Archive of Our Own

One and two and three and four…

A flick of her wrist and a toss of her hair embellish the light movements on her feet, the confidence filling her expression poised and practiced to perfection. Sweetly curving lips and narrowed eyes command any audience’s eyes to the face of this Damsel. Perfection. Or perhaps the more accurate term would be better suited–near perfection. 

Five… Six. Seven and–

Her smile is a commodity. Every move she makes is purposeful, every smile and laugh and heartfelt, airy “I love you,” is designed to pull you in further. She can present no less than perfection, her every move must be impossibly ethereal and beyond the scope of what is humanly possible. That is what an idol should be. Pure and unmarred by the woes of the world, whose only purpose is to please the masses. What she sees in the mocking mirrors of this studio comes nowhere close to what she should be, she who the world seems intent on setting their wretched eyes on, for better or worse.

“Shit,” Columbina grimaces through her stumble, willing herself to maintain her balance by some stretch of waning determination. Her movements are sloppy, lacking in power. Her smile is wavering. The swathes of purple beneath her eyes are ever more pronounced. Her every move is riddled with mistakes, she’d been dancing a count too late, utterly failing in her attempts to match speed with her partner. Aside from the blaring music and harsh studio lights, only the sound of tired breaths and the sound of sneakers squealing across the worn floor fill the room. It once felt like a dream come true to step into a world of glitz and glamor with the person who’d promised to accompany you through it all. 

Unfortunately, you can only hide behind rose-tinted glasses for so long.

When you peer into a mirror, who is it you see staring back at you? The answer should be simple, you should only ever see your own reflection’s returning gaze in a mirror, but what should be is not always the reality before you. The woman staring back at her is nothing of what the Damselette presents herself to be. No. The woman staring back at her is the spitting image of the one on posters, in magazines, photo books, and polaroids. She is the one who sells herself off to the world and wishes for people to see only the decadence of this life. This isn’t the life she intended to live, and she’s nearly certain the same can be said for the scowling girl behind her.

Columbina is a dead girl dancing, paraded as the pillar of beauty on more shows and stages than she cares to count. With no other choice but to force herself through the final measures of this deceptively energetic song, she falls to the rhythm of the beat in tandem with her partner. An inseparable pair with nothing but alluring smiles and flirtatious charm to offer to the world, yet the two are nothing like what meets the camera lens once the red light fades out. Part of her refuses to make peace with such a fact, that she’d lost the one friend she could rely on in this world. The other, perhaps more honest part of her knows it’s all futile. Pointless. 

The two end with a finishing flourish, hands outstretched to an imaginary audience, exhausted panting filling the silence left behind by the absence of music. Even as the music concludes, neither girl dares move a muscle. Voluntarily, anyways. Hold. Smile. Pose, then shine. This is what has been taught, always give the cameras a winning image, always present yourself to the camera. Columbina is used to the camera flash, she knows the feeling of blinding lights clouding her vision. 

But this… this was too much. Tremors override the instructions ingrained in her head, in the taut muscles of her arms. The world spins beneath her feet, threatening to throw her off-center, threatening to send her lurching forward. Fatigue, that’s all this is, but how had she allowed it to become so dire? Hadn’t she done enough, slept just enough to function, ate just enough so as not to collapse? So why now does she struggle to keep her head upright? If this were any other time, if they could go back a few years would Sandrone be willing to console her rather than glower and look on in bitter disdain? If nothing else, one thing is clear. 

Her body can no longer keep up with the demands of those most enamored.

Once the song smudges out into static and the final lilting notes evanesce into echoes, Sandrone resets her stance. A small hand reaches up to caress her aching shoulders, wilting and weeping. As much as the tabloids express how scarcely her effort is poured into performance, the dissonant cadence pulsating in her skull says otherwise. Every second she dances, her body screams to stop. Sandrone wants to, she wants her mind to listen. Instead, she continues swaying along the chain of rhythm. As if that would accomplish anything but worsen the interstice puncturing her chest. It's difficult to take in breaths when problems accumulate on your shoulders, threatening to smother you if you weren't careful. 

Which is why her mouth splits into a violent glower when she spies the keeling animal only inches away, looking like she was ready to stumble and collide against the filthy floorboards. It's a pathetic prospect that provokes a flame in her stomach, something that won't simmer for long. At this point, what would a few stinging words do to further damage the lurid reputation she's earned?

“Go mewl somewhere else, you donkey. There's a mirror right in front of you.” After excruciating seconds of waiting and observing, Sandrone finally snaps. She doesn't think the voice is her own, not with how raw and scratched it sounds from strain and frantic breaths. All she hopes for is that the wretched wench heard every last word.

Or perhaps even the smallest things have passed the both of them.

Sandrone's tasted her fair share of suffering too. Her career has been brimful of instances where she's failed and had to pick herself back up. Alone. The times where she sustained an agonizing injury and had to limp across the stage; the times where she was cornered onto the edge of the precipice; the times where it felt like every little mistake she did would subject her to a relentless onslaught of criticism and malice. Sandrone, time and time again, had to improvise when others failed to carry out their respective jobs. Guards neglecting to supervise the crowds and provide the protection she needed, managers dismissing her with sardonic remarks, an audience of soulless, faceless individuals ridiculing her for almost every flaw in her existence—it wasn't the future she envisioned. The future she dreamed for, still continues to dream for, was one where success deigns to bless her.

She knew there were a plethora of sacrifices to be made in order to attain this life. The harrowing training period was one of them, where cold-blooded officials surveyed her through apathetic eyes. It wasn't the worst experience, she handled the evaluations well enough. She was simply an object from their perspective, but at least she garnered attention. Unlike nowadays, where she'll be lucky to hear a single positive thing that didn't have an obligation attached to it. Would it even count as luck?

A sacrifice she certainly didn't think she had to make was the brutal exchange of a friendship. Something that once held value which transcended fame and accolades and praise. A place where she loves and feels loved. Back in the good old days, she considered it a curse to be severed from their snug bonds. More recently, it proves to be more and more of a bittersweet need than a pity. As young girls, delight peeked out from every corner. When they brushed each others' hair, when they snuck out to gorge on slices of sponge-soft short cakes, when they dissolved all heated tension with sweet kisses and embraces underneath the quill; it was a sublime era. Far more enchanting than any string of glorious ballads, and far more exhilarating than any moment of perfectly-executed choreography. They weren’t required to care about much else.

Just one promise: to care for each other.

Sandrone swallows hard, her verbose thoughts serving to offer her solace. Nothing is solacing, not when it can easily regress into some broken delusion.

She doesn’t like the past. Where cameras and paparazzi were effective weapons against her. Where the blinding lights flashed at her only indicated one thing: she would be wrung out of even more life. More fulfillment. The days where she exhaustively hemorrhaged her tears as talk started to catch fire, and so was she burned at the stake. The past haunted her, an angry ghost coming to devour her alive. Her nightmares stem from that period. A defenseless and desperate girl simply trying to achieve a goal.

To achieve anything besides pain. 

However, despite how the miserable and gloomy memories of that period imprinted on her, there was one thing she unerringly craves for in the present.

A best friend. Columbina. Bina.

The girl who swiped away those vile jewels of tears, the only one who smiled gently at her. Kind words from her were sufficient enough for Sandrone to resume where she last halted. To tread the path they wanted together, for each other.

It’s gone. Of course it is.

Sandrone standing tall and still, even as sweat clings distastefully to her skin; juxtaposed to Columbina’s graceful form being all but forgotten as she’s crumbling and struggling was a contronym to their realities and illusions.

The arcs of cleanly-trimmed nails bite the supple flesh of pale palms, Sandrone quivers as she drowns the temptation to yank the girl from her tousled hair and spill out years of loathing. Those scars were too deep to show. An affliction that can no longer be patched.

“Should I shove a camera in your face for you to stand again? Tch, what about a few coins for you to pull your head out of your ass?”

Wallowing in her own self-pity only further dulls her reflection in these mirrors. At some point she had to face the music, that her whining wouldn’t magically return color to her face, nor would it do anything to brace her strained muscles. Columbina was certainly no stranger to working to the point of collapse, nothing less can be provided when your schedule looks more akin to a life plan squeezed into a day or three, yet she’d never felt so close to shattering entirely. Wouldn’t that be a spectacle, to see a lovely doll like her shatter and break before the world’s very eyes. 

What a joke. Something like that would never happen, for as long as dazzling stage lights would play along her porcelain skin, she would shine bright as the morning star. And now, where does that leave Sandrone, her friend, the one person she’d known inside and out? It leaves her drowning in the smothering depths of her shadow, leaving an irreparable rift between the two that only grows with every passing moment. She can’t even look at Sandrone, whose eyes only harden at the sight of her rather than narrow with her smile. The thought alone is enough for bile to singe her throat. They are worlds apart, ablaze with fiery hostility that was nonexistent a mere five years ago. 

“No shit, Sandrone,” Columbina huffs, raking nails through her sweat-matted hair in some futile attempt to clear her line of sight. Even with newly unobstructed vision, she still fails to still the world beneath her feet. It takes every remaining bit of strength left in her to force herself from the floor streaked with smudges from years of housing dancers of all kinds. Gods, she barely has the resolve to speak. “I’m aware of my appearance.”

Pale cheeks, tired eyes, and the pallor of her lips speak what Columbina refuses to admit. Not that anyone would care to listen to her woes. She lives the dream after all, who is she to complain of the sleepless nights, agonizing dance practices that pushed her body far beyond what it was capable of, bruises peppering her legs, or dancing on pulled hamstrings? She could never complain about the aficionados who seem to desire more from her than a simple handshake, it just means she is loved by many. She is producing profit for those who employ her. That’s what matters most, and so she grins and bears it. 

Columbina aches for the past. The thought occurs to her now and again, to give it all up and return to some sweet semblance of normalcy she once yearned to break free from. She looks fondly on memories that belong not only to her–they are Sandrone’s memories, too. A shared past is not so easily forgotten, not in the face of vitriol or hatred, and theirs has not fallen victim to the deepening rift between the two. Sandrone’s eyes gleam with simmering hatred and unspoken loathing, Columbina swears she’s spotted the imprints of her nails along the palm of her hands, but their stolen glances are weighed down by morose sorrow at the sight of one another. 

