Chapter 3: When all goes down

"You cannot avoid what's going to happen - but you can influence it"
-§1 Guardian Law

Khan had given in, yet it was clearly visible that the horse wasn't pleased – at all. Mulan was riding ahead, Shang followed her musing. His wife had been in too rushed spirits to move out, so that the general's reason was the only cause for them being equipped. Poorly equipped, but Mulan didn't mind. The less they had to carry along, the faster they would move ahead. And after all – they had to climb up a mountain, in case of course, Chester's instructions were trustworthy. Luckily for them, it had been a mountain-passage not too far away, yet it was a considerable distance from the next village and due to the vertical rocks, the group had to put up with a detour.

Chester, who had made himself comfortable behind Shang was lazily watching the road they'd passed already. He as well wasn't too fond of this mini-mission, but the ancestors had appointed him with the responsibility. No one could keep someone like Mulan, and since she wasn't allowed to go alone, Chester had to accompany her as her new guardian – How it should have been in first place. Secretly the lion hoped that they would never find the little lizard again.

He was a bad influence on Mulan after all; and her devotion, no, her enthusiasm to it already began to transfer onto his Shang. If it hadn't, then the current state would have been normal, but no, she had to talk him into combining the family-temples, talked him into disobeying the rules.
Someone had to teach Mulan that rules weren't meant to be broken and the lion surely didn't expect Mushu to do this.

For the whole trip now, Mulan had been looking straight forward, eventually stopping to glance sideways, but she never turned back.
Chester put his head on his folded paws in a bored half-sleepy way. Try as she may to hide it as hard as she could, the lion could still smell her concern and it was making him sick.
"You might as well make yourself useful!" the girl announced and for the first time now, was glancing back at the males. Not being able to help it, Chester bared his teeth for a moment and stopped when came to realize that he was disobeying his mistress. Disobeying the rules.
He shook his head to himself covering his eyes. How much further did this have to go? Bad influence, bad influence!
"How so?" the lion groaned from under his paws, where he had been hiding from himself just a moment ago, "If that lizard was close, either you or me would have noticed already, so why don't we just move on?"

The woman looked the small fuzzball over for a moment and then turned to the road ahead of her again, appreciating the guardian's advice. The little lion had a good point after all, yet while Mulan intended to find Mushu, Chester merely wanted to get this over with, so they could return home.

***

Only the rush of wind could be heard as the falcon soared through the air. A soft breeze was tickling his feathers. It had stopped snowing, so even though he was drifting through the air with great speed, he had a clear shot at the nearby village. He smiled confidently. At this distance their bonding should break during the next few hours, which would leave both of them, the dragon and his girl-protégé defenseless.
The bird startled as he spotted a small group at the ground below. Flapping still in midair he narrowed his eyes for the pack seemed oddly familiar. The hawk calmly swooped down to land on a rock. He watched the group as mist was beginning to show up, disguising himself even better from their eyes, while he himself had no such problems of keeping track of them, even far above the ground.

He hadn't expected them to follow him, neither did he expect them to know his location or to bring another guardian along. The bird snarled at himself. He had to reassess his plan, and that before they would reach the little lizard.
His claws scratched against the stone in anxiety, chance was so tempting and yet he solely kept his eyes on the group patiently. Time had taught him to be patient and he knew too well, not to rush things.

After eyeing the group for a while now, a smile formed on his beak. He chuckled to himself, shrugging with the wings folded on his back Actually, why not? Let them find the lizard. He could kill two birds with one stone – not that the falcon had ever liked this phrase, but as of now it worked perfectly for him.
These were the mountains, in this wilderness there wouldn't be any help nearby and he could deal with the little backup, for this place was his realm of advantage.

What the falcon didn't know, was that Mushu himself hadn't been lazy as well. It had taken him a while, but he'd finally managed to slip through his stony prison to search for Mulan on his own.
Surveying the still wild passage with a growing feeling of victory, the hawk's expression fell at the sight of Mushu who - with his back pinned to the stonewall - was sneaking his way right towards Mulan.
The bird mused at his sight.

Didn't keep him long enough.

