Almost late, but a little prodding at the last minute hopefully did the job. I'm sick though, so y'all better be grateful! :P

Captain Li Shang knew that he'd made Ping cry. He knew even before he heard the sounds of the boy trying to cover it up. He should have felt no sympathy; it was Ping's failings that earned him such treatment, and his weaknesses that allowed him cry.

He was supposed to be training an army, not running a daycare.

However, as he sat there under the full moon, knowing that he and Ping were the only ones awake while he kept watch and the boy cried, he felt awful. Like he had violated some kind of moral order.

It couldn't go on like this for so many reasons. Ping was a liability to the men, their weakest link and a walking accident zone. He was too young to be here in the first place, and improving slower than everyone else. He was weak, he hadn't bonded with the other men, and on top of it all Shang took pity on him.

Ping compromised his ability to command as he should; when he ought to punish him with a beating Shang merely sent him to clean the mess tent. When he caused brawls between the men Shang let him get away with verbal warning. If he caught Ping trying to cheat during training he gave him one-on-one attention. Then today, when he collapsed...

If it had been anyone else, Shang would've ordered them to stand up and carry on with their pack. He would've let them fall down again and again until the end of the day, but Ping.

He pitied him, and his job here wasn't to pity.

The boy was a danger to himself and everyone, and if the Huns attacked he'd be the first to go, and... well, Shang didn't want to be responsible for his death. Such a young man, practically still a child. He didn't want to send the Fa Zhou word that his son had been killed before he even completed his basic training; that he had died without honour miles from the front. He wouldn't let that rest on his conscience.

So it was clear what had to happen when they returned to camp, when this pointless exercise to appease Chi Fu ended. Ping had to go.

The next day was not much better than the first, and Mulan also found herself refused the chance to even pick up her pack again. Shang took it before she got to it and wouldn't even speak to her, ignoring her pleas to let her take it back and prove herself.

She knew long before they arrived back at camp that Shang was expelling her. The rest of this was just waiting for the axe to fall. She walked at the very back of the procession, her head hung, sighing because she couldn't cry any more.

"Come on, girl," Mushu said softly from her shoulder. "Don't look so down."

"It's useless, Mushu," she said. "I'm as good as gone."

"Now don't talk like that, you don't know until you know," he replied, but the uncertainty in his tone was evident; even her 'guardian' knew that she didn't stand much of a chance with things as they were.

"You saw what happened earlier," she groaned. "I'm a failure."

"Now now!" Mushu snapped with a little more fire. "Just look back at how you were when you first got here! Back then you wouldn't have made it a quarter of the way you have now. You've gotten stronger. Hell, when you punched me the other day I thought the ancestors had whacked me one from the spiritual plain!" Mulan managed to smile a little, but it soon dropped again.

"It's not enough, though," she mumbled. "I just can't keep up."

"Well then, you've... you've just gotta think of a shortcut!" Mushu said triumphantly, and she smiled weakly, thinking back to the time she promised to Captain Li that she would think of 'another way'. A lot of luck she'd had with that.

Still, it wasn't over until it was over, so she decided that she'd keep on going until the very end. Perhaps her father would forgive her, although returning in disgrace was hardly a good look. She could beg, though, and maybe she would be accepted home again. As long as her family could all be together that'd be enough for her.

It was the middle of the night when the trip finally ended and all the men were happily returned to camp and their comparatively luxurious tents. Mulan was on her way back to hers, hoping that the orders would at least wait until morning, when she saw him approaching. He walked with Khan already, the reins held firmly in Shang's hands – normally her horse reacted aggressively to unfamiliar people who tried to control him, but the Captain seemed to have tamed him easily enough. Even her horse recognised a true soldier when he saw one.

"You're not suited for war, Fa Ping," Shang said unfeelingly when she was close enough to hear. "Pack up your things. You're going home."

"Sir-" she said weakly.

"It's over," he interrupted. "You know the reasons why." He sighed heavily as he looked her unappraisingly up and down . "Perhaps in a few years you will do, but I have my reservations. Some men are just not destined for battle."

"Then what am I destined for?!" Mulan pleaded; her emotions were running away with her. "I don't have a clue who or what I am, but I'm trying-"

"This is not the place for soul-searching," Shang snapped. "This is a war. It is dangerous, even out here, and I-"

"You mean the Huns?" she cut him off forcefully, and saw the look of surprise in his face that had silenced him. "Those arrow marks I pointed out: they're not locals. They're Huns, aren't they, Captain Li?" Shang's face returned to its usual steely expression.

"Yes," he said icily. "I don't know how you found out, but they are. Guerillas are in these lands. That is why you need to go home."

