Chapter Text
Late May. The heat outside already felt like summer, but a cool breeze off the sea kept the air fresh and pleasantly mild. At this time of year, even a “recluse” like Sandrone wanted to linger outside a little longer and stroll down the shaded paths. Today, though, she had no time for that. She needed to get back to the dorm as quickly as possible. A difficult conversation with her roommate awaited her there, and the mere thought of it made her pulse quicken and her fingertips start to prickle.
Sandrone cut past a cluster of students returning from PE, stormed into the dorm, crossed the lobby at a brisk pace, and pressed the elevator button. As if to spite her, it took its sweet time, stopping at almost every floor. She folded her arms across her chest and tapped the toe of her shoe against the parquet floor. With every wasted second, the tingling in her limbs grew stronger. At last, the elevator doors slid open.
Second floor, third... She got out on the fifth. The key to the suite wouldn’t go into the lock properly on the first try. As Sandrone took off her shoes in the shared entryway, she became increasingly aware, somewhere at the edge of her mind, that something was wrong. She bit her lip without meaning to.
Tch. What is wrong with me? I’ve been stupidly nervous all day. The thought flashed through her mind just before she threw the door open.
“Columbina, I...” She froze mid-sentence, her backpack slipping from her hands.
Her roommate wasn’t in the room. But her absence wasn’t the worst of it. The bed had been stripped bare. The books and art supplies were gone from the desk, along with the easel that had stood in the corner by the windowsill. Even her friend’s favorite poster, the one with the moon princess from a popular Inazuman light novel, had vanished from the wall. Only then did Sandrone realize what had felt wrong in the entryway: Columbina’s jackets and boots were gone too. All at once, the room felt bare and cold.
No. No... She couldn’t have...
***
By late January, going back to classes after the break felt like a drag. Not the classes in her major: cybernetics, mechanics, and information technology. She was already impatient to get back to those. It was the heap of other useless subjects already packed tightly into her schedule that irritated her. Nor was she particularly eager to deal with her classmates again. They might not have been bad people, perhaps, but in Sandrone’s eyes they fell into two categories: students who weren’t nearly invested enough and outright brainless idiots. The first group wasn’t actively unpleasant to talk to, but even when they were interested in their chosen field, they seemed content to drift along with the current and never tried to push beyond what was expected of them. Bo-ring. Sandrone couldn’t stand their company for more than ten minutes. As for the second group... she would sooner eat a live frog than spend even a minute in the same room with people like that. They cared only about partying, something Sandrone had an almost physical aversion to, while their humor and vocabulary made her believe she was watching evolution reverse itself at twice the normal speed.
Exhausted after the long journey from Snezhnograd to Nasha Town, Sandrone put her things away and crammed the refrigerator full of homemade food Alain had packed for her. She snorted as she shoved a roast chicken onto one of the shelves. Even now that I’m a university student, he still thinks I’m a little girl who can’t take care of herself. I’m so tired of it. Still, when she thought back on the break and the long conversations she had shared with her father about mechanics and cutting-edge research, she smiled despite herself; and when she spotted her favorite cake roll among the wrapped containers, she immediately forgave Alain for fussing over her.
Sandrone looked around the half-empty room. Her former roommate, an upperclassman named Alice, had moved in with her “special someone” just before New Year’s at the end of the previous semester. She had never said anything about them, though she had often stayed over there, which had suited Sandrone, who valued peace and solitude, perfectly well.
Well, it looks like I’ll have the room to myself for a while. Hopefully for as long as possible. The prospect genuinely appealed to her. The main thing was that they didn’t replace Alice with one of the brainless idiots.
Sandrone had just unloaded the half-assembled body of a small robot onto her desk and taken her tools out of her suitcase, fully intending to spend the evening working on her term project, when a knock broke the silence.
Please, let it just be the dorm manager.
“Yes, come in!”
The door creaked softly, and a petite brunette stepped into the room almost without a sound. She wore a long brown coat that looked rather light for the weather and carried a small, slightly old-fashioned suitcase.
No... no, no, no. Let this be some kind of mistake. Let her be looking for another room.
“Hello,” the girl said in a melodious voice as soft as the chime of a bell. “This is room 515, right?”
Sandrone’s heart plummeted.
What did I do to deserve this? Fine, obviously the solitude wasn’t going to last forever, but I didn’t even get to enjoy it for a couple of hours.
“Yeah. 515.” Sandrone forced something vaguely resembling a smile. “Come in already.”
“My name is Columbina,” the girl said, tilting her head to one side as she introduced herself. The obvious lack of friendliness from her future roommate didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. When Sandrone gave no response, she spoke again.
“And yours?”
Only then did Sandrone notice that the girl spoke with an unusual softness, drawing out her vowels, and that her name sounded nothing like those common in Snezhnaya.
So she’s a foreigner. Great. She’s going to bombard me with stupid questions about how everything works around here.
