Archive of Our Own

A-Yuan is waiting for him as he walks up to the entry building, one hand frantically waving through the air, the other gripping tight to the doorknob. He has to be on his toes to reach and he sways about as he tries to keep balanced.

“Baba, Baba!” A-Yuan calls, his voice croaking in excitement. “I found a snake in the Garden! A biiiiig snake! The biggest snake ever!”

“The biggest snake ever?!” Wei Ying parrots, not even feigning his own excitement. He is so proud of A-Yuan, who just last month had a meltdown when he found a baby garter snake in the strawberry patch. He scoops up A-Yuan and twirls him around, eliciting squeals and giggles. “And did you make friends with The Biggest Snake Ever?”

A-Yuan wobbles a little when Wei Ying puts him down and his sticky little hands clutch at Wei Ying’s shirt. “Baba, he’s my best friend,” A-Yuan says with all the seriousness a child his age can muster about an animal they’ve known for less than three hours. Wei Ying looks down into his son’s dark, earnest eyes and notices the sweat beading along his hairline, just from being outside for a mere minute. “He looked hot so I invited him in and gave him some tomatoes. Is that okay, Baba?”

“Yeah, baobao, let’s get inside and check on your friend, okay?” Wei Ying isn’t sure if snakes can really eat tomatoes but he figures that just a few pieces should be fine.

He ushers them into the house, making sure the door seals properly. He sighs in relief as he takes off his mask and his outside clothes, dumping them in the thick steel box and latching the heavy lid. Then he picks up the container of sanitizing wet wipes and A-Yuan holds his hands up from where he is patiently waiting for Wei Ying to wipe them off. When A-Yuan’s hands are free of any clinging germs (though still sticky, as every small child’s hands seem to permanently be), his son runs to the other room with a gleeful, “Snaaake!” Wei Ying takes his time wiping his own body down, relaxing into the sounds of A-Yuan chatting at his ‘new best friend.’

He rounds the corner and stops, blinking a few times to make sure he’s not hallucinating from heat sickness. But no, everything is as it had been this morning when he left the house. Except for the massive fucking dragon curling through the living room, its tail awkwardly draped over the every piece of furniture in the small room.

Its head was right in the middle of the room, coming up to Wei Ying’s chest, with two great, branching antlers angled back like an elk’s. Its scales were the same color and texture as the eggs their ducks laid, small around its face and larger down its body. A mane of hair starts around the base of its head and continues down its spine, the same hue as the piece of seaglass on one of A-Yuan’s shelves.

“Big snake!” A-Yuan exclaims, black feathers now decorating his arms as he spreads them wide to show off the dragon to his father. Behind A-Yuan, the dragon slits open one gigantic eye, its piercing golden gaze challenging Wei Ying to correct the child.

“Yeah…” Wei Ying says faintly, voice cracking. “Big snake.”

The dragon’s eye slides shut right as A-Yuan spins around. And then starts to clamber onto the dragon, his stubby fingers tangling through the dragon’s long mane and yanking.

“A-Yuan!” Wei Ying cries, flailing forward. This is a dragon, one of the most respected spirits and likely ancient; he can’t have his child climbing all over it like it’s some sort of playground!

A-Yuan looks up at him with wide eyes, fully hanging off the dragon. A few hairs have broken in his sticky grip. “It’s, uh, it’s not nice to climb on top of your friends without asking.”

“I ask’ded!”

“Well, Mr.-Mr. Snake – it’s naptime for Mr. Snake. Remember what we have to do when our friends need naptime?”

A-Yuan slides to the floor, frowning, but dutifully answers, “We play quietly and wait for them to wake up.”

“That’s right,” Wei Ying praises, picking up his son and backing away from the dragon. He’s powerful enough to not have to worry about A-Yuan’s safety while he is in the room but he first wants to talk to it. And knowing of the attitudes dragons once held, as well as his own riling personality, he didn’t want to argue with Mr. Snake in front of his son.

