[Open]

[peridork]

Who: Peridot and YOU
What: Catch-All for when Peridot's TRUE FORM is exposed in the aftermath of the break-in debacle, when her limb extenders are confiscated as part of her punishment.
Where: Mero Deck (Room #011 and the deck at large), Mess Hall on Tue/Th/Sun evenings, the library.
When: Back-dated to the week of the 27th of October to November 3rd.
Warnings: N/A, it's all rated PG up in here.

Even if you hadn't ever actually talked to Peridot before, so long as you had seen her around it would be impossible to miss that there is something very different about her. She's small. Like, really small, by a good 6 inches or so, but it's not even just the reduced height that makes her appear that way. Without her heavy gauntlets and boots, she looks almost disproportionate, the empty space where there should be bulky metal standing out only serving to make her appear even scrawnier.

It's shameful to be seen like this to begin with, but more than just feeling small, Peridot feels insecure. Powerless. Everything seems a million times scarier when you have no fighting or defensive skills, and you're used to relying on gadgetry to keep yourself safe. But what Peridot misses the most is her audio logs. They're an integral part of her daily routine, a crutch that helps her keep her thoughts organized and makes her feel stable. As long as she has that screen, with its informational databases and carefully cataloged encyclopedia of human customs that she has been building, she feels confident enough to face the day. Without it...

Well. Lets just say she's even more jumpy than usual.

A) Mess Hall OR Med Bay. She refuses to wander the ship like this. Peridot rarely leaves her cabin on the Mero deck now, emerging only when she has Mess Hall duty, or she's scheduled for a shift down in Cryo. Whichever she's at, she is theoretically approachable... though her heightened defensive and easily nettled tendencies make her even more unpleasant to converse with than usual.

B) Library Not the sort to be easily deterred from a job, the electronic catalog project for the library is one of the few things that gets Peridot out of her cabin when she isn't due to work in the mess hall or med-bay. Trouble is, entering the information on those books into the library computer requires her to actually look at them first, and books, as you may know, tend to be organized on tall shelves... The resulting problem is obvious. At random points throughout the week she can be found clambering on things, standing on her tip-toes in a desperate bid to reach the tomes that are oh the higher shelves. Good Samaritans who come to lend the little gem a hand had best be prepared to get nothing but ungrateful scoffing and blustering comments about how she "could have done it herself" as their thanks.

[[OOC: If you are canon blind, please feel free to take a look at Peridot's status page if you need visuals on how drastic the change is. And yes, she is wearing what is basically the equivalent of footie pajamas. ]]

Comments

CLOSED to Residents of Mero #011, the day after the INCIDENT

[peridork]

One of the worst things about all of this, is she is not looking forward to explaining her new appearance to her roommates.

Of course, rationally she knows she's going to have to do so sooner or later, especially if she intends on hiding in the room for most of the time until her punishment is up, but that doesn't make her relish the idea any more.

Whenever one of the two of them would enter the room next, they would be greeted by the unusual sight of Peridot actually crouched in her bed for once, the sheets hiked up around her in a little cocoon with only her face and hands visible. She's clutching one of her robonoids with an ill-tempered expression on her face, apparently deep in thought. She keeps squeezing the poor little thing without thinking, causing it to emit strange creaking sounds periodically.

[hyperkinesia]

Bruce doesn't really expect anything new or strange, no - well, not aside from the same amount of strange he's already used to by now. He does share a room with a tiny green alien and a small dragon, that tends to broaden one's notion of what's weird or unusual.

He's carrying a few books under his arm when he comes in, and he smiles when he spots Peridot sitting in her bed. A strange sight, though, seeing her all huddled up like that, and eyebrows knitted together, he asks as he sets the books down on his own bed. "Is there something wrong?"

[peridork]

Even though she heard the door open, with the way Peridot looks up at Bruce, you'd think that she was only just laying eyes on him properly for the first time. She stares at him agog for a moment, mouth working silently like she's trying to give a proper answer... but she gives up halfway and pulls back under the covers with such speed, the image is reminiscent of a rodent retreating into its burrow.

