𝑅𝑒𝓂𝑒𝓂𝒷𝑒𝓇 𝑀𝑒? (Various!Genshin x f!reader)

[1] Deep Ocean Eyes

The ocean breeze and the smell of salt waft toward the quiet village. A mother, a father, a goddess. The Golden-Winged King. You were waiting. Always waiting. Waiting for what?

The Zhao family was a respected house of what came to be known as Mingyun Village, taking pride in all the occupations sons had landed themselves from well-known scholars to blacksmiths. Each has unique attributes that brought honor to the family.

Well-known and refined. It was everything that Shun was not, she was only a simple peasant girl in a war.

Shun knew it too well coming into this family, they were respected, they held power, yet she still felt powerless in it all.

Her father had sold her off to pay the ever-increasing debt their family had collected, debt that never seemed to be paid off. With men coming by her home each time the moon has gone through its cycle. Each time she was met with yelling and the shattering of glass, she should be used to it now.

One particular conversation played vividly in her head as she watched with shaken eyes hiding behind wooden door frames, as the negotiation took place.

She watched as her father got on his knees and begged, begging for them to give him another option. His voice grew frantic as the men shook their heads and conversed almost themselves. Her father desperately pointed towards her small frame as she cowered behind the wooden frame more.

This man who called himself her father was riddled in debt. Was it any fault of his own? Shun wasn't sure. Yet all he could do was beg, beg for what? They already have nothing to offer.

"Take her, I'll give her to you!" he crawled over to the debt collector, teary eyes and pleading. Shun could only watch on with fear and anger filling her body. How could her father sell her off like this! This man that she called her father was too cowardly to be considered a man, and her mother could only weep on the side.

They couldn't even look her in the face.

They couldn't, they couldn't, they couldn't. Shun cried angrily, gripping the wooden frame as tightly as she could. If she was born a son then would everything change? What was the use of giving her a son's name? Being able to perform tiring labor for her family, earning money to pay off their debt.

Would their debt ever end?

Gentle coaxing could be heard as her mother tried to have Shun come out from her hiding space. Shun refused. (Why would she give herself away?)

"Obedient child," her mother calls out—then desperately— "obedient child." Her mother pleaded out, her hand extending over to grab at Shun's clothing that was much too big for her.

She doesn't want to go.

Shun still remembers how her mother wrote her name into the dirt with a discarded branch they found. Carefully writing each stroke as if her name was a fragile thing. Each stroke left imprinted on the earthen ground, and round-eyed eight-year-old Shun stared at it.

Dirty fingers pointed to each bit in the character explaining the meaning behind them. Her mother's gaze fell upon her and Shun blinked unsurely. "Your name means obedient and pure."

Obedient and pure.

That's what Shun was and was all she could ever be.

At the mere age of twelve, Shun was sold off.

The Zhao family consists of three sons, each particularly worse than the last. Though Shun would never say it out loud, heeding her mother's last words before she got taken away. "Be good, my daughter."