Blooming Rose: A Pink Diamond Character Study

The Strangest Kind of Reunion

Going into cloudspace in order to deal with the presence, Rose only had one rule for herself: present herself purely as Rose, and never as Pink. This was a rule she had set for herself long before she even knew that the other voice was a Gem-like construct with her own name and had nothing to do with the voice; it was established out of disdain for any Diamond duties, whether they were actually harmful to organics or not.

Nevertheless, this was an unprecedented event. She never thought she would encounter someone else in cloudspace - truly in cloudspace, and not just as a reflection of reality. Yet, there clearly was someone: someone who, apparently, was there ever since the incident, and who claimed Pink Diamond's identity when Rose wouldn't.

Rose thus let herself disperse the clouds, as much as she could to view as larger a portion of cloudspace as she could, and then, she saw her.

Pink's usual attire was easy to distinguish in a pale landscape. The only significant difference between her and how Rose usually presented herself as Pink was that this Pink's hair was a lot less fluffy and even somewhat spiked at points. She was crossing her arms, as though dealing with Rose was the last thing she wanted.

Pink was the first to speak. "So! You finally show up and don't treat me like I'm nothing! Isn't that a surprise? Well, you're still not treating me as one of the Diamonds, so you're still a traitor by any definition."

"Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Rose asked.

"It looks like you're planning on starting a rebellion to uproot my system. Do you think that's not an existential threat for me?" Pink immediately answered, with a statement that seemed to have more falsehoods and avoidance of the question in it than Rose thought were possible.

Nevertheless, she needed to get to the bottom of who Pink actually was and what she stood for, and her questions would need to be a bit more... targeted. "How can you even be here? Did you appear around the same time I got a new Pearl? That seemed to be your implication."

"No; that's when you appeared. I've been here since I first formed, and I can tell you everything about how Blue and Yellow mistreated me in the same way in which they would never mistreat you."

As much as Rose hated to admit it, this actually made sense. This was why she didn't feel like Pink Diamond; because she wasn't, emphatically. And this was why she took so long in order to figure out who she was and what she stood for; she was a newly created being, who somehow managed to form as a secondary in Pink's gem, pretty much from scratch, with only minimal reliance on Pink's memories.

"I... see." Rose duly noted.

"You know, I have a lot to thank you for. Now that all these nonsense ideas are not part of me, I can be a clearer being than I ever was. You may not know what got into you, but I know your ideas are dangerous and should never come to fruition."

Rose only nodded; she might as well let Pink explain her gemstone's inner workings.

"Now, will you renounce your rebellion idea, admit that you know nothing about colonization, and let me finish the job? It's only right."

"No."

"Excuse me, Rose Clod?" (Yet another word Pink made up - or was it Rose? At this point, it was a little ambiguous.)

"Was I not being clear? I said no."

"Ah, so that's how it is!" Pink moved to shove Rose.