you can call me kaija! i'm an adult (20+), and i prefer they/them pronouns.
currently:
reading where the dead brides gather by nuzo onoh (75%)
re-watching wotakoi: love is hard for otaku (10%)
listening to the stellar moments vol. 6 by hoyo-mix
playing skyrim
blog info
this is a smut-free blog! i don't write it, and i don't reblog it here. however, i do write dark content from time to time, though very occasionally. kindly take note of all content warnings before reading!
i write in gender-neutral reader by default. and sometimes, i also write original things.
i'm not taking requests any longer, but suggestions and chitchat are always welcome! ❤
you can also find me on ao3. and here's my carrd!
outside of zines, i only post my writing here and on ao3. if you see my work anywhere else, please let me know!
fandoms: black clover, dungeon meshi, fields of mistria, genshin impact, haikyuu!!, homicipher, jujutsu kaisen, kaiju no. 8, love and deepspace, mashle, pokémon, the summer hikaru died
a/n: i watched my brother help me to complete the daedric quest about cannibals in markarth for one of my unfinished skyrim playthroughs, and i thought it would be a nice backdrop for a sanbina fic!!!
fandom: genshin impact
pairing: sandrone & columbina
genre: general
info: mild skyrim au; set in teyvat; established relationship (sanbina are acquaintances from their time in the sumeru akademiya)
warnings: canon-divergent; descriptions of injury; mentions of cults; implications of cannibalism
synopsis: sandrone needs a cure for the wound in her chest.
word count: 2.0k
Sandrone & Columbina
Sandrone woke up with a start.
Though her bleary eyes remained half-closed, a quick scan of the room told her that she was in an unfamiliar place. Instinct moved her to pat herself down to check for the herbal remedy pouch at her belt, but she paused when she noticed the change in her attire. It was a relief that she was dressed, though a loosely tied sleep robe with bandages peeking out of the low, gaping neckline was hardly optimal. To make matters worse, the bandages circling her left shoulder and upper torso were clumsily applied at best.
She was awake enough to wonder about any injuries she had, but not awake enough to remember the room that she had been sleeping in. This was not the outstation in Tenochtzitoc where she had taken up residence for the past few years. It was too cold, and the air was much too dry.
The last of her recollections ended where she was stubbornly weathering the fickle snowstorms typical of Snezhnaya in a semi-desperate rush to its capital city from the port in Wavey Bay.
Something moved.
Out of the corner of her field of vision, Sandrone spotted what looked to be a pale-skinned person rousing from an armchair that's definitely seen better days. The stitching that held the patchwork upholstery of the chair was awkward, much like the bandages applied to her body. She was briefly distracted by the poor repair work done, before her attention went to the woman who finally stood up and then sauntered in the direction of the only window in the room.
The woman proceeded to watch the snowstorm outside, completely unaware of Sandrone's eyes on her back.
"Oi. You," Sandrone began, her voice as coarse and dry as sandpaper. With a clear of the throat, she continued. "Why have you brought me here?"
The woman began a round of stretches without a care in the world, as if Sandrone hadn't spoken to her. It prompted her to address the woman again, louder this time.
"I brought you in from the snowstorm. That's all," the woman said, after forcing Sandrone to wait as she let out one of the longest yawns ever. recorded in the recent history of Teyvat. "If you had continued sleeping where I left you, you would've been buried by the snow and died of suffocation. Or hypothermia. Perhaps both."
Sandrone made a sound of derision at that. Did this woman expect some repayment for it? Absolutely ridiculous. Obviously, she hadn't asked for help, which meant that she hadn't required it. An esteemed researcher and semi-seasoned adventurer like herself had no need of rescue, even in Snezhnaya's capricious weather conditions.
The woman yawned again, a shorter one this time, before she reached up and pulled the sleep bonnet off her head.
The indignant speech writing itself in Sandrone's head was cut short when she recognised that head of long, death-black hair ending in tips that were the same pinkish colour as the Cerulean Gems from her childhood. By Egeria's tits—
It was one of her underclassmen from her time at the Sumeru Akademiya.
