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A-Yuan tried very hard not to trip over the long hem of his robes. They were new, the outer robe the same bright cloud-white as Baba’s, the inner the pale blue of a Gusu summer morning, and of a proper length. Meaning they were nearly an inch longer than A-Yuan’s old clothes, the roughspun beige clothes Baba had found him in, and much harder to walk in than the simple, softly colored sets of robes A-Yuan had been wearing since he had first arrived, sick and sad in his Baba’s arms.
A-Yuan had never worn anything so fine, he was almost certain, and he was mildly terrified of messing them up. Baba had said it wouldn’t matter, when he had helped A-Yuan into the robes, but A-Yuan knew today was an important day, and he was terrified of messing it up for Baba. Terrified that if he didn’t do well enough, Baba would have to leave again.
A-Yuan did not remember much of his time before Baba but he was sure the fright of being left was new. He didn’t think, before Baba, he had ever really been left alone before. Maybe that was because he only remembered being held, but still. He didn’t remember being alone.
He hadn’t been alone when he first came with Baba either. A-Yuan had been really sick, and his first memories of Gusu had been the medical rooms and a slew of healers poking and prodding him and packing ice and snow around his fevered body. Throughout it all, Baba had been a steadying presence, something about him that spoke of familiarity even though A-Yuan didn’t remember much of anything, except a soft voice and warm arms and a single name.
Baba had held his hand tight and stroked his head as he had cried out for Mama, and only seemed a little upset that he could not produce what A-Yuan had wanted more than anything.
Then, A-Yuan had gotten better, his fever breaking. And then it wasn’t only Baba and the healers, but another man, his face like Baba’s but not, and an older man, with facial hair and a dark scowl. The older man had told Baba it was time to go, since A-Yuan was okay; he had at least seemed upset about it, when A-Yuan had begun crying, but he had still insisted.
Baba had left once some more older people had arrived; he hadn’t had a choice, and he had promised to return, but he had left and the older people had left. The not-Baba man – who had introduced himself as A-Yuan’s Bófù – had stayed, for a time, until A-Yuan’s tears had subsided, his warm hand gentle as he had patted A-Yuan’s head but then he too had to leave and A-Yuan, possibly for the first time in his life, definitely the first time since he could remember, had spent the night alone save for a doctor checking on him once.
It had not been the last time. Bófù and Shū Gōng, the older man with the facial hair who had first come to take Baba away, did their best to look after him, but they were busy people and A-Yuan was too little for the schooling he saw the other children go to. So often he had been alone, with only some toys and books Baba had left for him.
A-Yuan had learned to hate being alone, and it had been many days since he had seen Baba, an entire month according to Bófù. So he had naturally been overjoyed when A-Yuan’s bedroom door had cracked open and it had been Baba’s face peering in above A-Yuan, a bundle of fine cloth in his hands, and not Bófù or a servant come to help him get ready for the day.
A-Yuan knew, despite Baba’s words, that he had to be really good today, with whatever was going on, so that Baba did not have to be sent away again, like he had when A-Yuan had first arrived. Or, the deeper part of his fear, the part A-Yuan had done his best to squash deep inside him, so that Baba did not have to go away and never come back, like Mama.
A-Yuan did not remember why Mama left, or where he was. He hadn’t been able to ask Baba, apart from when he had been crying for him in the throes of his sickness, and Bófù’s smile had gone weird the one time he had asked him, so A-Yuan had no knowledge of what happened. He couldn’t imagine it had been his choice – A-Yuan did not remember much but he knew the hold of his Mama had been tight, comforting, all-consuming, not at all the type of hold A-Yuan could imagine willingly giving up – which made it all the more terrifying that it could happen to Baba too.
Mama’s laugh and his teasing voice was already beginning to fade from A-Yuan’s limited memory. He couldn’t imagine how he could handle if he started to forget Baba’s deep, gentle voice too.
So he stepped careful, his eyes focused downward so that he knew when his feet were dangerously close to that pristine hem, and he kept his grip around Baba’s guiding hand tight.
“Do not fear, A-Yuan.” Baba’s voice was soft, almost so quiet A-Yuan couldn’t hear him, as he came to a stop near a building A-Yuan had never seen, far removed from the quiet corner Bófù had placed him in for the last month. There were other people here, more people than A-Yuan could imagine seeing, all dressed in the same cloud-bright white as Baba and him, their voices a soft background murmur around him.
