Cri Kee-x followed Mushu from one end of the room to the other, he couldn't get a word out of the dragon though, for Mushu had returned to pacing – much slower and less conscious than his steps of earlier in the morning – he was looking back through his encounters at the Li house, racking his brain for any sign or inclination that showed there was another grandchild of Mulan and Shang living there. He was coming up very short.

Nobody had said a word about a baby brother. He did realize that he wasn't included in all the conversations and goings-on in the house for the brief time he was there, but he would think something like a baby wouldn't go unnoticed.

He was brought out of his musings by Cri Kee-x hopping in and out of his line of vision in an attempt to get his attention.

Once he'd gotten it, Cri Kee-x wondered if it would be a good idea to get back to Ching since the plan from earlier hadn't gone exactly the way they had wanted.

Mushu hmphed derisively, that seemed a bit of an understatement. "Saw that, did you? You bet it didn't go well, I'm still sore in some places. Bet I even got some splinters from that broom!"

Cri Kee-x then asked how that could be, since Mushu had scales which could not get splinters caught in them like skin could. Judging by his jesting tone, Mushu assumed this was payback for his lack of sympathy during the whole tick incident. This surprised him; Mushu didn't think the cricket had it in him.

"Oh ha ha. But yeah, we should get back to watching her. Let's stay back this time though, 'till I can think of another idea."

He didn't tell Cri Kee-x about the jumble of thoughts in his head brought on by Ching's revelation. She may not have thought to mention this brother of hers until now, but Grandma Fa had failed to as well… and that seemed significant to him. So he hid this from his friend, in case it wasn't for his ears (or whatever crickets used to hear with).

Ching was now outside with Miki, Miki off a little ways feeding the chickens (Ching had mentioned an aversion to caring for poultry) while Ching was toting water in a large and apparently heavy bucket towards the house.

Miki being so far off from Ching made it easier for Mushu and Cri Kee-x to approach her once she'd emerged from the house. She shook her arms a bit, wiping off the small amount of sweat, sighing with clear relief to be free of the extra weight.

When she spotted them she smiled, but rolled her eyes and exclaimed exasperatedly, "You couldn't have shown up a bit sooner to help me with that?" She had obviously known they had arrived earlier.

Mushu took it as a rhetorical question, even if it wasn't. Ching was now making her way back to Miki, who seemed to be done with the chickens. After they had made their presence known to her, they went to find a spot to hide as they came closer to Miki.

Miki seemed a bit winded as well, though not quite as much as Ching. In lieu of no one to direct her normal amount of chatter towards, Mushu wondered if she might have been talking to the chickens.

From there, the two girls continued ticking off the items on Miki's mental to-do list. Sweeping the rooms and finishing the mending, all the while Miki was her usual self – for the most part. There would be times between the end of one anecdote and the beginning of another one, when the girl would pause and the air between them would edge toward awkward. But then she would smile and start right back up again.

It wasn't until later that Ching finally got to hear what Miki really wanted to say.

"Is it alright if we go towards the stable now?" Ching inquired, "It's just that I haven't seen Palin since I arrived."

"Oh, of course" Miki said. "I should check on our other horse too anyway." She didn't sound too thrilled with it, but was apparently making an effort to accommodate her cousin.

The stable was not unlike the rest of the property this family owned, but Mushu noted that it was stocked to accommodate more than the three horses (counting Pahlin) that resided there.

It was Miki's turn to lug water this time around, only to quench Pahlin and the family's horse. Ching was kind enough to help, and it was indeed easier with two.

It was when they were busying themselves cleaning, feeding, and generally caring for their equine charges that Miki's stream of conversation slowed down again into nonexistence, just like it had done that morning. Mushu wasn't sure if he should think anything of it, but Ching seemed to, because she brought it up.

"…Yes?" Ching prompted her to continue with her story she'd been telling, and Mushu tried to remember just what the story was about. For some reason Miki now seemed reluctant to continue, and she even looked thoughtfully away from her cousin.

Ching of course continued to notice up close what Mushu could from his hiding place slightly behind the stable entrance.

"Is there something on your mind?" Ching asked finally after a few more minutes of very uncharacteristic silence.

Miki fumbled with the brush she had been focusing so intently on stroking through her mare's hair. She sounded cautiously inquisitive, as she had done during their last interrupted conversation.