“Sandrone,” she answered curtly, hoping to end the small talk as quickly as possible and get back to her project.
“San-dro-ne,” Columbina repeated in a lilting voice, one syllable at a time. “Such a musical name. Clear and ringing, like drops of summer rain.”
And she talks in metaphors too, or whatever those are called. Where did they even find this one?
“...What?” Sandrone managed, raising one eyebrow. “Actually, you know what? Don’t answer that.”
She’ll only come out with something even stranger.
Meanwhile, the new girl set her suitcase beside the bed and went back into the hall. A minute later, she dragged in a rather heavy-looking easel that was nearly as big as she was.
An arts student too. Of course. They’re all the same: either oversensitive idiots or...
Her train of thought was interrupted by another question from her new roommate.
“What program are you in?” The girl took off her coat, revealing a simple pale-blue silk dress underneath, then sat down on the bed and stared at Sandrone intently.
“First year. School of Cybernetics and Information Technology,” Sandrone muttered flatly, turning her attention back to her tools.
“That sounds difficult. And very interesting,” Columbina replied with unexpected seriousness.
“It is.” Sandrone sincerely hoped her clipped answers would bring the conversation to a quick end, but Columbina apparently couldn’t take a hint.
“I’m going to study illustration in the School of Fine Arts.”
“I figured.” Sandrone nodded toward the easel. Realizing the new girl had apparently decided to test the limits of her patience in earnest, she turned back to Columbina. “Why come here, though? Our university is the best in the country, obviously,” she explained, not without pride, “but other places are better for the arts. The Fontaine Institute, the Inazuma College of Arts...”
Columbina gave a quiet laugh.
“Fontaine does have a strong tradition of academic drawing. But you know, Snezhnaya has drawn me in ever since I was a child. I wanted to unravel the mystery of that pull. Do you know what I mean?” Her gaze drifted dreamily off to the side.
No, I don’t. How can you feel drawn to a country you’ve never even visited? That was what Sandrone wanted to say, but interrupting her would only make things worse.
“I always wanted to visit. Maybe even live here. Then they announced an exchange program, so I applied.”
Definitely insane. Imagine living in a country as advanced as Fontaine and dreaming about moving to Snezhnaya, which is harsh in every possible sense. At least Alain had come here for new opportunities and technology. This one showed up looking as if she expected to find fairies living in the forests. With that attitude, she won’t last long. Give it a month before she starts whining and wants to run back home.
Sandrone looked her roommate over more carefully. A modest, high-necked blue dress; thick dark hair tied into two tails with a strange clip shaped like either a butterfly or a pair of wings. The girl looked simple, yet somehow elegant. She didn’t look much like a foreigner, especially not one from Fontaine. The female students who occasionally came from there for conferences dressed far more elaborately, living up to Fontaine’s reputation as the world’s trendsetter.
At least she doesn’t look like a loud party girl or some arrogant, spoiled princess. Maybe sharing a room with her won’t be that much of a burden, as long as she doesn’t keep trying to talk to me.
“Well, good luck. I hope you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for here.” Sandrone gave a curt nod and turned away, making it clear that the conversation was finally over.
“Yes,” Columbina whispered, barely loud enough to hear. “I hope so too.”
***
Fortunately for Sandrone, Columbina turned out to be far from the worst possible roommate. She didn’t throw wild parties. Sometimes Sandrone heard loud music and drunken chatter coming from the neighboring rooms until midnight and prayed to every god that she would never end up living with anyone like that. Columbina herself made almost no noise, and she kept the bathroom, the hallway, and her half of the room perfectly tidy.
Even more importantly, she wasn’t a chatterbox. At first, Alice had constantly tried to drag Sandrone into conversations, which had been infuriating, while Columbina mostly kept to herself. Every now and then, though, she would ask a question that seemed to come from nowhere and left Sandrone frozen for several seconds as she tried to process what her roommate was even talking about.
Sandrone, do you think purple represents sorrow or hope?
Doesn’t it seem like the stars form a different pattern every night?
Could you teach your robot how to draw?
Questions like that drove Sandrone insane, especially when she was busy. Before long, however, she realized that Columbina sometimes didn’t even expect an answer to questions like these and was perfectly unbothered when Sandrone ignored her. That made things much easier. At least she didn’t have to rack her brain trying to come up with something profound.
There were other oddities too. Sandrone often caught her roommate watching her intently, as though she were studying her. She called Columbina out on it a couple of times, but Columbina seemed genuinely unable to understand what the problem was.
“I can’t exactly look away every time you happen to enter my line of sight.”
After some grumbling, Sandrone decided it would be easier not to pay attention to it. Objectively speaking, it didn’t interfere with anything, especially if she put on her headphones and lost herself in her work.
At night, Columbina would sometimes sit on the windowsill for ages, gazing up at the stars. How is she not freezing, sitting right beside the window in that light dress? Sandrone would think at moments like those. Not that it’s any of my business.
