lime green drama queen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
slapfight) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
entrancelogs2018-04-07 11:38 am
slapfight) wrote in entrancelogs2018-04-07 11:38 am
slapfight) wrote in entrancelogs2018-04-07 11:38 am
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It's better to be angry, it's safer and it's justified, but Lapis in her current state is allowed a full healthy range of negativity. This sort of thing is exactly why Peridot shouldn't be allowed to get serious, because the kind of hope she's capable of is devastating. It's tragedy. Somewhere along the line, she got badly misinformed about who she was dealing with. This shouldn't hurt, Lapis shouldn't care, but it's hard to stay angry when the reasons to be sad instead cut like that.]
You still don't get it, it's too late. There's nothing left to give up. I never get stronger, I never get better, nothing ever changes, and -- and everything's just going to keep falling apart like it always does -- over and over again.
[This time her face scrunches up, a good old mundane non-static form of distortion. If this was anyone other than Lapis Lazuli, it'd look like she wants to cry. Since it isn't and she doesn't it just looks sorta painful. Even now, though, she's not one to break down.]
You still don't get it. Earth doesn't matter and Wonderland doesn't either. I'm the one who's doing this to me. There's no escaping that.
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Her world fell down around her. She turned against Homeworld for a world she didn't understand, because it fascinated her and offered her things that Homeworld never would- and that she can quantify in logical terms. The hearts and minds of other people are still a mystery to her, however, so when Lapis provides her counterargument, Peridot's intense hope fades just a little from her eyes and her own face scrunches up.]
Why?
[Why can't she escape it? Why can't she want to escape it? It's true that with all of this, she has no idea how certain things work in the mind. How certain traumas affect certain people. How things can always seem hopeless. This is a form of naivety that has no real place here.
And yet, she seems to grasp that she's talking in circles. The music swells, tears bubble up around her eyes, and she reaches under her visor to wipe them away.
And then she answers her own question in the only way she can with the event closing in around her.
She sings.]
Well the answer is always the same
Won't you please just let it be
Cause I've been there and all I can say
Is that it slips away from me
With the memory of yesterday's grace
You spin away from me
So I can't go on
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How can you feel that way? I can't understand!
[She was offended at first, because that's a good easy superficial reaction. Peridot refusing to leave it at that brought out the grief underneath. And cutting away more layers now reveals fear, which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. For all that she tries, Lapis has never been much good at pretending that's not what lies at the core of her.
Something is being done to her. She can feel Peridot having an effect. And she can't understand what it is, and it aches, and it terrifies her, and Lapis feels suddenly that if she lets that incisive adoration keep cutting, she's going to see something else in there. And there's no way, absolutely no possible way, that what they uncover can be good.]
I'm not...
[She spreads her wings. They are heavy and shapeless, weakened by the song. When they move she sheds big dollops of water around the garden, like molting feathers; like the rest of her they look a terrible mess right now. But as long as they work at all Lapis can't stop to care. The space between stanzas is enough for her to lurch through and into the air.
Still, her flight is slow and awkward, pointed towards the mansion, and it's obvious from the outset that she's just going to their room. Which is more or less the exact same thing she's running away from, in some form. Lapis really isn't thinking this through at all. But where else would she go? No, more importantly: where else would she want to go? Where else would be at all comforting when everything is coming to a head? Where else would she feel safer or more at home or less alone? She may try to run from it, but some things are beyond her ability to argue with.]
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[There's a break in the song just enough for Peridot to try and reach for her, but their hands never quite meet. They separate and Peridot is left, for this moment, alone in the garden. Enough time passes that it may even seem like she remained there, wallowing in loneliness or lamenting the situation, but she's only steeling herself.
Lapis's dollops of water is almost as effective as a molting bird's lost feathers. She just follows the damp spots until she's figured out her exact location. From there, all there is for her to do is stand outside the door. She could go in, but she'd risk Lapis fleeing. She risks Lapis fleeing, anyway, but at least standing here she doesn't have to watch again. As strong and resolute as she is now, she might not be if she's turned away from again.]
I don't have an answer to your question. I wish I did. I don't know what to do when I can't figure something out. Lapis... I...