“Granny is making curry for tomorrow, do you want to help her while Mr. Snake naps?”

“Yeah!” A-Yuan cheers, shifting to his crow form and flapping over to a perch on Wei Ying’s shoulder. “Cur-ry, cur-ry, cur-ry!” he chants loudly in Wei Ying’s human ear and his voice echoes slightly as they enter the smaller produce room.

His son’s happy croaking fades into the background as he stares at the empty basket on the floor. Just yesterday he had spent almost two hours picking tomatoes until this basket was overflowing.

“Hey, bud,” he interrupts, still looking at the empty basket. “Do you know where our tomatoes went?”

“Baba,” A-Yuan caws, flapping down to land on the edge of the basket, head tilting to the side to peer up at Wei Ying. “Snake ate.”

“Oh yeah,” Wei Ying says faintly. A-Yuan had said… but he hadn’t thought… “Mr. Snake ate our tomatoes. Sixty pounds. Of tomatoes.”

Wen Qing is going to kill him.

“To-ma-to! To-ma-to!” A-Yuan calls, “M’r Snake like to-ma-to!”

An hour later, a scrawny and thoroughly scolded fox slinks out of the main building and trots through the Garden. To call it a garden was perhaps a bit misleading – it’s almost two acres of land with layered vegetation that supports the many families living in the buildings surrounding the Garden. Practically every plant, shrub, and tree has edible parts and the ones that don’t have other uses.

The fox pokes his head into the wide chicken house and almost gets pecked in the face by one of the roosters. He checks on the ducks, which don’t rouse from their afternoon naps. He snags the ripest blackberries from healthy branches, paper wasps circling him in agitation but not stinging.

Close to the entry building, the Garden’s largest current shrub has been squashed, the broken fruits already spoiling on the ground and attracting insects. Wen Qing won’t be happy, the fox thinks but a closer inspection shows that the bush itself is still alive and will probably make a full recovery before two months have passed. Looking up, he sees that the branches in the trees above are also broken and concludes that the dragon must have fallen here. A clear trail of trampled vegetation leads to the entry building.

Deciding that the dragon must pay for its crimes one way or another, the fox twitches his ears and stalks over to a large oak to collect his Tool of Punishment. His mouth tingles as he prances to the entry building but a simple silencing spell ensures the surprise isn’t ruined.

Inside, the dragon is still taking up the entirety of the living room. Its chest moves so steadily that the fox might’ve thought it was asleep if not for the way it is constantly adjusting its tail to not fall off of the back of the armchair and into one of A-Yuan’s toyboxes. The fox pads silently towards the dragon’s head from behind, unnoticed as he lightly leaps over a coil of its scaled body.

The fox stands right behind the dragon’s head, tails wagging in mischievous anticipation, spits out his Tool of Punishment, and immediately scurries under the nearest end table. The cicada’s scream fills the air and the dragon startles, its large body knocking over furniture as it tries to figure out where the deafening noise is coming from. The cicada’s robust body tangles in the dragon’s thick mane as it thrashes about and the fox laughs beneath the table, his high pitched ehehehe barely heard over the cicada’s buzz.

Suddenly, the dragon disappears and in the middle of the room sits a man, still with the dragon’s antlers atop his head and the dragon’s tail snaking from underneath his long white robes (though now the antlers and tail are proportionate to the man’s size). He coughs into his sleeve but above the expensive silk, he is glaring at the fox. The cicada, freed from the dragon’s mane, awkwardly flies off to cling to a wall, giving one last indignant buzz.

The fox’s ears slide back to rest against his head as he watches the man, concerned by how hard he is coughing. He would not have played such a startling prank had he known the man had such a weak constitution. As the man continues to cough and glare, the fox slithers out from under the table to run to the next room and then Wei Ying is walking back with a glass of clean water.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Wei Ying apologizes as he hands over the water, his ears still pressed back to show his sincerity. “Noo, don’t die, you’re too sexy, aha,” he jokes and the man’s eyes slide away from him as he takes the water and sips between coughs.