The third oddity, and the one that genuinely drove Sandrone up the wall at times, was Columbina’s habit of constantly humming the same melody under her breath. To be fair, she hummed quietly, and Sandrone found the melody itself tolerable. It wasn’t the thump-thump from bass speakers, but something soft and almost lulling. Not that bad, really. One evening, however, when Sandrone was buried under applied mathematics homework, Columbina’s singing finally got on her last nerve. The calculation already wasn’t coming out right, and now she had to listen to this too.
“Do you seriously have nothing else to do?” she snapped at her roommate.
Columbina went still and looked down at the floor, visibly crestfallen.
“You don’t like my singing?” She raised her calm gaze to Sandrone, but there was such boundless sadness in her eyes that Sandrone felt awkward for a fraction of a second.
“I’m busy. I’m doing serious work, and I need to concentrate.” Sandrone rolled her eyes. She couldn’t be bothered to answer the question directly. “Stop distracting me.”
“Oh... I’m sorry.” Columbina’s voice wavered slightly.
Sandrone rubbed the bridge of her nose. Why does she take everything so calmly? So irritating. She could at least say something back. Sandrone sighed.
“Where is that melody from, anyway? It’s the only thing you ever sing. You could change your repertoire once in a while.” It wasn’t that Sandrone was particularly curious, but the prospect of looking at Columbina’s miserable face for the rest of the evening wasn’t especially appealing either.
“Oh, it’s from an opera.” Columbina’s features relaxed again. “The Return of the Moon. It was written by a composer from Nasha Town.”
“Mm. Never heard of it,” Sandrone admitted. Opera, and music in general, had never interested her much. A waste of time.
“My mother used to sing it to me,” Columbina continued, much more quietly. “It’s the only thing I remember about her.”
Something clicked unpleasantly inside Sandrone, as though an extra screw had suddenly lodged itself in a mechanism.
So that’s it. An orphan. Or she’d been abandoned. And she talks about it so calmly... She must’ve been very young. Just like...
An unpleasant feeling stirred in her chest, one Sandrone had no desire to name. It wasn’t as though Columbina’s emotions mattered that much to her, but after a confession like that, she felt she ought to say something.
“I’m sorry,” Sandrone said with complete sincerity. After a brief pause, she continued, “You know, my mother died when I was very young too. I hadn’t even started school yet.”
Why did I even blurt that out? Losing my mother too doesn’t make us close.
“So you grew up in an orphanage as well?” Columbina tilted her head slightly.
“No, I was lucky. My father raised me. I don’t always understand him, but he’s a good man.” Warmth filled Sandrone’s chest at the thought of her father. She really ought to call him more often.
“Yes, you really were lucky...” Columbina replied thoughtfully, her gaze drifting aside. “Did he tell you about your mother?”
“Yeah, a lot.” Sandrone was already openly regretting her decision to continue the subject. She needed to end the conversation before it became any more uncomfortable. “She was an admirable person and the best police officer in the city. That’s all I want to say about it right now.”
“Oh...” Columbina fell silent for a moment. “I don’t even know what my mother did. That melody is all I have left.”
Sandrone had absolutely no idea what to say to that.
“Do you think she was from here?” she asked, mostly so she wouldn’t leave the conversation hanging in such an awkward state.
“Yes, exactly!” Columbina replied with sudden enthusiasm, pulling her chair closer to Sandrone.
Her reaction was something of a relief to Sandrone. At least they had managed to steer away from the truly uncomfortable part of the conversation.
“One day, when I was already living at the orphanage, I heard that song on the radio and recognized it immediately. I asked one of the caretakers what it was, and she told me it came from an opera written in Snezhnaya.”
“Let me guess,” Sandrone sighed. “That’s when you became interested in the country?”
“You’re very perceptive.” Columbina smiled. Surprisingly, it didn’t sound sarcastic. She seemed genuinely impressed by Sandrone’s analytical abilities.
Or she’s pretending.
“Yes. Since then, I’ve read a great deal about Snezhnaya, its history and its culture,” Columbina continued. “And with every book I read and every film I watched, I felt more and more that my roots, my home, were here, not in Petrichor...”
Silence hung between them, seeming to ring louder with every passing second. Conversations this personal were utterly unfamiliar territory for Sandrone.
“Petrichor... It feels so familiar, yet so foreign at the same time,” Columbina went on, sounding as though she were speaking not to Sandrone but to herself. “Compared to Fontaine or Nasha Town, Petrichor is very small. So far away from all the other centers of civilization. As if an apple had fallen so far from the tree...”
No, don’t start... I need to drag this conversation back down to earth.
Sandrone took a quick breath and, before Columbina could launch into another string of abstractions, grounded her with another question.
“So you grew up in Petrichor, not Fontaine? You mentioned an orphanage...”
Columbina closed her eyes, and that strange smile appeared on her face again.
“Yes... A girls’ orphanage run by the Church of Egeria.”
