
In her gradually faltering focus, she eventually dips beneath the canopy, and lands with some force, falling to her knees in the dim underbrush. She holds her head, and curls into a ball, tormented by the memories, the darkness surrounding her and filling her chest. She slowly sinks into the cold mud beneath her knees, incrementally being consumed by the darkness of Malachite oncemore. Jasper was gone, but she could still hear her voice echoing, dragging her into the deep, holding her down. The pleasant day, the barn, Peridot – it all slowly disappears over the horizon, as Lapis is consumed in the crushing darkness.
The sun runs its course through the day, eventually reaching mid-afternoon. After several retroactive modifications to her entertainment containments, Peridot finishes her little gift to Lapis: a hastily constructed platform atop the silo, for her to sit on. She definitely was not a fan of the feeling of nearly slipping off the silo several times during its construction, and thus felt it a worthy investment of her time.
She sits there only a few minutes after her final tweak, when she spots the blue gem returning. Perfect.
Lapis, who isn’t looking very hard, lands atop the silo, taking a moment to notice the metal platform. It’s just a sheet of metal screwed into the top of the dome. She narrows her eyes.
“Hey, Lazuli! I know you don’t appreciate trinkets, so, I thought I’d give you a different kind of gift: me, ontop of the silo!” she says, proud of her idea. “It’ll be easier to hear me when I’m sitting right next to you, rather than all the way down there, and, I could even bring up a chair for you!”
Lapis looks at her, with a hollow expression. “No.” she commands, distinctly. Peridot’s face moderately drops
“But-” she stammers, before Lapis cuts her off.
“I come up here to be alone.” she says, sternly. Peridot swallows hard, trying her best to hide her growing tears, mostly successfully.
“O-okay…” she says, trailing off a little bit, carefully sliding down onto the ladder on the side of the silo, and scaling down. Lapis takes a deep breath.
She sits atop the silo, alone now. She’s glad Peridot isn’t there to bother her. She thinks about that thought for a moment, questioning it. She lashed out at Peridot for trying to help, again. She pulls her knees to her chest, and looks down, avoiding looking at the barn. She feels conflicted.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the surprised yell of the green gem falling from the ladder; Lapis turns to see her landing squarely on her back upon the grass below; she’s fine. Lapis turns away again. “I don’t want to hurt Peridot.” she concludes to herself.