Work Text:
You must not stop your sister
for this home has never given her no place to go
i
In the midst of the busy-bodied, bone-aching lifestyle they live; Barbara finds time to pray for her sister.
Having been late, the church is dim and the organ player that once hid just above the narthex having once left a long moment ago, it allows her to pray quietly. With her hands held so tight they might as well be as white as her clothing, she prays. And she prays for a numerous amount of things.
The first thing that comes to mind is hoping nobody is watching her; because always, there is a pair of prying eyes upon her. Sometimes it feels as though they are watching just about every inch of her move, from the black tips of her boots, to the curve of her calves, up to her pale shoulders and ending at the curl of her hair–they never seem to follow for long enough that they reach the uncomfortable furrow of her eyebrows. Surely, Barbara’s got the entire church and seemingly the whole city within the palm of her hand; but it’s anything but. Bounded to the city she loves, indebted to the people who made her.
She must give back–whether that is singing her throat raw, giving her hand to just about anyone who asks and or grieving the little they say she has lost–she doesn’t know which one grants the most happiness. Though shaking her head at the thought, Barbara feels. Just for a second in which her palms tingle and her eye twitches from being held such–she knows this feeling.
It is not something she will allow herself to feel for much longer. She knows what happens is up to Barbatos–she knows all that will happen is only a result of the amount of body, amount of love and amount of all she has given up for this church–it’s all up to him. Barbara is only at fault.
There are only a few people within this city, perhaps this world–she’ll never look farther than where the wind sends her–that are never at fault for their shortcomings. Barbara will look for their wrongdoings only to come short when their purity overshadows all they wronged. Eventually, they’ll be forgiven and all they will be undone. For her sisters, for those she leads in church, for the youth–have they all sinned so dearly?
Barbara can only hope her prayers are heard, and that the sheer amount of things she prays for is not an issue. She’s almost finished, just a few more and she’ll be on her way to her room in the church–it seems as though this was her home all along–and tomorrow will hear her prayers. Just one last one–
“Lord Barbatos, the soul of the wind and cause of the sun. For he does not fear the storm, the exhaustion nor the wishes of his deities–his lead is irrefutable, it is certain and his knowledge beyond doubt.”
Oh, hear me!
“Barbatos, forgive me for my shortcomings. For I have thought badly of others and assumed otherworldly accusations from others. For I have cried and angered myself over the fate you have led me. For I have been greedy for more and more, for I have been thinking you do not hear my prayers at all. Forgive me, forgive me not.”
Hear me! Hear me!
“Thank you for blessing this holy church that I sit in. Thank you for guiding me to where I am now and allowing me to live comfortably. Thank you for listening to my calls and forgiving my sins. Thank you for taking care of me and looking out for others, thank you. Thank you.”
Her soul is ready to be heard, to be listened to.
“Please let Mondstat live through another sunny day. Please let the children of Mondstat play throughout the city safely. Please let the customers of Dawn Winery arrive home without trouble tomorrow night. Please allow our faith in you to continue until the end of time. Please allow Sister–”
Sister, do you hear me?
“Sister Jiliana to find her way back to us as she recalls her past. Please allow my sister–”
May the wind lead you.
“Please allow Sister Rosaria to find faith in my Lord and not alcohol.”
The word sister had lost its true meaning long before she could ever remember.
ii
Her wishes are heard. Barbara thinks Barbatos might be selective in what he chooses to hear and what to graciously grant–but that leads her nowhere. It is better to live as though he hears and listens to every thought of hers, it is easier to be led by the beliefs she has always had. Sister Jiliana eventually finds her way back to Lord Barbatos and prays for forgiveness in the church every second of the day. Barbara doesn’t question where she has been, she knows there are plenty of things Jiliana has to repent and give back her hours of sinning to Barbatos.
Perhaps that's why she spends so little time pondering what she has done so wrong to deserve this loss, this pain–until she realizes that it is her fate, and there are others that Barbatos is punishing far more than her. There isn’t any reason for her to shed tears. There isn’t any reason for her to stand in shock and wonder–just wonder–when it will ever be enough.
Since it isn’t long until the Knights of Favonius summon her–and it’s a familiar face that has her on her knees with worried hands.
“Sister–what has happened to you?”
In reality, there is little urgency to the situation. Jeans got a nasty scrape on her knee and Barbara feels as though she’s laying limp in her arms. The other is conscious, coherent and simply leaning on the edge of a boulder.
