Cradled in his mother's arms, he dozed, still sticky with fluids and wrapped in a blanket. The mother, Fa Li, gazed adoringly down at the life she had brought into the world, dark shadows under her eyes, clearly exhausted. Her husband, Fa Zhou, looked upon her with worried eyes.
"Li, are you all right?"
She smiled at his concern. "I'm fine, Zhou. Here, do you want to hold him?" She held out her arms, and, carefully, as though touching him might cause him to burst into flames, or shatter like fine china, he lifted him, gazing wonderingly at the small baby that he had fathered.
The room was warm, the air still thick with the irony scent of blood and heavy with mist. Zhou frowned. How could mist form in this room?
And all of a sudden, the light went out of the room. A startled cry escaped his throat, before clinging in a lump as the mist thickened to fog, twisting and curling around him and his wife, congealing around the child he held in his arms. Unable to move or speak, his eyes flitted to Li, her eyes wide and in a similar state.
"Now what do we have here?" The fog seemed to lift his child from his arms, laying in a larger mass of the stuff, compressing into a vaguely feminine shape, two pools and a slash of darkness her face.
"Who…are you?" Zhou managed. The pools widened.
"Oh ho! You can still talk, can you? Very impressive. So tell me, Fa, what is the name of this child?"
"Ping." The woman swirled, her eyes landing upon Li. "His name is Ping."
The lady of fog paused, seeming to digest this information. "So it's a boy…Fa! You are the mother?"
"Yes." She was turning white, the effort of speaking seeming to take the color from her skin.
She glanced outside the window, where the magnolia tree stood, green for now. "Then his name shall be Mulan."
Zhou frowned. "But…that is a girl's name."
She smirked. "Exactly. Do you remember your birth?"
"No. Should I?"
"Hmph. Let me tell you of it then." She settled onto the bed, cradling the babe in her arms. "You were born a girl." His eyes widened, mouth opening to reject, but once again, words stuck in his throat. "As odd as it sounds, it is true. You've been told your father killed himself when you were born?"
He managed a nod. "A lie with a grain of truth. He came to live with me, in my realm, where life and death hold no meaning. I am not one to make deals with lightly. The deal was that so long as your first child was a girl, your father would be returned to you."
She smiled, the slash that was her mouth widening. "That is not the case, as you can see. He shall remain with me, returned to you when you do bear a girl. But I know this will not be. I can see inside you woman." Her gaze focused on Li. "Should you try, you'll suffer, and any child you carry shall die, regardless of sex." Her smirk widened. "So he shall remain with me. Your child shall take on the form you were born with, until such point as I deem the change will cause the most confusion and shame. I will not be looked over as nothing more than a nightmare."
She stood, no…floated, her smoky tendrils surrounding her and Ping. A chant filled the air, the words whispering and alien, flowing over their skin like oil. Ping began to shine, and now unnatural purple fire swirled and joined the fog, flames that screamed with the anger of ages past. She laughed, cold and cruel, and was gone, taking the fog and lifting their paralysis.
Zhou moved quickly, catching his child before he could touch the covers. A whisper came to his ears as he did.
"You needn't worry of the others, nor the midwife. They will see only a girl. You I will allow to see the boy; you won't be able to tell him, though. I warn you—stronger men have tried to best me, and all have failed. Do not do anything rash; I want to enjoy my next few centuries, going over this little morsel."
Her presence finally faded away, leaving the screaming infant and the horrified couple alone.
Chapter 2
"Papa!" Mulan shouted, chasing after her father. "Papa, look what I found!"
As Zhou looked over, she raised her hands, revealing a magnolia blossom. "It's me!" she giggled, smiling up at him.
"That's nice, dear." Zhou said, his eyes pained. His firstborn, his son, was to grow up as a woman. He can still see the shadowy outline, overlapping the girl's form—his son, almost identical to the child in front of him. A cursed gift, to see what his son would grow up to be.
"Papa?" he comes out of his thoughts, the scared, confused look on his child's face giving him some alarm. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, oh dear child, no." he leans down and hugs him. Her, he hears, her. He just clings tighter, a few tears threatening to escape. "The fault is all my own."