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Judgement Day in Mondstadt
Eula walks into the Knight's of Favonius Headquarters, her face knotted in concern. A couple of Knights were at the entrance, ready to greet her, but said nothing when they saw the turbulent look on her face. The Spindrift Knight went ahead to Varka's office, determined to find some answers. Finally spotting the person she wanted to see, Eula spared no hesitance and called out to her Acting Grandmaster. "Hey, Jean...can I talk to you for a minute?"
The Acting Grandmaster looks up from the scrolls laid out in front of her. "Of course, Eula! I'm always here to help a friend."
The Captain of the Reconnaissance Unit wanted to scoff at the notion that Jean acknowledges her as a friend, but there were more pressing matters to attend. This day was quite a confusing and lubricous one already. It was best to just confront her feelings to a person she (reluctantly) trust in her dire time of need.
Eula walks over and takes a seat on a chair opposite of Jean. "It's about my father, Lord Lawrence. I'm really worried about him. As you know, he's in town for the weekend."
She and her father did not see eye to eye in recent years since she had left the family, and his unexpected visit to Mondstadt was a surprise and an awful thing for her. Eula would wonder how long it would take for her father to slander a single citizen of Mondstadt, and the progress of her reputation will spiral into a dark pit, never to be seen again. Her friends were there with her, Amber, Sucrose, Mona, and Diona in tow when she had tried to greet her father at the gate.
A crowd had gathered disturbingly quick, giving a watchful eye at her and her father. It had seemed that Lord Lawrence would actually run his mouth off, but a single look at Eula and her gathered friends was enough to shut him up. This bewildered her greatly, but was thankful nonetheless.
Eula spent the entire morning touring her father around the city and spent lunch with him. Weirdly enough, he was adamant to invite her friends along, and Eula was more than happy to accept. It was an awkward lunch, as her own father spent 30 minutes sharing embarrassing stories about her childhood. Damn him! I shall have my vengeance!
"Is he still coming over for dinner tomorrow?" Jean asks hopefully. The Acting Grandmaster always had respected Lord Lawrence to a fault, even if she may not have approved of his more open "feelings" towards the Knights of Favonius.
Eula's eyes crease shut. "Maybe. I don't know. I had lunch with him about fives minutes ago, and…" Sighing, she meets Jean's gaze again. "You know that I never knew my mother, right?"
Jean pouts in a mixture of thought and sympathy. "You never talked about her, so I figured as much. I didn't know if it was a sensitive topic." Out of respect, of course. When young Jean was curious as to why Eula's mother was never present in her life, her mother, Frederica, warned her not to push the situation further than it should have. But then, the "situation" might happen. If that were the case...
"Today, my dear Father told me he wanted to tell me 'the secret of my birth'...Went on all these ramblings about how I already knew my mother dearly, and diatribe like wild about how fate has a circular shape, and all sorts of nonsense...I think he might be mentally ill." Eula's face shows a grave concern. "I just left in a hurry."
Eula couldn't handle the conversation and politely left, saying that Jean might have an assignment for her. She felt terrible for her friends that she had left with her weird father, but it was survival of the fittest. At least she already had paid the meal, Eula had a feeling that poor Mona could not handle the bill right now.
Jean's face scrunches up. Debating within herself if it was worth revealing. "Oh...I don't think he's crazy, that's, uh, jumping to conclusions! I'm sure he's fine."
Eula's eyes flash with anger as she stares directly into Jean's eyes. "I know that face. What are you hiding?"
"What? Me? Hiding forbidden knowledge from my colleagues?" Jean chuckles nervously. "Only Kaeya does those things. That's crazy talk."
"So help me Jean… I will swear on my vengeance. For real, this time."
Her head falling in defeat, Jean lets out a strained sigh. Standing up from her desk, she walks to a nearby window and looks out pensively. "Eula...As unorganized as your father's speech was...He's telling the truth. I know who your mother is."
Eula's features soften as she stands up from the chair. "Who? Who is it!?" She demands to know! Eula had spent her early childhood, looking jealously at the other children's' mothers, whilst wondering where her mother was. Is she safe? Was she even alive? Eula wanted to know, but did not expect it hearing from Jean of all people.
Jean turns around, looking for hidden eyes around Varka's office. Seeing that no threat was around, she stared at Eula's determined eyes. "Are you sure you want to know?"
"YES," Eula half-screeches. "Of course I want to know who my mother is!"
"Okay, I was just checking," Jean says defensively. "I was hoping you would have one of those, it-doesn't-matter epiphanies. You can follow your own path without knowing this, Eula. There is no turning back if you learn the truth."
Eula uses her hand to heave a palm at Jean. It smacks her on the side of the neck.
"Ow! Alright," Jean huffs, rubbing her new bruise. "Geez. Take a seat."
The two sit next to each other on the couch.