Or disgust. Columbina can’t bring herself to decipher the conflicting emotions in her eyes.

Scenes play in her mind as she glares at Sandrone, her distinct scowl and pursed lips etched into her head. She wasn’t always so stoic. She used to laugh as she coveted the last bite of cake and complain about the length of her hair, yet carefully combed through every tangle she could find regardless of her qualms. Her embrace was warm; she remembers the feeling of deft hands threading through ebony and magenta tresses, she remembers how soft her lips are. Such softness has no place in an industry like this, something neither girl understood before it was too late. 

How much power does the word of a netizen hold? Enough to make or break the career of a rising star, to bring a starlet to the beauty of a grandiose stage, or to shatter the self-image of another. Only those that shine like diamonds will find a place in this industry while all who fail to impress suffer quietly in the shadow of blinding stage lights. The world had never intended to extend Sandrone its kindness, and she’d accepted such a fate. Columbina filled the gaping hole left behind by such a phenomenon, to the best of her ability, that is. Once, she’d thought that achieving the dreams they’d whispered to the stars would satiate the both of them.

All it’s done is break them apart and wring out more from Columbina than what she could offer.

She’d spent countless nights perfecting her smile, tailoring her mannerisms to what the world wants to see from her so badly. Accolades and virulent insults come with a search of her name, doting fans and dedicated opposers seem to remain steadfast in their goal of attracting her attention. One minute, she’d be showered with nothing but praise, and in the next there would be talk of her perceived attitude, the lack of respect she apparently conducted herself with. And still, she knew her circumstances would never be as severe as Sandrone’s. Several times, she’d dug through online talks of her bandmate. Several times, she’d gagged at her findings. 

In no universe would she ever stop caring for her, but the words that spill from her mouth threaten her cracking composure. 

“You shove a camera in my face, and I’ll strangle you myself.” The answering snarl Columbina parries against Sandrone’s onslaught is severely betrayed by her exhausted expression. She shoves past Sandrone, not before sending a rancorous scowl her way. “Don’t you dare get short with me, you mangy mutt. I don’t need to hear someone like you bitch and moan.”

If what they possessed before was the splendor of pure loyalty and wonderment, what they have concocted now is the conflagration between dusk and dawn. Where the peace of the past hangs far above their ignorant heads, the weight of their petty war leaves nothing but animosity over their feet. Deep in the fortified citadel of Sandrone's conscience lies a longing heart. A cause of madness. When the overcharged cogs of her mind devise a decree so dangerous to her overwrought body, the heart instills unwarranted repose. Discipline and duplicity at its most exact balance. Just as how the camera fawns excessively at Columbina, framing her in prismatic haloes of sensational lights, sculpting her ethereal wings and jeweled crown; it can easily pan to Sandrone and chalk up her obsessive dedication as pretense. As though she was a demon, a creature yonder human comprehension. The monster to defeat in an ancient fairytale. Like she wanted to be a beast.

The day Columbina ceased to be her most trusted, the day she ignited their fond memories of confections and cheer into flames, was one that spindled Sandrone to the bone. Nothing had ever twisted the knife that far, that deep. It mired the entirety of their sweet friendship with something sordid. She'll carry her grief to the grave, for the incident inflicts her with a world's worth of hurt. Betrayal often punished the most paltry of humans anyway. Those who dream, those who wish, those who beg for better—they never receive what they would trade anything for. Give and give only to leave with nothing. A ghastly gamble.

Sandrone waited for her. She waited for her the same way a hopeless cause sought out for salvation. Even as Sandrone's limbs numb to every feeling, she kept exercising her mind to the scarce faith that Columbina still cared. That she wanted her around as she was fighting tooth and nail to stay awake. Years have passed since then, and she knows there hasn't been a fever or bruise as brutal as the numerous ones she sustained that fateful day. Surely there was nothing more to lose. An idol should never look like a lachrymose loser, blubbering to feel exhausted enough to sleep. The one time it's acceptable for a person to falter, and there would still be a way to scrutinize her for it.

Somehow, if what happened next was part of another tale; there's a likely chance Sandrone wouldn't have grown so apprehensive to this memory.

The fact it did sealed whatever softness she held onto. Permanently. It wasn't the fractures that paralyzed her, or the suggestion of death which prostrated her senses to a severe degree. No. She could brush those off. She's dealt with worse. The Marionette could deal with everything if she knew there was someone to suffer for.

But that person never showed up. Instead, Columbina chose to entertain and mesmerize an audience of people that scorned them both. Glimmered for the hounds that tear at them senselessly. Acrimonious to every show they attended, fastidious with each decision they didn't make for themselves. Those pettifogging vermin.

Columbina chose to smile and wave a hand at them, cracked jokes and laughed playfully. An effervescence she's only seen around her. Sandrone watched every spectacular second with a tightening vice. Daggers started to prick on her back, shoulders, knees; pinning her pathetically to the sterile bed. That's what she had to witness. Someone coruscating like the star they were meant to be, while she had to fend off slumber at the fierce hour of eventide. 

Once a shadow, always a shadow. She can't survive without the light. Couldn't amount to anything visible if her light ebbed and escaped. It would take another lifetime for her to forgive that. A trespass so acute she couldn't even forget it.

Sandrone never had the heart to lash out at Columbina. She loved her too much, too patently to ever retaliate. Whenever Columbina treated her as an afterthought, she bit her tongue and stayed quiet. Whenever she would lash out and mark her with emphatic words, Sandrone learned to sympathize with a simple smile and nod.

When she had the nerve to step in the room that day, Sandrone might have flatlined. The cracking sound of a harsh slap echoed throughout the room, striking and stark. Hadn't she been pulled away, both by outside arms and her indolence, she might've beaten her into a pulp. Sobbing, Columbina was uttering useless apologies that Sandrone returned with scathing screams and accusations. Condemning her for something she likely had no control over.

She's never detested anything so much more in her life. Columbina wasn't some stunning star anymore. She was an ugly rodent. A rodent Sandrone wanted to crush and conquer rather than conspire with.

Sandrone lost half of her soul that day. Still believes it's wandering in the halls away from this freakish fiesta. She lost the vision of together. There wasn't a pair anymore, they were halves glued together in one unsightly shape. A parody of rapport and reciprocity.

Columbina stopped caring. Broke their promise even when Sandrone did everything she could to repair things. Where did it go wrong? Where did the time they could gaze and giggle at stars pass them?

Where was Columbina when Sandrone needed her? Wanted her?

There's only one person to blame. As always. The monster of this forsaken fairytale.

She jerks when the shove comes, when Columbina addresses her as an animal. Any semblance of civility all but discarded as the two engage in their tireless bout.

It hurts. She hurts.

Sandrone's eyes light with vicious fires. It takes only a flash of a second to scan the room before she twists on a heel and seizes the mussy mess of the Damsel's hair before lurching her backward. As she's suspended, the chiaroscuro of their relationship has never felt and appeared so obvious.

“Strangle me?” When she laughs, it's shrill. A noticeable screech in song. “You can’t do anything, Columbina. That’d damage your precious little image, wouldn’t it? Because that’s all you are now. A plastic fucking princess whose only purpose now is to bow and offer strained smiles.”

It’s been years. Sandrone thought she shunned the other out completely. Thought she couldn’t care for her anymore.

People forget that contempt is another form of concern, albeit corrupt and cruel.

“I wish you were dead,” Sandrone hisses, as though she’s been cut. “Then again, that’d only get you what you want. More attention. More success. People won’t remember you for being someone who worked hard or accomplished a lot. They won’t.” The reflection of her face in Columbina’s pupils looks mangled. Incriminating. “They’ll remember you as another girl who looked flattering in shiny dresses and stuffy make-up.”

Digging her nails into the Damsel’s scalp, Sandrone drives her sapped body into the hard glass of the wall-spanning mirror. She trembles as she holds her there, ramming her further as if there was space behind the lucid surface. Sandrone thinks if she heard this encounter from beyond the door, it would sound like a murder was taking place.

“I hate you. What you are. What you did. I hate everything about you.” Letting her go, Sandrone doesn’t fail to realize that diamond droplets drip decadently down her singed cheeks.

Are they still friends?

It’s no longer than a second before she registers Sandrone’s outstretched hand in the mirror, then feels a harsh yank on her tresses, sending her stumbling backward before she even has the mind to try and claw at the unwelcome force. It’s futile, pointless even, to put up a fight against her iron grasp. Why she allows herself to be thrown around like a ragdoll is beyond her understanding, but she doesn’t have even half the mind to kick and thrash. Once this wretched ache in her chest subsides, she can collect herself and shove everyone away, out of sight and out of mind so she can dissect this horrendous entanglement of emotions and tuck them away in solitude. Sandrone only adds more layers of confusion to her psyche’s already excruciating, exhaustive cycle. 

All in some demented reflex, her arms jerk to sink perfectly preened nails into the sweat-sheened skin pinning her in place, but something she can’t name tamps down the desperate urge. As she stares silently at the woman before her, whose muscles strain to uphold the weight of her thin frame against these damned mirrors, Columbina resolves instead to gnaw at her inner cheeks in a last-ditch effort to still her hands. She cannot maim Sandrone, the only foreseeable outcome is further suffering, should physical injuries be visible to the prying eyes of an audience. What would they call her, an irresponsible wretch, a blight on this so-called duo? 

Coppery, metallic, and wholly unwelcome is the taste of her own blood seeping onto her tongue.

What’s more, she’s acutely aware of the nails digging beneath skin as she’s slammed flush against the nearest panel of windows. A muffled cry escapes her lips, eyes firmly knit shut. How had she landed herself here, where the one person she could bring herself to love harbored so much hatred for her? This was her fault, wasn’t it. Had she been more determined, more firm in her demands to be let off this once, maybe she could’ve just been there for her. Make no mistake, Columbina is no jaded girl reaching for an idealistic dream, expecting it to fall plainly into her palms. Nothing had ever been handed to her on a whim, she knows the toil that comes with a lofty dream as theirs. A girl once eager to earn the warm gaze of an audience, her passion quickly extinguished in place of something utterly vapid. 