“Just a scrape, Deaconess. It does not require healing, I should be on my way–”
Barbara only feels herself grow more useless as the words keep falling out of Jean’s mouth. As if she had worked her way up her without working; as if all of this never equated to something Jean wanted. Needed. This vision–this power and this title–what was it worth if Jean did not acknowledge it?
“Rest for a moment, sister. I will be able to take care of it.”
It’s only then that Jean stays silent, allowing Barbara to put her sole focus on this rather large cut that spans from the bottom of her knee-cap all the way to the top. She knows it must hurt–that it might hinder her ability to walk, to run. It only saddens her, makes her emotions get the best of her when she knows that Barbatos never seems to enjoy when her focus leaves the sight of the church.
“Sister, must you always go on missions such as these? I’m afraid you’ll get hurt–maybe in a different area, or that you will–”
Jean stops her in the middle of her senseless rambles, “Deaconess, this is simply my work for Mondstat. I cannot allow Mondstat to be faltered if due to my fear of getting hurt, or to your fear. We must–”
She swallows her words down, only for them to escape in a weakened sentence as her wound stings with sorrow. “We must separate our work from our relationship. You, Deaconess, come when the Knights call. And I, Acting Grand Master, come when Mondstat calls.”
You’re the faith of Mondstat, Jean doesn’t say. I won’t let them get to you, Jean doesn’t say. I’ll make sure nothing is in your way, she doesn’t say.
With a gentle hand on that blonde hair of Barbaras, slightly dry with every ruffle of those perfected bangs, Barbara lowers her head. Though she wants to lean into the hand of her sisters, she only nods furiously and hunches her back nearly until her forehead reaches the soles of Jean’s boots. Barbara is supposed to know this. That nothing will ever come out of their relationship.
It’s work. It’s always been work. Their relationship, their meetings and the oddly hurtful exchanges of words they always share–it’s work. Nothing more, nothing less than. Something that she should’ve grown used to understanding after all of these years, yet something Barbara thinks she will never get over. That is, unless Barbatos guides them back together somehow.
And that hasn’t happened yet. Barbara doesn’t think it will ever happen–so she nods. Shamefully, agreeing to every word because she has never had a belief of her own will, “Of course, Grand Master.”
What was ever the use of that word?
iii
Today, she walks the city freely. Her steps are filled with a pop! as each knee releases her from the ground, a hop in her step as the gloomy weather begins to hit Mondstat once again. She’s not so sure why she is happy today–some days it's as though Barbara gives up on being miserable because the heavens have seen them, gotten bored and what not–and it’s as quick as that. Now, she can only smile at others warmly.
Today, Barbara finds beauty within every step.
With the worn out steps down to the city, to the faded bricks of each and every local business–the chairs, imprinted with wear and tear of being sat on and then tucked in harshly after a glass of cider. This is her city. This is what she protects and this is what Barbara will continue to pray for her.
It can’t be that bad, it can’t be anything to grieve as long as the city is alive. And alive, they are.
She gets it all. The polite waves, the calls from children who run up to her and grab her hands–she’ll do a twirl with a rhyme and be on her way–the smiles of everyone when her voice strains at a soft pitch. They don’t know any better, but Barbara feels deceitful at times; this sadness is only burdening the others. What would Jean think, had she ever caught the wind of it?
Barbara doesn’t think it would be anything pleasant; or pleasant enough to keep the curated image of her in Jean’s head.
It’s not long until she reaches the other bounds of the main city, wandering off whilst humming a tune even the birds are familiar with; and appearing in front of a home that is all too familiar.
On most days, she would rather not return to this old house of hers. Merely, it is a memory holder. It contains all the early memories of the most important relationship in her life. Held by tape of one colour and the adhesive of a prayer–it is a weak foundation and Barbara only winds up disappointed when it obviously has not been homed for many years.
The door knob is worn, of course. And the keyhole looks scratched up, possibly from missing it whilst returning back from dark, but she can’t help but notice the burns and spots of soot on the side of the house. What has happened to her?
Coming closer, her heart only begins to pound within her head. A finger brushes against it, covered in black as Barbara quickly realizes she has got nowhere to clean it off–she can’t be seen with a soiled uniform, let alone any evidence that she had been somewhere where she had not been allowed in many, many years.
