I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

[keephersafe]

Who: R & you
Where: The beach
When: 21/10
Rating: G for now
Summary: Still trying to keep out of the way of the general population as much as he can help it, R takes himself down to the beach.
The Story:

[The wind ruffles at his hair and tugs his clothes, and R closes his eyes to take a deep, unnecessary breath. He can almost feel the way the salty air should sting the inside of his nose, and he can almost feel the chill from the wind, and that almost is so tantalisingly close that he loses a good hour reaching for it.

He sits cross-legged in the sand, oblivious to the way that the position strains the tendons and joints of his knees. His fingers dig gently into the sand, and he watches the way it slides over his hands with an expression that could only be called curious.

His head tilts slightly as he hears steps behind him, and he glances back over his shoulder. The time he's spent here has done absolutely nothing towards making him look any less Dead, but he's finding that he cares less and less about people's reactions to it. If someone's going to shoot him, then... they're going to shoot him, and there's really nothing he can do about that.]

Um... hey.

Comments

[keephersafe]

[Defective? That's a little rude, and yet it's more polite than some of the things he's been called by a wide margin. He shrugs.]

I g... guess so.

[Being dead but still walking around isn't really something that humans are supposed to do, after all. By all rights he should be lying somewhere and rotting, but instead he's... not doing any of that.

He really wants to ask her why she's green.]

[slapfight]

[Wow. He agreed with her. That's... new. It's so new that she doesn't know what to say, at first, because she's used to being corrected.]

That's unfortunate, but don't worry. It doesn't devalue you in the slightest- I know that now.

[It's so flat and matter-of-fact that it's almost comical. Here she is, one minute asking if someone is broken and then telling them, with no possible room for disagreement, that it's okay.]

[keephersafe]

[Well, she might have been rude, but she wasn't entirely wrong. He shrugs a little again, but what she says - while clumsy in its delivery - is actually kind of nice.]

... Thanks. [R says quietly.

He doesn't recall a time where anyone actually told him he had some kind of value. Had he meant something to Julie? He isn't sure now.]

Wh... what are you?

[Dammit, R.]

[slapfight]

[She beams proudly- this is something to be pleased about and she's glad he asked..] I'm a gem- we're an alien race. Specifically, I'm a Peridot.

[She taps her gem.] See? Pretty cool, right?

[keephersafe]

[Aliens. That... is surprisingly easy for him to accept, and where a more verbose person may have asked several follow-up questions he only nods. At least she wasn't insulted by the question.

He looks at the gem. Peridot. Is that peridot? He doesn't remember, but he knows that peridot is a precious stone and... alright, that must be peridot.]

Yeah. [Pretty cool.] Where are you from?

[slapfight]

Originally or before I was abducted by this... Wonderland simulation? There are two different answers.

[But she doesn't wait for him to clarify.] Originally, I'm from the gem Homeworld, but I rebelled against my Diamond, and now I live on Earth.

[keephersafe]

[It's just as well she doesn't clarify, because asking about one would have led to the other anyway.]

... Your Diamond?

[Like... a ruler of some kind? R doesn't really have the best of things to compare to when it comes to societal leaders.]

[slapfight]

Yellow Diamond. [Like that explains it.] One of the gem matriarchs. She was meant to be the most rational and logical of them all, but it turned out it was all just an act. A real rational leader would have listened to what I had to say, instead of holding onto a petty grudge.

[It's taken her a very long time to get to this point, and she's proud that she can say this honestly now.]

[keephersafe]

[The names don't mean much, but he's interested in the story regardless, not failing to look interested while she speaks.]

Wh-what you had to say?

[Give him a little more, here, Peridot...]

[slapfight]

That Earth deserved to be protected and its life and resources utilized, instead of just destroyed! [She throws her hands up in exasperation- there will never come a day when she isn't mad about this.] Who cares if organic life is somehow subpar? It's still life! And Earth has so much we could learn from.

[keephersafe]

[Peridot is... definitely baffling, but he can't fault her enthusiasm even if he's struggling to follow what she's talking about. It's not for a lack of trying, or a lack of intelligence, but more that she's touching on concepts that he had never really given much consideration to before.

Zombies don't spend that much time contemplating the existence of aliens.]

Th-they wanted t... to destroy us?

[He got that, but why?]

[slapfight]

Oh, that's what gems do. It's nothing personal- Homeworld just needs resources, and other worlds provide those resources.

[a beat] Well, as evidenced by Yellow Diamond's complete lack of decorum, Earth was personal, since there was a whole gem war over it.

[She's incapable of realizing she's talking on a scope that most people don't understand or don't want to understand.]

[keephersafe]

[Yeah, she's lost him entirely, but he's enjoying being spoken to and even if he doesn't understand, it's interesting in its own way.

So he nods, as if to nudge her to go on.]

A-..and then?

[slapfight]

And then Homeworld retreated, leaving Earth with a geo-weapon embedded in the Earth's mantle that would one day destroy the planet from the inside out. [She explains this rather enthusiastically. She's pretty excited to have an active listener.] Until I almost single-handedly destroyed it and saved the Earth.

[keephersafe]

[He might not be understanding it all, but he is definitely listening. Not that many people talk to him so enthusiastically, and the interaction is pleasant.]

That's... impressive.

[And he even sounds sincere. It all comes across as very impressive, really.]