Chapter Text
I find myself seriously questioning just how exactly she sees. Under that white mask, both simple and intricately crafted, her two eyes are always closed.
Initially I hypothesized she occasionally opens her eyes to take a peek at the world, but usually opts to navigate it blind for.. whatever odd reason.
However after close observation over the course of many weeks I’ve come to realize that was not the case. In all the time we’ve spent together she has not opened her eyes once. Which for the record is an incredibly excessive amount of time for two coworkers. Harbingers or not.
It’s like she has nothing better to do but bother me. Nothing better to do but impose herself in my space. If she isn’t with me she is likely pestering Arlecchino with her ceaselessly idiotic attitude. I wonder if she has rocks for a brain. Do they tumble around in her head and make noise? Perhaps it’s like music to her ears, which is why she’s always humming a tune.
She also asks too many questions. I never get peace.
I often yell “COL-UM-BI-NA!” for her to finally, blessedly, leave me be.
I’m getting off track.
Once I threw my initial hypothesis out the window I considered the next possibility—
Perhaps she is completely blind and does not see.
Which to an extent is evidently true, but yet.. there’s something else. Something that isn’t quite blindness but isn’t quite sight either. Something that is an odd in-between. Complex, but simple. Just.. difficult to understand to a mortal. She is able to walk and interact with the world just like a person with sight. She is able to perfectly determine where things are. I have not once seen her trip or fall over something that she potentially could not see.
Thankfully I am not a mortal. I will figure this confusing dilemma out one way or another.
How pathetic my life would be if I couldn’t solve this. I would be failing Alain and the Guillotin name immensely if I couldn’t.
While clinging to my second theory, I began to get creative and thought of how exactly she might navigate the world.
Magic was my next thought. I am not entirely unfamiliar with the concept but I am not as knowledgeable as I’d like.
However I soon came to the conclusion of yes and no.
Columbina can see, but not in a normal way. She clearly has some hidden capabilities.. magic.. something that allows her to function.
But it isn’t magic in the traditional sense. That much I can tell.
It’s as if she were some.. say a moon princess. Like she garners her abilities from the moon. However I cannot say I entirely believe this thought process.
That annoying wretch Il Dottore has been endlessly mumbling about a false moon and sky for far too long for me to not have investigated it just enough to grasp the concept. Understand the variables. Catalogue my thoughts.
How would a “moon maiden” gain powers from a moon that does not exist? It just doesn’t make sense.
In the same train of thought though, I can see the connection she has. Faintly. But it’s there.
She’s always singing outside at night. At the “moon”. Not like a comfortable hymn, but a saddened grief that not even time could mend.
I’ve caught a few lines before.
La lune est belle ce soir,
Pourquoi,
Pourquoi,
Tu regardes mon visage,
Et tu me réponds,
Mais tu dis jamais mon nom?
Pourquoi,
Pourquoi?
Ce soir.
Ce soir.
Toujours ce soir.
À n'importe quelle heure.
C'est toujours ce soir.
I know she knows I heard her. She doesn’t know she just so happens to be singing my mother tongue.
I can almost hear the sadness— the longing— in that tone.
It’s confusing.
This matter as a whole is confusing to say the least. But I have just about reached my limit. I no longer care.
Every fatui member has their.. oddities. Columbina’s seems to just be her blindness-not-quite. Seeking explanations for every odd trait of hers seems entirely futile.
It’s not like I was observing her too much. It was merely a curiosity that captured my attention for a few weeks.
I wonder what color her eyes are under that mask.
