Author's Note: Hi everyone! I'm back! So, I know this update is a week late, and I'm sorry. I was very busy last week, and I really wanted this chapter to be good. This is the longest chapter I have ever written (over 3,000 words)! I have had the idea for this chapter for a while, and I really wanted to write it right. Just so you know, late updates may happen again in the future, but I will try my best to update on time. Don't worry, I have no plans on giving up on this story! Please enjoy and leave a review! They mean the world to me!
Chapter Forty Eight: Travel
I look critically at my naked body in the mirror. We plan on leaving the city today, and since I've been sweating with fever for the past week, I decided to take a bath before we depart. I had been just about to re-wrap the bandages that go from my chest down to my hips when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I swear, I've been standing here for five minutes, and I just can't look away.
My entire life, my reflection has been something I struggled with. I've never been petty or cared very much about being pretty. No, that was never my problem. Sometimes, I just feel like I don't know who that girl in the mirror is. People were so often trying to change me into something I'm not, that I lost track of who I am. I remember that day at the matchmakers when I came home and saw the reflection of myself in the pond, in the tablets in the temple. I remember feeling so suddenly frightened of that girl in the mirror, the girl that was supposed to be me but truly wasn't. I guess, my entire life, I've struggled to make my reflection show who I am inside.
I now stand naked in front of a full-length mirror in one of the Imperial Palace's washrooms and try to decipher the woman I see. I have a large scar running from the bottom center of my ribcage down to my right hip. Another one runs in a diagonal from above the center of my right eyebrow down to my right temple. Various ugly scars and bruises line my arms from combat. None were ever serious, but they definitely would have healed much better if I had allowed a medic to assist with them instead of trying to stitch them myself. But that's not all. My chest is black and blue, bruised due to the tight bindings it was subjected to over the past two years. Breathing in and out without the bindings on is so much easier than it has been for the past few years, but it still hurts.
I don't care whether or not I'm pretty. But as I look in the mirror, I can't help but see how changed I am. Compared to how I looked two years ago, I'm completely different. Yet, my reflection still doesn't show who I am inside. I still haven't found myself, because when I look into my eyes, I see everything the Emperor saw: frustration, pain, guilt. Not only that, but there are still so many things I am unsure of, so many questions I still have.
Shaking my head and sighing, I turn away from the mirror and wrap my bandages without looking at it again. I pull on my trousers and throw on my new tunic which looks just like the one I wore at camp. My old one was ripped and bloody beyond repair. Then, I walk briskly out of the washroom, avoiding the stranger in the mirror once again.
I rejoin the others as they are finishing collecting the last few items we will take with us.
"You look less awful," Mushu states jokingly. I simply roll my eyes as I pick up the sword of Shan-Yu and wrap it in a bolt of cloth. Once we have finished getting our things, we allow Shang to lead us to the stables. As we walk down a long hallway, I see Shang smiling almost smugly at me.
"What?" I ask after a moment.
"Oh nothing," he states, his smile widening. "It's just, I took a peek outside before, and apparently news of the Honorable Heroine Fa Mulan's departure leaked and was spread through the city because there is a crowd of people outside waiting for you."
I stop in my tracks. "How many people?" I ask warily.
"Only a hundred or so. Come on, don't tell me the brave heroine Fa Mulan is shy?" Shang teases.
"I'm not shy," I huff. "I just…don't like large crowds of people. Or being the center of attention."
"Country Girl," he snickers.
"City Boy," I retort.
It doesn't take long for us to reach the door, and, just as Shang had said, a crowd of people awaits me, and in order to get to the stables, we need to pass through that crowd. At first, I am a little anxious walking through the crowd. Attention was never good for me because if people were paying attention, it usually meant they were looking for the best way to hurt me. But, after a few moments, I realize that these people aren't doing that. As I walk through this crowd, people thank me and they smile at me, and I smile back. A little girl comes up to me and offers me a small pink magnolia flower. Crouching down, I smile at her and place it in her hair. She smiles back at me excitedly before rushing back to her mother. I rise once more and we continue to navigate the crowd.
