High Mountains and Flowing Water: A Listening Ear

[aroberuka]

Title: A Listening Ear
Author: aroberuka
Word Count/Drabble Type: 100
Character(s)/Ship(s): Madam Lan & her sons
Rating/Warnings: G; no warning needed, just the usual backstory sadness
Summary: It's not easy, getting her sons to open up to her, but a mother has her ways.
Author's Notes: /

***

Sometimes A-Zhan won't use his words, and no amount of playful teasing will make him give an inch; A-Huan is learning much too fast to hide hurt feelings behind the decorum expected of his future station.

Maybe, if things had been different, she could have learned to coax the truth out of them like a mother would, but her own words are few and far between, the remnants of an eloquence long since lost to isolation.

But there is still a language they all share: her hands dance on guzheng strings, asking in her stead for what cannot be spoken.