June 27th (Day 2, Late Morning)
When Mulan enters the stable she walks up to the black horse and begins to brush him. She drags the wooden brush down Khan's fur, hopeless, as she smiles at him. "We had quite an adventure, didn't we?" The horse's head slightly nods, before he begins to eat from the small pile of barley. Mulan continues to whisper, now more to herself than to the horse, "I thought if I went something would change, but now our ride is over." She takes a frustrated breath, "It's been three years and almost everything is the same. How could so much happen in three years and nothing to have changed?"
The horse neighs and swings his majestic, grey tail. She continues to brush him, "Don't misjudge me. I am glad Father is alright." She pauses a moment, remembering the nightmare. "I am glad he's okay." She continues to brush. "I just expected something would change, that maybe I would change." She shakes her head, "I don't know. It's a stupid thought." The horse neighs. "I don't know what I was thinking. I risked my life, I'm at odds with my family, and now the people who respected me the most probably think I'm either a liar or crazy." As Mulan takes a heart-wrenching breath, the horse looks up and rests his head on her shoulder, and Mulan slightly smiles. "At least I have you."
"You have more than that."
Mulan turns to the stable door as she exits the horse's hug. "Grandmother."
"I thought you'd be here." She begins to walk over, and Mulan puts the hard bristle brush back on the steel nail. "Tell me. What's bothering you?"
Mulan turns back to the horse's stall and just stares down. "Nothing." She clenches a hand up to her sword-slain heart, "It's nothing." She moves over to another stall, this one filled with barley.
"Clearly it is something." The grandmother gives an unseen, warm smile. "You remember our agreement, don't you?"
Mulan stares at the bags of barley, "If I can't tell Father or Mama something, then I have to tell you." She remembers a conversation her and her grandmother had when she was fourteen, in this very stable. Her father had just gotten home from war. Mulan had talked with him as he put his armor away, glad that he returned home safely, but she didn't directly follow him out of the room. Instead, she stayed behind and took the sword back out of the wardrobe. By the time her father came back she already had a chunk of hair on the floor. She heard his footsteps and turned around to see him still, shocked, before he came over to take the sword away. While her mother told him what happened when he was at war, Mulan was in the stable talking with her grandmother. During their conversation Mulan had promised to tell her whenever whatever was wrong. As it turned out her parents agreed her hair was too short for her age and ordered her to grow it out, which meant that the uneven slice of the sword would remain as a reminder for the following three years.
The memory fades and Mulan turns to her grandmother. It's clear by her expression that Mulan had just missed something, but before she can ask what her grandmother had said, she speaks again, "What's wrong?"
Mulan looks away and down towards the barley, which in her imagination is briefly turned into the weaponry that adorned the training room in her dream. "I just didn't sleep well." Mulan remembers her father swinging the sword at her, but instead of being stabbed she imagines the barley being slit instead. Her grandmother doesn't speak, so she continues, "It started out as a dream, but it ended up as a nightmare." She pauses for a moment, remembering the anger and disappointment in her father's eyes. "There were signs it wouldn't turn out well, but I didn't notice them until it was over."
Mulan grabs a bag of barley as her grandmother comments, "Dreams are powerful things."
Mulan empties the bag and watches slowly as the barley falls down onto the rest of the horse's grains and Khan continues to eat. "They are powerful."
Grandmother Fa sees her grandchild's despair, "What was the dream about?"
Rapid flashes run through Mulan's mind, which are hard to comprehend, but it doesn't matter. I will never be able to forget this. "In the dream I woke up... I woke up and—" Mulan has a hard time forming the words so that the issue won't be too direct. "Things were different, but in a good way."
She stares at the planks of dark wood, running the seemingly perfect life through her mind. "I was different— but I had Shang, and Father was well." Mulan sees her grandmother slightly tense. "In the dream I did something that he didn't agree with… and at the end of the nightmare I was stabbed with the sword." The sword I had used during the war. The sword I had cut my hair with. The sword… who knew a single item could hold so many memories.
The grandmother speaks, "Perhaps the ancestors are trying to tell you something."
