#decoder: cornalina is spanish for carnelian and flaca is a common nickname for skinny girls

[ajoraverse]

I’m waiting on someone at work and I can’t proceed without their input, so here’s the opening of a thing I hope to finish over the next week or so.

--

In all her twenty years of life, Amatista "Amethyst" Xiomara Estrada had never felt worse. Her head was spinning, she was sure she was gonna faint at any time, and on top of it all she really wanted to hurl her half-digested tlacoyos and tequila all over herself and couldn't. It was almost insulting! Her alcohol tolerance was so high that she'd never gotten drunk before. Drinking other people under the table was practically a point of pride for her. Did someone slip something into her drink during Jasper's going-away party? But it was a private party and surely Cornalina would have told her and-- and-- And, ugh, maybe she should have let Flaca walk her home, after all.

Ughhhhhh. Fuck everything.

Amethyst stopped at the doorstep to sit and wait for the world to stop doing the whirling thing.

Any time now.

Please.

She rummaged through her pockets for her keys and swore when she felt nothing but a tube of chapstick and a broken hair tie. Did she seriously leave everything at the party? Fuck me. Pearl and Garnet were gonna be asleep at this hour, and she really wasn't up for making enough of a racket to wake them up.

At least it was a nice doorstep. Pearl swept it regularly, though the leaves crackling under her suggested that her roommate hadn't done so recently. Eh. Whatever. She can pester Pearl about it in the morning. She just... needed...

Amethyst woke with a start. It was still dark and falling asleep out here was a terrible idea. Grudgingly did she get up; it felt like she weighed a thousand pounds and she ached everywhere. What the fuck was in her drinks?

Still, she stood and the world wasn't spinning anymore. She tried the door knob. It opened, letting her shamble into the foyer. Funny, Pearl was usually so fussy about locking up at nights. She didn't even bother to turn on the lights, relying instead on the nearby street lamps filtering through the front window. The stairs of their townhouse felt like too great a challenge just then, so she slumped onto a nearby chair. Huh. Her roommates must have been rearranging the furniture again.

Shrugging off the discrepancy, Amethyst made herself more comfortable on the armchair and went back to sleep.

It was while the sky was growing lighter with the coming dawn that sirens interrupted Amethyst's sleep. Grumbling incoherently to herself as red and blue light flashed through the front window, she turned away to ignore it all and try to get a little more sleep. It would be gone soon enough.

* * *

"Who the hell are you?"

Amethyst blinked awake. The townhouse looked all wrong in the warm golden glow of the afternoon sun. It was a mess that Pearl never would have tolerated: there was a layer of dust over less-trafficked areas, clothes lay where they were dropped, the banister was gone, and the furniture and artwork were way more modern than Pearl liked. She was in the wrong damn house.

"Shit."

Still drowsy, Amethyst pulled her legs from the opposite armrest and tried to sit up properly. The girl glaring at her from behind glasses too big for her face had short, peroxide-blonde hair sticking out every which way, a bit of an overbite, and possibly the worst fashion sense known to humanity. The bright green The Matrix print on her black shirt looked even brighter and more obnoxious, and the shorts were of a bright lime-green and orange combination that made her eyes water. And were those olive socks and pink Crocs?

"We'll try this again," the girl snipped. "Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?"

Rather than answer her immediately, Amethyst pulled herself off the armchair and righted her clothes. At least she felt a lot better and hadn't even vomited on herself. A small mercy. "Amethyst. Took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. You?"

The girl's eyes narrowed at her in what Amethyst guessed was confusion on top of that suspicion in her voice. Probably didn't get the reference. "Peridot Tsai. Berkeley is a long way from Albuquerque."

It took Amethyst a moment to reconsider explaining the joke. "Yeah. Figured," she said dryly. "Am I anywhere near Cedar?"

Peridot seemed to relax, a little. Her hands weren't quite so tight around her upper arms. "You're a few blocks off. Ohlone Park is just across the street."

A few blocks off. Amethyst groaned and scrubbed her face, probably completely ruining Flaca's make-up in the process. She had to have been drugged to not even make it past the park. How did she get turned around like this? Her hand automatically reached for the iPhone that should have been in her pocket and encountered nothing but that tube of chapstick. Right, she really did leave everything at the party, didn't she?

#ajora writes stuff #wip #su: human au #or; rather; au of the human au #decoder: cornalina is spanish for carnelian and flaca is a common nickname for skinny girls