The man’s ears and face have started to turn red even as he gets his breath under control and Wei Ying studies the man as he waits. Though he still looks incredibly handsome, it is clear that the dragon is quite sick: his skin has a grey undertone, his hands shake around the glass, his eyes are tired and he has to force them open every time they close. Wei Ying is a genius but it does not take a genius to connect the dots; such a spirit based in water has been poisoned by this dry and polluted world.

Truly, it’s a miracle that he has survived until now. “So where have you been for eighty years?” Wei Ying ponders outloud.

The man glares at him again and Wei Ying raises his hands in surrender. Question off limit, got it.

The man finishes the water and stands, swaying for a moment before his legs hold him. He hands back the glass, Wei Ying taking it automatically, then folds his hands together and bows. “Thank you for the water. I will take my leave now.” Then he turns on his heel and strides towards the back door.

“Wait, what?” The man is quick but Wei Ying is quicker – the door barely opens before Wei Ying bodily slams it shut. “You can’t do that!”

The man glares again. It seems to be his favorite expression. “And do you mean to keep me here?”

“Um, yeah? I mean,” he backtracks at the hint of anxiety that passes over the man’s face, “just until you get better. You look bad. No, but, like, you look very handsome, but I can see that you’re sick. Which isn’t a bad thing! Well, it is, but not your fault or anything. Everyone gets sick outside. It’s just awful, what with the dust and the heat and–”

“And if I chose to leave anyway?”

“I’d have to fight you.” There’s a moment of silence as they face off. Though Wei Ying is still considered a young fox spirit with just three tails, he is powerful and his magic is imbued into the land and air around the settlement. Perhaps if the other man were not so sick, they would be evenly matched, but it is obvious that Wei Ying holds the upper hand. “Besides,” Wei Ying jokes to break the tension, “my doctor friend would kill me and have me stuffed if I let you walk out like this. And my son would cry all week about how mean Mr. Snake is to leave him without a goodbye.”

“Ridiculous,” the man huffs and Wei Ying smiles, knowing he won.

Surprisingly, Wen Qing doesn’t bat an eye when he tells her there’s a man who’s also a dragon lying sick in his bed.

“I’m no longer blindly impressed by spirits,” she says. “Just last week you got stuck in a tree and Fourth Uncle had to scruff you like a cat to get down. And A-Yuan…”

She waves behind her where A-Yuan is flapping just out of Wen Ning’s reach, loudly cawing “Pe-nis! Pe-nis! Pe-nis!” to Wen Ning’s increasing distress. Wei Ying is so proud of his boy.

“You spirits aren’t much different from humans except for a little more weirdness and a lot more magic.”

“Me, weird? Qing-jie, you wound me.”

“And don’t call me that,” Wen Qing snaps, smacking him on the head with the hardcover book in her hand. A-Yuan laughs raucously and it’s enough of a distraction that Wen Ning can grab him and sit him back on the table where his math homework is half-completed.

“Ai, ai! What did I do to deserve that?” Wei Ying whines, rubbing his sore forehead pathetically.

“For one,” she starts, “you’re over two hundred years old and you call Wen-popo so familiarly. I feel ancient whenever you call me your jiejie. But don’t you dare call me meimei. And for another, you let a stranger eat all of our tomatoes and then take your bed.”

“Ah, the tomatoes weren’t my fault!”

Wen Qing points to A-Yuan, who is now a little boy petulantly counting on his fingers, and says, “Of course it is. That’s your son–”

“Your cousin.”

“Your son, and so you are responsible for his actions.”

Wei Ying’s ears flicker into existence just so he can tuck them back as he pouts at Wen Qing. “I wasn’t even home!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Wen Qing says, pointedly checking her phone. “I leave for my shift in half an hour, so tell your dragon I’ll check on him when I get back. Oh, and Wei Ying?”