"'M fine," she says, voice muffled by the blankets. As she shifts around another robonoid is dislodged from its nest; it plunks onto the floor and activates, wobbling around on its four spindly legs.

[hyperkinesia]

He looks a little intrigued at that, but he doesn't visibly react to it, no more than just arching an eyebrow and offering her a puzzled smile. He doesn't approach her, though - it's painfully obvious that something's wrong, but he doesn't want to push or invade her personal space. More so than anyone else, Bruce knows how that feels.

"You don't seem fine," he starts carefully, then stops as he watches the little robotic thing fall to the floor and get up on its legs. "What's that?"

[peridork]

"...What's what?" Apparently she didn't notice it roll off. Unable to stifle her curiosity, that little green face pokes out from the blankets again to investigate.

"Ah!" She launches herself half-way out of the bed to snatch the gamboling sphere up with her distinctly normal looking hands and pulls it back into her makeshift blanket fortress, tsk-ing as she goes.

"Stupid thing," Peridot grumbles under her breath, prodding at and de-activating the little device. "It's one of my flask robonoids," she explains, glancing at Bruce with a mildly pained expression on her face. She's keen on forcibly acting like she didn't just inadvertently reveal the shameful absence of her equipment to him.

[hyperkinesia]

Well that, Bruce doesn't miss. He frowns a little in confusion when he sees her hands - he remembers all too well how they're supposed to look usually, and that's not it.

"What happened?" The robonoid is forgotten for the moment, despite him having all kinds of questions to ask about it in his head. The strange and unexplained change in her appearance, much like her attitude, which he's sure is related to that change, steal his attention now. "To your hands. They look different."

[peridork]

Peridot winces, glancing down at her fingers. "Nothing happened to them," she says a little defensively, bristling. It's technically true?? Nothing happened to her hands, Bruce just made the (completely legitimate) mistake of assuming that her gauntlets were her real appendages.

But she folds, knowing full well that dodging around the question isn't going to get her anyway. She exhales miserably and then looks him in the eye. "The Captains... confiscated my limb enhancers," she mutters, flushing angrily.

[hyperkinesia]

He did assume, yes - but he's also smart, so when she mentions limb enhancers, he easily figures out his own wrong assumption. There's a little 'oh' there, and he nods, eyebrows arching in understanding as he takes a step closer.

"I didn't know your hands looked... well, like that," he tips his head almost apologetically, shoulders drawing together. "Is it a bad thing? Is it dangerous for you, not having the enhancers?"

[peridork]

She laughs suddenly, just once, like a bark, loud and incredulous. "'Is it bad? Yes it's bad, I don't have my weapons, my screen or my logs, any of my info-- I can't do anything!" Her voice cracks at the end of her little rant, and she appears to curl more tightly in on herself, shoulders hunched up, looking miserable.

[hyperkinesia]

"I'm sure you can still do a lot of things," he barely pauses there, just so she won't interrupt him in another burst of frustration. "But I can see how it can complicate things, to not have them with you."

He stands a little close to her bed now, hesitating for a moment but finally gesturing at the edge of the mattress. "Can I sit?"

[peridork]

She doesn't interrupt, but she doesn't really look convinced, either.

Peridot stares at him for a moment, before grunting her assent. She shuffles over a tiny bit to make room, creating a flurry of movement under the covers as she scoops her half-dozen concealed robonoids along with her, so they don't wind up sat on.

[hyperkinesia]

If any of the robonoids happened to roll away he wouldn't have sat on them anyway. He settles down slowly, though not too close to her, keeping that usual layer of distance he always seems to have around himself. Not that he feels as much the need for it around Peridot, she's hardly shown to be dangerous in the little time they've known each other.

"Can I see your hand, please?"

[peridork]

Peridot looks highly suspicious of the request; if it weren't for the fact that she has been sharing a space with Bruce for nearly a month at this point, she would not even consider compliance.

But since they have been...

"What for?"

[petrifiedshadow]

Starflight usually went straight to the library once his shift ended, but he already had a substantial stack of books that he'd checked out and had a lot of catching up to do. So it was that he wound up sweeping into the room earlier than usual, making a beeline for his bed.

