Feb 15, 2020
It’s been a long time. I guess I should finally post the page I did for the Sinja zine; Gladiole. The theme was “remembrance.” I absolutely adored working on this. I’d like to do more things like it in the future.
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It’s been a long time. I guess I should finally post the page I did for the Sinja zine; Gladiole. The theme was “remembrance.” I absolutely adored working on this. I’d like to do more things like it in the future.
since pre-orders for the sinja zine close a week from today, i thought i’d share a gif of my progress for the front cover! it was the biggest challenge i’d undertaken until that point, and it was an amazing learning experience!
a lot of love and planning has gone into this zine, so please consider pre-ordering!
The store will close permanently on April 1st. If you want the sinja zine, make sure to order before then.
We have 2 physical copies left edit: Physical copies sold out. Thank you all so much!
or get a PDF only version
My SinJa zine finally arrived today, and I gained a new confidence in my piece so... On a new account, here’s some love for the staff and artists/writers who made the @sinjazine possible!!! It turned out amazing!!! 💜💖💚
My submission for the Sinja Zine Writer’s Contest. I only found out about the contest yesterday and realized that the deadline is really soon! So with what little time there was I cobbled this together. Hope you enjoy it! ^-^
Prompt:
Their footsteps echoed through the hallway as Sinbad and Ja’far made their way towards the Black Libra Tower.
“I wonder what kind of project it is that has Yamuraiha locking herself up in her study. I’m actually getting a bit worried.” Ja’far told Sinbad as they reached the doors.
“One way to find out. Either way it has to stop.” Sinbad sighed and knocked on the door. “Yamuraiha, are you in there?”
“Just a minute, Your Majesty. I’m at a very delicate par-” A shriek came through the walls soon followed by glass being shattered. Smoke started pouring through the gaps of the wooden door frame, Sinbad and Ja’far shared one look before storming into the room.
“Yamuraiha!”
Within moments the purple tinged smoke began to dissipate revealing a cluttered work bench and an otherwise empty room. After sharing a confused look two dropped their fighting stances and began to examine the room. Ja’far immediately made for the desk, careful not to disturb any of the bubbling beakers that remained intact. Sinbad moved to examine another table of equipment. Moving gingerly Ja’far reached out a hand to brush some glass away from what looked to be Yamuraiha’s notes, when a small “I’m here,” stopped him. A soft cough and rustling papers revealed a four inch tall but otherwise unharmed Yamuraiha.
Sinbad turned on his heel moving toward the desk, “Yamu!”
“Wait!” The tiny blue haired woman shrieked.
Another cloud of purple tinged smoke filled the room as Sinbad’s foot came down crushing one remaining unbroken glass beads that had fallen to the floor. His vision went dark a dizzying feeling set in followed by a strong rush of nausea. Blinking and shaking his head lightly to clear it, he found himself face to face with a wooden column. That didn’t make sense. Letting his gaze travel upwards he began to understand his predicament. Sinbad, High King of the Seven Seas now stood only half a foot tall and that wooden column was the leg of Yamuraiha’s work bench.
“Sin?” Sinbad tilted his head up and smiled at his advisor, Ja’far must have gotten caught in the blast too. The white haired parliamentary official was peering down over the edge of the bench at his king with a flustered Yamuraiha at his side.
After a few minutes and a something of a climb later, Sinbad sat on the desk’s empty inkwell. “What happened?”
The tiny witch clutched a quill between both hands and wrinkled her nose in frustration, “I was working on a spell that was supposed to shrink things, like the goods we ship. I thought we could increase how much cargo one of our ships could hold if we could shrink the items before loading them.”
“That would actually be a really useful spell. Very clever Yamu,” Sinbad nodded approvingly and smiled.
Ja’far turned from where he’d been examining the magician’s copious, although somewhat scattered notes with a slight frown, “The more pressing matter is whether you can reverse this or not. We can’t run a country like this.”