“Yes, Qing-jie?” He manages to avoid the book this time.

“Does your new dragon friend have a name?”

Wen Qing 🤬
Don’t you also have a
courtesy name?
You’re old as dirt.

Wen Qing 🤬
Did you tell your mom that
you have a dragon in your
bed?
She was friends with the
dragons, right?

Wen Qing 🤬
“Angel” my ass.
I saw the cicada in the
entry building.

Mama Foxy 🦊
Qing-mei sends her regards
I’ll be there in a week
Don’t tell the dragon
😈

“Good morning, Mr. Dragon!” A-Yuan greets with frankly way too much energy for how early it is.

“Morning,” Wei Ying mumbles, not picking his face up from his arms on the table.

“Good morning, A-Yuan, Wei Ying.” A pause. “Wei Ying, are you alright?”

Wei Ying grunts and flicks his ears.

“Baba says that foxes and mornings are enemies,” A-Yuan giggles.

“... I see.”

“Do you want breakfast, Mr. Dragon?” A-Yuan asks sweetly and Wei Ying dozes to the familiar sound of domesticity around him.

He jerks awake when Lan Zhan begins to cough violently beside him, face already red, and it takes him a moment to realize what happened. The congee that they had was spiced according to Wei Ying’s taste, which far exceeded the tolerance of anyone he’s ever met; the only reason A-Yuan could handle it was because at his young age, he was much more crow than human. A-Yuan had given Lan Zhan some of their congee and now Lan Zhan is choking on the inordinate amount of capsaicin in the rice.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, don’t die!” Wei Ying cries out, scrambling to the fridge. Wen Qing didn’t let him keep milk in his fridge since he often forgot both he and A-Yuan are lactose intolerant but there’s a bottle of coffee creamer on the top shelf, from one of the aunties that takes care of A-Yuan on the mornings after he works late. He figures that desperate times call for desperate measures and pours creamer to the brim of a cup, then hurries back to the table where Lan Zhan is still coughing and A-Yuan is patting at his arm with eyes wide and wet with concern and chanting, “don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.”

Lan Zhan takes the cup from Wei Ying, draining the entire glass immediately.

“I thought you said you were concerned about his health,” Wen Qing accuses. “How did you manage to poison him twice this morning?”

It turns out that Lan Zhan is also lactose intolerant and has been shut up in the bathroom for the hour since Wei Ying put A-Yuan on the school bus.

“Do you think he hates me?” Wei Ying asks, frowning. He didn’t yet know Lan Zhan well but he knows that he likes the dragon. There’s something intriguing about his quietness.

“I think he’d be completely justified in wanting to leave once he’s done fighting for his life.”

Wei Ying winces. He’s been there before – several times. At least for himself, he had always made the decision to give up a few hours for a treat. Lan Zhan hadn’t really gotten the chance to make a decision.

“He might wait until A-Yuan gets home from school to say goodbye,” Wen Ning offers but the words aren’t very comforting to Wei Ying.

The Wen siblings leave him alone to wait and mope. He scrolls on his phone until his eyes droop and he drops it on his face twice before giving up and curling up in his fox form to take a nap.

When he wakes for the third time that morning, it’s to the scent of sandalwood in his nose and Lan Zhan’s warm presence next to him on the couch. He yawns and stretches into his human form and, because he has no brain to mouth filter, asks, “Win the war?”

Though Lan Zhan’s face doesn’t move, Wei Ying sees his ears pinken in embarrassment. “Sorry, sorry,” Wei Ying hastens to say. “I’m not making fun of you, I swear. I’m lactose intolerant too, been there, done that. And I really didn’t mean to poison you, I’m sorry Lan Zhan.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, still not looking at him, and Wei Ying will take that as a sign of forgiveness.