Backing away, just atop of the dried soil and unkempt flower-beds, she summons a pearl of water and makes sure all of it falls upon the crisp leaves. Barbara leaves no trace–though there is hardly a reason for her to be so careful. Even now, she doesn’t understand who she is in this house. Her childhood home is nothing but a rundown, good for nothing piece of chalked up wood and yet still she still wants to sit inside on a rocking chair and sleep under the sun.
Barbara lets her eyes fall, face warm as the sun dries her fingers. It’s at moments like these that she feels as though she belongs somewhere rather than fighting who she had to become and who she had wanted to become. Right here–right now–in the home where it didn’t matter whether mother made pancakes or waffles, in which she preferred waffles because she could finish no more than 2 pancakes, it really didn’t matter who she is; who her parents are and who she is related to.
Except that is all that matters to her.
It is all she wants to say. I love my sister! I love my sister! I love my sister and I am envious! I have deceived you all! I had a sister! I had a sister and I loved her to the very start of her story to the very end of mine and I had a sister who I have watched prance for my whole life from afar and I had known that nobody will be able to hurt me like her when she does nothing! I had a sister!
But it’s all in vain, no? Barbara knows that whenever one of the two sisters come together, one of them is hellbound to bring the war and she is afraid that it is her; she doesn’t want it to be her. Jean doesn’t deserve being the one. She doesn’t deserve it and she is not the one.
And Jean, though with her tired eyes all over the city, is certainly not the one who comes up silently behind her–an icy presence, one that makes Barbara's eyes shoot open because it feels familiar and the only thing familiar to her from this house to the end of Teyvat is her sister.
“Deaconess? And what business brings you here?”
Swinging herself around, Barbara prepares to apologize without hesitation until her breath runs shallow, until Barbatos would forgive her for ever showing up here. “I’m sorry! I will be taking–Rosaria?”
Truly, Barbara and Rosaria had never been particularly close. Barbara tended to work in the eyes of the public–because when was she ever truly alone, really–and Rosaria in the depths of the night, lawlessly. Though, Barbara could never deny the presence her fellow sister held. With a bright-head full of magenta strands, pale skin that looked like they glowed under the sun–this, this was definitely not her sister.
Even so, with her grace, the other still scoffs. “I have no need for your apologies. This in itself most likely answers all of my questions, so take my thanks.”
“Sister,” Barbara says, the word rolling off her tongue so easily that it would surprise her, “I do not understand what you’re saying. Is my ho–this house under investigation?”
Rosaria hums, “It’s not particularly this home. It is more like,” and the older woman is taking a good look at the younger girl, sharp eyes only looking at her eyes and her eyes only. They don’t even travel to raise her eyebrows. “You are under investigation.”
What have I done wrong? How did I end up here?
“Pardon me?” Barbara doesn’t believe the words–no, she has only ever believed in Barbatos and no matter how many times she has woken up failed, she will only ever listen to the call of the wind.
“No worries, Deaconess. It is a simple investigation that has now concluded. The Knights business is confidential, no?”
Flushing under the words, Barbara’s body goes somewhat stiff and she can only look down at her toes. They rock on themselves, footprints imprinting themselves into the rather long, yellowed grass. “Ah, well–perhaps so. I apologize for imposing, I just do not see a reason as to why I would be investigated.”
Rosaria, bringing a hand to the mouth only relaxes her face and stares once more. “Wouldn’t it be easier to ask your sister?”
“I beg your pardon?”
She laughs, almost hard enough to hunch over and grab her stomach as if she had forgotten to eat before drinking the tavern’s supply of wine out, like last night. “The only person you should be begging to is your archon.”
When the younger shows no amusement, only a look of horror, perhaps, on her face. Her eyes widen and her face pales, if that is even possible–Rosaria thinks they could look the same with how much Barbara has been staying within the Church’s wall. It’s almost as if she had never been born elsewhere.
“Your family is finicky, you should know that. I had my suspicions and certainly your running mouth kicked it off for me. Though, I don’t think it is anything to be ashamed of. She is your sister, and you are her sister. It is well hidden to the public eye, and I will make sure not a thing is coming near this–home, or warehouse. Whichever you like.”
“Sister,” the word feels like a bite on her tongue and dries her throat as though her tea had been a slap too warm, “I don’t think my sister would like to be associated with this, so please–”
“I do not care that much to bring it to the Acting Grand Master. All that came out of this is a little more information on those I work under and how easy it is to disappear from a connected lineage. You guys ought to not even share a last name?”
You don’t even share the same last name.
