The Perk, Thursday Afternoon

[era_two_triangle]

"Explain."

It had started innocently enough. Peridot had ventured out beyond the confines of the school grounds in order to take in the sights around town. She'd learned enough of the local written language now to recognize the 'Per' part of the building that she'd stopped in front of, mostly thanks to Karla teaching her how to write her own name, and had been simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by the sight of the humans within shoving organic substance into their mouths, and then making it disappear, either immediately, or else after mashing it up first depending on whether that substance was a solid or a liquid.

And so, curious enough to want to understand what was going on, and what the purpose of the Per* building actually was, Peridot had gone inside.

Now, a good two hours later, she'd learned how to spell Perk, intimately understood the chemical differences between decaf and Colombian dark roast, learned where milk came from, and had threatened to disassemble the espresso machine three times in order to better understand the inner mechanics. There was a line behind her, which she refused to move out of the way for. And nobody was explaining the reasons that people kept putting things into their mouths and making them vanish.

The barista was looking more than a little ready to just walk out on the job.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

You know who was in that line? A cop waiting to order her cup of coffee.

"Jesus fucking christ! What's the effing hold up?"

Peridot was getting between Vic and her precious cup of coffee.

[era_two_triangle]

"I want an explanation!"

If that exclamation back was Peridot's reply to the loud human behind her, or her doing more yelling at the unfortunate barista, well, that was anybody's best guess. Maybe she was just yelling into the void at this point.

She kind of felt as though she was yelling into the void.

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

Vic sighed. This was supposed to be her day off.

She pulled out her badge and walked to the front of the line.

"What's the problem?" she asked holding up her badge and to the barista and the... green triangle thing. "And if so help me if someone needs an explanation, there's a thing called wikipedia."

[era_two_triangle]

Wikipedia was more useful if you could read the language. Which Peridot was making impressive strides on! Buuuut she still needed a little bit of work.

Besides, there probably wasn't an entry that one could get to by searching 'that thing where humans put things into their mouths and then those things disappear.'

"I simply want to know," Peridot said, a little more reasonably now that there was what appeared to be some manner of human authority getting involved, "what all of these humans are doing. And why. And how it works."

They certainly weren't doing it anymore, granted, because everyone had finished their coffee a good hour and a half ago. But still.

The barista just made a sad whimpering sound. They weren't working part time at minimum wage for this.

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

"They're getting food and drinks?" Vic offered with the slightest hint of a sarcastic tone. "Seriously? Is this what you're confused about?"

[era_two_triangle]

Oh, Peridot could hear that sarcasm, Vic. And she was giving you such a stinkeye for it, too.

"Yes," she said simply, though there was a bit of annoyance still left in her own tone as she did so. "That is what I'm confused about. Analyzing the chemical breakdown of the substances hasn't answered any of my questions, and the human behind the crude horizontal brewed caffeinated brown fluid preparation workstation won't let me inspect the apparatus used to create the fluid in question. What is it for? What is drinks!?"

Look, Vic, she'd only learned what pants were the other day. One step at a time, here.

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

And now Peridot was getting Vic's fake smile and sarcastic niceness as she said the following with lots of finger-quotes:

"Drinks are 'liquids' that we 'imbibe' because if we 'don't' we'll die of 'dehydration' or quite possibly 'frustration' if someone doesn't get out of the way. For instance-"

She turned to the barista. "I need the largest coffee you have. Black, two sugars."

Then she turned back to Peridot. "See? That was me ordering a 'drink'. Okay? Now can you get out of the way so everyone else can order something?"

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot's lip curled back, revealing a set of surprisingly sharp teeth, but she shuffled off to the side all the same, squinting and peering up over the coffee equipment as the increasingly uncomfortable barista set about to preparing the drinks and trying to get some of that lineup out of the way while she still could.

"Humans can die of frustration? Your species is more fragile than I had previously assumed."

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. We're weak but surprisingly tenacious," Vic deadpanned as the barista handed Vic her coffee. Vic took a long slurp of her coffee and then letting out a sigh of relief. Oh the sweet reward of caffiene!

She then pulled down her sunglasses to give Peridot a better look.

"Let me guess. New to town?"

