Author's Note: So, if I'm being honest, I didn't intend this chapter to go like this. I had a whole different idea planned, but somehow I wrote this instead. Oh well, roll with it I guess. This chapter kind of had a mind of its own. Anyway, so far, we've heard a lot about Melei, but she hasn't really been in the story much. Here's a little fragment of her past with Mulan. I hope you enjoy. Please leave a review and let me know what you think!

Chapter Fifty One: Bullies Part Two

I shoot up in bed, a sharp gasp escaping my lips as I look around at my unfamiliar surroundings.

'Where am I? Where am I?' repeats in panicked succession in my head.

It's dark. I'm in a bed in a room. In a room. Not my tent. Why am I not in my tent?

Real-world things come back to me in fragments, and my breathing begins to slow as I realize where I am. A new mantra begins in my head.

'I am home. I am safe. The war is over. I am home.'

I look out of the window to see that it is still very dark outside, the early hours of the morning most likely. It seems since I came home a week ago, a new routine has settled in place, and I despise it. Every night, I have nightmares. Every night, I awake with a start, terrified to the point of trembling, cold sweat dripping down my back. Every night, I struggle to figure out where I am. Every night, I walk, and then I practice.

True to my routine, I climb out of bed, dressing in the dark and pulling on my shoes. Thank the Gods I wear tunics now, for trying to put on a dress with its sash and other complicated parts would be impossible. Even if I didn't wear tunics now, it wouldn't matter because I wear my training tunic during my morning routine anyway. Apparently, Father hadn't been joking when he suggested I forgo dresses, and even though it is clear Mother does not approve, she hasn't said anything about it. Grandmother, all in good fun, of course, is always ready with a new crossdresser joke, however. I don't mind it though, and many of them are quite clever. But, while Grandma and I, and sometimes Father, laugh, Mother lets out an indignant huff. I worry for the day her patients finally wears thin.

After I have dressed in my training tunic, I creep silently out of my room and down the hall into the armory. There, I grab one of the many trailing staffs Father used to train me with when I was younger. Once that has been collected, I slip out of the house, into the darkness.

One might think that after having nightmares such as my own, the darkness might be frightening or bring back the panic from the dream. For me, however, it is being inside that does that. Once I've been awoken by a nightmare, I can't go back to sleep. End of story. While this was true at camp, it rings even truer here at home. The first night I came home, I had a nightmare, and I tried very hard to simply go back to sleep. But, lying stiff in bed, the nightmare still raging a war in my mind, the walls suddenly seemed to close in around me. I felt trapped. The walls were no longer the walls of my childhood home. No. They were the walls of my prison. They trapped me there with my thoughts and anxiety until I could bear it no more and retreated to the gardens. That's when I decided to return to my old nightmare habits from camp.

So now, I walk through the gardens, forcing myself to focus on the sound of the crickets, the brightness of the moon, the number of stars. I force myself to focus on anything but the thoughts and emotions running through me because the truth is I'm not strong enough to deal with them.

Soon enough, I reach the farm fields. They are empty right now, but in a few months, once winter has come and gone, planting season will start, and they will be sown and planted. Right now, however, an open field is just what I need. After walking to the middle of one of the fields, I get into position. Then, I begin, running through every training exercise and sparing move and fighting stance I know, each exercise melting into the other in a constant stream of movement. After only a few moments, I find myself successfully distracted.

I continue on like this with no sense of time or what is going on outside of the world of my practice. That is until a burning, searing pain runs through my body. I collapse to my knees, dropping the staff and clutching my side. My breath is labored, sweat dripping from my forehead, running down my back. The pain is awful, but it doesn't worry me. My wound often hurts if I move too quickly or abruptly, and its stinging pain is a constant part of my training sessions. That said, cleaning blood out of my tunic is a real pain in the ass. I remove my hands from my side and, to my relief, see that no blood has noticeably seeped through my tunic. Opening my tunic up a little bit, however, I do see a crimson bloodstain blooming across my bandages.

Rising from my position on the ground, I notice that the sun has begun to come up. Picking up my training staff, I decide that I've trained enough for today and, favoring my right side, walk back to the house.

I creep back into the house just as silently as I left it. It is still early, so people shouldn't be awake ye-

"Mulan?"

I turn in surprise to see Father standing in the hall, fully dressed. Usually, I'm able to sneak back in before he gets up to go to the temple, but I am running a little behind schedule this morning.

"Good morning, Father." I give him a smile.

"What are you doing up so early?" he asks.

"Just…practicing."

"You must be mindful of your injury, Mulan," he reminds me once again. "You could hurt yourself. He glances at me and seems to notice the way I am favoring my right side. "You did hurt yourself, didn't you?"

"It's nothing, Father. Don't worry." I begin to edge away. "I should probably go check it out now though."

"Do you want some help?"

"I'm fine, really, Father," I give him one last reassuring smile.

"If you say so," he relents. "Just, do try to be more careful."

"I will."

