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Jean writhed her calloused wrists against the material strapping them together, receiving a small shock of elemental energy to course through her. Swallowing the pain, she continuously thrashed her wrists into the grainy floor beneath her, wincing so tightly that her eyes crinkled.
The adrenaline had worn off a while ago, allowing her mind to clamour with pain and let her aches react accordingly. Her limbs felt like they had been flash-burned with acid, bruised almost as black and purple as the dimly lit violet walls that trapped her. With every shake of her wrists, she kept her eyes shut tight for several reasons. One, because of how tightly she had to clench every muscle in faulty attempts to ease the pain she was inflicting on herself, and two, in the back of her mind the fear of opening her eyes and seeing her wrists flesh decaying and bloody terrified her.
Yes, her lower back was replicating the pain of a stake impaling it, and her chest felt like it had been drilled with an ice-cold magnum. Albeit no pain could compare to the pain in her wrists.
Jean knew it was inconsequential to even attempt to rid the clunky chain fused with abyss poison from her wrists, and even if she miraculously managed to accomplish such, it wasn’t like she’d be able to escape. She lacked any weapon, and her body was so feeble that even taking a step would make her body feel like a pillar crumbling.
Finally, Jean couldnt repeess it anymore. With every bit of strength she had left, she drew her arms back and slammed her wrists into the wall she was slouched upon, the sickening crunch that was produced ringing in her ears.
Pain.
A blood-curdling scream fled from the womans lips, her eyes opening, glossed with tears.
Despite the image set before her, of her mangled wrists twisted in the incorrect way, bruised so badly that her pale skin ended where her wrists began.
“My goodness, you’re going to kill yourself before I can even do it myself.”
The chain was still tightly clenched around her limp wrists, having not even budged. The combination of poison filling her veins and her decaying wrists were enough to make Jean edge unconsciousness.
Anyone else would be unconscious, sleeping away in a deep pain-induced coma… maybe even dead.
“Lord Barbatos… hear my prayers.” Jean whispered under the coat of pain her voice scratched under, sounding like her vocal chords were rubbing against sandpaper.
“oh, dear acting grand master… there is no mythical anemo god coming to sweep you into his loving arms, to cradle you back into mondstadt and prance the dandelion fields with the little sparknight and the darknight hero.”
the mocking voice finally meshed its way through her eardrums, her attention being sheathed by ‘sparknight’.
klee.. was she here?
“don’t you dare… don’t touch her.”
there was a pause, as if something had hurt whoever was speaking to her. jean lifted her head, feeling like she was balancing a bowling ball on her neck. her arms felt limp in their sockets, which included her shoulders, so her head banged against the wall against her.
she forced her eyes open, hatred beaming in the knights gaze, expecting to see a foe in her blurry vision.
to her unamusement, nobody was towering over her. hell, nobody was even in her premise.
“of course that’s all you care about. the dandelion knight and her precious little red riding hood.” the voice cut the thick air like a knife, jeans words striking a nerve. “that and mondstadt.”
jeans half-closed lids suddenly sprung wider.
mondstadt.
was mondstadt okay?
her memories were so, so hazy.
She remembered the war ground. The clinking and clanking of her sword, the sound of it slacking air back and fourth. The injurys that covered the dead, and the dandelion seeds being blown along the wind, hovering about bodies of thousands of knights, lectors, and heralds.
while klee was a knight, she was too young to be deployed on a warground. that would be inhumane. instead of fighting alongside her fellow favonius knights, she was under the supervision of Albedo and Lisa, who had migrated to a safer and more discrete location. This eased her worries, she couldn’t… she couldn’t lose another that was close to her.
Regret started to ache more than the pain wiring her every limb did. The dandelion knight started to think about it again. No, she could never let Klee or anyone she held close fight another battle again. Not after what happened.
She hated how she conformed to the safety of her and the knights instead of breaching the code this once. The bloody tale of genocide that hijacked her only memory and replayed over and over like a broken record. It felt like a curse.
She didn’t know why she did it. Maybe it was the heat of battle, or disbelief of such a thing could ever happen. She would never let someone so close to her just die, even if Mondstadt was on the line… right?
…
Jean was wrong.
Her mind was so keen to funding her loyalty to a place more than a person.
