Work Text:
Sandrone sat in front of Fagio, panels along her companion’s torso folded open so the smaller Marionette could work on the mechanisms underneath. Finally finished with one particular part, she let out a long breath and set the wrench down against the table, next to an array of neatly-aligned tools she already laid out for easy access.
She was just about to reach for another and continue when she heard a familiar humming coming in from the front door. Sandrone froze mid-motion, her work forgotten, the melody much too annoying for her to just ignore.
She got on her feet, hurrying, heels clicking against the floor as she hoped she wasn’t imagining her potential guest. She grabbed the doorknob and swung the front door open.
In front of her stood Columbina, with that usual dumb (and admittedly adorable but Sandrone still had ways to go before she could say that out loud) smile plastered across her face. The moon goddess’ pearly eyes brightened the moment they landed on Sandrone.
“...Columbina,” Sandrone called her name, the annoyed tone hiding how happy she was at the visit. “You know, you could have just knocked.”
Columbina hummed. “But this is how I always get your attention.”
“And what if I was too absorbed in my work to hear you? Would you just stand there all day?”
“That won’t happen. I know Sandrone would always hear me no matter what, after all.”
“...You—!”
“Besides,” Columbina cut her off. “My hands are quite full, so I can’t just knock.”
Sandrone’s gaze dropped downwards—and indeed, her hands were full. Columbina had both her arms wrapped around a box the size of those treasure chests full of junk she sometimes stumbled across in the wild that the Traveler would gladly beat up no matter how many innocent souls for. Columbina was stronger than she looked, but that box sure seemed heavy…
“Come in.”
Sandrone stepped side, holding the door open as Columbina floated past her into the house. She set the box down on the floor and flipped open the lid.
“What is it, anyway?” Sandrone asked from behind her, arms crossed.
“Gifts,” Columbina hummed. “For you.”
“Eh?” Sandrone blinked, feeling heat rush to her face already at the gesture. Gifts for her? And from Columbina, of all people?
From within the box, Columbina took out one medium-sized sack, handing it to Sandrone.
“...T-Thank you.”
Sandrone carefully released the wrapping, peering inside—and immediately regretted it as countless blinking red lights flooded and Overloaded her sensors all at once, enough to make her feel like she had just short-circuited on the spot. She shut the bag close instantly.
She mentally dialed her sensitivity down a few notches and opened the sack again, only to find hundreds of small insect-like constructs inside, lying unmoving in a pile save for the constant red blinking of their lights.
“Huh.”
“Subdetection Units,” Columbina explained. “168 of them. I worked really hard to gather them all.”
“...I know what these are! I just don’t understand why—”
“This, too,” Columbina said, already pressing another bag into Sandrone’s hands before she could even finish her sentence. Sandrone’s eyes widened at the comically large size of this one, and she dropped it to the floor with a loud thud.
“What in the—?! Columbina!” she unwrapped the new gift, finding glimmering golden coins inside. “Mora?!”
“Mhm,” Columbina nodded. “Two million, ninety two thousand, and six hundred to be exact.”
“Did you rob the Northland Bank?!”
“This one, too.”
Sandrone didn’t even have time to think up another retort as Columbina shoved another bag into her hands. She pulled the strings open, now out of morbid curiosity more than anything.
Inside was a collection of plumes, a dirty white in color, each marked with what looked like a single red eye that looked unsettling and… quite literally out of this world. Her systems did a quick scan and tallied the number automatically: 46. She sealed the bag back up almost immediately, afraid that gazing tooo long would incur some sort of Heavenly wrath out of Principle.
“...I don’t even know what these are,” Sandrone glared. “In fact, I might not even want to know!”
“Last one.”
Sandrone sighed, admitting defeat to Columbina’s antics. She took the last offered bag that sat heavy in her palms, opening it and peering inside with absolute zero expectation at this point.
…Oh.
To Columbina’s credit? This was a good gift, a practical one at least. Sandrone’s eyes recognized usable scrap metal when she saw them. Drive Shafts of Snezhnayan technology in various states of disrepair and quality, but every piece was still salvageable with just a bit of work.
