Disclaimer: No claim on characters, story, etc.
Summary: After forging a friendship, discovering a secret, and one hell of an adventure, Li Shang struggles to understand where he stands with one brave and infuriating woman. A story of two hearts reconciling past ideas with future possibilities.
Shang—as a rule—loathed confusion. As a grounded man of military he exercised quick judgment, and as the situation required, solved his problems with tactful grace to blunt force. Indecisiveness was to be avoided at all costs. Except, it seemed, for circumstances revolving around one Fa Ping (soldier) or Fa Mulan (hero of China).
Training
As an untrained soldier, Ping was the Captain's nightmare. Though young and still in the gangly phases of youth, it was clear he would never cut an imposing figure—muscles lacking, hands un-calloused, even his features appeared delicate. He was a veritable pariah amongst his fellow recruits, and the level of disaster he exhibited during weapons training rivaled the potential danger of the Hun army itself. Although of all the tents to possibly destroy, Shang decided to overlook what was clearly a "flaw formed during canon construction". Chi-Fu seemed to find this explanation lacking, but did not pursue the issue past furious penmanship. With Ping, Shang saw battered bruises, slow improvement, and a substandard performance that was unacceptable for wartime. He made his decision to send the young Fa packing, and did not falter.
But when he exited his tent the next morning, it was clear that Captain Li Shang had grossly miscalculated. The men were gathered around shouting words of encouragement with looks of inspiration in their eyes. Ping was perched satisfactorily with the sun at his back and weights slung across his shoulder—proof that he had completed the task in its entirety. His eyes held a determined fire, which now that Shang recognized it, had been there all along. Training—and as if graced by the ancestors themselves—Ping progressed in leaps and bounds. Even the men exhibited a level of camaraderie and began shaping into a semblance of soldiers. Having a man like Ping, who had before represented weakness and inspired loathing, succeed in such an impossible task became a rallying call. If someone like Ping could do something like that, who was to say the untested group of soldiers could yet pull through upcoming battles triumphant?
(A/N: I will be expanding on some of the character development and adding side stories along the timeline/plot of the movie. Since I don't want these "setting the stage" entries to feel redundant or boring, they will be posted in small portions, with longer more in-depth chapters to come after the end of the movie timeline. Hope you will enjoy—Jack)