“I respect you dearly, however you are stepping out of line! Though we do not share a last name, a family or a job–that does not change what she is to me! She may feel that I am nothing but the deaconess of the church, however–”
Rosaria interrupts her, a hand in her face just before she turns around. A cold, yet warm eye throws her a look upon an unclothed shoulder. “Covering the hurt, until the end, you defend her. What is that if not sisters?”
You don’t even share the same last name.
iv
At the end of the day, Barbara holds no hard feelings towards Klee.
They’ve met a handful of times, and a majority of those meetings being within the churches infirmary treating burns, scrapes and what not–there isn’t quite a reason for Barbara to feel this way. The typical sympathy that comes with watching those in pain simmers down to a short, you have no reason to act this way; she has done nothing to you.
And somehow, she feels a geyser under her skin. It’s bubbling, popping the surface of her face and slowly–slowly, does it begin to whirl in her eyes. He sees it all–the way the idol looks at his sister when he comes by the church full of blank apologies.
It’s certainly not a look that leaves Albedo on guard; no, it leaves him with questions that hang like the hairs in his face. It’s not him to pry, but with every time they meet, her smile gets more forced and she stands not on the balls of her feet–the tips of her toes. Sometimes her lips purse so hard that he thinks they’ll rip her cheeks apart. He usually discards that thought as quickly as he does most of the time–humans are not that fragile. A little pressure, a little hurt; they will drag it down to somewhere but they will hold on.
However, Albedo’s not quite sure how far Barbatos is going to drag Barbara. That bard has always been quite cruel in his own way–how Barbara would react to knowing his identity, he would love to see. Albedo is sure that it would make or break her, and maybe it’s then she’ll stop praying for what she prays for every time he meets her.
Huh, he thinks once more in the place he seemingly ended up in the most. Waving back at the younger girl, watching as she goes on her toes to call out both of their names earnestly with a goodbye! It isn’t even a second after he turns his back that his ears catch wind of her heels thumping down, meeting the ringing floor with disappointment.
There’s something angry about that girl. He senses there is not a moment in time where Barbara feels at ease, at peace with her identity and the city in which she lives. Obviously, there is love for Mondstat; one that he cannot relate to fully, however it is evident whenever they exchange greetings and go about their eyes. Or, as he watches from the Knights of Favonious buildings, the girl prancing around the city shining and shouting nothing but adoration.
Barbara could probably say more than that–that she hates it here. She dislikes the captivity of secrecy that this city relishes in and she hates the suffocating air of the people–and she loves it so. Loving in this city only means giving up your only freedom; Barbara has already done it all.
She loves this city more than she has got reason for. She loves her sister more than there are reasons to.
v
and when she finally arrives back home, she’s got that dress of a knight on and the look of your mother
tell her, you don’t look nothing like my sister, not at all
she’ll laugh, turn around with you on her shoulder, i’ll go get her, then
and she’ll run up the stairs like they’re her own
she’ll slam her door and tell you not to come in
not to play with her swords and her makeup
and she won’t ever come back out
vi
Barbara digs her heels into the ground. Heels off, socks off and footprints within the overgrown and yellowed-grass. Summer is good, thought is useless.
God feels like soil on her feet and pebbles in her heart–they go bang, bang, bang.
Because in the language of religion; God is not a feeling. God is not the plant that grows from your care, He simply is not. Every word of yours is considered a wish unless asked otherwise. So whenever I say I miss my sister, it’s probably God assuming I will always want to miss her rather than sit by her bed after a long day and make sure she is still breathing by the wake.
I know better than that, Barbara thinks. She feels the eyes on her. Something will happen; where she has to run off with soiled feet and prune-like cheeks.
Barbara knows–this moment will end when this home finally gets destroyed and the mailbox no longer used.
Though, it seems as though it is not that time yet. Not yet. Not ever.
vii
She’ll kill him. She will kill him. There is no doubt about it now–Rosaria will get her filthy hands on him and they will create something that is beyond justice, beyond anything. She’s pacing as the sun sets slowly in the warmer weather, unlike the winter or within Dragonspine where the sun never truly rises.
Jean, Acting Grand Master and the only woman in the city that Rosaria would have a problem picking a fight with. Surely, she believes in her strength possibly further than the other woman, however, she does have some pride left. Especially for that child of Barbatos–the one that spends her days hopelessly praying. Buried underground. Rosaria nearly laughs.