“Did you find something interesting?” he asks, nodding at the book, and Lan Zhan looks relieved at the change of subject.

“You have all of Baoshan Sanren and Cangse Sanren’s books, both the published editions and spiritual editions. Some of these were written and published while I was gone so I was catching up. Who is Wuxian Sanren?” Lan Zhan holds up the book and now Wei Ying can see the title: The Moment We Perished: Stories of the End and the Beginning by Cangse Sanren and Wuxian Sanren.

“Oh, that’s me!” Wei Ying said happily and Lan Zhan’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Cangse Sanren is my mama and Baoshan Sanren is her mentor, not blood related.”

Lan Zhan looks thoughtful, which is fair. Baoshan Sanren published over fifty significant anthologies and countless smaller books over the span of two hundred years, but stopped writing five hundred years ago. Most of her work was investigative journalism throughout Asia, from Kazakhstan to Papua New Guinea and from Sri Lanka to Siberia (as they’re known today). Cangse Sanren started co-authoring with Baoshan Sanren in the last half-century and then spent a few centuries writing hundreds of books and covering events all over the world.

“The Moment We Perished is the first book I got published. Mama and I traveled around the world to talk to those who lived through the bombings, and those who didn’t.” Lan Zhan tilts his head in a silent question. “I found myself in one of those spaces where the living and the dead are near indistinguishable, back when I only had one tail,” Wei Ying offers in explanation. “But anyway, we actually visited Cloud Recesses in that time, it was in the radius of the bomb that took out Yi City.”

Lan Zhan nods. “Chapter seven, I just finished it. I am sorry about your father.”

“Oh, uh, thank you. We knew he didn’t have the constitution for that much radiation but he wasn’t going to be anywhere else. Mama and I visit his grave about every five years.” Too many years have passed for Wei Ying to shed tears but Lan Zhan’s sincerity is very touching.

They’re both silent for another minute before Lan Zhan asks, “So how did you end up here? We are in the U.S., right?”

“Yeah. I actually first met the Wen family here fifty years ago when Wen Yumei was just ten; everyone calls her Wen-popo now, you’ll meet her later. This land used to be a traditional farm but it had finally failed – the sun was too strong, the summers too hot, not enough water, the soil was overloaded with nutrients and pesticides. It was happening all over the country. The Wens were a big family who weren’t doing well but they pooled their resources and bought the land for cheap. I was really just passing by but I got to talking with A-Mei’s father and I wanted to help. I had learned a lot about adapting the land to this new climate and we planned out everything that we have now. You’ll get a tour later; A-Yuan will want to show you around when he gets back. I was only around for about a year so it looks nothing like back then. Really, the most I did was lay the foundations of my magic to protect the Garden from further degradation and connected the Wens to the local Indigenous tribe.

“Those were my wanderlust years, though. I left, helped another similar farm, left them, and across the country and globe I went. A couple decades go by. And then, A-Yuan. My darling, precious son. You know, I birthed him myself,” Wei Ying says with a sly smile and a wink.

Lan Zhan is staring at him intensely, his ears quite red at the tips. Wei Ying can’t hold it in any longer and bursts out laughing.

“Ah, no, I lied, haha. I won’t be able to change my sex until my fifth or sixth tail. But you shoulda seen your face!”

Lan Zhan purses his lips and turns his face away and Wei Ying can’t help but fall into uncontrollable giggles.

Once he gets himself back together, wiping tears from his eyes, he says, “Okay, sorry, sorry. I’m not related to A-Yuan by blood – his mom was a Wen and his father was a crow spirit. Ah, they were very happy and loved A-Yuan very much and he knows it, of course. But they had gone to the city, left A-Yuan with A-Mei. There was an accident and they didn’t make it. And the Wens were left with a baby crow spirit that they had no idea how to raise.”

Lan Zhan nods solemnly. “A spirit raised by humans has a hard life,” he agrees, sounding as if he has heard similar stories before.

