Work Text:
It was a normal, peaceful evening until Sandrone caught sight of the kuuhenki.
She grit her teeth to stifle the scream that almost escaped her. This was just like before—now that Columbina had restored her strength from the two Moon Marrows, she was back to pestering Sandrone like an impudent child. Sighing, she dropped the parts of the Landcruiser she’d been repairing and turned to stick her nose right in the vicinity of the kuuhenki’s face, if she could even call it that.
“Why don’t you be an absolute dear and pass a message along to Columbina for me?” She paused to wait for the kuuhenki to give some sort of acknowledgement. It did not. “Tell her that I have much more important things to do than waste my time catering to her puerile whims.”
Sandrone turned back to the Landcruiser lying on the grass, its gears and servos strewn around it. Usually, she’d have one of her subordinates handle routine maintenance of the mechs, but all of those good-for-nothings had scattered to the wind the moment the clock struck 17:00, leaving her to deal with the work they couldn’t, or didn’t want to, complete today.
The thought of deserting the Fatui to hole up in a cave somewhere, just her and her research, was awfully tempting in times like these, if only to escape the annoyance of having to deal with people regularly. Whether it was that insolent Columbina requesting a specific tea blend or a random nobody asking for a spare part, Sandrone’s anger module never failed to activate when someone knocked on the door to her workshop. She’d always thought Columbina should go hang out with that kid Tartaglia more instead. After all, Sandrone had never seen him not itching for a fight, and she probably never would—perhaps Columbina wouldn’t pester her so much if she could use some of that energy to put Tartaglia and his awful ego back in his place.
But it was all just pointless hypotheticals, anyway. Especially the thought of leaving the Fatui. Giving up her position as the Seventh of the Fatui Harbingers would mean giving up the funding, the influence, the power the Fatui had that allowed her to conduct research on this scale in the first place. And if there was something Sandrone wouldn’t ever let herself do, it was to throw away a golden opportunity because of wanting a home or belonging or some sentimental drivel like that.
Columbina must have sent a patient kuuhenki today—even with her back turned, Sandrone could still hear it moving about in that annoying way they all did. And knowing Columbina, she would probably let the kuuhenki tail Sandrone all the way back to her quarters if she didn’t follow it to wherever Columbina wanted her to be.
Sandrone shut the door to the Landcruiser’s control panel and stood up, brushing her dress off. “Fine. Just take me there. And you had better make this quick.”
They arrived at the small strip of beach southwest of the Kuuvahki Experimental Design Bureau. Across the sea, the cliffs of Hiisi Island stood tall against the wind, and Columbina looked out to them from the shoreline, the wispy train of her dress blowing about in the breeze. Sandrone marched over as best as she could, considering she had to yank each heel out of the sand with every step.
“What. In the name of the Tsaritsa. Are we doing on the beach.”
Columbina’s lips curled up into a smile. “I’m going swimming.”
Sandrone could feel her anger module activating again. “Did you leave your intelligence behind when you ran away? Surely you aren’t so stupid as to believe I’m going to go swimming with you.”
“Hmm.” Columbina began to wade into the water. “I can’t have company when I get bored?”
Sandrone wanted to point out a million things wrong with this arrangement, but then the entirety of Columbina’s gaudy headpiece disappeared beneath the surface, the waves smoothing out where her head had been. Five, fifteen, thirty seconds passed before it finally occurred to Sandrone that she could just turn around and—
“Where are you going, Sandrone?”
She sighed, crossing her arms. “You just love wasting my time, don’t you? Not surprising at all, considering the only thing you know how to do is nothing. Hmph, you really haven’t changed one bit.”
A pause. Then, “The Traveler recently told me about how she went diving in Fontaine.”
“And how does that concern me, exactly?”
“She visited the Institute of Natural Philosophy.”
Sandrone turned back around before her neural network had even registered the action. “What was she doing there?”
“Exploring. She uncovered many relics from that time. Notes, research logs, reports… She even visited the Tower of Ipsissimus. According to her, that place is no more now.”
“And—and how was she able to do that?”
Columbina bobbed up and down in the water. “Most of it flew over my head. But there were other… entities with her. Seymour and Caterpillar.”
Seymour, she was plenty familiar with, but Alain Guillotin had never mentioned a Caterpillar before. The closest match Sandrone could retrieve was Alain’s research assistant Carter, but he would be long dead by now—although, considering the Traveler’s track record, anything could be possible if she were involved. But that was irrelevant at the moment, so Sandrone filed the thought away for later.
