She was intelligent. That was the problem. Far too witty and clever for China. She was supposed to be silent and beautiful; passive and obedient. Being an opinionated and strong willed was frowned upon. Her family tried to make her into the perfect China doll, while attempting to hide the woman she was becoming. When she was told that she would never be a perfect bride she wasn't surprised. In fact, if it were not for the dishonor she knew the news would bring upon her family, she would have been fine - happy even. She knew that she would never be truly happy with anyone the matchmaker might have put her with. Try as she might, there was no hiding her strong personality.
Taking her father's place in the army was actually the best thing that could have happened to her. While she wasn't particularly active by nature, the army allowed her to speak her mind. To be taken seriously. To secretly gawk at her commanding officer. He certainly was nice to look at, and she'd finally gained his trust. It had taken time, and effort, but it had been worth it. She'd even gotten a smile from him once or twice. It was nice to be approved of.
Keeping her gender a secret certainly wasn't the easiest thing to do. Especially with all the men around either telling stories about what they had done with various women, or walking around naked like it was perfectly ordinary. They expected the same of her, and while she clearly couldn't comply with the latter, she occasionally took her best stab at the former.
"...So then when we were done I said 'babe if you weren't a whore I would have married you a long time ago.' Haha. I don't think she liked that much. Oh well, its not like she won't let me have her again once the war is done," said one of the men.
"Ping, you're next. When was the last time you bedded a woman?" Said another.
"Uh, well..." She started, using the deeper voice that she adopted while in their company, "um let's see. There's been so many its hard to keep track... Um... There was this woman, yeah, and she was... Uh... Quiet? Yes. And...erm... Obedient? Yes. Did what I told her to do. It was quite pleasurable." She hoped that was enough to sound plausible. She hadn't been well informed about what happened between man and woman in that situation. Her mother had given her the briefest of replies when she was younger and the topic hadn't been brought up since. It probably never would now that the matchmaker had deemed her unfit to marry. Not to mention this. Spending all this time unsupervised with this many men? If she survived, she'd be lucky if she wasn't sold to a whore house upon her return.
Lost in thought she didn't hear the men around her prod her for more details.
"She was quiet huh? Must have been doing something wrong, Ping," said one.
"Or at least had a bad whore," interjected another as he elbowed his neighbor.
"Huh? Yea, must have," she replied as she watched Shang stride up to the group.
Unexpected stories are unexpected. Anyways, the characters aren't mine. I'm just taking them out to play for a while.