The day the world savored and drank in her smiles, her empty declarations of love, instead of the one person she could offer her honesty to would never cease haunting her. Relentless, the waves of guilt that overtook her so quickly she thought she might’ve drowned. So too is the anger fueling her venomous, livid outbursts against her ever-caring manager who’d only ever had an eye for profit. No level of pleading, begging, or fighting would delay her appearance on a filthy stage to be adored by the scum of the Earth, cheered on by those who’d fallen head over heels for a carefully constructed facade. These were the people she should strive to please? The people who see her not as a human, but a pretty doll to toss around and drool over?

There was only one real answer the world could give her, and she could do nothing to escape the sweeping drift of the currents. Fighting tooth and nail, drawing blood from those who had only ever tried to dehumanize her, wasn’t enough. Losing out on a paycheck comes before the pleas of a frivolous girl, simple-minded and pretty, whose only job is to dance and smile. And so, she did. She smiled and waved and laughed as though nothing plighted her in the first place. No one would know the strain in her smile, the panic that widened her eyes ever so slightly throughout an excruciating performance as the minutes tick by. One turns to five, and five to forty-five. By the time it was over, Sandrone called only twice in the hours of agony she’d endured. 

One by one, each of Columbina’s sixteen returning calls went to voicemail.

She’d left in haste, shoving past her stylists and her managers and anyone who even remotely blocked her way. Shocked stares met the girl in a baseball cap and jeans essentially tripping over herself in her entrance to the hospital Sandrone—her best friend, the person she cared most for—had asked her to visit and keep her company. Not one sliver of Columbina’s attention turned to the gasps of recognition, the whispers of her name. With hardly any time to bring anything extravagant, Columbina recalls the ornate tin of cookies in her hands, embellished with a pristine, white bow. She remembers the nurses motioning to the girl lying motionless, burrowed beneath linen blankets. They’d whispered something to Columbina, a warning if her memory serves her well, some concerns for her moodiness. And then, she distinctly remembers the slam of a palm to her face, lines of red painting her snowy skin. Hands that would once plait her hair instead grabbing at any purchase they could find, only to drag and pull and maim. Her cries, desperate efforts to explain what and why she couldn’t be there as she had promised went unheard, sending her spiraling into heaving sobs. Over and over again, she’d sputtered and stumbled over her own apologies, recoiling at every thrashing movement Sandrone made in an effort to claw at her once more. 

Most of all, Columbina remembers the taste of blood in her mouth, and how it stained the sterile, white floors of the hospital before she could even coax a word from her throat. 

Nothing could be as it was before their qualm following that encounter—what could they salvage, anyway? Sandrone refused to look at her, looking as if she had to physically restrain herself from lashing out. She refused to look at herself, how she steadily deteriorated with each passing week. And now, they land right where they started, as though they were doomed by the stars from the very beginning.

“It won’t stop me from trying if you don’t shut your fucking mouth.” Columbina breathes, back pressed to the mirrors as her head follows in the movement. “Since when did you care about my image, Sandrone? It’s all part of this demented little game we play now, your smiles are no less strained and fake than mine.”

She slides to settle on the floor, eyes fluttering shut as her breathing grows ragged. There was no need to peer upward to assess the damage to the mirror; it’d only need to be wiped clean of the thin, unsteady trail of her blood. And smudges. God forbid there be a smudge on the studio’s mirrors. 

“I don’t want any of that, you insipid rodent,” she drawls, relaxing her legs without sparing even a glance at Sandrone. “What does it matter, as long as I bring in money. People were never going to remember me as something more than a product anyways, you think I give a fuck about any of that?” 

Gingerly, Columbina reaches to probe the crown of her head only to find her fingers stained red. “So what? You’re not the only one who wants to see me die, or hates me and my very existence. What gives?” A rift too deep to mend stands between the two. But now, she realizes why she’d never fought back against her, no matter the blood she’d drawn or the bruises she’d endure. 

Forever and always, she will love and care for her. 

Finally, Columbina manages to lift her chin just enough to catch a tear falling from dulled eyes. At any other point in their youth, when precious tears trailed Sandrone’s cheeks, Columbina might’ve set aside her pride and caved, swiping away fallen tears. She has half the mind to stay where she’d settled, too exhausted and too frail to stand. But a smaller part of her aches to offer just one last show of comfort to the friend she wanted nothing more than to return to. Hurt makes no distinction for those it afflicts, this she knows. 

Steeling what little strength she has left, Columbina reaches upward, apprehensive at swiping away the stray tears peppering Sandrone’s reddened cheeks. Tentatively, as though she were handling glass, she quickly swipes away her tears before slumping back to her prior position. Regret comes swiftly, tasting cold and bitter as it washes over her. 

“Stop crying, what’s done is done. You are hideous as is.”

Somewhere in the space of their touch, Sandrone comes to her senses. As she stifles her caustic cries with deep, deliberate breaths; part of her can see the girl who cared for her. Who she cared for so hopelessly. They sit there, across from one another, staring pensively as though it were another photoshoot. No cameras, no lights, no yelling voices. It was a place where they could both look and not fall into trouble. The calm after a brutal storm. It's a foolish memory, but all things from the past were some stroke of foolish. The harebrained variations she's evolved as fools of their own right. A fool who couldn't hear the underlying meaning of a thinly-veiled tune, a fool who found other idiots to frolic with when life moved at a snail's pace. She was there once, twice. Too many times for her to count. The past was riddled in the ignorant choices those bumbling fools made. Perhaps that is why folly follows her so closely even now. When she's gained experiences no ordinary person is granted. If she retained a semblance of normalcy, she wouldn't have such a chaotic canvas of an existence.

Ordinary people certainly wouldn't accept a caress from their worst enemy. The idea of leaning in, regardless of how intensely repulsed she was by the idea, still crossed her mind. It's clue enough that the insatiable fool inside her still rouses when she rests for even a flitting second. Too easily does one modicum of relief open up unhealed wounds. Damn Columbina, damn her. How she fights against the tides that beckon her to pull and punch. It must be another ploy. Similar to how she charms her fans with radiant smiles and air-blown kisses, Sandrone is caught by the wretched expression of honesty which slips through the fissures of a melting mask. Etherized, the Damsel's current state. From listlessness or loss? Sandrone doesn't have an answer to present. It feels like they're children again; her dumb self frozen in place, unsure of how to treat her friend's fresh wounds.

Nostalgia ripples along the edges of her short-circuiting brain. Sandrone’s not guarded, a grave mistake. She can’t be seduced by some vague hope, by the slight chance there was a way to create something new. Long had any desire to fix things left her, Sandrone can’t fix what she doesn’t know. Sandrone can’t fix Columbina, just as the latter couldn’t piece her shattered fragments into one pretty tapestry. With her ego effectively ruled out, rationality tightens around the raging gears of her reflexes. She was always impulsive, crossing lines that were firmly drawn, and blurting out the worst of thoughts in the heat of a moment. Not one for diplomacy.

But she considers very carefully. Now that there’s cessation, Sandrone’s faculties start to offset their natural instincts. It’s natural for her to loathe someone at first impression. Second nature to forget every good deed someone’s done because of the smallest of errs. She needs to think in that rigorous manner, despite how restrictive and tedious it’s become. Forgiveness is earned, not delivered inside a quaint little present. Sandrone doesn’t want to forgive. It scares her to dispense mercy. She never knows if it’s the right or wrong course of action. Control was a commodity she lost more and more of everyday. The freedom to do what she most yearned for an antiquated concept. Supposedly.

Perhaps she could control this, then. Filter out people who try to ravage her even more. What would they even gather from their transgressions? She should be a corpse at this point. Deprived of sustenance and solidarity, it’s no secret that Sandrone must look so very sullen. Sunken in the underground where unfulfilled dreams died. It’s sad to know that she will leave without an award to her name. Even sadder to know that there will be no one to commemorate or mourn the forlorn passing. Would it be so bad? To simply vanish and restart?

Each tender touch to her face only made the challenge of staying composed more impossible.

Sandrone stumbled upon Columbina by the work of serendipity. She didn’t converse with the kids at her school very often, as she preferred the musk of leather bound parchment and wood of their schools’ spacious libraries. Singing and dancing were quite literally the last things on her mind. Embellished exhibitions were things she mocked plainly. Unlike her chatty peers and foes, who touched shoulders and shared oxygen; Sandrone cultivated her literacy through the measured mediums of reading and writing. Patience, it took so much effort to not toss a journal over her shoulder if her mind fell out the loop. Unknown words, tiresome prose, complicated descriptions—Sandrone shrieked enough to constitute an entirely new vernacular of her own. It wasn’t until she did break under pressure, haphazardly flinging the thick novel she was hastily skimming only for its cover to find home in generous hands. Craning her heavy head, Sandrone was surprised to see the owner of such delicate hands wear a face of shy curiosity. If she thought words were hard to decipher then, her senses were muzzled to the point all logical thought hid behind a wall Sandrone couldn’t reach. The interest was unabashedly instant, and Sandrone looked like a cat caught with cream as she reddened with the mellow titter of a pretty stranger. Birdsong. Sandrone scooted when she was asked, making room for her unforeseen companion and hanging on every melodic syllable she whispered. It was the loudest Sandrone spoke in the cellar of spiraling volumes and anthologies. So loud that the old librarian had to clemently quiet her down.

Their routine slowly established penchants and patterns. Sandrone took the initiative in the beginning of their budding bond; diverting from her usual commute route, purchasing her snacks and soft drinks, started calls that would span hours and possibly days; Sandrone did all of that without a price in mind. A time where she could pour in blood, sweat and tears yet gratitude would manage to suffice as a repayment. She didn't need or want much. Just wanted to be close. Not with anyone else, just Columbina. She wanted the girl to like her. Because she did. Sandrone never would've done this if the end objective was to make a friendship. A loner to the deepest fault, trying to nourish an island with her own two hands and hind legs. Prior to their accidental encounter, pages of ornate words and enchanting scenes were her escapism. She hated every second of not understanding, of being caged in the dark. Thus, she resolved to absorb a myriad of fictitious worlds and landmarks that encompassed a completely different reality than the one her body occupied. 

