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Moving house is a stressful occasion for most.
Or so she’s been told, at least; her friends had filled her in on all their nasty personal experiences, from lost items to breaking furniture to uncooperative moving companies, all to prepare her for her transfer to her new palace.
In reality, the move is a lot less hectic than she’d anticipated, perhaps on account of the fact they’d prepared her for every worst-case scenario, or because she simply has little possessions to move. The most strenuous task of the day had turned out to be the walk there, which they’d taken at a leisurely pace through the woods of Nod-Krai, completely unaffected by the passage of time that turned the skies dark earlier than they’d expected.
(Not that it would have mattered, anyway; time runs in a completely different manner on places like the moon, and since she has long since prepared herself to spend the remainder of her life in eternal night, punctuality is no longer something that affects her.)
One thing she’d noticed, however, was that their merry little party was one member short— the Traveler had not been around at any point of their journey. Which was strange, considering her proclivity towards poking her nose into things. Columbina would have thought she’d want to see the new palace after its completion.
So that is another person missing from their team. She had already been reeling from Sandrone’s departure; she hadn’t anticipated another absence, much less one from the person who was always bound to show up regardless of circumstance.
Moving house is not stressful for her, but it certainly is depressing.
And so Columbina’s heart is heavy the whole night. She goes through the motions of the housewarming as if she is a robot, smiling and hanging up decorations as the others make small talk amongst themselves.
It should be a happy occasion. She has a home to belong to now.
But all she feels is empty.
Though the merriment of the occasion is something she should cherish, it is not enough for her still— and in time she finds herself wandering the palace grounds, far away from the strung-up fairy lights and music that flood the halls of her newly furnished mansion.
The Columbina of the past would not have batted an eye: indifference had long since become part of who she was, and no amount of festivities centered around her would have moved her in the slightest, for she was used to having her name shouted to the skies in her tenure as the Scions’ goddess.
Now, as she cranes her neck to observe the laughter and lights in the windows, a tiny pang of guilt strikes her heart, that she is not dancing amongst the people who are throwing her this very celebration.
The grounds are, of course, a beautiful place, but part of her wishes she were back with the rest of them now— at least it’d be company, even if it’s short of the few people that she’d wanted around. The rest of her goes hollow at the thought of going back to face them so soon.
Just for a while, she chides herself, and turns her head back towards the gardens that hang ahead of her. A well-earned break is not a sin; they’re all weary from the long journey, and it is nice to be alone with her thoughts for a bit. She’ll regroup with them later, when she’s figured out what to say that won’t come across as too aloof or detached.
After all, she doesn’t want to end up hurting their feelings by accident; she’s told some of the things she says may have that effect on people.
The gardens of her palace seem to have a soporific effect, perhaps because of the ambience, or the hazy lighting of the place: she senses her eyelids drooping as she drifts forward, threatening to send her to dreamland. The pale blue grass parts beneath her feet, making way for her, and in turn she kneels to touch the flowers that sprout from the lilac soil, humming with contentment at how the stems duck and twist in time to her song.
Hmm. Music seems to lift her spirits more than company does today. Perhaps she should do more of that. A good song always does the trick when she’s in need of a distraction. She hums a little louder to drown out the worries, and with it the plants respond eagerly, craning their necks up to the source of her voice as she wanders languidly past them and into the clearing, at the very heart of the overgrown lunar gardens.
There, in the center, is the one thing she’d specifically requested to be built: a swing suspended from a stone crescent, on sturdy strings of woven moonlight. She reaches out a hand now to touch it, and admires the fine handiwork on the slab of mahogany, carved with the most intricate of patterns, all blossoms and night skies and carvings of rabbits.
A quiet laugh escapes her mouth as she sits gingerly down on the swing. For what it’s worth, she’s grateful for her friends’ assistance; she just knows her house would have been completely barren if not for the rest of them.
First she tests it out with a gentle kick to the ground, and then a scuttle backwards till she is on her tiptoes, with the seat near vertical to the grass. She pushes herself back once more, careful not to tip herself over, and with that one final burst of effort she is off.
The swing eases fluidly through the air as it goes forward; though she is used to being airborne, it is a significantly different sort of flight from the kind her wings give her. More effortless, of course, for the operation of her wings requires her to carry her entire weight, and this by comparison is a walk in the park.
