Disclaimer: I do not own Columbia or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I do not own Ophelia either...sadly. I would love to own a character like her. She's so splendidly mad.
Author Note: Okey pokey. This is my first fic published on I'm totally nervous. I absolutely love and adore Columbia as well as relate to her very strongly. I hope that I have done her justice. Concrit is appreciated, reviews just to say you liked it are nice too, and flames will keep me nice and warmy as well as inspire me to do better. I do not have a beta and since I'm randomly posting this at 2 in the morning, there may be many mistakes. I apologize.
Columbia sometimes thinks that she is worthless. Granted, that's not very often seeing as Frank-n-Furter is always performing experiments and she and Magenta have so much fun doing each other's nails and such and once in a while she even helps with the cleaning. There's always the sex too—Frankie's appetite seems almost insatiable and she has to admit, she finds Magenta quite attractive at well. The castle is always brimming with activity; Columbia finds there really isn't much time to be sad.
So, yes, most of the time she is happy.
It's just that sometimes Magenta is busy cooking or cleaning and it maybe seems like Frankie really doesn't care about her at all as he abruptly leaves her, somewhat callously brushing her arm away and saying, "Not now, Columbia, darling," in a way that suggests rather strongly that she is nothing more than a minor distraction to him or a sex toy used only to relieve his lust and then quite carelessly abandoned.
It's then that she discovers she's quite alone again, and she can't bring herself to reread any of their old fashion magazines, and she finds she really doesn't care to fix her makeup just now or ever, maybe, because she can't even stand to look in a mirror.
She thinks just then that she absolutely hates her nose; it's enormous and has an awful shape and she fully realizes how ridiculous she looks with her drawn on eyebrows—why hadn't she ever noticed that combined with her red hair it makes her look like a clown? She hates Magenta right then for convincing her to do it.
She hates herself too for being so easy to convince. She hates that she is too weak to ever speak up for herself; to ever wonder "is this actually what I wanted?" She hates that she wants to but knows she won't because she thinks she knows the answer and it scares her.
In these moments, she feels like a butterfly pinched between two of Frankie's gleaming red nails, fluttering desperately and pointlessly to get away. The only difference is butterflies are beautiful and Columbia feels hopelessly plain, like a moth masquerading in the butterfly's bright garments.
She realizes also that she must hate Frankie. He is so stunning and confident and she is small and ugly and he knows it. He knows that she could never leave because who would leave him? Columbia is nothing without him. She depends on him completely and helplessly and he doesn't care about her at all.
Columbia hates him for his arrogance and yet at the same time realizes how hopelessly she loves him. In her pathetic state, she can't really even hate him at all. She remembers vaguely that she could leave him and his castle and run away. But to what? She has nowhere to go.
And yet a tiny part of her wishes she could just leave. Mind you, it's only a small part of her because really, why would she want to leave? She knows she loves it here.
Still, that tiny annoying voice in her head persists, demanding her attention. In these moments, Columbia finds she just doesn't have the strength to silence its determined cries. Maybe in these few moments she will listen and the voice will trick her into thinking that she wants to leave and that she really is unhappy and that Frank-n-Furter probably doesn't love her at all. These thoughts are ridiculous of course, but at the moment, they almost make sense.
The voice beseeches and deceives her into thinking that she deserves more than this—that there could actually be more than this for her. It begs and cajoles, offering pretty, fancy lies, and for a second, maybe, she believes it.
She believes she could cease being the mad Ophelia, cease her endless songs and frenzied, twirling, desperate dances, and cease to care about her uncaring and selfish Hamlet before she too meets her untimely demise.
But then she realizes how utterly preposterous these thoughts are and banishes them to the deepest recesses of her mind. After all, Ophelia drowned in a lake and not a swimming pool and her prince never wore women's clothing, so Columbia supposes she is just being stupid, imagining herself to be a tragic and beautiful noblewoman. She is sure that the only thing that they will have in common is their inability to save themselves as they plunge to their death, but she won't think about that just now.
For a while Columbia is caught up in these feelings of uselessness and desolation. Soon, however, Frankie will return to her, libidinous and playful as ever, and her bleak thoughts will be lost as she cries out in orgasm and fade away into her dullest memories as she lies close to him, sleepy after lovemaking.
Because, you see, she really is happy in the castle with Frankie. It's only once in a while that she forgets.
