Chapter Text
On the night of a person's 12th birthday, a mark appears on their body. These marks unite both souls into one. They are cherished and worshiped by family and friends. Marks are gifts from gods and should be treated as such.
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Fa Mulan's mother and father pulled her by her collar to another room on her 12th birthday. Her mother was running to the door and windows, making sure everything was locked tightly. Her father grabbed her by the arms, forcing her to look him in the eyes.
"Mulan, listen to us; this mark is a curse. You should never have it showing." Her father was quietly yelling at her, but it was out of concern, not anger. He tightens his grip on her arm, causing her to wince in pain and try to pull back.
"What's wrong with it? You two said-." the two adults look at each other, then back at their daughter, with a type of sadness that wasn't there before.
"We know what we said, but promise us." Mulan's mother gently takes her chin and picks her head up. "Promise you won't show anyone."
Mulan pulls away from her parents and gazes at the floor instead of their faces. She has spent her whole life seeing everyone around her fuss about their marks. Family, friends, even the emperor. They talk about them with such pride, so why shouldn't she?
She pickles her head up to argue, but she makes eye contact with her dad. Who seemed scared. She swallows her words and says them reluctantly.
"I promise."
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The soldiers had been walking for what felt like months, but it was actually only three weeks. Their feet were tired, and their backs were sore from sleeping on the ground, But they made it through the hot and humid open fields, cracking jokes, singing, and talking about what they wanted in their soulmates to try and keep their spirits up.
They still had a distance to travel if they wanted to make it to the emperor before the Hun's army. They were heading to the village that sits in between the mountains to stock up on supplies and to give the soldiers one good night's sleep in actual beds before the rest of the trek.
While all the other soldiers were left with their own thoughts, Mulan had an unwelcome guest that she loved and hated at the same time. Mushu keeps her distracted from the mark on her neck that flares up from time to time. The flare has been more constant since the march in the snowy parts of the mountains, but that's not gonna stop t Mushu from talking.
Mushu was whispering in his ear about something to do with Mulan's (well, Pings now) ancestors. "The big mean one didn't even know that the stone dragon disappeared a long time ago. I mean, how can you call for someone that is not there." The dragon rests his elbows on Mulan armor and wraps his body around her neck.
"What do you mean the great stone dragon disappeared?" Mulan shoots back, more to keep the conversation going than actual interest.
"Well, you know me and him, we were"" He pauses for a moment, trying to reword his sentence, "...close. It doesn't matter now; what does matter is that fat ass that sits on his shiny pedestal and barks orders at me." Mushu avoided the question about the stone dragon entirely. Odd, he loves talking, well more like complaining, about the spirits back home. He continued to talk shit about the other ancestors; after a while, she started to tune out the little dragon on her shoulder, and as she walked through the snow, trying not to fall. Mulan starts to get lost in her own head; she wants a home-cooked meal and a nice warm bath.
"What I would give for a nice hot bath," she muttered to herself
Her thoughts were quickly put aside when she bumped into the man in Front of her. She bent to the side to look at what was going on and backed up, giving the man in front of her space. Mushu hadn't stopped talking or realized what was going on around them.
"Mushu. Shut up." Mushu turned and looked at her, offended, and slithered back into her armor with a huff.
Li Shang was at the front of the line, ordering the men to stop. He gave a signal to stay silent and on guard. Mulan looked past Shang and saw two paths they could take. She didn't even know that the path split. Shang walked forward into the left path with his hand on his sword.
Slowly, each soldier followed the general onto the path. They were about ⅔ of the way done when they heard a rock above them start to come loose. All the men paused for a second, processing what was going on, before they began to run to get to the other side of the path.
Mulan realized that she might not make it to the other side, so instead of trying to run and risk the chance of being crushed, she pulled Khan back and ran the other way so that neither of them wouldn't be hit by falling debris. Mulan braces herself on the other side of the path as the rock comes crashing down In Front of them.
"Ping ... .PING ARE YOU OK." the commander yells. Worrying that one of his best soldiers was crushed to death.
She takes a while to answer back, causing almost every soldier to think that she's dead. Eventually she manages to catch her breath and brushes the snow off her uniform. To everyone's relief, she answers back, "YEAH." she looks around for a cliff or something else she could use to get to the other side of the mountain. She looked at the different paths she could take. "I SEE ANOTHER WAY AROUND," she yells.
"MEET US ON THE OTHER SIDE, BUT WE GOT TO MOVE WE'RE SITTING DUCKS HERE. BE SAFE."
"YES SIR. I'LL MEET YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE." Mulan lets out a deep sigh and starts to pull Khan through the crack.
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She only goes a mile out on the other side before she sees what looks like a shadow of a bird flying over him. She stands in the middle of the clearing, looking up, trying to get a better look at the bird. Mushu pops up onto his shoulder again ready to talk her ear off.
"Hey, I was going to ask you something before you rudely cut me off earlier." The dragon flicks his tongue at Mulan. She stared at the bird for a good minute until she realized whose bird she's looking at. It's Shan Yu's falcon, Hayabusa. "Hey, i am talking to you."
"Mushu. shut up."
"Hey man, well not man, but that's not important you're gonna stop telling me to shut up." Mushu crossed his arm and turned his back to Mulan.