She kicks again, and launches the swing higher, the song spilling from her lips in an elegant arc through the evening breeze. The notes seem to float before her in real-time as she sings, each bit of the lullaby trailing around to the steady rhythm of her back-and-forth.
Peace is something she has found herself in lack of these past few weeks, but this is one of those rarely-seen moments when it has managed to settle in her: a relief, a reprieve from the worries that haunt her by day.
And maybe, if she keeps singing to keep them at bay, she can make this peace last for a little while longer.
She must have dozed off somewhere along the way, because now Columbina is awoken to the sound of footsteps in the distance, and a voice that she can’t quite place.
Huh?
That’s odd. She hadn’t given out her whereabouts to anyone.
Now dragged from her restful slumber, Columbina snaps her head up, contemplating whether to make a run for it before the intruder finds her clearing. How did anyone find me here? It isn’t as if she doesn’t want to greet her guests, but a little peace and quiet would have been nice.
Until the steps become louder, and clearer, and all of a sudden her eyes fly wide open, awoken with recognition, for she’d know that sound anywhere.
Now she’s frozen, a deer in headlights, as the other party draws closer. There it is: the steady click of a winding key, the flounce of silken skirts, and before she knows it the sight makes her eyes water: the Marionette, in all her glory, standing at the entrance to the clearing with her head raised high.
The remainder of the lullaby dies on her lips as she looks on in shock.
Sandrone’s gait is strange to her now, as if she is only relearning how to walk. She’s clutching the sides of her pockets as she shuffles closer, and the odd structures poking out at points of her dress give her the feeling she’s carrying a lot in there. Tools, most likely— the girl always seems to have those on hand, even if the occasion doesn’t call for it (“just in case”, she likes to claim). The silent shapes of her mouth tell Columbina that she’s got something to say, but nothing comes out as she approaches.
She knows that look. It is the one Sandrone always wears when she can’t get out the words that are on her mind.
Then, the puppet stops, a few feet short of the swing, and finally brings herself to speak.
“Move over, Columbina, I need to sit,” she blurts out and Columbina complies before she can think it through, still dazed by the girl’s sudden appearance. “And nice song, by the way.”
She must be dreaming, if not completely deluded. It is impossible it could be. She’d spent ages combing through the remains of her body in the wake of her death— of this she was sure.
But this is so characteristic of her. The awkward blurted out-beginning, the twitching fingers that are curled into anxious fists more often than not. This sort of authenticity is something not even her mind can replicate; it’s something that’s horribly, terribly, uniquely Sandrone.
“Sandrone?” She ogles the entity before her, still wondering if she’s seeing things. “Pinch me.”
The puppet reaches out without a second’s hesitation and pinches Columbina hard on the arm. The goddess yelps at the impact— Alain had made sure his creations knew how to put up a fight.
Unfortunately, this reaction does not get a rise out of Sandrone in the slightest. If anything, her face becomes twice as impassible and unsympathetic as it previously was.
“Just in time,” she announces, tossing her curls and sitting down on her half of the swing Columbina’s put aside for her. “The journey here was a nightmare, but it is what it is. I suppose you ought to thank the Traveler later.”
“But—”
Columbina breaks off, at that. And then tries to start again, and fails. Her mind is still spinning from the realization: this is her, in the flesh, with the same red-painted lips and prim expression that she knows so well. But what? She doesn’t know. There are so many things she does not understand, and it would take her forever to get them all out.
She closes her eyes, and selects the most important of them all to ask first.
“...You’ve come here to stay, for good?”
Sandrone’s demeanor breaks for a second, at the hopeful little for good. Her cheeks blanch slightly and Columbina knows, then and there, that she had been expecting too much.
The puppet looks down and lets out a defeated sigh.
“I shall be here for the summer. And then, back off to the Fatui I go.”
For the summer. It sounds so long prima facie: an entire summer for them to traverse the lunar plane and wake up in the same house each morning. But when she thinks it through, it does not sound as generous as it appears— far from it, really, for she’d have to factor in all the time sleeping, and the ones she has to spend with her other friends, and certainly they can’t be hanging around each other every waking moment, much as she’d like to.