"It's not anything, really. I wouldn't want to be rude"

Mushu was about to whisper some sort of cutting remark, but Cri Kee-x shushed him.

"I'm sure that it wouldn't be as bad as some of the more recent things that have been said to me," Ching said frankly, hoping the lightness of her tone would both coax Miki to continue - and gloss over the thought of Ping's past comments.

"I was merely wanting you to know... that my father's views aren't the exact same as mine," she said, now looking around a bit as if he might be eavesdropping. "I also wondered... if you look down on me at all for being so happy about my arranged marriage."

Neither Ching nor Mushu was expecting that. Evidently the arrival of her non-conventional cousin had stirred up some conflicting thoughts in Miki's mind. Everybody just kept surprising him, Mushu thought; perhaps the old adage about books and judging their covers was right.

"No, of course not," Ching assured her, putting Pahlin's brush down and turning to face Miki, who looked positively meek? now. "You're sure of what you want, and it just happens to go with tradition. If you weren't happy with it, then I would probably think differently. To be honest, I'm pleased that you have such assurance, I even admire it a bit."

"Really? I admire you for searching like you are, being able to weigh your options, even having options," she backtracked "That isn't to say I don't, just... different, or not as many or… something. I do know that you're much braver than me."

Ching chuckled uneasily. She didn't think she was so brave, but Mushu thought she had a point. While in no way as brave as some, he could see why Miki would say that. In a land with so much tradition, to be differently-thinking, not to mention going this far across the countryside presumably by herself. Not the same level as fighting or anything like that, but still something he'd debate could be called so.

They continued with their work after this, things seeming much less awkward now that Miki had gotten that off her chest. She was back to herself in full force; with the exception that Ching was able to really contribute to the conversation (i.e. let her answer and gave her time to speak as well).

Mushu wanted to take some credit for this change, but he had to admit that it was all them. He was still pretty sure that his coaching did help Ching though, of course.

Even though everyone was happy about the events of that afternoon, Mushu saved his 'atta-girls' for after Ching, Miki, and Shu had finished cleaning up after dinner and they were safely inside the guest room and preparing for bed.

Now that they were on friendlier footing, it had been hard to pry to two girls apart so that Mushu and Cri Kee-x could come out from hiding. Mushu commented on that as she disappeared behind the changing screen at the far corner of the room adjacent to the window seat.

"Gonna start talking that much from here on in? Cause if so, warn me now," he joked.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that, don't worry. Though once I got going, it was fairly nice. And much easier than I thought, too," she mused.

"Yeah, not too bad for the final day," Mushu stated, the congratulatory air diminishing now. "We need to leave tomorrow if we're gonna make it to that town any time soon."

Tired from the day, but still fairly up from her apparent progress, Ching changed quickly and nodded when she emerged from behind the changing screen in her same light blue dressing gown, the smile she had worn when she had entered now faded.

"That's right, we can't forget that time is a factor," She left it at that.

The atmosphere in the room dropped considerably, no longer reveling in the conversation with Miki. All three beings' minds drifted back to Ching's home, each wondering with measurable amounts of worry just how Mulan was doing. While it wasn't pleasant to think about, the thought would keep them moving once they got started again, hopefully push them to go more quickly, just to get this trying time for their family over with.

Remembering Mulan at home sparked Mushu's memory, he suddenly remembered what he wanted to talk to Ching about. "Oh right, the brother!"

"What brother?" she asked quizzically, stopping halfway to the bed at Mushu's outburst.

"Your brother! The baby one I didn't know about."

She'd started moving again, but now back towards the window seat where Mushu had jumped to immediately upon entering the room.

"You didn't know about him?"

"No, Grandma Fa didn't tell me," he said, the feeling of surprise and indignation he had felt upon learning of Enlai coming back to him. He recounted to her what he could remember of what Grandma Fa had told him. The task he had been set, and the consequences that would befall the family had he not accepted. He emphasized that - through all of her little speech about curing Mulan and guarding Ching - the ancestor had failed to even mention Ching's tiny sibling.

"That's definitely peculiar," Ching said when he had finished. "Maybe she just forgot?"

"She was the one talking about seeing visions and whatnot, plus she's an ancestor spirit! There is no way that she could have forgotten something like the number of members in the current living family."

