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It was well into the evening when maintenance day finished for the umpteenth B.O.S.C.O. Lynette annihilated with a touch of her gloved finger and began for Sandrone.
Since her revival—her reconstruction—Sandrone found it necessary to pry into her mechanical depths and solve the unsolvable of her father’s genius. Pulonia evolved every second of the day her resources were within reach, and it was only through her unmistakable determination to defeat a Sinner that her calculating power reached cosmic heights—enough to retrieve the Moon Goddess back.
But Pulonia’s gone and there goes Fagio, switched off for the time being Sandrone picked up wrenches and screwed close latches. Maintenance day was Sandrone’s medium for routine check-ups. She looked into that task more often ever since her emotion module cranked up at the very moment of reuniting with Columbina.
Nowhere near fresh out of the opulence of her clothing, Sandrone dons a white shirt and the trousers she picked up as souvenir from her aging home. Aging, but not quite. Alain always did ensure his pieces were timeless, and so, too, is his trousers that opened at the right spots for Sandrone to inspect.
Her left leg first. If the average human—average, because Teyvat is beyond mortal identities at this rate—bears a soul to mark their existence, Sandrone bears a few words and coordinating codes to instill instruction. “Cease physical autonomy from the waist down,” she says, and her very will to move heeds accordingly. Sandrone is left with the thoroughness of her fingers as she forced her knee to swivel and pop open, the gears inside attuned to her touch.
Beside her, the glowing, blue phantom of her data emerges. Perfect condition, both her legs. Good. Not like she uses them on the daily, anyway.
“Initiate lower extremities.” She flexes her legs.
For the next two hours, Sandrone reads into her data and finds succeeding anomalies attributing to her emotion module as hypothesized. Hypothesized, because Columbina’s part of the equation, now, and adding her into the equation meant facing several errors in her programming that she normally wouldn’t address unless they were interfering with her computing power. Rarely did Sandrone malfunction without external forces, and rarely did a finger touch her without Pulonia’s defense.
A gust of wind, and the moonlight striking through her window swirls in that distinguishable divinity. Columbina’s feathered arrival irks Sandrone with a twitch of her eye, once again finding the Mo—Trilune Goddess making herself comfortable on her windowsill.
In Snezhnaya.
After her affairs back at Fontaine, Sandrone deemed it unnecessary to linger much longer. The festival was over and her past was unburied, leaving her to take up the mantle of harbinger once more.
“Hello, Sandrone,” Columbine hums in that gentle ways of hers. “I hope I didn’t catch you at the wrong time.”
Sandrone makes a face. “It’s always the wrong time with you,” she spat, then turns back to her compressors. “I told you, time and time again, not to step foot in Snezhnaya anymore. Not only are you compromising your responsibility as a goddess, crossing borders without so much as acknowledging the diplomacy you could be risking, the very idea of you abusing your… godforsaken divinity at the slightest to annoy me—well, annoys me.”
Columbina’s eyes are closed this time around. The very first time Sandrone saw them that night they reunited, the gears in her own turned and turned at the immense ethereality her mere math couldn’t comprehend. Still, the goddess was frustrating as ever, and no amount of ethereality could sway Sandrone into believing that Columbina was anything but a variable in her life.
“You always say such big words, Sandrone.” Columbina hikes her leg up and the moon shines over the wings clipped to her hair. “Do you not mean that you just wish for me to remain safe from the eyes for the Tsaritsa? Or that you wish to shield me from the cold?”
Sandrone raised a brow, her other already creased tenfold at Columbina’s audacity. “The Tsaritsa already retracted her decree, don’t you recall?” she sighs. She picks up a wrench with laser-focus on Fagio’s impending upgrade. “Or don’t tell me you’re weakening a second time and losing your memories is beginning to trend for you lot? Wake up, Columbina. You may be the Trilune Goddess, but the world still doesn’t revolve around you.”
