Remote as the Dead are from the Living
Feb. 24th, 2024 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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chenqing_100Title: "Remote as the Dead are from the Living"
Author: Himring
Word Count/Drabble Type: 100 words in MS Word
Character(s)/Ship(s): Madam Lan, Lan Xichen, Lan Zhan
Rating/Warnings: PG (reference to canonical character death and mourning; allusion to cultural prejudice)
Summary: Others would not compare Madam Lan's fate to Cai Wenji's sufferings during her abduction and exile among the Xiongnu. To her sons the comparison is more meaningful than they would ever admit aloud. (Title is taken from a translation of the text of one of Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, on the theme of Cai Wenji's separation from her half-Xiongnu children).
It would seem absurd to almost anyone to compare the Lans, of all people, to uncultured barbarians. But when their mother plays Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, her sons follow her line of thought well enough, without words being uttered.
Lan Xichen takes comfort because the text also speaks of love, a mother’s for her children, and even a reluctant wife’s for a husband. Lan Zhan plans to be the one to ransom her one day, somehow, without knowing how.
She leaves—and both wish it was an embassy from the South that had taken her rather than death.
Author: Himring
Word Count/Drabble Type: 100 words in MS Word
Character(s)/Ship(s): Madam Lan, Lan Xichen, Lan Zhan
Rating/Warnings: PG (reference to canonical character death and mourning; allusion to cultural prejudice)
Summary: Others would not compare Madam Lan's fate to Cai Wenji's sufferings during her abduction and exile among the Xiongnu. To her sons the comparison is more meaningful than they would ever admit aloud. (Title is taken from a translation of the text of one of Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, on the theme of Cai Wenji's separation from her half-Xiongnu children).
It would seem absurd to almost anyone to compare the Lans, of all people, to uncultured barbarians. But when their mother plays Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, her sons follow her line of thought well enough, without words being uttered.
Lan Xichen takes comfort because the text also speaks of love, a mother’s for her children, and even a reluctant wife’s for a husband. Lan Zhan plans to be the one to ransom her one day, somehow, without knowing how.
She leaves—and both wish it was an embassy from the South that had taken her rather than death.