Peridot makes a friend

>It was a warm summer's day, and Peridot found herself wandering through the forest once again.
>Steven was busy saving the planet, and Lapis had started spending her days down by the seaside as of late, leaving Peridot alone at the barn with precious little else to do.
>She had managed to pas the time so far by studying the local fauna, something that turned out to be much more entertaining than watching Season 5 of CPH for the 86th time in a row.
>She stared up at the trees, listening to the birds singing from up in their branches.
>However, today, something sounded a bit odd.
>One of the songs sounded much more panicked, and was coming from below rather than above.
>Looking down at her feet, Peridot located the answer to her little mystery.
>A small bird, no more than a foot tall, was chirping urgently beneath her, one of its wings laying half-contracted across its left side while the other flapped uselessly.
>Peridot picked up the frightened bird, gently clapping it on its head to calm it down.
>"Are you hurt?" she asked.
>The bird, being a bird, made no response.
>"Aw, poor little thing. Let's get you down to the barn and I'll fix you right up."
>The bird seemed to understand her, and made an excited chirp from under her palm.
>"Come on little guy. We're going to have a lot of fun together, I just know it. "
>And so, Peridot walked back into the barn, with a little new companion in tow.

>In a small little corner of the barn, there was a wall, laying parallel to the entrance, working with the two walls to the corner to make a little room where one could enter from one side.
>This room was hidden behind a grey-white curtain, and contained a small wooden table where Peridot often played with her little friends.
>Moving the table up from the workshop area had been quite a lot of work, but having a space for herself to play with her friends made it feel worth it to Peridot.
>As she pulled away the curtain to walk into her room, the little bird jumped out of her hand and landed on the edge of the table.
>"Oh, you're excited too, are ya?" Peridot said to the bird.
>The bird chirped excitedly.
>"Yeah, I know. I´d be excited too if I got to spend all day with me. Now, let's get started, shall we?"
>"First, we're going to need some things."
>Peridot gave the bird an affectionate little pat on the head.
>Peridot reached under the table, pulling out a large red storage unit closed by a small latch.
>She quickly opened the storage unit, eager to help the little thing.
>She remembered the human called "Andy" calling it a "toolbox", althoug hthe tools contained within were primitive to say the least.
>Still, she would manage.
>She pulled out a drill and some drillbits, a screwdriver, a hammer, a crowbar, as well as a smaller, bifurcated crowbar.
>She knew what it was called, but the name escaped her.
>No matter, she knew how to use it and that was good enough.
>She grabbed the little bird, laying it down in the middle of the table.
>It chirped happily under the warm lamp, rubbing up against her hand lovingly.
>How cute.

>Her hand fumbled inside the toolbox until she found what she needed.
>Pulling out the stapler, she went straight to work properly securing the little bird.
>It screeched loudly as the staples went through its wings, drops of blood gathering around its wounds.
>It struggled against its bonds, but to no avail.
>Peridot smiled.
>Now the fun could truly begin.

>Peridot looked over the selection of toys she had, weighing the options in her mind.
>She didn't want to make a bad first impression after all.
>Eventually she settled upon the screwdriver, a rusty old thing with a flat head nd a wooden handle.
>She tapped the handle against the table, getting a deep and satisfying "thunk".
>Turning against her new friend, she presented the screwdriver to it, holding the handle over the poor creature's face.
>"Are you ready, little guy, We're going to have so much fun with this, just you see!"
>With that, she turned away from the bird's face, moving left to inspect its broken wing.
>It was fractured around the middle, she saw, with the bone being badly fractured.
>Luckily, it had not broken.
>She would take care of this in a jiffy.
>Doing her best to contain her excitement, she raised up the screwdriver, holding it by the head, carefully calculating how it would come down.
>Then, she swung the screwdriver downwards, right onto the place where the bone was fractured.
>The bird shrieked in pain as the bone shattered, breaking into a dozen tiny pieces inside its wing.
>Peridot gave an elated squeal as the bird thrashed around in pain, only causing it further injury as it pushed its wings along the staples.
>"Oh, don't struggle, you'll loosen the staples" she said, grabbing a hold of the stapler again.
>"Or do, it's way more fun that way." She giggled to herself as she lodged another two staples into each wing.
>The bird screamed louder, but nothing happened.
>"What's wrong? Are you tired of playing already?"
>"Or are you just scared that someone might find us?"
>"Don't worry about that. In here, nobody can hear us no matter how loud we are."
>She smiled, and flipped the screwdriver in her hand, pressing the flat head against the shattered bone.

