Chapter Text
There is a girl singing in the rain.
She’s in white, the absolute worst color to be drenched in, her dress far too short and far too thin for the winter chill. On top of that, she’s barefoot, walking mostly on the tips of her toes, the skin of her thighs and calves blotchy from the cold. Her voice is bright, clear, the melody like the ocean’s waves, the lyrics in an unknown language.
For a moment, Sandrone thinks she might be hallucinating. Rubbing at the corners of her eyes, she blinks once, twice, three times, but the girl remains right there, strolling casually down the street in what appears to be a nightgown in the freezing rain.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
Her voice comes out a little harsher than she intended, but the other girl doesn’t seem bothered, spinning on her heel in a spray of cold water.
“Hmm?”
She tilts her head to one side, almost like a confused puppy. Her expression is… strange, like she’s here but not really here, like her eyes are staring straight through Sandrone and off into the distant horizon.
“Why are you out here without a coat, hell, without any shoes? Are you trying to freeze to death?”
As she scolds this strange girl, Sandrone steps closer to hold her umbrella over them both, her free hand going to the zipper of her own coat and tugging.
The girl hums, like she’s seconds away from floating off into space.
“I didn’t want anyone to know I was leaving. So I did not dress like I was going out.”
Well, Sandrone can sort of see the logic, but why would she not even put on a sweater? It’s the middle of winter, so it wouldn’t be strange to wear long sleeves indoors - hell, how warm is this girl’s house to be wearing such a flimsy nightgown in this temperature?
With a deep sigh, she unzips her coat.
“Please don’t tell me you’re running away from home dressed like this.”
“I’ll go back later,” the girl replies, showing a bit more emotion - distress, perhaps? “I know how to find my way home.”
Shrugging off her coat, she drapes it over the other girl’s shoulders - fortunately, they are about the same size, and it fits the girl nicely.
“Right, I won’t make you go home if you don’t want to,” Sandrone grumbles, shivering. “But you are coming with me before you succumb to hypothermia.”
The girl blinks, bemused.
“Is this… kidnapping?”
“Hah?!” Sandrone exclaims, “Why would anyone want to kidnap you?”
The girl opens her mouth as if to answer, and Sandrone quickly cuts her off.
“Don’t say anything. Come with me, stay out here and freeze, it doesn’t matter to me either way. Do whatever you like.”
With that, she turns on her heel and walks away, stuffing her hands into her skirt pockets in an attempt to keep them warm. The girl stares at her with wide eyes, her mouth open but no words coming out, one small, pale hand clutching the front of Sandrone’s coat.
A few moments later, she is back under Sandrone’s umbrella, humming another song to herself as she links their arms together.
Flinching, she hisses, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Whatever I like,” the girl replies, nonchalant.
The ghost of a headache builds in her temples, tension building along the line of her jaw. Whoever this girl is, she seems like trouble - not in the traditional, juvenile delinquent sense, but trouble nonetheless.
The girl does not ask any questions, even as they turn off the main road and down into the more rundown part of the town. Instead, she merely continues singing, her voice carrying beautifully in the dry winter air, the song completely unfamiliar to Sandrone. She seems to have next to no sense of self-preservation, her eyes wandering along the curves of the clouds instead of paying attention to her surroundings.
“I’m home,” she shouts as she slides open the front door.
“Welcome back,” comes the reply, probably from the kitchen, “is that a friend of yours I hear?”
“Not exactly,” Sandrone replies, folding up her umbrella and dropping it into the stand by the door.
The girl stops singing, looking around the place with almost childlike curiosity.
Most of the first floor is taken up by rectangular tables, each one surrounded by four chairs. A bar runs along the right side of the room, with an acrylic display for baked goods, the cash register old and blocky, with a bell that rings every time the drawer is opened. Curious, the girl releases Sandrone’s arm and makes a beeline for the register, running her fingers gingerly over the old plastic and humming to herself.
“Come,” Sandrone calls, “the bathroom is this way.”
The girl obeys, leaving a trail of water in her wake. Seymour gasps when he sees her, a pale drowned rat, concern written all over his face as he asks, “Oh dear, what happened to you?”