"You do indeed know your mother, Eula," Jean begins cautiously. "As you know, I've had my share of learning about time travel magic and alternate timelines. Lisa was somehow very adamant for me to learn. It's a long story," she quickly waves off, "I bet it'd take like, 22 minutes to tell, so we'll leave that for later." She shakes her head to refocus herself. "Point is, a few months ago, I met...me."
Eula, who had been listening unmoving to this point, cocks an eyebrow. "You met you?"
"Future me, to be exact," she states proudly. "I look very tall and very regal, in case you were wondering."
Eula rolls her eyes and motions with a hand for Jean to get on with it.
"Right. Well, in the future, a cult of technomancers from Khaenri'ah overthrows the Celestial government. Myself and the other Vision Wielders are all defeated in the final battle, but you, Eula, succeed in destroying them, ushering in a new era of peace."
Eula's eyes perk up. "Well, that sounds like it's a good thing. I'm glad I figured it out."
More so than she would ever reveal to Jean. As Eula felt elated inside, knowing that she had prevented a dark future from ever happening. She felt proud of herself, that was for sure. Eula had finally proven herself, but she couldn't help but be jealous of her future self. Eula resisted the urge to pout.
"That's not the end," Jean warns. "The cult's survivors hatched a plan. They sent back an assassin to kill your dad, planning to alter the future and making it so you were never born."
Eula's eyes widen. "Wow. This...isn't a joke?"
Jean's face remains deadly serious. "Future me was kind enough to inform me of what she did. She sent a powerful mage back in time to protect your dad...she ends up becoming your mother."
Kaeya, the smug bastard, leans out from beside the doorway which had been obscuring him from view. "Seriously? This sounds like a plot to a thirty year-old fiction novel."
"Shut up, Kaeya!" Eula declares. "This is serious!"
Kaeya glares back at Eula. "I never knew either of my parents, but you don't hear me bitching about it," he grumbles, returning to his work, whatever shady stuff it was.
"And you!" Eula accuses Jean. "You knew this all this time and never told me!?"
Jean smiles awkwardly again. "I didn't really know how to go about it."
"So who is she?" Eula crosses her arms, tired of Jean dancing around the subject.
"Wait, there's more," Jean continues over Eula's groan. "Because this mage becomes your mother, now she's a target for the technomancers. So I'm always vigilant about making sure I have plainclothes agents from the Knights making sure she's safe now. We'll never know when, or even if, they will strike at her."
"So who is my mom, Jean!?" Eula demands again, clearly annoyed.
"Future me chose to send back a powerful mage to protect your dad, but I couldn't send back any mage in our inner circle; the cult would recognize who they were immediately. So, I sent back the most powerful magic user I could find: but one that the technomancers didn't know or were not familiar with."
Eula leans in expectantly to hear the news. Finally! She would finally know who her mother was! And to think she had known her all along, and it made Eula excited. What is her name? Was she a Vision User like her? What was her hobbies? Was she as refined as her? Would her mother love her...?
Jean cringes and smiles awkwardly back at her. "Hehe," she chuckles. "It's...uh..."
"...So after he said that, I kicked him as hard as I could, spat in his face, and threw his drink on the ground," Mona beams, her fiery eyes relishing her own story. "I'm the Powerful Astrologer Mona Megistus, after all! I'm not going to let some shitty, drunk man talk to me like that." She smugly takes a big sip from her bubble tea.
Eula's face is so pale she looks almost look like a snow angel. She curls her lips into a forced smile. "That sounds...fascinating." She answers, her mind obviously lingering on something else besides Mona's story. Eula had never looked closely into Mona's eyes before, as the astrologer's pale green eyes might look like Eula's purple yellow at times. She bitterly admits that it suits both of them.
Mona shrugs, uncaring if the story was compelling to her dearest friend. "So anyway, I know it's your birthday this weekend. I'm still a little jealous that you're two years older than me, but I forgive you. We should go see that new theater play about the killer assassin to celebrate."
Eula nods quietly, her eyes staring far off into the distance. How did her father and Mona meet? Was it in the line of fire, a battle? Or was it in a romantic way?
"Will your father still be in town? Should we invite him?" Mona asked, wondering if her friend was alright. Eula seemed more quiet than usual and it worried her.
"No!" Eula quickly answers, her frenzied tone attracting the curious looks of passersby. "I-I mean...He's a big scaredy-cat. He won't like that movie…" She stares off again. Eula did hear of an incident referring to a fire at the mansion before her birth that was set by unknown means.
Mona swallows her latest sip of bubble tea and sighs in relief. "Good. Between you and me, Eula," she leans toward Eula furtively and lowers her voice to a whisper, "Your dad has always acted a little weird around me."
Eula whimpers softly.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Dumdum DADUM! Dumdum DADUM! Dumdum DADUM!
Happy Father's Day, Eula! Best Cryo girl. As of now anyway. I wanted to write about father's day last sunday, but had no inspiration to do so, but watching the latest film of Terminator, Dark Fate, really pumped my nerves for musings. That, and I wanted to write a story about Eula.
This is also for the July's Content Creator Program. I'm still waiting, MiHoYo!