October Catch-All [Open]

[alienwear]

Who: Peridot & OPEN
When: Throughout Octeuril, some threads backdated, some forward dated.
Where: All over Aefenglom
What: General October catchall for October! New CR welcome.
Warnings: Combat and possible blood/injuries for Fright Night prompt. The cursed knowledge that as a dragon, Peridot is capable of laying eggs now.
Notes: Closed starters will be in the comments, everything in the main post is OTA. PM me or hit me at awkwardpossum if you want to plot something specific!

I. Habitat for Refugees

“I keep wishing we had Bismuth here. Any Bismuth, really, but our Bismuth specifically would be the most ideal option.”

Peridot’s not really complaining, exactly. She did volunteer to come out and do this. She can deal with building domiciles, and she fixed up and altered the barn all on her own so it’s not like these tools are a mystery to her or anything. Still, she can’t help but think how much more quickly this would go if they had a gem who was actually made for the job.

If you have no idea what a Bismuth is, now’s a great opportunity to have her chuck exposition at you about what her species’ society is like.

“Could you pass me that rhythmatic pulverizer?”

…Or make fun of the weird names she keeps using for basic tools like hammers.

II. The Gem Who Cried Petalwolf

"You know for an animal who caused so much trouble just trying to get warm for the winter, you’re being EXTREMELY UNGRATEFUL towards my efforts to take you somewhere where you can safely do that!"

From Granny’s garden out in the slums all the way through the Aristocratic District, Peridot has been wrestling to keep a young petalwolf under control. Its a task that is about every bit as easy as it sounds. As a dragon, she now has the strength to hold the beast up easily, but the petalwolf is squirmy, and wily, and she doesn’t want to hurt the poor thing by keeping int locked in a spine-crushing grip the whole way there. All she wanted to do was collect it, take it back to her plant room, and give it a cozy pot of dirt to sleep in.

If she’d had the foresight or forewarning, she would have just brought said pot of dirt along with her when she agreed to guard Granny’s plants for the night. Unfortunately, she had neither expected to actually encounter a petalwolf NOR expected to want to keep one for herself. So: it was either let the petalwolf go, and fail the job, or escort it back to her house. It's pretty obvious which option won out.

Woe be unto the many gardens the unusual duo pass along the way, though. The young petalwolf has already escaped her grasp more than once in the course of their journey, and every time it does, it seems to head straight for the nearest flower patch or planter that it can find, eager to set it’s claws into the dirt. You’d think, given this, that Peridot would be a lot more hesitant to bring a creature such as this back to a room full of her own precious plants... But maybe she’s just not thinking that far ahead.

Just now, it slips her grasp again. Peridot lets out an outraged “HEY!”, clenches her fists, stomps her feet, and snorts a tiny spume of noxious green acid vapor into the air, which dissipates quickly. She's losing her temper.

III. Fright Night

Spared from the worst of the changes wrought by the mysterious mist, Peridot spends the entirety of the event locked into a quadrupedal draconic form, and tries her best to help keep the peace in the city. No specific prompts for this one, just an acknowledgement that she is out and about through the entire incident, and you are free to encounter her, to be saved by her, to try and hunt her, or fight her if you like.

...Just be mindful that her breath weapon is acid, and that's not a fun thing to get hit with even just a few drops of.

IV. Brand New Leggies

Peridot has already had to deal with her center of gravity abruptly and drastically changing once in her life before. That was back when she was first captured by the Crystal Gems, and they took away her limb enhancers, effectively removing an entire foot off her total height. It had taken her months and countless face plants to get used to not walking around on what amounted to a fancy pair of stilts constantly.

If only any of that past experience actually had any benefit here.

Following the events of this month’s full moon, she has found herself saddled with yet another obnoxious monster change, one which very much brings the loss of her limb enhancers back to mind. She’s still not entirely sure if the 24 hours she spent locked into a quadrupedal dragon form were owing to the moons or the strange mist. Perhaps it was a bit of both? Maybe it doesn't matter. The point is that her legs have barely changed back at all. Whatever counts as leg bones for a gem have grown back in completely different proportions, leaving Peridot balancing all her weight on her toes.

She tries to go about business as usual around the city, making occasional trips to the goblin market to pawn off more of her shed scales or solid gem eggs for extra cunes, but for the first day or so after the chaos of the mist, it’s not an uncommon sight to spot the tiny green dragon tripping over her own feet and eating a face full of pavement.

[See notes section above and reach out if you have any questions!]