“I was kidnapped,” the girl reports, her voice so airy that it’s hard to tell if she’s joking or not.
“Should I call the police?”
“No thank you. I will go home later.”
Shaking her head, Sandrone sighs, “She’s a weird one, but I figured I’d get her out of the rain first.”
“Good idea. We can talk when she’s nice and warm.”
Without another word, the girl follows Sandrone up the stairs and into their personal quarters. She quietly allows herself to be shoved into the bathroom with a big towel, making a little noise of acknowledgement when Sandrone tells her to dry herself off.
Throwing her closet door open, she grabs the first long-sleeved shirt and pants she can see, returning to the bathroom and knocking on the door.
“I’ve brought some clothes for you.”
To her surprise, the girl throws open the door, completely naked save for the towel wrapped around her neck. Sandrone lets out a panicked squeak, taking a single step back as she closes her eyes.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“You knocked.”
“But you’re not dressed!”
The girl pauses, bemused. “Oh, right.”
What is wrong with this girl, does she not have any shame or decency? She’s acting like a much younger child, unaware of her own body; has no one taught her what is and isn’t appropriate for a teenager?
“Take these and put them on, quickly,” Sandrone orders, still refusing to open her eyes.
The girl accepts the clothes obediently, the door clicking shut. When it next opens, the girl is fully dressed, a little color coming back to her cheeks as her body warms up. Her wet clothes are nowhere to be seen - Sandrone has to peek over her shoulder to see it abandoned in a heap on the floor, alongside the now-damp towel.
Standing in front of Sandrone, the girl makes a simple announcement.
“I’m hungry.”
She sniffs the air like a dog, very much a wet puppy scooped off the streets.
“I smell coffee,” she declares, and with that, she heads down the stairs and back into the cafe area.
“Hah?!”
What is wrong with this girl, does she not know how rude she is being? Why is she just making statements and then expecting to be catered to, is she some sheltered rich girl taking a little adventure out into the world?
Put off by the girl’s audacity, Sandrone follows after her. A short, curious meow sounds from the corner of the stairs - her cat, Pulonia, probably wondering why a guest has been allowed into their private quarters. Usually, customers are not allowed anywhere near the second floor, and Pulonia likes watching them from the safety of the stairs, aware that he will be able to escape should anyone try to give him unwanted attention.
Unsurprisingly, Seymour has already prepared some hot drinks for them, leaning against the bar counter as the two girls approach him.
Kindly, he asks, “Hey there, little miss. Would you like coffee or hot chocolate?”
“Chocolate,” the girl says, eagerly accepting the mug with both hands. “Thank you.”
“And here’s your coffee,” Seymour hands Sandrone her mug - extra strong, extra dark, no milk; her usual.
She accepts it with a murmur of thanks, taking a long swig to steady her nerves. The strange girl doesn’t seem to be intentionally rude, instead, she simply seems to have her head lost in the clouds. Hell, maybe she’s a little woozy from the hypothermia, and she’ll behave a little more logically with some warmth in her bones.
She doesn’t want to bother cooking right now, so she just reaches into the display case and takes out two croissants and some chunky chocolate chip cookies. The girl makes a noise of delight and grabs a cookie before Sandrone can even put the plate down.
“Alright, now that you’re a little warmer, do you mind telling us your name?” Seymour asks, reminding Sandrone that she has yet to ask the girl that basic question. “My name is Seymour, by the way, and I own this little cafe.”
The strange girl hesitates for a few moments, her eyes wide and a little bit wary.
“Columbina,” she finally says.
“Columbina,” Sandrone echoes. It is a nice name, if a little long, and it suits the weird, floaty atmosphere that this girl has. “You implied that you were running away from home just now. Are you safe?”
The question seems to take Columbina by surprise.
“You’re not going to scold me and tell me to appreciate what I have?”
“I don’t know what you have,” Sandrone replies, a little indignant. “And even if I did, it’s not my place to judge.”
“Huh,” she says, her brows furrowing in thought. “You won’t tell anyone where I went?”
“That depends on your answer to my first question.”