"But I can fight them!" she protested. "I can shoot well enough now, and I can ride and I..."

"You think they can't do all that?" he interjected angrily. "They do it and they do it better. I would rather send you home in disgrace than word of your death." The Captain's voice was barely below yelling now. "A worthless death has no purpose or value, and I will not rob a man of his son for nothing!"

Mulan took the reins as he forced them upon her, unable to argue another word, and watched Shang turn his back and walk off.

"Go home, Ping. You're through," were his last, cruel-to-be-kind, words.

Mulan had nothing left to say, so she too turned away and began the slow, shameful walk towards her tent. She would leave before the sun rose tomorrow – it was too dangerous to do so at night, but she wanted to avoid seeing Shang again at all costs.

She hadn't taken three steps when a strange shadow passed across her face, and looking towards the cause Mulan saw the climbing post a little way off with Shang's arrow still in it. No one had been able to get it yet, in spite of daily attempts to retrieve it from various men.

It occurred to her in a wild flight of fancy that if she were to somehow reach it everything might be forgiven. She'd get a second chance at least. Imagine the look on Shang's face.

Not to mention that at this stage anything was worth a try, so with the desperation of knowing this could be her very last chance she ran to the place where the weights were kept. She threw open the box and lifted out the metal discs, encouraged to discover that they felt a lot lighter than they did back on the first day. Compared to the kettle the cook used to boil rice or to the packs from the trek, these things were far lighter. Just maybe, it occured to her, she could actually do this.

However, what she forgot was that she had to climb up a straight post carrying them, and had barely fastened the ropes to her wrists and jumped up onto the trunk when she fell straight back down simply from the force swinging back in the opposite direction.

Landing on her behind, she sat for a moment and stared up at the pole. She couldn't match anyone in strength, so if they couldn't climb up straight there was no way she'd be able to. Another way, she just had to think of another way to do it: a shortcut, like Mushu said.

She lifted one of the stones again; they still weighed almost as much as she did together, and for a moment she thought to imagine what she'd do if instead of these she had to climb with a partner. She wouldn't try to drag them up, would she?

Of course not. They'd have to work together... work to- that was it. That was it! She had to work with the weights, not against them.

She thought fast, resolving how the weights could be used to help her and not hinder her; then it all seemed so simple, so straightfoward. Why hadn't she thought of it before? You didn't try to swim against the current of the river, did you?

She approached the post again, calm in her movements in spite of the whirlwind of her thoughts. She swung her arms around it, and the weights smashed against each other around the post. She repeated the action until she managed to get 'strength' and 'discipline' to link, spinning the ropes around each other so that they formed a single weighted loop around the post.

With shaking hands and fast breath, she flicked up her arms and dragged the weights up the back of the post; she could lift them without too much strain – all these weeks hadn't been entirely for nothing – and then pulled forwards, holding the loop against the post as she walked her legs up.

She was off the ground.

Trying not to rush, because to rush could ruin it, she took a deep breath and then pulled upwards again, edging the weights a little higher up. She followed with her feet, and made a little progress. It was working. It was actually working!

It had been late when they arrived, and with the days getting longer as spring approached she'd not made much process when the sky started getting lighter. It had been dark when they arrived, but now a lighter shade of blue tinged the east while she climbed, inching herself up the post one little bit at a time, locking her footwork in place with the weights as an anchor to stop herself falling down.

She was thankful now that she hadn't had to carry the pack down the mountain, as it had given her time to rest up, and even though she was tiring now she still felt strong as she passed the half way mark. Like she could seriously do this. He hands began to shake, but not from fatigue; her grin was impossible to hide, and she didn't dare look down at the ground for fear of pre-empting the success.

It was steady progress, not fast, and time slipped away quicker than she realized, because she had just reached the last third of the post when she heard something below her.

"Oh my! Is that Ping?" one of the men yelled in surprise as he set out extra early to get the first portion of breakfast – who else but Chien-Po?

"Look everyone! Ping!" he said energetically, running to the tent next to his and shaking it half down.

"Holy Emperor! It is!" the man inside cheered as he poked out his head to see what all the noise was about, and soon enough half the camp were crowded around her, and – to her surprise – they were encouraging her.

"Go on Ping!" "You can do it!" "Keep going Ping!" they cheered and whooped, and Mulan felt as if all the time she'd spent here had suddenly cashed in all its worth at the same time. The men may have picked on her if she was down, but now they were rooting for her all the way – if she succeeded, it was a win for all of them, and for the first time Mulan felt as if maybe she belonged somewhere.

"Go on ya' little shrimp!" Yao roared louder than anyone else. "You can do it!" Even Yao believed in her now, it seemed; Yao who hounded her and tormented her before. He was on her side now.