Yam smiled a little at this, her frustration easing some, “I dropped most of what I made when I shrank and but by the looks of you, some of the capsules must have remained intact. Let’s look around; maybe a few of the antidotes survived the fall.” A short search turned up only two unbroken ‘antidote capsules’, now more the size of a ball than a bead.
Ja’far held one out to Sinbad and the other out to Yamuraiha, “Here, we cannot have a country without a king, not even for a short time and,” he cast a glance at the blue haired witch, “I imagine it will be easier to make more antidote if you are proportional to your equipment.”
Yamuraiha bit her lip but nodded in agreement, “That does sound like a wise course of action. Sinbad, sit on the edge before you break the capsule or I fear we might so even more damage to the lab.” A green tinted smoke accompanied by the faint smell of apples and a rush of dizziness left a restored King and Magician looking down at the small white haired advisor standing among the broken fragments of glassware and papers on the work table.
“How long will it take you to make more of this antidote?”
Yamuraiha quickly took stock of her work space, “The distillation process is a long and complicated one requiring that specific piece of glassware,” indicating a spiral tube laying on the floor in four different pieces, “It will take me a few days once I am able to find another.”
Sighing deeply, hands on his hips, Sinbad nodded, “Alright, get to it then. Ja’far,” He reached down and scooped up the tiny general with one strong tanned arm, “you’ll be coming with me until we get this sorted out.”
“Sin! Put me down! I don’t want people to see me like this!” Ja’far struggled in the king’s grasp before giving up, with his current height it would take him forever to get anywhere on his own.
Quickly putting Ja’far behind his back, Sinbad flagged a servant, “Please have a meal sent to my rooms, I’ll be eating in there tonight.”
“Of course my king.”
“I don’t see why I can’t stay in my own room tonight,” Ja’far grumbled from atop one of the many overstuffed pillows that adorned the king’s bed while Sin fiddled with a silk handkerchief.
“It will be safer for you if you are with me, someone could step on you, and besides you’ve never complained about sharing a room with me before. Here,” Sinbad handed the handkerchief over, he’d knotted the corners in such a way that it could act as makeshift garment, “I figure it’s better than sleeping in your robes.”
With a wry smile Ja’far took the proffered garment. Carefully folding his official robes he placed them on the bedside table and climbed back on top of the (now) massive pillow. “Try to get some sleep, Sin. We still have work tomorrow.”
“I know,” Sin slipped beneath the covers and all but curled around Jafar’s pillow.
The next morning Jafar awoke tangled in a mess of silky purple hair and stuck beneath Sinbad’s hand. “It’s time to get up, my king.” The sleeping man stirred slightly but remained sleep or at least pretending to be asleep making Ja’far rolled his eyes. “Sin, you’ve got to get up now or you’ll be late for the meeting with the diplomat from Sassan.” Sinbad gave a heavy sigh and curled deeper into the pillows. “Seriously Sin?” Jafar grabbed a fistful of purple hair and gave a sharp tug. “Come on, at least let me up.”
“Okay, okay,” Sinbad yawned and stretched sending Ja’far sliding down the pillow and onto the covers, earning himself a biting glare.
The day progressed decently smoothly, the two going from meeting to meeting with Ja’far tucked into Sinbad’s arm. Eventually Jafar took to sitting on his shoulder with one small hand holding onto a golden hoop earring for stability, this way he could give the king advice easily during meetings without having to flag the man down or yell up to him from the table. Thankfully the day was light in the matters of foreign affairs and no one really seemed to notice him, Ja’far thought to himself shaking his small head.
“Sin?” The tiny advisor tugged lightly on said earring. “Why did you pass my office? I have work today too.”
Not even slowing, Sinbad chuckled, “I figured we can work in my office, fewer prying eyes and that way I can keep an eye on you.” Before Ja’far could protest Sinbad waved over a passing parliamentary official. “Please bring all of Jafar’s work to my office.”
“Yes sir,” with that the official picked up his pace and began calling out to another parliamentary official for help.