“Not scared.” A-Yuan lied immediately. Baba would worry if he thought A-Yuan was scared.
“Lying is forbidden.” Baba said immediately, although his voice never lost that serene gentleness. Still A-Yuan couldn’t help but flinch at the reprimand. Like a flash, Baba was kneeling down, his solemn face level with A-Yuan’s. “You need never hide from me, A-Yuan.” There was a pause after Baba spoke, and it took A-Yuan a moment to realize there had been a question in Baba’s words. Bófù was like that too, so A-Yuan had some practice in reading between the lines adults never made clear.
“If I do bad,” A-Yuan’s voice was a tiny whisper, nearly lost amongst the quiet chatter of the people around them and the soft rustle of the breeze through the trees that lined the courtyard, “will you have to go away, like Mama?”
Baba’s face did not something strange then, A-Yuan couldn’t say what, before it was once more serene, as smooth as the jade pendant hidden somewhere in the folds of his new robes, no hint at all of what had torn across it.
Baba hid a lot, A-Yuan thought, behind his face. Maybe Mama had done the same, behind his smiles.
“Mama –“ there was something in the way Baba spoke when he said Mama’s name, like it was caught in his throat. Or maybe like there was another name, there, that he would have said instead. Mama must have had another name, he couldn’t have been everyone’s Mama, but if A-Yuan had ever learned it, it was lost now. It was possible it was lost forever – Bófù always looked puzzled or weird whenever A-Yuan mentioned Mama, so A-Yuan knew he didn’t know it, and he hadn’t dared mention Mama to anyone else, lest that break some rule too. Baba probably knew Mama’s name, but he hadn’t said it, not in all the times A-Yuan had called out for Mama, so probably it was a rule.
It sounded like he wanted to say it now, maybe, but still he didn’t. “Mama did not leave A-Yuan because A-Yuan was bad.” Baba continued smoothly, the catch in his voice gone. “Mama did not want to leave, but he had to. He loved A-Yuan very much.” A-Yuan tried to remain steady at the words, prim and proper like Baba, but he felt unmoored.
All the time that Baba had been gone, A-Yuan had wondered. He hadn’t really thought Mama had left him willingly, but there had been some unspeakable fear in the back of his mind. Baba, in just moments, had erased all of that but A-Yuan hardly felt better.
The fear about Mama leaving was gone, but all that meant was there was more room for the sadness. The sadness and more fear that Baba would go to, because if Mama hadn’t had to leave because of A-Yuan, then A-Yuan had no way of ensuring that Baba did not leave again too.
Mama was fading from A-Yuan’s memory, and it sounded very much that he would never be coming back; A-Yuan would never be able to replenish the memories he had lost. He didn’t know what he would do, where he would be, if the same thing happened with Baba.
“A-Yuan.” There definitely was a catch in Baba’s voice then, with a hint of panic. A-Yuan realized, belatedly, that he had begun crying.
Big boys weren’t supposed to cry, unless they were hurt or something was wrong. A-Yuan was not hurt, but there was a gaping sense of wrongness where his Mama should have been and A-Yuan had no idea how to fill it. Thinking of it just made him cry harder.
Warm arms wrapped around him and A-Yuan just sobbed harder, his tears seeping into the pristine whiteness of his Baba’s shoulder. “A-Yuan.” Baba’s voice sounded devastated in a way and A-Yuan desperately wanted to stop crying. Today was important, he knew that. And even if Baba wouldn’t leave if A-Yuan was bad, it would still ruin the day. But the tears wouldn’t stop flowing, how could they when the one who kissed them away was gone and A-Yuan had no way of bringing him back.
So he cried. And cried. Between hitches of his breath, A-Yuan tried to tell his Baba what was wrong. Maybe the hurt would go away if he could just explain it. Maybe Baba would know what to do. But he had no idea if his words came out clear or muffled, if they sounded like words at all.
Throughout it all, Baba just held him and when his tears had finally trickled away, A-Yuan felt himself get lifted up, Baba’s arms warm and secure around him, taking no heed to the fact that the tight grip was ruffling A-Yuan’s pretty robes.
“It’s alright, A-Yuan.” Baba’s voice was deep, serene again. If he hurt like A-Yuan hurt, he did not show it. “No one is going to go away. You will stay here, with me. And Baba will not let you forget Mama.”
Oh.
Baba had understood.
Something lit in A-Yuan’s chest at that, a feeling he couldn’t describe except that it was warm and it reminded him of Mama.