[The instrumental that built up until this moment begins to break and Peridot turns from the door and leans against it, singing again:]
As heartless and cruel as can be
She moves away from me
Still I need to be hers every time
With all that I can be
As she calls in the deep of the night
She takes all I've got from me
So I can go on
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Truthfully, Lapis is already beginning to come back to her senses, or maybe it's more accurate to say that truthfully, doing so doesn't make much difference at this point. She was half right before: Wonderland did in fact cause this, and it sure as heck poisoned everything that happened here, but it also stirred up what had been there all along and set into motion things that aren't undone as easily as ending an event. It brought down walls, it sent her spiraling out of the control she clings to so desperately, and what it pulled out of her was distorted but not falsified. It's easier to remember now what things were like before, but still hard to imagine going back.
Truthfully, though, running away didn't matter. Even if she'd gone somewhere that wasn't suffused with whatever it is she and Peridot have between them, that wouldn't have gotten her away. The things Peridot has been saying stick inside her as much as her own dark thoughts do. Painful as they were to hear, when she fled from them the emptiness ached instead where they had been. When she fled from them, suddenly there was something else in the way those words hit. Backwards as it is, that might have been the precise moment she became able to feel anything positive again. So something wild and dangerous within her held tight to Peridot's unbearable faith in her and would not let go, and she regretted leaving, as inevitably as she couldn't go back.
And despite herself -- despite how hard it is, and despite the fact that they've gone over matters of privacy and giving her space, anyway -- truthfully, it's a breathtaking relief when she hears Peridot's voice through the door, still continuing to try.
Lapis can do nothing but listen. When the song hesitates again, her own voice in answer is barely audible.]
Keep going.
[Truthfully, it's not that she wants to hear it. She feels like she barely understands it; she feels like it's more for Peridot herself than her. But she's here and she's listening, because that's all she can do, and Peridot is here and singing, and Lapis knows that's all she can do too.]
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But she can't stop what Wonderland has started, and she was bound to see it to completion whether Lapis asked her to or not. The fact that Lapis does speak only serves to reassure her that she hasn't jumped out of the window and found somewhere else to be- in which case, Peridot's heart would likely break and she'd be Lost, herself. Not that she knows enough about the event to know that level of cause-and-effect, but she knows enough about her own feelings to know that this is her last ditch effort to reach her, and if this doesn't work she has no idea what to do.
But it doesn't come to that. Lapis speaks and relief floods her. She looks up at the ceiling, tears shining behind her visor, and a small laugh escapes her as she wipes them away.]
She rides with the gods of the night
She rules the tides in me
She crushes the waves with her sigh
And she... oh stars... becomes a part of me
But her care is as sharp as a knife
I'll say, for how could she just step away from me
How can you just walk away from me?
She wakes at the dawn of the day
She spins away from me
So I can go on...
I can go on...
[The music fades. And Peridot is still sitting outside the door, turned slightly, looking at the doorknob expectantly with her metaphorical heart in her throat and a creeping anxiety that maybe, even with Lapis being willing to listen for a moment more, it still wouldn't be enough.]
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So Lapis opens the door. She looks incongruously normal standing there holding it, with her messy hair partly obscuring a complicated expression. She could be a sitcom apartment dweller just woken up by someone knocking on her door.
That only stands to reason, though. As it turns out, what's hidden under the layers of spite, grief and fear isn't anything terrible, and it isn't anything great either. It's just a person. Figuring that out really shouldn't have had to be so exhausting.
As for that obscured expression, well, she's definitely doing better. She hasn't made it back to the patented Lapis Lazuli detached illusion of calm, she's more openly distraught than would be acceptable under typical circumstances, but it's a normal and pretty darn legitimate kind of unhappiness, considering everything that just happened. It's not that choking despair without reprieve thing, anyway. She doesn't look like the straight-backed Lapis who swatted a spaceship down out of the sky. She doesn't look like the broken-spirited prisoner in a different ship either. And she doesn't look like an unwitting terraformer visiting Earth, but as far as that one goes, who's counting?
(It's possible that she cried in there. What a disturbing thought. We'll never know for sure.) Speaking is at least as difficult as moving, but give her another moment and she repeats herself.]
How can you feel that way?
