Work Text:
POV: You are Lan Zhan, and you're five, and you love your mother even though you're not supposed to, even though she's locked away for ruining your father. And then she dies, and her death is celebrated by those who feared and hated her, but you don't see her body; you're not even allowed to mourn. And so you kneel in the snow and hope with all your tiny heart that obedience is enough to bring her back, but love is an empty house that stays as silent as its name, and the only thing you gain from this is grief.
POV: You are Lan Wangji, and you're fifteen, and you love a boy even though you're not supposed to, even though the world wants to lock him away for ruining you. And then he dies, and his death is celebrated by those who feared and hated him, but you don't see his body; you're not even allowed to mourn. And so you kneel in the snow and bleed, but you do not hope, because you have lost the habit of obedience and you cannot bring him back, and so you live for him, you live to honor what he died to save, and wish only that you'd known to do it sooner.
POV: You are Hanguang-Jun, and you're thirty, and you still love a man even though you're not supposed to, and the world still wants to lock him away, but this time, you will not let them. He is back from the dead, and his body is not his body but he breathes and laughs in a house named for silence that is no longer silent at all, and your mother never met this man, but he is proof that a child's disobedient hope, and a boy's, and a man's, is perhaps enough to undo death, just once; that love is not only a grave, but the thing that grows from it.