“Afterwards, I thought of the questions you once asked me,” Columbina continued. “Do you still remember them?”
Why would I forget, Sandrone did not say. Not only was she capable of storing hundreds of years’ worth of memories, but she had also, at one point, moved all Columbina-related data to the deepest part of her core. She thought of the Columbina of years past, perched on one of her workshop’s tables, her long overcoat draped over her form like folded wings.
I don’t admire Rene, Columbina had said then. His dream of salvation meant nothing in the face of reality. The destruction he wrought, the people he harmed… they negated any good intentions he had. He was foolish to have been blind to that.
Sandrone had then asked if the desire to save oneself was enough of a justification to try to save the world, to which she had responded with a quiet I don’t know.
“My answer to your first question has not changed,” said Columbina. “But I found my answer to your second question—it is not enough. Because… when I met the Traveler and everyone else, I saw that they wanted to save the world because they loved it. Therefore, each one of their actions was motivated by their love for the world and the people within it.” She paused, gathering a breath. “The same cannot be said of Alain and Rene. It was inevitable that their judgment would be clouded.”
“I’m so moved,” Sandrone remarked, but it lacked its usual snark. “What’s next, you want to start roleplaying as a philosopher now?”
A small, sad smile played at the corners of Columbina’s mouth, and she swirled her finger idly in the moonlit waters, watching the movement stir up waves. “The time to do any of that… has come and gone.”
“What?”
Columbina rose from the water, her hair and dress trailing behind her as if they had never been wet at all. She came to stand in front of Sandrone, bringing the scent of something that Sandrone could only describe as cold. “This world will not tolerate me much longer. The moon beckons me home, and I must answer its call.”
Despite herself, Sandrone could not keep the gears in her chest from catching, just for a moment, before they returned to their usual function. Alain, Rosalyne, Capitano, and now Columbina—it was an inevitability she knew well, one that came with having an indefinite lifespan. But why did this time feel different?
“The moon will be closest to Teyvat on Moon-Prayer Night, and the kuuvahki will reach its peak,” Columbina continued, either oblivious to or ignoring the faint clicking in Sandrone’s chest. She could not decide which she wanted to be true. “But before then, I hope you and the Traveler get the chance to exchange insights.”
“Ha! I am not fraternizing with an—an imbecile like her. And especially not with that annoying sprite following her around.”
Columbina didn’t respond. Her fingers, gentle as water, slid down Sandrone’s wrist, and before Sandrone had realized, Columbina’s lips were brushing the shell of her ear. A ghost of a kiss.
“Then, who else will be left to remember the truth?”
And before she could issue a retort, Columbina had already pulled away.
Without Sandrone noticing, a Moonlane had appeared on the water, and Columbina finally dropped her wrist to step toward it. She let out a soft breath. “The kuuhenki are growing restless without me. But… I had fun today.”
Well, I didn’t, Sandrone wanted to say. But the words seemed to stick in her throat, and all she could do was watch Columbina disappear into the horizon.
It was not a long way back to the Kuuvahki Experimental Design Bureau; ten minutes of walking and a few swipes of her ID card, and Sandrone was back in her quarters, amidst the sounds of her machines whirring and Pulonia moving about. She would have to perform maintenance before entering hibernation mode later lest her gears stick even more, but until then, she would continue tinkering with a Secret Source automaton that one of her grunts had picked up in Natlan.
As loath as she was to admit it, she had made quite a comfortable life for herself even away from Snezhnaya—a stark contrast from some of her colleagues, and especially from the group that Columbina now called her friends. But unlike them, Sandrone had been programmed to preserve her own lifespan above all else. To deviate from that logic, to leave her life behind and step into the role of ‘savior’ like Alain and Rene had, would be to violate the rules that had caused her very existence.
Thus, Sandrone was glad to assist, glad to lend her automatons to fight that admittedly wretched Rächer of Solnari, but it would take a miracle for her to even consider putting her life on the line for anything.
…But then again, a lot of miracles had happened since the Traveler’s arrival in Nod-Krai.
It was getting late. Maintenance would take an hour, and she would need eight hours of hibernation afterward to recalibrate. It would be illogical to waste her processing power pondering irrelevant concepts like Sinners and moons and false skies—that burden was best left to the organic beings, the Moon Goddesses and Descenders of this world, the ones who had power they could truly call their own.
For what business did a mere Marionette, strung along at the whims of others, have meddling with fate?