When that habit gradually declined into boredom, Sandrone was startled. There would be no feasible alternative if she abandoned her pursuit of books and paper. Her social life until then was a blank slate, any dialogue with her classmates cut short by her cold curtness or mutual disinterest. She wouldn't have any distractions in the summer or spring. God forbid she'd have to resort to staring uselessly at the ceiling for a sense of direction. It would be dull and desolate at home. Having to acquiesce strenuously to the incessant instructions of daft imbeciles disguised as 'adults.' Hell, that's assuming they would stay at the house for longer than a day.

As luck would have it, Columbina materialized in front of her. Made the possibility of dreadful loneliness and neglect an impossibility. In retrospect, it was too good to be true. Everything about them is, but of course like the egregious fool she was, Sandrone deliberately chose to brush past it. Taking it for granted like the world owed it to her. Even when it absolutely did not. 

Ingratitude. Inertia. Indignation.

Oh, it was her fault as much as it was the person she so ruthlessly pinned the blame on. It always was. The hurt Columbina doled out was only returned tenfold. She wreaked havoc that sometimes exceeded her partner's. No one was a hero.

Pangs of thunder rupture her chest as Columbina grits out her own flurry of stinging remarks. She's almost coaxed into another round of their rash roulette, almost dragged down by the claws of her mounting malevolence. The magnanimity she once extended to Columbina is a wholly different fool from the one that currently thinks and acts, throwing herself into the fray without a plan. Unethical, so far removed from the perfection demanded of her. Perfection that she can never fully grasp for how distantly it glares down at her. Like swallowing a bitter pill, Sandrone finally concedes as the realization of her blatant irrationality outruns her misguided convictions. Her knees crash to the floor, a callback to how Columbina was about to be stripped of consciousness by nausea and whatever side effects come alongside working yourself half to death.

Talking worsens everything. Talking undermines the merits of quietude. Sandrone doesn't want her croaking voice or obscene speech to disturb the moment. She lets Columbina have the final word, letting herself feel every sore joint in her body jolt. In her precarious position, the Marionette all but wilts forward. Bowing before the mirrors and glass that echo every indictment she's received over the agonizing years. When everything plucks her apart, when everything can't help but amplify the burdens she has to balance; there's still one instinct that Sandrone never could abstain from.

Reaching out for her best friend. Her only friend.

The ties are frayed and distressed, but Sandrone could at least hold her piece of the thread with dignity. She stretches out an arm haplessly, without the aid of sight or awareness. All she knows is that it's an offering for Columbina to consider and respond to. It's for her. Blood was splattered around them, a sea of crimson much more twisted than a bed of flushed roses. Her lashes are steeped with the evidence of her emotion, and all she can do is await the answer. She might be rejected, shunned out the same way Sandrone avoided Columbina like a fatal plague. She might be made fun of, taunted in a fashion similar to how she constantly finds flaws to disparage the Damsel for.

However, there's a sliver of a chance she'll be accepted. In the way she always has. Accepted her for her. Without stipulation or motive, Sandrone was simply wanted. A feeling that could never be replaced by some plaque or opportunity. Nothing that took a material form. The most significant things are never tangible or visible. She has nothing to offer, little to gain, and her common sense dwindles rapidly with the beats of silence splitting her apart. 

“Bina,” The following exhale is uneven. Sandrone doesn't know what she's calling for, what she wants. There may be too many wishes for one evocation, but she still whispers the name with a gentility so unfamiliar to her own ears. It was supposed to be a relic of the past. Never to be brought up again.

Deep down, the little girl who adores and admires Columbina without question still lives inside of her. Begging for them to rekindle what they lost. Salvage the splintered remains of their purest euphoria.

“Bina.” A please, an apology, an ode. There is barely anything she is afraid of losing at this junction.

Tired eyes follow the crumbling figure before her, widening as Sandrone sinks to her knees, trembling hands shielding her face as she curls inward like a baby animal curling into her wounds. Her hands instinctively inch forward, wish to smooth her hair down and caress her back, whisper comforting words she knew neither believed. Yet she remains still, watching intently as her breaths grow more pronounced, her face pale and head hanging in some foreign concoction of acceptance and defeat. Columbina is worn and weary, hardly cognizant enough to properly register the limp arm reaching out to her, lying in wait for a returning answer. Head and heart pounding with slow and even breaths, she gradually tilts her head in thought, despite the better part of her knowing precisely what she desires. 

Her hands are stained with Sandrone’s tears and her own blood, the realization quickly turning painfully ironic as Columbina releases a bated breath. She’d dried her tears countless times before, patted away with kisses to take their place. Memories are precious, pockets of euphoric delight to look fondly upon, a reprieve from the meager joy the world can only provide so often. Vivid memories are the most stubborn to discard, always trailing those who allow them to fester. Columbina’s memories are pristine and intact, from lacy frills and golden sunlight to pouring rains and inky darkness, there was nothing she sought to forget. Much less would she wish to cast away memories of the smiling face belonging to the girl she learned to love, the way her eyes would soften and gleam even in fading sunlight, the myriad pages she’d scatter around herself and excitedly recount to her. Nothing would come close enough to wrangle those memories from her, not when they concern the one she holds dear.

Meeting her was a product of happenstance, an accident, a deviation from the plans she’d intended to hold. To others, associating with someone so stoic and standoffish might be something of a mistake. To Columbina, associating with a girl she’d come to know as fervently passionate and determined was everything but. Sandrone turned a new leaf in Columbina’s mind-numbing, monotonous way of life, a welcome offside trail along the road to a certain end. Too little deviation from the beaten path, too much room to drown in tides of the hollow life she led. Days blur together in her mind, one is never too different from the next or last. Easy and smooth, her life drifts by without so much as a hitch in the road, leaving her utterly unfulfilled but with little right to ache and groan. Had she known an action so simple, so reflexive, as returning a novel to its rightful owner with a sheepish grin would reward her with the tender gift of a friend, would she veer off and sail a different course?

Should you ask her now, when all she seeks is the life and surroundings she once had, she might consider the option. Then, when she desired nothing more than something new, she would rebuke and scoff at the notion, the ridiculousness of the idea nearly comical. The days the girls would spend walking home, at first side-by-side, then later hand-in-hand, the weekend trips to restaurants and malls and butterfly gardens, all of it etched itself into the patchwork of her soul. By the time both girls had each other’s routes home or drink orders or food preferences memorized, something would shift in Columbina. She’d find herself relaxing in Sandrone’s embrace rather than tensing at the brush of her fingers against her own. Her eyes wouldn’t dare stray off of Sandrone, committing the delicate curls of her hair and the vast section that consistently remained pulled back in a braided bun to memory. Azure blue eyes would always return her curious gaze, the slightest tinge of red dusting dewy skin as they held each other’s attention. It was clear as day–Columbina liked her. She liked the way her name sounded coming from Sandrone’s lips, how she’d intonated the last syllables of her name and eventually opted to address her as such. Countless times, she’d tried to express her unending gratitude in the limited ways she had been shown, mustering her courage to repay Sandrone in a way that could compensate for the indulgence she’d showered her with. Not once did she ask for anything in return, and she seemed content with the limited recompense Columbina offered.

Bit by bit, she offered more of herself to Sandrone, unsure of what else to do or say. At some point, she’d realized such an action was more for herself than the one she’d been aiming to thank and please. The pair had once bathed in the sublime delight of a carefree childhood, filled to the brim with wishes and dreams they’d held together. In the end, they were all the other had, with nothing and no one to rely on but each other. Shared company would become all they knew, until that too would rot and waste away, turning their backs to one another just as the world had done to them. Regret coats her being like sleet settling upon the stagnant winter grass, a constant reminder of what could’ve been–should’ve been–had she done more to preserve their friendship. A bond like theirs was made to last, strong enough to weather any storm and withstand the test of time. 

And it would have had it not been for the life she leads now, where the pleasure of many and prospect of profit comes before those she loves. In front of a sea of cameras and glistening eyes, she is nothing short of the perfect girl, a poster child wringing adoring fans dry of every penny possible. Not a person with a life of her own, with people she wishes to care for and tend to or a life outside of stardom. Their childhood was behind them, something to look back on and admire rather than continue to live by. Peaceful days spent together, wrapped in each other’s arms and dozing off listening to song after song, all of it is locked behind a wall of despair, yearning, and hatred.

As she stares at Sandrone’s hunched figure reaching out to her as she’d done so many times before, her chest twists mercilessly while tears prick half-lidded eyes. The silence standing before the two had become unbearable, only serving to allow overwhelming guilt to fester and blossom. Perhaps at some point, Sandrone could stand it no longer. Watching, bracing herself for the strained and agonized vitriol she’d surely be met with, Columbina catches herself wincing as she draws in a steady breath. 

Her expression softens as a familiar name slips from Sandrone’s lips. 

The chance at making it big or hearing her name in cheers from a vast audience were far from her goals when joining this industry with her best friend, Columbina had simpler dreams than that. To sing and hear her sing, to make music and laugh and smile because they were together. That was just part of it. Elation is a precious feeling, utterly freeing and doused in the sunshine and rainbows the world seems determined to tuck away. She only knows the lightness that comes with joy thanks to the one who’d catalyzed it all. 

You were my new dream.

She’d never forgotten the hope she’d found in meeting Sandrone, the vivid colors she’d brought to her excessively bleak world. Even now, when all they acknowledge of each other is hatred, to say she gave up on her dream would be a poorly woven lie. Perhaps that is what drives her to place her hand in the outstretched hand of her friend, her best friend, and the one she dreamed of constantly. What explanation there is to offer for what she does next, she can’t say. Hell, why care now, when there’s not so much as a camera nor a single soul around to question her actions? 