Columbina shoves the last of her cookie into her mouth, her cheeks adorably puffed up as she reaches for the plate again. Sandrone pushes it a little closer to her, drawing a faint smile from her as she holds the cookie close to her chest.
Once she has finished chewing, she says, “Home is safe. It’s just boring sometimes.”
“So boring you’d slip away in your nightclothes?”
“Mm. Everyone worries about me too much,” she says, pouting a little.
I can see why, Sandrone wants to say, considering how you seem to have zero self-preservation skills, but she chooses to remain silent instead. If this is just some sheltered girl wanting to wander around singing weird songs in languages Sandrone can’t recognize, then it’s perfectly fine to clean her up and send her home when she’s had her fun. No one is in any danger, no crime is being committed, she’s just a spoiled little girl wandering a little bit too far from home.
Hopefully, after this daring escapade of hers, Columbina’s family will try to equip her with the necessary life skills to survive as an independent teenager. It’s almost impressive how little she seems to know about the world, as if she’d been living on the moon or something.
“You probably shouldn’t worry them even more by disappearing,” Seymour says, clearly concerned.
“Don’t think too much about it. She knows the way home, so she can see herself out when she’s done,” Sandrone tells him.
“But…”
Before Sandrone can respond, maybe start an argument with him, Columbina pushes the now-empty plate toward her.
“More.”
Sandrone stares at her in disbelief - there were like, two more cookies and two entire croissants just a second ago, how had she just magically inhaled them? Did she even chew, or had she just swallowed them whole?
“What am I,” she grumbles, “your maid?”
Attempting to placate her, Seymour says, “Now, now, this isn’t how we treat our customers.”
“Customers pay, Seymour. She’s more like a freeloader.”
Despite her words, she picks up the plate anyway, wondering if she should try to feed the girl something more substantial. It’ll take time, but if Columbina is going to linger here for a while more, she could easily cook something small - an omelette on rice, maybe, or one of those fried bar snacks that Seymour keeps around for his friends and for days they’re both too lazy to do more than start up the air fryer.
“Let’s think of her as a guest instead,” Seymour suggests, “Guests don’t have to pay.”
“Alright, alright,” she grumbles, “Any dietary restrictions?”
“Ah,” the girl touches her chin, thoughtful. “I don’t like things that burn.”
Things that burn? Is she talking about spicy food…?
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’m sorry that I can’t pay,” Columbina says, and Sandrone can’t really tell if she’s being genuine or if she’s trying to be facetious.
“It’s fine. We won’t go broke feeding one stray.”
Columbina smiles. Sandrone turns away before she smiles back, not wanting to be too nice to this stray, just in case she starts making regular visits. That’s how all strays are, they remember your kindness, and before you know it, there are twelve cats waiting by your trash collection point, meowing their stupid heads off and driving Pulonia insane with rage.
She has no idea what Columbina’s deal is, and she doesn’t need to know. She has helped her enough; whatever happens after Columbina leaves, fed and warm, is none of her business.
Columbina only realizes that she did not ask that girl for her name when she gets home.
Her aunt is, unsurprisingly, furious, but she doesn’t yell, because that’s not her style. She prefers appealing to Columbina’s emotions, dancing on the edge of the melodramatic, bringing up the same things over and over again.
“I promised my brother that I would keep you safe and raise you in your family’s image,” she pleads, tears in her eyes. “I would never be able to face him again if something happened to you.”
She doesn’t bother paying attention, because she’s heard it all before. Instead, she thinks about that strange girl with the angry words and the kind eyes, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the fun feeling of sitting on a bar stool where her feet can’t reach the floor.
She would like to go back again, someday. It should be fine, they said that she was a guest, and guests are always welcomed. That’s what her aunt always tells her, that guests deserve only the best, and sometimes Columbina has to sing for them. Sometimes, they take photographs of her, ask her to pose in certain ways, and all she has to do is obey. They smile at her, tell her she’s done really well, that she looks really pretty, and Columbina will smile back because it’s always nice to be praised.
So if she’s a guest in that cozy little place, she should be able to expect the same treatment, right? That blonde girl with the angry words and the kind eyes will have to do as she says, right? As long as Columbina says some nice words after, tell her how well she did, that will be enough, right?
