On The Street Along Serendipity Place, Saturday Afternoon

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Peridot hadn't been asleep when she lost her memory. In fact, she'd been out and about, looking at the flowers of the planetoid that the island had parked itself on, contemplating if these flowers had any practical purpose that she might be able to report to Homeworld.

And then, just like that, she'd found herself contemplating why she was contemplating the flowers. And where she was. And what these things were on her arms and legs. There weren't any other Gems about, that much was clear, but beyond that...

Frowning, she clanked one metallic limb attachment against the other, fingers trailing along in mid-air behind them. How did these things even work? She couldn't quite get the hang of making the finger-things do what she wanted them to do, and what she really wanted to do just then was maybe just trace out constellations in the sky with one of them while laying back in the flowers.

And that was why, for the better part of the morning, there was a Gem growing increasingly frustrated as she attempted to get her floating touch-things to cooperate. Or at least to free her arms and legs from the casings that they were stuck inside. It involved actual hissing, a lot of rolling around on the ground, and maybe some angry gnawing with teeth that had no business being that pointy. Eventually all of that wrestling had left her tumbling out of the fields onto the street, worrying at one arm attachment like an animal chewing on a bone.

Stargazing was not going to be happening, at this rate.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

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Cecil wandered by and eyed the green person curiously.

"Hello? Are you okay?"

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The aforementioned green person looked up cautiously from where she was seated on the ground, teeth scraping against the metallic thing on her arm. She'd been alone all day. This was... unexpected.

And organic. Huh.

"S'thuck."

Stuck. Also, she wasn't going to move those teeth unless she saw a better option for removing these things from her arms.

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"Oh, dear." Cecil leaned down to see if he could help. "Can you tell how they come off, or is it not working?"

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On Monday, Peridot was going to be supremely irked by all of this. Not because of Cecil, mind. But because she was a Homeworld technician. Actually removing these things really was just a matter of carefully hitting a few buttons here and there. But for the time being, she just shook her head, growled a little, and attempted gnawing the other arm again.

Shockingly, this course of action changed nothing. So, with all the decorum of a small child, the thrust her well-gnawed arm toward the... creature. Person. Thing.

"Help?"

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"Oo, let me see." Cecil took hold of her arm gingerly and felt about for a seam or a catch or anything. "Um. Are you sure they're supposed to come off? Not everybody has detachable limbs, you know," he said apologetically.

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She was going to just start gnawing on her actual arm, at this rate.

"I do," she replied, maybe just a touch petulantly. "My hands are inside."

And she couldn't get them out.

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"Oh! In that case...Well, biting and pulling haven't worked...have you tried yelling at them really loudly to let go?"

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"For about an hour," Peridot lamented. "They didn't listen."

The nerve of them, really.

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"Well, that's not very nice. Now listen, you...arms." Cecil thumped one of them. "You open right now, do you hear me?" He gave it another thump and a firm poke for good measure.

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The thump didn't do much, really. It was, after all, just a thump.

The poke, on the other hand? A little circle of light illuminated itself under where the finger touched, and a line of light seemed to spread out from there, creating a seam.

The arm casing split open from there, and two halves and five fingers all fell with a clatter to the cobblestones.

Peridot blinked.

...

"Do that again!"

Yes, now she was thrusting the other arm in Cecil's direction, too.

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"Oo!" Cecil beamed happily. He poked the other arm in a few places, until the same thing happened again. "Nifty!"

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Peridot stared for a moment down at the heap of metallic detritus strewn about the street. And then, all at once, she threw up her arms in victory.

"Yessss! I'm free! I'm free!"

Well. Halfway free. Now she had really long mechanical legs and comically tiny arms.

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"Yay!" Cecil cheered with her, since she seemed so happy. "How did you end up in those, anyway?"

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"I don't know," Peridot replied simply, looking down at her legs and testing out a stomp-stomp-stomp before poking her tiny fingers anywhere and everywhere she could reach. "I don't know anything."

... This was not entirely untrue.

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"Oh, you have amnesia, too?" Cecil asked. "I thought maybe it was just me."

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She gave a distracted little nod of her head in agreement with what the ceatureperson had just said, and then threw her arms into the air once again in victory as the leg casings opened up and let her free, too.