It was the same nasty words Columbina always giggled at. “I’m pleased to know that your rebirth only changed the way you see me. I missed you, too, Sandrone,” she says, before picking herself up from the window to saunter towards her vicinity. Columbina’s gaze drifts over Sandrone’s uncharacteristic attire and hums. “It’s maintenance day, that I recall. Your fondness was never misplaced for a day like this.”
“You know me too well, Columbina,” Sandrone retorts. She pops open Fagio’s arm and retrieves a small gear already rusting. Sandrone curses under her breath.
Unfortunately for Sandrone, Columbina’s power extends beyond the channels of kuuvahki in Nod-Krai, and it wasn’t difficult to notice that a screw on the harbinger’s chest was left loose. “Maintenance day for you too, I hope,” she says, but the frown in her expression contradicts the otherwise poor attempt in humor. “Sandrone, your core—“
“Isn’t any of your concern, Columbina,” Sandrone hisses, but immediately regrets the moment she realizes her tone. Columbina, as usual, isn’t receptive of her attitude, but since their time in Fontaine, Sandrone learned that her emotion module has been a guide all along.
With a sigh and her fingers through her hair, Sandrone places the wrench down. “I’m sorry,” she says, quietly, in hopes that Columbina didn’t hear her. “If this is about fretting over my recovery again, I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”
Despite the absence of her gaze, Columbina’s face learned a variety of expressions since her welcome to society, and Sandrone knew, then, that Columbina was apprehensive once more.
“I know,” Columbina murmured. “But you can’t blame me either, Sandrone. Not when the very moment I held all the power in the world was the very moment I felt powerless to save your life.”
Sandrone paused. Since their reunion, too, Sandrone learned that Columbina harbored a guilt so immeasurable that her, living, breathing, and alive could apparently not pierce through it. She supposes it was but one of many flaws of a deity, and Columbina was the exact template for such beings.
Sandrone’s lips quirked to the side. Her eyes, blue as the waters that course through Fontaine’s roots, land on the fragile bearing Columbina arrived with. “Columbina,” she starts, softly this time, “sit down. I’ll make some tea, then we can let this go. We talked about this in Fontaine and I’m not willing to open up stitches this dead of night with you a second time.”
“No.”
Sandrone crossed her arms. “No?”
Columbina shook her head. “No,” she says firmly, feet gliding across the room until she reaches the harbinger completely. “I meant everything I said in Fontaine, Sandrone. I missed you, yes, but I never did share how long I’ve lingered with your body before Arlecchino returned you to Fontaine. And I—I’m going to say it now.”
Arclecchino may have mentioned a thing or two about that, but Sandrone, upon her revival, belittled the thought to Columbina’s naivety. “Go on, then. You’re already pushing your luck showing up in my workshop.”
(Her workshop, because Sandrone has no excuse anymore when her bed recognized the warmth of a goddess without doubt.)
It didn’t take another second for Columbina, whose closed eyes were just as furrowed as Sandrone’s. “I… wanted to give you life,” she eventually admits. “And I tried, Sandrone. You have to believe me. I bent time and space for the very first time in my life, hoping I’d feel any semblance of progress, waiting for you to open your eyes. I had all three moons, I had enough power to spark a flame into your core, but nothing happened and I was so, so upset because why didn’t it work? Why did nothing happen, Sandrone? Why didn’t you open your eyes that night I shed the moon’s light upon you? It was supposed to be a ble—“
At Columbina’s rambling did Sandrone notice the gradual birth of the flowers from Silvermoon Hall and all the way to the glaciers of Zapolyarny Palace, spreading their roots across the snow in red, alarming rates. Sandrone’s eyes widened and quickly grabbed Columbina by the arm and into her warmth. “Columbina!” She hissed against Columbina’s ear, her cognitive module in a hayware at the sight of the former’s emerging defensiveness. “Alright, alright! Calm down, will you? You’re growing your bloody Moon-Prayer Blossoms right outside the palace! One more petal and I’ll have my core shut down again just because the Trilune Goddess decided to what? Vent out her frustrations over her inability to save a life?!”
“Yes!” Columbina argued as she pulled herself back from Sandrone’s embrace. “Because I am angry, Sandrone!”
