Summary: AU. Set a few moments after Emma and Snow jump through the portal in 2x09, Mulan and Aurora are finally ready to leave the Enchanted Forest for good, and head for Storybrooke to start their lives over. But, sadly, the pair will soon discover that even the magic of love ALWAYS comes with a price. (Phillip is assumed dead, and Mulan has successfully returned Aurora's heart and lead her to the banks of Lake Nostos.)
AN: A combination of 2 anon prompts from tumblr. I couldn't resist the temptation to write some mild angst.
-x-
The sandy soil beneath her boots was soft, wet, and scarred with the scuff marks of travelers long past. Mulan glanced to the ground, peering through hooded eyes to see the rapid slashing of the tracks of those that had come before. She saw the telltale signs of battles fought and won; where Emma had crossed blades with the icy-eyed and cold-blooded pirate. She studied the shuffling steps and prints of where Snow and the witch, Cora, had circled, adder-like, each vying for access to the portal, trying to piece together the outcome of the battle in her mind's eye.
The sharp glint of steel hidden amongst sandy grains caught her eye and forced a much more pressing matter to the forefront of her brain. Mulan stooped down, brushing back the dirt to see what lay beneath. She hissed a mild curse under her breath as a well-worn hilt of bronze peeped up from beneath the sands. She knelt, scooping her blade from the place it had been haphazardly tossed and moved to wipe away some of the grit, grumbling as she scrubbed carefully at the tempered steel of her father's sword.
Even with a heavy amount of elbow-grease and a copious glob of spit, the metal wouldn't come quite clean. She slid it reverently into the scabbard at her side with a 'snick'. Her father's blade sat at her hip like the familiar weight of responsibility; ever-present and ever-constant. Mulan exhaled slowly- eyes closed—centering herself and fighting to block out all that surrounded her.
She could feel her muscles coil tighter, clenching and then slowly relaxing fiber by fiber as she slipped the bounds of the physical and traveled deep into her own mind in search of wistful nothingness that lay beyond sound, beyond sight, beyond fear.
A breathy murmur and a touch light as air pulled the warrior from the quiet of her innermost thoughts, grounding her to the present like a sudden anchor.
"Hold on to me, ok? Don't let go." Aurora whispered, sliding her fingers along the inside of Mulan's forearm scrawling whirled and whimsical designs. Mulan knew the action was meant to distract from the weighted words, but she remained unfazed. Experience had given her insight into the princess's tiny tells.
Aurora's voice had slid past her lips reedy and wavering.
'She is scared.' Mulan thought to herself, her eyes narrowing as she scrutinized every inch of the princess 'I can practically sense it in the air around us, the scent of fear is tangible, clinging to both of us. I can feel it in the way she threads her fingers through mine, in the clammy, moist heat of her palm. It flits about the corner of her piqued mouth and lips. I see it perched there in the arch of her eyebrows, wallowing in the pallor of her cheeks…'
Mulan's gaze lingered on the fathomless depths of Aurora's blue eyes. Eyes that were sharp, keen, clear and cold- like an icy mountain stream- yet somehow simultaneously soft and kind.
'Open and vulnerable.' Mulan noted, feeling her gut twinge with something far more than dutiful devotion. 'Searching.'
Aurora had always been open in word, manner, and deed. Her eyes were like twin pools that offered wavering glimpses into the inner workings of her rapidly churning mind.
But, unlike Aurora, the hard lines of Mulan's own face did not show the telltale hints of trepidation that churned just beneath the surface.
'She is terrified to see what happens next," The warrior silently chewed the inside of her cheek "and so am I."
"I will be right here, princess." Mulan nodded solemnly, pledging her loyalties with far more than simple words. Her strong calloused fingers, warm and covered in hard leather, grasped the princess's fair thin hand betwixt her palms and squeezed gently and reassuringly.
The pair stepped towards the swirling vortex as one- hand in hand- and peered down into the roiling depths of the waters. Distant images flickered through Mulan's mind. She was oddly reminded of the koi ponds owned by her father in the faraway lands of her home. Distantly she recalled how, long ago when she was a child she would dangle her fingertips in the pools and the backs of the fish would agitate the placid surface, churning the normally still waters into waves of dark inky black. The koi fish beneath Mulan's tiny fingers would thrash and toss as they fought each other, mouths agape, eagerly yearning for the promise of a hand-out.
The whirlpool spun dizzily before the warrior as she peered down into the turbid depths, knowing full well that it was not the sloping scaly backs of fish that made the waves froth and splash.
It was magic.
Mulan's gut clenched at the thought of diving head-long into it.
The tempered warrior swallowed hard and bit the inside of her cheek, fighting to chase away the sudden trembling in her clenched and coiled biceps.
She struggled to breathe slowly, centering her mind again, trying to block out the icy tendrils of fear that threatened to undo her. She fought to remind herself of why she was standing by Aurora's side, preparing to jump into the unknown.
