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Nights without Arlecchino were miserable, nights without Arlecchino were long, and most of all, they lacked any sort of meaning or semblance of a reason for Columbina to even bother breathing, so she didn’t. It’s not like she needed to anyway, and so she held her breath. She wrote word and word, bombarded by scrapped page after scrapped page of just what she might say to her lover, to her lover who was whisked away to the home country that treated her as though she was trash, to her lover who experienced all the pains that came with the unbearable weight of humanity. It sickened her that Arlecchino was subjected to such missions while the others pranced around all day playing diplomat. It sickened Columbina that she knew Arlecchino would be forced to watch her own people die, as she had from ripe childhood years that were whisked away from her for that very reason.
Columbina wanted to tell Arlecchino all of this, craved to cradle her with her sweet words laced with hope, with her understanding of her woes that only humanity could carry. She wanted Arlecchino to know she understood; she wanted Arlecchino to know just how much she wanted to whisk her away to the heavens, to treat her with the utmost love and care, to spoil her with gentle touches, none of which she’d ever be able to, let alone articulate.
And so Columbina sat, she sat crumpling up her perfectly printed custom pink stationary, of which she’d desperately needed to order more, trying to find the words to say the agonizingly sweet feelings of longing that filled her chest and mind as though they had decided it was their new resting place.
“I miss you,” no.
“I’ve been craving you lately; I miss your cold hands.” god, no.
“I love you.”
Columbina slammed her stationary into her desk drawer, gripping the letter she had received from Arlecchino with such fervor. She was red, her face scrunched up nastily as though she’d just been exposed to some sort of sickening creature; she read Arlecchino’s words over and over as though she held the bible, held the holiest text in her very palms to taunt Columbina with its words once again.
“To my dearest Columbina,
I’ve often found myself taking walks by the pier just off Fontaine’s lovely sunsets. I wasted much time between my last letter and this shiny one to realize why that is and why I cared so much to know why in the first place.
When I see the shore of my home, when I see the sun shining off the waves of blue and green, I see you.
Fontaine has been quite mundane. I miss you.
Whenever I sleep, I rest with only your piercing pink eyes staring back at me in my head, as though I am the only creature they’ve ever laid their eyes on. Selfish of me, I know. I think I just might want to spend every day of my life with you; I want to wake up holding you as though you are my own.
I often think of the sun and the sea and the way in which the sun shines on the sea as though she admires her; they will never meet, and though she graces her with warmth every day.
I’ll see you soon.
Regards, your Knave.”
Columbina could only stuff her pillow into her face and scream, a ghastly roar reserved for times when her own girlish ways got the better of her, ones that anyone else would’ve stored away with their first love.
What was love even supposed to feel like? Was Arlecchino her first love?
Columbina’s heart sank; she knew the answer to that question. As many centuries as she spent seeing humans engage in what she considered to be silly, habitual nonsense to keep the poorly tied delegation they considered “society” in shape, she never realized just why it was that human beings fell in love in the first place. Columbina never realized she doomed herself upon noticing The Knave’s proximity to writing, the smooth words that would fly off her pen as though she was talking to some lucky bachelorette, not an angel who committed herself to her betrothed far before she understood the nature of such an agreement, the feelings that came with such, and the permanent nature of it.
And before Columbina knew it, Pierro was in the room. She didn’t realize that these days, Pierro hardly wasted any space in her brain, let alone in her eyes. Columbina was always watching, and yet Pierro felt as though he was nothing; Arlecchino felt as though she was everything. When Columbina looked at Arlecchino, Arlecchino always looked back. Pierro never looked at Columbina, not even once.
Right now, Pierro was shaking her, and yet, his eyes lay somewhere else, at the wall, on the table, the door, anything to avoid eye contact with the woman he so forcibly called his own. Columbina’s obscene expression did not waver, the steaming tears that filled her eyes, mementos of her own frustration with the lack of expression that filled her state of being.
“What’s wrong with you?” she heard him yell, disconnected as ever; his voice lacked any semblance of life, as though checking upon his wife every night was some sort of childish chore. Pierro didn’t know how to comfort a soul, let alone did he know Columbina’s heart well enough to know just what would cure her woes, too preoccupied to even understand that Columbina had not been his wife for well over a year now.
“Nothing, go back to your room. I’m fine, Pierro.” her words carried no emotion, no sweet inclination, nothing. Columbina had been prone to what he called “overreactions,” though, to her, she was only experiencing. Pierro simply left; he didn’t inquire about her, he didn’t notice she wasn’t breathing, and he couldn’t even be bothered to see the large signature scribbling out “Your Knave” buried deep in her hands. Pierro didn’t care, and Columbina didn’t care.
As his footsteps lingered, Columbina sunk into her satin sheets, taken by layers that should be warm, fleece-lined, and yet cold all the same. Arlecchino was gone, not for much longer, yet the cold still lingered.
Columbina put the letter from Arlecchino safely under the pillow that lay next to her head. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she allowed herself to exhale.
At this moment, she understood she would not write back to Arlecchino; she didn’t need to.