Disclaimer: I don't own Steven Universe!
Title: Primal Knowledge
Summary: Steven may not have ever known his mother, but he KNOWS Rose Quartz. (or; Steven's complicated feelings toward the gem he never even got to meet.)
...
Steven knows his mother; the concept, the mural on the wall, the gem fixed on his belly. He's heard the stories, although not as many as he'd like.
She was a beautiful gem, great and powerful and strong: she killed gems.
She was wise and brave: she was an amazing tactician, and her sly battle strategies are what ended the war.
She was big and soft and squishy to the touch: she started a revolution.
Steven never learns about the bad directly. Never once has Garnet said; "She used to toy with your father.", or Pearl proclaimed; "She sometimes took things too far." Amethyst begrudgingly admitted that she'd never won fair and square against her in a training bout, once, but he wasn't sure that counted.
It has to be time. It has to be dad.
He remembers that he's always known about her. Steven remembers calling one of the gems "mom", once, when he was just a toddler, and Pearl gently pulling him into her thin lap on the back of the van and telling him they were guardians, not mothers, and, in memory of Rose (a name spoken only in whispers, it seemed to him at the time), they would prefer he refer to them as such.
"You're my guardians!" He'd cried afterwards, toddling away and acting as though he understood, when, really, he didn't.
He still didn't.
"Yup." Garnet had said; monotone and stiff, staring blankly at the ceiling. "Sounds about right."
Steven's learned that bringing up her name without just cause was bad. Wrong. Not from what they said, per say, but from how they acted. How sad they became.
He better knows the gems. He never had someone to take comfort in as a mother, but he'd had Garnet's gentle touch and Pearl's worry and Amethyst's playful pushing to better himself, and that was plenty. The play-wrestling and snacks and support: the missions and tears and sleepless nights.
Mostly, though, he knows how to connect his mother to every action they've taken; every secret and lie. Every time Garnet had quietly examined her gems and curled her fingers over them as though they contained some imperceivable knowledge and rubbed her eyes as though they hurt her; every time Pearl shied away from talking about how different she looked compared to the others; every time Amethyst laughed at something she'd done as if it were the funniest thing in the world while simultaneously pulling the fabric of her shirt over her gem like she was trying to hide her very life force, like she barely deserves to live whenever she errors, and that- it's all her. All because of her.
The problems were there beforehand, of course, but her death was like taking an open wound and stepping on it. Exacerbated it.
Because if there's one thing Steven knows about Rose Quartz, one thing he knows better and more clearly than anything else: it's that if there's one thing his mother had done during her thousands of years of existence, it's cause his family pain.
And he's not sure he can ever forgive her for that.
Author's Note: Because I'm not a real Steven Universe fanfic writer until I've written about Steven's mixed feelings for Rose.
-Mandaree1