[This time it's just quiet and sad. Even Lapis knows better than to really expect that question to have an answer, at the very least not one Peridot can possibly come up with, so it's sort of unfair. It's the question she has, though, and she seriously doesn't have it in her now to come up with a better one.]
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The silence stretches on with no answer, because there isn't an answer. It's the chicken and the egg scenario (the catastrophe that occurred when someone informed Peridot of that paradox is worth mentioning). It's a solution, not a problem. Why do I feel that way? Why is it a problem that I do?
But no answer is good enough, so the only answer she gives is a desperate, barely choked sob of relief, followed by a tight embrace as she leaps from the ground and into Lapis's arms.] Some things don't have to have an answer, Lapis. [She hiccups, her crying bordering on hysterical.] It's unfortunate, but it's true.
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It's not as overwhelming as before, if only because she can remember that it's a good thing. Despite all reason, Peridot is glad to see her, glad that Lapis is still here and doesn't hate her and is doing, uh, relatively okay in some form. It's hard to accept -- it seems impossible that it could ever not be hard to accept -- but again, it being difficult doesn't mean Lapis can't necessarily do it, if she wants it enough to try.
So in another moment her arms come up to fold around Peridot too, hands resting near her shoulders. There's no reason Peridot should have the sole responsibility for holding them close. In this position, they can't see each other's faces too well (Lapis will mostly get a lot of hair if she tries) and that seems fine for this kind of quiet, sad talk that doesn't normally get said.]
I don't know what I'd do without you. And that scares me.
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So, of course, in the potential loss of what must have been a perpetual motion cycle of keeping Lapis happy, which in turn, kept her happy, she faltered. And when she faltered, she realized that it just wasn't enough to be happy with making Lapis happy. She needed to be happy too. This event taught her that- it taught her that she believed, fully, in some bizarre way that she wanted to be recognized as a good person. It taught her that she was willing to be patient and understand fully her relationship with Earth, even if she couldn't understand why Lapis hesitated.
And it taught her now that for all that her and Lapis's relationship has been an imbalanced mess of give-and-take, it's their mess.]
I don't know either. So... we definitely shouldn't try to find out. [Logically, that is an impossibility, because neither of them have any control over it, but it's nice to pretend they can deny Wonderland one thing. Peridot peers upwards, visor smeared up to an almost comical degree from tears not wiped away in time.] Okay?
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So, Peridot may have learned that their relationship being an imbalanced mess is worth it; Lapis is behind the curve and still grappling with the first part. It's hard sometimes even to look at Peridot and see a person, and not some sort of ethereal symbol of fun, or an extension of herself, like a mascot. Something insubstantial. She still doesn't understand how much Peridot sacrifices for her, except right now. Right now they have been forced to confront some fragment of it.
The tip of the iceberg is hard to grasp. What Lapis has gotten right now, for her part, is merely a little more clarity and courage to approach it with.]
It's not just that. Peridot, I... I don't know how to care about you the way you care about me. I don't know if I can.
[She's afraid of a lot of things. Herself is high on the list. If she really just isn't capable of it, then she really is broken, and she really will always be alone, and she really is terrible. And that makes it all the scarier to need Peridot -- how can she ever feel safe with that knowing that she doesn't deserve any of it, that Peridot could focus her efforts in a million more rewarding places? It should be an act of faith just to admit that, essentially, she doesn't care as much. She just has more faith than usual right now.]
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She wrings her hands and steadies herself before she starts to lose it again, because as much as she's willing to sacrifice for Lapis's continued happiness, the whole point is to have the feeling returned. If it's not returned, then what is she doing but transferring her to need to please attitude to something that isn't her superiors or Yellow Diamond?
A terrible thought to be sure, but unlike Yellow Diamond, she knows that Lapis does care about her, and has the potential to care deeper. They just need to... well...
Wait for it.]
I can wait for it. You've gotten better, Lapis. I know you have, even if you don't believe it. Things might need to change a little bit, but that doesn't mean I have to give up on you.
[She does need to focus her affection and devotion elsewhere to get some relief instead of just putting it all on Lapis's happiness, and Lapis needs breathing room. It's not a solution, but it's a start.]
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And, after all, Lapis knows quite well that Peridot wasn't always this sweet herself. She makes it look so effortless now, and the notion of ever catching up with her certainly seems impossible, but if anyone knows about learning to care...