Columbina angles her head towards the girl beside her and sighs.
“So you’re staying with them.”
There’s no accusation in her words. She knows why, of course. Sandrone’s heart belongs to her research, and all of that now remains in her workshop in Snezhnograd; she wouldn’t be able to bear the strain of restarting all that from scratch. Not to mention the fact that Pulonia’s still rotting away in Zapolyarny Palace awaiting her instructions.
“Well, I could visit, if you wanted me to,” adds Columbina.
Sandrone lets out a shaky laugh.
“Yes, but there’s not much to see there, anyway,” she admits ruefully. “What with the Doctor gone, again, and that partner of his soon to follow. There’s not a lot of us left now.”
A wavering note pierces the end of her words, and though it is rather palpable Columbina is tactful enough not to address it. She catches the way Sandrone’s eyes flick pleadingly over to her for a split second before it dissipates, returning to its usual false impassiveness.
She sounds a lot more hollow than she used to back in their early days at the palace.
“You can come back and visit whenever you feel like it,” she offers, and begins to drift the swing from side to side, hoping the gradual motion will clear the weights on both their minds. “Your company is always welcomed, Sandrone.”
“Right.” Sandrone’s gaze is now darting away from her, off into the distance. A look of avoidance, no doubt. “Whenever I feel like it.”
Ah, she thinks as the slightest hint of a scowl appears between the puppet’s eyes. Perhaps that was tactless. The work of the Harbingers vary between their roles: Columbina had been left to her own devices for the most part, but such luxury was never afforded to those with more practical talents.
“If you have the time—” elaborates Columbina in a poor attempt to cover up for her carelessly made offer and Sandrone’s head snaps back to her, this time meeting her eyes with a sort of deliberate vehemence that pleads her not to press the issue, that says she does not need to.
Columbina shuts up.
“Anyway,” emphasizes Sandrone, as she shoves her hand into her apron pocket and starts rummaging. “I didn’t come here to make small talk.”
Columbina angles her head in curiosity. She kicks the swing a few inches higher while the girl searches her pockets, so it flies upward at her behest and sweeps both their feet off from the ground. Sandrone lets out a little surprised yelp and grabs hold of the moonlight thread to stabilize herself before she falls.
“Careful, Columbina, you almost broke it!” she snaps, as she finally comes up with the object she was looking for. “Now don’t drop it. It’s fragile.”
She holds it out.
“A present,” she adds sullenly, as if it were not obvious. “For you.”
“Oh… Thank you, Sandrone.”
Columbina takes her hand off the swing to accept the gift, and when it comes into her grasp she gasps.
It’s round, blown from a kind of glass that resembles the silver-blue of moonlight, reflecting the glow of the bioluminescent plants from all about them. She turns it over and over in her hands, observing the tiny porcelain figure from within— a ballerina with dark blonde hair and its limbs held high, hovering on one leg with a smile painted onto her face.
“It’s beautiful,” she says aloud, tapping gently on the glass, and the handcrafted red flowers at the bottom of the globe spring eagerly up at the impact. “I’ll treasure it forever.”
“You haven’t gotten to the best part yet,” interrupts Sandrone, having grown seemingly impatient with her slow progress. She reaches a hand over and guides Columbina to the base of the sphere, where a little wind-up key rests, resembling closely the one adorning her back, and nudges her to give it a twist. She obediently winds the key back in turn until it stagnates, refusing to go any further, and then lets go.
Slowly, a number of minuscule holographic stars flicker to life, alongside the chiming tune of an old Fontainian folk song that Sandrone used to play in her workshop. They twinkle against the blue walls of the glass, pinpricks illuminating the figurine’s face as she begins to twirl.
All seems to have gone quiet now, but for the faint tinkling that emanates from the box.
They always spoke of the stars with disdain, those other Harbingers that Columbina used to work with. They’d despised the idea of worshipping them— celestial beings, they’d seethed— things completely and utterly undeserving of their praise.
But tonight…
She looks into those eyes, crystal-blue with pricks of light shining at the center, and notes their uncanny semblance to the starlit sky, reflected in the glass of the music box.
She sees, now, why mortals love the stars like so.