Columbina says nothing as she pulls Sandrone forward with a firm jolt, enough to settle her head somewhat comfortably upon the expanse of her chest. Maybe her impromptu maneuver could have been executed with a little more grace, but there was hardly a thought to spare towards poise when you’re operating on the bare minimum sustenance to survive. She can’t even reposition her arm, only tilting her head downward to peer at the sandy brunette’s face. Her braids were messy, tufts of hair freed from the careful plaits she tames them to. Normally fair, her cheeks and nose are reddened, be it from exertion or her barrage of insults.

“What is it? I said to stop crying,” it’s all she can do to stroke Sandrone’s hair, her hushed, sympathetic tone betraying sharp words. “I’m here.” Two words Columbina failed to speak when Sandrone needed it most. There was nothing she could do to atone for her failure. A scene from their memories flickers in her vision with every strand she runs her fingers through. Of the many times she’s heard her name called, never had it sounded more like a lament than it does now. A dirge to honor the loss of the lives they knew, the people they knew. A lament for everything they should have done, and for the choices made and all they’ve lost. What more could she possibly sacrifice to cause any more anguish? Pride is arbitrary, and as far as she’s concerned, unworthy of shielding with all her might.

 “...I’m here, Sandrone. I’m not going anywhere.”

I'm here. I'm not going anywhere .

Never in a million years will that sentiment ever stand to truth. At any minute, one of their assistants could barge into the room and steal Columbina away while Sandrone has to pick up the slack all by herself. In the coming years, maybe even months, Columbina will surpass the need for a partner, forever locking her into this cursed practice room where blood and tears are the lofty prices to pay. She won't be here, and she will go off to something bigger, better. Life tampered with them when they were at a crossroads, dragging Sandrone down a heeled edge she hasn't climbed out of ever since. It's an irrevocable flaw of her psyche, wishing and chasing after things that could never be hers to have. With the past all but expelled from her present reality, she yearns terribly for its inconceivable return. How things have changed, when in that same period, the scrappy girl was rearing to see her woefully distant future. The litany of plans she had could only be brought to fruition if time sped up. If it didn't always slow to a crawl, slothful as ever.

Cradled and coddled by the Damsel's fragile arms, Sandrone could only latch onto her as though today was their last. Weakly, she curls tottering digits around the fabric of Columbina's shirt. There is clear proof of a crime scene. The mirrors were marbled with the apple red of human blood and ghost-blur of vague handprints. Columbina's head is anointed with her suffering, wet liquid soaking the beauty of those locks. Most damning of them all was the weapon of choice, the spoiled state of Sandrone's ravenous palms, the only possible perpetrators of this heavy sin. This tragic event hasn’t registered in her mind yet. For Sandrone, it feels like a bleeding nightmare. She couldn’t be awake, not when the world couldn’t stop spinning her around. It’s impossible to fathom that her once-friend, someone who she had just cast into a dramatic daze would do so much as to envelop her frosty skin with the warmth of willing intimacy. That it wasn’t a shallow trick of light placating her. Softened eyes do look upon her, the tips of midnight tresses do cascade in her stinging vision.

The heartbeat she hears thumping below a breastbone isn’t some imagined salvo in her tormented mind. It truly belongs to Columbina. Every moment of this exchange is engineered by the peerless hands which weave tempting tales. Sandrone now sits as a passenger of her own life, wearily watching as someone else whisks them to a desired destination. She halts any argument or resistance, indulging in the magic of this soon-to-be memory. Like this, Sandrone has been spared from a slow, chilling death. The clothed wings of Columbina’s arms serve to shelter and thaw a shivering victim of circumstance. A blanket to weep under when the wars waged by her alter egos dizzy her beyond the point of sickness. The gossamer veiling her true emotions until now has all but vanished away, and what seeps through is the mess of salt and snot. If she were like this anywhere near the stage, only Celestia knows what derision would pour after.

Heat yawns through her belly, its breath flowing in through gentle curlicues. The road ahead to redemption is long. Sandrone wills the tempest of her thoughts to cease, done by deep breaths and long exhales. She shifts, waits for the following wave of fatigue to recede. Feverish, there's no way her temperature hasn't risen since the very start of this demented dance. All of it mimics the softness of times she's filed away in the depths of her memory. The anchoring weight of a hand tracing circles at the small of her back. It's always her hands. Whether it's to gesture her closer or rub at dimpled skin, Sandrone finds that Columbina can rein in her uncontrollable instincts with the soothing glide of chaste palms. Unfairly spotless. The Gods spoil her with too many blessings. Sandrone envies the way she is excessively loved and regarded. Her envy makes it hard to see.

Stop crying.

Columbina's stringent words sear a path into Sandrone's throat. She tightens her jaw until her chin feels taut, inundating her pathetic cries with moments that'd whip her into a mood of molten wrath. Something that could wring Sandrone out of this wicked spell. A feeling so sharp it could siphon the oppressive despair welling in her. Her sniffle comes short and furious, the forced intake of oxygen scratching the hollow of her throat. Something has to surge anger into Sandrone, or else she'd have to come to terms with the fact there was no use in striking up a fight. Her garbled mind starves for conflict. Most would seek to forbid animus from their lives but Sandrone needs it. Perilous pandemonium secures her feet to the floor. It's easier to contemn than contemplate. She knows that it can certainly cause her downfall, but destruction always plucks distress off of her. A detriment it may pose in the long term, she needs a means to overcome the short term pitfalls.

The only problem is that she cannot bring herself to hate Columbina. Their lives have been too intimately intertwined for such an easy thing to happen. It drives Sandrone mad, how she could excuse anything this woman does. The only thing she needed to do was be there.

Tensions were too high for little Sandrone to endure any longer, thus she resolved to break off from the confines of her home and escape into a world where she didn't have to serve as the unwilling audience of a clashing couple. A place where shouting and smoke couldn't reach and ruin. She ran as though a gluttonous beast was chasing after her, ready to seize her if she dared to stop or look behind. Rains have been showering the humble town for over a week, and that night wasn't any different. Sandrone only had an oversized coat protecting her from getting washed away by the volatile volley of downpour. It didn't help that her eyes weren't accustomed to sifting through the mists, having been a child surrounded by light and vision. That was the first time she had freed herself from those suffocating binds, the first time she allowed her fury to outweigh her fear and set off into someplace that wouldn't throttle her. She never understood why they felt the need to argue in front of her when there were other rooms to do so. Never understood why she had to act as the intermediary that would even out the playing field. Sandrone wanted to fight too, but she was never given the option. Nefarious ideas consistently wandered in her head, of what would and could happen if she fired back instead of sitting there with her head low and tongue tied. She wondered if it would grant her reprieve or fuel the flaring fire. Now drenched in the rain, the soles of her boots crusted with mud, Sandrone stopped caring for such thoughts. Really, what she wanted was to be left to her own devices. Given space to breathe and analyze everything without being burdened by the inadequacy of her caretakers. If her stamina weren't so poor at the time, her steady determination could've gotten her to a farther distance. Sandrone could settle down without unnecessary interruptions. Breathing had never felt more relieving than before.

But she had to return. Not for the sake of those imbeciles, but for another person; the one who was most affected by her sudden disappearance. When she mustered up enough courage to crack open the door, Sandrone couldn't even step a foot through the door before a blurred silhouette came barreling towards her with outstretched arms and a horrified countenance. Sandrone struggled to suppress her groan at the crushing force but welcomed it anyways. Columbina pried herself off and looked at Sandrone like she had been revived from a deadly collapse. Instead of a hard frown and spiteful retort, Sandrone quietly laughed as the other girl assailed her with incoherent questions and demands. 

Even pulled her into an embrace awfully similar to the one they were tangled in now. Sandrone doesn't understand.

What is it?

Sandrone dips her head into the crux of Columbina's supple neck and stays buried there for a while. She lets herself be taken care of despite how undeserving she is of this solace. It's the closest thing she has to perfection, and it is enough to disarm her of that stubborn resentment. A thing that refused to leave even with the sincerest of atonements. Dying like this wouldn't be such a tragic outcome. Although, she imagines it would be quite traumatic for the latter, to watch an old friend succumb to eternal slumber in the luxury of an embrace. Were she to die in this moment of respite, would Columbina harbor a sense of responsibility or pretend that she was simply due for an extended nap? The Marionette cannot tell. It's hard to read the Columbina she has now. The one from before would be reduced into wretched cries and screams, beg for the sleepless body to come back alive. The one holding her in this timeline... Well.

Drowsy breaths fan over the Damselette's nape, pressing herself into the plush comfort that could be taken away from her at any second. Her tongue feels heavy in her throat, but she can't help but respond. Offer something more than she should have.

“I’m sorry.” It’s little more than a whisper, a voice from deep inside her says it.

Apologies meant nothing to her, regardless of how earnest the messenger was. Sandrone can’t stand to hear the word that reminds her of so much atrocity. Sorry was something she swore never to utter. Not to herself and definitely not to anyone else. 

Right now, there’s nothing else she could do but apologize. Exhaustion creeps through her bones, her legs limp and unable to move an inch as they’ve opted to wind around Columbina’s waist.

“You can leave if you want.”

Even as trembling hands find purchase along the fabric draped across her back, her own remain steadfast in their lethargy, carding through messy plaits and sweet caresses upon Sandrone’s back. With how she clings to Columbina, you would think she was set to flit away and never return. Could she blame her? When her life had seen everything but stability since making a debut beneath blinding stage lights, when everything she knows now is better pictured as a roiling whirlwind of dreary deals and haughty hosts who do nothing but pester and prod, the familiar warmth settled on her chest and neck is a welcome reprieve. Proper repose had evaded her for years. Funny, that Columbina finds it only after she shed blood, only after her body could fight no more lest she break, that she could finally let go. 

It wasn’t always like this, Columbina hadn’t always been one to tow the precariously thin line between health and success. Her own limits were well within her sight, but those forcing her past what she can shoulder hold not an ounce of care for her struggling. No matter how hard she tried, how she succeeded, smiled, danced, and amazed, it was never enough for the hungry eyes of those proclaiming their undying love for her. More. People always want–no, need–more, right? Such philosophies are burned into her skin, in the soreness of her cheeks from her dazzling smiles and the nights spent sobbing in some desperate attempt to shrug off the agony. What right does she have to deny them, right? When the world showers you with admiration and accolades, your only response is to offer more and more to keep yourself worthy.

