Peridot let out a deep sigh. The pain from inhabiting Tourmaline’s body was gone. The beach and noise and maelstrom of intent - gone. She was back to nothing, back to peace, back to a fading calm... Until she remembered the creeping black void that edged in from all sides.

Peridot instinctively scrambled inward, toward the center of the mindspace. One of her feet landed on a crystal shard, which skittered toward Steven’s inert body.

Peridot’s eyes drifted to Steven again. Small and soft and kind. She shifted. "Yeah, and I didn’t ask you to try. Remember? You coulda just left me there in the Kindergarden. I’d probably have hobbled off fifty feet before
your Gem friends returned and shuuunk," Peridot curled her fingers in, thumb pointed out, and jabbed it toward her gem. "And you’d still be off playing human games. Or engaging in disorganized work until you died. Or at least until... untill Cinnabar showed up..." Peridot stared off into space.

She glanced back to Steven. He’d grown paler, and in a way she couldn’t explain, he seemed smaller. She noted the sparkling shards, some of which had slid dangerously close to the crumbling edge of the mindspace. The rest lay glimmering, unaware of their impending destruction.

Peridot let out a frustrated noise. She swept her arms out and began to grab the gem pieces before they fell into the void. She moved on her knees, careful to not disturb the crumbling mindspace. Then she turned to Steven’s body and dropped the gem pieces on top of his hollowed gem.

Nothing changed.