🌇 Morning — Peridot’s Apartment
The alarm blared at 6:45 a.m. sharp. Peridot groaned, rolling over in her messy bed, one hand flopping onto her phone until she managed to shut it off. The shared apartment was already alive with noise — Pearl humming while ironing her uniform for work, Amethyst arguing with the toaster, and Garnet calmly pouring coffee like she had all the time in the world.
“Ugh…” Peridot muttered, pushing herself up and running a hand through her wild blonde hair. “Do any of you understand the concept of quiet mornings?”
“Breakfast’s on the counter!” Amethyst called, voice muffled by the sound of sizzling batter. “Don’t be cranky, Perri!”
Peridot scowled but shuffled to the kitchen anyway, still half-asleep, wearing an oversized green hoodie and one sock. She grabbed a mug, filled it with coffee, and leaned against the counter, blinking blearily at the sunlight streaming in.
Pearl, already dressed and composed, gave her a look. “You’re going to be late again if you don’t leave soon.”
“I’m not late,” Peridot said through a sip of coffee. “I’m just running on a different temporal efficiency schedule.”
Pearl sighed — used to her nonsense — and went back to tidying the counter.
After a quick breakfast (and a lot of tripping over Amethyst’s shoes), Peridot threw on her usual outfit — dark green top, black leggings, boots — and slung her heavy backpack over her shoulder. The bus ride to campus was noisy and cramped, but she spent it fiddling with a small circuit board she’d been building for her engineering class.
By the time she arrived, she felt more awake — and, surprisingly, a little excited.
🏫 Campus — Engineering Building
She spotted you right away. Lapis Lazuli — sitting by the fountain outside the lecture hall, earbuds in, the morning light catching on your hair. You looked relaxed, like always, but she knew you didn’t get enough sleep last night.
She hesitated for a moment, then approached, clutching her coffee cup like a shield.
“Uh… good morning,” she said, voice a bit quieter than usual. “You look… functional. That’s good. Unlike Amethyst’s toaster, which nearly exploded before I left.”
She sat down next to you, pulling out a notebook covered in doodles and diagrams.
“So…” she continued, trying to sound casual but failing, “ready for another mind-numbingly tedious day of academia? Or are you planning to skip again and ‘commune with nature’ or whatever you called it last time?”