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In the oppressive silence of the House of Hearth, a voice slices through the fabric of mystery like lightning — crystalline and fragile, as if it might shatter at any moment.
Within the walls of a respectable Hell — whose deadly whisper is sealed from the outside world — an Angel sings. Softly, but her song seeps into every corner. She sings a lullaby, and even the abyss itself falls silent, entranced by her haunting melody.
Her lullaby hurts. Physically, unbearably so. And the children buried in the ashes of the warming hearth listen, unable to open their mouths, unwilling to interrupt the higher being that has descended into utter darkness.
Columbina is here. She dared step into Hell itself, not afraid to let her bare feet sink into the blood-soaked parquet. She walked up the stairs — not a single one creaked beneath her — straight into the Father’s study. Her arrival drowned the House in silence, and then released it again, wrapping it in a quiet song.
The children hid when they saw her white garments. Yet even they, trained by the pitiless Servant, cannot hide from Columbina’s voice — it seeps even into the minds where words-words-words and plans-plans-plans swarm without rest. The children hid, afraid of her power.
But you cannot hide from an Angel, even in your own domain.
Arlecchino learned that long ago: the aura of power always lingered around that tiny woman, and she herself would hide, pressing against the cold palace walls — but it never helped. Columbina could see better even with her eyes closed, and her songs were everywhere. Even when the dreadful Herald wasn’t near, the Servant could feel her — in her thoughts, in her heart, in the crimson flame of her blood. Columbina burned fiercer than that fire in her veins; she scared worse, hurt deeper. Because of her, that very blood froze in place — and her lullabies stopped the pulse entirely.
Arlecchino bows her head beneath the guillotine’s blade willingly, every time she agrees to listen — knowing the mechanism will always fall.
And now too: their tea has long gone cold, yet the Servant cannot move to reheat it — paralyzed by reverent terror before that tender voice that strikes with inhuman divinity. No one else can sing like this. No one else can still a heart with a lullaby for the dead.
The living were never meant to hear that song — Arlecchino is certain of it.
“Do you know what song this is?” Columbina smiles, and the Servant realizes that silence has lasted six whole minutes — and she hadn’t noticed. The Dove’s singing fades quickly, vanishing like silence itself: no one can repeat her songs.
“Don’t you remember my voice?”
Columbina’s smile looks more like a snarl, and the odd phrasing of her words yanks Arlecchino back into reality — but she’s used to it. No matter how much her beloved may resemble a real woman, there’s something alien in her veins — if blood even flows there at all. The Servant can always sense another’s pulse… but not hers. Not the Dove’s.
Forcing herself awake from the trance she’s fallen into, Arlecchino blinks — and meets a head tilted mockingly to the side. The lace across Columbina’s eyes is slightly askew; her hair, disheveled. The blizzards in Snezhnaya are merciless, and she hadn’t even rested after the journey — she’d begun singing almost at once, their cups still full. The Dove adjusts her blindfold delicately and smiles again, waiting for an answer.
She can wait forever.
“And what song would that be? Your lullabies fade fast.”
No insult in the tone — Columbina would never take offense. And Arlecchino even smiles faintly, seeing that spark of joy appear on her face.
The strong are allowed their happiness. The Dove could spend her entire eternity beside the Servant, speaking of her songs.
But their eternities are not the same. Arlecchino’s is finite; Columbina’s — endless. Yet the latter will never understand that.
“I called it Death,” the Angel whispers conspiratorially, leaning closer — the Servant doesn’t pull away. “I named it after you.”
Arlecchino smiles weakly, though she doesn’t know why. Horror tightens her lungs — the word doesn’t belong to her beloved. Her lips should never shape it. Something eternal shouldn’t brush against something mortal.
The Servant is only human.
“Why?” she still asks, leaning toward the quietly giggling Dove. Thin, foreign fingers stroke her hair, and Arlecchino stills her fear.
Columbina’s hands are bloody, too.
“You leave trails of fire behind you,” the Angel breathes into her ear, resting weightless hands on her shoulders. “Flame burns. You are flame. And one day… there will be rain.”
So that’s what it’s about, after all.
Columbina isn’t frightened by Arlecchino’s limited eternity — she smiles, noting the warmth of her hands, the fragile signs of mortality. She accepts it as it is. The only thing she doesn’t understand… is that death is final.
Maybe she knows something the Servant doesn’t.
Arlecchino closes her eyes, listening to her own heartbeat, and smiles faintly once more. Columbina reaches out a cold hand, brushing against her lips.
“Sing me that song again, please.”