Chapter Text
Madam Lan was sitting at a small table, staring out the window with a view of the path leading to her secluded home. Though she truly had no reason to, seeing as how she was forbidden from leaving the rather restricted patch of land surrounding her home, she still tried her best to wake up at mao shi to keep herself on the same schedule as her boys. Most days she would laze around, reading or drawing, or tend to her garden, but her excitement today caused her to wake up promptly and quickly dress herself. She also spent some time tidying up her home. It truly did not need it, as she was the only permanent resident and the only visitors she received were the servants tasked with tending to her and her sons. On rare occasions Qiren would stop by for short visits, though they were few and far between.
Today, however, she would be receiving a special guest. A-Zhan had mentioned a boy, who was currently visiting the Cloud Recesses as a guest disciple, several times over his last few visits. Naturally, her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she had finally managed to convince her son to invite the boy for lunch. With all of her morning tasks complete, there was nothing left to do but wait impatiently for the hours to pass until it was time for their visit.
As she waited, a light rain began to fall. The weather had been rather dreary the past few days. The rain pattering against the flowers of her garden and the roof of her home lulled her racing mind. She soon found her thoughts wondering back in time to another rainy day, much like today.
*****
She had slept in, not seeing any reason to wake before the sun with the rest of the clan. She had nowhere to be and nothing to do. Her food would be delivered to her, left outside of her door with a faint knock to let her know that it had arrived. There would be little to no human contact. Her sons were not due for another visit for three more weeks. Thinking of her sons caused her heart to constrict. They were getting older. Soon they would no longer need their mother. Most days she barely felt like a mother as it was. She played such a small part in their upbringing that it truly would not change much about their daily lives if she were simply not there at all.
A thought had planted itself in her mind months ago when Qiren had sent someone to inform her that the boys would be missing their visit that month as they had important visitors and the boys, as heirs, were needed in attendance at the feast that would be held that day. As her boys grew, she knew they would be required to attend more and more events. They were representatives of the Lan clan and A-Huan was to be the next clan leader. This meant that more and more monthly visits would be cancelled. With herself locked away in seclusion, her sons were her only reason to continue to get out of bed. Without them and the monthly visits she so looked forward to, she could not imagine dragging herself through each day.
This thought had begun to consume her mind. She had even planted a few poisonous flowers in her garden. She enjoyed tending to her flowers and had felt it only right that, should the time come, they should be the method with which she used to free herself of her seclusion.
On this particular morning her mind seemed to be screaming at her for freedom. It told her that her sons would be fine without her, perhaps even better without the burden of scheduling monthly visits around their already busy lives. They had classes to attend which only grew in number as they grew older and more capable. She does not remember making the decision, but she soon found herself in the corner of her garden with a handful of flowers. She brewed them in her tea and whispered a final farewell to her sons, her A-Huan and A-Zhan, as she took the first sip.
*****
Her eyes fluttered open. She was laying in a bed with soft, white sheets. There were murmured voices in the hall. She felt extremely disoriented as her mind tried to comprehend where she was. It was not her home, that she knew. She turned her head to take in her surroundings and her body seemed disconnected from her. It was slow and difficult to move even just that much. She remembered drinking the tea. She knew she should not have woken up. This was a rather unexpected development.
At the sound of the door opening, she slowly turned her head in the direction of the sound to see who it was and if they could provide any answers. The man in white (there was so much white in the room, it was actually quite blinding) introduced himself as Lan Daifu. He calmly explained the situation as he began to examine her. As it turns out, the servant who had brought her lunch decided not to leave the food outside of the door because of the rain. When he knocked and did not receive an answer he had become worried. There was nowhere else she could be after all. He had found her, unresponsive, on the floor and immediately sent for a healer. They had recognized the few flowers that had been left on the table and were able to quickly make an antidote to their poison. It had almost been too late and she had been asleep for two days as her body recovered. Lan Daifu finished his examination, stating that there would likely be no lasting damage done, though she would still require at least another week in the healers pavilion for further monitoring and to give her time to completely recover from the lingering effects of the poison. As he stepped out, she heard him say, "Please inform Lan Qiren that Madam Lan is awake," before he quietly closed the door behind himself.
Qiren's entrance into the room was much less calm and quiet than Lan Daifu's had been. It seemed he had come not to check on her, but to scold her. Of course. She should not have expected otherwise. He had never much cared for her beyond the bare minimum required due to her position as Lan Furen and A-Huan and A-Zhan's mother. He never really tried to hide his dislike of her and she had never really cared.
