Ajax, thanks for the preliminary reading.
Barbara Pegg forgave her father during her first summer on her independent work, the evening she got drunk with the Adventurers team. Not that she was a chaste teetotaler: to be a deaconess, and even a healer… The saying "A monk prays during the day, dances with a demon at night" didn't appear just like that. And if someone finds a medical student who didn't drink hospital alcohol with warm company in dark corners, it will be a sensation for the entire infinite universe.
Barbara tried very hard to be the best not only in her studies in the seminary.
However, it was only that evening that she first time drank and danced and prayed for, not in order to earn at least some praise from her father, not out of fear of being rejected by friends, not in the name of hopes to surpass the perfect elder sister in some way or revenge on her, but for herself, for Barbara's own pleasure. The unknown adventurers didn't care how bad Barbara was a warrior, they didn't ask whose daughter and sister she was, or if Barbara even had a family. They were incredibly lucky to get a real healer into their not-too-rich and successful team, thanks to which they returned to the Guild in full force and with all limbs, and therefore they could squander the fee in a tavern, and not in a pharmacy. Everything else didn't matter. This girl was their star, who had to be seduced into a second hike before she was poached by another team.
Barbara was happy for the first time in her life.
Her father, Seamus Pegg, a cardinal and seneschal of the Mondstadt church, forced Barbara to go to the seminary for medicine faculty only because he needed his own agent of influence in the Mondstadt Medical Corps, which was still under no one's control Seamus' eldest daughter, Jean, became a knight of the Order of the Ordo Favonius, who essentially ruled Mondshat and owned its church, and rapidly reached career heights, received the position of Grand Master's adviser. Seamus loved power immensely and was pleased with what a powerful trump card the eldest daughter had become. But the youngest daughter, born from his mistress, always disappointed her father: mediocre appearance, mediocre talents, average grades at school, an average level of magic… No comparison to Jean, the strongest piece on his chessboard.
Mother was also unhappy with Barbara. She wanted her own daughter to surpass the spawn of her lover's wife.
And the stepmother willingly took revenge on her husband and his mistress in the only way available to her — a demonstration of the talents and perfections of her daughter Jean.
The impoverished, unfortunate member of Adventurers' Guild Seamus Pegg had only one successful action in his life: he knocked up Frederica Gunnhildr, the heiress of the noblest aristocratic family of Mondstadt. The upbringing of the young lady was the noblest, so she didn't know what happens to a girl if a boy puts a certain part of his body into her, she never heard of the means to prevent such an effect. And even more so, Frederica didn't know about the methods that quickly, painlessly and safely correct the errors of preventive means. All she saw was a handsome blonde, cheerful and impudent, who, for her sake, risked climbing over the wall of the Gunnhildr residence — the young lady was sure that this was more dangerous than robbing the Mondstadt Cathedral — and uttered words from the sweetness of which her head was spinning and legs were buckling.
When the maids noticed that Lady Frederica's quantity of feminine hygiene products was not shrinking, it was too late to fix the problem without risking the girl's life. This would not have stopped the head of the Gunnhildr clan, but Seamus not in vain gave the servants of the Gunnhildrs everything that he received from the sale of Frederica's gifts: he was at the gates of the clan's residence at the right time and loudly announced that the Beautiful Flower of the Gunnhildrs was pregnant from him and he had come to pick up his woman.
Such a scandal could only be settled by an urgent wedding. The clan even ordered the bards' ballads about the great love of the newly minted couple. The Gunnhildrs buried the plans for a profitable marriage of the beautiful Frederica and made the unknown stray a priest of the Mondstadat church, began to promote him up the career ladder. Where he, however, proved to be very useful for the clan. Therefore, Frederica's father and his advisers allowed her to leave her husband, who began to run around mistresses almost a month after the wedding but forbade her to divorce and remarry. And the unknown soon became the seneschal of the church and contributed a lot to the rise of the Gunnhildr clan — while not forgetting to save up ways to destroy him.
Seamus marrying Barbara's mother was out of the question. The woman also could not find another man who would become a good husband to her and a kind father to Barbara: Seamus didn't let her go, and she herself didn't know how to fight, Seamus chose the weak. Barbara lived with the brands "Bastard of the Cardinal" and "Under-Gunnhildr".
She forgave her father because he correctly identified her only talent — healing. And the seminary, with its healing music course, helped bring out another of Barbara's talents — perfect singing.
But there was a "but".
A love-starved loser entered the seminary and a cheeky merry fellow with a belated teenage rebellion gets a diploma. And that rebellion prompted her to run away on a camping trip with the first team of Adventurers. A calm, independent, self-confident woman returned to the capital, who clearly knew what she wanted, and didn't care what her father, stepmother and mother thought about it.
And Barbara wanted to sing the way she likes herself, without looking back at all the existing vocal canons, to practice extreme medicine, go hiking and preserve the freedom of the Medical Corps.
As soon as his father tried to make a claim, Barbara advised him to moderate his ambitions, adding that in the event of a fight, she would be on the side of the Medical Corps. And that if Seamus will receive the gallows for his immense claims and dirty intrigues, it will be fair. Therefore, it is better for the father to stop before it is too late.
And when Barbara returned from the campaign, she realized that the magnificent Jean was just as unhappy, tortured and intimidated as Barbara herself once was. Out of pity for her sister's suffering, Barbara advised Frederica, who by that time had become the head of the Gunnhildr clan, not to deal with the Ordo Favonius and take her daughter from the order, from which crime stinks from a kilometer away. Or at least not to hang out so closely with Grand Master Varka, who stubbornly runs into a Mondstadt rebellion.
Neither Frederica nor Barbara's father listened. Barbara shrugged her shoulders and continued to do what she saw fit, including aiding those opponents of the Ordo Favonius and the church that were helpful to the Medical Corps' independence.
When Seamus, Frederica and even mother fled with Varka to escape Mondstadt's vengeance, Barbara felt nothing. The time when she wanted their love and recognition passed without a trace. Barbara worried only for her luckless sister Jean, an unfortunate child who never grew up.
Barbara failed to persuade Jean not to take the position of Acting Grand Master. She didn't even have the strength to encourage her sister to relax from time to time, to start a light, non-committal, anti-stress romance outside of the Order. It seems that Jean hasn't only been a virgin until now, but she also hasn't known a single kiss — this is with her beauty and at that age!
But if one doesn't want to grow up, this is only one's choice and only one's responsibility, right?
Barbara, although she helped Jean recover from overwork and reduce the level of neurosis, nevertheless left her sister to the fate that she herself chose.
And Barbara had her own things to do: hikes, articles for medical journals, performances at amateur concerts and the constant development of things from which she made a new musical canon. And Barbara also had a juicy stormy romance with handsome Razor, a werewolf guy who was delighted with all her concerts and accompanied Barbara on all hikes.