A-Yuan had stopped crying – he was hardly even sniffling anymore – but Baba did not place him back down. A-Yuan was carried, his head buried into the crook of Baba’s neck, all the way up the rest of the steps he had been so careful to walk neatly up. Carried into a room where A-Yuan could peek out and see Bófù and Shū Gōng sat together, next to a bunch of older men with stern faces like Bófù. Baba did not place A-Yuan did even in front of them and A-Yuan was allowed to hide his face even though it was terribly rude not to greet everyone properly.
He was held as they all spoke – well, as they all spoke to Baba and Baba made various quiet noises that made his chest rumble against A-Yuan’s ear. He was held as the voices got louder – almost to a yell although A-Yuan had never heard someone yell in his entire month in Gusu – and then get quieter again as Bófù spoke. The voices grew buzzy and then faded, as A-Yuan was held in the warmth of Baba’s arms. He fell asleep, safe in the security of his Baba’s embrace, even though he knew whatever going on around him was important. When he woke again, it was to Baba gently shifting him in his arms so that he could take something from someone – it was Bófù, smiling one of his gentle smiles and holding out –
A ribbon. A pretty white ribbon with little blue clouds, that matched A-Yuan’s new important outfit.
“Welcome, Lan Yuan.” Bófù intoned and that was strange. A-Yuan had never been anything but A-Yuan and there must have been something important to his new name now. Behind Bófù, there was still some grumbling.
Baba was also called Lan, A-Yuan knew. And suddenly he realized what had been decided.
Baba had spoken true; they shared a name now, which meant Baba would not leave.
Baba would stay with A-Yuan, even though A-Yuan had cried and not been able to go up the steps in his new robes,or greet the room of grandpas and uncles who must have been deciding if A-Yuan got to keep Baba. Baba had told the truth that Baba would not have to leave A-Yuan.
That meant he had told the truth about everything.
Baba would not let A-Yuan forget Mama.
A-Yuan felt like crying again, all over again, but he managed to settle himself, turning his head back into Baba and breathing in his subtle woodsy scent.
Baba was staying. A-Yuan would not be left alone.
A-Yuan would not forget Mama.
And he didn’t.
Baba was – A-Yuan would learn later, over the years – not known for speaking. He was quiet, quieter than anyone else in Gusu. But that did not mean he could not tell stories.
Baba had a lot of stories.
That first night, after A-Yuan became Lan Yuan, Baba took him to the back hills. A-Yuan had been back to walking, his steps growing a little more sure when it became clear that no one was going to scold him for tripping over the unfamiliar length or for getting grass stains on the bright overlayer, and so he had been very close to them when the rabbits appeared.
A-Yuan had been delighted. He knew, or was very certain, that he had never seen a rabbit before. They were fluffy, soft, and surprisingly inquisitive as they came snuffling after their new friend. Baba had sat A-Yuan down, right next to a wooden enclosure that held even more of the fluffy little delights and scooped up several rabbits to plop on A-Yuan’s lap.
Then Baba had sat down next to A-Yuan, unconcerned with his own stark white robes, and began to tell A-Yuan his first story.
Mama had gifted Baba the rabbits; had caught them in these very hills. Two rabbits, Mama had found; boys – A-Yuan had been shown them, one black rabbit and one white, the first two that had greeted them, larger than the rest and older – but once Baba had brought them to this glade and built their little house, more had come. Mama hadn’t been able to see all the rabbits before he had to go away, but that was okay. Baba was taking good care of them, for Mama, raising them right and giving them all the things bunnies needed to grow.
Just like A-Yuan.
Baba’s first story about Mama had been about gifts, about how kind and giving Mama was, even before he became Mama.
A-Yuan visited the rabbits a lot, especially that first year with Baba. He felt close to Mama there, another gift amongst the many Mama had given Baba. Baba was at ease there too; he didn’t go out much, never left Cloud Recesses and rarely spoke to anyone, but there was a tenderness to Baba when he was with the rabbits.
He told more stories, amongst the rabbits.
When A-Yuan was sad or overwhelmed; when his classes were difficult or his robes too stifling, Baba would gather him up and take him to the rabbits. Let him run around and shout, both things forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, and, once A-Yuan became so tired that he would collapse along the ground, Baba would gather up the rabbits he had been chasing and carefully cover A-Yuan in the soft, warm bodies.
So A-Yuan could grow, he’d said. Mama had done something similar, buried A-Yuan in the ground so that he would grow. Now that he had sprouted, Baba would say in his solemn voice, he would grow big and tall from the rabbits.