Oh. Well, that explains a lot. Normal people don’t come out of places like that.
“I bet they smothered you with idiotic cult rules and religious fairy tales,” Sandrone said, rolling her eyes.
“No.” Columbina shook her head gently. “The discipline was strict, but not unusually so, in my opinion. Both the other girls and the caretakers treated me kindly...”
In your opinion? I don’t even want to know what counts as normal to you.
“It’s just...” Columbina continued quietly.
“Hmm?”
“You probably aren’t especially interested in these stories anyway.” Columbina looked away with a trace of embarrassment.
That was new. Sandrone had never seen that particular emotion on her roommate before.
“You started the thought, so finish it,” Sandrone said sharply. “Why are you mumbling all of a sudden?”
Columbina turned back to her and looked directly into her eyes. As always, Sandrone’s tone didn’t seem to put her off, much to Sandrone’s surprise.
“They treated me well, but many of them thought I was...” The girl hesitated.
“Weird?”
“Something like that. ‘Not quite of this world,’ I think the other girls used to say.” Columbina answered thoughtfully, then gave an almost imperceptible laugh. “The caretakers valued it, though. Sometimes they even asked me to read sacred texts aloud during lessons and in the church itself. They said I had the right kind of voice and... hmm... what they called ‘sufficient humility.’”
For a moment, Sandrone pictured Columbina, with her ever-present little smile and even tone, reciting elaborate religious texts. She almost laughed at the absurd image.
The phrase “not quite of this world,” however, had been aimed at Sandrone often enough that it irritated her in any context.
“Please. Why would you care what a bunch of cultists thought? My father says the strangest people are the ones with no quirks at all. I disagree. I think they’re simply boring and empty.” Sandrone snorted, folding her arms across her chest and scowling.
“So I’m not boring?” Columbina’s smile widened slightly, a playful glint appearing in her expression.
Sandrone frowned even more deeply.
“We don’t know each other well enough for me to draw conclusions.”
“Could you become my friend? I didn’t have any friends at the orphanage or at university, and you’re always so nice to me.”
Sandrone’s eyebrows rose involuntarily at the blunt proposal.
What?! I’m pretty sure I’ve been rude enough for her to understand... but apparently she doesn’t pick up on hints at all. And what kind of request is that? Only little kids in a sandbox ask someone to be their friend so directly.
Sandrone scowled. Either way, making friends had never been part of her plans.
“I have pretty high standards,” she replied evasively. “You’ll have to annoy me less.”
“You’re a weirdo too, just like me, aren’t you?” Columbina asked in a perfectly calm voice.
“Hey!” Sandrone shot up from her chair in outrage. “Where did you even get that idea? And a word of advice for the future: if you want to make friends, don’t call people weirdos.”
“Huh? But I thought you considered it a compliment.” Columbina blinked at her in confusion.
I wonder if she genuinely doesn’t understand half the things she says, or if she’s openly mocking me.
“You thought wrong. And I was doing homework, in case you’ve forgotten.” Sandrone returned to her notebooks, exhaling sharply through her nose.
Right. At least when someone calls me weird, I can answer back. But her? She’ll probably just take everything in silence. Life’s going to be difficult for her. Not that it’s any of my business...
***
A couple of days after that conversation, Columbina managed to truly infuriate Sandrone for the first time.
When Sandrone came out of the shower that evening, she found her roommate standing over her desk. Not merely standing there, either. She was turning over parts from the mechanism Sandrone had spent the past week working on!
Sandrone crossed the room in two strides and snatched the mechanism out of Columbina’s hands.
“Are you an idiot?” She roughly shoved Columbina back, making her eyes widen in confusion. “Maybe you’re used to everything being shared, but in normal places, people don’t touch things that aren’t theirs!”
She inspected the mechanism carefully for any possible damage. Intact. Well, at least Columbina hadn’t ruined anything. If anything had been wrong...
Sandrone turned back to her roommate.
“If I ever catch you touching my things again, I’ll have you out of this room in no time. Is that clear?”
She glared at Columbina, waiting for any kind of reaction. For one brief moment, a thought crossed her mind: Maybe I went a little too far? Completely unbidden, memories surfaced of times when people had spoken to her in much the same way. Sandrone hurriedly pushed them aside. Besides, sooner or later, someone was bound to tell this little weirdo exactly what was wrong with her behavior, perhaps even more harshly. The sooner, the better.
“But that little box... It’s so beautiful and precise. Its surface is smooth and faintly cool, and it feels so pleasant in my hands. And the gears turn together so harmoniously...” There was no regret, apology, or anger in Columbina’s voice, only sincere admiration, which irritated Sandrone even more. “For it to work, everything has to move in perfect coordination. This mechanism is like an orchestra. If one performer makes a mistake, the whole thing breaks down and falls apart...”
The brief flicker of sympathy Sandrone had felt vanished, and she found herself ready to explode.