"What do you want with me, Columbina?" Sandrone was grinding her teeth as she spoke. There wasn't much by way of interaction between her and her underclassman throughout her years in Sumeru, especially considering they were in different schools.
That, and Columbina had the most unrefined taste in company. It was easier to steer clear.
Sandrone felt the tension in her jaw growing as a series of recollections flashed through her mind. The research she had poured herself into was unfortunately outweighed by the time she wasted playing at tea parties with literally everyone else who was associated with the Akademiya.
"I was being a friend," was the other woman's explanation, though it made no sense to Sandrone.
There was no such amity between the two of them. Columbina's area of study was different from the one she was enrolled in. There was no overlap between her research and whatever it was that Columbina spent her Akademiya years doing, so the need for camaraderie was nonexistent.
"There's an unnatural smell of ash about you, Sandrone," Columbina continued, reseating herself on that patchwork armchair so that she could begin brushing her cumbersomely long hair. "I'm far from an expert in the Ashen Sea or its ghosts. But I know that this isn't a good smell. You might be dying, snowstorm or not."
Sandrone wanted to storm off and scream. It would be easier to, and it definitely came more naturally than having a conversation about a slippery truth she had been struggling to come to terms with, no matter how sure she thought her grip to be. Despite that, she couldn't move. Couldn't make noise and cause a scene. Not under that not too familiar but still overwhelmingly earnest gaze.
With her fists bunched up in the heavy woollen blanket pooled over her legs, Sandrone absolutely loathed to ask, "What's in it for you?"
The question hung in the air rather sourly. Even with her less than impressive social skills, Sandrone knew that it was the wrong thing to ask in a situation like this. Not that the Akademiya was any help whatsoever in equipping its graduates with the knowledge of navigating conversations about almost-death. The scholarly elite of Sumeru held fast to a certain doctrine that death in the pursuit of knowledge was a matchlessly noble thing. There was some truth to that, and occasionally, it was more true than others.
Columbina let out a sigh that was disproportionately meek for the situation as Sandrone evaluated it. Something about the other woman's docile manner had an oddly pacifying effect on Sandrone, and she banished the thought before it could take advantage of the pause to linger. How useless!
"I told you. I'm being a friend," Columbina said, with an air of finality.
Beyond any doubt, this was the singularly most uncomfortable conversation Sandrone has had the displeasure of being a participant in. She began to relax her grip on the blanket, only to needlessly clench her fists again, over and over and over. There was no amount of compulsory Akademiya social events that could have equipped her to handle this with the poise of a respected scholar.
The silence grew heavier than the blustering winter storm beating against the single window in the room. Sandrone managed to ask "Why?" after a moment. Because Columbina was an irritatingly unfathomable thing to her back when she was a student of the Akademiya, and until now, the other woman proved to remain as closed a book as any of the House of Daena's secrets.
"I take it you really are dying," Columbina said, the last word coming out most effortfully as her brush got stuck in a particularly stubborn tangle at the rosy ends of her hair.
Something about the word being spoken aloud and directed at Sandrone felt accusatory, and it made her jaw tight. Like a finger jabbed in her face from an impolitely close proximity, close enough for her to want to lean away to make room, but not nearly close enough for the tip of the nail to press into her skin. Sandrone resisted the incredibly tempting but useless urge to jump out of bed to snatch the brush from Columbina and toss it somewhere far away. Out of the window would've been her first instinct, actually.
"Well. It seems so." Sandrone spat out the confirmation through gritted teeth and locked jaw, the first admission of defeat.
There was still much research to be done. She hasn't yet uncovered the workings behind the abyssal energy disruption in the Mare Jivari, much less the odd phenomenon of time flowing aberrantly there. If she could understand it, she could possibly harness it to work for her. Like undoing this abyssal corruption she suffered whilst poking around where even the most hardened adventurers seldom trod. Death was simply not an option, despite how it loomed.
Columbina finally set the brush down in a far crevice of the armchair, leaning forward with the weight of her upper body bearing down on her knees. "I know a way to prolong life, but I'll need you to listen to me. Without interrupting and without judging. Can you promise me that much?" she asked.
