For any of you who are not familiar with the system of measurements used, a foot is about 30 cm, and an inch is about 2.5 cm.

I have more planned for this story, but updates are going to be slow because all of the chapters are going to be about this length. Plus I have other stuff going on. Thanks for taking the time to read. Enjoy and Review!

Aurora and Mulan were sitting at camp together, waiting for the rabbit to roast. Mulan removed her armor for the evening. Aurora had abandoned her lilac dress a long time ago for brown pants and a dark purple shirt. They were settling down from another long, uneventful day. The two women had been traveling for two weeks now, alone. Throughout those two weeks, they had not come into contact with another soul. They were on a mission to retrieve the lost soul of Prince Phillip, but neither of them had any ideas about where to start. So, they were just roaming around the forest purposefully. Boredom had been taking over Aurora for the past few days until she couldn't take it anymore. She looked at Mulan, who was watching the cooking rabbit intently, before asking, "What kind of games did you play, growing up?"

Mulan looked up, bewildered. "How does that pertain to anything we are doing or trying to accomplish?"

Feeling a door was just slammed in her face, Aurora answered, "I'm bored and hoped to fix that by starting an interesting conversation with you, my only companion. Plus, I'm a curious person and want to know more about you."

"Well, you shouldn't go prying into other people's lives." Mulan had dismissed her attempt at conversation curtly.

Exasperated, Aurora muttered, "They must not have taught you guys how to socialize in boot camp." A few seconds later, her face adorning a huge grin, she perked up with an idea. "That's what we can do! After we eat, I'm going to teach you how to relax and have fun."

Mulan's head shot up at this. "No, those types of activities can be distracting and therefore dangerous."

"Mulan, we haven't come across anything dangerous in over two weeks. Please, can we just try it? Lately, it has been so boring! I can't take it anymore."

Mulan considered these points carefully before responding. "I suppose we could try it for tonight. Under one condition: tomorrow, I'm going to teach you how to do something useful."

Aurora agreed without hesitation. She then jumped up and spun around from sheer excitement. Not only would she have entertainment for tonight, she was guaranteed something to do the next night. She only settled down when the rabbit was done cooking. As they ate, Aurora realized she wasn't sure what to do with Mulan that night. She didn't want to throw the warrior into cold water, but she still wanted to have fun. She thought she would try going back to her original question.

Aurora ventured, "So you never told me what sort of games you played growing up. I thought maybe we could play a game."

Mulan glanced up from her supper and seemed to understand she could not get around the topic this time. Taking a deep breath, she simply stated, "We did not play games growing up. Our time was always spent working or with our studies."

This statement shocked Aurora. Although it did show why Mulan was so uptight, she had never been allowed to have fun. She decided right there that Mulan was going to learn to play a game.

"Well what if I showed you how to play a game or two that I use to play in court?"

Mulan went back to her food saying matter-of-factly, "You are the teacher. What we do is up to you."

Aurora thought about this. Yes, they were going to play a game tonight. She looked around as they finished eating; trying to think of what she could use to improvise what she needed to play. Finally they were both done. Aurora wasted no time in putting her plans into action.

"Alright, so when I was little, my favorite games were Horseshoes, Hopscotch, and Checkers. I think I know how we can improvise what we will need for all of them, but we aren't going to have time to try them all. Horseshoes and Hopscotch are more physical, but Checkers is purely mental. Do you have a preference?"

Mulan looked at Aurora and repeated what she had said earlier. "You are the teacher. The choice is yours."

Aurora scrunched her eyebrows a little in annoyance. The usually decisive warrior had absolutely no opinions, but she was too happy to be playing a game for it to bother her that much. She made a quick decision. "Okay, I think we should play Horseshoes. It won't be that hard to set up, and it is the easiest to explain. First, can you cut that branch down?" Aurora pointed to a small, thin and relatively straight branch on a young tree as she headed over to the pile of supplies. She dug around for the mallet and five pieces of rope, each about two feet long.

"Cut that so it is about three feet long without any leaves and sharpen one end, please." Aurora continued her instructions over her shoulder. When she came back with what she was looking for Mulan was already done. Aurora held out the pieces of rope, "Can you tie these into rings? I'll take the stick." Mulan sat on a log to tie the rings while Aurora used the stick to draw two circles in the dirt, a large one and a small one about five feet from each other. She then grabbed the mallet and drove the sharp end of the stick half way into the ground at the center of the larger circle.

"Wow, you got that really far down." Aurora turned to see Mulan with five identical rings in her hand. Aurora smiled and started walking to the smaller circle. "Come on, and be careful of the lines." She tossed the mallet to the side and looked at the set-up. It had turned out perfectly. This was going to be fun.