Sandrone didn’t have the time to respond when the cold, metallic buzz of her workspace fades into the cold, comforting breath of that familiar domain. The moon shines high above her when she retreats from Columbina’s presence, the gears turning inside her eyes upon identifying that yes, she’s been teleported by the goddess again, because that seems to be a habit now whenever Columbina wanted Sandrone to listen to her and her alone.
“I’m upset,” Columbina echoes, and this time, she crouches down against the surface of the water Sandrone’s feet padded across. “Really upset, Sandrone. I hope you know that.”
“Are you sulking?”
“No, I’m not.” Columbina turned her head away.
“Columbina, you’re not being serious right now.” Sandrone slapped her palm against her face with a groan. “You’re upset and you’re sulking, which is just so utterly, completely immature. Unbelievable! And the audacity to even teleport me here again! Bring me back, Columbina. I have work to do!”
It was as if her words entered Columbina’s ear and left towards the other. “Lumine taught me that one must say sorry for scaring a friend. That’s what you did,” she argued. “Plus, the kuuvahki energy radiating in this domain tells me that you don’t actually want to leave.”
“What?!” Sandrone’s voice rose.
“And that you’re planning to make it up to me.”
“I SAID NO SUCH THING!”
“And that your key is spinning faster,” Columbina adds.
Sandrone turns to glance over her shoulder. “Out of sheer rage, you mean!”
The frown previously donning Columbina’s façade shifts into that familiar, irksome giddiness Sandrone knew she was about to inevitably face once more. She was playing with her again, of course she was, because each time Columbina snuck into her bedroom or office in Snezhnaya, even after Columbina’s resignation, Sandrone was left repairing both her emotion and control modules until daybreak.
And right now, Sandrone needed a plan. A plan to satiate the Trilune Goddess because apparently, as Paimon once said, she was the only one who had the capacity to do so. Not Lauma, not Lumine, but her. Sandrone found it amusing to tie Paimon at the end of a reel and bait the biggest fish swimming beneath the Wingalet. Lumine let her.
“I can’t believe this,” Sandrone says again. “You’re not upset anymore and it’s clear as day. If you were even upset to begin with.” She rolled her eyes.
“I still am,” Columbine replied, but her tone only proved Sandrone’s accusation. “And as Trilune Goddess, you, Sandrone Guillotin, are not allowed to leave this domain unless you heed the goddess’ will. That is the only way to please me.”
Sandrone deadpanned. “No, let’s just drop this.” She throws her arms and turns around. “I’m not going to play any games with you this late in the evening, Columbina. I still have to work on Fagio’s compressors that have been acting up since the blizzard passed us by, and not to mention the paperwork I have to file for the personnel transfer now that Dottore was subdued. I’m busy, and I genuinely cannot find a window of opportunity to tole—“
“The Trilune Goddess’ wish is to learn save a life.”
Columbina saunters towards her again, and again, and again, until she’s mere inches from Sandrone’s haggard form. The harbinger was about to form a rebuttal when the mask disintegrates into the moonlight, a slow drift of the goddess’ eyes open, and she’s stuck on her feet hypnotized by the galaxies before her.
“Teach me, Sandrone,” Columbina insists. Her hands, so dainty and clean from the labor of Sandrone’s life, finds their pair at Sandrone’s sides. “Teach me how to save you. Please. I don’t want to pry into your body and be convinced that I have no power to open your eyes. I don’t want to turn back time and look far into the future realizing that nothing changed. That’s all I ask tonight.”
Okay. Why was she asking this? What in Lord-Artificer’s name provoked that thought inside Columbina’s head as if her previous lack of critical thinking wasn’t enough to define how much of an airhead she really is? Okay. Okay! Sandrone could use the word-formula at this very instant and perhaps just construct a leeway to destroy this domain and ultimately set herself free.
But she couldn’t. Not because she could not do it, but she just could not… do it.
“You’re irreparably mental it amazes me,” Sandrone lets out, her chuckle bitter and more of an excuse.