“Yeah, and it’s not as uncommon as it used to be,” Wei Ying sighs. “A-Mei remembered me, I hadn’t been all that subtle when I was staying with the Wens since adults tended not to see things they don’t believe in. But I used to play with A-Mei as a fox whenever the adults weren’t around. Anyway, I’m not sure how, but Wen Qing and Wen Ning managed to track me down – I was in Chile at the time. They called me, told me what happened, and, well, I couldn’t just say no.”

Lan Zhan is looking at him with an unreadable expression.

“This place changed so much and it was absolutely beautiful. The Wens are close friends with much of the local Indigenous peoples – they helped teach the Wens how to create and maintain the Garden. Everyone here has enough space and food and water to grow and flourish. The farmland that the Wens weren’t using was gifted back to the peoples and it’s now a beautiful grassland. Technically all of this land was given back, so we’re under Indigenous governance and the second Monday of every month we take food to the Town-Hall-thing to make decisions and share a meal.

“So yeah, this is where I’ve ended up,” Wei Ying says with his smallest, most genuine smile. “I have a bountiful garden, a sweet son, a loving family, a connected community. I’m happy.”

A few days later, Wei Ying wakes to an empty apartment.

He finds Lan Zhan in the Garden sitting against the rabbit hutch. The fat little creatures are piled around him three bodies deep, five of them having managed to squish into his lap. Lan Zhan pets them with gentle hands as he looks up at the sky between the gently swaying foliage.

The rabbits eye Wei Ying nervously as he settles against a tree facing Lan Zhan. He understands; as a fox, he is always terribly tempted to jump amidst them and watch them hop around. But Lan Zhan just exudes calmness and they soon settle back down despite how close Wei Ying sits.

They are quiet for a time, Wei Ying almost nodding off. The understory of the Garden, with the aid of Wei Ying’s magic, never gets hot enough to be fatally dangerous but the heat and stillness and drone of cicadas threatens to pull him under.

“We turned into clouds,” Lan Zhan says, unprompted. His voice is soft and low but Wei Ying can hear him clearly and tilts his head to let Lan Zhan know he’s listening.

“We are spirits of water. Our elders could feel that we were in danger, so we all flew up as high as we could and turned into clouds. Such a state is not quite like being asleep; we are not really aware of time or space but we can feel the water of the world as it cycles. We could feel the water below as it turned to poison. We were only safe where we floated in the mesosphere.”

Wei Ying thinks about floating across the world, high above all other life, for years upon years. In eighty years, he had traveled the world dozens of times and met millions of people. “Was it lonely?” he asked.

Lan Zhan is quiet for a moment before he says, “There are not many dragons so I did not cross paths with others very often. The last one I saw was my brother, and we drifted by each other perhaps four or five years ago.”

Wei Ying could hear the answer lying between Lan Zhan’s words but he wouldn’t push. Instead, he asked, “How did you end up back on the ground?”

Lan Zhan’s mouth tightens into a thin line and one of the rabbits nudges at his fingers. His hand almost spans the entirety of the small body. “There was a machine. It was probably looking for clean water but that water was me. It hurt and woke me up; I fled, injured and confused. And each cloud I had to pass through, my body tried to pull in the water to heal but it only hurt me further. Then I felt there was a place with clean water below and fell into the Garden.”

Wei Ying nods. There had been a recent news article speculating about noctilucent clouds being the last place to find clean water as they sat furthest from the Earth. Wei Ying had scoffed because even without his magic, the Garden could cleanse rainwater enough to bathe with in two months, and it was drinkable in six months.

“You were in pretty bad shape when you landed, huh? But you look much better now! You’ll probably be able to return in a few more days, yeah?”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan hums, the sound giving nothing away.

They are quiet for another few minutes.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, his gentle voice twining into the sounds of the world rather than breaking it. “How will the Earth heal? Beyond the boundaries of the Garden, everything feels desolate. And reading your and your mother’s books since The Moment We Perished, it sounds as if the world and its people are beyond saving.”