She wonders the girl's impression on her sister if she was thinking Jean had been buried. There was surely no way. The day the death of that woman comes around is one that Rosaria will actually spend pondering, whilst the younger most likely screaming her lungs raw; clutching at her missing limbs because that is the only adequately accurate description of it.
It is only when the younger comes rushing into the building–the traveler, she notices, and the other young boy trailing behind her. She’s all tears and emotions, ones that can only be described as a girl in her world–because this was the true world. Of bloody tears and heavy, chest-heaving laughter; Rosaria rushes her aside, pushing her against the door because it’s the only way she knows how to bring someone back. Slam them, hurt them and beg for forgiveness.
Rosaria is nearly sure Barbara won’t remember this. With her cloudy eyes and shaking hands, Rosaria leans down to meet greying and watering eyes.
“Your sister is at home. Your sister, in one piece, is well,” says Rosaria, ice cold hands digging deep into the clavicle as the younger woman's breath speeds and suddenly it feels as though her own vision is drowning her; she knows the secrets, God has her see more than just this world in her dreams. She prefers not to mention it–there are very few people who would care to hear these worries that cannot be saved from ache with love, affection and less than enjoyable letters. Rosaria presses deeper–her soul is warm, Barbara has found this out after countless times her presence lowers the pressure. Yet still, the world is cold. “She is alive, not hurt and breathing. ”
“But what about me? What about my hurt, my livelihood? What about me?”
“This is about you, dear. This life is all yours and you’re here making it about someone who is well off living as she is and–” Rosaria stops herself, she’s going much too far. This isn’t the right way to approach it–but hell, when has she ever done something the right way? The courageous way? “Had an attack been coming at you both, you would only step in the way of her. Be a little selfish, for once–stand still and see if your dear sister would take it for you.”
Barbara heaves louder, clutching her snot-covered hands within her bangs. Her sentences barely coherent, sobbing out as if wanting the whole world to hear. She’s in luck; this building is bullet-proof. “But I,” but what? Rosaria thinks as the younger one speaks. “I only want to be kind. Had I been caught there, with the thing dearest to me within arms reach, that someone would be so merciful to save my soul.”
“Must you believe your elder sister would be so weak?”
Barbara doesn’t respond, only sniffles her snot until her sinuses turn red and she can barely breathe. Rosaria pushes her into the wall, just slightly though it makes a thump that is sure for others to hear.
“Then go see your sister. Save yourself because unfortunately, there are little out there willing to heal wounds with a guaranteed fatality.”
viii
She doesn’t know how she does it, but Barbara does manage up at Jean’s door. It’s later at night, she is sure someone is watching her because a flash of red had appeared over the walls a second earlier; but she’s much too exhausted, bones-aching and all as she raises an arm to knock on the wooden door.
Not home. Not here. Not alive– Barbara gnaws at her lower lip. This is it, this is it, this is the end–
The door swings open.
And there she is.
Blonde hair laid loose on her shoulders, cape and jacket missing from the warm interior of the warm. There are small sounds of laughter fading into the back of Barbara’s mind, easing away as she takes in the rise of her sister’s shoulder leaning over the doorknob.
The older steps back, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Barbara?” Her dried lips hang agape, “what brings you here at this hour?”
Barbara, with her lips wet with worry and bloody with fear–almost spills everything. Almost goes on her knees and tells Jean how thankful she is that she’s alive. Almost asks her if she can come in, or if she has been well and can boil her a cup of tea because it’s so cold out–she’s unsure of how long it took for her to get here, though the city is cramped and has never been more suffocating than now.
But there it is.
She appears with her light blonde hair–short hair curling at the top of her shoulders like her sister. Dresses down in comfortable pajamas, a stuffy that looks well-used and slippers with the sole nearly popping off her small feet. Yawning–an expression that takes nearly all of the face muscles, only makes Barbara’s face fall and stone.
“Klee,” Barbara hears her sister say, head turning to the newly-awakened child. “Go back to your room, it’s late.”
Your room. Your room. Her room. Klee’s room. Klee’s room, in Jean’s home. Her room.
Bringing her back down to reality, Jean reaches out for her again. “Would you like to come in?” The older sister asks quietly, “It’s much too cold for you to be out right now.”
The younger sister shakes her head, lying is all the use for them anyway. “No, thank you.” She smiles at Jean, whose face is full of confusion and hurt. “I will,” choking, Barbara smiles further, “I will be on my way!”