Upon reaching the smaller circle, Aurora began explaining the rules. "So, you have to stand in this circle and throw the rings one at a time at the stick. You aren't allowed to step out of it while you are throwing. If the ring lands on the stick, you get three points. Hitting the stick is two points, if the ring lands anywhere in the circle you get one point, and missing the circle entirely earns you nothing. The person at the end of the round with the most points wins the round and the first person to win three rounds wins the game. Any question?"

"Everything seems straight forward. Just one question: how long is a round?"

"We each throw all five rings once. Would you like to go first or should I?"

Mulan held the rings out to Aurora. "You go first, so I can see how it is done."

Aurora took the rings, stepped into the circle, and made her first throw. The circle they were aiming at was about six feet wide. Aurora's first shot was a foot to the left and short. She looked at the ring dumbfounded. Mulan just looked at Aurora expectantly. Aurora's eyes trailed to the remaining rings at her side. She picked up the next one, adjusted her hold on it and tried again. This time she had much more success. The ring landed about three inches in front of the stick. Having a feel of things, she managed to hit the stick with the next two and the last one landed perfectly on it. Aurora's face broke into a huge grin.

They collected the rings and Mulan began her turn. The first ring sailed to the right, landing just next to the stick. The next three hit it, landing on top of each other. The last one was high and landed a foot behind. Mulan hug her head, knowing Aurora had won the round.

They finished their game. Mulan won the next round, followed by Aurora winning again. The fourth round was a tie. It was then Aurora noticed Mulan's small smile. She instantly decided they would have to do things like this more often, if only so she could see it more. Aurora then won again (barely), winning the game. By that time they had finished, the last rays of the sun were disappearing over the hills.

Mulan looked slightly disappointed she had lost; her competitive side showing. She still had that smile Aurora had noticed earlier, saying as she untied the ropes, "I enjoyed that, thank you for showing me how to play."

"It was fun. I didn't realize how much I had missed games. We will have to do that again sometime." Aurora bubbled as she pulled up the stick, tossed it into the fire, and met Mulan at the supplies pile to put the mallet away.

Mulan nodded, "Perhaps," the warrior straightened up before continuing, "But I already know what we are going to do tomorrow."

Aurora looked up, curiosity getting the better of her again. "And what will that be?"

"You will have to wait and see." Mulan said slyly. She then turned and headed to the shelter to finish getting ready for bed, leaving Aurora by the fire trying to imagine what she had in mind.

Aurora had spent all day trying to get Mulan to tell her what they were going to do that night, to no avail. Finally, as the sun began its decent down the western sky, they found a nice clearing to settle down for the night. Mulan turned to her. "Are you ready to start this evening's lesson?"

Aurora looked around. They had just gotten there and nothing was set up. "Aren't you going to build everything first?" The question was understandable because Mulan always gathered the materials for the shelter and fire pit then built both. Aurora usually just contributed by dragging over a log for them to sit on, collecting wood for Mulan to arrange and ignite, or looking around for edible berries (the only survival skill she had picked up in her childhood). Mulan also did the hunting and cooking. Aurora had offered to help with the other stuff before but was always turned down.

Mulan met the princess' gaze. "I decided I should teach you how to build camp. You are right; I should let you help me more." Aurora was happy to hear this. She always felt bad Mulan did most of the work, but she didn't know how else to help.

"Okay, are we going to go hunting too?"

"No, I'm not going to show you how to that, and there won't be enough time for me to go. There is some dried meat in my bag that we can have after we set up."

Aurora was disappointed about the lack of fresh food, but wanted to learn how she could help more in the future. So she agreed. "Very well, where do we begin?"

Mulan set her pack on the ground. Straitening, she answered, "First, we need to decide what kind of shelter would be the easiest to build."

Aurora, who could have sworn she had only ever seen one kind asked, "There is more than one type of shelter?"

Mulan just stared at her for what felt like five minutes before speaking. "Yes, there are many types. You have slept in at least five different designs over the last two weeks."

"Oh, I guess ugh, well, you know, they all look the same to me." Aurora finished weakly. After standing there awkwardly for a moment, she tried speaking again. "So do you know how we should go about doing this?"

The warrior was circling the area looking at the trees and ground. "Yes, you see this log on the ground here? It is a good length but not too thick that we can't move it. I can cut a niche in that stump for it to sit in. Then we can put that big blanket over it, and secure it with the ropes and stakes."

Aurora tried to picture what Mulan had described. Nodding, they went to pull the log from the underbrush. Once they got it out, Mulan went to cut the niche while Aurora broke off a few off-shoots. They then dragged it over to the stump and placed the log so it was leaning against it. Next they pulled out the needed supplies from the pack. Aurora carried the blanket and Mulan had the ropes, stakes, and mallet. The blanket was thrown over the support log and secured to the ground with the spikes. The ropes were used to tie the blanket to the top of the log, just to make sure it would not slip during the night. Finally, they moved their bed rolls in. This shelter turned out a lot smaller than most of their other ones. Usually, there was enough space for the girls to leave about a foot between them. In this one, the bed rolls barely fit side by side.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to be so narrow. We can fix it if this is unacceptable." Mulan's apologized quietly, sounding slightly ashamed.