"I agree, she should know that," she said, trailing off a bit as she started to contemplate. "I mean, especially since she said the part about the families ceasing to exist. What could that mean for us?" Mushu noted the concern that graced her face as she said this, unsure as much as he was.

Ching had made her way around the room while thinking and had ended up back at the bed. She sat and Cri Kee-x hopped up to her, jumping onto her hand to get close to her.

Mushu had stretched out on the cushy window seat, his hands under his head, legs crossed so that one foot hovered over the edge. He cursed his absentmindedness when it suddenly slipped to the front of his head that he hadn't been planning on telling Cri Kee-x about this… and here he was discussing it with Ching right in front of him.

He rationalized that – being the sleep-prone little guy he was- Cri Kee-x might not have been paying any attention to the conversation, but he kinda thought that was giving him too little credit. The cricket did reside in the temple after all.

He didn't look in any way offended by not being included, although Mushu had never seen (nor thought he would ever see) him look offended by anything. Frightened or hurt possibly, but not offended.

He decided to ask him his views anyway, since as long as he was breaking his own promise he might as well let his friend contribute.

He saw Cri Kee-x rack his little mind almost as thoroughly as Mushu had racked his earlier, but just like Mushu Cri Kee-x came up short. Mushu saw him shrug even from his still lounging position on the cushion. Cri Kee-x confessed that he didn't know any more than they did. That all he knew was that he was summoned to wake Mushu that night, before that he had been out in the grass with his brothers and sisters.

He did say that he thought it was strange that he seemed to be the only one out of his family to notice when Grandma Fa summoned him, but he at least had known what to do from hearing old stories his own family told since around his first nymph stage.

After translating Cri Kee-x's words for Ching, she didn't answer right away. Mushu thought that the conversation might have ended, so he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander.

"Well, here's a question, why didn't you know about him already?" he heard Ching ask from the other side of the room. His eyes slid open and gave him a glimpse of the ceiling, and when he turned his head he noticed that she was lying in a similar fashion across her bed with Cri Kee-x atop her chest (which Mushu assumed was the safest place for him to avoid being squashed).

"That would be because I was frozen in place and didn't know what was going on," he said, thinking it obvious.

"Yes, but wouldn't you have been able to tell what was going on somehow, to keep informed?"

"Not that I know of. It seems like they just wake you up when they feel like it, and fill you in then," Mushu said, still not sure if he was the best one to ask in this area, it was making him realize just how much he truly did not know. "Don't know how the other guardians feel about that."

"How many guardians are there?" she continued her questions in a conversational tone. At least this one he could answer for sure.

"Twelve that I know of in the temple," he said. He then wondered if ol' stoney was still there since he did recall seeing a new statue on his way to the house.

"And you don't have… meetings or anything like that?"

Mushu chuckled, wondering why this was all so interesting to her, but he was finding it kinda nice to be able to answer what he could. It was starting the wheels in his own head turning as well; perhaps he should be pondering this stuff more than he had been.

"Nope. They might, for all I know, never met any of them," he said, but immediately after he said it he felt odd, like he knew that wasn't true. "At least, I don't think so."

"It's an awful lot not to know," Ching stated a bit bluntly. "If I were you, I'd be sure to ask first thing once we get home."

"Believe me, I will," he agreed. All this pondering was making him crave some answers, and the only way he knew to get them was to go to the source.

Maybe it wouldn't be first thing - he wanted to make sure Mulan would make a full recovery - but he wanted to be sure that he was much more informed on these matters. If he was going to be frozen in that kind of sleep he didn't like for another forty years, it would at least help if he knew why he had to.

It was a bit odd how he and Ching had managed to get on the same wavelength, but it was nice to have someone agree with him.

After this the conversation slowed and halted as the three drifted off to sleep. Mushu decided he was just too tired by this time to make it to the bed, instead choosing to merely make himself more comfortable where he lay on the cushy window seat.

Author's Note: Ah, things are finally starting to get interesting again! Unfortunately, you'll have to wait another month for the next chapter. But don't worry; I'll be spending Nov. doing my own personal NaNoWriMo. Won't be trying to get to 50,000 words, but just get the last six chapters done, written, and ready to start posting for Christmas.

I think we can all agree that this story has taken far too long to update, so it'll be great once I have accomplished this. And…I will. Might need some encouragement (maybe leave a bit in your reviews?) and some prodding (also in reviews?).

Thanks for sticking with me and being ever so patient. :-)