She turns a heel, running faster than the wind could ever take her.
But Jean is the wind. If Barbara is following any spontaneous gust, she’s merely shadowing her sister. Mirroring her–for sometimes it is easier to follow than find life on its own, in its purest state. She’s faster than Barbara’s life itself, perhaps because her sister is running Barbara’s mind on a penny.
A hand grabs roughly at her wrist, halting them and nearly sending them into the stone flooring. Hastily, Jean is slipping a grey cardigan over her shoulders. Where in Teyvat did that come from? It isn’t long until her sister does the same to her broader, sharper and woman-like shoulders.
Jean slips on her cape. Oh, that’s her sister for sure.
“Running off like that,” Jean says softly. “What is going on in that mind of yours?”
So much, so much that words are simply not enough to explain because not only does this feeling feel like nothing else in this world–no matter the magic, the history and the allogenes–there is nothing that is just as aching.
Barbara realizes that might not be the point; her sister may be well. She may not be. Her sister may laugh and smile as if they had never been but what is she to do–with this ache, this pain of wanting and wanting and cannot having.
ix
The image won’t escape her, even with her eyes closed or focused on the dim lights of strings along the Church walls.
Her sister’s back–accepting defeat because you simply cannot help someone who does not wish to be helped. It seems as though praying is now useless.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Says Rosaria, slipping onto the bench next to her. Her long legs are cramped between the seat in front and the prayer bench. Had Barbara been a little more concentrated, would she have thought reminds me of her– her sister had always been too tall for the church. She could reminisce the way her father laughed at Jean as she slowly pulled herself, knees numb and body cumbersome.
It sounds different, the way Rosaria says it.
The question sounds foreign in the younger girl’s ears. Though the sadness lingers throughout her days, she’s nothing more than a girl crying to find adulthood. The thoughts in her head can range from the standard of thoughts–how her pigtails look, how the eyes of Mondstat look at her and how her sister looks at her as if she were an empty, dug up time-capsule.
“Sister,” Barbara whispers, quiet enough that the usual echo of an empty church does not resonate. “Have I not done enough? Am I not enough?”
Rosaria sets a cold hand upon the youngsters, which for once sit dutifully on her knees, covered with an unfamiliar looking shirt, rather than clasped together so tightly you’d think she’s only got one fist. “You fulfil your duty faithfully. What else is there to consider?”
Shaking her head, her eyes squeeze together, perhaps tighter than her hands clenched in fabric; and she whispers.
“I have gotten all of the sunny days I prayed for. I have gotten the vision in which I prayed for.” She says, voice cracking as she breaks into yet another sentence. “Yet why have I not gotten my sister?”
“Maybe this sister you’re praying upon has lost its meaning. What do you think of when you pray for your sister?”
What does she think?
She thinks of–maybe some tangerines. The smell of the breezy wind in the summer, the smell of carbon and of suffocation–it’s both freeing and restraining her within the city bounds. She thinks, dreams, of a hand held out to her that is not mixed throughout a crowd of eager, ill-intended hands. She wishes for the comfortable silence outside of the church, outside of her title and out of her uniform. She prays, for the one vulnerable moment she has always wanted.
“Her. Just her and me. Our rooms are side by side, I can hear her dipping her ink pen so I am never scared when I hear a strange noise, and we share a last name.”
Rosaria feels her shoulders tense, as if accidentally running a frost-bitten hand under sun-kissed water, just at the mention of those last few words. She hums, “Maybe it is just me who is not familiar with just prayers; I am seeing a lot of dreams in the form of a prayer.”
Releasing her eyes, she still doesn’t dare to meet Rosaria’s eyes. She looks forward, at the tall ceilings and pillars that make up the place that is supposed to love her the most–the place where she has never felt more lonely surrounded by fans and love. That’s how bad she needs it. Barbara can’t exactly pinpoint what it is; but she knows that she needs it. Badly. Unfathomably, she’s greedy for it.
“Sometimes, sister, prayers are unattainable dreams. I believe in it. It hasn’t come true–I don’t know when it will, and I am starting to think Barbatos will cut my hand off from him. I feel like I am ripping apart my image of him because I have fought for too long. “ Says Barbara, finally tilting her chin to acknowledge the elder. “What do you pray for, sister?”
Not even for a second does Rosaria hesitate. “I wish for mora.”