That was why she couldn’t let klee get in harms way, she couldn’t have more blood raining from her fingertips of someone dear to her. When reality sunk in, and so did her current atmosphere, Jean realized she had her wrists infront of her, her brittle bones somehow managing to lift them while she was off in her own memory. That sick and twisted memory that would forever haunt her.
The bleak glow of a pyro abyss mage shone into the barless cell Jean was enclosed in, letting in a slim shaft of light that ever so slightly one-upped the burning flames from the fire pits. It halted about five feet from Jean, a pause of silence following, before slow footsteps began to follow in its trail.
Click. Click. Click.
Where had Jean heard such a… recognizable noise before? Her mind was too scattered to recognize the harsh voice, but those footsteps… so light. Somehow emitting the sound of gracefully dragging feet on a stormcloud, instead of the bricked pavement that the floor was.
“why couldn’t you have had that kind of mindset with me, Acting Grand Master?”
Jean connected the dots, time slowing as she did. Her line of vision was anything but straight, but the figure that turned the corner in the abyss mages trail was one Jean could recognize in an instant. For a moment, all of Jeans pain was rinsed from her. She felt like she could stand, as if all her wounds had suddenly healed and…
she could move her wrists.
Though the chain was still piercing her skin as if it was made of paper, the color in her skin had returned and the aching was diminished.
“For Mondstadts infamous Dandelion knight, you are quite stupid. You wield a sword, do you not? Why would you purposely destroy what you bare your weapon with?”
Her vision lifted from her wrists to what stood beside the abyss mage, her heart leaping from her toes to her chest.
“Barbara?”
Before her, stood a dream from an Irish glen. Buttermilk was woven to make a blemishless complexion on the girls skin, framed with honey hair held in tight pigtails but loose bangs. Her sun-kissed lips were firmly pressed into a frown, scowling downward at who she once referred to as ‘sister’. Even in the dim light, Barbaras hair glowed just as bright as the golden heart she has.
Or, rather, once had.
Her heart had been adulterated with more than just abyss poison. The betrayal had spawned hatred for the one she once held most preciously to, rotting away any sympathy and love she had for Jean.
Those blue eyes that had once bounced light from the cathedrals rays were now sullen and dull. Wringed of any positivity that had once resided in them.
Her dress was frayed, no longer a vibrant blue and alabaster, replaced with the abyss’ signature symbol caking the rims of her dress.
Barbara didnt reciprocate any happiness towards Jeans exclaim, instead, shutting her down with, “Don’t act like I’ve come to greet you with open arms, Grand Master.”
Instead of addressing the formalities as a code of professionalism as she once did, she now let the words roll of her tongue with spite. “I’m not here to save you.”
The knight looked between her sister and the abyss mage, the weak smile fading. What stood before her was a unrealistic sight. Barbara was dead. She saw it. She witnessed it.
Hell, she CAUSED it.
She had seen the arrow pierce through her sisters shoulder, while she had frantically scammered around like a mouse running from a feline, her spellbook levitating over her sprawled hand while she healed those who were injured. The girl, blond from root to tip, had stretched her arm to place a helping hand to a mother and son who were attempting to flee the crumbling cobblestone walls of mondstadt and had gotten scathed in the process, when she was brutally stuck. Jean had been bulleting through the crowd of screaming citizens, her hand clasping her swords handle while it remained unsheathed in its holder strapped from hip to hip, exiting the gates to fend off a herd of mages heading straight for a crowd with a limp in their step who were trying to get away, carrying a familiar girl in purple from the adventurers guild.
She had to chose.
And she didn’t even hesitate, sprinting past her own sister, trying to yield her vision from the bloody mess that was made of Barbara and the mother and son.
“You seem surprised. Why so?”
Jean wanted to spit out, ‘I watched you die.’, but swallowed her words. It didn’t seem like an appropriate sentence to drop in this situation. Albeit, it was the truth, she had let her sister die to the hands of the abyss. The blow was so intense, there was no chance of survival by the way a fatal shockwave clustered and fried their skin.
Jean could basically smell the burning flesh while she had sprinted towards the crowd.
Her sister didn’t even have time to scream.
Or… did she scream at all?
The knight had certainly heard the mother and son scream, before they were cut off by the release of death. Was it possible the abyss servant had purposely spared Barbara? But why?
“You seem more surprised than you are happy to see your dead sister.”