“There has to be a limit to this! Do you have no concept of private property where you come from? Of personal boundaries? How did you make it to eighteen or nineteen, however old you are? Fine, the orphanage is one thing, but you studied at a university in Fontaine. You must have interacted with your classmates somehow.”
Columbina remained silent, smiling faintly with her head tilted to one side. That impenetrable little smile only made Sandrone angrier.
With a heavy sigh, Sandrone lowered her voice and forced herself to ask more calmly.
“Tell me, do you genuinely not understand why I’m angry with you, or are you deliberately trying to provoke me?”
For the first time during the conversation, Columbina’s smile disappeared.
“No, I didn’t want to upset you at all.” She shook her head vigorously. “Does my interest in your work offend you?”
“If you’re genuinely interested in my work, you could have just asked.” Sandrone frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “And since when are artists interested in cybernetics?”
“I’ve always liked learning how things work. Especially beautiful things, like this one.” Columbina looked so innocent and sincere that Sandrone was finally convinced there had been no malice behind her behavior.
Sandrone sat down at her desk.
“All right. I’ll satisfy your curiosity, I suppose. But don’t touch it again! You could have broken something, or hurt your finger on the gears. I don’t care, obviously, but I imagine that would be rather inconvenient for an artist.”
The truth was that, deep down, Sandrone had wanted to show off her prototype of a multifunctional household assistant robot to someone. Presenting such a rough prototype to her classmates, let alone her professors, would have been humiliating. Showing off a little in front of a complete amateur like Columbina, however, was another matter.
Sandrone explained in detail how its dusting and clothes-sorting functions worked. Columbina listened with complete attention, as though she were absorbing every word. At one point, Columbina looked so utterly captivated that Sandrone began to suspect her roommate understood mechanisms far better than she had assumed...
“Well, that’s everything for now. The next step is programming a dishwashing function. First, though, I’ll need to design an extendable mechanism so it can reach the sink,” Sandrone concluded. “So? What do you think?” It wasn’t that her roommate’s opinion genuinely mattered, but after delivering an entire lecture, she would have liked some kind of response.
“You spoke about all of it with such passion,” Columbina replied with obvious delight in her voice. “You truly live for this! And it’s so adorable to watch you talk about something you sincerely love.”
Right. Of course she didn’t understand any of it. I wasted my time explaining everything. What else could I expect from an arts student?
“Well, thank you... I think.” Her roommate’s reaction was nothing like what Sandrone had expected, but for some reason, she no longer felt angry. Perhaps she had simply exceeded her quota of negative emotions for the day.
“You’re only cuter when you’re asleep.”
I spoke too soon about that quota.
“You. Mean. To. Tell me. You stare. At me. While. I’m sleeping?”
Sandrone felt her blood boil and rush to her face with indignation.
Columbina smiled innocently again.
“I’ve always liked looking at people while they sleep. Their faces become so relaxed. Sometimes they look tense if they’re having a bad dream, and sometimes they smile in their sleep, which means they’re thinking about something good... I think that’s when people are most... real.” She nearly whispered the final word.
Real... That’s actually an interesting thought... No, wait. Why does that matter? The fact that she’s been stalking me like this is...
“That’s creepy. Do you understand that at all?” Realizing there was no point in shouting, Sandrone addressed her roommate as though she were a small child. “People are biologically vulnerable when they sleep, so watching them like that is practically a threat. No one would take that well!”
“Vulnerable... But isn’t that part of what makes them real?”
Once again, she heard only the part she wanted to hear.
Sandrone sighed wearily.
“Think whatever you like, but I forbid you from doing it. At least not with me in this room.”
“I understand.” For a moment, Columbina’s expression turned unusually serious. “It’s a shame, though. I never finished the portrait...”
“What?!” Sandrone nearly jumped out of her chair.
“Well...” Columbina opened her desk drawer, took out a medium-sized sketchbook, then flitted over to Sandrone and opened it to one of the pages. Sandrone saw herself there, eyes closed, the corners of her mouth turned slightly downward, her hair spread messily across the pillow. The portrait had been drawn in a loose, sketch-like style, with pleasantly soft shading. For the first time that evening, Sandrone became genuinely flustered and uncertain. The corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
“Is it... well...” She struggled to find the words. On the one hand, she was furious that Columbina had drawn her without permission, and while she was asleep, no less. On the other hand, to a very small extent, it was even... unexpectedly pleasant. No one had ever drawn her before, and Columbina was clearly talented. It almost looked as though it had been made with sincere admiration for its subject.
“You don’t like it?” Columbina’s voice was quieter than usual.
“Well... it’s rather... nice,” Sandrone admitted. “And it does look like me.” Showering her with compliments would have been entirely inappropriate. “But you shouldn’t draw me while I’m sleeping! I hope you didn’t take any photographs, at least?”
“No. A photograph can never capture everything that matters. I only draw from life. Especially people who inspire me so much.”
