Ambitions of the Forgotten

Chapter One

Disclaimer: I do not own Genshin Impact or any of the characters from it.  All rights for this work go back to Mihoyo and Genshin Impact.  With that out of the way, on to the fic!

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A small child looked at a potted plant, or at least the remnants of it.

Wilted and with leaves of brown that used to flush a bright green stared up at the boy, whose eyes betrayed a ting of disappointment and pain.

The plant had once flourished, one of the few new lives in this wretched place.

But now, it was just like all its ancestors.  Forgotten, wilted, all passion thrown into the depths of the abyss, never to return.

Despite his anguish, a tear never escaped from the boy's eye.  Perhaps it's because he's become numb to the pain.  Perhaps it's because his own ambition had never flourished like the plant once had.

After all, with no ideal vision of the future, what was there to dream for?

The boy suddenly felt a firm hand press on his shoulder.  Looking up, he saw a man who almost looked to be an older copy of himself.  Long midnight blue hair that went down past the middle of his back.  Firm shoulders used to carry the burden of his family, and to slay the monsters that threatened that burden.  Dead eyes that carried no life, as if there were no purpose to that burden, as if he just went through the motions, with no meaning to it.

His father.

A low voice spoke from the body, telling him that it's time for his daily sword training.

The boy nodded, and stood up, following the man to the place where he practices.  Every day, he has to do this, and a variety of other classes and training to prepare him for what he's been told he would achieve in the future.

He was told that he would be their new hope.  Their new savior.  The one to bring back their hopes.  Their ambitions.  Their meaning to life.  

When he was born, Khaenri'ah supposedly "rejoiced".  Such a word is something that Kaeya had never witnessed.  Never had he seen any of the people in this land have such a strong emotion that it would constitute rejoicing.

But he had just nodded, and put his trust in those who told him.  After all, he couldn't know everything.  And did he really want to know?  The boy didn't know.  Want was a foreign concept to him.  He had everything that he needed here.  He knew no other land.

He had food, albeit not enough.  But as there was never a time that he did had enough, he didn't know that there was more to be had.  He had a family, even though they showed no love.  But that's something that Kaeya would not know, for he knew no family that showed that ideal of "love".  He had a home and instruction for his training, even though it was for a cause he didn't understand.  But Kaeya never asked, for he didn't have a desire to know.

He had a desire for nothing.  He questioned nothing.  He did what he was told by others, the presence of these ambition-less humans bringing him down to the same ideals.  

But even so, when he was reminded of his future, he felt something in his chest that he couldn't quite understand.

Was it anguish?
Pain?

Or maybe something else, an emotion that holds no word to it.  Kaeya wouldn't know, for these emotions in and of themselves are something that the boy rarely experiences.

But there was one thing he knew.

With all the preaching of hope and freedom, the eyes of the people he spoke with never had a light to them.  They showed no care.  And while Kaeya had never experienced eyes that did show that light, he knew in his heart that these ones did not.

With this conclusion, Kaeya was able to deduce a single fact.

He would one day be a martyr for a cause that didn't care.

And with this revelation came a new emotion.  Something the boy was never able to identify before.

That emotion was fear.

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A/N: First off, thank you so much for reading the first chapter!  This will be my first published fanfiction, so it's a bit rusty, and of course critique is welcomed!
Just a heads up, this account is actually a shared one between me and two of my friends.  I'll refer to myself as Harold Two.  I'll probably be the only one writing this particular fic but any other fics on the account could be made by the other two or a mixture of us.

But yeah, my guess is this fanfiction is gonna be almost like a mix of connected one shots I guess?  I'm not really sure, but I'm obviously open to suggestions if you have any.