Ah, but they said something about “customers”, and how they usually pay. Columbina had witnessed quite a few customers paying in the hours she had spent there - some older men who spoke to Seymour with a lot of familiarity, asking after his health and stuff, and some girls in school uniforms paying for lots of cookies and eating them over their textbooks. Should Columbina bring some money for them next time, to fit in with everybody else?
But the girl with the angry words and the kind eyes had said it was fine, that she could feed one stray. Is Columbina a “stray”, then? How is a stray defined, what makes them different from guests and customers?
She doesn’t want to ask her aunt, and she can’t really ask her teachers, either. They just talk to her about music, give her tips on how to sing better, bring her all sorts of interesting shows to watch and songs to listen to…
Maybe she could just ask the girl, the next time she goes there? She’ll ask her for her name, and then ask her just what she is to her - a guest, a customer, or a stray. The girl will be the one who chooses what Columbina is to her, so she’ll answer better than anyone else.
Satisfied with her conclusion, Columbina attempts to mentally retrace her steps to the building. It starts off easy, over the fence by the rose garden, straight until the first crossroad, then right until the really big building with pink letters across the top. It gets a little trickier after that - she turns right again, she thinks, walking past what seems to be the local high school, and then across the road toward one of those buildings with a big neon sign that says “alcohol, cigarettes and ATM”.
The girl with the angry eyes and the kind words met her near that place, put her coat over her shoulders and made sure it covered her nicely. It was very warm and smelled a lot like coffee, which makes a lot of sense after visiting the place she lived.
How did she get to that place, though? She wasn’t really paying attention, had been focused mostly on singing, allowing the girl to lead her by the arm.
She can remember exactly what songs she had sung along the way, snippets of her favorites from many different places. Sometimes, her aunt scolds her for it, because once she has started a song, she should finish it. Her teachers say the same thing, but they give a different reason - these songs that she likes to sing are a part of a wider story, and people go to experience the whole story. As a singer, and an actress, her job would be to deliver that entire story to the best of her abilities.
“Just like you did in Annie, when you were little.”
She remembers Annie. It was quite fun, she got to sing a whole lot, though she also had to remember a lot of lines and placements and things like that. She got to be somebody else for many nights, answer to a different name, speak with a different tone, walk with a different rhythm. But most importantly, every interaction she had as “Annie” was scripted, and she knew exactly what was expected of her every single time, which made it really easy to deliver.
“But what if I’m not singing in a musical? Is it okay to sing whatever I want then?”
The answer was, sadly, still a no. Concerts have rehearsals too - the singer doesn’t just show up and sing whatever she feels like on the day. Just like musicals, the stage has to be set, everyone’s placements marked out, every movement carefully planned and rehearsed. She isn’t just singing alone - she is working in a team, and there are certain things they expect from her, just as she expects them to support her, to play the right songs and stand in the right places.
Ah, she’s gotten “carried away” again. They say that she does that all the time, that her head is always “in the clouds”.
She cannot remember exactly how to get to that place, with the nice smell of coffee, the big, chewy cookies and the girl with the kind eyes. But she can remember where she had been picked up, so maybe she could just wait there, singing the same songs so that the girl will know it is her. Then, she can ask the girl to show her the way there, and she can properly take note of it, so she can go back on her own next time.
Yes, that’s good. Columbina finds herself smiling, having figured out what she should do next.
“What are you smiling about?”
Her aunt leans in, uncomfortably close.
“Coffee smells nice,” she replies, because that is one of the things that is making her smile.
Her aunt sighs.
“You’re so lucky that nothing bad happened to you. Who was it that took you in? Why did they change your clothes? Did they take any photos of you?”
She blinks slowly, processing each question one by one.
“A girl with angry words and kind eyes. I was going to freeze to death. They did not.”
Her aunt shakes her head and sighs, but doesn’t seem to be all that upset anymore. She rests one hand on the top of Columbina’s head, a sign of affection.
“Go to sleep. We have some guests coming tomorrow at ten.”
“Okay.”