“Listen...” The words came with difficulty now. “Since you like drawing... me so much,” Sandrone could hardly believe she was saying this, “only do it with my permission. Fine. You can draw me while I work.”
In truth, after seeing herself asleep through someone else’s eyes, Sandrone had become curious about how her roommate saw her while she worked.
“I can?” Columbina brightened and even clapped her hands. “You’re always so focused, and you frown so deeply... But sometimes you get this triumphant expression instead...”
Of course she noticed all of it. With that kind of attention to detail, she should have become a spy instead of an artist.
“I already said you can.”
Columbina happily clasped her hands to her chest, spun around on one foot, and headed back to her desk.
That evening, Sandrone had to admit to herself that living with Columbina was, at the very least, interesting.
***
Once classes started, the weeks began flying by one after another. Life settled into its usual academic rhythm: lectures, homework, her term project, and the occasional break for sleep. Unlike Sandrone, whose classes sometimes ran late into the evening, Columbina usually finished relatively early. From what Sandrone could tell, though, the sheer amount of homework more than made up for it. Sandrone’s own program had its crunch periods, but Columbina stayed up late working not just a couple of nights a week, but almost every day. To her credit, she was always quiet and never kept Sandrone from falling asleep on time. Her roommate made less noise than the guys on the floor above, who liked to blast some hideous cacophony after midnight without the slightest trace of a melody. Once, out of the corner of her eye, Sandrone noticed Columbina grimacing at the so-called music too, though until then she had assumed her roommate was simply incapable of making that expression. Columbina caught her eye, and the two exchanged a look of mutual understanding.
After a while, Sandrone began to notice that Columbina seemed unusually listless in the evenings. She spent more and more time lying on her bed, dozing, or wandering around the room like a sleepwalker. Maybe she was sick? Sometimes Sandrone was almost tempted to ask what was wrong, but the last thing she needed was Columbina imagining that Sandrone was trying to become her friend. Besides, knowing her roommate, she wouldn’t give a simple answer. Sandrone would have to sit through another stream of strange thoughts.
The reason for Columbina’s extreme exhaustion finally came to light one evening. When Sandrone returned from the kitchen, she found Columbina sitting on the edge of her bed, both hands clutching her head as it hung at such an unnatural angle that she looked ready to faint. Sandrone immediately imagined having to call an ambulance, the entire dorm erupting into chaos, the dorm manager running around in a panic... No. That was the last thing she needed.
“Hey,” she called, walking closer to the bed. “You’re not dying over there, are you?”
“My head... is spinning...” Columbina managed to lift her unfocused gaze. She looked especially fragile now.
Probably exhaustion or low blood pressure, Sandrone concluded. It had never happened to her, but her father sometimes had episodes like that.
Columbina’s stomach growled loudly, though she didn’t seem to notice.
A realization struck Sandrone.
“All right.” She snapped her fingers in front of Columbina’s face. “When did you last eat?”
“Yesterday...?” Columbina replied uncertainly, still staring into empty space.
Of course.
“Fine, then.” Sandrone tugged at her roommate’s sleeve. “You’re going to drink some tea whether you want to or not. I’ll make it now. And have some cookies too.” She nodded toward the package on the table. “I’m not cooking for you, so don’t get your hopes up, but at least eat something...”
What is wrong with this girl? She could’ve collapsed in the street. Though in that case, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with this idiot now.
Sandrone brewed two cups of tea and opened a fresh package of her favorite shortbread cookies, which had a faint cinnamon flavor, then pushed everything toward Columbina. She dug into the food with none of her usual elegance.
“I love these cookies,” she said after devouring several in quick succession and drinking half her tea. Her voice already sounded livelier. “They sell something similar at a café near my apartment in Fontaine. We call them madeleines.”
Crumbs clung to the corners of Columbina’s mouth. Sandrone shook her head disapprovingly.
“I thought everyone who grew up in an orphanage knew how to take care of themselves. Don’t tell me you can’t cook. At least go to the university cafeteria, then. Do I have to teach you everything?” she added under her breath.
“Actually, I can cook. Very well,” Columbina replied with a hint of pride.
“Then why are you about to collapse?” Sandrone snorted.
“I ran out of money for the month,” Columbina admitted casually.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been eating at expensive restaurants every day since you arrived.” It was meant as a joke, but with Columbina, anything was possible.
She shook her head.
“I spent a great deal on paints, canvases, and pencils. There were so many things I needed that I didn’t budget for them properly. I’ve always been bad at mathematics.” The confused smile returned to Columbina’s face.
And what am I supposed to do with that? She obviously can’t ask her parents for money.
“What if I cook dinner for both of us using your groceries?” Columbina suddenly blurted out. “I really am a good cook. You’ll like it. Just until the end of the month. Then my grant money from the institute will come through.”