From his perch on Sinbad’s shoulder Ja’far heard, “Wait he wants all of it?”
“What?” Sinbad stood in the doorway of his office with his mouth hanging open. Scrolls were piled on his desk, the floor next to the desk, and the nearby end table.
“Well you asked them to bring all of my work here.”
The king shot his advisor a very concerned and slightly horrified look. “I know you do a lot, but wow.”
With another heavy sigh and some effort Ja’far tied a second scroll shut and glanced at the large pile of work he still had to do. The first two documents he just had to read over but the rest required editing and writing, with the quill being almost as tall as he was, this was going to be something of a struggle. Dusting off his hands and squaring his shoulders, he leaned down and pulled at the stopper on the inkwell.
“Would you like some help?” The tall purple haired man watched Ja’far over the top of his own scroll.
“No.” Ja’far tugged again to no effect.
Sinbad made to get up from his chair, “Ja’far—”
“I can handle i- ugh!” Another strong tug not only removed the stopper from the inkwell but also sent Ja’far backwards onto his rear, usually pristine cream robes now covered in ink. He sat there silently fuming as Sinbad got up and moved around the room. After a few minutes he scooped Ja’far up in one arm and carried the still fuming six inch tall general into the bathing chamber. On a side table Sinbad filled a small basin with warm water and wordlessly set the small man next to it. If nothing else, Sinbad knew when his friend needed some space. He then set about bathing himself, relaxing in the scented water, savoring the heat.
“Sin?”
“Yes, Ja’far?”
“…nevermind.”
“Alright.”
After scrubbing as much of the ink off his arms and out of his hair as he could, Ja’far toweled himself off and pulled on his makeshift sleeping attire. Only a few more days, he thought to himself as Sinbad deposited him onto the large pillow. Sinbad padded around the room for a few minutes, cleaning up their workspaces and snuffing some of the candles. He slid into bed, rolled onto his side to face Ja’far but found the man curled on his side facing away, watching a candle flicker, seemingly lost in his thoughts.
“Ja’far.” After a few moments of silence, Sinbad moved closer essentially curling around the pillow, watching the candle light play on silver hair. “Ja’far, what’s wrong?”
The slim man curled tighter into himself, “Why do you keep me around? I’m useless to you like this.”
“It’s only been a few days and we know that Yamuraiha has a cure, for once,” The king smiled wryly at that last thought.
Ja’far only sighed, “But anything could happen, tensions with the Kou are higher than ever and the trade embargo with Balbad, well that, that could escalate at any moment.”
Sinbad let his general rant on for a while before carefully tucking some silver hair behind an ear, “Ja’far, I need you by my side, always.” He leaned down, kissed Ja’far’s head and blew out the candle. “Please don’t ever forget that,” he whispered as he draped his arm loosely over the pillow.
The next few days dragged on slowly for poor Ja’far. Less work getting done, more work piling up, more sitting around unable to do much for himself, and far too much time alone with his thoughts. One afternoon he sat on Sin’s desk, trying to go over a minor expense report when a fierce wave of nausea hit him, groaning he held his head in his hands.
“Ja’far? What’s wrong?” Sinbad was hovering in an instant, unsure what to do, should he call for help? He settled with picking up the tiny man and holding him close as one would a child. Ja’far’s vision began to swim, why was the room spinning? Once the nausea and dizziness subsided he found himself held close to a warm well-muscled chest and his cheek resting against Sinbad’s shoulder. He was back to his normal size.
“Ja’far?”
“That…was unpleasant.”
Sin laughed hugging Ja’far closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “It’s good to have you back.”
“Yamuraiha should really consider lengthening the duration of that spell, especially if she wants us to use it on goods coming from Imuchak.”
Sinbad laughed again, “All business,” he hugged Ja’far again, “Well, that means you’re no worse for wear.”
A soft knock came at the door, “King Sinbad?”