…Wait a minute.
These Drive Shafts sure looked familiar. So familiar, in fact, that t was almost as if she built and designed these herself…
“Columbina,” she looked up. “Where did you get these?”
“Oh, those?” Columbina tilted her head. “I ‘wreaked havoc’ across the Kuuvahki Experimental Design Bureau and took them from the robots there."
“You what—?!”
Days ago…
“...Are you absolutely certain that we should be doing this, Columbina?”
Lauma asked, standing next to the moon goddess in front of the looming metal door of the Kuuvahki Experimental Design Bureau. All around them, the guards who were stationed there all lay slumped and unconscious, each one a victim of a well-placed Lunar-Bloom to the head.
“Mhm,” Columbina nodded. “The Traveler told me this would make Sandrone happy and stronger, and I trust her.”
“...If you two say so, then I will choose to trust your judgments.”
“By the way, give me your hand.”
Lauma nodded her head, confused, but held her hand out anyway. Columbina reached over and let two small golden items drop into her palm, each one shining as if it held whole constellations folded up inside.
“The moon's blessing,” Columbina said with a smile. “Just kidding. Stella Fortuna. From the Traveler.”
Lauma held them close to her chest, and for a moment it felt as though some sort of divine limitation placed on her had been lifted. Two out of six, at least.
“I… can certainly feel myself getting stronger…” Lauma murmured. “This should make our job easier…?”
“I’m also here!” Nilou perked up next to her.
“Wait, who is this?!” Lauma hid behind Columbina and pointed a finger at the dancer, startled and taken aback like a deer caught in the Lightkeepers’ lanterns at the sudden—or maybe unnoticed—appearance.
“Oh, this is Nilou. The Traveler introduced me to her.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Lauma. Please don’t worry and leave all the Blooming to me,” Nilou smiled, before gesturing to the shorter girl standing next to her. "Lesser Lord Kusanali is here to lend a hand, too."
Nahida, who had been there the whole time, waved at the two.
"The Dendro Archon?!" Lauma only looked at her confused, and turned to Columbina for what to do. The moon goddess only hummed.
“Will you dance for us?”
“With pleasure!” the red-haired girl chirped, a brick of a sword manifesting in her hand. “All eyes on me!”
Nahida followed right after, like this was a habit the two of them had gotten used to doing since four years and counting. "Everyone hold hands!"
…That day, it was said that the consecutive detonations of Blooms and Lunar-Blooms explosions could be heard all the way back in the Zapolyarny Palace.
Sandrone could feel her eye twitching, despite being fairly certain that she secured it into its socket perfectly just this morning. Her mechanical fingers crackled and squeaked in her hand, wriggling in uncharacteristically unnatural movements before clenching into a fist. Strange, she was sure she had a Cryo Stellar Linchpin, so where did this Burning rage within her come from, she wondered?
She had wondered why all those damage reports suddenly piled up during the time she was gone. She had thought her machines stopped functioning after she ceased living—as nonsensical as that idea sounded—but no, it turned out the culprit was standing in front of her! Smiling at her like an overgrown puppy, wagging its tail and waiting to be called a good girl, no less!
“Columbinaaaaa!” Sandrone yelled, approaching the other girl and grabbing her by the shoulders, shaking her back and forth. “Are you stupid??? Those were my creations! I had them made! You just went ahead and tore through them for no reason! Do you know how much of a mess you’ve caused me?!”
“Oh,” Columbina said, seemingly unfazed by the fact that she was being shaken, though the smile dropped from her lips. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t! You never pay attention at those meetings anyway, so you wouldn’t even know what my job actually entailed!”
Sandrone let her go as she exhaled, resorting to pacing around the room while her mind raced through all the possible reports and follow-up administrative work that this incident was about to generate. No, even more worrying than that—
“What if they interpret this as you picking a fight with the Fatui now that you left the organization, huh? I don’t think even I can convince them this was an accident! What if they send assassins after you or your friends?!”