"You will never be my son." There has to be more to it than that. Mulan shakes her head, "Well, if they are, they're doing a pretty awful job at it." She grasps the horse's stall and leans, hunched over, as she takes an exasperated breath, a hopelessness filling her at the laughable thought that she could ever actually make them proud. "At this point, I don't really care what they think anyway."
Her grandmother walks a few steps closer, "What happened? You never would have said that before." She emits a small chuckle. "I remember when you were younger." She slightly smiles. "You saw how your father would pray to the ancestors every day, so you thought you would try it yourself. Everyone told you that you shouldn't, because most women wait to pray to their husband's ancestors, but that didn't matter to you. You would go to the temple nearly every day and pray to them." Her smile fades. "What has changed?"
Mulan recalls her prayers as a child. She prayed for change. She prayed for her father's return while he'd been at war. She would pray all day, hoping the ancestors would let her family love her without trying to change her. Half of the time she didn't even understand her own prayers or why she even prayed in the first place. Why did I bother? Everyone told me I wasn't supposed to, and it didn't even really make a difference. "What changed is I realized they can't help me."
Her grandmother laughs. "Of course, they can't help you. They're dead. They couldn't even help themselves." She had hoped for a smile to break on Mulan's face, but it stays as bleak as ever. "Don't let any of this bother you, child. I know a lot of people believe the ancestors can change things, but they can't change anything unless you want it to change. And if you want something to change, then you have to change it yourself."
Mulan looks up at the wooden wall behind the eating horse. She reaches for her hair, as she remembers the night she left for the army. I already tried to change things, but it didn't change anything. "Nothing changes." Everything I did, all it's done is make things worse. "It feels like everyone just ignores everything I do, unless it involves getting a husband or taking care of the house."
"The things you do are not ignored."
Mulan laughs at her anger and defeat. "No. Of course, not. I just get lectured with looks of failure and dishonor." Mulan takes an emotional breath as a tear streams down her cheek. "Even when I try my hardest to be anything but me, I end up disappointing everyone." She shakes her head, "The matchmaker will never see me again." and remembers the words clearly. "I can dress up like a bride, but I'm not one." She laughs as she grasps hard onto the wooden fencing, "I just have a hard time comprehending it all, and the rules just don't stick to my actions even when I can recall them." Mulan takes a hopeless breath, her head bent down as she shuts her eyes and tries to accept what she's already known, "I will never be able to honor this family, not in the way that truly counts."
"I wouldn't be too sure about that. General Li Shang seems like a nice lad. He has an older brother, so he will need property." Mulan looks up and sees her grandmother's hopeful smile. "He has known you for a while. He may be a good choice."
She shakes her head, "That's exactly the problem. He's known me as a man for three years." She laughs at the thought. "He won't want to marry me." Wouldn't that be something.
"People may surprise you." Mulan turns around to see the wisdom in her grandmother's tired eyes and wonders what she knows. "Come back to the house. You've had a long morning. You deserve some more tea, and the soup is waiting for you whenever you're ready."
Mulan moves her left hand over her empty, silently rumbling stomach. "Well, a small bowl can't hurt." The horse neighs in agreement as they exit the darkness. The sun is hidden, but the sky remains.
- I'm surprised how little I had to edit for this chapter. I forgot how amazing... well, maybe not amazing, but certainly how good the imagery is. Pretty surprising I could forget something like that, since I've reread these first 10 or so chapters so many times that they're more boring than I can even believe. Seriously, I can't wait for Yong's story-line. It's so exciting that it never gets boring no matter how many times you read it... but that's just my opinion. Oh, speaking of Yong, I now have a music playlist for this fanfiction on my Youtube (AshLand Writer). The first half of the playlist is for Mulan's character and the second half is for Yong's character, although I suppose some of the songs can work well as just an overall feeling of this fic. I tried to compile the songs I was listening to when I first wrote this as well as some newer ones. If it turns out I missed any that were important enough for me to mention in the comments section, then I'll add it to the list when I read it; although, I don't think I was writing very many comments when I first posted these chapters.
