B1, Day 2 [public channel]

[whattaprick]

[ There are a lot of things people need to do right now: help the Prince's servants get resettled, get started on figuring out who can work on a cure for the petrification, deal with the trauma of dying in a hopefully healthy and non-self-destructive way, show the new people the ropes of what the Carnival has to work with.

Instead, in the morning of the second day since the Prince was defeated, anyone on the radio gets this: ]

So, I've been wondering.

[ The Nightrider's voice, for those who recognize it, has definitely been better. It's a low, hoarse rasp, and the pause at the end is not just for effect, but to actually catch his breath. ]

Just how old is everyone here, anyway? Here, I'll start. I'm ... pretty sure I'm almost sixty. [ A beat. ] ... Maybe.

[ Why did anyone let this man have his radio back again? ]

[ ooc; Lambert's flat on his back in the medical tent for this, feel free to bug him in person and threadjack each other at will. ]

Comments

[hippocarnival]

Steven's fourteen too?!

[That was the important part of this, right.]

[whattaprick]

See? Nobody looks their age.

[hippocarnival]

I didn't say anything about that! I'm not going to just disbelieve it.

[starseedling]

Yeah, but, um... I don't really age like a human! I've looked exactly the same for like five years!

[hippocarnival]

Is that because of the gem part? [Blue told him a little about gems. He's pretty sure Steven shouldn't be biologically possible, but he is, so there's no point contesting it.]

[starseedling]

I think so! Gems don't really age... they're just made fully grown, and then they're like that forever! Apparently... growing up isn't really a thing for them.

So, now I kind of don't know if it'll be a thing for me either?

[He sounds a little concerned about it.]

[hippocarnival]

Blue said they don't have families like humans either. But... uh, you do, right?

[There's no good way to ask 'was your dad in Portland actually your real dad'.] You were growing all the other years, weren't you? Maybe you just have a strong baby face.

[starseedling]

Yeah. My dad's human. But... my mom stopped existing, basically, when she made me. Because I have her gem.

[periphrasing]

See? Hybrid.

[Peridot you're not helping.]

[starseedling]

Peridooot...

[He groans plaintively.]

[periphrasing]

Nyeheheh. Sorry.

[hippocarnival]

Oh.

[That's basically dying, right? So his mom died when he was born.] I'm sorry.

[starseedling]

No, it's fine.

[He says it quickly and the slightest bit impatiently, as if this is something he's been over many times.]

She... she wanted to do it.

[periphrasing]

I was incorrect. I have just now been informed that he may actually be fifteen years old, not fourteen.

Like that makes a big difference...

[hippocarnival]

It's a pretty big difference when you're growing up. [Those are the awkward puberty years.]

[periphrasing]

...I don't get it. Years mean different things to you humans depending on how old you are? A year is a year, how is aging from fourteen to fifteen any different from aging between like... how old do humans live to... one hundred and fourteen and one hundred and fifteen?

[hippocarnival]

Because we grow faster when we're younger. It slows down a lot once you're eighteen, that's when you start being an adult.

[periphrasing]

You do...?

Interesting. I had always assumed that humans kept growing constantly at an even rate throughout their whole lives. It's how plenty of other organic lifeforms grow...

[hippocarnival]

I guess? [Yuya's not an expert on biology.] Dogs and cats grow kind of like that, too. They're adults in a year or something.

[Two years, maybe? Yuya's pets are all strays, but he remembers how quickly they grew up.] Eh, but if we kept growing until we were eighty we'd be huge...