She’s barely fazed by the surprised reaction that Barbara gives her–hardly anyone had gotten close enough to her to ask. It was only likely that her wish wasn’t worth hearing; not a sob story for whatever she wishes, just the truth. The truth is almost always ugly, and so as she is, she can only accept it.
“That is quite the prayer,” the younger chuckles. Hooded eyes meet droopy ones, offering small crescents that bundle up her cheeks full of fat. It was endearing. “It states Barbatos was quite a frugal archon–he weeped for the greedy and with the poor.”
“Then we’re on the same level, aren’t we?” Rosaria shrugs, “I am not one to sugarcoat.”
Humming, Barbara’s hand releases the grey, wool cardigan. Fingers ghosting over the wrinkled fabric, she allows a small smile to spread on her face. It’s not real–both of them know it. It’s always been for the show, never the money because why did money matter if God had taken away a sister? Had the lord given me a sister and taken her away from her, we can only suppose that he’d take my whole body as well.
“I know, sister.” Contently, Barbara lets out a quiet sigh. “I just want to keep dreaming.”
Rosaria, finally taking a second for herself, inquires the girl once more. Barbara can’t find herself getting tired of it–someone who wants to know her, to know her like a sister and acknowledge her dreams of possibility and finity. “Want to hear a story?” She says, waiting for Barbara to complete a full nod before continuing. “All the way in Sumeru, they harvested dreams. They used those dreams, those people–is that what you wish?”
“Sumeru?” Barbara furrows her brows–Rosaria had always seen her like that. But it had always been looking at the back of a certain blonde-haired woman, or at a certain building that was worn to Khaenri’ah and back. “I don’t really understand. Their archon?”
Having spent most of her days dedicated to this despicable, nasty, god-awfully lovely, passionate and inescapable city–Barbara can’t say she knew much about the other nations, and certainly not one in which rumours said to have a child-like archon. She’s pleased with Rosaria continuing on.
“The Akademiya–the people lived in another’s dream. Is that what you wish?”
To live in another’s dream. Something, once again, she could not fully grasp. She’s only a child after all. A child with a title to live up to. A child with seeking eyes to prying ones. A child with a vision that grows its eyes within the palm of her hand–protecting her yet gravitating her towards what kills her to the most. A child, who had also once selfishly wanted everyone to live the way she dreamed of.
Happily–within a city with a present archon. A city that had its prayers answered too. A city that held a pair of sisters that had never separated despite their parents rightfully doing so. A city that held a happier version of who she was–less who was more miserable. It didn’t matter–not when she was unconscious and full of that desire.
“For others to live in my dream?” She says, but Rosaria knows Barbara isn’t speaking to her. She’s speaking to the air, her thoughts and all that makes up her growing, easily-influenced brain. “I don’t,” she chokes, a mouthful of dry air and empty of salivation. She’s no rotten-greedy bastard, no way . “I don’t think the Grand Master would be very happy with that.”
Laughing quietly, her fingers twiddle together a song that is sure to call upon the silence she has been receiving from the day she had begun praying. “Surely, it would be lovely to stay like that forever–but Mondstat–the land of freedom.” Yes–the land of freedom. One where everyone acts as they wish, one where she ought to restrict reaching out for what she wishes for most in pursuit of the freedom of others.
The land of freedom; Barbara laughs, what a mockery of what it means to be free from life, its discrepancies and unfairness. “How could I ever dare to dream of taking that away from her?”
“She’s your sister, it is only natural. You will long for her and let go.”
They meet eyes–this is more than Barbara has ever wished for. “Maybe I have held onto her image so earnestly I clawed through who she is.”
And that, she did. Not a sister, but perhaps a turmoil that grows inside of her with every single passing day.
Rosaria smirks, there is little she can do for the other now. If she could listen–she would. If she could be considered a sister, Rosaria would simply scoff and walk off without denying it. Let the people do as they please, and maybe they’d be a little happier. “Perhaps.”
“But for once,” says Barbara, neck craning up to reach the back of the bench and eyes meeting the tallest point of the ceiling. Her eyes, lost in it–her eyes, lost in it. “I would like to keep dreaming.”
They sit in silence. They know it will never fix the pain of waking up every morning to the dream ending, fix the ache of wanting, wanting, wanting.
“I will wake up tomorrow,” there is an infinite amount of tomorrows, Barbara thinks. Maybe not for her specifically, but what is tomorrow and living when dreaming is all she can do?
“And then,” Barbara whispers, “I will be grateful, kind and human.”