"Wait til the Captain sees this!" someone else hollered, and Mulan's grin got even bigger. She couldn't wait.

Distracted by the cheers of the men and her own fantasy running away with her, Mulan's footing suddenly slipped on the wood and she lost her grip. There was a gasp of fright and she dropped down a little, but the instinctive pull of her arms on the ropes held her in her place. Straight away she tightened her grip even more and winced as she dragged her own body weight back up to a safe spot. She wasn't going to fall now. No way. Not when she was so close.

Grunting as she pushed herself to her absolute limits to get her footing back, she heaved a huge sigh of relief and edged the weights up again, returning to the normal climb.

"Yaaay! Ping! Ping!" the men whooped, as if they were not tired or hurt or sleep deprived from two day hike they'd been dragged on against their will. As if they'd just turned up this very morning.

She knew that she couldn't try to leap for the top, even though it looked so very close now. If she leapt and lost the grip of the weights she could hitch a fast ride all the way to the ground, and not only would that ruin everything but she'd probably end up hurting herself too. She had to be patient, to work on it in tiny tiny steps, getting so close that she could see the rough edges of grain where the post had been sawn off. The arrow was almost touching the top of her head now. The last person to touch this was Shang, when he fired it up here, and now she would be the one to bring it back.

However, this wasn't something to do by halves. Instead of just grabbing the arrow, Mulan bit into the shaft with her teeth – she couldn't spare a hand to yank it out – and kept on going. With the arrow in her mouth she climbed up until she could reach for the top of the post with her hands and grip it firmly, and then pulled the rest of her body up.

Careful to account for the weights, she put her palms flat against the post and pushed up on her arms, swivelling her hips to sit upright. Once she had her seat and wasn't in danger of falling off either way, she finally untwisted the weights and lifted them up, tying the ropes together at the loose ends and resting them over her shoulder. With her free hands she finally took the arrow out of her mouth: all she had to do now was wait.

Perhaps when she had first arrived the height might have daunted her, but after the little trip climbing up the cliffs in the mountains she was hardly bothered by it, although her head did spin at first when she dared to look down and see the ground so unfamiliarly far away from her. Now when she peeked downward, the men below waved up at her and yelled up congratulations, so she waved back with a grin twice as wide.

She could see the Captain's tent from here, and lined the arrow up with her eyeline toward it, refining her aim as she held it delicately between her fingers. He couldn't be much longer now.

Sure enough, when the chaotic sounds from outside finally roused Shang from sleep, and he stepped outside to see what in the Middle Kingdom could be causing such a fuss, nothing surprised him more than to see an arrow fly downwards and land at his feet. His first thought was of panic; that the Huns had attacked, but it took only a second for him to realize that it was one of their arrows – more specifically, it was one of his.

He looked up in the direction it had come from disbelievingly, unable to think of an explanation for why it had come down from so high up and landed at that steep angle, and then he saw her.

She was sitting at the top of the climbing post with her chin propped up on a hand and a grin like a river mouth.

She'd thrown down his arrow before him when only a few hours ago he'd told her to go home; that she was expelled from this unit. Now she sat there in the place that no one else had even got remotely close to, and smirked because she knew she'd proven him wrong.

Shang was utterly speechless. He picked the arrow out of the ground and walked towards the crowd of men in a haze, too stunned to say anything, simply allowing the men to part around him. As he approached Mulan climbed off the top of the post and slid down, the weights still thrown over her shoulder; she was agile and precise in her movements and the Captain wondered if this was the first time the real Ping had shown up. As if something had been unlocked within.

"So... Captain..." Mulan said as she dropped the rest of the way down the post and landed at Shang's feet, lifting the weights off her shoulder and holding them out to him. "What are we doing today?"

"Uh..." he said softly, his good sense still trying to recover from the sudden affront Ping had made on him. "We..." He looked at Mulan and saw her staring up at him hopefully, begging with her eyes for him to take back his orders from the previous night. Although triumphant, Mulan looked pale and haggard, as she had not slept; she had tried so hard, and hoped that just maybe it would be enough this time.

"Well done, Ping," Shang said warmly at last, snapping out of his daze and patting her on the shoulder with a smile. "I'm proud of you."

Mulan had expected Shang's congratulations to be absolutely delicious; she wanted to make him eat his words with the solid conviction of having proved him wrong, having earned back her place completely through her own hard work. What she didn't expect was for him to smile at her, of all things, and then sound so sincere and happy for her victory. Immediately she felt her cheeks warming up, and had to look away because meeting his eyes would only make her blush more; even her stomach fluttered uncomfortably, finally receiving the approval she'd worked so hard to get.