For the little girl who’d not known the warmth of adoring eyes and loving cheers, such a life was all she’d ever wanted. Days start to blur together when they follow the same routine. Wake up. Go to school, enjoy a day full of giggling and placid smiles while other girls braid and style her hair. Always smiling, happy for the company she knew would be absent when she walked home. Day after day, a little girl with her hair in a braided ponytail or tied in twin tails tied off with pretty pink ribbons would watch the sky grow dark as she dragged herself to her house. Not her parents’ home, not her caregivers’ home. As far as anyone was concerned, the silent house sitting on the corner belonged to the lone girl left behind by a family who failed to care for her. Columbina’s world had always been bleak, gray, dreary. She didn’t even know how it felt to be told, “I love you.” 

Always, she’d listen to the clock in her room count miserable seconds tick away as she counted the wilting petals adorning her windowsill. Lost and dispassionate Columbina, watching life pass her by while she trudges alongside others, just enough to prevent herself from wasting away. It wouldn’t be so bad to let go, seeing as everyone she’d relied on to love and care for her failed her entirely. She’s come so close to acceptance, to letting herself drift and let her life play out in the downward spiral it seems determined to follow, to accepting the absence of color in her world. Sandrone was the one to change her world as she knew it, company in a place she’d been left to fight through alone. Sandrone became a new constant in her life, vivid paint strokes on a canvas that remained blank for years.

In some way, she was her world. And to think it began with a gesture so simple, so thoughtless and automatic that anyone else could’ve done so. Sandrone was the one who taught her what it meant to care about someone. Words shared between them were never in vain or for show; neither feared rejection from one another, there was no need for sugary lies to appease and please. Suffice to say, such honesty was new for Columbina, for whom every word from her lips was surely some form of a lie. With how easily they spill from her, it was no wonder being an idol came just as naturally. “I love you,” is a phrase most wouldn’t dare throw around haphazardly, for fear of it being a lie in the end. To her, such a thing didn’t matter. Not when every answer she gives is practiced, elaborately thought out and prudently considered. It didn’t matter if the day left her crestfallen and drained or content and stagnant, her answer was always the same. 

”I’m good, I had a really nice break from work today. What about you?”

Sandrone was strange. She never took that for an answer, always piping up strange looks and asking again and again until she arrived at an answer she deemed satisfactory. She seemed like she wanted to know about her day, wanted to listen to all she had to say about the drinks they’d tried together or the snacks they’d picked up on the way to their houses. The house she loathed coming back to day after day began feeling like home. All the years she’d spend in silence were for something, she sees it now. She finally sees what it means to be living, courtesy of the girl sitting at the little coffee table in her living room, peeling tangerines and stealing glances when she thinks Columbina isn’t looking. Homes and houses are different from one another. A house is just a structure. 

Home is where the heart lies, and Columbina’s has always been with Sandrone.

It’s easy to see why, then, she soon fell into hysterics when Sandrone was nowhere to be found on a particularly rainy evening. From standing outside, she’d heard screaming, loud crashing, thuds, sounds that could really only be made by airborne objects and caustic arguing. Columbina remembers the wildly perplexed looks the people inside offered her, then to each other as her questions centered on the whereabouts of the child in their care. Anger was nothing new to her, she’d resented the world for years on end, but anger flaring in someone else’s stead is something new entirely. She’d screamed, pleaded until her throat was raw and worn, more worried about Sandrone than her own so-called caregivers had been. She watched silently as they returned to life as usual, as if there wasn’t someone missing from their house at all. Perhaps to them, there wasn’t. To Columbina, the one person she dared hope to stay with her was gone, somewhere soaked in the unrelenting sheets of rain pouring just outside these walls. For hours, she watched and waited, willing Sandrone to return in one piece, for her to return at all. By some stroke of unseen grace, her prayers had been answered. The relief at seeing her, sullen and melancholic but safe and whole, sent both of them tumbling to the floor. She didn’t even have the mind to care about her own clothes being soiled, all her focus centered on clinging to Sandrone as though she’d been gone for years. This was what it meant to care for someone, she realized, to be worried sick and then endlessly grateful to whatever gods hover above and brought her back intact.

A bag full of clothes and belongings and an umbrella was all the pair left that house with that night. Not once did either of those wretched people masquerading as parents bat an eye. Their walk to Columbina’s house was filled with chatter, mostly incessant questions about where she’d gone off to, if she was okay, what she wanted for dinner. Sandrone would just laugh, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips as she answered. Comfort is a luxury, but having found it so freely in Sandrone’s embrace was a welcome discovery. Never sure if she had the same effect on her companion, she’d been apprehensive at offering the same affection. That night’s circumstances were different. Columbina only hesitated a moment before taking Sandrone in her arms, praying she could offer even the slightest iota of comfort to her. To see her smile would always be enough for the Damsel. She didn’t need apologies or material items. As long as Sandrone was there, she could bear the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, hushing her sorries as best she could muster. Her response is nearly instant, spoken before she even thinks to consider the weight of those words. Both knew the absent meaning apologies hold in their minds, but it doesn’t matter at a time like this. She ached to be held and loved again, even if it were a soon-to-be memory. A sanguine thought to have, considering the blood caking her hair and trailing the mirrors behind her. Sandrone’s legs betray her dismissive words, pleading for her to stay even as she tries to let go. Her voice dips to a sleepy drawl as her embrace tightens around the woman in her arms.

“I don’t want to leave you. Please, just let me stay.”

Insipidity has cursed Sandrone since the day she wailed her first cry into the world. Brought into a home where the sun could never filter through, Sandrone was left alone to stare into nothing. Not even a shadow would deign to accompany her. Every night when her parents opened the door to sneak off, Sandrone bated her breath so as to not draw suspicion. Footfalls soon faded into the background of dusk, the foreboding noise something she would commit to memory. It was nearly impossible to fall abed when the spiking fear of abandonment asphyxiated her. Before, she was deathly afraid of what might happen should she be left to fend for herself. There’s no chance the townsfolk in her neighborhood would extend a hand to some whimpering lunatic, they were as pitiless and inhumane as her guardians. Certain points of Sandrone’s life punched hard lessons into her. Unlike the other children, who walked hand-in-hand with their parents, who were given treats and jewels she had never seen, Sandrone was not seen as anything worthy of love. Maybe her existence only came at the behest of plenty of mistakes. The times she’d look into her parent’s eyes, Sandrone noticed it was bereft of bliss. It wasn’t a playful stare of unparalleled fondness, nor a cinched frown of protective concern. She learned that they never felt those emotions for her. Leaving a void the child could only hope of closing.

Like the gloaming of her silent household, there was nothing. Always nothing.

Sandrone knew what home was supposed to be the moment Columbina took her by the arm and led the both of them back to an unfamiliar estate. A fat frog was practically lodged into her throat as she stared in subconscious shock. It wasn't a common experience to be invited to a friend's—anyone's—house. With how withdrawn and buttoned-up the girl was, it's no surprise that her peers opted to exclude her from gregarious activities like parties or sleepovers. Not that it was a point of contention, Sandrone would turn ill if she was forced to tune into giggling conversations about the distasteful boys at their school. The obsession with drooling over the grotesque species of their academy was utterly lost on the glum student who wished for more decency in her companions. Was it the famine of work ethic and scant grades that appealed to them? Suppose those fillies wanted an omission of basic capacity to pamper their uncomely egos. Curiously, Columbina didn't possess the flighty traits as her circles did. She was sophisticated in that sense, a diamond thrown in with the rubbish. The interior of her house wasn't as inordinate and immeasurable as her intuition made it out to be, a reminder that Columbina wasn't some caricature of a person. She was real, just like Sandrone. Their lives weren't worlds apart, sharing a sense of normalcy that cajoled Sandrone to scrap her unreliable presumptions. If she wanted the friendship to continue, Sandrone had to cast away the inclination to baseless judgment.

Of course she wanted to keep Columbina. If not her, who else would show the same measure of unconditional love?

It was hard not to stare. Sandrone tried to pin her attention on unpeeling the tangerine in her tiny hands, but the string of failed attempts only ended with citrus juice spraying in her eyes, a punishment for her fickle focus. Columbina reduces her into a quixotic fool, chasing her own whims rather than staying afloat with logical thought. It was only through luck that the awkward moment didn't overstay its welcome, not when the two of them peacefully chewed on the pulpy fruit. Silence, which Sandrone always felt deeply unsettled by, became a pleasantry to appreciate. Her staring became ten times more obvious. When there was little risk, it was easier to act cheeky and be flimsy. The discretion that shrouded the dinner table in her humdrum household was all but forgotten. For once, Sandrone rambled until the boundless rhetoric in her mind's repertoire dissipated. A rarity. She didn't realize how lovely it was to loosen up. To lose herself to the excitement of telling someone every minor detail about her experiences and dreams.

With every new thing she learned about Columbina, the more she had to seal the empty spaces in her chest. Gone were the days Sandrone regretted blinking awake to another blinding morning, gone were the days her soul waned without the sweet rush of glee. All she needed to do was peer at her closest friend, the one who promised to undergo the pains and plights of growing up alongside her. Sandrone didn't have the leeway to refuse, she had nobody else to place absolute faith into. Eventually their pledges culminated in a glittering opportunity Sandrone couldn't believe she acquired. At last, there was a way to escape the unfairness of a dull routine. She could unchain herself from mundanity, fly to the heights of a full moon and move on from there. Not only that, she would accomplish the dream of a thousand dreams with her one true partner. They can do it. They can do everything their hearts desire because Columbina was the one thing Sandrone trusted. Their wishes seemed too good to be true, but she knew they could achieve so much more because of what they already had at their fingertips.