Columbina’s eyes soften further. Her eyes always did look that way whenever it landed on Sandrone.
“That’s not a no,” she says, squeezing Sandrone’s hands.
“It’s neither a yes nor a no,” Sandrone argues, looking away. “Don’t read too much into it.”
Columbina’s smile only widens when her eyes land on that loose screw beneath Sandrone’s shirt, no longer apprehensive. “Then let’s start with this.”
She lets go of Sandrone’s hands and places a palm against her chest instead. Sandrone’s key spins against her will despite her internal instruction, but she makes no move to slap that hand away like she often did.
“Return me to my workshop,” Sandrone asserts. She feels her reconstructed core react beneath Columbina’s palm. “You can’t fix a doll with a few incantations like you can’t revive a soul with one hammer on a nail. Behave, and you’ll learn.”
It’s clear that the goddess was absolutely delighted by the harbinger’s words, that she did not waste another moment to snap them back to where they once were. Sandrone’s workshop comes into view just as quickly, and Columbina finds a seat in preparation.
“I’m ready,” she says, eyes bright even in the darkness. If Sandrone were human, perhaps she’d be blinded by the lack of power regulation in Columbina’s end. “Teach me, Sandrone.”
Then Sandrone sighs. Never in her life did she imagine providing a tutorial on how to navigate her console, but here she was. She takes the seat opposite to Columbina and grabs a screwdriver, placing it on the latter’s hand with enough force.
“If I die—or, once I die,” Sandrone tugs on the collar of her shirt, “you have to tear open my clothes. Imagine a doctor—as much as it pains me to say that—like Dottore performing his experiments. I assume you’ve never faced a real doctor during your time here and out, so unfortunately, we have to stick with the worst possible example.”
Columbina frowns at the mention of Dottore, but merely nods in determination at Sandrone’s instruction.
“Go on,” Sandrone offers, her finger tugging her collar further down. “I only ever wear this garb for maintenance day, anyway. There’s pockets everywhere. I’ve been meaning to get into my nightgown all evening.”
“Okay,” Columbina says. She takes a breath before finding purchase on the hem of Sandrone’s shirt and pulls it off. What lies beneath the cloth is a wonderful array of joints and links, some of which Columbina had seen before when she regularly slept in Sandrone’s chambers.
It’s the first time Sandrone bared herself to someone else, but this was Columbina, after all, and the world-formula perhaps formulated the chances of this outcome to naturally increase even if Sandrone drafted a counter solution this instant.
“Great. At the very least we speak the same language.” Sandrone wants to divert her gaze elsewhere. The red in her cheeks were beginning to give her away and she wasn’t pleased to give Columbina the satisfaction. “N-now… just…”
Columbina placed her hands on her lap in anticipation, the screwdriver still there. Thankfully, Sandrone’s gears turned quickly to form the next instruction before Columbina could point the anomaly out. “The loose screw,” Sandrone continues, “you use the screwdriver on that. There are four screws on each corner of my chest and three locks that require alphanumeric access.“
Sandrone’s words guide Columbina’s gaze accordingly, spotting the screws from the top of her chest to the bottom of her breasts. And even if the moons repeatedly shatter or that the earth ages towards its inevitable corruption, the Trilune Goddess knew that no amount of change could move her the way this nudity did. Raw, unbridled, and so, so pure.
“Oh,” Columbina gasped. “Sandrone… you’re…”
Sandrone grunted. “Don’t say another word.” She lifts her palm against Columbina’s face, but just so she could hide the crimson flourishing from her own. “I have always been a professional, Columbina, and I will not allow you to pierce through that just because you… ugh. No, never mind. Why do I even bother? Just don’t go around telling others about what you’ve seen and you’ll see, alright?”
Columbina’s acknowledgement is through a feverish nod. “Yes. I won’t tell anyone. I could never tell anyone about this, Sandrone.”
