THE HEIRESS - genshin impact

I - lab safety is of utmost importance

QUICK NOTE BEFORE CHAPTER BEGINS: IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT BURNS, SCARS, OR BLOOD, PLEASE, I REPEAT, PLEASE DO NOT LOOK UP WHAT A SULFURIC ACID BURN LOOKS LIKE. IT IS VERY GORY AND NAUSEA INDUCING !
 
"ACID..." the platinum-haired alchemist muttered quietly, paying extremely close attention to the experiment in front of him. The young girl to his right, tan skinned with flaxen hair and cobalt blue eyes, was not doing the same. Her face, therefore her ears, were facing the opposite direction, seemingly lost in her thoughts, or, perhaps, caught in the rapture of the snow's beauty.

       The platinum-haired boy muttered out his previous request—no, demand, a tad bit louder than before, trying to grasp the girl's attention. She was not budging, however. This caused the alchemist to annoyingly scrunch up his nose and furrow his brows, eyes finally blinking for the first time in a few minutes before peeling them away from the ongoing experiment. They, now, landed on the girl to his right. Once the scientist noticed that the girl was not willingly ignoring him, he paused, and relaxed his facial features.

       He knew that she was highly sensitive to how others perceived her—so much to the point that it affected the way she saw herself. He pitied the girl, really, for that was no way to live. In the city of the wind, in the nation of freedom, citizens were meant to enjoy their lives to the fullest, in lieu of worrying about how others viewed them. The girl, however, was sadly victim to this fear. She stayed quiet and meek, she contributed to the greater cause only when requested to, and chose to work alone on her own projects subsequently.

       Hardly anyone in the city knew her—even laid their eyes on her—for she preferred to stay out of that area, due to the fact that everyone who dwelled there were enthusiastic extroverts—her exact opposites. There were just two issues with this plan. One, her brother, Captain Kaeya of the Knights of Favonius, lived there, and was very persistent in her visitation hours. And two, there was only one single library in all of Mondstadt, and that library was housed inside of the main city.

       Despite the girl's avocation to disengage in conversation with every living being, she got along with the librarian, Lisa, quite well. The girl would be a frequent—if not the most frequent visitor of the library whenever she would visit the town. Over the years, Lisa had watched the girl grow up alongside her brother—er, not really alongside, since the girl was almost never caught with her dimwit of a sibling.

       As the girl grew older, Lisa would try to strike up conversation more and more frequently, in order to make the girl open up to someone for once. At first, it was a shot in the dark, a terribly, terribly misaimed shot in the dark, for it did not go well. The second Lisa had said hello, even acknowledged the girl's presence, she would drop all of the books she was holding and dart out of the library faster than a hare. Lisa would sigh while picking up and examining the discarded books, deciding that she would get the girl to say something next time.

      "Feyre, what are you looking at?" The chief alchemist questioned, authoritatively, yet quietly, as to not startle the girl into flight mode. The girl instantly broke from her trance after hearing the alchemist's voice so close to her left ear. The sound was dizzying, almost. The softness of his usually monotone voice. It made her brain fuzzy, yet scratched it in all of the right ways. She shook her head quickly before turning to face her lab instructor. She dared not to look him in the eyes, however, did she knew she would be enraptured by them, the aquamarine irises staring so intently into her own. She wanted to jump in them, to swim in their shallow depth, to drink in its icy flavor. She knew she would freeze immediately if she looked into them, so she alternatively looked at the ongoing experiment.

      "I'm sorry, Mr. Albedo. It seems as though I were prematurely distracted for a moment. I promise to do better." Feyre spoke so quietly, so softly, that Albedo almost had to lean in to hear what she was saying. He did not need to do this, though. He already knew what she was going to say before she said it. He always knows. Despite how secretive and introverted the girl may be, she was very predictable to an experienced hypothesizer such as himself. He could see through her, as if she were made of glass. Feyre is aware of this fact, and it terrifies her. She fails to hide anything from her instructor, and it makes her shake in anxiousness almost every day. Though she had nothing to hide, she couldn't help feeling skeeved out by the way he could answer her questions before she even thought to ask them.