“Speak of her and she shall appear. Come in Yamu.” Ja’far scrambled to get out of Sinbad’s grasp and out of his lap but the king had no intention of letting go.
“I’ve finally finished – oh. It’s good to see you back to normal Ja’far.” Her smile quickly turned into a frown, “I guess I will need to work on the spell’s duration, that isn’t nearly enough time. Oh, but it worked out well in this case! If you’ll excuse me I have some work to do.”
The rest of the afternoon and evening went normally, with Ja’far finishing reviewing the stack of documents that had been brought to the king’s chambers and Sinbad doing all that he usually does (or doesn’t do). As the evening turned to night Ja’far straightened the desk, dimmed the candles and moved towards the door bidding Sin good night.
“Ja’far?” Sin called from the bed as the pale man reached for the door.
“Yes?”
“Come here for a moment, will you?”
Ja’far padded over to the bedside,“Wh-mph!” As soon as he was within reach, Sinbad wrapped him in a hug and pulled him onto the bed.
“What are you doing Sin?”
“I told you, I need you by my side, always.”
~Fin~
Thank you for reading! I think I might call it “Honey, I shrunk the General.” because “Sinbad, I shrunk the Generals,” popped into my head for some reason and inspired this. Thank you @sinjazine for putting this all together!
Sinja Zine Writer’s contest
Their footsteps echoed through the hallway as Sinbad and Ja’far made their way towards the Black Libra Tower.
“I wonder what kind of project it is that has Yamuraiha locking herself up in her study. I’m actually getting a bit worried.” Ja’far told Sinbad as they reached the doors.
“One way to find out. Either way it has to stop.” Sinbad sighed and knocked on the door. “Yamuraiha, are you in there?”
“Just a minute, Your Majesty. I’m at a very delicate par-” A shriek came through the walls soon followed by glass being shattered. Smoke started pouring through the gaps of the wooden doorframe and Sinbad and Ja’far shared one look before storming into the room.
Quickly Ja’far and SInbad had breached the door to Yamurahai’s study, arming themselves incase they needed to fight with Ja’far clutching tightly to his dart daggers and Sinbad grasping the handle of his sword. They scanned the room that was still filled with heavy black smoke, unable to make any shapes out at all.
“Yamuraiha!” Sinbad called out to the choking cloud, “Are you hurt?”
Squinting his eyes, Ja’far was able to barely make out a shape close to the ground. Surely it was Yamuraiha as he could hear her coughing from the mass. “Sin! There she is.” Thanks to the windows having been smashed out by the explosion’s shockwaves, the smoke had begun to start clearing out as the king and advisor rushed over to the young magician, assuming that she had been hurt since she still failed to rise to her feet.
“Yamuraiha! Are you-,” Sinbad stopped as he placed a hand on her shoulder. Instead of feeling her smooth fabric and draping hair, he felt a rough, scaly texture under his fingertips and pulled back. Ja’far couldn’t restrain his gasp opf shock as well.
“Yamuraiha... You’re... You’re...”
She wheezed for air in between her coughs, “I’m -cough- I’m what Ja’far? T-tell me please!”
“Herm... Yamuraiha,” Sinbad started, “Before we let you see, I just want to start off with by saying that you’re still the most lovely general that I had the honor with-erm- I mean, you’re the best general of all of Sindria-”
Ja’far scowled at him. “Sin, you’re not helping!”
Now she was panicking. “What is the king talking about?! I-is something on my face?!”
“N-no-no... It’s not that- it’s -uh..” While Sinbad had tried to come up with a way to admit the truth to her, Yamuraiha had already made her way to the nearest mirror with most of the shattered glass intact.
And let out a loud scream.
“My face! My body! I’m- I’m a hideous TURTLE!” she wailed.
“Er, tortoise actually, but you are a beautiful-aack!” Ja’far elbowed Sinbad in his ribcage hard.
“Yamuraiha, what was it that you were trying to create anyways?” he asked, trying his best to ignore Sinbad’s childish pout and calm Yamuraiha down.
