As it turned out, life as a flying monkey was very frustrating. Her thought process, like her body, had transformed, and she struggled to maintain at least a shred of her human self in this animal's body.
Aurora. Love. Banana. Robin. Hate. Banana. Hungry. Banana.
When she wasn't compelled to run errands or attack townspeople by Zelena, she worked on mastering her mind long enough to find the scraps of clothes she'd left behind when she'd transformed.
Whatever the vials from Regina's drawer were, maybe drinking one would help. Anything was better than this.
It took days before she mustered enough independent willpower to find and crack open one of the vials. As soon as she drank it, she wished she hadn't.
Aurora. Angry. Regina. Help. Robin. Hate. Banana. Banana. Maleficent.
She nearly forgot how to fly when she thought of Maleficent. She couldn't formulate the words in her head, but with her memories came the knowledge that the magic that had allowed her mentor to reanimate in the Enchanted Forest didn't work in this land. Why hadn't she warned her, back in the Enchanted Forest? She'd been too wrapped up in her own salvation, and now Maleficent was dead.
Maleficent. Dead. Elsa. Gone. Banana. Emma. Gone. Regina. Regina. Regina.
Some hope returned to her when Emma showed up in Storybrooke with Henry in tow. The saviour was alive. Once Emma defeated Zelena, the curse would be broken and Regina would remember Mulan and the conversations they'd shared.
Emma. Hope. Emma. Saviour. Regina. Emma. Love. Hope.
Guarding the entrance to Rumplestiltskin's cellar prison, she could hardly contain a shriek of rage as she watched Robin Hood attack Regina. A monkey's smile formed on her face as she watched her friend catch the idiot's arrow and verbally smack him down. Minutes later, she found rage again, as she watched her nemesis press himself against the woman, who smiled in return and came to believe the man was her soulmate.
Regina. Despair. Regina.
Her paws itched to bring the woman one of the vials of memory potion, but when she tried to summon even a smidgeon of willpower to help any of the townspeople in their fight against Zelena, she collapsed.
Despair. Despair. Banana.
Increasingly, she let her monkey instincts take over. She turned townspeople into beasts like her and watched them burst into flames as their kinsmen shot them out of the sky. She nearly flew into an arrow, too, but between her monkey instincts and her own will to survive she was unable to put herself out of her misery.
Instead she watched as Emma let Regina slip away. She watched them bond over magic lessons and near-death experiences, only to witness them lose faith in each other moments later. She watched as Emma gave up on Regina, gave up on love, and resigned herself to spending time with that pirate who'd betrayed them all.
Death. Marriage. Evil.
She watched the love rekindle in Emma's eyes when Regina broke the memory curse by kissing their son, only to see it stamped out immediately as the wretched, useless Robin Hood appeared and led Regina away.
But now Regina remembered. Mulan saw it in her eyes when she looked at Emma. She remembered that she loved her. Still, she left with Robin.
"Cowards!" Mulan yelled at them, but it came out as a monkey's shriek.
By the time her friends defeated Zelena, Mulan hardly cared about any of them. She stuck around for a day, telling herself she meant to check in with Regina and clarify that her friend truly did want to stay in this horrible little town with the man who would kill her if he ever knew she'd shared her room with a degenerate or planned to elope with Emma Swan.
In truth, she had given up on them. All she really wanted to see was that Aurora was safe. She watched as the townspeople gathered in the diner, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the woman she still very reluctantly loved. Through the window, the princess met her eyes and Mulan condemned the traitorous parts of her heart that tingled.
Aurora pursed her lips in sadness, then looked away.
Mulan exhaled. How could she have ever loved such a coward. She wished for all the world that Maleficent were alive in this land, that they could wreak beautiful vengeance on this town of traitors. The witch had been horrible in so many ways, but at least she had never compromised her heart for a life half lived.
At her wish, a giant beam of light burst from the barn in which they'd fought Zelena's last battle. Mulan couldn't decide if she cared enough to find out what was happening, but at Emma's voice she realized she might have one last ally to check with before she left town.
From what she'd overheard as a monkey, Emma didn't want to live in Storybrooke anyway. Maybe this woman felt as awful as she did about loving someone who settled for the love of a man over her true love. She watched the saviour leave with the awful pirate and had to wait only minutes before the two had dealt with the problem and returned to the diner. Now she only needed to wait until Emma sent the pirate away, so she could speak to her alone.
Mulan felt her insides quake as the conversation between the saviour and the pirate became markedly different from their other interactions. She felt enraged. Why was Emma entertaining this man's garbage words? True, the woman had it in her to legitimately love a man, but not this man. Not more than she loved Regina. What had she possibly experienced in the last few minutes that would make the saviour of all people choose this fate? Mulan couldn't watch, but the sound of their wet mouths meeting was much worse than any visual might have been.
She stormed out of her hiding spot and marched across the road, heading for the town line. Down the road, she saw two lovers walking together, a child between them. Anger bubbled over as Regina's eyes caught hers. The woman gave her a smile and a shrug, as though to say, "Maybe I'll choose true love next time! This family is nearly just as good as my real one!"
Mulan was glad she'd slit that brat's throat.
She gasped, horrified at the growing evil inside her. She raced to the town line and drew the vials of memory potion from her pocket. Maybe her heart would still have patches of darkness, but she didn't want to remember any of this. She didn't want to be a bitter, evil woman.
She threw one of the vials at a tree and watched it smash. She held the final vial in her hand for a moment before taking a deep breath and throwing it at the ground.
A cup made of ice rose to meet it, thawing in the middle just in time to cushion the vial and prevent it from breaking.
"It looks like you could use a friend," a voice behind her called.
Mulan knew who it was before she'd even spoken, and she sighed in relief, not taking her eyes off the line on the road she'd nearly crossed.
The woman slid along a patch of ice until she was standing directly behind Mulan. She leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear, her lips grazing skin, "Or maybe something more."