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The first time she fuses with Rose is both one of the most blissful and most horrifying experiences of Pearl’s life.
Blissful, in that for just the briefest moments in her life, Pearl knows what it’s like to feel confident without really trying. Rainbow Quartz is a fantastical amalgam of their individual strengths. She’s flexible and graceful on the toes of her feet (which Pearl humbly attributes as her own contributions). She’s resilient, so sure of herself and her abilities, strong, calculating, and beautiful (all of those she labels as coming from Rose, never able to see herself as any of those things). Rainbow Quartz never doubts herself, never belittles herself, never fears that every little thing will go wrong if she takes even a single misstep. She knows what she wants and has the capability to achieve it. She’s proud to be her, she loves who she is and relishes every moment of her existence, no matter how bleak the situation in which she’s summoned. All things that are foreign to Pearl as an individual. What’s more, there is nary a moment that Pearl feels more useful, more wanted, than when Rose approaches her with the request of them fusing. She can lay down her life for her a million times over and it holds little importance compared to that feeling as Rose twirls her around effortlessly, wraps the two of them up so close long before they fuse, and when they finally do become one it leaves her breathless.
Horrifying, because as they begin to mesh and their thoughts intermingle so as to properly control their new self, Pearl realizes that the things she thinks are no longer private. Little tidbits of Rose’s quiet thoughts to herself slip through - how much she likes Rainbow Quartz’s outfit, how her hair is so soft - and she sheepishly laughs at herself in their shared space, but the mishap alarms Pearl. She must be careful of what she airs out to Rose here, even more difficult than usual (it’s hard to not cave when Rose asks her if she’s alright as it is, now even harder when Rose can softly prod her mentally for the truth). When berating herself is a knee-jerk reaction to anything not going precisely to plan, she has to be ever so cautious that Rose hears none of it. She despises the look of pain that crosses her beautiful face every time Pearl says something negative about herself. She hates for her everything to see even the briefest glance of the shambles that is her self worth. And here, where she feels the warmth and glow radiating off of Rose’s emotions, sadness is a thunderstorm not unlike what Pearl normally has in her mind, something she doesn’t want infecting this heavenly moment of her existence. Rainbow Quartz’s mind is a sun shower in that regard: the rain, Pearl’s thoughts she’s unable to quiet; the sun, Rose’s joy and hope.
Later down the road, when they fuse outside of battle purposes, Pearl sometimes feels herself slipping away into Rainbow Quartz, it’s so easy and so tempting to just let herself go, let herself cease to exist as Pearl, she nearly forgets her name she’s so close…but she always resurfaces, and she doesn’t know if it’s Rose pushing her away or her own will to live that keeps them from truly melting into one being for good. But even if it’s Rose’s doing, she’s learned not to feel rejected for it, because a few times Pearl feels Rose starting to lose herself, senses that thought of ‘why don’t I just let go?’ that usually only occupies her own mindspace, and her immediate thought is also to push Rose back, even break the fusion if she feels Rose going too far out, because she cannot bear to see Rose Quartz cease to exist. Even if she’s lost to the best experience Pearl has ever had, even if doing so means Pearl will never be without Rose, that she can finally quiet the tsunami in her mind, Pearl cannot stand by and watch the world lose Rose. It would be a travesty, even if Pearl is not around to see it firsthand. She cannot take Rose from this universe.
(Thousands of years later Pearl realizes she cannot take Rose from another Universe, because Rose was never a thing to be taken by anyone, but it doesn’t stop her from wondering if she should have let go when she had the chance).
Rainbow Quartz was used to existing pretty regularly (nearly once a week during the best times, a few years in between at the worst), so when she went a little over a decade before opening her eyes again, she awoke startled that she existed once more, and startled still that her mind was not the familiar blend of voices she always heard. The voice of the little boy was too foreign to her, and so her components were unable to keep her together for very long before the disassociation rejected them. It saddened Steven that Rainbow Quartz didn’t seem to like him, but Pearl assured him that in time Rainbow Quartz would come to love him as much as she had her other half before him.
Pearl spoke from experience.