Comments

Habitat

[horkbajir]

Toby is good with wood. - Not as good as she is with living trees, obviously. There's a part of her that's genuinely going why can't they just live in the trees without killing them?, even with all her recent knowledge of human housing needs. Even grafting and splicing wouldn't be enough for most. But good nevertheless. She's tall, strong, has great reach and a sense for stress points and how grain works, and she can use her blades to trim or smooth something on the spot, so she's not bad to have here.

Conversely she does also leave the occasional cut or score across a smooth plank, because she's covered in blades and these things happen sometimes. Just now she's heaving upright the gridlike frame that is the skeleton of a wall, which some departing worker assembled flat in place.

With the 'our' she's not sure the Bismuth comment is something she's expected to answer. The other comment, though? "I'm sorry, the what?"

Re: Habitat

[alienwear]

"The hammer," Peridot says patiently, gesturing at it with a little flick of her claws. "I'm talking about the hammer."

[horkbajir]

"Ah. A moment."

Rather than back up and lower the frame back to the nascent floor, Toby braces her tail down and stretches out one heavy, raptorial foot to close around and lift the tool, then extend it at the end of a long leg. It's not a precise grip, not when these appendages are made much more for climbing than fine manipulation, but it's equal to this.

[alienwear]

Peridot boggles as she does this, following the trajectory of her foot with her eyes until the hammer is lifted to her level.

"Um. Th-thanks." She takes it, blinking, trying to decide if the questions rolling through her head would be considered rude or not.

[horkbajir]

Toby plants her foot again, gets the wall frame held fully upright, and gestures at it, resigned.

"You want to ask something. Go ahead, but start nailing this down, won't you? It will take two humans to hold it up if I leave."

[alienwear]

"Well I was going to ask if it's really sanitary to pick things up with same appendages that you've been walking around a filthy city with, but I think that might be a rude question," Peridot explains, setting to hammering.

She's not exactly a germaphobe, but being stuck with a solid body makes her inherently a bit more wary about such things.

[horkbajir]

"It might be," Toby says meditatively. "The city is disgusting. I washed my feet before starting this here, though. They aren't any more dirty than my hands right now, just more covered in sawdust."

She hates the idea of shoes, so like many of the Monsters with peculiar anatomy goes barefoot everywhere. "You washed yours, right?"

Habitat for Refugees

[firewalled]

[Rich hands over the hammer easily, somehow resisting the urge to make fun of the funny name. As much as he wants to, he gets that people around here aren't all from a normal world, so it's best not to accidentally insult anyone.

Anyways, the important thing is the mention of Bismuth. Rich has spoken to Lapis a little bit about the concept of Gems, so that clues him in that these might be similar people.]

Bismuth, huh? She good at this kind of thing?

[alienwear]

[ Peridot takes the hammer and starts banging down some darn nails. ]

Oh, yeah. I mean, the Bismuth I know is good at a lot of different things? But constructing dwellings and other buildings is what she was made for. She could totally streamline this whole process.

[firewalled]

Can someone actually be made for something, though? I mean, there's such a thing as natural talent, I guess...

[He totally did not get anything from Lapis about Gems doing certain things because they were made for it. Maybe that's a thing about their species... but Rich kind of finds it unsettling.]

[alienwear]

[ She snorts lightly, continuing to work. ]

Maybe not humans. But every gem is explicitly made to serve some kind of function... Even if she ultimately chooses not to follow through with it.

[firewalled]

Huh. Uh, Lapis talked to me about gems, but I don't think she mentioned that part of it.

[Maybe Rich sort of got hints when she mentioned some of them ending up acting the same as others, but he hadn't quite put the pieces together.]

It... sounds a little creepy to just know what you're supposed to do the moment you exist.

[alienwear]

[ Peridot bristles indignantly a little, and then sticks her nose up, snorting a tiny plume of acid vapor. ]

It is not creepy. It's efficient! Lapis should have told you at least that much.

PETALWOOF

[starseedling]

It makes sense that they'd cross paths, with him heading out from the same place that she's heading towards. He's on wing, too, which has its own advantages. Still, he's mostly drawn in her direction because he can hear her yelling at something. It's a fairly recognizable sound.

He puzzles over it for a moment and then changes course. He had a plan when he left, but checking on his Bond seems more important. He can feel something like frustration from her end of the connection.

He arrives over the rooftops, his wings glittering in the sunlight. Before he can say anything else, though, he is overwhelmed with passion.

"Awww! It's s petal puppy!" he says, hovering over her.

[alienwear]

Somehow, Peridot is not surprised to find Steven is just here all of a sudden. Maybe she sensed him getting closer, because of the bond? Unclear. She's still kind of feeling out the advantages and the limits of this magic. The important thing is, she kind of just accepts his presence without needing to go out of her way to acknowledge it,

"It's a CLOD is what it is-- Don't let it get away!" she yelps, scrambling after it.

