Chapter Text
Barbara is not stupid.
She knows that as an idol, her personal space was bound to be ignored sometimes, but she thought she would be just fine.
Well, now she’s thinking otherwise especially after how uncomfortable she’d been getting recently with anybody coming just slightly too close to her - something that she’d never had an issue with, especially with how she’s a healer and all.
Such discomfort made her really think about the whole ‘I’m an idol who can’t protect herself and can only heal, oh, and I don’t actually have anybody to protect me until it’s too late’ and it made her feel sick.
Again, Barbara wasn’t that stupid, so she knew about the weird guy hanging outside of the Mondstadt church all day, she also knew about a fan club that’s been getting really out of hand recently.
There’s also been some issue with the Dragon of the East, Dvalin, getting antsy and people even think he might attack the city, how silly would it be if someone got hurt on her watch and all she could do was heal them, after they got exposed to such pain?
She quickly sought out the help of Noelle, the physically strongest person she knew, even stronger than her sister, and she, the angel she is, agreed to help out.
It started off slow, but about a week in, she began to eventually get into Noelle’s routine, and 10 laps around Mondstadt carrying several crates and boxes, as well as 100 push ups etc began to become the norm for her.
She couldn’t get into the routine at first, because she was so weak that just one crate completely tired her out, but she was finally settling in.
With this newfound strength and speed, Barbara also began to wonder if she could learn any skills with weapons, though she knew that the sword was probably out of question.
But then she wondered why she should bother learning to do something so exact and stone-like, and instead she thought, why not just punch?
A teensy weeny grin came upon her face, and she immediately sought out books at the Library on how to fight hand to hand.
*
”Honey, Jean, Barbara’s been going out to the library more often, do you know anything about that?”
Jean gulped, “Did she forget to hand in any books?”
”No, she’s quite thorough with dates, in fact, but she hasn’t been to the library often, and now she’s suddenly visiting almost every day,” The brunette replied, a thoughtful look on her face.
Happiness shone on Jean’s face.
”I don’t know, I haven’t seen her in a while, but as long as she’s stepping away from the idol business, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Lisa merely nodded and left, a soft goodbye leaving her lips.
Jean wasn’t stupid, she knew she had to protect her sister, and the church wasn’t exactly the safest place in Mondstadt, so if Barbara kept coming to the library, at least she’d be left in the capable hands of their lovely librarian.
*
Barbara had never been this studious with anything in her life, not even her church duties.
When it came to the sword, she will begrudgingly agree that she also did not give it her best, but the art of such weapon was generally too boring and exhausting to truly focus on.
In her church duties, she began to slowly realise she only truly listened because she had the desire to help Mondstadt and it’s people, and there was nothing else that she’d bothered to learn - since her singing came naturally and therefore she didn’t need any teaching.
Somehow, brawling and all of these interesting physical fighting styles made her genuinely happy and interested - especially when she managed to incorporate her hydro vision and healing into it - to learn and master, who cares if it was unbecoming of a deaconess?
And anyway, who said it was unbecoming to be safe?!
It also wasn’t too long until her muscles began showing, and she decided she probably would need different clothes, ones that would help her fighting style, and this skirt probably wouldn’t fit.
She definitely fixed up some things with her outfit, like her skirt and the little bow went a little more on the side of her waist rather than right under her neck, but she still had her little white and blue aesthetic!
Her hair also began to grow longer as usual, but she just stopped bothering to cut it as much, since she was busy testing out her fighting style against hilichurls.
It was just kind of odd, why were all the hilichurls constantly dying in one hit? Shouldn’t they be stronger? Eh, whatever, that’s just news that she’s getting better!
She can be like her sister, in the sense that she can protect herself!