“Of course I’m happy!” Jean countered, letting the tears her eyes were holding back spill, a choked sob releasing from her aching throat. This made her wince in pain due to the bruising of her chest, but it was uncontrollable. Her soul felt cleansed of pain the more she cried, though, only emotionally. She rebounded to her inner vulnerability, which she loathed. She couldn’t show vulnerability right now. She was already a weak and pathethic sight of blood and bone, but the sight of her sister ignited something in her. She could no longer see her sister, no matter how many clumps of tears that she blinked away, her vision only continued to become more cluttered. “I’m so.. so happy, actually..” She wanted to get to her feet, and swoop the girl into a hug, to hold her. To touch her soft skin one more time, to push away the bangs of her forehead and cup her sister’s face in her hands, to look down her and see that smile so sweet that it could make a soul diabetic just one more time. But just by the way Barbara continued to stand there… Jean could tell that the girl she knew was gone.
Instead, stood tall a monster in her sisters skinsuit.
What Barbara had become, only Jean had herself to blame.
“I’m so sorry, sister, I was going to come back for you, I was-“
“Shut up.”
Jeans breath hitched, never in a million years expecting to her such words come from her sisters lips.
“You knew as soon as you passed me that I would be vulture fare. Don’t lie to me, don’t make this worse for yourself. Don’t make me give you the same fate as you wanted me to experience.” All self control had been overridden with anger, which guarded Barbara like steel armor. What Barbara once was was now merely a delusion. A pleasant memory to reminisce upon. “That purple hag tried to attempt the same, and look where she ended up.”
A violet hat was tossed across the floor in Jeans direction, stitched with a wilted rose. It was partially burned, ridden with messy rips and ensanguined. Jean looked in horror, feeling her stomach wrench.
“Is that…”
“Lisa? Yes. Or what remains, at least.” Barbara finished for her with a monotone counter, approaching Jean to pick up the hat. She fixated it upon her blonde locks, holding the big hat sturdy. “I’ve always wanted a pretty hat like this… I just never thought I’d have to earn it in such a way.” Barbara sounded as if she wanted to deliver a cruel gibe and a joke simultaneously, before grasping the thin rims of the purple hat to yank from her head. “Hm.. too bad though. It’s a bit too big.”
How was she being so nonchalant? Jean stared at her sister, horrified. When she looked at Barbara, she didn’t see the graceful catalyst-wielder who turned thin air into symphonies of water. The ebony drapes her church-dress had been replaced, representing so much like her previous ware, just in darker hues, no longer clothed the ball of sunshine mondstadt knew her as. Jean couldn’t even view what stood before her as her sister anymore. Let alone a person.
She hadn't realized her gaze had been fixated onto a rupture in the pavement of the floor until she felt a finger jab her chin roughly upward, making dreadful eye contact with the opposing girl.
“Dear sister, haven’t you missed me? You don’t want to look at your own younger blood anymore?” Barbara seemed to catch the notice of the anger boiling under Jean's skin, the knight grunting as if she had exhaled steam that would dissipate into the air. “The audacity you have to give me such a look after days of having my blood on your hands.”
“Where’s Klee?”
Jean ignored her pointless argument, acknowledging that Lisa had been hiding away with the accompaniment of Albedo and Klee. If the abyss was able to find Lisa, chances were that they had tracked the whereabouts of Albedo and Klee as well. The spark night didn't deserve to be caught up in this cluster of gruesome events, especially when Jean knew it was her doing.
Her train of thought was interrupted by the feeling of barbaras sheen pumps rearing into Jean's abdomen, being initiated by an empathyless stare.
“You disgust me, dandelion knight.”
Jean winced in pain, the area Barbara had specifically kicked already being littered in purple and yellow blotches of discolored skin, the pain embellishing bolder and brighter.
“Is… Klee okay?”
Crunch.
This kick was more enforced, the sole of her foot pressing down on her abdomen, pain trickling and intensifying by the second. The sound made Jean's stomach churn, swallowing the sudden urge to succumb to the wave of nausea and empty her stomach. She convulsed, beginning to uncontrollably tremble. Albeit, she persisted. She had to know of Klee’s wellbeing, even if her life would be ripped from her.
She couldn’t muster out a question, settling for a raspy, “Klee.”
The shoe digging into Jean’s ribcage paused, giving a final blow by Barbara pushing all her weight into the sole of her foot, finally earning a pleading scream.
“You really must know?”
