Peridot strolled down the sidewalk in the pouring rain as if she were walking through a sunny park. Her arms were full of garbage piled so high she had to peer around just to see where she was going. That's when she noticed an open garage lit up as a shining beacon amongst closed windows and citizens turning in early. Perhaps there would be more materials for her creations available in there.
Setting her own pile down inside the door, she found that it was rather packed in here. But not with stray materials; there were canvases colored in some artificial fluid. Some were covered with white blankets, and there were supplies also colored in artificial fluid laying in cardboard containers.
"You like my paintings?"
She nearly jumped out of her skin, turning and pointing a wrench threateningly in the stranger's direction. "STAY BACK. I'M ARMED."
Vidalia couldn't help but laugh. "A little green gremlin armed with a mechanic's tool? What're you gonna do, fix my car?"
She blinked. "Gremlin ... ?"
"You must be one of Amethyst's friends." She swiveled on her stool to face the canvas before her again, dipping a paintbrush in multi-colored matte cups and swiping them in lines across the parchment. "One of her new friends, anyway. I doubt I would've forgotten you."
"You know Amethyst?" Peridot scrunched up her nose, skeptical that Amethyst did, in fact, have friends outside the Crystal Gems.
"Oh yeah, me and her go way back. Check out those paintings over there." She pointed her brush to the far wall, where some paintings laid against eachother beneath a white blanket. Peridot was cautious, as she always was with these humans, though not as cautious as she was before meeting Steven, and before bonding with Connie at the car wash. She lifted the corner of the blanket to find a depiction of Amethyst, likely in a previous reformation, posing with her silver hair flowing in the breeze. Her eyes widened as she gasped and pointed at the painting with an obvious, "That's Amethyst!!!"
"How'd you guess??" Vidalia chuckled. She enjoyed the company of gems, and it had been a while since Amethyst had visited.
After a moment of thought, Peridot gasped again. "AND it's a meep morp!!!"
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" She smiled. Her attention didn't waver from the canvas even as she held a conversation. "I've been painting for a long time, and calling it 'art'."
Peridot ran her finger across the painting of Amethyst to test this so-called 'paint' and found it was long since dried to the paper. "Art?" She rubbed her thumb and index finger together, returning to Vidalia's side. "Sounds dumb. These are clearly meep morps."
"Alright, whatever you say." Vidalia flipped the canvas over to the next blank page and dipped her brush in some green paint. "I don't think I caught your name? I'm Vidalia."
"Peridot." She hesitated; not because she almost stated her gem number, but because it didn't even cross her mind to do so in the first place. She wasn't just a Peridot now. She was Peridot.
"Nice to meet you, Peridot. Mind taking a seat on that stool for me?"
She glanced at the nearby stool that was almost as tall as she was, and struggled to climb on top of it without tipping it over, which was ... a challenge, to say the least. She looked like a frightened house cat clinging to the seat with all hands and feet. "Like this?"
"I mean, if you want, but ... it's probably best to relax."
So she did. She perched precariously with her feet on the stool and her hands balled up at the edge like a slightly less frightened house cat.
"So tell me, Peridot," Vidalia began, taking glances at the gem every few moments between brushstrokes, "you make meep morps?"
"I wouldn't say 'make'. Rather, I craft highly complex structures with no purpose or function but to invoke emotion in the observer."
"Wow. Now that's classy." She was in the groove now. Speaking with another artist inspired her. "So you're a sculptor then. Do you use clay for your creations?"
"Clay?? Of course not! I use that." Peridot gestured to the pile of broken alarm clocks, stray microwave parts, and dirty TV remotes piled in the corner.
"Garbage, huh? You are definitely one of Amethyst's friends." She laid down the brush and picked up an ink pen, leaning into the canvas and squinting to add in the fine details. "Why don't you bring some of your work over here sometime? I'd love to see it. It sounds like something Sour Cream would really dig, too."
"... You're interested in my meep morps?"
"Well duh! We artists gotta stick together. Creativity breeds creativity." She popped the cap back onto the pen and carefully tore the page off the canvas to show Peridot an abstract rendition of herself, cat-like and all. There was even a hint of cat ears atop her triangular hair.
Peridot scampered off the stool and grabbed the painting out of Vidalia's hands for a better look. "IT'S ME!!"
"It is, yes! That is you alright!"
She coughed, clearing her throat and standing a bit straighter. "Uhm ... Vidalia. May I take this meep morp with me?"
"You wanna show it to Amethyst, don't you?"
"Affirmative."
Vidalia shooed her off with one hand. "Go on, then. And don't forget to let me know what she thinks."
"WOW THANKS!" Peridot rolled up the canvas and placed it in her pile of junk, bounding out of the garage with everything in tow and without so much as a goodbye. Until Vidalia heard a distant, "I'LL BE BACK NEXT WEEK!!"