Now she knows it was all a cheap fantasy. For her, at least. The realization wasn't immediate, which only made the outcome far worse. Sandrone began to notice oddities, how Columbina was always positioned at the center for photoshoots, the blunt way the producers edited out a considerable portion of her shots to highlight Columbina, how she could scroll through floods of comments and forums only to see them lavish Columbina with adulation. She didn't want to face the reality yet, so Sandrone chose to ignore what was so plainly spelled out for her. Even as the stylists adorned the Damsel in shimmering shades of ivory and gold, pronouncing her perfect angles with dramatic shapes and cuts; Sandrone didn't acknowledge the glaring gap forming in her chest. Despite the fans rapidly losing interest in Sandrone and making demands for Columbina loud and clear, she couldn't cede to the hollowness she felt when Columbina hugged her with that merry smile and effervescent laugh.

Admitting her hurt would be selfish and unbecoming. To confess that she felt a pang of pain whenever she was shoved aside for Columbina to pen an autograph, to verbally lament how bruises bloomed her ego whenever other idols posted pictures of just Columbina—her egotistic envy couldn't ever take precedence over Columbina's elation. Not when she's done a world's worth of good for her. Sandrone's suffering didn't compare to the latter's success. She could suck it up and cry when eyes were averted elsewhere. As long as she didn't return to the past, where she felt nothing and was nothing, Sandrone held her head high with a hopeful attitude.

Turns out, Sandrone was still nothing. Instead of her own conscience repeating it to her over and over, an external audience of people were now echoing the same virulent phrases. We're better off without you. Go away already. Nobody wants you. One way or another, she was destined for an insignificant future. Sandrone didn't run away from her past, she's reliving it in the worst ways possible. There's no hiding the fact that Columbina never needed Sandrone to complete a dream. No matter how many times she told Sandrone they were inseparable, Sandrone couldn't keep up with her greatness. Trying to outmaneuver fate's plans only leaves someone dead. It's almost hilarious, how desperately she resisted only to crash back into the world she belonged to.

Columbina could leave for all she cares. It wasn't meant to be a happily ever after. She should've caught the hints before judgment day arrived. Sandrone could have dismissed her attempt at retrieving her stupid book, could have rejected the offers to go out eating and shopping, could have permanently disappeared from the surface.

Sandrone carefully nudges Columbina with the steady weight of her body, like how she would jostle her awake when it was too late in the day to sleep. She had to clean up her mess, take care of the wounded patient sprawled on floors daubed in her own blood. It wasn't in either of their interest to be taken by somnolence. For as much as Sandrone wishes to stop caring, even she can't bring herself to leave Columbina a wasted mess. Really, there was no other way to explain what happened other than telling the truth and taking the brunt of the hit, but Sandrone couldn't care about the consequences now. Whatever happens to her will happen, Columbina can't be marred lest the public start to launch their own nosy investigations.

“Stay awake,” she says, a firm order. Sandrone shifts until she creates space to properly assess the damages she dealt. Throwing her into the mirrors wasn't a spectacular idea. Sandrone warms the Damselette's ruddy cheeks with shaking hands, connecting the wavering concentration of their gazes. A terrible urge teases her curdled mind when she accidentally catches a glimpse of euphonious lips. Lips that lie, a mouth that knows only to forge winning smiles, a tongue that speaks the language of lonely lovers—Sandrone wants to sweep in and capture it in an earnest kiss. To coax a silent truth from that lying mouth.

Not here. Not like this. “Stay with me, Bina.”

“Where are you going?” she paws at shifting fabric, struggling between smoothing out folds or holding fast to a fleeting dove. Her movements halt, eyelids fluttering in some halfhearted attempt to remain lucid. “Where are you going…?”

Four words that until now, she’d not dared whisper. Any answers she’d receive from those she’d once thought to ask would mean so little, there was no point in wasting precious breath to be met with a scoff and silence. She hardly knows what to expect from her inquiries, if Sandrone would pay them any heed, if she’d care enough to answer. Her parents certainly didn’t, but she shouldn’t judge the character of someone she’d never known. To do so would be rude, a value she’d learned not from an adult or caregiver or parent–she couldn’t learn from those she never had–but from the children around her. Outward appearances matter to those on the outside looking in. If she remained quiet as she wished, shut out the world as it had done to her, she would garner strange looks and be dubbed stranger names. If she laughed and played enough, she would be looked over and written off as just another little girl who loved frilly dresses and pink ribbons. A girl so young learned to lie, as if such fallacies should be second nature to any child.

Maybe it protected her, though from what she couldn’t say, gave her something to hide behind to shield herself from the world. People cannot dissect what they cannot see, it’s only right she learns to hide herself properly. There is no need for those outside to be graced with her honesty or her true feelings, they’d only prey on her fragility if she risks exposing herself in such a way. Everything would remain locked behind her carefully devised walls, and Columbina would raise no complaints about her self-imposed confines. No one else protected her, not when she needed it most. If not her, who would be there for her to rely on? For a time, the answer was no one, there was no one she trusted enough to extend a hand to in offering. Her world was nowhere near as vivid as the painted sunset skies in novels or tenderness shown on silver screens, instead it was bathed in swathes of suffocating gray. She cannot complain, this is the life she chose.

But if she knew it all then, would she do it again? Would she subject the little girl who tried and tried to braid her hair just right, who would learn to feed herself through sheer will, to the monotony and boredom of a life like this? Deep down, she knew she didn’t deserve the anguish she came to know as a constant, always wishing to parry the blows life dishes out. Her efforts were met with harsh consequences no matter her move, throttling what little breaths she could cling to. It’s as they say, no fire can thrive without air to properly stoke the flames. Columbina’s flames were snuffed out long ago, she operated on the warmth of smoldering cinders as if her fingertips weren’t already turned to ice.

Someone else would have to take up the role of melting her heart, for she had no intentions of doing so willingly. It’s easier this way, it’s safer this way, she decided. No one can hurt what they cannot reach. And yet, without even trying, someone found a way to melt the frost she shrouds herself in. To think that all it takes is a lopsided grin from a girl whom she’d not paid much mind to wash away the sordid grime that coats her skin. What began as just another round of lies and sugary pleasantries would end in defeat, a ceded victory to the one who’d just kept coming back. Always so, so insistent to hear about her day, about what flavor of ice cream she likes, whether or not she likes candied pecans and hazelnuts. If Sandrone were anyone else, she’d smile and tease with her answers, looking for a way to see another person satisfied with her responses. But Sandrone doesn’t search solely for the sake of what she wants to hear.

She seeks the truth, and for once Columbina can’t find it within her to deny her efforts. Her lies turned to half-truths, which would placate most and disarm those who wished for more, but Sandrone never relented. With every piece of her she willingly gave to Sandrone, the more she received in return. Such an exchange was more valuable than any jewel or gold-crusted jewelry piece she could hope to procure. A true friend like Sandrone is far from easy to stumble upon, understated and overlooked as she was. It gave her all the more reason to give more and more, with no fear of being left for dead as she had been before. It is no facile feat to trust. Trust comes with time and acceptance of the fears plaguing the mind, and understanding that the world is not designed exclusively to maim and dismiss.

Sandrone is the only one she could allow herself to trust. She is the hand guiding a paintbrush dipped in radiant hues along the canvas Columbina tried so hard to leave blank. Coming from a life of inky darkness, she can only stand back and marvel at the masterpiece she’d been bestowed with, courtesy of another, praying she’d never have to return to dreary skies and murky surroundings. Vibrance became the life she desired, her dreams bursting with the colors of the wind she’d been so blind to for what feels like her entire life. The girl who was once dispassionate and drifting, once deemed unworthy of love and care, found a place at someone else’s side. If her younger self saw her then, laughing in earnest and tasting the sanguine sweetness of elation thanks to the girl beside her, would she recognize her?

Would she recognize the dazzling star shining under stage lights, flitting across stages as though it were fated to be? Surely not. Even now, Columbina fails to recognize her reflection, from the pallor of her skin to her sullen eyes. This time, her world was filled with blinding colors and vivid lights too disorienting to enjoy–it was all too much for her, but too little for the one who’d come all this way alongside her. She was worlds away by now, what good was there in trying to bridge the gap separating two fleeting doves? Sandrone was good as gone by now, leaving those nauseating strokes of gray to fill her absence. 

“You’re staring.”

Here Sandrone is now, her eyes speaking the concern she refused to voice as they sweep across her face. She was always so easy to read. Her eyes give it all away, just as they do now. They settle on her lips and stay there, as though she were trying to commit every arc and curve to memory as Columbina had. She would know the delicate curve of Sandrone’s arms and hands blind, could recall every waking detail of her face in an instant. 

“I’m always with you,” she props herself upright with her elbows, trying to appear more conscious than she felt. “You have to stay, too. Don’t leave me.”

How Columbina manages to read and depict the hidden verses of her mind so deftly will likely never occur to Sandrone. None of it was fair. The pointed way she calls her bluff, forcing her to fold for fear she'd lose too much. As soon as she's revealed, her supposedly buried intentions being brought to light in the most humiliating manner possible, all she can do was deflect. Whipping her face to a faraway space to pipe down steaming abashment. Sandrone might have been pushed to a breaking point, what with how she's been rendered speechless, stuck on words that should be below her. 

Ridiculous, the way she apices into a flustered mess after being barred so plainly. The reaction only divulges more, confirming that she was indeed staring. Staring somewhere the eyes never fell to. Many times, Sandrone indulged such idealistic thoughts. Reveries that should only be privy to the one imagining them. Similar to how you don't confess wishing death upon a semi-irritating loudmouth or verbalize hurtful (honest) opinions to friends whom currently pose as unstable messes. Sandrone chastises herself for the lack of self-control. Idols were models, if models crumbled apart after one hitch in the road, they would be disqualified from consideration.

She wouldn’t lie. The present moment was not one to pass deceit or witticisms. If the Damsel assayed even the palest of prevarications, Sandrone would tear herself away from the knot they’ve made on the ground and leave without mercy for what may happen to her. Deception had gotten the upper hand on her one too many times; she’s fed herself lies to stave off the ruin unfiltered truths would inevitably wrought. Her battered mind recrudesce the same tired old falsities. Every time Sandrone realized she would be better off if she swallowed the bitter pill presented before her, it would be too late. Perhaps this moment she christens as relief was another product of her delusions. 