Unbelievably naive, Sandrone thought with a private laugh. Still, to her own surprise, the idea sounded perfectly reasonable. Letting the girl starve to death would be entirely wrong, while the miser in Sandrone balked at simply giving her money, even as a loan, especially when she was saving for a new laptop. This way, Columbina would at least earn her keep. Sandrone didn’t enjoy cooking herself and preferred to survive on fast food and cafeteria meals, which regularly earned her lectures from her father. Buying groceries instead of prepared food would undoubtedly be cheaper too.
“Fine. Deal. What else am I supposed to do with you? At least you’ll finally make yourself useful,” she agreed with a grumble.
“I’m especially good at baking and salads.” Columbina clapped her hands happily. “I often helped in the kitchen at the orphanage, and everyone praised my cherry pie. And my pasta. Oh, and seafood salad...”
Well, hopefully it’ll at least be edible.
“You know, our orphanage was right on the seashore...” Columbina closed her eyes dreamily, sinking into her memories. “The waves were such a bright azure, even brighter than the sky. I liked walking along the shore alone. It was so peaceful, and when I looked into the distance, toward the horizon, it seemed as though I could walk straight into the heavens...”
Here we go...
“Were you always this...” Sandrone’s voice came out sharper than she intended.
“So what?”
“Poetic.” Sandrone struggled to find a word that wouldn’t sound insulting. After Columbina’s offer to cook, she didn’t particularly want to offend her.
“So that’s how you think of me.” Columbina smiled and closed her eyes again. “But yes, I suppose so. For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed expressing the beauty of things, including in words. That’s why I love poetry too. Do you like poems?”
“Not especially.” After thinking for a moment, Sandrone added, “I can’t even remember the last time I read fiction. Maybe science fiction novels when I was a child. I remember one about life aboard a submarine. That one was good.”
“I think I’ve read it!” Columbina immediately said. “Most of the books at the orphanage were religious texts or the usual classics. But that one really stood out. An elderly man donated it and several other books to us. I was deeply moved by the fate of the heroine, the submarine captain... It was so tragic.”
“I was more interested in the descriptions of how the submarine worked,” Sandrone replied evasively. Admitting that she barely remembered the plot anymore would have been embarrassing.
“I could tell you some of their stories over dinner. Oh, or read you some poems.”
That might actually be useful, Sandrone thought. For general knowledge. So I don’t come across as some narrow-minded techie. It’s not as though I’m going to read all that nonsense myself.
“I wouldn’t mind.”
From then on, Columbina and Sandrone developed a habit of talking over dinner. Or rather, Columbina did most of the talking, recounting the plots of novels of varying interest. At first, Sandrone listened with half an ear, but over time she became genuinely drawn into the conversations and sometimes even asked questions. Columbina occasionally shared details about her life at the orphanage and in Fontaine. What always surprised Sandrone was that even when Columbina told a story that was far from cheerful, she seemed to view it from a distance, as though it had happened to someone else. Sometimes Columbina tried to ask about Sandrone’s life, but Sandrone usually kept her answers brief. She had little desire to bare her soul.
When the month came to an end, Columbina suggested that they continue their dinner tradition, provided that she now contributed to the groceries as well. Sandrone didn’t object. Columbina really was an excellent cook, and... truthfully, though admitting it even to herself felt awkward, Sandrone had also begun to grow accustomed to their evening conversations.
***
One quiet February evening, during one of those dinners, Columbina suddenly asked:
“You know what I kind of regret?”
“Hm?”
“I’ve been in Nasha Town for over a month, and I still haven’t really seen anything except the university and the area around the dorm.”
“As if there’s anything worth seeing here.” Sandrone rolled her eyes.
She had never understood the appeal of going for walks. Her father sometimes told her she needed to get outside more and go for walks, but since she could never answer the question of why she should bother, she never followed his advice.
“I’ve always dreamed of seeing the statue of the Moon Goddess... Did you know it’s the tallest sculpture in the world? Even the statue of the Almighty Shogun in Inazuma is shorter.”
“Not bad,” Sandrone replied indifferently. Things like that had never moved her. Every time she traveled from Snezhnograd to Nasha Town, she saw the statue through the train window. Yes, it was pretty, but nothing extraordinary. The design of its wings impressed her to some extent, though once again, mostly from a technical perspective.
“And I’d love to take the cable car to Ammavir Park! The lake in the center is so beautiful. They’ve probably turned it into a skating rink by now...”
“Listen,” Sandrone interrupted before Columbina could begin listing every local attraction, “I understand you have a lot of homework, but if you’re so interested in all of this, why don’t you visit those places on the weekend? I’m sure you could find at least a little time.”
And then you’d spend less time drifting around the room like some kind of ghost, she added privately.
“I...” Columbina visibly wilted. “I’m a little scared to go alone,” she admitted, lowering her head. “You see, I’m terrible at finding my way around. Even with GPS on my phone. I’ll end up who knows where. On my first day in Fontaine, while trying to find my apartment, I walked all the way to the bridge leading to the neighboring island, even though the apartment was in a completely different direction.”
