Chapter Text
By the time Lan Xichen fully settles into motherhood, Lan Jueying is past her first birthday.
Before then, she believed that she understood the cares and joys of being a mother; she worried for her baby’s health, and every aspect of little A-Ying’s well-being, and thought that there was nothing more to it. But on Jueying’s second Duanwu festival (a momentous occasion, since she was far too little to really enjoy the last one) Xichen looks at her daughter, round-cheeked and pink under her little sun hat as she demolishes the zongzi Shufu cooked for her, and wonders for the first time what she might grow up to be.
A strong cultivator? She most likely will be, considering her heritage: Lan and Dafan Wen on one side, and true-blooded Nie on the other. Brave, certainly: baby Jueying is brave even now, toddling across uneven ground and digging for clawed insects with the same fearlessness that an eighteen-year-old Jueying might carry forth to nighthunts someday.
Learned and wise, without a doubt. She is a Lan, through and through, and her little clear eyes already seem to see through to Lan Xichen’s very soul, absorbing everything her mother does like a brush absorbing ink.
But beyond all that, what will her daughter be? What will Lan Jueying be, when she is no longer her mother’s toddling Ying’er, and meets the world as hers as Lan Xichen did before her?
Somehow, Lan Xichen feels very close to her own mother in that moment, as if Chen Mingyan was still there in the cool shadows surrounding the Jingshi where she spent the last twelve years of her life. It almost feels as if the three of them--mother, daughter, and granddaughter--had all set their feet on the same bit of ground, filled their lungs with the same breath of air, and then drawn back to look at each other by the light of a single sunbeam reflected between their three pairs of eyes.
Jiejie, you have Muqin’s eyes, she remembers Wangji saying once. I think your hearts are the same.
Of the two of them, only Lan Xichen inherited their mother’s eyes. From what little she remembers of her father, his eyes were round and solemn, sweeping up to fine points like uplifted phoenix wings: but mother’s were different, always crinkled with laughter, though they look very different on Xichen’s grave face. Her baby girl has the same eyes now, dark and inscrutable under her tiny forehead: eyes like willow leaves, as Xichen's more kind-hearted aunts and uncles used to say of her when she was young. Gentle like the most tender-hearted of women, and noble like the eyes of the most upstanding junzi.
Lan Xichen bends down and lifts the baby into her arms, careless of the mashed rice staining Yingying's dudou, and holds her up to face the broad slope under the Hanshi. From here, they can see the Cloud Recesses in full: Lan Xichen can make out every last building and reflection pool, every garden patch where the younger disciples grow roses and string beans for their agriculture projects, and the miles and miles of green bamboo forest spanning the descent to Caiyi.
This place has scarcely changed at all, Xichen thinks. She still remembers the morning Wen Xu came to the gates of the Cloud Recesses, when she met his disciples in battle and killed the core-melting hand before he could touch her brothers and sisters in arms; and then, she ran away to Langya and killed Wen Xu two weeks later, luring him into an abandoned temple before decapitating him with Shuoyue.
What might have happened to the Gusu Lan sect if Wen Xu and Wen Zhuliu survived?
Suddenly, a small hand flutters against her chin, and she shakes herself out of her musings before pressing Yingying’s cheek to hers. The baby’s face is impossibly soft, and her little impatient grumbles nearly break Lan Xichen’s heart in two
“This will all be yours to look after someday,” she whispers, as her daughter’s tiny fist curls over the jade pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat. “One day you will have the knowledge and strength to preserve everything you see before you now, and on that day, every elder and little disciple will know to look to you for protection. You will be all that stands between them and the rest of the world, so you must not falter, or ever fail to think of our people before yourself, but it is not nearly as hard as it seems. In some ways, it has been difficult, but A-Niang and A-Die will stay by your side to help you, and so will your Jiugong and Jiufu.”
They stand there together until the sun begins to set, the proud young Zewu-xianzi of the present and the little Lan-zongzhu of an era yet to come, and neither of them move until two heavy hands steal around Lan Xichen’s waist, startling her so much that her head jolts back against Nie Mingjue’s cheek.
“A-Jue,” she sighs, when the familiar warmth of her husband’s mouth brushes over her nose. “How were the celebrations, sweetheart?”
“Long,” comes the reply, rumbling like the sea in storm as she turns around to face him. “And over now, thankfully, since A-Zhan and A-Xian are managing the guests. But how are my zongzhu, and my xiao-Lan-zongzhu?”
“They are both well,” Lan Xichen laughs, “and our xiao-zongzhu is very sticky, so she needs a bath. But your wife has missed you more than she can say, and she would have you in her arms again as soon as you are willing.”
He tilts her chin up and kisses her. “Do you miss me still, Lan Huan?”
“I miss you more than I did a moment ago, beloved. Now come and kiss me again.”
Another kiss, deeper this time. “And now?”
What is there to say to that?
“A-Jue…”
He kisses her a third time, and smiles. “Xichen. What are you thinking of, my love?”
Lan Xichen pulls him closer, meeting him with her heart on her lips.
Yingying laughs and nuzzles the side of her mother's face, and watches with contented eyes as their three shadows mingle into one.