Jean was unresponsive, heaving desperately to fill her depleting lungs with air, each cough of blood making her insides shriek. Barbara stood motionless, watching her own sister struggle to keep her soul in her body, until she spit out the final chunk of blood and gripped her chest to calm herself down.
“Albedo went rogue, having the choice of his and Klee’s demise along with Lisa or joining forces with the abyss. Although, it didn’t seem like he was weighing options, joining the very resistance movement that originated from Khaenri’ah wasn’t something id imagine him turning down.”
Jean hurled her back, trembling as her stomach lurched more at what she was hearing. Her fingers gripped at the cold underfoot she was sitting on, before reaching one hand up to clasp her mouth shut.
“We’ve promised him supply of Gold’s unfinished studies, including information on Durin and how to evolve from there. Klee follows him around like a pathetic, stray dog. You shouldn’t have to worry, sister. Why would the abyss harm one of its own?”
Jeans beady vision collapsed, her eyelids shutting tight. Her hand fell from her mouth, lips parting as the nausea became insufferable. Her brain felt like it was swelling, the dehydration and starvation making her feel even sicker as she emptied her stomach onto the cold floor.
That cold, cold floor. That’s all Jean felt. As if she had morphed into the floor in that exact second.
Mentally, physically, physiologically, and emotionally, the bitter cold hung her by her fingertips and engulfed her into fiery rage.
“Get ahold of yourself.”
That repulsive voice. The same familiar voice taunted her eardrums. Jeans body began to jarr, her face scrunching up. She bit down harshly on her bottom lip, immediately tasting blood from how hard she bit.
She began to violently sob, louder than any gale.
Every atom that made up her body felt like it was thrashing and recoiling simultaneously. Every breath she drew pounded her nose and throat. No matter how much oxygen Jean inhaled, she couldn’t breathe, feeling lost in the seven seas, being washed over with several waves. The waves using their forceful grasp to pull the knight vehemently farther down, trying to impose her to the ocean’s bed.
The blonds vision rattled and twisted, as she cried with such ferocity that she might have been convinced if she continued she could bring her sister back to her shivering arms. Not this version of her sister, but the one she once knew and loved.
“Oh, I assume its hit you?”
Jean’s vision finally settled on Barbara, who loomed above her once again. Her mind remained obscure and disoriented, and while her eardrums pounded, she could still make out the ruthless sound of her voice. She didn’t know what she was talking about. Has what hit her?
She wasn’t thinking about anything other than how desperately she yearned for the better version of her sister.
She could see her so coherently in my mind. Her pale skin, rosy cheeks, speckled blue eyes, her soft hair.
Remembering her only made her more real.
The rot in Jean’s stomach started building up and infecting itself, only to coil up and drown in the cold depths of her abdomen. No longer did nausea cause her sickness, but regret.
“Has what hit me?” Jean stammered out, her voice rippling. “I have nothing on my mind other than regret.”
For a moment, Jean couldve sworn she saw Barbara’s countenance soften.
“Good.”
She could see her sister in what stood before her. The blue eyes that glimmered even when they didn’t reach the suns golden rays. The soft, cupid-shaped lips and blemishless complexion. Her skin was soft, distinct to a delicate rose petal. Her laugh was like a child’s. Lavishing and thriving with pureness and genuine joy. It lacked a cackle, instead, beautiful and alluring.
Oh, and how much she missed her voice and its crescendos. Not even a bards wooden, ornate flute could ever compare to the critical wavers and high notes that girl could sculpt with her vocal cords.
‘What happened?’ would be a dumb question for Jean to ask herself when it came to Barbaras physical and mental alteration. Betrayal happened.
“It’s better if you stay oblivious to what you allowed to fail.”
With that, the girl spun around, the click of her pumps echoing off into the distance as the glow of the pyro abyss mage dimmed more and more. She paused, her head reeling over her shoulder as if she wished to say a final parting to Jean, but kept her lips clamped shut and readjusted her gaze infront of her.
Thats when it hit her.
While what was left of her sister strolled away, trilling a hum, Jean released a hitched gasp of realization.
Traveler wouldn’t have let the abyss engulf the thrones… and as for Mondstadt,
Her head jotted back, slamming against the wall behind her.
While the dandelion winds flew across the crumbles of teyvat, it’s said you can hear the infamous Dandelion Knights scream of agony traveling with the breeze. A cry of guilt, with no former response, bypassing the ears and piercing the heart.