“Ja’far, this is terrible. I was following a recipe I found that supposedly is the potion of long life and eternal youth. I thought I could create it and we could sell it for a profit,” she craned her wrinkled neck side to side to examine herself and pawed her face with the huge tortoise foot. “ I can’t be seen around the palace like this! And Sharrkan! I can’t have him see me like this! It’s enough that he calls me an old hag all the time, I’m never going to hear the end of this when he finds out I have turned into an old turtle too!”
“You know, if it’s any conciliation to you, at least you succeeded in that ‘long life’ part of the potion, after all, tortoises live for a very long time!”
“Sin!” his advisor barked, turning quickly back to Yamuraiha, “Yamuraiha, is there anything we can do to help you fix this?”
“Y-Yeah, there is a simple cure for this, and I had it but it fell into the mixture by accident and caused... this.”
“Well, do you have access to this cure then still?” Ja’far inquired, glancing over at her table. the explosion evidently occurred on the table since phials were shattered, plant material was scorched, and liquid spilled on the floor.
The sun was still hovering high over the blue sky as Ja’far and Sinbad made their way into the forest next to their palace, having not only been unable to coax Yamuraiha out of her room, admittedly they wouldn’t have been able to carry her out to the forest unless they got Masrur involved. They ventured through the tall trees, keeping their eyes up high on the tree branches for any sign of the bright blue flower that Yamuraiha needs.
“Ja’far, you sure we cannot use the ones that are on the floor already?” Sinbad frowned, looking at the wilted petals that laid strewn about the forest grounds.
The young man shook his head.”She said specifically it had to be freshly picked and the full potency lasts for only 3 hours after that, so she will need it as soon as she can so she could just chew on the petals and turn back to normal.”
Ja’far continued to look up at the tree branches and sighed,”But the PauPau flowering season has ended so that’s why it’s hard to find any flowers right now. While I admire her for thinking about Sindria’s economy, she should have held that experiment off until the beginning of the flower season so she could have no problems with finding a remedy so quickly.” Suddenly Ja’far frowned as he realized something, “Unless she meant to use it on herself and wasn’t really keeping Sindria in mind,” he added bitterly.
“I don’t see anything wrong with being a tortoise for a year, besides the name-calling from Sharrkan, I think it’s a great vacation.”
Ja’far stared at his king. “Then who’s going to power our protective barrier over Sindria, Sin?”
“Point taken,” the king laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head before looking up again. Then his golden eyes went wide as he stopped. “Look! There’s one right there! But it’s so high up.”
He was right, this flower was growing on the highest branch of the tree, nearly blending in with the sky. The small advisor studied the tree branches, determining which ones he could safely leap on. “It’s OK Sin, I think I can reach it.”
“Oh, are you sure Ja’far-kun?” He leaped up to the closest tree branch before Sin could finish asking Ja’far. As Ja’far leapt up swiftly from branch to branch, Sinbad couldn’t help but watch in awe, it was as if he was almost flying up the tree the king thought to himself. Then finally, Ja’far landed on the last tree limb he knew could hold his weight, glancing up at the flower.
It was so close, but yet the petals swayed gently in the sea breeze just way out of his reach. Not a problem, he thought to himself, holding a dagger in his hand and with a flick of his wrist and precise aim, threw it at the stem of the flower. With a successful swipe, the flower was slashed from the tree.
However, Ja’far failed to notice the large papagoras bird that just happened to be perched behind the flower. The brightly coloured bird let out a loud squawk as the dagger flew by it and nicked some feathers off its chest as it flapped its wings wildly to get away. Then it turned it sight on the former assassin.