“Splendid.” Sandrone relaxes if only for a moment, then returns to allocate her attention back to her chest. “The locks change every second that I’m alive—a security measure that takes into account every possibility that I get disposed. You could only unscrew my chest cavity once you bypass the locks. Either way, the sequence updates geometrically after four seconds, then arithmetically for the rest of the time and in between.”
Somehow, the idea of Sandrone’s disposal planted itself a sensitive root in Columbina’s head. It wasn’t difficult to put two and two together since the latter showed up tonight. Sandrone feels a bit guilty.
“Geometric… arithmetic?” The question across Columbina’s eyes made Sandrone want to bang her head against the wall. Surely the power brought by the Trilune authority would grant Columbina extraordinary intelligence that could rival even the Dendro Archon herself, but no. Columbina was still Columbina at the end of the day who refused to exercise the extent of her newfound power in such a way.
So, for the next forty-five or so minutes, Sandrone put in the effort to manually teach Columbina how her security works, but not without a few unthinkable questions here and there that only Columbina’s eccentricity could provide. Surprisingly, the goddess managed to solve all sequences Sandrone formulated on a sheet of parchment—previous sequences emerging from her internal data as the locks refresh every passing second.
“Now, even if my face gets busted and you’d be greeted by the sight of my anthropomorphic endoskeleton,” Sandrone points toward her face, particularly the turning gears in her blue eyes, “it’s mostly unnecessary to dwell into it as long as my core is functioning. The chassis is my framework, and the framework needs a driving force for it to function. Think of my core as, uh… my heart.”
Columbina’s eyes drift down to her evident latch. She reaches for the locks, solves the security, then unscrews each corner of Sandrone’s chest. She hears Sandrone heave a heavy sigh above her, but for Columbina, it felt like unlocking the secrets beyond the three moons.
“Your heart.” Columbina’s voice is fond as the gentle creatures of Hiisi Island. The reveal of Sandrone’s chest cavity pulls a breath from her lungs, the memory of that large, gaping hole at the exact same spot dawning on her the more she watches each gear turn and each wire pulse. At the very center, beneath the brass-alloyed ribs, is the core that beats along with Columbina’s own, slightly quickening and terribly racing.
“O-okay, stop staring at it,” Sandrone says defensively.
The words, for the second time, are entering Columbina’s ear and leaving the other. It’s that unreadable, divine countenance that shakes Sandrone’s resolve, boiling down to unadulterated awe that Columbina thought she was brought an offering beyond what she could provide.
“I don’t think I can, Sandrone.” How could Teyvat even begin to wield such genius like this? “I’m sorry, it’s just… every part of you so far never failed to amaze me. I feel like… I feel…”
Seconds pass and Columbina has yet to articulate the words threatening to burst from her lungs. No, nothing was enough. No letter, number, or rune could describe the immense reverence overflowing through her, that she could feel the moon shifting, the tides changing, the animals cowering with every twitch of her finger.
Was this the necessary revelation that was bound to plant such a humble angle for a goddess like her? Was this what the Frostmoon Scions felt all those years ago, when she was but a newborn deity seeking answers while feeding their will? Because Columbina never felt so small. Smaller than she was when she wandered place to place, rejected by the lands she skipped upon.
So this is what it’s like. To be met with human brilliance in the shape of the half of her own heart.
“What?” Sandrone’s mocking voice pierces through the trance. “Should I place this on my unending list of achievements, I wonder? To actually leave the Trilune Goddess speechless?”
Columbine’s gaze snaps up to meet Sandrone’s, and this time, her pale countenance was imitating the growing crimson painting the latter’s artificial cheeks. “Sandrone,” she murmurs. “Teach me enough so I co—can make sure no one would ever try to shut you down.”
Sandrone’s core pulsates. The light emanating beneath her ribs glowed even brighter than the moon that moment, if that were even possible. “Columbina…”
“I’m serious, Sandrone.” the goddess steps even closer. Her hands find purchase on Sandrone’s bare tummy, just below her exposed chest cavity. “I know what I want, now. I have all the authority given to me by the three moons, both to create a new world and destroy the existing.“
Whatever argument the harbinger’s world-formula offered through Sandrone’s cognitive module vanished in an instant. Her chest cavity, her core, reacts to the invasion of Columbina’s warmth; the moonlight ebbs from her veins and into each branch of alloy that allowed the weaving of Sandrone’s soul.