Wei Ying sits up and looks at Lan Zhan, the most serious he can be. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” he starts, “that’s a question everyone asks but few actually want to hear. There are some people who don’t really want the Earth to heal. They hoard everything they can at the expense of people and the environment; they contribute to everyone’s joint pain to ensure their own comfort. There are some people who aren’t in a place to be concerned about the world beyond what they know. They are spending each day only focused on living to see the sun rise again. There are many people who don’t think that healing is a choice. They choose to fight, with words and fists, and will turn against those who struggle to live as quickly as they fight those who live in luxury; and most of all, they fight against each other.

“And then, there are some people who love. They choose to connect and build community.”

Lan Zhan looks at him, unblinking and barely breathing.

“It’s not easy,” Wei Ying admits. “I’ve met people I just don’t like, some for a good reason and some for no reason I can identify. But I make the choice to love even those people, with food or a helping hand. Back when radiation devoured the land like a shadow across the land, panic made a mess of the political system and it wrecked havoc on social systems and the land suffered in turn. I’m not saying fighting is bad; it will certainly be necessary for change. But. The way forward is through building community. It will be slow, and sometimes to love so much is painful – but the world will keep turning and so must we.”

Lan Zhan considers his words for a minute. The rabbits sleep on peacefully. Then, “Are you going to write that speech in your next book?”

Wei Ying’s laugh startles the rabbits and they scatter but Lan Zhan doesn’t look mad at all.

Wei Ying’s brush across his paper methodically captures all the little details that are Lan Zhan helping A-Yuan with calligraphy across the table. Behind him, A-Mei and some aunts are on their loveseats, chatting and knitting blankets. Occasionally, some uncles’ raised voice drifts in from the room over as they playfully challenge each other over a game of cards.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning enter the room with the smell of berries and warm pastry. Everyone looks up excitedly and Wen Ning blushes under the attention.

“The pies have just come out of the oven. They’ll need to cool and set for about fifteen minutes and then we can eat them,” Wen Ning tells them in his gentle voice. A-Yuan’s loud cheers are barely louder than the aunties’.

Wen Ning goes into the other room to inform the uncles and Wen Qing approaches Lan Zhan.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, much more polite than whenever she asks Wei Ying the same thing.

“I am–” Lan Zhan is cut off by the uncles’ shouting and clapping at the pie news. Despite being cut off, the corners of Lan Zhan’s mouth curve up in a subtle smile.

“I am well,” Lan Zhan finishes once the raucous has faded.

Wen Qing studies him closely, then, “You look like you’ve recovered – everything checked out yesterday but I wanted to give it another day to be sure. As long as you don’t feel sick in any way, I’ll give you a clean bill of health. But stay for pie, yeah?”

Wei Ying feels a pang in his stomach. He had known this was coming from the start but Lan Zhan had quickly and easily fit into his life. All of their lives.

Lan Zhan nods to Wen Qing but doesn’t say anything. And he doesn’t look at Wei Ying.

The moment is broken when A-Yuan throws himself onto Lan Zhan’s lap and asks loudly, “Have you ever had raspberry pie, Zhan-ge? It’s my favorite!”

Wei Ying watches Lan Zhan closely as A-Yuan twirls around and waxes poetic about raspberries, then currants, then blueberries, then strawberries, and any every berry he’s ever had. When Wen Ning tells them the pies are ready, everyone files into the kitchen, jostling and teasing each other playfully.

He sees it when Lan Zhan looks at him from the corner of his eye and immediately turns back to A-Yuan. Wei Ying feels the loss already even as Lan Zhan stands there letting his son plop an obnoxious amount of whipped cream on his plate.

When A-Yuan turns into a crow and goes around the table stealing his aunts’ and uncles’ forks, Wei Ying pulls Lan Zhan away from the table to the corner of the room.