"T-th-thank you, Sir," she stammered, and then at the first opportunity turned her back and scampered off among the men, hiding herself from him for the rest of the day. She feared that having to meet his eyes again before she calmed down might make her even more jumpy.

As surprised and secretly thrilled as Shang was that Ping had retrieved his arrow - it eased the guilt he'd been feeling non-stop since dismissing her for one - he did not let himself forget that in all other areas Ping had been falling behind, and one act was not enough to redeem all the other weaknesses. So with this in mind he kept a constant eye on her.

However, by some miraculous turn of events not only had Ping suddenly gained competency in most of the training exercises, but so had everyone else. Ping's singular success had motivated the entire body of men, and suddenly they were singing drinking songs and ballads as they exercised, instead of grumbling and picking fights with one another.

They were in such great spirits that at the end of the day, instead of retreating to their tents sourly as usual, many of the men stayed up chatting and sharing some rice wine the chef had been holding back for when the arrow was finally retrieved. Mulan tried to go back to her tent, as she hadn't slept the night before and was feeling dead on her feet, but the men would not allow it.

"Hold ya horses, Ping," growled Yao, grabbing Mulan by the back of her robe. "It was you who got the arrow, so ya can't go just yet. Not without having a celebratory drink."

"Ah, no... I can't," she declined as politely as she could without seeming too unmanly. "I'm... uh, pretty tired, and... uhhh... I never could hold my drink... after this one time, heh! heh!... So... you know, I'll just be- oof!" Before she could protest any further, Yao had shoved the end of the rice wine bottle in her mouth and tipped it upwards, forcing Mulan to have a drink whether she liked it or not.

"For he's a jolly good fellow!" Ling and Chien-Po cheered along with Yao, as Mulan pulled the bottle from her mouth spluttering and gagging.

"Bleh!" she coughed, holding the bottle at an arms length as she rubbed her mouth furiously. "Really guys... I'm fine," she pleaded. "It's been a long day, I just have to get some sleep."

"Aaaaw you're no fun!" Yao snapped angrily, but without the murderous intent he'd previously borne. As soon as she could, Mulan stole away from her new-found comrades and headed towards her tent. However, along the way she happened to pass the Captain engaged in a frosty game of Xiangqi with Chi Fu outside the former's tent – the stakes of which seemed to be a scroll Chi Fu was very keen to have sent to the Emperor.

She paused by the board without realizing; as a girl she had never been allowed to play Xiangqi by herself against men from her village, even though she knew well enough from being taught at home by her father; even though he let her win, she could never beat earnestly. So when she passed by a game in progress she could never resist stopping and watching the state of play for just a few turns, as she was unable to ever satisfy her desire to play it seriously herself.

Judging by the expressions of the men it appeared to be Shang's turn to move, because he was in careful consideration and barely even noticed Mulan was there. Chi Fu looked at her disdainfully, but didn't scold her for fear of disrupting Shang and giving him anything he could use to challenge him with – Chi Fu was certain that he had the Captain cornered now, and that his scroll would be in the hands of the Emperor by sundown tomorrow.

That was, however, until Mulan reached out and pointed to one of Shang's pieces. Her finger hovered over it for a moment, and Shang slowly turned his confused stare up to her in question of exactly what the hell she thought she was doing.

Her finger drifted across the squares and eventually pointed at a space for the piece to move to.

"This... would... work, I think..." she mumbled drowsily, practically asleep on her feet, and then withdrew her hand again thoughtfully, as if she'd not noticed this was not her game at all.

Once he got part the initial offence of her incredibly presumptive act of butting into this game, Shang noticed that the move Mulan had pointed out would turn the game around; how had she seen that when he had not? Not to mention, it was hardly the strategy of a novice... how could this even be Ping, he wondered.

He was was about to turn and ask Mulan exactly why she'd spent so long pretending to be an absolute incompetent, when she was in fact very clever, when he saw that she was already gone. Barely able to keep putting her feet in front of each other, after possibly the greatest day of her entire life, Mulan trudged back to her tent, where she was greeted by a fanfare of rattling crockery and excited chirping.

"Hey hey hey! Here's my star!" Mushu cheered, drumming on an upturned bowl with a pair of chopsticks. "What did I tell you, huh? Huh? Never doubted you for a second, girl. I always knew you had it in you!"

Mulan struggled out of her training clothes and almost fell down onto her sleeping mat. She reached out sleepily to pat Mushu on the head.

"Thanks... Mush-" she mumbled, not even finishing her Guardian's name before she fell fast asleep, a sigh of relief that had been building up for weeks escaping her lips.

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