Chapter Text
‘Gifts are a beautiful way of showing someone you care’ is something that Barbara had become quite acquainted with from her dad.
He used to bring this slime-like, watery goop from a foe he called the ‘Oceanid’.
It somehow catered every taste bud she had, despite everyone else finding it repulsing.
Barbara supposes it’s just another thing that her dad taught her, a fact that always brought a smile on her face and encouraged her to be optimistic and less doubtful.
For, if there is one person she finds second to big sister, it has to be dad.
Now that she’d ended mass, she decided to get outside more, something she hadn’t done in Barbatos-knows-long.
Somehow, she felt more at peace and more free outside of Mondstadt (which is ridiculous, the City of Freedom couldn’t possibly be second in such regards!) than when she was at the church, doing mass.
Perhaps she liked the wildness that random hilichurls and feisty boars brought, she thought.
Eventually, and she figured she must’ve strayed too far, she came across a cave, a cold, cold, cave.
There’d been icy stalagmites hanging from it, and a large, living flower made of cryo and nothing but stood menacingly in the very middle of it.
You didn’t need much experience to realise that this flower was much bigger than a normal whopperflower, or that hydro and cryo don’t mix, but something drew Barbara in.
Maybe the hilichurls could do after she ended up just trying to figure out it’s attack pattern, realising it’s too strong, cue self doubt, cue her going home safe and sound!
Yeah, she was just going to see it up close then leave!
Yeah.
*
Perhaps ‘up-close’ wasn’t what happened.
Well, she did see it up-close, but she did kind of also punch it, in her defence, she was slightly panicking!
She knew it was… dead… after a smaller flower grew delicately out of the ground - she recognised it as a leyline from the library books - and bloomed, completely undeterred and unbothered by the cold climate.
Despite what some may think, Barbara has seen dead bodies before, it is part of a healer’s experience in the end.
This flower?
It was dead.
*
Ascension.
To accurately complete an ascension, one needs a list of ‘ingredients’.
Ascensions are spells, claimed to have originated from Celestia, that help growth of Allogenes.
There are two main catches, one, is that there are variations to the spell, so in most scenarios, you can’t just prepare two of the same spells and give them off to two different people and expect for it to work for any of them, or at least both.
The second one is that the spell is limited to couple time use.
However, people still gather ascension materials because of one thing.
When made into a dish, they are DELICIOUS!
Delicious for the person with the corresponding element, that is, which is another part of the reason why there is no successful or rampant business for selling ingredients.
When ingredients are sold, they’re sold as ingredients to different spells or items, they’re usually flowers anyway, and considering that people without visions or visions that are a direct threat to a boss do almost nothing to it, it isn’t shocking that these dishes have become a rare gift and specialty to be given.
To be given such a dish is a sign of utmost trust and respect to somebody, though it is hidden deep in societies where people are not simply relying only on their vision, and allogenes are supposedly scarce.
So imagine the absolute shock and fear that grips onto Kaeya’s chest when he gets a box full of hoarfrosts and gems.
A letter attached onto the box says the following:
“Happy birthday, Mr Kaeya! I hope that Lord Barbatos shines his glory upon you and the rest of your day will be blessed!
-Barbara from the Church of Favonia”
Of all people, Barbara was the one giving this gift.
He’d thought that the only person that could face the Cryo Regisvine was a person with the opposing element, like Amber, probably not Diluc because of his stubbornness, but no.
Here it was, on paper.
Healing must have gotten boring, huh.
*
Barbara was very disappointed with herself!
How could a couple of Hoarfrosts and crystals be good enough of a gift? It’s obvious that Mr Kaeya could get them on his own!
After all, if she could, then it was obvious he could do it with his eyes closed, no doubt!
Barbara was a little stunned at how easily the creature died, though.
Perhaps she should travel to Liyue sometime, and try to look at the Oceanid, for tourist reasons, of course.