Ever After

In a galaxy far far away, there lived a boy with fair skin and light hazel eyes, called Lan Wangji. He did not know how special he was. For his mother, at least that's what the woman had called herself since the time the boy had begun to understand relationships, had never told him the truth of his heritage. His blood was priceless. It had the power to heal wounds and return dull and dying things to bright and youthful again.

Once a week, she pulled the boy in her arms and sang a melody so beautiful that it made the boy with light eyes, fall into a deep slumber. When the boy woke, instead of feeling refreshed, he always felt drained; his wrists hurt. He did not know of the things his mother did when he was asleep. Thus, he continued to listen to his mother; continued to believe her.

To keep the boy from abandoning her, she spun stories of how horrible and full of evil the outside world was. So the boy grew up knowing only that the outside world was full of danger; filled with cruel beings who only sought to harm little boys like himself. Even so, he was a curious little thing. Whenever his mom was not around, he bound up the tiny crampy stairs that led to the entrance of their underground home, to peep outside.

What little he could see standing on his tiptoes, however, was very different from what his mother had led him to believe. For the world outside was bright and cheery. Two suns, like glowing red Nomons; his favorite fruit, the kind his mother often brought for him when she returned, shone in the purple sky. Grey, maroon and blue beings who looked nothing like him, roamed on the white shiny streets, sometimes chatting, and at other times ignoring and walking away from each other, minding their own business.

Lan Wangji studied their features, and ran to the sole mirror in his home, to compare it to himself. He smiled and frowned; laughed and cried, and ran to the window once again. He did this every day, for he had nothing better to do.

So one day, he brought it up with his mother, "Ma, can I go out just once?" He pleaded, pulling at the hem of her plain brown skirt.

"And why would you want to do that, my beautiful boy?" The mother asked in a honey-dipped voice.

Lan Wangji, an innocent boy of barely ten, failed to see the malice and selfish evil intentions disguised under layers of fake love and concern, that his mother harbored for him.

"Mother, I have been observing the outside world. And I haven't noticed the horrible beings you mention so often," he reasoned. "Maybe, things have changed." He added.

"Well, well, well," his mother snarled, "looks like Lan Wangji has grown up enough to face the outside world."

Realizing that his words had hurt his mother, Lan Wangji backtracked, "I am sorry, Mother. I won't mention it again," said the boy in quivering voice.

But the mother had other plans. She smiled, "There there, dear boy, you must go out, for if you don't, how will you believe mother? How will you realize that mother knows best, hum?"

Falling for the candy-sweet smile, the next morning, Lan Wangji, with his mother's blessings, he ventured out. The only condition his mother had put forward was that he was not to remove the headband that he always wore, under any circumstance. Lan Wangji had agreed happily.

At first, it was exactly as he had expected: No one looked at him or paid any attention to him. For, many looked like him. But as he moved further away from his home, he noticed a young boy around his age, follow him. Intrigued, but wanting to know more, Lan Wangji pretended not to notice the boy who was dressed in black with a red ribbon tying his long hair in a high ponytail.

Soon, Lan Wangji forgot about the boy who was following him, and immersed himself in observing the world that he had wanted to experience for so long. Lan Wangji took a right turn and then a left, and found himself in a place that looked nothing like the calm streets he had left behind.