It was silly, A-Yuan knew, not like what he knew about Baba. Another thing from Mama, Baba was determined A-Yuan would not grow up without.
Mama was generous; A-Yuan would not forget. And Mama was silly; A-Yuan would not forget that either.
Silly Mama featured a lot in Baba’s stories.
He’d liked to throw flowers; A-Yuan learned during his first outside visit with Baba. They had gone to a small conference, and A-Yuan had seen his first cultivation competition. Girls had been throwing flowers, something strange and unusual. It had been Bófù who had explained what it meant, his little smile never fading, a way for girls to show favor to youths that they liked or admired, a way for young men to gain some luck from their favor. It had been later, back in the rooms he was sharing with Baba, that Baba had talked about how Mama liked to do it too.
Baba never talked about Mama in front of others, never told his stories in earshot of anyone else, but it hadn’t mattered to A-Yuan. He liked the feeling of sharing a secret with Baba, for all that secrets were forbidden in the Lan sect. He liked that they had something between the two of them, that they could share Mama together.
This was one of those stories, and A-Yuan was doubly lucky, because he had gotten two stories that night. Baba told him how Mama would cajole young girls to throw flowers down at Baba, and once did it himself, throwing him a peony. Baba had kept the peony, and once they had returned home, would show A-Yuan the carefully pressed remnants of his Mama’s favor. Mama had also had flowers thrown at him – he must have been very pretty, although Baba didn’t say.
The flowers were not always a sign of favor though – Baba had been almost smiling when he had shared the second story, with A-Yuan, of Mama and the Flower Damsel, and the bad poems Mama had recited for the chance of seeing the Damsel’s face. A-Yuan had giggled as he added his new story to his growing cache.
Mama was generous, and silly, and charming, too. Because he had been given flowers too, and the Flower Damsel may have been angry, but she could have done much worse than throw flowers at Mama, powerful spirit that she was, but she hadn’t.
Mama was also powerful.
He had been strong, strong enough to win a war.
These stories – the stories where Mama was a fighter, where Baba was a fighter, and Bófù and Sect Leader Jiang, who A-Yuan had seen only in a glimpse, carefully hidden behind Baba’s legs the one time the leader had come to meet with Bófù, were scary and confusing. A-Yuan had learned of them first in school – he’d turned old enough a year after moving with Baba – and sometimes the stories differed from Baba’s account.
He'd learned Mama’s name then, although he wasn’t allowed to say it. People didn’t like Mama, A-Yuan had learned at the same time. Because he had been powerful and because he had done what he wanted.
A-Yuan would learn, as the years passed, that not everything about Mama had been good. He had hurt people, he had fought with friends, he had followed a dangerous cultivation path.
Baba did not hide the bad from A-Yuan, although the stories he shared were watered down, but he was clear that Mama had always done what he thought best, and he had used his strange, dangerous powers for good. People had gotten hurt, because power was dangerous, but Mama was not bad for that, no matter what people said.
Mama had given many things, to the people after all. He had made the spirit flags that A-Yuan would learn to use, years and years after he had come to Gusu. And evil-detecting compasses. He had come up with clever talismans and new ways to use paper effigies; he had even come up with a way to bring people back as sentient fierce corpses, although that was often listed as one of his crimes rather than a gift.
And Mama had been brave. Always the first to run into danger, to take on the risk of death for someone else, to defend anyone who had need of it. Xuanwu’s cave had been a favorite of A-Yuan, although he would learn years and years later how much Baba had left out of the first rendition of the story. Baba always had a faraway shine in his eyes, an almost smile on his lips, as he recounted the ways Mama saved everyone in the cave.
Mama, A-Yuan had learned, was clever and powerful and strong and brave as well as silly, generous, and charming.
Mama was a lot of things, A-Yuan learned over the years, as Baba shared his stories and his little gifts.
He’d liked red and when he had pulled his hair back in his youth, much like A-Yuan would learn to do, he had used a bright red ribbon. Baba still had one tucked carefully away into one of his books that he sometimes let A-Yuan see.
He’d grown up swimming, A-Yuan had learned when Baba had spent one summer teaching him to swim. He’d loved lotus seeds and Yunmeng spicy food – A-Yuan had been a little too dubious to try the bright red food Baba had pointed out as one of Mama’s favorites, an old memory tinged with a little bit of pain and quite a bit of trepidation blossoming at the back of his mind, but he had never turned down the lotus seeds Baba would purchase in the late summer, when Caiyi Town imported them from Yunmeng.
