Prologue
In her mother's old age, Mulan lays her hands on Hua Li's, weeping. Mushu's tail creeps up her wrist, red dragon tattoo curling in a facsimile of a grip, the spirit quiet for once. Li shakes her head, fingers smooth against Mulan's calloused ones – the difference between a housewife and a seasoned fighter. Hua Zhou's sword is at her waist and Mulan would feel bereft without it's familiar weight.
"Don't mourn me, Mulan. This is the cycle of life. When your grandmother left, you were not this inconsolable."
"You are- you are not Grandmother," Mulan gasps for breath, head dropping down to rest on her mothers covered knees. The healer tuts quietly from their corner, but Mulan can't bring herself to care or even be angry.
Her mother is dying.
"My daughter, surrounded by so much death. You have killed many Huns and yet, the death of an old woman from illness is what breaks you."
"I am not broken. I simply do not want you to die, Mother," Mulan says, before movement catches her eye. Mushu, previously warm and pulsing in sorrow around her hand, stills, slowing and then retreating, slithering slowly up her arm once more. She watches as he disappears up her sleeve and feels as the spirit-lizard curls up on the flesh of her lower back.
Suspicious behaviour, considering what I just said.
Li notices the change in Mulan's own behaviour, however, even as she croaks her name, "Mulan?"
Mulan takes her hands back, feeling something deep within her gut. It feels…it feels like fire. I've felt that before, when I faced Shan Yu on the top of the Emperors Palace. It swirls inside and Mushu shifts in discomfort.
"Mushu," she says under her breath, so quiet and so practiced – few to none know Mushu lives on her skin and sometimes off it, too, speaking to him in such a voice is natural. "Mushu, what- what are you scared of?"
His voice slithers in the back of her head, still so foreign even after all these years. 'Mulan, you are the Dragon.'
"You've never really explained what that means," Mulan says, but at the same time, he doesn't need to explain, does he? Her household guardians have always been dragons – Mushu might be small, but he is no ordinary salamander. I am the Dragon, she thinks, the fire inside her sparking. I am the Dragon, she thinks again, shutting her eyes. I am the Dragon. I am the Dragon. I am the Dragon-
Each repetition makes the fire grow larger. A roar builds up like a tidal wave, threatening to overcome her. Mushu is shouting at her, but Mulan can't hear him. It's only when she feels him leave her – leave her completely, their connection stretching thinner and thinner as he crawls out of the confines of her dress towards her mother, shaking violently.
"What is this, Mulan?" Li questions, even as the healer shrieks, running out of the room. "Mulan, you are glowing."
Mulan opens her eyes and it's like she's looking at the sun. Everything is golden and she can smell everything so strongly now – the sickness of her mother has sunk into the bed and even some of the walls, but there's a faint hint of cherry and horse from the breeze through the window. Mei is making dumplings next door, she recognises, even as she shuts her eyes again, becoming overwhelmed by everything.
The worst part, however, the worst part by far is feeling her bond with Mushu stretch, stretch, tear and snap.
"Oh," her mother murmurs, "I feel…oh! What in the Emperors name are you doing in my head? Mulan, what have you done? What have you done?"
Mulan opens her eyes, the gold fading to show her everything as it should be – except it's not, because Mushu is no longer curled up in her mothers lap, no. Mushu is on her mother's skin, bright red and curling around her wrist, bonded to her.
"I don't know," Mulan replies.
It goes like this.
Once upon a time, a girl from China saved her country from invasion and awoke the Dragon inside her. The Dragon was fierce and a fighter. The girl was too – but the girl was the Dragon in all ways but one, so that was a given. When the Dragon awoke, it gave the girl three gifts. The first gift was one the girl never would have asked for: immortality, eternal youth for all time. The second gift was the ability to slip unseen through the world, so none could ever hunt her. The third gift was an Elder.
Hua Mulan and her mother, her Elder, Hua Li, stay alive at the same age they were when the Dragon awoke and they cannot ever die.
Over the centuries, they live together and live apart. They may love each other, but forever means forever and sometimes even just being in the same country is too short a distance. Their names change and their skills adapt. At some point early on in their long lives, Mulan teaches her mother how to wield a sword.
Mulan doesn't fall in love. She doesn't marry or raise a family – her lovers are far and few in between and even then, she takes precautions. The one time she has a child, a beautiful baby boy, he grows and grows…and dies. Mulan swears off having children again after that, even as her mother marries for love over and over, a new partner every new century. Some are young, some are old – Li is frozen at sixty-four, while Mulan is frozen at thirty-four. Lucky for Li, she's too old for children anymore and Mulan took a lot from her in the womb.
Lucky, Mulan thinks, both very, very relieved her mother doesn't have to through the same pain she had and bitter – so bitter. She aches for a child of her own, sometimes, for a family. She wants that again.
Instead, all she receives is death.
