One Shots

69. [Family]

"Just like that!" Sayaka encouraged. "Try it a little faster now!"

Chiara did as she was instructed: wielding her training polearm, she did exactly what the blonde allogene taught her, moving albeit just a bit faster.

Sayaka beamed when Chiara came to a stop.

"You're so fast at learning these!" She really was proud of Chiara, smiling so brilliantly to the point where she might as well have become the sun itself. Chiara wasn't used to the praise: everything that she's ever done before was merely expectation to her family. "Soon we'll get you a proper polearm!"

"...I have a good teacher."

The twinkle in Sayaka's eyes grew even brighter as she laughed.

"Come now, you have talent with the polearm!" Sayaka looped her arm through Chiara's, pulling her forward lightly. "But that's where our training will end for today, it's time to meet up with the others."

The others...yes, that's right. The boys that Sayaka was traveling with: Aether, Gin, and Valter, were the others in the group. Aether was the unquestioned leader: everyone followed his orders unconditionally. Gin was a geo allogene from Inazuma and Valter was a cryo allogene from Natlan, and both of them helped Aether while in Mondstadt. There was also that fairy named Paimon, though Chiara still wasn't very open to her despite her optimism. They were all helping Aether to attain one specific goal: find his sister.

Aether objected to Chiara joining their group, and frankly, Chiara agreed with him: she didn't know how to fight, and despite her abilities as a seer, they were very much weak during combat. But Sayaka and Valter, who freed her from that hellish home, argued for her being able to stay, taking up the responsibilities of training her to be useful to the group.

That way, Aether wouldn't force them to abandon her. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that Chiara read Aether his future every morning and night, she believed that he would've left her for dead. He at least seemed grateful that Chiara told him that his future was not as dim as he thought it was, though it didn't erase the gloomy, almost cynical look in his eyes.

Gin said that when Aether first arrived in Mondstadt, he was kinder. More willing to help others who asked him for his hand, and doing so with a bit of a smile. But traveling through three countries (and saving them from doom, no less) and learning nothing about his sister's whereabouts, all the while people continuously asking him for help with nothing new to give in return...he grew bitter.

"It...really is unfair," Gin told her one night, while the two stood watch as the others took a much needed break to sleep. "He helped them on the promise that they would do the same for him, but he's never quite reimbursed for the work he's done. It's not a surprise, though I wish I could take the burden from him."

"Is that why you stayed with him?" Chiara remembered asking: from what little Chiara knew about Gin, he used to be a wanderer before he met Sayaka and became an adventurer. He was driven out of Inazuma by the Vision Hunt Decree and ended up in Mondstadt, where he became a Knight of the Ordo, before parting ways to go with Aether.

"Partially, at first," Gin admitted, a sheepish tone to his voice. He wasn't afraid to admit that even he was a little selfish. "He was traveling across Teyvat, and at the time, I was still searching for Sayaka, so traveling with him gave me that excuse to get out of Mond once I confirmed Sayaka was not there. But since she's here now, my only goal is helping Aether. It's the least I can do, since it's regrettably not even the most anyone else had done for him."

A bone-chilling answer. It was one that Chiara often heard as she tried to sleep.

When Chiara asked Valter why he stayed with Aether, just a few days later, he merely smiled.