Finally, we reach the stables, and I close the door behind us. I take a deep breath and smell hay and horses. It smells like home. I search the stalls until I find Khan, who brays excitedly at the sight of me. I hold his massive head in my two hands and smile at him.
"I missed you too, old friend," I state smiling. Khan snorts in response, tickling my face. I chuckle a moment. "I'm sorry I worried you. You ready to go home, buddy?" Home. When I first left, I didn't think I would ever make it back, but here I am, returning with a full pardon from the Emperor.
"More inclined to talk to horses than people?" Shang teases. I swear, this casual version of Shang is kind of getting on my nerves.
"Shut up," I say, picking up Khan's saddle and putting it on his back.
"I'm not really surprised," he continues. "You always struck me as a bit of a loner."
The others, except for Mushu, mumble in agreement while saddling their own horses.
"I'm not a loner," I huff, securing Khan's saddle and packing his saddlebags. "In fact, I like being around people. Most people just don't like being around me."
That's why I strike people as a loner. When I was younger, I just got so used to people taking one look at me and hating what they see, that I just stopped trying to interact with other people.
"Those people must just hate everything fun then," Ling jokes, lightening the mood.
We finish preparing our horses, and after maneuvering ourselves through the city, we hit the road. Khan's first instinct is to go fast. That's how we always ride, and we both love it. But when he does speed up a little, I let out a grunt of pain as the movement jostles my wound. When Khan notices, he slows back down to an obedient trot, and I give him a pat on the head, whispering a "thank you". We ride until nightfall, ignoring Mushu constantly suggesting we take a break so that I don't hurt myself. After a few tries, he gives in and shuts up.
After finding a good spot, we make camp, assembling tents and building a fire. Chien-Po cooks dinner, and after we eat, we turn in for the night, planning to set off at dawn tomorrow. I bid the guys goodnight and walk into my tent. When I lay down on the bedroll, I realize how much more natural laying on the ground feels compared to the bed I've slept in for the past few days. It's strange, my first few nights at camp, I couldn't seem to get comfortable on my thin bedroll. Now, a bed just doesn't feel stable enough. It's too soft, too foreign after these long years spent sleeping wherever the heck I could find room to lay out my bedroll.
Mushu is right (though I'll never tell him): I am still quite weakened by the fever that plagued me the past few days, and I find myself drifting into a deep sleep after only a few moments.
-Nightmare-
I find myself caught in the chaos of battle. Men are all standing so close together that our bodies jostle against each other as we fight, making me claustrophobic. All around me, men fall with screams of pain, and blood is everywhere. Panic clutches me as I look desperately for a way out of this hell. Suddenly, the world seems to spin, and when it comes to a halt, I'm kneeling in the snow of the Tung-Shao Pass. I look desperately at my friends, who turn their heads from me in disgust. Shang towers above me, sword raised.
"Guys!" I cry out. "Please, guys it's still me! I never wanted to hurt any of you! Please!"
I look desperately at Shang, who sneers before bringing the sword down with all his might-
-End Nightmare-
I shoot up in bed with a start, arms wrapped tight around my chest as I begin to hyperventilate. 'Breath, breath, breath,' I chant in my head, wrapping my arms tight around myself. I try to take a few deep breaths which come out more as gasps for air. I need to clear my head. Since I never changed out of my tunic, I simply pull on my socks and shoes before walking out of my tent. The cool nighttime breeze brushes my face softly, pieces of my hair stirring with it and tickling my cheek. I sit on a log beside the fire, which is now nothing more than embers, so I must have been asleep for at least an hour or two. I pick up a stick and poke at the dying embers, trying to distract myself and clear my head.
