"We got doughnuts!" Amethyst shouted as she kicked open the door to the house, stumbling in with a large box in her arms.
"Oh Amethyst!" Pearl groaned. "How many times do I have to tell you not to kick the door?"
"What's a doughnut?" Rose asked, joining them by the door.
"They're great!" Amethyst yelled. "They're like sweet bagels!"
"The only dessert food you can have for breakfast," Steven added. Rose stood in silence.
"I have no idea what any of those words mean." she admitted.
"Here, watch!" Amethyst called out. She grasped a doughnut, chocolate with sprinkles, tightly in her fist and crammed it into her mouth. Steven also ate one, but in a calm, more human fashion. "It's called eating, and it's the best!" Rose gently selects a doughnut from the box and holds it near her face. She slowly takes an incredibly small bite, then her face lights up.
"Oh, this feeling! It's..." she tried to put it into words.
"Delicious?" Amethyst guessed.
"I don't know what that word means either, but this is...good!" she smiles. "But um...what happens to it next?"
"I can't believe you enjoyed that," Pearl scoffs.
"C'mon, I'll tell you what you have to do now," Amethyst grins, leading Rose off to the side, with Pearl following behind.
"Well," Steven said to Garnet. "She seems to be fitting in nicely. Pearl hasn't left her side since she got here." His smile shifted to an expression of worry as he said that.
"Steven," Garnet started. "You know that she isn't your mother, right?"
"Yeah," Steven nodded. "I just hope Pearl knows..."
"Pearl is capable of taking care of herself." Garnet assured him. "And no matter what happens, she has us."
"Well, I'll probably never be eating again," Rose admits, joining Steven and Garnet.
A little while later, the sun had just fully set and the full moon lit up the sky. Steven, Pearl and Rose were all standing out in the sand, while Lion slept on the rocks behind them.
"Isn't it beautiful," Pearl began, staring off at the gentle ocean waves. "The way Earth's moon reflects off the ocean?"
"So if you're also a Rose Quartz," Steven said, accidentally ignoring her, "does that mean we have the same powers? Like, can you do this?" his gem glows for a split second, and magic rose petals emerge around him, forming his bubble shield.
"I sure can," Rose smiled, doing the same and surrounding herself in a matching bubble. They shared a quick laugh as their bubbles dissolved.
"What about floating?" Steven said, lifting himself slowly into the air.
"Absolutely!" Rose laughed, floating even higher than him.
"So are you any good at getting back down?"
"Oh please," Pearl moaned. She casually grabbed him by the foot and dropped him into the sand, as Rose landed gracefully beside him. "Steven, I told you not to float outside until you've learned how to land safely." She folded her arms and stuck her nose in the air.
"Ahh, sorry Pearl." Steven shrugged, sitting up. "Oh! What about plants?" he said, quickly turning back to Rose.
"Oh it's been so long," Rose admitted. "I haven't even seen an organic plant in the longest time! But to answer your question, yes of course." She smiled and knelt beside him. "Rose Quartz soldiers were created by Pink Diamond, specifically for her Earth colony." Steven looked at her curiously, while Pearl immediately tensed up upon hearing that name. "When she saw how much plant life existed on this planet, she knew how useful a gem with the power to control them would be. Steven, do you have healing tears, too? Can you bring them forth on command?"
"Sorta, I have healing spit." he said. Though she was still smiling, Rose was able to produce a single tear that she wiped gently onto one of her fingers.
"Pink Diamond created Rose Quartzes for a special purpose. Rubies, Amethysts, even Jaspers and other quartz soldiers, they were all built solely for fighting. But Roses..." the teardrop seemed to glitter and sparkle as she held it up for Steven to see. "We were built to defend those gems that fight for our cause, and to heal those that were cracked in battle. Pink Diamond knew that by healing gems, instead of making replacements, we could save the resources needed to make gems to...well, make a wider variety."
"I guess that explains the shield." Steven said. Rose grinned and summoned her gauntlet from the light eminating from her gem.