"What were you thinking?!" he demanded. Maybe it was simply because she was still recovering and her emotions still felt a little raw, but she decided to tell him exactly what she had been thinking. Starting with a few months prior when the thoughts had first taken root and ending with those thoughts finally coming to fruition.
When she finally finished speaking, a tense silence settled in the room. She waited for Qiren's response. When it came, it was not what she had expected.
"A-Zhan cried."
"What?" A-Zhan? Her A-Zhan? The same A-Zhan that she had not seen cry in years?
"They were with me when I received the news that you had been sent to the healers pavilion. The healers were not confident that they had administered the antidote in time. They said that it would be hard to know the extent of any possible damage until you woke up, if you ever did."
He paused, as if giving that information time to sink in. She knew that her boys would be told of what happened to her, but she had hoped the news would be broken to them gently.
"Did the boys hear...?"
"No. I simply told them that their mother was not feeling well, but was being looked after by the healers. When they asked to see you I told them you were sleeping and needed the rest to recover."
Ah. Not technically a lie, but not exactly the truth either. Lans were a crafty bunch when they chose to be.
"A-Zhan had not taken the news well. He has asked to see you at least twice a day for the past two days and has cried each time he was denied. A-Huan has been doing his best to comfort him, but I can see his own worry that he is trying so hard to hide. He has cried as well, though he tries to hide it by waiting until he is alone in his room. I heard him last night after I put A-Zhan to bed."
Hearing of her sons' pain brought tears to her own eyes. She tried to wipe them away, not wanting Qiren to see the effect his words had on her. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I believe you should be aware of the consequences of your actions and the impact that it has had on your children."
Qiren had not yelled, not since his original question at least, and he had not raised a hand against her and yet she would almost prefer if he had done both. The way in which he delivered this news, with quiet anger and simple facts tore at her heart. Lans might occasionally stretch the boundaries of the truth to work around their disciplines, but Qiren would never be anything other than completely honest when it came to the boys. He might not have planned on ever marrying or having children, but she knew that he took his role as caretaker of her sons seriously and that he loved them as his own.
The realization of what she had almost done finally hit her. Her sons had cried and worried about her. If they reacted this way to simply being told that she was sick and they could not visit her, how much worse would it have been if they were told they would never be able to visit her again? She had hurt them. Whether it was intentional or not, she was the cause of their tears. The tears that she had been trying to hold back fell in earnest now.
"Can I see them? Please?"
"On one condition."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to swear to me that you will never hurt the boys like this again." She knew what he meant. He meant for her to swear that she would never again try to take her own life.
"I swear it," she sobbed, "but you have to swear something to me in return."
He raised one questioning eyebrow at her. What kind of position was she in to make demands of him?
"Swear to me that you will not take my boys from me. They are all I have and my only reasons to live."
He seemed to contemplate for a moment before finally nodding. "I swear it." He then stepped out into the hall to request that someone go retrieve the boys from their classes and being them to the healers pavilion.
They waited in silence, but a quiet understanding seemed to pass between them. She now understood just how needed and loved she still was by her children and Qiren now understood that keeping her children from her was more than just a punishment, it was a death sentence.
When they arrived both boys broke the no running rule by flying into her room and immediately climbing into bed with her to shower her with hugs and questions about how she was feeling and if she was better now. Surprisingly, Qiren did not scold them, but stepped out of the room to give them some time together.
After about a shichen, he returned to collect the boys. He also surprised them all by announcing that their visitations would be increased to twice a month and they would be allowed to stay the night at their mother's home on those days, as long as they were dressed and ready for classes the next morning when he came to pick them up.
"Thank you," she said through fresh tears as she hugged her sons goodbye. He simply nodded before leaving to return them to class.
A week later, when she was finally released to return home, she immediately went to the corner of her garden where the poisonous flowers were planted. She intended to rip them all out, but was surprised to find that someone had already beaten her to it. She was also surprised to see that construction had already begun on her home to add rooms for her sons to sleep in. Though she knew he would never admit it, she knew exactly who was responsible for both. She smiled and sent a quiet thank you to her brother-in-law.
It was time for her to throw herself back into being the mother that her children deserved. The mother that could not only take care of her sons, but herself as well, if only for the sake of her sons. This meant making sure to eat all of her bland meals to keep her body healthy, spending her days productively through meditation and study to keep her mind healthy, and learning to rise at mao shi so that she would be able to get her boys ready for class.
She groaned at the thought, but knew that she would do whatever it took to keep her promise to Qiren. Her sons were the two halves of her very heart and she would never try to leave them again.