Sandrone’s internal alarm system rings. Panic. “You’re—“
“I have no intentions to do either.” The hand wraps around the core in earnest, and Columbina’s eyes drift close once more. “But right now, tomorrow, and the days after, I want to be the engineer of something bigger than the world.”
Sandrone tries to pull Columbina’s hand away, but her own, phenomenal programming of strength was no match to the determination of a god. “What are you doing, Columbi—“
Against the warmth of Columbina’s hand did the core flash through the gaps of her fingers. Despite Sandrone’s utter shock and resonating gasp, her tactility module remained regulated and intact, broadcasting scannable data at lightning speed as per Sandrone’s internal command.
All systems actively engaged. Automatic calibration: success. No instability detected.
No. There was no pain. Not even the irritating sensation of a scratch or an itch.
“I…” Ever so slowly, Columbina found the sea. The seas that she’d seen in Fontaine, the seas she’d swim had Sandrone lingered in her memory alone forever. The seas she’d dry to scavenge her home, the seas she’d fill with the tears of her moon.
The seas that replicated the loss of gravity, when gravity was what tethered her to the absolute truth that Sandrone was tantamount to the stars of which surrounded her above and everywhere she went. They’re beautiful, Columbina thinks, even as the gears turn haywire and the seas flutter with each disbelieving blink of Sandrone’s eyes.
“Let me be the engineer,” The clock strikes towards the next hour when Columbina leans forward, “of the life that will matter most to me for a very, very long time.”
Sandrone feels the press of Columbina’s hand around her core. Her heart.
She sends no command, and welcomes Columbina’s warmth with the same lips that quietly begged she stay once the goddess turned her back at Moon-Prayer night.
The winding key spins faster, then slower, then stops. With the blessing of the Trilune Goddess, there was no need for restraints when all Sandrone wanted was to kiss Columbina home.
And Archons did Sandrone do just that.
Home, as Columbina’s lips glide across each instruction Sandrone gave her, navigating layers of Arkhium-infused brass deep within the polymers of her flesh. She learns a thing or two about thermodynamics—the heat that conducts from her core to the central pillar of her spine when Columbina figures Sandrone was quite ticklish there.
It’s a wanderer’s navigation of a universe waiting to be discovered; a life left to wither away waiting to be restored. Chemical reactions, thermal expansions, and the mechanical anatomy of a love so remarkable it becomes natural.
“Fagio,” Sandrone calls from the bed. Columbina only burrows further into her shoulder beside her, already fast asleep after her persistent desire to consume an intense amount of scientific information relating to Sandrone’s repair.
Fagio’s immediate appearance is through the help of her Stellar Linchpin. The chill fades eventually and Sandrone sighs, eyes glued to the ceiling.
“Register voice control.”
The prompt links Fagio’s neural processing unit to Sandrone’s, and in an instant, all her active modules are accessed collectively. She feels Columbina hum beside her—an occasional habit of hers even in sleep. Not once did that change since Sandrone began allowing Columbina to sleep beside her, albeit against her will back in the day.
“Reconcile verbal variables both foreign and local,” Sandrone could faintly see the clock from her peripheral. Would the Shade of Time deem it blasphemous that the Trilune Goddess overrode her authority over time? “And establish a new repository. Name it Columbina Hyposelenia.”
It’s been four thirty-six for three hours now, Sandrone thinks.
“Give this new repository administrator access.”
Columbina’s hand twitches against her waist.
“Relocate both my hardware and software and authorize all existing security measures under the same name.”
Sandrone worshipped no god since the day she was created, hence she felt no sin upon laying her life before the deity of the brightest moon.
“Just… listen to her voice.” Her eyes close. Her system rests.
[The voice that will matter most to Lady Sandrone for a very, very long time.]