There was a small of noise minor distress when he saw his perfectly ordered pile of Pyrrhian scrolls had been knocked over. One of Peridot's robonoids was scuttling around under his bed, no doubt the culprit. Scooping it up impatiently, he turned around to deposit it on Peridot's bed.

"Oh, you're here." Starflight wasn't shocked, per se, but he had gotten used to Peridot not being around, or wandering the ship at weird hours, and he'd never seen her like this.

"Erm, are you ok?"

[peridork]

Her eyes flick up to the Night Wing's face and linger there, narrowed with a quiet fury. It seems, for a moment, like she might snap at him, but the explosion never comes. She glares back down at the robonoid in her hands instead, scoffing loudly.

"Oh yeah, I'm great. Just perfect!" she says suddenly, giving the little machine another good squeeze.

[petrifiedshadow]

Starflight huffed, looking entirely unconvinced. He spent the past six years with Tsunami and Glory, anger and sarcasm were two things he'd had plenty of practice dealing with.

"It might help to talk about it," he offered, rolling the robonoid over to her. Though considering how she was treating the one she already had it might not have been the best thing to do.

[peridork]

"Talk about it? What is there to talk about!?" She's laughing harshly, bordering on histrionic, but the look she levels at Starflight is a serious one. "The captains stole my private property, what else am I supposed to say about that??"

[petrifiedshadow]

"Why would they take your things now? If they really wanted to they could have just taken them when you came through the Ingress." Thinking it over, Starflight was pretty certain that's what had happened to the dreamvisitor he had been using before coming here. Without proof though there wasn't much he could do about it.

"What did they take?" he asked, looking around her bed to try and take a visual inventory of her things.

[peridork]

"They took... my limb enhancers," Peridot finally admits in a horrified whisper, looking positively mortified. She self-consciously draws her blankets more tightly around herself as she says it, shivering at the thought.

[petrifiedshadow]

"Your...limb...enhancers." He repeated back, looking a little baffled. He looked down at his claws, puzzling through what she could be talking about. Very cautiously, he reached out and hooked a claw on the edge of her blanket, tugging it back just enough to get a better few of her hands.

"You have normal paws? I thought the other ones were made of solid light, like the rest of your body."

[peridork]

"HEY!" Peridot snaps and snatches the blanket back, retreating further under it, like an angry little crab receding into it's shell. Just her angry face peers out from under the folds of fabric to glare sternly at him. "No, that was equipment given to me back on Homeworld to use for my mission, and the captains stole them!"

She shivers, tugging the blankets even tighter. "I've lost everything... my weapons... my screen, my logs! I'm useless without them!"

[petrifiedshadow]

Starflight cringed apologetically, stepping back to sit next to her bed. He felt like he could relate to how she was feeling, like he should say something. Glory always gave him a hard time about not being the most sympathetic person, but he didn't want to leave Peridot feeling this bad. What would Sunny do?

"I wouldn't say 'everything'. You still have your spheres," he said, trying to sound more positive about it. "And I'd bet you still know more about technology than a lot of people on the ship, even without your screens."

[peridork]

It's really the ego stroking that does it for her. Good one, Starflight. The gem tilts her head, considering his words.

"Hmm. I suppose that is true... but that's a given, seeing as I was literally made to be a technician. Heh... most of the crew is hopeless by comparison," she scoffs rather unkindly.

That grin quickly fades, though. She glances down at the robot she's clutching. "These robonoids are useless pieces of junk without any warp pads around to fix, though... And... And anyone who looks at me now will see right away that I've been disciplined," she whimpers, shrinking up again. It's likely that no one who has ever seen the way that she hordes the little robots in her bed would ever guess that they're essentially useless, but it just goes to show how finicky Peridot is about her paltry collection of belongings. To lose something of her own that she actually relies on is soul crushing.

[petrifiedshadow]

"Disciplined? What did you do?"

Starflight had been operating under the assumption Peridot was an innocent victim, but if she had done something the captains didn't like, that was a much clearer motive to their actions. It made a lot more sense than them just deciding to take her things on a whim.

[peridork]

She snorts. "I was working with Ratchet to investigate some of the off-limit areas of the the ship, that's all."