Those Who Dream of Freedom (Scaramouche x fem!reader)

Chapter 1 ☆ City of nightmares

A/N: I've decided it was about time to rewrite this story, so I apologize to everyone in case you were reading chapters ahead. I promise it won't be long before I update the whole rewritten story. A few more surprises are coming soon, though, so I promise it'll be worth the wait.

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☆ Scaramouche

I never liked Mondstadt, for two simple reasons. One: because of the freedom it offers its inhabitants. It blinds them. They rely too much on it, on the lack of rules and the fact that they can do almost anything they want. What kind of freedom is that supposed to be, the kind that doesn't give you a clue as to what you should do with your life? The kind that lets you do everything on your own, without any purpose? Too much freedom spoils it. But on the other hand, it also sucks when you don't have it. What would you do if you weren't free? I wouldn't know because I'm not like them.

And the other reason, well, I've never liked the nation because it's very warm, the people who live there are very friendly and welcoming and I have to pretend to be just like them. I was there once, a few years ago, and although they say some places change I don't think that's true here.

I'd like not to have to see the changes, if there are any, with my own eyes, but I have no choice, because I have to go back. Back to the city to find someone. A certain someone who escaped us almost four years ago. A person who knows too much and is dangerous to us, especially for what we plan to do. At least, that's what my superiors like to say. Still, I wish I had gone anywhere else. Even Liyue, the country where the adepti are, was a much better option. But fine, even though I hate Mondstadt, the mission is a mission and I can't abandon it.

"I can see on your face that you wish you had gone somewhere else," someone behind me says and I immediately get angry.

I recognize the voice, I've heard it too many times.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

I turn my head and see a clump of orange hair three heads above me.

"I heard about your mission," he says. "I won't lie to you, I wanted to be able to carry it out myself. It's a pity I couldn't attend the meeting."

I roll my eyes. I didn't need him to come over here to tell me that just like I didn't want to see him. He is perhaps one of the most annoying colleagues, and I find them all annoying.

The one I'm talking to now is Tartaglia, but people call him Childe, which is the name he usually uses to introduce himself. Tartaglia is his Harbinger title in our Fatui organization, which handles diplomatic affairs in Teyvat for all the world to see, but also has a very large military force. A force that makes it the strongest in the whole world. My mission within Fatui also involves killing that person as soon as I find them. Tsaritsa, our leader, told us that they were in the way of the organization's plans, and I, among others, offered to take over the mission without realizing, at the time, what it entailed doing. Now I think maybe I should have figured it out or at least asked, but that day when she told us about the enormous power the person one of us is supposed to seek possessed, I couldn't think of anything else but that I should be the one to carry out the mission.

In this world there are normal people and people with visions, which are objects that take the form of glowing gemstones of different colours with their respective elemental symbol in the middle. Those who have visions can control the element of that vision that they received at some point in their lives. Obviously, a person can only have one vision, and those who have none have no power whatsoever. It's obvious, isn't it? Well, no. There are seven elements - Pyro, Hydro, Geo, Dendro, Electro, Anemo and Cryo - and with each one you can control a force of nature. Now take all these visions and give them to one person. Now you get it?