Summary: They were used to Mulan oversleeping, 'Ping' had gotten into the habit of being an early riser.

Disclaimer: 'Mulan' and associated characters and situations are the property of Disney and are used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit. This story ignores 'Mulan 2' and all the events thereof. Mainly because the author's never actually seen Mulan 2...

-o0O0o-

"Morning Training"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

-o0O0o-

For the first time in many months, Fa Zhao's sleep was untroubled by worries for his daughter; with her return as a Hero of China, he had no cause to fear her discovery and execution or her death in battle. What was troubling him instead was the incessant clacking sound that had penetrated his restful sleep and woken him before the sun had even appeared fully in the sky. Only the disturbed shifting and groans of his wife next to him proving that she also was hearing the sound assured Zhao that it was not merely a case of his nightmares taking on new forms.

"I suppose we must..." Zhao groaned as he moved out of bed, age and injury protesting his actions as they often did, "See what is happening..."

-o0o-

Earlier, before Fa Zhao had been awoken, a guest of the Fa family found himself facing a problem. From the moment he was first capable of enlisting, Li Shang had been in the military service of the Emperor. It had been his life's dream to be an officer in the army and one day become a General like his father had before him. Even before his first day in official training, he had begun practicing habits that were part of military life; marching for distance and running for speed, enduring heat and cold without complaint, waking up early and being ready quickly each day for training or duty. Those parts of military life had become part of his life, parts that were hard to remove himself from even for the shortest of times. Despite not being at a base camp or training camp, Shang simply could not get himself to return to sleep now that the sun had risen, even ever so slightly. There was only one thing he could do, born of years of repetition and routine every morning. Carefully, quietly, Shang slid himself out of bed and began dressing in his training clothes.

-o0o-

At the same time as Shang, another occupant - resident, in fact - of the Fa family home was also stirring; months of discipline had broken a habit of a lifetime in the case of Fa Mulan. Even to the very day of the matchmaker debacle that had started the chain of events leading to her being declared a Hero of China by the Emperor himself Mulan had always slept in, finding it hard to wake in the mornings until the sounds of activity around her and the light of the sun became too much for her to avoid any longer. During her time in the Imperial Army while disguised as 'Fa Ping', that had not been an option; not just because of the early training and parades that all of the other recruits had to experience as well, but because if 'Ping' overslept, someone would come to wake him and might discover her secret, something that would have been both dishonorable to her family and fatal to herself. Since that was definitely not the preferred outcome - even if the actual outcome that had happened had borne certain similarities - she'd been forced by necessity to learn to wake early and fast before the rest of the camp. She had been forced to learn to wake early and now she was finding it something that was difficult to return to her old sleeping habits. The only thing she could think of doing was continuing with a somewhat newer habit and that meant early morning training. As silently as she could, Mulan got up and searched through her wardrobe for something in which she could practice.

Minutes later, dressed and ready, Mulan left her room and headed outside, trying not to wake anyone else as she did. So caught up in her movements was she that she didn't even notice another's presence until she had walked right into his chest. Taking a step back, she looked up and tried to suppress a faint blush.

"Captain!" Mulan exclaimed in surprise.

"Pi-" The time it took for Shang to correct himself also gave him the time to recover from his own shock, "Mulan. I'm not your Captain anymore, Mulan."

"With respect, you'll always be my Captain," Mulan answered.

"If we're going to resort to titles, I'm afraid that I will have to call you 'Heroine of China'," Shang pointed out.

Mulan grimaced at the thought of such a long and formal title, "If you insist, Shang-"

"I insist," he nodded.

She continued as though he hadn't spoken, "-What are you doing up? Is there something wrong?"

"I'm sorry, it's not your family's hospitality," Shang reached back and rubbed the back of his head, "I'm just too used to getting up early..."

"For formations and training," Mulan nodded as she smiled knowingly.

"Exactly."

"I was actually having the same problem," she admitted, "I wasn't sure what to do, but if you're awake, that gives me an idea..."

-o0o-

In the present, Zhao and his wife had been joined by his mother on the way out of the house seeking the source of the noise from the gardens. They were not sure what they would find, but the sight of the wayward youngest member of their family and her former-commanding officer in the gardens, sparring with broomsticks in place of staves, was not something any of them had considered as a possibility before seeing it in reality.