She even did a little victory lap in a circle around the helpercreature.

And then paused. And peered up at him. Waaaay up at him.

"Hey!"

He was taller than she was! By a lot!

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Undeterred, Cecil thrust out his hand to shake. "Hi! I'm Cecil."

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Peridot blinked at the hand for a moment, and then also thrust one out. Not to take his, mind. She as really just aping his motions.

"I'm not," she replied, informatively.

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"Oh, good," Cecil said. "That would be awkward." He took her hand briefly and shook it, then let go. "Do you know your name?"

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Oh, she was going to take that question and one-up it, Cecil. Just you watch.

"What's a name?"

This, of course, was asked as she puttered around in little circles, occasionally pausing to shake her hand up and down in the air, mimicking the motion that the Cecil had made her do.

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"Oh! Um." Well, what was it? "Something people call you? Your...um. Your identification? Designation? Tag?"

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"Hmmmm." Peridot pottered around in circles for a few more moments before she stopped and peered up and up and up at the personcreature. "How do I get one of those?"

If she couldn't remember hers, clearly she didn't have one, right?

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"Well, most people get them when they're born, I think." Cecil pondered. "But some people choose their own later on. What would you like people to call you?"

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There was a long pause before Peridot answered. After all, she had only ever heard one other name-word as far back as she could remember.

"... Cecil?"

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"Yes?" Cecil asked. "Oh! You mean you want to be a Cecil, too? Well...um...sure, why not! Hi, Cecil, nice to meet you!"

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Aha! She was getting the hang of this thing! She'd be the most powerful Cecil on the island in no time!

"Nice to meet you," she parroted back, holding out her hand toward the taller Cecil expectantly.

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Cecil grinned and shook her hand. "You're getting this really quickly!"

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"Of course I am," Tiny-Cecil said, puffing her little chest out in pride. "I'm a very fast learner."

Presumably.

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"That's neat! I'm not, I don't think. Well, I don't really know, I guess. I don't really know anything today. Except the important stuff."

He took a piece of paper out of his pocket. "See, I left myself a note: 'In case of amnesia. Hi, Cecil, this is Cecil. Your name is Cecil. Your boyfriend is ♥Carlos♥. He's a scientist, so he's probably off solving whatever this is. Radio is awesome, you don't like cauliflower, and you shoot a gun with the barrel away from you. Love, Cecil."

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That was a very thorough note! Tiny-Cecil didn't understand most of it, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from patting herself down to see if she had one, too.

No luck.

"All I had were these annoying limb casings."

And then she wound up and punted one foot back into the field of wildflowers.

... She was gonna want that back later.

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"Well, you're out of them now," Larger-Cecil pointed out. "What do you want to do next?"

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Tiny-Cecil considered that for a moment, and then pointed up with one teeny tiny finger.

"I want to trace constellations," she decided. "I don't know if I know those ones."

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"Oo, that sounds like fun!" Cecil grinned. "If you don't know them, just make your own! I like staring up at the sky. It makes me feel infinitessimally tiny and insignificant; it's awful."

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"You... like feeling awful?" Yeah, Tiny-Cecil was confused. But that was apparently her default state of being, these days. She tilted her head at Large-Cecil, and then nodded toward the flowers. "There's a good view from here. I noticed when I was waging war against the metal things."

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"Let's go, then!" Larger-Cecil headed for the flowers and flopped down. "Tell me what your constellations are."

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"Well..." There was a rustle-rustle-rustle-fwump as the littlest Cecil deposited herself in the grass beside bigger Cecil, and then pointed up at the sky. "I don't know any of those yet. But..."

She connected the dots between four stars that seemed a little brighter than the rest.

"Those four make a diamond!"

... A stunning revelation, really.

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"Yes!" Larger-Cecil agreed. He looked up. "Oo, and if you use just those three, it's a triangle!"

It was an apposite shape at the moment.

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Littler-Cecil considered that shape, and then smiled brightly.

"I like triangles," she decided. "They're a very straightforward shape."

She had a bias.

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"I guess it depends on the triangle, Larger-Cecil said. "That one's pretty nice, though."