"Don't be sorry, this is fine. Plus, we will be warmer this way." Aurora said. "The nights have been getting colder." She added seeming to just comprehend what she was saying. Pausing, she looked at Mulan, who graced her with a small smile similar to the ones from the night before. Aurora momentarily forgot what they were doing. Last night she had noticed how beautiful Mulan was when she smiled, but now she realized that Mulan's smile only enhanced her already constant beauty. The truth was that Mulan's smile made her look gorgeous.

Startled by the thoughts going through her head, she broke eye contact. "So, I suppose the fire is next."

"I…, yes, building the fire." Mulan was still looking at Aurora, and sounded like she was being pulled out of a deep thought.

They crawled out of the shelter. The opening was facing the clearing and they wanted to keep the fire close, but far enough away so the structure wouldn't catch. Mulan picked a spot a few feet away. She kicked the fallen leaves revealing the soft dirt. As she stomped it down, she began talking. "You always clear away the leaves first and make sure the ground is firm. Next we need to gather some stones and make a ring so more leaves don't get blown in."

Aurora nodded. "How big should the stones be? And don't you usually stack them so there are two layers?"

Mulan's head shot up. "How do you notice that, but not different shelter structures you are inside?"

Aurora looked at her sheepishly. She knew exactly why she retained that bit of information. It was more fun to watch Mulan build the fire than to watch her build a shelter. Not willing to give up this opinion, she just shrugged and turned to collect rocks. Aurora could feel eyes on her as she walked away, but then heard Mulan turn to search in the opposite direction and the feeling vanished.

When they returned with a small load each, Mulan knelt down. "Okay, I'm going to start arranging these. Can you go find some wood?"

Aurora scurried off and came back with a huge arm load in about ten minutes. "There is a lot of wood around here," she said kneeling next to the warrior, "Is that enough?"

Mulan glanced at the pile, "Yes that should be good for now." She had just finished putting the last couple rocks in place.

"So for the fire, I have to sharpen a stick and drive it into the ground, like the one for the game was last night." Mulan pulled out her knife and sharpened the stick as Aurora got up to grab the mallet. Once the stick was in the ground, Mulan continued. "Now we need to lean other pieces against it, like this." She picked some wood and leaned it against the pole forming a triangle, the base of which was about six inches long. Once they were finished Mulan removed one and laid it to the side. Aurora looked at her confused. "We need tinder in there." She pulled some dry grass from her pocket a placed it inside the structure around the pole. "Make sure the tinder is spread out like this, then take the flint and hit it on the knife so the sparks land in it. Once you see embers, stop and blow on it, gently. As soon as you see small flames feed it small twigs."

When she was finished speaking she held out the flint and knife to Aurora, who took it tentatively. It took her a few tries, but finally made it spark. She made it rain sparks over the tinder until she saw the little glowing worms that were the embers. The flint and knife were tossed to the side. Aurora flopped onto her stomach to blow on the grass. When the flame first appeared, she couldn't believe she had done it. She sat up, gasping, "I did it, I did it. I did it!"

Mulan put her hand on Aurora's shoulder, "Yes, but you have to get the rest of the fire going."

Aurora grabbed a handful of twigs and began tossing them into the center. Mulan helped her maintain the fire in until it grew. When Mulan deemed it large enough, she replaced the last log and sat back on her heels. Aurora looked around. It was dusk.

"Well that took a lot longer than usual." She observed.

Mulan was digging the dried meat out of her bag. "I had to explain everything to you as we went. In the future, you will be able to do it without me right there and it will go a lot faster." Mulan returned to the fire, handing some food to Aurora before sitting next to her.

They ate quietly for some time before Aurora broke the silence. "I like this."

"The dried meat?" Mulan questioned.

"Well it is good, but I meant this thing we have going on. I teach you, you teach me. It's good for both of us." Aurora had finished eating and was now watching the fire as she spoke. "It was nice. Perhaps we can do it again sometime."

Mulan quietly nodded, eyes trained on the princess.

Aurora looked at Mulan. "What if we did this every night? We could take turns teaching the other something."

Mulan thought about this for a moment. "What happens when we run out of stuff to teach?"

Aurora grinned. "We can worry about that when the time comes."

Mulan agreed to the idea. The two sat together watching the fire until it was time to go to bed. They crawled into the shelter together. Lying back to back, they both fell asleep. Later that night, Aurora woke from another one of her terrible nightmares. Mulan, who usually kept her distance in these situations, rolled over and put her arm around the frightened girl. The Aurora snuggled closer and fell back asleep. They stayed that way until the first rays of the morning sun awoke them.