"This is..." Fa Li shook her head without finishing the sentence.

Zhao sighed, "Sometimes, we are not wise enough to know the ways of answered prayers."

"Don't tell me you think praying to a bunch of dead fuddy-duddies had anything to do with this," Grandmother complained at the two of them.

"Must you be so disrespectful of the Ancestors?" Li asked in long-suffering exasperation.

"None of them have ever complained," Grandmother replied.

"Please be quiet," Zhao said firmly, his attention focused on the fact that his daughter and their guest were moving closer to each other as their match went on.

Out in the garden, the rhythmatic, relentless clack-clack of wood upon wood grew faster and faster in pace as the two matched each other move for move. Shang tried to sweep his staff and Mulan lept over it; as she landed, she swung at his head and he ducked beneath it; anyone watching would be forgiven for thinking of it being as much a dance as it was a fight. In a way it was. Their staves continued to clack against each other as each attack was met with a block in turn.

"You fight well," Shang remarked at one point while their staves were locked against each other.

"For a girl?" Mulan asked, reminding him of his earlier remark in the Capital.

He winced, knowing what she was referring to, and corrected himself, "For a soldier."

"You fight well, too. For a soldier," Mulan replied, "Not so well for a Captain."

"What did we agree about titles?" Shang countered, "Because I'm sure I could say something about how a 'Heroine of China' should have beaten me already."

"Then it wouldn't be training, would it? It would be winning," Mulan retorted.

Mulan punctuated her statement by breaking the lock and using her momentum to spin around Shang. He wasn't expecting the move and it left him unprepared for her follow-up of driving the end of her staff into the back of his knee from behind, causing him to drop down on it as his leg went out from underneath him. Intending to exploit the opening she had created, Mulan turned slightly to bring her staff down in an arcing strike towards Shang's head. Before Mulan's staff could touch him, Shang had lifted his own staff over his head to block her attack. Quickly, before she could pull it away, Shang took one hand off of his staff and grabbed Mulan's, pulling down on it and using his own staff as a fulcrum to pull it out of her grasp and send it flying. With a smirk and using his own staff - or rather broom again since the match was now ended - as a support, Shang stood back up and turned to look at Mulan.

"Good fight, Mulan."

"Not good enough, I guess. I don't think you taught us that one at camp."

"We never exactly got into that level of techniques before..." Shang trailed off, but they both knew what he wasn't saying; before they were ordered to join up with his father's troops.

"So, you won the fight," Mulan reminded him, "What were you thinking for the winner?"

"I think I would like my opponent's hand," Shang answered, reaching out and taking Mulan's hand in his, "Later, when everything that's happened has settled. But, I'll settle for a kiss for now."

Mulan looked away slightly, "You should know that I failed the Matchmaker's test, Shang."

"You should know that the Emperor himself told me to come after you," Shang countered, grabbing Mulan's other hand in his free one, "I think his authority outweighs that of a Matchmaker."

"I suppose I can't disobey the Emperor," Mulan replied, raising her head to meet Shang's eyes, "Can I?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," he answered, his head slowly moving towards hers, giving her plenty of time to move away or otherwise stop his actions.

She didn't. There were no fireworks and the Earth didn't move, just a feeling of warmth between them when their lips met. They barely heard the faint sounds of Zhao and Li gasping

Grandmother, however, wasn't being so quiet as she cheered, "Woo! It's about time!"

That was enough to cause them to pull apart and both turn their heads towards the sound, surprised to see the rest of the Fa family watching them.

"Ancestors be praised," Grandmother waved her hands in the air, "There might be descendants yet!"

Mulan groaned and muttered, "She doesn't even like the family Ancestors, why is she praising them?"

Meeting her Grandmother had taught Li Shang one thing about Fa Mulan; her outspokenness, opinions, her willingness to take risks, she had come by it all naturally. It made him wonder what kind of man her grandfather had been to have married such a woman. Then it occurred to him that, with the similarities between her Grandmother and Mulan herself, he might have a pretty good idea what kind of man her grandfather would have been.

"We might have to get married sooner than we thought," Shang said softly, knowing what honor and propriety would demand now that they had been seen by her family kissing.

"I think, with you, I might just be okay with that," Mulan answered just as softly, "But just to make sure..."

Shang was about to ask what she meant when the return of her lips to his kept him from speaking.