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Columbina does not see herself, and all the better for it.
She does not pay witness to the way her flowing dress bunches up around her legs as she sits, opening her palms with birdseed to the curious and hungry rosefinches.
She does not know how the moonlight catches on her eye mask, rendering her a silver goddess. She steps out into the lake unfrozen by spring, her silks trailing behind her across the water’s surface.
She has never noticed the way her cheeks turn pink when she is pleased, a latticework of desire complemented by her smile, curling her fingers around freshly-baked bread.
Here is what she knows of herself:
That she is impetuous, trying to sing arias whilst rutting herself against Sandrone;
That she is proud, giggling when Sandrone takes her garter between her teeth and pulls down;
That she is selfish, unafraid of being found, unconcerned at the Fatui who pass by the hall in which they fuck.
If she knew how beautiful she was, Columbina would be even more insufferable.
So, it’s for the best.
Sandrone does not feel herself, and perhaps that is how it should be.
She does not experience the cresting fire that is Arlecchino’s hands anywhere but her wrists. The mouth of hell, to her, remains dispassionately chilly.
She cannot turn her face into Arlecchino’s travelling kisses, cannot wrench away from them even as her voice pitches up in frustration.
She has not become wise to the name Arlecchino traces into the back of her spine–Peruere–and so will never see that she has been branded.
Here is what she feels of herself:
The angry lash of her mouth as it settles into a rebellious slice of damnation. Go to hell, Dottore;
The quivering of her thighs, just the patches on the inside, which will always be enough to tip her over the screaming edge;
The ball-joint snap of her wrists, a very commandment in motion, and how Arlecchino bows to meet them.
If she could feel every part of herself, she would be quite displeased, indeed.
Let that ignorance be her veil of safety, even after everything.
Arlecchino doesn’t think she knows her own emotions. That means it’s easy to read her.
She fails to catch the stirring of her heart beneath her breast when another feverish child survives the night, nor does she catch her lips murmuring thanks to the Tsaritsa.
She tempers her smiles, but doesn’t seem to dismiss her wandering mind, wandering desires. Whenever she sees Sandrone, Columbina doesn’t have to see. The air turns, and it’s just so obvious.
She expects that her spirit is long dead, but it’s not. As the sight of the Fontainian continent rises up, kissing the horizon, she lets out a soft breath of release. Oh. Columbina leans over the side of the boat and hums to the waves.
Here is what she feels in herself:
Childish delight, soaring to meet the boys and girls of the House of the Hearth;
Voracious lust, applying her firebrand tongue to Columbina’s neck, the space between Sandrone’s thighs;
Intent to kill, rising like that same horizon to protect her ideals. The loves of her life.
If she could see herself feeling all these things, she’d probably withdraw even further.
That’s why Columbina doesn’t say a thing.
Columbina sees fuzzy silhouettes and little else. Still, she takes the time to watch Arlecchino’s shadow, studying it from across the room, from up close.
Sandrone felt in a scant few areas of her hewn body. This never stopped her from locking her wrists around the back of Columbina’s neck, threatening her with a grin.
Arlecchino knows the distant thump of her own heart. Sometimes it is a gift itself to let emotions play out, to have let Sandrone catch that smirk on her face, or let Columbina touch and learn the crinkles at the corners of her eyes.
It is not about the lacking. It is about the love that travels through the gaps, as surely as Columbina wanders the valleys and shoals of Nod-Krai.
(‘I’m not yours!’ cried Sandrone, retreating into Pulonia’s arms;
‘I’m yours,’ sang Columbina, endlessly;
And, Arlecchino, even to the dead:
‘You’re mine.’)