Chapter Text
Lán Jǐngyí takes one last glance around his room, a brand new duffle bag in his hand. He’s left a lot of stuff—most of the hand-me-downs, all the gifts he never used because they hadn’t really been for him—so the room doesn’t feel as empty as it should. He feels like he should be feeling something like grief or guilt, but instead all Lán Jǐngyí can feel is bone-deep joy.
It was Lán Wàngjī who posed the question to his parents after a long discussion with Wēn Qíng, Wēn Níng, and Wèi Wúxiàn that Lán Jǐngyí hadn’t been privy to, despite it being about him.
“With the new school year, perhaps it would be best for Jǐngyí’s studies if he were to stay with me and Sīzhuī,” he’d said, and his parents were ecstatic at the notion.
Lán Jǐngyí feels some pang of grief that his parents had agreed to send their child away so readily, but mostly he was just happy to leave. He leaves the room without another glance back and exits his house without so much as a farewell. His feet take him on the familiar path to Suíbiàn, and soon Lán Jǐngyí is approaching the black gate that barely keeps in the colorful, thriving garden that surrounds the black house.
“Jǐngyí!” Lán Sīzhuī calls in delight, kneeling in the dirt as he helps his uncle Wēn Níng transplant some of the rhododendrons into a spot that gets less sun.
“Drop your stuff inside and come out and help us,” Wēn Níng says with a quiet grin.
“Okay!” Lán Jǐngyí agrees, bounding up the porch steps and swinging open the front door.
He takes the now-familiar hallway and staircase up to his room, still baring the familiar “Xiǎo Lán” sign, though now it matches Lán Sīzhuī’s “Xiǎo Luóbo” sign on his door to the right of Lán Jǐngyí’s. While rebuilding Suíbiàn, they all tried to recreate their favorite rooms as faithfully as possible, and with the help of Wèi Wúxiàn’s magic they mostly succeeded. Sometimes, Lán Jǐngyí misses Suíbiàn’s ever-changing halls, though he has to admit that this new Suíbiàn was much easier to get around. He drops his duffel bag into his room and doesn’t bother unpacking as he runs downstairs and into the kitchen for a quick snack before joining Lán Sīzhuī in the garden.
Wēn Qíng is at the kitchen table by the window, laptop and printer out as she packs the mail orders from her online apothecary shop.
“Hi Aunt Qíng!” Lán Jǐngyí greets before shoving four pieces of sliced apples into his mouth and pocketing another four.
“Don’t run with your mouth full,” Wēn Qíng scolds without looking up.
Lán Jǐngyí makes a face before leaving the kitchen and heading out into the backyard. Wèi Wúxiàn and Lán Wàngjī are sitting in wooden lounge chairs with iced tea out in the back garden. Wèi Wúxiàn is trying to crochet—they started learning a week ago on a whim and the hyperfixation hasn’t abandoned them yet—and Lán Wàngjī is reading a book that Lán Jǐngyí guesses is something non-fiction and boring.
“Hi Xiǎo Lán!” Wèi Wúxiàn greets with a bright grin beneath their wide-brim sun hat made of black straw and decorated with a red ribbon.
“Hi Auntie Wèi,” Lán Jǐngyí greets, “hi Uncle Lán.”
“Mn,” Lán Wàngjī greets, looking up briefly from his book to smile at both Lán Jǐngyí and Wèi Wúxiàn with his eyes. “Welcome home.”
Lán Jǐngyí smiles, wide and bright. It has never felt so good to be home.
—oOo—
Once upon a time, there lived a cursed witch on the outskirts of town. Her house was as black as the night sky, and every plant in her garden turned black and died no matter what she did.
Long ago, the witch was cursed by her evil stepmother, whose heart had grown black with jealousy over the young witch’s talent. But the curse went awry, as the stepmother wasn’t a talented witch, and the young witch’s soul shattered into many pieces. She kept those pieces in a jar on her windowsill, and with each new day she would pin a different piece of her soul to her heart with a pure silver needle.
But one piece of her heart was missing, so no matter what the witch did, she couldn’t sew her soul back together.
Because of her halfway existence between life and death, everything the witch touched turned black with decay. Fearing what would happen should she touch another person, the witch hid herself in her black house and refused every visitor.
For thirteen long, lonely years, the witch stayed in her black house alone, switching out pieces of her soul and trying to undo her curse.
One day, another witch visited the town and heard about the cursed witch and decided to pay her a visit. In the midst of her decayed garden, the white witch looked like a perfect snowdrop in a sea of black, practically glowing as he approached the witch’s house.
“Go away!” the witch called, terrified her touch would kill the beautiful white witch.
“You won’t hurt me,” the white witch promised, but the cursed witch didn’t believe him.
The white witch kneeled outside her front door for two nights and three days before the cursed witch finally opened the door.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
“To help you,” the white witch said.
He held out a pale hand and waited. The cursed witch hesitantly placed her hand in his. The jars of souls on her windowsill shattered and the house moaned as the final piece of the witch’s soul was finally returned. Whole once more, her garden sprung to life, full of the color it should have always had. The white witch smiled at her with kind eyes.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.”
The witch smiled at him and flung herself into his arms.
“You came just in time,” she said.
And they lived happily ever after.
The End.