Live Again, Love Anew

Chapter 19- A Visit to Mother

Summary

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying visit Lan Yue

Beginning Note

There's now a discord for this fic. Check it out if you're interested.

https://discord.gg/fksbTfqNF4

Without further ado, enjoy!

Lan Wangji

Lan Wangji trudges through the knee-deep snow, Wei Ying following close behind and making a game out of stepping in Lan Wangji's footprints. The snow has been picking up in the last few minutes, but for now it pleasantly tickles his face and nestles among his eyelashes, making his world tinted and blurry for the few moments it takes for the flakes to melt away.

Lan Wangji loves the snow, but he loves Mother more. The image of her cottage against the trees and snow becomes clear, and Lan Wangji warms from the inside, almost indifferent to the cold even without a core. He even thinks he almost smiles.

Lan Wangji heads towards the door but stops in his tracks when a black, red, and white blur flies by him, scrabbles up the side of the cottage, pushes open the window, and falls inside with a yelp and a crash. Mother's laugh follows soon after. And because Lan Wangji is so, so weak for that black, red, and white blur he just sighs and climbs up after the other boy, albeit much more carefully. When he reaches the window, he straddles the sill, sees a clear patch of floor below himself, and drops inside (without a yelp or crash).

He shuts the window before too much snow blows inside and watches as Mother startles at the extra presence. He glances towards Wei Ying. It seems him being here wasn't something that was told to Mother.

"A-Zhan," Mother says quietly, guarded. "I... It's past curfew." She finally says, and why should that matter- Oh. Five year old Lan Wangji has never intentionally broken a rule. But he is not five years old anymore.

"I know," Lan Wangji says. "Play a song?"

Mother seems to startle, eyes wide. "A song?" She echoes, before shaking her head and smiling. "Of course, A-Zhan." She retreats to a different room in the house and returns with her guqin. She settles on the bed with the instrument across her lap, urging the children onto the bed after removing their shoes and huddling in blankets.

"What kind of song do you want?" Mother asks. "There's the happy one, the sad ones, and then the angry ones."

Lan Wangji blinks, flushing at how simple he was as a child. As a child, he would categorize music by feeling, which was probably the biggest tell that he himself would become a skilled guqin player in the future.

He now knows that the happy one was a love song, presumably composed by either Mother or Father. It turns out a love language can be hereditary.

The sad ones were lullabies, which sounds kind of morbid as he thinks about it now, but they were always quiet and solemn, which probably sounded sad to a five year old. Those sad ones are Lan lullabies. He doesn't know if different Sects' lullabies sound happier.

(He doesn't know how to feel about originally thinking his own Sect's songs for children sounded sad. Do other children think that? Aren't lullabies meant to sound calm and at peace for the express purpose of lulling children to sleep?)