Suddenly, I hear heavy footsteps coming from behind me. I whirl around out of force of habit and am half relieved to see Shang standing there. While he is much preferable to an attacker, he really isn't the person I need to see right now if I want to get over this nightmare. Still, I give him a weak smile as he comes to sit next to me on the log, whispering an apology for scaring me.
"No big deal," I say quietly.
He nods and stares at the last bits of red embers where the fire previously was.
Here's the thing. As a kid, I got good at reading people. I taught myself how to study a person and know how they were feeling in an effort to protect myself. I could tell if Fu looked more pissed than usual, and would therefore give me a good beating if I crossed his path. I memorized the look other girls my age would get on their faces when they were preparing to say something particularly nasty about me. It was a necessity to know these things so that I could brace myself for the beating, for the words. And then nothing hurt as much, because I was expecting it. It's a force of habit at this point to examine every person I meet, to keep a mental note of traits they display when feeling a certain way or getting ready to do a certain thing. Looking at Shang, I know he has something he wants to say. I know by the way he stares blankly at the embers, by the way he avoids looking at me, and how his thumb rubs absentmindedly on the fabric of his tunic. And, knowing he isn't one for striking up random small-talk conversations, what he wants to say is something important that's probably going to involve emotions and feelings, things neither of us talks about well. Great.
"If you want to say something, spit it out," I state, trying not to sound too exasperated.
He sighs. "You can tell?" he asks, still not looking at me.
"Yeah, I'm good at that." My voice comes out sounding annoyed and exasperated despite my best efforts.
Shang looks uncertain. "If I'm annoying you, I can just go. We can talk later," he states, trying to be courteous.
I shake my head. Why am I being so rude to Shang? He didn't do anything. "No, no it's fine," I reassure him, sighing "I'm sorry for my rudeness, I'm just tired. Rough night, you know?"
He nods, and his eyes do that thing where they seem to turn and look so much older than him, and I can only imagine what sort of horrific events he experienced to make them look so aged. I'm sure he knows all about rough nights.
There are a few beats of silence before Shang speaks. "Why did you save me?"
I look at him, confused. "Save you?"
"Back at the Imperial City, on the balcony. The guys told me the whole story. You could have escaped with the others. You yourself even said previously that the most important thing to do was save the Emperor, which had been accomplished." He shakes his head and furrows his brow, seeming to try very hard to work things out in his head. "I just, I don't see why you would risk your life to save mine, not after how terrible I had treated you."
A beat of silence passes between us; only the sound of crickets and the gently blowing breeze is heard.
"True, you were a jerk…and I was angry at you. We both betrayed each other's trust, I yours and you mine. But, when you followed my plan, let me take the lead despite my gender, I felt like you had begun to trust me once more, and my trust in you began to return in turn." I turn to him, serious. "We weren't friends though. Not at that point. Which makes me almost as confused as you are, because I saved you for a few different reasons. I just, I knew I couldn't leave you there. I have always respected you, Shang. I think you are a leader worth following. You care for the men you lead. You are a good man, Shang, and I knew that on the balcony. I knew you didn't deserve to die like that, unconscious on the ground without a fighting chance. But, that's not the only reason I saved you. I think, in the end, I was just sick of the death." I pause, thinking back to all of the men I had known who had fallen in battle. "I'm sick of all the death. Sick of watching people I know fall victim to that bloody war." I think of Meixiu. "When someone died in battle, I couldn't help thinking of their family. We started out with what, like four hundred men in our company? How many are left, twenty? That's three hundred-eighty men, Shang. Three hundred-eighty families who lost a son, a father, a brother? Why add to the total if I have a chance to stop it?" I take a deep breath, letting the cool nighttime air calm me. "Do you have family at home?" I ask quietly.
"Yes. My mother, and my six-year-old little sister, Luli." He smiles fondly. "I visited with them just before we left the city, and Luli was ecstatic to learn that I knew the Honorable Heroine Fa Mulan. She is insistent I tell her all about you when I return."
