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In all of her songs, love is made up of the fragile spun silk of memories from the tiniest petals of longing and warmth; that love is celebrating the achievements of your partner more than your own. That love should be the most peaceful thing you have the privilege to experience.
That love is unbreakable and unshakeable.
Barbara only allows herself to be sad for thirty minutes, and it’s usually thirty minutes of remembering her older sister’s embrace, her father and her mother laughing together over some silly inside joke, thirty minutes of reminiscing over catching frogs and happiness washing over her as if baptizing her into a new person and thirty minutes on the what if’s.
On some days, she sits in her room, staring at the wall and thinking when her view on love becomes so jaded that when she performs songs for her audience, it’s the last thing she wants to sing about.
A divorce.
Her mother’s silent tears.
Her father’s empty wine bottles.
Her sister's distant reluctant looks.
And that no matter how far her little fingers try to reach out, she cannot fill the gap.
If Barbatos allows her, she wished she can find a love shared between her older sister and the boy who loves her.
Because how can Barbara not be slightly jealous?
A love that stretched out to the ends of the earth with no signs of stopping. Whenever the young Ragnvindr heir was injured and sent to the infirmary, it was always her big sister taking care of his wounds, salving him up, and tying the band-aids. Barbara peekd from the cathedral's infirmary door and fixed her eyes on his tender and grateful smile that easily outshined every inlaid jewel in the holy lyre itself. She understood what her sister meant when she mentioned she saw sunsets in his eyes.
Because how can Barbara not feel slighted?
This young man easily caught her older sister’s attention and care while she, the younger sister, can’t even have a single glance her way without Jean looking so guilty and distant.
If Barbatos allows it, she wishes she will not find the love shared between her dearest sister and the boy who left her.
And how can she not pray for it?
A love that stretched to the ends of the earth and came down with a terrifying crash. When it rained the hardest during that fateful night, as if the sky was mourning more than it could hold, her sister came back to the infirmary of the cathedral, heaving Master Kaeya, her shirt, and skirt were torn in an attempt to stop his bleeding.
Barbara, too stunned to move, only observes.
Her sister’s crying face was smeared with blood.
Their father’s strong and firm hand on Jean’s shoulder.
Her sobs resonate across the room.
Barbara can’t feel but slighted, this stupid and angry young man who had easily become the center of her older sister’s world, was gone in an attempt of revenge and cowardice.
Once Barbara was invited to Angel’s Share for a performance and her hands shook so badly that she almost dropped the candle she was using to light the candelabras across the cathedral. Only the worthy and the most talented bards can dream of performing in the most celebrated tavern in Mondstadt. It filled her with delight and pride, but also wariness.
Master Diluc must just be a fan of pop songs. (or perhaps what he truly was fond of when her sister sang hymns of the north)
In the middle of performing, one of her pigtails broke and she expertly tied her hair back into the ponytail, she did not miss the intense and almost scary glower emanating from the vermilion-haired man.
She just hoped she doesn’t look much like her sister, but the point is moot when Diluc remarked after her performance that it will take much time for her to sing and dance on his stage again.
Barbara swallowed the lump in her throat and tried, tried to say the jumbled mess of words and poetry, songs she wished she could sing for Jean.
“You left her vulnerable, cold, angry, and terribly sad. All the things you said she would have never experienced.” she started and it caught the older man off guard, raising his brow like summoning his claymore to a challenge.
It must have been the chili pepper juice he mixed for her before the start of her dances but she felt tears starting to form in her eyes, and her face starting to heat up.
“I might have felt abandoned by my sister, but she does not deserve to be abandoned by you of all people, not like how our father did.”
And then she starts choking, coughing as the intense emotions sweep her. Diluc, helps her get back on her feet.
After a long silence, she hears the man inhale deeply as if contemplating another sojourn.
“On Friday, you can perform again.”
Barbara realizes that was a thank you pressed to her palm.
Her thirty minutes of sadness sink in as she walks home.