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot at least spared a glance over her shoulder at Vic at the question, raising one eyebrow slightly.

"What was your first clue?"

The fact that she was probably the only triangular green person on the island, or the fact that she still wasn't completely clear about what 'drinks' was?

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

A little of column A, a little of column B and the fact that she had no social graces.

"I used to be a detective," Vic snarked back. "It's my job to notice things."

And be sarcastic to aliens coming to Earth. Welcome Peridot!

[era_two_triangle]

"Used to be your job," Peridot corrected, because she was capable of being helpful, too. "If you're no longer a detective, being observant doesn't necessarily apply to your current job description."

Peridot was slightly pedantic, too.

[fracknotfrak.livejournal.com]

Vic pursed her lips a little at that. "So you don't understand what food and drinks are but you can jump all over my syntax? Cute."

Yep. She didn't really mean that was cute.

These two are going to be the best of friends. You can tell.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal didn't generally stop at the Perk, but it was difficult to miss the line forming, and he was insatiably curious.

He came in just in time to catch the end of the altercation, with the...small green being...slinking to the side.

She was definitely curious. In both senses of the word, it appeared. "People tend to get annoyed when you come between them and their caffeine," he observed.

[era_two_triangle]

"Which could have been avoided if somebody had simply answered my questions," Peridot replied, reasonably, before looking back at... ah. Another human. There really wasn't a shortage of those about. "I don't believe they were unreasonable."

The questions themselves really weren't!

... There had just been a lot of them. Peridot's scale of time was maybe just a tiny bit skewed, compared to that of the human race.

[sharp_as_knives]

"That depends on what they were," Hannibal answered, equally reasonable. "It's entirely possible the baristas," he gestured at the people behind the counter, "may not know the answers, unless they have a direct bearing on their job."

They had functions that didn't include questions about tea chemistry, Peridot.

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot frowned a little bit. That reasoning actually made sense enough to her. After all, she had a very specific set of skills herself, as a technician and a kindergartener. Perhaps asking these humans about the purpose of the organic materials that they were preparing was something like asking a Pearl about... basically anything.

"I suppose I understand that," she said, slowly. "Would they know why people are putting those things into their mouths?"

Something about frustration being fatal, had mostly been her takeaway from the last conversation she'd had.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal raised an eyebrow at that. "They should know the basics, but assuming you're asking why people are eating and drinking, they may not be able to explain them to someone with a completely different frame of reference. You don't consume things? Take in nutrients?"

[era_two_triangle]

Now there was a big green triangle slowly leaning to the side as Peridot tilted her head at Hannibal.

"... Consume things? You mean... put them inside my body?"

That would explain where the organic materials were disappearing to, anyway.

[sharp_as_knives]

"For a start, yes." Hannibal was doing his best not to let his amusement show. "You put them inside your body, and your body breaks them down into usable substances. Or at least, ours do. Yours doesn't?"

[era_two_triangle]

"Nooo." Peridot was right back to 'fascinated and a bit disgusted,' now. Yep. "Any usable substances that we encounter, we have technology to process and break down into components that we require."

Uh, not for that purpose, Peridot.

[sharp_as_knives]

"What about nutrients?" Hannibal asked. "Things you need for yourself in order to survive?"

[era_two_triangle]

"I'm a Gem," Peridot replied, as if she was a little bit exasperated that people continued to not realize that fact. "Once we've been made, Gems just... are. We don't have any need of extra outside substances in order to continue to exist."

Physics basically hated these guys.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal blinked. "A living gem? Or I suppose," he corrected himself, "a sentient one, anyway. Forgive me; you're the first I've ever met."

Well, he didn't realize he had one in his class; Steven seemed no stranger than any of the students here.

"What if you get scratched? How do you heal?"

Because two could definitely play the awkward physical questions game.

[era_two_triangle]

Peridot was leaning away from you now, Hannibal. And side-eyeing you warily.

"We try not to get scratched," she said, cautiously. "A broken Gem can't exactly put itself back together."

Sure, those shards could be fused into other shards. That was the entire reason she was here, after all. But... that was not exactly on her to-do list.

What? With a question like that, she wasn't thinking of her body.