"Beyond these turbid waters lies a new life for us both. A new land; a new world; a new start." Mulan's thoughts whispered the phrase like a mantra, repeating it over and over until it seemed ingrained in her very being.
With the death of Phillip, the kingdom destroyed, and their people murdered, there was truly no place left for the princess and her warrior. The radiant splendor of the Enchanted Forest had become a wasteland of broken dreams and empty futures. Fairytale Land had become a place of death, not of life, and Mulan could feel the tainted foreboding of the place-as if the lost souls of her friends and kindred still clung to the sandy earth beneath her boots.
But now, she and Aurora had both been handed a chance at freedom.
A chance at happiness.
Snow and Emma had spoken of a wondrous world full of strange contraptions and fantastic new places to see. The odd names "Boston" and "Maine" swirled about in her mind coupling and melding with tales of moving stairs and carriages with no horses. Such strangeness was dream-like to the both of them, real but unreal. These words, so odd and so unknown, conjured inconceivable fantasies in the warrior's head as she thought of the possibilities that a new world could hold.
She remembered how Aurora and she had sat side-by-side, eyes wide in the flickering shadows of fire light. Twin brains whirling and churning as they both whispered away the rising moon, thinking and speaking out loud amongst themselves, wondering what Emma and Snow's land was like. For so long the pair had weighed, thought, considered, and wistfully pined after the prospect of starting over, but neither had ever truly dreamed they'd ever actually obtain passage to the outlandish parallel world.
So, yes, Mulan was scared. She was afraid the new world would not be all that she imagined it to be…and simultaneously she was terrified that it would far exceed everything she had ever hoped.
'We can put all the loss and death behind us now. We can begin again. Together. ' The warrior's innermost thoughts murmured and her heart fluttered, beating like the wings of a bird in her breast.
Suddenly, Mulan realized with a rush of mingled terror and exhilaration that this new world could be Hell on Earth, but so long as Aurora's palm was pressed to hers, the warrior would gladly step into the flames. Nothing else mattered.
Mulan squeezed her fingers around the gentle hand of the princess, and looked up to offer a half smile. Beneath her strong and calloused fingers, Mulan felt Aurora's pulse quicken as their eyes met and the warrior's grin widened giddily.
"Ready?" Aurora breached the silence with a single simple word that, to Mulan, meant so much more.
"Yes." Came the warrior's reply, thrumming with breathtaking honesty. "On three."
Mulan watched as Aurora nodded, squared her shoulders, and furrowed her gentle brow, as she pressed her lips into a thin determined line. Bracing herself and cloaking herself in confidence, she prepared to face what was to come with the grace and quiet fortitude befitting a princess.
"One."
Aurora's face tilted up, proud, sure, and noble; far braver than any gave her credit for.
"Two."
Mulan sucked a breath through her teeth before letting it out slow through her nose. Dark onyx eyes fluttered closed for a brief second as the warrior silently prayed that the water was not as cold or as rough as it appeared.
"Three."
They stepped forwards as one, pitching forward over the edge and falling together into a swirling watery maelstrom of absolute chaos. Mulan clamped her teeth shut, narrowly missing her tongue, as she bit back a snarling howl and a river of curses.
The water was like ice, stabbing into their bodies like a thousand tiny needles, filling noses, eyes, ears and making even the practiced warrior gasp the freezing torrent of rancid water and liquid magic into her lungs.
Mulan's body was pitched and rolled by the raging magic waters. Her world tilted wildly until she could no longer tell up from down. The sky and the lake blend into one, a massive frothing hell of water and light melded in dark. The warrior began to thrash blindly as she fought against the iron grip of the current. The tingle of magic crept up her arms, but the waters of Lake Nostos had amplified the energetic thrum somehow, making the electric current slice and rip into her very bones. Pain and panic wiped her memories clean, blotting them out in a white-hot entity of agony. A darkened spot roiled just out of reach as the fabric of space and time was ripped asunder, yawing open to show the portal to another world.
Instinct drove Mulan to fight with all her strength. Her legs kicked out as she flailed blindly, body demanding that she start paddling wildly until she either broke through the surface or drowned. Her lungs began to scream for air, and in the dullness and fear-plagued annals of her mind her fingers flexed, loosening her grip, as her body struggled for release from the water's murky depths.
A flash of light dazzled her eyes, shattering through her senseless haze, pulling her back to the realm of rational thought.
The portal was closing, Mulan realized. It could not stay open forever. Terror clenched at her spine, nearly as icy as the freezing waters pressing in upon her, as she slowly began to comprehend the possibility that they would never make it in time.
Don't let go.
Mulan's fingers silently clenched tighter around Aurora's palm, strong and sure as her silent promise filled her mind with purpose. She had to succeed. For Aurora. She had to try.
She stroked, hard and true, muscles straining mutely against the tug of the current and the clamor of the waves. She threw herself forward, pushing Aurora out front and hurdling towards the portal with all the speed she could muster. Mulan let out a silent scream and tumbled headlong towards the narrowing gap, eyes clenched shut, and praying that they would find themselves safe and sound on the other side.