Dashing down, the falcon blocked the dragon's way who seemed in no way surprised.
"Where are we going?" the bird questioned as it began to circle around Mushu in a stiff pace.
As the guardian refused to answer, the falcon picked him up by his skinny arms and lifted him into the air, granting the dragon an outlook over the passage.
"Look at them," the falcon introduced. Mushu didn't quite understand what he was talking about, since his eyes weren't used to such an altitude, but following the bird's gaze, the dragon quickly spotted his friends below.
"They will be quite disappointed once they have to realize that they've come in vain."
From the corner of his eye, Mushu now glared up at the falcon, struggling to get free. The big bird merely smirked at the serpentine's useless attempts. The smirk soon faded away when the hawk had to dodge a small wave of fire, which resulted in him unintentionally loosening his grip on the dragon who now was dangling in midair, holding on to only one of the falcon's feet.
"You wanna invent sky-diving before its time? Fine!" the falcon screeched, which oblivious to him got the attention of the little troop below.
Before the falcon had the chance to let him go, Mushu had swung himself to the rock-face and was now clinging to it.
The bird couldn't hide a silent laughter at this sight.
"You're still gonna refuse to be a lizard?" he asked just to be greeted by a small fireball that faded away next to his head. Out of the corner of his eyes the bird glanced to the remaining smoke of the flame and his playful expression had turned to the familiar hateful grimace.
"As you wish!"
He flapped his mighty wings one time, shot up and turned to dash down towards the group. As Mushu realized what was going on, he let go of the rock to jump, merely missed his aim and instead of the back, clung to the falcon's tail feathers. It didn't stop him from climbing on the back afterwards though, to interfere with its wings and cause the falcon to make an ungentle crash landing on the top of a snow covered ledge, close to the incoming group.
The bird struggled itself free from Mushu's grasp, hopped a few jumps away and shook off the snow on his dark plumage.
He glared at Mushu to find the group getting visible through the mist behind him. A smile appeared on the falcon's face and he shot the dragon a last glare.
"Here we go."
Mushu's attempt to stop the animal failed as it lifted itself up from the floor, and he still stared unbelieving at the sky as Chester's "I found him!" resounded through the cold mountain air.

Faster than the dragon actually realized everyone of them kneeled down to check if he was alright.
"There you are, we were worried," Mulan said and just wanted to touch the guardian as he looked at her blankly and backed away.
Sucking it up, he studied her unbelievingly and the only thought that was running through his mind was this sole one subject.

She wasn't supposed to be here.

The dragon had already deemed himself unreliable when he had sensed her approaching a while ago, but here she truly was, in flesh and blood and all her obstinacy. She'd come for him – and it felt so right.

But she wasn't supposed to be here.

At the lack of reaction Mulan and Shang looked at each other for a moment until a falcon's scream got their attention
The girl looked startled for a moment.
"What was that?" She asked.
Mushu spun around, shifting himself towards Mulan.

"You're not supposed to be here," the dragon then finally thought out loud, always keeping an eye at the foggy air.
And then he showed up, breaking through the clouds and grabbing Mulan by her clothes, tugging her around but only managed to throw her to the ground.
"Oh no you don't!" Mushu immediately kept hold of his girl but couldn't achieve to stop the falcon. The young woman herself struggled to get up again, when Chester joined the dragon and tugged at her trouser leg.
Mulan shooed the hawk away and took a little moment for herself. Mushu walked back a little so he could see everything of her as well as he could. She didn't seem to be injured.
Chester glanced at Mushu as he did so.
"What was that about?!?"
The dragon returned the look, hurried up to the lion and started to push him around, almost throwing him over in the process.
"Get her away from here!"

Shang meanwhile offered to help Mulan up, but she refused.
"I'm fine Shang, you don't need to."
Just when she was back on her feet, the falcon shot out of nowhere causing her to stumble backwards.
Chester was about to catch her leg again, when he realized that it would have only made her fall and resigned from his intention, Shang instead tried to catch her hand.
Mushu watched out for the falcon again, but he almost couldn't see anything. This weather would kill them all. He turned around to face his guarded one again and his eyes widened as he realized they were drawing closer to the edge. A frozen edge!

"Watch out!"

And with this Mulan literally lost the ground beneath her feet.

She would fall.

She would die.

Time seemed to stop and in a moment of absent-mindedness the little dragon jumped after her.

***

The guardian rolled down the stony, hard and steep slope. He caught hold of himself and down where the mist started to clear he could see his guarded one curled up in dirty snow.

"Mulan!"

And he saw the falcon dashing down beside him heading towards her.
Immediately letting go of the rock the dragon rushed down and took a deep breath while he was falling...

Shang and his guardian jerked back as a warm blow from below lit up the fog in bright orange colors.
Was that fire?

Chester moved a little closer.
Was that Mushu?

The lion peeked downwards. It was that little lizard indeed. He could actually see them! The flames had chased away the mist.
He smiled. Impressive.

***

Stone was hard.

And so was his landing. If he hadn't been a guardian this impact most likely would have knocked him out.
Mushu watched heavily breathing from the ground, as the falcon was first tumbling, then freefalling into the abyss. He got to his feet, signalizing the falcon that he'd chosen the wrong opponent.
"Never underestimate a true guardian!" he yelled after the bird and collapsed again as soon as the hawk was out of sight.

Did he… just really say that?

The dragon turned around to see Mulan with his weary gotten eyes and crawled towards her.
His broken little girl. He was a failure!
And to make things worse, he was the cause of all this.
"Mulan?" he hesitated, "Are you alright?"

Obviously not.

"Mulan, talk to me!" He tried careful shaking, in order to wake her up, but she kept lying there as if asleep. TKO, Bingo. As if he hadn't known better. The only thing right now assuring Mushu that she wasn't dead, was the lack of ancestor-rants ringing in his head.
He sighed in relief and sat down, keeping an eye on her motionless body. It was good in so many ways to finally see her again, but awful to witness her in this state.
"I'm sorry."

He knew she couldn't hear him.
But he wished she did.

"How are you two?" Shang yelled from up above, deeply hoping to get an answer.
"We're still alive!" a male voice responded him.
"Now that's an answer," Shang thought in a mixture of frustration and relief.