⇨ THE EPILOGUE

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 61
Where: The Carnival
What: After all the rescues team return, it will be matter of tending to the wounded and getting the hell out of dodge. The Ringmaster can handle the fleeing part, but someone will need to look after those in the medical tent. Or, maybe, you just want to show up and ask what the hell happened.
Warnings: Some messed up consequences of faerie fuckery.

IN REPAIR↴ As the minutes tick past, all four rescue groups will eventually return. Everyone in the carnival is encouraged to help out, ensuring that the rescues and victims both are taken care of after the fact. You can tag in here as rescuers taking care of business around the carnival, victims recovering, or other workers checking in to see what's going on. This log is for general aftermath threads, made by anyone.

Comments

[stompadour]

"I know she's a traitor," spits Jasper incredulously. "Do you think I trust her??"

[periphrasing]

"Enough to fuse with her, apparently, yes," Peridot mutters, glancing away.

[stompadour]

Jasper stares at her for a moment.

Then she just starts laughing.

[periphrasing]

Peridot snaps her attention back to the other gem, bristling indignantly.

"What the hell are you laughing at!?" she snarls, lashing her tail, fists clenched at her sides.

[stompadour]

"I don't know what the Crystal Gems have told you about fusion," Jasper snorts, "but I don't want to fuse with Lapis because I trust her. I told you, she's a monster. She's brutal. The first time we fused, she tortured me for months!" She puffs her chest up a little, as if having been tortured is something to be proud of. "But I'm strong enough to withstand it. That's why we're so powerful together."

[periphrasing]

Wow. Every time Peridot thinks her opinion of Jasper can't get any lower, Jasper proves her wrong. She fixes a positively venomous glare at her.

"Not powerful enough to keep from getting sliced in half by a puny traitorous peridot," she sneers, teeth bared. "Gee, I wonder what your precious Pink Diamond will think when she comes back and finds out that you not only fused with a gem of a different type, but one who betrayed Homeworld to boot!"

[stompadour]

Peridot has touched a nerve; if Jasper slept, this would be the kind of thing that would keep her up at night. In any case, she isn't laughing any more, and the change in her demeanour is abrupt.

"Whatever she decides I deserve, I'll accept it. I'm not a coward."

[periphrasing]

"Whatever," Peridot mutters, and looks away again. She snorts, swishing her tail one more time. "It feels like we're done here."

[stompadour]

Jasper huffs, glaring.

"What did you even want, Peridot?"

[periphrasing]

"I don't know," she exclaims, throwing her hands up briefly. That's honestly the worst thing about this? "You're injured and-- It's not like I WANT to see you shattered! I just thought that, maybe, since we're working on the same team, I could try and have a normal conversation with you or something!"

What she wanted was to comfort herself by comforting someone else who didn't need it or appreciate it, basically.

[stompadour]

Jasper doesn't reply to that immediately, instead just regarding Peridot for a moment or two with narrowed eyes.

"... That's what I don't understand," she says. "You don't want me shattered? It would be easier for you if I was, wouldn't it?"

[periphrasing]

Peridot stares at her blankly for a moment.

"I guess it would be easier, but." Man, how is she supposed to put this? "You're just not someone that I wish death upon, I guess. Sorry if that disappoints you."

[stompadour]

"It doesn't, I just don't get it," says Jasper. "It's the same with Steven; everyone says he'll heal me, but why would he want to? He knows I'm not going to join you."

[periphrasing]

Wow, you keep consistently calling him Steven instead of Rose! Peridot is sort of proud of you, Jasper.

"It's not about whether you 'join us' or not," Peridot sighs, shrugging lightly. "It's about doing the right thing."

[stompadour]

Jasper makes a small, frustrated sound. "What does that even mean to you gems?"

[periphrasing]

"I don't really know how to explain that," Peridot admits, shrugging again. She's a lot more calm all of a sudden, like she's just out of energy for arguing for the moment. "Not killing people just because it's convenient or doesn't suit our needs is definitely a part of it."

[stompadour]

"... There's a difference," says Jasper, who considers killing people just because it's convenient to be kind of gauche for anyone who isn't a Diamond, "between just not killing someone and going out of your way to save them when you don't have to."

[periphrasing]

"Well yeah, but letting someone die just because you don't see how you'll get anything out of it isn't exactly a great thing to do either," she counters. "Ugh. Believe me, I know it doesn't make any logical sense, it's just what feels right, okay?"

[stompadour]

Jasper just stares at her, perplexed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

[periphrasing]

"Which part of what I just said is giving you trouble specifically," Peridot says with the air of an underpaid math teacher dealing with a frequently confused but well-meaning student.

[stompadour]

"What feels right?" says Jasper. "You can't decide what to do just because you like how it feels." Come on, Peridot, this is why you have infallible matriarchs to decide what's right for you,

[periphrasing]

"Why not?" is Peridot's bland, probably completely infuriating answer. She genuinely wants to know why Jasper thinks that, though. She can make a pretty educated guess, but she wants to hear it from the gem herself, in her own words.

[stompadour]

"I -- what? What do you mean why not? You're just a Peridot -- if every gem just decided to do what they wanted everything would collapse--" She pulls a face. "But I guess you don't care about that, do you."

[periphrasing]

Peridot pulls a face; she actually looks genuinely offended, hurt even, by that last comment. "Of course I care," she says, crossing her arms at her chest. "I mean-- I don't care about maintaining the Diamond's ludicrous and flawed totalitarian grip on every single aspect of our society and every gem's life-- But I do care about our race, and about Homeworld."

She sighs, glancing away again. "You know what actually made me decide to join the Crystal Gems? I talked to Yellow Diamond. One on one."

[stompadour]

Jasper frowns. Her expression as Peridot says she cares about gems and their Homeworld is extremely skeptical, but her next remark is just baffling. "What about it? I've talked to Yellow Diamond. She hand picked me when we pulled out of Earth."