“Ja’far!” Sinbad shouted out to him, watching as the advisor quickly tried to descend from the tree branch, diving down from one tree branch to another as the angry papagoras bird chased him. Ja’far tried to swat the bird away as it flapped its wings into his face and ducked to avoid the pecks with that powerful broad beak it had. Losing balance, Ja’far tumbled down to the next limb and wheezed as his body hit the branch hard enough to knocked the air out of him, yet he still managed to scramble up to his feet and regain footing on the branch. Taking the advantage of the tree’s smaller branches blocking the squawking bird above him, he peered down to see how far from the forest ground he already was. It was tempting, he admitted, to leap down to the ground in one jump, but even he knew he was far too high up in the tree to fall without taking some damage to his feet.
“Ja’far! Look out!”
Ja’far side-stepped quickly just as the bird dove at him, smashing into the trunk of the tree with his powerful beak. In his panic, Ja’far realized he stepped off the tree and begun to fall towards the ground back first. He could see the bird turn around and make another attempt to dive at him again, however, a bright blue flash of lightning cracked dangerously close past Ja’far. He felt the raw, pure energy from the lightning as the electricity made all of the hair on his head and arms stand on their ends from the sheer power it had. The sound deafen his ears so while he could not hear the papagoras shriek out its final cry, he could see the offending bird become fried by his magic attack. Ja’far snapped out of his trance at seeing the bird to realize he was still falling and closed his eyes tightly in hopes that the impact to the ground wouldn’t hurt so much when suddenly.
Whump!- he landed in a pair of strong, scaly arms and he knew that Sinbad had taken on his Baal equip. “So much for being an assassin Ja’far-kun,” he teased as he floated down to the forest floor, “I think you’re losing your touch.”
Ja’far allowed his king to set him down on his feet before he puffed up his cheeks and crossed his arms. “My line of work didn’t include being chased by a bird that could smash boulders with its beak you know!” he argued.
Just as Sinbad changed back to his normal self, he reached up and plucked the flower that was still drifting down from tree and held it up to Ja’far’s face, smiling. This wasn’t his normal suave grin though, Ja’far noticed. Rather it was.. much more softer, warm like the Sindria sun and very sincere he noted. “I was worried when I saw you fell you know, would this flower suffice as an apology for not getting to you sooner, Ja’far-kun?”
He gazed into his eyes a little longer, but realizing how foolish he must looked, Ja’far looked away. “I’m afraid I can’t accept Yamuraiha’s cure, Sin. After all, if you forgot already, she needs it more than I do.”
“Oh,” Sinbad rubbed his head again, clearly he had indeed forgot about the whole reason why they were in the forest. “That’s right. Well,” he lifted up the leg of the roasted papagoras bird and called after the young assassin that had begun to walk away back to the palace, “Then how about dinner? We have a nice roast Papagoras bird for you to enjoy.”
“If you finished your work, my King,” Ja’far said as he stopped and looked back at Sinbad, “Then perhaps I’ll consider it.”
Sinbad pouted. “You’re no fun Ja’far-kun.”
Ja’far stopped once again, then looked back at Sinbad. He tried to hold his steely glare at him, but he could tell that was being sincere this time as noted by how he wanted to gift him the last PauPau flower of the entire forest, so he smiled faintly. “Alright Sin, just for tonight I guess we can put off your work again. Now come on, Yamuraiha is probably furious we’re taking this long to bring her back her cure-.” He was slightly caught off guard as Sinbad grasped his hand and held it tightly.
“Thank you Ja’far-kun! Our first date! i’m so excited.”
“Yeah,” Ja’far smiled, holding his hand back as they both made their way to the palace, “Our first date with a bird that tried to kill me.”
“Well, I mean,” Sinbad stammered, but Ja’far laughed.
“I was joking Sin, I can’t wait.”
The zines have arrived. Now that we have everything we can start shipping. Get excited!
Sinja zine store update
Dear sinja fans, I will be adding the pdf for sale next week on the tictail store. The reason it has taken us so long is partially to do with that the store we use is a tictail store and tictail plans to move to Shopify and will disband all stores on April 1st. We’re still debating whether we will move the pdf zines to another site then but for the next few months, they will still be on the tictail store. I also have about 5-6 physical copies of the zine left. they will also join the store in the time it’s still online.