Anyway, Lapis is actually kind of caught off guard by how much better that makes her feel, which is to say, it makes her feel better at all and she's not really used to that happening. She's in kind of a vulnerable place right now, and bizarrely it's not entirely bad. Maybe this is how people who aren't her feel all the time. She even, however slightly and weakly, smiles for a moment, looking back down at Peridot.
Which is maybe undermined by an odd, quizzical expression promptly crossing her face instead, like she suddenly remembered something. Then her eyes widen slightly, then she bites her lip for a moment. It's an interesting progression. Lapis isn't exactly upset again, though. She's going to roll with it. She takes Peridot's hand.]
I want to try.
[Then she guides them back into their room and shuts the door.]
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I've watched you fight so hard to make things right
You'll interrogate mistakes under the hardest light
Fixer to the core, no one could need you more
I'll salt the Earth dry but you know that when it rains it pours
You can just keep working on me till your hands fall off, you've got three seasons of subtext and a year of reports
But when it all goes up in steam you'll be the same old clod, cause you don't know what you're worth if you can't do what you're for...
[A little louder.] ...Well, I don't caaaare about that.
I was unsuspecting, I don't like to reflect
Didn't think to see beneath the sweet that you project
Are you afraid of me?! Don't you want to be free...?
Just let you do this for me till you're so close I can't see
You might think that we'll both shatter if your surface cracks, I want to think I'd do right by you if you broke down
But I don't know how to show my heart instead of my back, and now we're both too scared to let our feet hit the ground...
Still, I don't CARE about that.
[The music slows. She closes her eyes.]
I just want to go home
And this will never be home
You can't make it a home
That's true, that's true --
But I don't care
What you can't do
I can't think of a home now
without you.
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But that fades quickly. For a second, she can even pretend this is the barn back on Earth, and everything's fine.
She catches onto the rhythm fairly quickly, echoing some parts, harmonizing with others, but never actively trying to overtake her. She's had her fill of singing today, but it's just so pretty, how can she not sing along just a bit?
She echoes the last line and has to wipe another tear out from underneath her visor which is starting to look like a streaky window at this point. She's full to bursting with love and joy and hope, and this must be how Steven feels all the time.] Heh. I guess this event wasn't so bad after all.
[What more can she say, really?]
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Peridot sometimes seems like any little thing can make her happy, at the very least superficially. Lapis is so used to seeing it and thinking nothing of it. It's very strange to suddenly be conscious of her own particular ability to make the gremlin happy, and to glimpse that it actually isn't just any little thing.
Is that what it is she needs to do? To just pay more attention to moments like these, and look at Peridot without brushing past? It's awkward, but it's not exactly bad. Maybe it would be tolerable even in the long run. Maybe it's possible.]
I'm glad to hear it.
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But she doesn't particularly want to. She's satisfied. This feels like the first breakthrough she's had since she decided to embrace Earth.
Which, unfortunately, means that in the wake of all this, the silence kind of stretches on awkwardly. Were this Camp Pining Hearts, the scene would end and they'd cut directly to another. Peridot isn't quite sure what to do in the wake of television's convenient fade-outs.
After a moment, she clears her throat.] Do you wanna just wait out the rest of the event in here and so something quietly... with no more singing?
[This has been A Lot. They both need some time for reflection.]
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Sure.
[Neither of them can actually guarantee no more singing, but this really wouldn't be the time for it. They've already had their breakthroughs and Lapis is pretty drained. For that matter, if she's going to be speculating on Peridot's feelings as an actual person who has them, she probably is too, even if it's hard to tell with her. On the other hand, while they're both less of emotional messes right now, Lapis still kind of is a mess in the plain ol' physical sense. She was in a bad state to be mucking around in the lake. At this rate she might have to figure out some human grooming concepts sometime. Anyway, that's not important.
In this case, doing something quietly for her is probably going to end up meaning actually doing nothing and watching Peridot putter around instead. Which isn't new either, Peridot-watching is a good and established hobby, but it's always been sort of more vicarious. When Lapis doesn't feel up to trying things, it can be at least something vaguely like satisfying to see someone else make a way better show of it and feel almost involved by association. But she can already tell that's not what it is this time.
It's still awkward. But that's still probably okay.]