"My weapon is this gauntlet." she explained. "I can use it to both block attacks, as well as fend off enemies. They say that Rose Quartz soldiers tend to have a natural empathy that other gems lacked, which makes us such effective healers."
"Healers..." Steven pondered. "Oh! Oohhh!" he jumped up excitedly, startling Rose a bit. "Do you know how to heal corrupted gems?!"
"Corrupted?" Rose asked.
"Steven!" Pearl screamed. "Isn't it about time for you to go to bed?"
"What? No way!" Steven protested. "It's not even that late!"
"Yes, it is!" Pearl warned. "Early to bed, early to rise!" she patted him on the back as a way of sending him on his way.
"Aww fine." he groaned as he walked up towards the house.
"Bed?" Rose asked.
"Oh yes," Pearl laughed awkwardly. "Humans like Steven need to lay down and go comatose for several hours a day in order to recharge."
"Oh, how peculiar!" Rose said. "Um, what did he mean by...corrupted gems?"
"Oh boy..." Pearl sighed. "Let me explain, er...after Steven falls asleep.
"If he falls, won't he get hurt?" Rose said curiously.
Later on that night, Steven was asleep, Garnet and Amethyst had gone into the temple to do whatever it is they do at night, and the new Rose sat almost motionless on the couch. The temple doors slid open and Pearl stepped out slowly.
"Rose?" she whispered. "I...I can show you what Steven was talking about now..."
"Oh! Good!" Rose yelled, only to be shushed by Pearl. She hurried through the doors, which closed behind her. Together they walk passed Pearl's room, filled with fountains and pools, and into the center room, known as the burning room. Rose looked around, in a mixture of fascination and horror, at the bubbles floating around her. "What is this terrible place? Are all of these...gems?!"
"Well, yes." Pearl explained. "But they aren't like you and me. They were...corrupted."
"What does that mean?!" Rose yelped.
"Remember the monster that me and the others fought on the cliff?" Pearl pointed to one of the bubbles, containing that same green gem. "Near the end of the war for Earth...there was..." Pearl paused nervously. "There was an attack. Innocent gems, even homeworld soldiers were all transformed into these...these monsters! So part of our job as protectors of this planet is to defeat and contain them until we can cure them. But for now, this is all we can do..."
"Well have you gotten any closer to curing them?" Rose demanded an answer.
"We almost did, once. Steven was able to-"
"Pearl!" Garnet yells, startling both gems. She was suddenly standing behind them, looking stern, with her arms folded. "What are you to doing in here?"
"I could ask you the same thing!" Rose turned to yell. "Bubbling gems like this is just...horrible! I would know!" Garnet calmly walked over to the too, Pearl flinching a bit, as she does.
"It's all we can do at the moment." Garnet explains. "At least bubbled, they are safe..."
"You call this safe?" Rose said, grabbing a bubble. The bubble she held contained a forced fusion, a small cluster of shards crammed together. Rose squeezed the bubble, forcing it to pop, and letting the gem hybrid fall to the floor. It started to glow, and arms and legs made of pure light started reaching from its jagged center. Rose stepped back nervously, while Garnet quickly knelt down and grabbed it, forcing it into a new bubble before it could fully form. "What WAS that?" Rose shouted.
"Another one of Homeworld's cruel creations...a hybrid...a monster." Garnet mumbled. "This is why we need to keep them bubbled."
"Rose," Pearl said, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" Rose retreated. "You all act like you're better than your own planet, but you're the real monsters! But bubbling gems for something they can't control is just..." Rose didn't finish her sentence. "Let me out of this temple..." she growled.
"Rose, please!" Pearl begged as Rose rushed through the temple's door. Rose said nothing, and rushed through the front door of the house. She slammed the door, hard enough to put a few cracks in the walls, and hard enough to knock the picture of the old Rose off the wall. It crashed hard, shattering the glass across the frame. The commotion was enough to wake Steven, who sat up in his bed.
"Pearl? What happened?" Steven asked, still mostly asleep. Pearl said nothing. She just stared at the door, then down at the cracked picture of the Rose she originally loved.