There was something about her question that set Sandrone on edge, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck rising in alarm. It was reminiscent of the proclamations typical of those unsavoury peddlers of bogus miracle cures and counterfeit academic texts, gathered in salivating hordes outside Sumeru City limits to keep from breaking the laws against unlicensed merchants conducting business within the city.
Sandrone scoffed, rolling her eyes. How ridiculous. Even if she never had particularly high expectations of her underclassman in either research or conduct, this was far less scrupulous than anything she could've predicted spouting from her fellow Akademiya graduate's lips. How preposterous!
"I've done my share of visiting ruins in the name of research, as any student of the Akademiya, and I've been... wounded many times, even to the point of near-death. Like you." Columbina made a sweeping gesture at bandaged parts on Sandrone's body as she spoke, and Sandrone couldn't help a scowl coming over her features. The members of the Haravatat rarely ventured to ruins without ensuring some protection in the form of bodyguards from the Adventurer's Guild or the like. It sounded like a stream of lies, but Sandrone's interest was piqued enough for her to bite down on her tongue and listen on.
"I was saved by the Lady of Decay—"
The world shot up as Sandrone rushed to get on her feet. Just as sudden as her initial leap from the bed was how the world tilted and dragged Sandrone back onto the blanket that she had discarded. Even as her vision spun about her, she watched as Columbina moved towards her with an uncharacteristic urgency. The other woman approached her in her sprawl, bending to help her pick up her disobedient legs from the discoloured planks of the wooden floor and placing them on the bed.
"I don't care for any of this drivel that you seem to believe so strongly in, Columbina," Sandrone retorted. Even if her vision and her balance were slow to recover, her mind and mouth remained quick. "The Daedra are false gods, and I shan't have it. This information is useless to me."
Columbina leaned over Sandrone's recumbent form and began brushing back any unruly spirals of light brown hair. It felt like a strange thing to do, especially considering that her underclassmen had just attempted to recruit her into a cult for a false god and was promptly rejected. A cold sheen of sweat was starting to form at Sandrone's back.
As Columbina's hand made a third pass across Sandrone's face, the sight of a thick, ornamental gold ring on the other woman's thumb might as well have been a Ruin Hunter bisecting her.
Columbina wore the ring of Namira, and the ring sat proudly on her thumb, a mark of ownership more than any delusional nicety the other woman could dream up.
If Sandrone hadn't been so weakened from the abyssal wound in her chest, she would've been more perceptive of whatever machinations Columbina had in store for her. The gold ring thrummed with an abhorrent energy, more acute now that the cold metal had grazed her moistening hairline at least once in passing.
Only the champion of Namira was fit to wear such a trinket, the hungriest of the lot.
"I want to share this gift from my Lady with you, Sandrone," said Columbina. Her voice was as docile as it ever was, but her eyes were strange. Sandrone never noticed how pupilless those swirling pearlescent irises were, and how vacant. "One taste of flesh is all it takes, and you'll be free of whatever wound the Ashen Sea has inflicted on you. Doesn't that sound nice? It does sound nice, doesn't it?"
Next up on our contributor line-up, please welcome our amazing writer @purpleqilinwrites, who loves Sandbina because they scratch a very specific itch, their style featuring lyrical descriptions and varied pairings. 🧸
meeting your f/o bc they're the best fit for you when you go to the shelter to find an emotional support hybrid (your therapist recommended some sort of pet for companionship)
Am I the only one who thinks Nozel Silva is a cute Lee?
Seriously. SERIOUSLY. It's practically an obsession. I have about 30 headcanons of this guy, I've already created a bunch of scenes in my head and I'm still trying to draw him. In my head he's incredibly ticklish.
For all the folks who have been begging pleading asking for these in the inbox - behold. User @elikaruna is here to save you.
The instructions on adding such things to your AO3 profile are in the news post (at the bottom) - just replace the url in the example with the url of whichever other thing you are putting there. And probably change the alt text.