He liked pranks, and alcohol, and books. Baba would always buy a small bottle of alcohol, never to drink as that would be forbidden, for Mama whenever the season came and Caiyi Town began selling the new years’ offerings of Emperor’s Smile. Some of Mama’s favorite books, copies of which could be found in the Cloud Recess library, A-Yuan would sometimes read aloud, as though Mama could hear him, even though Mama never answered to anything.
Baba tried, A-Yuan had learned when he had gotten older, almost to the age of being given his own courtesy name. He played inquiry nearly every night, but Mama never answered. Wherever he had gone, it was far enough away that Baba’s music and A-Yuan’s stories could not reach.
A-Yuan hoped, when he was old enough to understand that Mama wasn’t just gone – that he had died, back when A-Yuan had gotten so sick he lost most of his memories – that he had gone somewhere peaceful while he waited for his next life. That he had found some place with all the things he liked, or that he had already entered into his next reincarnation, and that his new life was full of everything he had lost in this one.
A-Yuan knew a lot about Mama. Baba’s memories were not A-Yuan’s own – A-Yuan himself barely remembered Mama’s faded smile, he had lost the exact cadence of his laugh, and he could no longer tell if his memories of warm embraces came from Baba or Mama – but his stories had been vivid enough, for all that he still barely spoke, that A-Yuan knew Mama. He had not forgotten him.
Even as he grew up, as he became used to the pristine Lan robes, as he took over tying his own forehead ribbon from Baba, as he began attending classes and became friends with Lan Jingyi, as he developed his own core, as he got his own sword and begun thinking of Baba as A-Die in private and Hanguang-jun in public, A-Yuan did not forget Mama.
Even as A-Yuan grew out of childhood completely and took on his own courtesy name, he did not forget.
Sizhui, A-Die had named him, and it was apt.
Even if Mama had found his peace, he was remembered, he was longed for.
Sizhui would not forget Mama, A-Die had kept his promise completely, thoroughly, as he had every promise he had ever given Sizhui.
Sizhui knew Mama.
And so, even when things at the Mo Estate went so strange and terrible, Sizhui had not been able to to shake the feeling of familiarity that Mo-gongzi gave off. And when they met again, in the forest and the man with Mo-gongzi’s face held up a shoddily constructed flute and began shrilly playing a familiar tune, Sizhui knew.
Those notes, terrible as they sounded in the fresh bamboo flute, were as familiar as breathing to Sizhui. A-Die had played them to him in the dead of night, when missing Mama felt like a jagged wound on both their souls, when Sizhui had been unable to sleep or had been woken from nightmares. When Sizhui got sick, before his golden core had formed, those notes had been as soothing as the cold strips of cloth A-Die had pressed against his forehead and the warm congee he had brought for him. It was a song A-Die only played with Sizhui – there were no papers with the notes written on it, there wasn’t even a name, that Sizhui knew of.
There was, in short, no one else in the world who would know that song.
So Sizhui knew.
He had hoped, as a dutiful son, that Mama had found peace after his death, but seeing him now - younger and smaller than he had any right to be, almost of age with Sizhui but still so clearly Mama, with the way he had played, with how he had summoned the Ghost General so easily, with how he teased, and flashed a wide grin to Sect Leader Jiang even as he hid behind A-Die, his body still smarting from the hit of a whip - Sizhui could not help but rejoice in a small private way.
He had A-Die’s borrowed memories of Mama, his stories and his recollections, and the small bobbles that had been all that remained of Mama’s life, but now, he had the chance to make his own.
Even as Mama yelled and protested, pushed his feet into the ground and tried his best to drag his donkey back away from the Lans, Sizhui rejoiced.
Mama was silly, and generous, and kind, and clever, and powerful, and all the other things A-Die had shared with Sizhui.
And he was going to get the chance to see it all for himself.
It was more than worth the loss of hearing he would surely suffer from Mama’s – A-Niang, it was probably time to start calling him, Sizhui wasn’t a toddler anymore; he might even prefer being called by his actual name, now but Sizhui wasn’t quite ready for that – shrieks.
A-Die had not mentioned how loud A-Niang was.
SIzhui rejoiced that he was already learning new things about him. That he would have a chance to learn them on his own.
Sizhui would have the chance to make memories to replace the ones he had lost.
There was nothing greater in the world than that.