“Are you worried about me, Sandrone?” Columbina tilted her head. “Don’t be. I’m—no, we are quite strong. And we made sure there were no witnesses.”
“I don’t know if that’s better or worse!”
“We only knocked them out and gave them short-term memory loss.”
“I honestly still don’t know if that’s better or worse.”
Great. She could already feel a headache forming.
Sandrone slowly dragged both her hands down over her face in frustration, as if by the time her vision returned she would be back in the good and proper and undoomed timeline where none of this had happened. It didn’t work, obviously. All that greeted her when she lowered her hands was a frowning Columbina, pale pink moonlit eyes staring at Sandrone with an utterly pitiful look of disappointment, like a sopping wet puppy shivering in the rain.
“...Are you angry, Sandrone?”
Ughhhh. She was—or rather, she really should be! If Patience was her Physical RES, then Columbina’s antics had just about Superconducted and shredded straight through it!
But then again, Columbina had worked so hard just to gather all this for her… And even if it gave her a giant pain in the posterior and a mountain of paperwork and countless headaches in the near future, it wasn’t like all theese gifts were completely useless. Definitely NOT orthodox gifts, that’s for sure, but at least they were practical enough, especially and specifically in Sandrone’s hands....
“What’s done is done, I suppose…” Sandrone sighed, staring at the pile of Drive Shafts by the corner. On the bright side, at least it saved her the trouble of recalling them and scrapping them individually anyway…? Besides, if nothing else, at least she could repurpose the internal components of the Subdetection Units to upgrade Fagio… “And I’ve seen worse gifts…”
Columbina stepped forward, quickly closing the distance between them. She grabbed Sandrone’s hand in hers, holding up their conjoined hands as pale pink gazed into blue grey.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to… what’s the word, ah, sugarcoat it for me. I'm sorry,” Columbina apologized. “Can I make it up to you? I will do anything you want me to, Sandrone.”
The sheer proximity—and the last few words uttered by her—caused Sandrone’s systems to go haywire, all her anxieties and worries about paperwork quickly Melting away to make way for a different feeling entirely. The air between them felt Lunar-Charged with something she normally wouldn’t have dared to say out loud out of embarrassment.
“W-Well… Since you’re already here…” Sandrone said, averting her gaze. “Maybe you could… s-spend the night…”
“I, too, am in this scene,” Yae Miko’s voice spoke from the corner.
Sandrone jumped, hiding behind Columbina’s shoulders. “Who on earth?!”
“Oh. The Traveler said you two would make a good combination, so I invited her to come.”
“How?! Why?!” Sandrone was about to fire another retort, when she noticed another face—familiar, this time—standing by the corner next to the kitsune.
“I am present as well, Miss Sandrone,” Ineffa said with a polite bow.
“What in the world are YOU doing here too?!” Sandrone pointed an accusatory finger at the robot maid, who only tilted her head and flashed her eyes in confusion. Oh, at this point, she was half-tempted to just reactivate Fagio and drive away these new guests for coming uninvited into her home and ruining her alone time with a certain someone!
Instead, she settled for turning Columbina around to face her, in the hopes of a good explanation—
—except whatever she was about to spit out died on her tongue the moment she felt two arms hook around her legs, causing her to squeal. Before she even registered what was happening, Columbina had already lifted her clean off the ground with ease, her feet kicking in protest at the empty air underneath. Sandrone could do nothing else but grab onto Columbina's shoulders and hold on as the goddess spun her around in delight, giggling, carrying her in her arms all the while as if she was weightless, no doubt only made possible through some kuuvahki or gravity manipulation nonsense Columbina had up her sleeve.
“H-Hey! L-Let me down, will you!” Sandrone stammered with her face as red as her dress, but to no avail.
“We will be your new party for the foreseeable future, my dear Sandrone,” Columbina beamed up at her. “Aren’t you glad we get to spend time together?”
“...I think I’d rather Stellar-Superconduct myself off a cliff.”