Mulan completely ignores the dragon and hurries to take his bow and arrow out and aims it at the falcon flying overhead. She releases the arrow but Hayabusa ends up turning at the last minute and it only hits one of its smaller feathers. The falcon drops out of the sky for a second before regaining its flying pattern and begins to fly away.
Mulan lines up his next arrow and points it towage the falcon. Hayabusa notices and makes a sharp turn back to her. She realized that it was trying to attack. Mushu starts to yell into her ear to shoot the damned arrow. She lets the arrow lose and once again the falcon manages to avoid the arrow in the nick of time.
"Girl what are you doing just standing there. RUN." She doesn't know where to go. They can't turn around and go back because someone could be waiting for her at the entrance. She can't go forward because she knows that someone from the Hun is probably in that direction. She decides that the entrance to the path is the safer option. She would only have to fight one or two people instead of a whole army. By the time she's made up her mind she turns and runs, only to collide with another person who is much bigger than herself. She bounces off the person in Front of her and stumbles back. Khan goes to run, but is quickly grabbed by some henchmen before he can get to Mulan.
She's able to catch herself from falling. Mulan places her hand on the sword tied to her waist and before she could pull it out a strong hand grabs her by the neck. Before she could lift her head, she heard the sound of another sword being unsheathed. She picked her head up to look the taller figure in the eyes. His eyes meet with the leader of the Hun army.
Shan Yu
Suddenly the mark on his neck feels like fire. Shan Yu pauses for a moment before letting go of Mulan's neck and taking a step back. There was a silence between the two as they looked at each other. Now Mulan realizes why her parents wanted her to hide the mark so bad. Why, time after time, was she told it would bring dishonor to the family? Shan Yu lets out a deep chuckle and shakes his head.
"Well this is….unexpected, now isn't it." Mulan takes a step back and places her hand back on her sword. "I've been following your little group of men. I knew it had to be one of you, but I didn't think I would be face to face with him." The taller man looks Mulan up and down, almost like he was examining her. Mulan takes this chance while he's occupied. She doesn't hesitate anymore and pulls out her sword. She points it at Shan Yu's neck as a warning to the older man.
The two men holding Kahn back, move to go to their leader's side, but quickly stop in their tracks when Shan Yu lifts his hand.
Shan Yu smirks. "You have guts. Not everybody would try to put a sword to my neck." Mulan moves the sword closed to his neck, so close that she could draw blood in one fell swoop if she pleased.
"What are you doing here?" Shan Yu grabs the sword that was placed on his neck. Mulan tries to pull the sword back. to no anvil. Shan yu smiles.
"I'm here for your beloved emperor. Why else." He lets out a small chuckle. He looked back at the smaller person before he noticed something. The soldier In Front of him had breasts. No woman can fight for the emperor; it's punishable by death if they catch her. Shan Yu's curiosity got the better of him. He dismissed the men next to him with a quick wave of a hand. He slowly let the sword in his grasp go and the soldier backed away from him. Once the soldier was a foot or two away from him he asked his question.
"Tell me why fight for your emperor? He would kill you if he found out." Shocked at how he knows of her little secret. Mulan drops her sword and backs up not in fear but to protect herself better.
"I fight for my country, my people, and their safety" Mulan spat venom as she spoke, still startled at the fact that Shan could see through her persona.
"Yes, but if your county and people found out the truth what would they do? Hmmm." the taller man tilted his head to the side. Mulan stands still for a minute unsure how to answer. Well she knows exactly how to respond, they would kill her. Say that she was dishonorable and asked for death the moment she put the uniform on. But he doesn't need to know that. Shan Yu takes his silence as an opportunity to ask another question.
"What should i call you, leng zai." Mulan just stared at the leader. Wanting nothing to do with him.
"Very well, I will not try to convince you to join me. I know it will not work, you are too strong willed and i would not want it any other way, but I want you to know the Huns treat our women with great respect. You deserve better than what this country has to offer you. You should know that. if one day this secret of yours is exposed" Shan Yu takes a bird whistle out of his pocket and holds it In Front of her face. "Play this and I will come for you. No matter what."
She stands tall and maintains eye contact as he walks closer and embraces one of her hands. Shan Yu looked around at the soldier's body and placed the whistle in an open packet. Mulan flinches at the sudden movement and tries to remove the hand that's on her, but instead of backing down Shan Yu moves his hand up to grab Ping's chin and makes him look up.
"Tell your men to get out of the mountain by tonight and if you wish your men to stay alive, don't go to the palace." Shan Yu's voice was calm as he talked.
"I can't let you kill the emperor." Mulan pulls Shan Yu's hand away from her face.
"If that's true, I look forward to our fight, Xiǎobīng." Shan Yu smiles and walks away, leaving Mulan standing there alone, confused and unsure of what to do. Mushu pops out of Mulan armor with the look of shock on his face.
"Wow, I did not see that coming. so you uh goin' to say anything." She glares at Mushu.
"No." Many thoughts were going through her head at the moment, and none of them were helping her focus.
"OK." Mushu decided not to push his luck any further after a moment of silence. She regains her composure.
"We need to warn Shang. Let's go." Mulan turned on his heel and proceeded to walk further down the side of the mountain until she finally saw the soldiers she was looking for.