“Are you planning on leaving tonight?” he asks in a low voice, his stomach knotting with the words. Lan Zhan is still for a moment and then gives the smallest of nods. Wei Ying’s strawberry pie threatens to make a reappearance.

He sees his son land on A-Mei’s shoulder, three mismatched forks in his beak.

With monumental effort, Wei Ying pushes down all of the feelings rolling through him and says firmly, “Say goodbye to A-Yuan before you leave.” He cracks, a bit. “Please.”

Still refusing to meet his eye, Lan Zhan nods again and says, “I must wait for the sun to set before I can settle in the mesosphere. I will let him know and fly once he is asleep.”

For the first time in over a week, Wei Ying lays in his own bed, as a fox, curled around A-Yuan, whose eyes are still puffy from crying. He had asked over and over when Zhan-ge will visit them (Wei Ying didn’t know if he ever would) and how they would tell Zhan-ge they miss him if he doesn’t have a phone (they wouldn’t be able to) and had cried and thrown a fit. Wei Ying couldn’t even blame him because he wanted to do the same; it had been over an hour before A-Yuan exhausted himself to sleep.

Wei Ying sighs and carefully untangles himself from A-Yuan’s sweaty limbs. Luckily, his son is a deep sleeper and only gives a little unhappy mumble as WY slides off the bed. He pads out of his room and then out of his apartment and into the Garden, the sounds of crickets and gentlest of breezes through his fur settling some of the ache.

He wanders through the Garden aimlessly, carefully not thinking about anything. A flash of white catches his eye through the brush and he lowers himself to creep forward silently.

Two years ago, they had had to cut down a sick tree and the disease luckily hadn’t spread to any other trees in the Garden. The opening in the canopy had created a small clearing as the harsh sunlight killed the shade-loving vegetation that was growing there. Taller grasses had established earlier in the year and Lan Zhan is curled up in his dragon form in the middle, staring up at the grey clouds drifting across the dark sky.

Lan Zhan looks different than he did during their first meeting. A week ago, his scales had been matte cream color; now, they are a pure pearlescent white. His mane had been teal and thin; now the hairs are blue as the sky used to be on a clear summer day and his full mane looks impossibly fluffy. Even the curve of his horns looks more pronounced, but that could just be the angle.

Wei Ying gives a soft brr as he enters the clearing and Lan Zhan looks over, his eyes bright and golden – just like the fireflies that will begin to emerge in a month to light up the Garden, beauty in the hottest nights.

Wei Ying, Lan Zhan speaks directly in Wei Ying’s mind and he walks up to brush his side against Lan Zhan’s warm scales. They look at each other for a few silent moments, the buzz of life beyond the clearing fading away.

Wei Ying rests a paw on Lan Zhan’s side and makes a questioning murmur. Lan Zhan breaks eye contact to look back into the sky, perhaps able to see a distant cousin far into the atmosphere.

I want…

Wei Ying stands on his hind paws and cranes his neck to try to get a glimpse of Lan Zhan’s face. His heart pounds against his ribcage.

Lan Zhan’s eyes close and he lets out a heavy exhale.

I don’t think I want to go.

Suddenly Wei Ying is a man again, ears back in anticipation and his three tails swishing wildly behind him. He wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck and nuzzles into his mane that smells faintly like sandalwood. Lan Zhan’s head comes to lightly rest atop his own.

It is cold and lonely up there.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying murmurs, heartbroken.

Wei Ying.

“Please. Will you stay with us?”

Yes, Wei Ying. Yes. Lan Zhan is rumbling deep in his throat, the vibrations tingling across his body. Will you teach me to love?

Wei Ying tosses his head back and laughs, the joyous sound harmonizing perfectly with the sound of night. There are tears in his eyes as he looks up at Lan Zhan, who is looking at him and radiating contentedness. “Yes, Lan Zhan, yes.”