I groan. "Is that seriously what they are calling me?" I ask. He nods. "I'm no heroine," I object.
"Oh, okay," he states sarcastically. "You only saved the entire country."
"I didn't know you knew how sarcasm worked," I tease with a straight face.
"I guess you would know," he tells me. "Ping did seem to have quite a skill for it."
I roll my eyes. "Sarcasm is how I survived as a kid." I shrug. "They say the best way to beat a bully is to ignore him or punch him. I learned how to deliver sarcasm in just the right manner to leave them scrambling for a response." I smile dangerously.
"Glad we're on the same side now," Shang states, chuckling.
I nod, but my thoughts wander. If we're such friends now, why is it Shang's face that haunts my nightmares? I'm not afraid of Shang, but that face he made when he was about to bring the sword down on me, that dangerous look in his eyes, that scares me.
"Can I ask you a question now?" I ask quietly, once more become extremely interested with the last few glowing embers of the fire.
"Sure."
"Why did you…spare me?" No, not save, spare. Definitely spare. I'm sure of that now.
He seems to startle at the question. He opens his mouth and then closes it again. He is quiet for a few moments.
"I didn't want to hurt you," he states weakly.
"Part of you did," I retort bitterly. He opens his mouth to defend himself, but I cut him off. "I saw it in your eyes. I saw the hurt, the betrayal, the hate. They burnt in your eyes.
I know a lot about pretending, Shang. You can change the way you look. You can fake a smile or force a laugh or train yourself to display no emotion at all. You can't change your eyes. You hated me, at least for a few moments. Why didn't you just kill me?" The words come out biting as my short temper I try to suppress shows itself.
Again, he is silent for a long time. When he speaks again, his voice is guilty. "I hated you. I hated the fact you tricked us all. I hated the fact I had been dumb enough to fall for your disguise. I hated the fact that I had trusted you so much. I thought you were trying to make us look like fools. I was angry and ready to direct that anger at you, but… I couldn't. Because the truth is, I could tell you weren't trying to make fools out of us. You were just…better. Better than most any man in that company. Better than me in numerous ways. So, even though I was angry, I couldn't kill you like that. I couldn't make your death be one in which you were given no fighting chance. That's why I spared you. I was angry enough to leave you, but not angry enough to let you die like that."
I nod, processing. It seems like, in the end, we both had sort of the same state of mind when it came to each other's deaths. Sure, the other one lied or insulted, but they deserve a better death than what was being offered at that point.
I turn to look at Shang. His face is guilty, and he stares at his hands which are folded together in his lap. It doesn't escape me the way he avoids my eyes. I notice I've been avoiding his, allowing my chopped hair to form a wall between us as I look down at my feet. Neither of us knows what to say. Finally, I give up.
"I'm gonna get some sleep," I state, rising.
"Yeah, good idea," he replies hollowly. I begin to turn away when he speaks again.
"Wait." He rises and comes to stand in front of me. I can't help but notice the way he distances himself though, leaving more than a foot of space between us.
"I just, I wanna close this," he states. "What are we?"
"What do you mean?" I ask, confused as to where this is going.
"Do you hate me? Are you angry at me?" He looks at me, his eyes desperate to understand. "I mean, if you are, that's completely fair. Like you said, I was a jerk and-"
I cut his ramble off by sticking my hand out into the open space between us. He stops speaking and stares at it for a moment before bringing his own up, but he makes no move to touch mine. I use my outstretched hand to grab his wrist, the same way I grabbed it when I was trying to pull him from the avalanche. Recognizing the action, he grabs mine.
"Friends?" I say quietly, my lips quirking into a small smile.
He smiles and nods.
"Then let's not let things like that pull us apart." I'm ready to put this behind us, and based on the look he gives me, he is too. I release his wrist and bid him goodnight, walking into my tent. Curling up on my bedroll, I close my eyes, drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