Fallacies always broke once Sandrone woke up. When the need for them was analogous to pure oxygen, they slipped from her numb fingertips and coalesced into a mutated monster. There to trail after her tracks, to taunt her constant blunders, to outrage a beaten creature struggling in a net. She didn't have the strength to fight the hell she caused. Unlike before, where there was a perceptible reward to restoration; Sandrone didn't have a strand of light to look toward. A rebirth was only possible if the person was willing and ready. Frankly, the Marionette forfeited far too much, far too many times to dust off the grime.

As her friend seemingly disposed of her, Sandrone lost sight of what it meant to be a human. The girl who could invigorate herself through wishful thinking and romanticism. The girl who was content with spending hours under the covers with a flashlight and book. She doesn't understand what drove her to see through so many futile plans. There were so many things she would happily rewrite if someone threw her a bone. She would rip out the pages where she wasted time meandering without a plan in motion. If she hadn't taken her youth for granted, basking in her boredom and ignoring the calls for duty, perhaps Sandrone would have landed at a place and time where she could truly thrive and soar. Something she had a natural affinity for, not a field that asked for more than she could offer. It was a clear mismatch of values. To stand among born and bred stars as a silent observer was bound to disillusion her. Sandrone could have seated comfortably behind the camera, controlling the strings and cloaking herself in safe shadows. A life that involved staying discreet, free from the distress of empty platitudes and histrionics, sounded much more charming than the one where she lived as someone else's obedient puppet. Not only that, a polished toy that was never touched or perused.

Beneath her singular pillow was a diary of songs that will never reach anyone's eyes or ears. Sandrone wrote those lyrics at strange and strained times of her life. Requiems over the death of a friendship, eulogies of even the smallest of victories, and descants that expressed her anger like some vehement poetry. Sandrone, forbidden from screaming her gripes at the top of her lungs, sought some alternative to alleviate her flaring rage. She scribbled down lines and lines of soliloquy that would defame her should it ever be published. Maybe as a way to celebrate her homestretch, she would unearth this haunted treasure for the whole world to feast their wretched eyes on. A grand finale that would subdue any other outcome. From the break of dawn till the dust of dark, Sandrone locked her wrist onto the parchment. Filling every space with writing only she could completely decipher. The bosomed book was her only device. A mechanism to spontaneously confide in, her only source of delight the verbose elocution of which she continued to cultivate with every loss.

There would be a lot to write down later. Sandrone's brain splits into too many factions, already striking up discourse on a deal that hadn't yet been made. Regret begins to spiderweb into her body, thwarting any instinct to rush into more hazardous positions. She breathes for the dozenth time that evening, her monologues dragging on much longer than warranted. Columbina's question, one steeped with alarm and anxiety, receives an in the way Sandrone pets through her hair with sorrowful hands. Sandrone lets her rest, lets her recover from the ragged state she was lobbed into without warning.

If she wasn't so remorseful, Sandrone might have scoffed at how inane the inquiry was. Of course she leaves for periods of time. At several points, it was necessary for her to depart for a distraction. Sandrone couldn't always stay there. She might leave Columbina in moments where the latter needs her most. There are enough instances for her to be sure of it. However, Columbina must have forgotten one crucial thing:

Sandrone will always come back to her. Because she is home. No matter how much was lost to time and torture, Sandrone would crawl and limp miles to return. Columbina pained her in more ways than she cares to name, and despite knowing that leaving would be an easy way out; Sandrone's finger is tied to an invisible string.

“I...” I love you, Columbina. It's on the tip of her tongue, uttering those three words would be as simple as reciting letters from the alphabet. Columbina needs it, she needs for her to hear it. Instead, Sandrone catches the hand that skitters on the seams of her shirt before leading it to her lips. Indolent kisses pepper each yielding knuckle, a replacement for something that could be far better. “I'm here again, Bina.”

I'm home.

Every muscle screams at her to pull away, but the heart is always more honest than the body. Be it consciously or otherwise, Columbina catches herself leaning forward, a hazy gaze locked onto the person trying her best to care for her now. A gentle hold paired with the slightest caress of her hand is enough to dust her cheeks pink, the sole indication she is more than a dead girl walking. Widened eyes and parted lips paint her into an image of innocence, purer than winter’s fallen snow. It occurs to her that she would look like her old self again, the girl with hopes and dreams held together by another, if not for the exhaustion weighing her down. She hardly has the energy to shed a tear, much less pull her hand back before Sandrone’s lips meet each reddened knuckle, handling her as though she were glass.

Perhaps she is, there is barely a difference between a doll and an idol after all. For years, she would cling to the sliver of childhood innocence the world so graciously left her. Such a thing would leave anyone fragile, one offhand action that sends her crashing back to reality used to be all it took to shut down. As she grows up and sees the world with all it has to offer, her mindset should surely strengthen. You would think that. To a girl who went from having nothing and no one to being doted on and praised by strangers, there was almost no time to ease into hardening her heart. The whirlwind that is the idol world only serves to break her down with every waking spew of vitriolic rancor. Though to her credit, she could at least keep her composure when those in this life remind her of humankind’s shortcomings. It never stopped her incessant bouts of heaving sobs at the realization of all she didn’t and would never have.

Love is such a fickle gift, one that people can revoke and shower someone in so easily. Is that what makes it so appealing to the masses, why they strive and flounder for an intangible thing such as love. She never grasped the idea of it, how people could say those three words and mean it with every fiber of their being. Luxury like that had never been extended to her. How can she desire what she never knew? Watching patiently as other girls clamber to their mothers, reaching upward for their doting smiles and overwhelming affection. The sight made her sick to her stomach. Columbina never dared wish for what she could never have, but it was only natural she desired a love like that. Maternal love is something irreplaceable–just as the neglect and hatred of a mother is impossible to forget. 

Like clockwork, she can recall every instance her own mother prayed for her downfall. Every night she failed to bring food for her, yet gorged herself with what little money she could conjure. The days she’d been horrifically ill, only to be left in the wretched house she calls home today, frail and alone and petrified. Call it a miracle or call it a curse, that Columbina managed to scrape herself up and survive the subtle attempts on her life. Her mother didn’t even bat an eye when she left her to die, not a word or well wish left for her. Spite is the demise of many, yet for Columbina, it is her saving grace. It kept her alive throughout her years, along with tact and charm to entice those paying her heed to assist her. Her outward appearance is a lie, she is nothing of the perfect Damsel the world wishes to see.

Austere and uninteresting, demure, frugal and simple in the life she leads. This is the Columbina she once was, and the girl whose values she clings desperately to. She is weak and naive, all her lies playing shield to a heart cold as ice. Only one person could understand such a skewed worldview, one who knew the anguish and regret of an unloved child. Sandrone understood all too well; however, there is one key difference between the two. Sandrone is capable of dishing out brutal honesty, she lost the ability to care for who she hurt with biting words. Columbina is not. She cowers and bends to the whim of others, catering to the most undeserving with glimmering lies that anyone would seek to believe. Honesty is a token of love to most, a two-way street would surely signify some level of love and trust. Columbina’s idea of love is just the opposite. Pretty, shimmering lies are the only way she knows to please and entertain, the only way she could ever coax someone to love someone so tainted.

She will never understand why Sandrone refused to be swayed by her farces, though she learned to appreciate her insistence. It’s only natural for most that their walls come down as someone slowly becomes an integral part of their life, but Columbina failed to find comfort in doing so. Feeling vulnerable is akin to a death sentence, a sure way to be left for dead by those around her and have a desolate fate destined to be written in stone. But even as Sandrone whittled more of Columbina’s honesty from her, even as she saw the girl who was maimed and marred by a past no child should live through, the two only grew closer. They were honest with one another. Columbina’s fake smiles faded in lieu of wholehearted laughter, Sandrone’s smile widened one painstaking centimeter at a time. This is the beauty of life she had been deprived of for so long. This is the beauty of warmth and care, of learning to love after a life where she’d known nothing of its virtue. It’s only right she repay Sandrone’s honesty with some of her own, the lingering scent of regret dissipating with every breath of fresh air. 

Crystalline droplets race down her cheeks, the only sounds breaking delicate silence being her wavering breaths and hushed sobs. Her fingers clasp around Sandrone’s steady hands, a returning and silent show of her affection. It’s not enough, for all the joy and sorrow Sandrone had been the one behind, for all the happiness she’d freely given to her. Mustering what dwindling strength she can, Columbina carefully leans forward, wrapping her free arm around the curve of the ever-elusive Marionette’s waist. From afar, it might look like a simple hug, maybe even written off as a silly happening between best friends. That’s what it had been in the past, but to live in the past is a lofty dream. From Columbina to the woman in her arms, this embrace is an apology of her own. Both know their past is long gone. The present is all we have. 

I love you.

Three words she refused to utter until she could be sure of her sincerity, and three words she wanted nothing more than to profess to Sandrone. Her Sandrone, the only person she could bring herself to love and admire. Unceremoniously, her head slips to the crook of Sandrone’s neck, the familiar scent of sweet musk and sandalwood bringing a faded smile to her lips. 

“Now stay,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “Stay with me, too. Please.” 

So many times, she’d tried to work up the nerve to apologize, but the words would sound disingenuous from her lying lips. The piles of written apologies to Sandrone would never see the light of day. She would never hear her lament for their happiness, the blame she shoulders for how far apart they’ve grown. Sandrone would never read Columbina’s pleas for her to tease and scold her like she used to, pleading for her not to be intimidated by her. 

You might hate me. That’s okay. Tell me I’m stupid, that I’m naive and dim and everything else. I’ll apologize to you, then you can smile again, right? You can laugh like you used to, when you were happy, right? Tell me what’s on your mind, about your newest ideas and amazing concoctions. I want to hear it all. I’ll make it up to you, anything you want from me, I’ll find a way to give it to you. If it’s me you want, you can have me. I promised you the day we made it here.

A fleeting kiss pressed to the neck of a perfect Marionette is the last gift she can endow before her world slips into sanguine bliss.