“I’m going to miss you, Sandrone.”
The cadence of her words is heavy like never before; it dips and trails off in a way she does not anticipate.
She knows why, of course.
Another goodbye.
Such is the nature of their relationship. Any overlap they have is temporary— they are a series of curved lines, ones that loop and intertwine endlessly, like a comet that passes the orbit of her waning moon once every few decades.
By now, she should be quite good at farewells, given how much experience she’s had with them, but in spite of it all her vision is blurry, and her eyes are damp, and it’s only when she touches a hand to her cheek that she knows that she had been unable to suppress it from overflowing.
Her hand clutches tightly against the box, too afraid to let go, as it continues to play its melancholic tune, and beside her Sandrone appears to be a tad woebegone as well.
“Oh, Columbina.” Sandrone’s words come out ragged now, voicebox crackling in her throat, and she too is wiping hastily at her eyes with the back of her hand so as not to come across as weak. “It’s going to be such a nightmare without you.”
Columbina leans in, inhaling the mixed scent of perfume and engine oil that Sandrone always exudes, and brushes her lips against the puppet’s porcelain-smooth cheek.
The cold burns, more than she’d expected. It leaves a tingle on her lips, a riot of magic and frostbite and tender pain that she brushes a hand to, savoring the ache; for this, too, is a part of the cost that comes with being in love.
“I know,” she murmurs. “I know, Sandrone. It’s going to be strange for me too.”
To have someone you so dearly cherish, so close yet so far, one with all the time on her hands and the other buried up to her neck in work.
But maybe that is a problem for another day.
Just for this one summer, they can exist— can just be, instead of putting up the layers of pretense they used to don all the time back at Zapolyarny Palace.
Together, unbounded; like they always deserved to be. A temporary reprieve, but a reprieve nonetheless.
She smiles, and leans her head against Sandrone’s shoulder, leaning back so the swing will continue to drift. Her other hand continues to play with the orb, tinkling gently with its prerecorded tune as the little ballerina twirls.
“It’ll be hard, but it won’t be forever,” she says aloud.
Sandrone’s mouth forms an O shape, but she does not shake the girl off.
“What do you mean?”
Columbina laughs, bittersweet, and brushes aside her tears.
See, she’s been pondering the possibility, ever since her first involvements with the girl back when they were in the Harbingers. She knows in spite of how long and elaborate the plans were, their crusade against the divine would not have lasted forever, and as they inched closer to her goal she’d begun to think of Sandrone as someone she wanted to keep around, even after their mission from the Tsaritsa concluded.
And after Sandrone's departure, she’d thought all was lost— but now things have changed. She feels, for the first time in years, that what she wanted could come to pass.
“After this all ends,” she proposes solemnly, as she presses a gentle hand to Sandrone’s cheek, “you can retire here with me, if you’d like.”
Sandrone blinks, and eyes the girl positioned in the crook of her neck, smiling like no tomorrow. So satisfied; so filled with hope.
“You would live with me?” she says slowly, as if that’s the most egregious thing she’s ever heard in her life. Columbina giggles at her skepticism, despite herself. She’d thought the offer to cohabitate would have been a long time coming, but apparently Sandrone had not pictured it.
“Yeah. Of course I would.”
She holds out the music box for them to observe, and much to her surprise Sandrone is humming along, like she’s heard it so many times she knows it by heart.
“So,” nudges Columbina, and splays her hand across Sandrone’s lap in an offer, “what do you say?”
Sandrone’s cheeks are still flushed from her earlier fit, and her hands have yet to cease to tremble, perhaps due to the fact she’s still trying to regain control of her body, or that she is truly afraid of what awaits her in the near future.
But there is something different about her now. She sits up straighter, and the grimace has left her face, and she stares sideways at Columbina like she is truly considering her proposal.
And when Columbina looks back at her eyes, she finds they shine with a new sort of hope that was not previously there.
With that, Sandrone exhales, and allows herself to return the tentative smile.
Then she extends her hand, placing it into Columbina’s. It is hard, but warmed on purpose to suit Columbina’s tastes. She does not speak; she does not need to. The touch is assurance enough.
And with a light squeeze of the hand, Sandrone seals their future beneath the witness of the moon.