[starseedling]

"Oh..."

He flutters after them from above, watching. He might be able to cut it off, but that won't go very well at the moment, he doesn't think.

"Um... well, if you want it to stop running, you might want to... sound less like you want to beat it up?"

Just chilling up in the sky, being helpful.

[alienwear]

"I'm TRYING to HELP IT!" Peridot yowls defensively, sprinting after the little creature. The petalwolf doesn't actually seem upset by Peridot's angry tone, or anything else going on really More than anything, it just looks excited.

It is currently hurling itself right towards someone's front garden.

"I have potting soil for you AT HOME!" Peridot cries with dismay. "Steven! Get down here already and help me!"

[starseedling]

"Oh, right..." He does pick up the pace a bit at that point, attempting to put himself between the pup and the garden. "Is that what they like? Potting soil?"

He lands in the space in front of the garden, spreading his arms and wings to try to block the way. He's not so familiar with petalwolves outside of that one dream, and boy is it harder to tame wild creatures when you didn't create them.

"Hey, doggy! Um... look at this!"

He makes some illusory colours in vague and mesmerizing patterns, mostly hoping to distract the creature's attention.

[alienwear]

The petalwolf screeches to a halt, cocking it's head with confusion at Steven's illusions for a moment.

...Confusion is apparently the limit of it's investment in this display, though, because patterns really aren't any more mesmerizing than the natural call to seek out some good good dirt and hibernate in it for the winter. It steps around him, hops up into the shrubbery, and promptly starts digging up some poor gardener's tulip bulbs.

Peridot catches up at this point, groaning with dismay and sagging her shoulders at the sight. She's been playing the world's shittiest and most repetitive video game escort mission for half the day so far.

"They like... Dirt," she sighs, finally taking the time to explain things properly, since it's unlikely the petalwolf will be going anywhere any time soon. "It wants to hibernate."

Closed to Lapis

[alienwear]

"So, the city government gives everyone who gets drawn through the mirrors some money to help pay for basic living expenses, but it's still helpful to pick these kinds of assignments up from time to time."

It's a beautiful autumn day, and Peridot's doing her best to explain to Lapis why it's worthwhile to take missions like this, whether or not the other gem actually needed any convincing to come along. They're headed out towards a farm where there have been reports of sentient pumpkins causing a ruckus. Peridot had jumped right on the offer as soon as she saw the listing, and petitioned her friend to come along to help because honestly, who knows more about sentient pumpkins than them?

After some consideration she'd also decided it would be smarter to leave their Pumpkin behind at home, though. Peridot could never forgive herself if anything happened to her, and Aefenglom could be treacherous. So it's just the two of them out here now, Peridot rambling authoritatively, at length, about how to survive in this city. She gives a helpless little shrug.

"Besides, I'm curious about these mysterious gourds. Who knows what kind of secrets they might hold?"

[mirrortide]

Lapis surprisingly goes along with Peridot without much fuss. She's trying her best, she really is. Also, the less she's alone to herself, the less she's alone with her thoughts, and the less she works herself up into a panic. It's not a great way of dealing with things, but it's how she's chosen to do it.

"... Maybe someone like Steven licked a bunch of seeds?" It's all she's got, honestly, as she follows in step with Peridot. It's.. probably for the best they didn't bring Pumpkin along. She might get jealous? Or maybe aggressive.

[alienwear]

"Highly improbable. More likely it's some variety of indigenous plant-based creature, or perhaps a witch using magic to animate otherwise inanimate objects," Peridot muses.

[mirrortide]

"I wonder... if I could learn to do something like that." She says after a beat of contemplation. "I don't think it would be too much different than controlling water clones? And that's easy enough to do even cracked."

It's something for consideration! But also... She's really unsure as to what sort of magic she should be focusing on. If any at all, honestly.

[alienwear]

Peridot perks up and grins at her, apparently enthusiastic about this idea.

"You ABSOLUTELY could learn to do magic just like that!" she agrees, fluttering her little wings with excitement. "You could also probably learn hydrokinesis spells, too. There are people at the Coven who can teach you all SORTS of things."

With Lapis having such a hard time over winding up here, Peridot is totally ready and willing to encourage her to try out magic, if there's any chance it'll help to restore some of her confidence.

[mirrortide]

She makes a contemplative noise at Peridot's encouragement, but she's not sure if she's really sold on the idea. Not yet, at least. Wouldn't it be weird to have to learn to do something she's known how to do her entire existence?

"Maybe. I guess I'm still kind of.. warming up to the idea of learning magic in general. It's weird, isn't it? It's like... What if I learned how to do fire stuff instead? Or lightning? What kind of a weird Lapis Lazuli would I be then?"