Her wordless scream suddenly intensified, eyes snapping open as she felt every fiber of her arm begin to rip apart. Mulan's stomach rolled as she looked on, struggling not to retch at what she saw.
The cosmic doorway had become unstable as it had begun to narrow, and the magical contortion of space and time had unexpectedly snapped shut before the pair had fully made it through. Mulan's hand was stuck in the eddying gulf between worlds while Aurora clung helplessly, dangling across the gulf and struggling to make it to the other side.
But Mulan's fingers were slick and slipping and the strength of the magic was too much. The pair was wrenched wildly apart in a sickening snap of fiery power and spurting blood. Agony shrieked through every cell, and Mulan let out a bloodcurdling scream that reverberated across space and time as she was torn, bodily, between the two worlds.
-x-
Aurora hit the ground with a bone-shattering thud, landing hard on the dirty leaf-smattered earth and roiling some ways away. Her body was strewn to the side, and the ache in her side indicated that she would be badly bruised the next morning. She picked herself up gingerly, boosting up with her arms and peering about, head snapping around as the ethereal sound of her lover's cry sang in her ears. A deep sickening sense in the pit of her stomach told the princess that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
She scrabbled across the leaf-litter, quickly clamoring to her feet.
"Mulan?" the name slipped across Aurora's tongue, fearfully and tentatively as her crystal clear eyes scoured the empty forestland that sprawled out beyond the tiny wishing well.
"MULAN?!" Aurora's voice came louder this time, trilling and bolstered by fear.
"Rora…" came a moaned response. The princess spun on her heel, searching for her lover, but seeing no one.
"Where are you?! Mulan? I- I can't find you!"
"T-the portal." Croaked Mulan's reply, and Aurora's heart hammered as the voice dwindled, sounding weakened and distant. She clamored over to the well, ignoring the protestation of her aching limbs, and peered down into the waters.
"Mulan, are you here? Are you alright?!"
"I'm here, 'Rora… in the Enchanted Forest."
The surface of the inky black portal trembled, shuddering and swirling to reveal a pinprick of light. A vision wavered into view, and suddenly the forestlands of her fairytale birth-realm sprawled out before the princess.
It was as if she were peering through glass. Everything was just as she had left it…with only one small change.
Mulan's bruised and crippled form lay by the lake-shore, curled in a crumpled heap.
Aurora's mouth fell slack, opening into a shocked 'o' as she registered the dark spatters of crimson blood that coated hard white slashes of splintered bone.
In a matter of moments Aurora was leaning as far as humanly possible over the thin stone lip of the well straining to be close to her lover's side, yearning to cup the warrior in her arms. Aurora bit back a whimpering wail, as her fingers barely grazed the water, making the image of the otherworld ripple intangibly before her eyes. They had been so close.
But even now, happiness remained worlds away and just out of reach.
The princess whispered, her lips ushering forth a babble of comforting words that Mulan's shock-befuddled brain could not make sense of.
"D-don't leave me. Don't...Don't let go." Mulan hissed sickly, the blood in her mouth burbling between her parted lips and garbling her words.
Blood poured from the rend in Mulan's body, sapping her of strength and rational thought. As the loss of her life's blood began to take its toll, the warrior began to float in and out. Mulan felt herself grow light as a bird on the breeze, fluttering aimlessly on the rippling waves of her fast-fading consciousness. The warrior peered up into the open face of the princess: Searching, begging, pleading, needing…
"I'll be right here." Aurora whispered, reaching down as far as she could to brush the reflection of Mulan's cheek, sending the dark, glassy waters into another scattered rippling waver. Hot tears slid from beneath the princess's lashes as she looked on, wishing she could press her soft lips to her lover's forehead.
The princess' cheeks were soon warm and wet, slick with silent sorrow.
Mulan dreamed that she could distantly smell the sweet scent of Aurora's hair-floral like blossoms in spring—as a sudden heaviness seeped into her skull. Her vision narrowed, shrinking to a pinprick of light centered on the fair face of the princess like a fuzzy pale halo. Mulan could see that Aurora's crystalline eyes flickered with distress and worry, and shakily she tried to smile and allay her unspoken fears.
The mighty warrior lay cradled in the sands on the shores of Lake Nostos, defenseless and as weak as a newborn babe.
"We made it. We crossed over. Together." Mulan whispered thickly as delusion-filled darkness closed in.
"No, Mulan…Mulan you have to stay awake. Just for a little longer, please. Mulan please…." The princess's whispered supplications dwindled to a wordless whimper. Her breaking heart spoke the words that her mouth could not: I can't do this without you.
But the swordswoman was beyond hearing. Mulan's head fell limp as she slipped into unconsciousness, her body and limbs heavy, drained of strength and ceasing to feel, while the waters of the magic portal once again fell silent and dark.