>The bird continued to squeak as Peridot slowly started pressing the cold metal against the splinters of bone inside its broken wing.
>She felt the bone crunch below her fingertips through the screwdriver, the mad thrashings of the bird sending vibrations up her digits.
>Peridot was ecstatic. None of the other creatures had been this much fun.
>She pressed harder, eliciting a short screech from the bird, the head ripping through the skin of the bird near the fracture and cutting straight through a bone.
>She moved the screwdriver upwards, a jagged rusted edge cutting up the thin skin of the wing.
>She felt a small vein get slit in half, a small spurt of blood spreading a comfortable warmth over the back of her hand.
>The feathers began to get soaked as the red blood seeped out of the wound into the plumes of the wing.
>This simply wouldn't do.
>"Oh dear, it looks like your feathers have gotten dirty, friend."
>"Let's fix that, shall we?"
>And with that, Peridot grabbed a handful of feathers and yanked them out.
>And another.
>And another.
>Droplets of blood splashed on her arm as the bloody feathers were ripped out of their place.
>Undeterred, she pushed through, not stopping until only a few patches of white and bright red adorned the plucked pink wing flopping pathetically up and down the staples, the large cut up its middle weeping crimson onto the dark brown wood of the table.
>Once again, the screwdriver found its way in, this time upon an artery.
>This time, a lot more blood splashed out, making its way onto Peridots face.
>She stared the bird in the eye, looking only slightly shocked as drops of blood blazed their trails down to her flat chest.
>She touched her cheeks, and her finger came back redder than before.
>She licked her lips, droplets of blood dancing across her tongue before joining it betwen her lips.
>"Mmm."
>She swallowed, her smile beaming with pure joy.
>"Aren't you a nice little bird."
>She stared down at the mangled, naked wing.
>"Oh, no, but what have I done to you, friend?"
>"You're all asymmetrical now!"
>"But don't you worry, I'll make it alright!"
>She turned away, staring at her tools, searching for something to make it better.
>Her hands made their way to the hammer, and she grasped it firmly in her hand.
>She turned around, swinging the hammerhead down into her hand.
>"Isn't this just so exciting? And to think we have the entire day to spend together!"
>She raised her hand, and the hammer came down upon the healthy wing of the bird.
>Outside, the faintest cry of a small lost swallow could be heard.
>But there was noone to hear it.

>Toothpicks are an interesting thing.
>They can do their job perfectly well, and very often, without breaking or bending too much, and can handle enormous amounts of force being exerted on them head-on.
>Keep the ends in place and press onto the middle of them, however, and they break easy as pie, cracking apart and sending splinters flying out before snapping in two like a crowbar.
>In the poor swallow's once-whole wingbones, something quite similar was happening.
>A loud "thud", followed immediately by a slightly less loud "crack", echoed through the empty barn.
>Bone ground against bone as cartilage broke and tissue split under the force of the metal hammer, tensing the muscles of the wing while the tendons snapped under the immense pressure.
>A stray splinter sailed through the wing on a wave of blood rushing out of arteries, large gaping sores ripped into them by the blow, and right into a nerve moving along the wing.
>The bird squirmed like never before, its right wing beating itself against the staples before all feeling in it was lost, sparing the bird a small bit of pain.
>The bird breathed in heavily, its chest beating up and down in an irregular motion.
>Peridot smiled to herself, and began looking in the toolbox again.
>She needed to get those feathers off quick.
>And she knew exactly what tool to use.
>She found the blade of the plane run against her hand, and pulled it out gently, holding it over her head.
>It was time to get to work.

>Resting the plane on top of the ulna, she pushed down on it and went to work.
>The plane glided across the wing, cutting through the flesh, taking a row of feathers with it.
>The bird squawked again, this time not as loudly.
>The blunt energy of its past exclamations was gone, replaced by the sharp, drawn-out pain of exhaustion.
>Peridot went for another round.
>The plane went back to the ulna, slicing through another piece of flesh.
>After repeating this a couple of times, the wing was almost entirely shorn of feathers.
>What remained was a thin, almost transparent piece of skin, bleeding from a thousand tiny wounds to form a thin layer of glistening crimson.
>Where the plane started, it had cut deeper, creating a large uneven gash in the wing.
>Below it, the white of the wingbones could be seen rising from the red flesh.
>The bird had ceased its squawking now, and only made pained breaths as the cool air bit at its bone.
>Peridot stared at the wing, transfixed by its beauty.
>Finally, a canvas on which she could paint her masterpieces.
>Wordlessly, she fetched a stool and climbed up to the upper part of the worktable.
>There, she found her scalpels, the brushes with which she would make her art upon the wing.
>After some consideration she chose two: A long, but shallow scalpel with a thin blade and sharp tip, and a shorter, but much deeper and thicker one with a right-angled tip.
>She put the short one down, taking the long one in her right hand instead.
>Starting at the base of the wing, she made a small incision, then, as one glides through paper with a good pair of scissors, cut down it across the base.
>Moving the scalpel towards the end, she proceeded to do the same, now having what little skin the wing had cut off from the rest on three sides.
>She grabbed the corners of the fresh-cut flap of flesh,and slowly pulled it back, blood leaking down onto the table and forming a small pool beneath the bird.
>The sight that greeted Peridot was nothing short of art.
>A great big canvas of pooling blood, with thick sharp lines of red and blue shooting through it, throbbing ever so slightly with each pump of the bird‘s heart.
>Thin slabs of muscle lay across the top half, straining and stretching against white sinew and bone.
>Steam rose from the wing as the hot blood was exposed to the cool spring air, moving up in delicate strings as it stretched towards the heavens.
>Peridot took a deep breath, taking in the metallic, yet sweet taste of hot blood.
>„What a delightful olfactory experience.“
>She dipped her fingers into the exposed wing, and brought it to her mouth.
>„No doubt the gustatory one will be just as great.“
>She placed the finger in her mouth, sucking off the blood before pulling it out with a loud, wet „plop“.
>Swishing it around in her mouth, she shuddered a bit and swallowed.
>„That was great. I hope you´re enjoying this as much as I do.“ Peridot said, stroking the bird lovingly just below the beak.
>She grabbed the short scalpel, while her left hand went to the wing, grasping a large vein.
>She gently pulled the vein onto the blade of the scalpel, and sliced.
>Blood spurted over her hands, and onto her face.
>Giggling with a childish sense of discovery, she grabbed the cut-off part of the vein and put in onto the table before looking for an artery.
>Finally, she found one, cutting it as she did with the vein.
>Taking the two blood vessels together, she began making small cuts in the ends, allowing them to fir together.
>At the base of the wing, something burst, a small fountain of blood leaking down into the wing.
>Peridot squealed with elation.
>Bit by bit, her masterpiece was taking shape.