Sandrone began to realize where the conversation was heading and immediately tried to head it off.
“Invite one of your classmates. They must be interested in sights like that too.”
“We... don’t really talk very much.” Her roommate’s voice sounded unexpectedly serious and somewhat embarrassed. As if she were embarrassed.
“Don’t get me wrong, the people in my class are nice,” Columbina continued, hastily putting her smile back on, though this time it looked distinctly forced. “But it feels as though they avoid me. It’s strange... I know I’m a foreigner, but I don’t even have an accent! Almost. Maybe I scare them somehow?”
Deep down, Sandrone still didn’t see what the problem was. Big deal. No one was lining up to be her friend. At least they weren’t making fun of her. Being alone was calmer. More reliable.
Safer.
Still, Columbina seemed genuinely upset by the situation.
“Sandrone,” her roommate called softly.
“What?” It took Sandrone a moment to surface from her thoughts.
For a couple of seconds, the room fell completely silent. Columbina stared directly into her eyes with an unusually focused expression, as though choosing her words.
“I know you aren’t the kind of person who says something she doesn’t mean just to be polite. Tell me honestly. Was coming to Nasha Town a mistake?”
Of all people to ask.
“How would I know? You have to answer that question for yourself.”
Columbina looked even more dejected.
“When I first arrived, I thought I would feel something here. Something like... coming home. I never felt as though I belonged at the orphanage in Petrichor or in Fontaine. I never felt like one of them. But even here, I still feel out of place, as though...” She stopped mid-sentence.
“As though you don’t fit in?”
Sandrone suddenly remembered a very different girl. A girl who had eagerly told anyone who would listen about the ancient mechanisms she had read about in books. Who had shown everyone the crooked replicas that fell apart in her hands. Who preferred sitting in her father’s workshop, steeped in the smell of machine oil, trying again and again to build something like the things Alain made. A girl whose classmates whispered that people should stay away from her. Who heard contemptuous laughter behind her back. Who was called a robot and mocked mercilessly because she took it as a compliment. A girl who had watched her working prototypes be broken right in front of her.
“Believe me, I know what that feels like,” she admitted, letting out a breath.
Naturally, she had no intention of sharing any of that. Even so, her own history was stirring something unfamiliar inside her.
Sympathy? No, that wasn’t it.
Understanding? That was closer.
“You felt it too? You felt like an outsider?” There was genuine interest in Columbina’s gaze, and... empathy?
Does she really care about this?
“Sometimes, but it doesn’t matter.” Sandrone waved the question away. “You know, you need to learn how to be alone. Look at me. I don’t need company to go anywhere.”
“But... you don’t go anywhere,” her roommate said, widening her eyes in surprise. “Not with anyone, and not by yourself.”
“But!” Sandrone stopped short. “That’s because I don’t want to! If I did, I’d be perfectly capable of going somewhere in proud solitude.”
“What if I don’t want to be alone?” Columbina replied quietly. “What if I’m already tired of being alone?”
That was difficult to understand. Still, her roommate was clearly waiting for some kind of answer. Sandrone tried to approach the matter logically. How did people usually make friends?
“You said everyone in your class is generally nice and kind, didn’t you? Try talking to someone you find genuinely interesting. Maybe there’s someone whose art or abilities you respect. Start with them.”
Columbina frowned slightly.
“Well... I’m interested in you.”
What? Why? Then again...
Sandrone remembered their conversations, Columbina’s attention to her research, and her persistent attempts to learn more about her.
Can I really be interesting to someone? Genuinely interesting, not just because I’m the local freak everyone knows about?
“Sandrone, let’s go for a walk by the lake on Saturday!” Columbina’s voice cut through the silence like the sudden ring of a doorbell. She blurted it out so quickly and loudly.
She made the invitation sound so simple.
I’m essentially the one who gave her that advice. Refusing now would be completely illogical. It would mean my advice is worthless.
The next second, Sandrone realized that she didn’t actually mind the idea of going for a walk herself. Columbina would be pleasant enough company. She wasn’t some brainless idiot who would chatter the entire way about makeup and boys. Nor was she some loser whose only idea of fun was holing up in a basement bar.
“I don’t think I have anything important planned. So, if you want, we can go.”
I wonder what it’s like to go for a walk with someone my own age? The thought crossed her mind before she could stop it.
“Yay!” Columbina smiled broadly and grabbed both of Sandrone’s hands.
A shiver ran through Sandrone and up into her shoulders. Other people’s touch, especially when unexpected, put her on edge.
“All right, all right, don’t overdo it.” Sandrone quickly pulled her hands free from Columbina’s grip.
“I’m just... really happy you agreed.”
Would you look at that. She’s practically glowing. Is she this happy about the walk itself, or because she’s going with me?
Sandrone pushed the thought away, unable to understand why it had occurred to her in the first place.