Chapter Text
Despite its god not showing up for centuries, Mondstadt always had their share of stories about miracles and mythical legends.
Of all those stories, the one that clung most stubbornly to the people was the oldest: that the soulmates of Teyvat bore one another’s constellations upon their wrists, and that the Seven Archons of Teyvat, if the bards and priests were to be believed, were no exception to the rule.
It was the kind of tale mothers told children while tucking them in, the kind of tale that made fate sound less like a chain and more like a promise. Where bards sang tales of love and hope, where two souls had intertwined by fate.
Every wind that had crossed the city carried with it the scent of dandelions, fresh bread, and old stories of how soulmates find each other no matter the obstacles they face before meeting in a twist of fate.
When Barbara Pegg had been born with the mystical constellation of the Anemo Archon Barbatos etched upon her tiny wrist, the people of Mondstadt took it as a blessing so vast it almost felt unfair.
A miracle from the stars above, that fate had been kind to the little girl and her family.
On the day she opened her eyes to the world, the entire nation of Mondstadt also learned that her small wrist carried a constellation no one in Mondstadt could have mistaken as it was etched on the history books and legends of the missing Anemo Archon.
Elegant lines of light seemed to rest under her skin, with six sparkling dots arranged in a way akin to a constellation - a typical soulmark everyone had - but it had the sign of Barbatos himself upon her like a blessing, or perhaps a decree.
The Church of Favonius had whispered first when they saw their Cardinal’s newborn daughter for the first time… then the market stalls, the gossip of women, then the whole city: the Anemo Archon had chosen a soulmate among the mortals. Unprecedented concept to modern standards but to the eyes of the people who waited for a long time to personally see their beloved wind god, it is a sign.
The devotees of the Archon said that fate had smiled upon them and had finally remembered their city; that if Barbara was the one written into Barbatos’s fate, then perhaps the Anemo Archon would return at last, summoned back to the place that had waited half a millennium for his footsteps.
So by the time she was old enough to understand the shape of that destiny, it had already been made for her.