With that, I escape down the hallway, closing the washroom door behind me. Like I have other mornings, I remove my tunic before unwrapping the now bloodied bandages from around my torso. Even though I'm home now, I still keep the bandages wrapped around my chest too, just in case I need assistance with my wound. I wipe the wound with a damp towel, then, I examine it to make sure nothing has opened back up. I prod the still-tender flesh gently with my fingers, ignoring the pain as I search for missing stitches. Like every other time, the stitches are fine, and the bleeding slows after a few minutes. Maybe I'm being reckless, ignoring the good advice to take it easy. But taking it easy leads to thinking, and there is too much to think about. The pain of my wound is much preferable to the pain that comes with trying to process all of my thoughts and emotions from the war. So I do what I have had years of experience doing: I lock them inside, ignoring them for as long as possible, and put on a fake smile just often enough to satisfy the others.

It works. It always worked. With all but one person. I remember a beautiful girl who could always see right through my facade. The one who pried where Mushu let things be. The one who understood when others didn't. The one who didn't always know the exact right thing to say, but always managed to say it anyway.

-Flashback-

I am sitting on a hill just outside of town, the soft spring breeze ruffling the soft grass beneath me and the pages of the book in my lap. I'm reading intently, for I have just reached the climax.

"Hello, Freak." I look up from my book to see Jinjing and her friends standing in front of me.

"Jinjing, to what do I owe the pleasure?" I ask, my voice flat.

"Oh, it's just such a lovely day out, we decided to go for a walk. Unfortunately, it was near impossible to miss the abomination sitting in the middle of such beauty. You stick out here just as much as you do in town."

I rise, already thoroughly annoyed at her rambling. It's no accident she found me, she seeks me out the same way she sought me out when we were four. At thirteen, aren't we a little old for such stupidity?

"Where do you think you're going?" Jinjing asks, stepping directly in my path.

"Depends. Just point me in the direction you're going, and I'll go the opposite."

Jinjing scowls at me, but her signature smirk returns seconds later when she notices the book in my hands.

"What do you have there?" she questions, gesturing to it.

"Nothing," I state, pulling the book protectively to my chest.

"Oh come on, let me see."

I am so preoccupied trying to keep the book from Jinjing, I forget to look out for her friends. I feel the book snatched from my arms, and turn to see a girl named Liqin holding it. She hands it off to Jinjing, who opens it and begins to flip through the pages. I don't know what she wants with it; she can't read. None of the other girls can. Despite this, a smile is growing across her face.

"Reading rubbish again, Mulan?" she asks me.

My fists ball at my sides. "Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it rubbish."

Her smile falters for a fraction of a second but returns bigger than ever. "I guess you're right," she tells me, her voice dripping with fake kindness. Holding the open book in one hand, she allows the other one to gently take a hold of one of the pages as if she is going to turn it. Abruptly, she flicks her wrist, and a loud ripping sound is heard. I gasp in horror. She looks with fake sadness at the torn-out page in her hand. "Oh no, I guess it really is rubbish now." She takes another page between her fingers, pulling it out just the same as she did the first one.

"No!" I cry, lunging for the book. Jinjing pulls the book away, and I trip over the hem of my dress, falling to the ground. The other girls giggle. I scowl at them, picking myself up from the ground and doing my best to wipe the dirt from my palms and the skirt of my dress.

"Now, girls," Jinjing scolds the others. "We mustn't laugh at poor Mulan. It's rude to laugh at crazy people." This only makes the girls laugh harder, and Jinjing smirks.

"I am not crazy," I state.

"Oh, Mulan, just give it up already." Jinjing, flings the book at my feet, the two pilfered pages still in her hands. Holding the pages together, she rips them in half.

"Stop that!"

All kindness leaves her voice as she glares at me.

"You are a worthless freak that should have never been born." The pieces of the pages are gathered together once more before being ripped again. "An abomination who can't do things the right way." Another rip. "A mistake." Rip. "A loser," rip, "with no purpose." Rip.

I stare helplessly as the shredded pieces of paper are thrown to the ground, white chunks peppering the green grass.

"Is she going to cry?" one of the girls asks happily.

I stand up straighter. "I'm not going to cry."

"Biyu," Jinjing says to the girl who had spoken. "We don't even know if we're allowed to call Mulan a 'she'."

"What did you just say?" I feel the anger welling up inside of me.

"Nothing," Jinjing states. "It's just obvious that you're not even a girl, not a real one anyway. You're an 'it'. A strange mutation."

That's when I snap.

"Shut up!" I yell, pushing Jinjing over as hard as I can. She hits the ground with a thud, and the girls gasp. I glare at them, silently daring them to say one more thing. Biyu helps Jinjing to her feet, and before they walk away, I hear Jinjing telling the others, just loud enough that they know I can hear, "What did I tell you? Crazy."

Angry tears water in my eyes as I pick up the book and as many of the scraps of paper as I can and shove them into my bag. Then, as fast as I can, I run through the woods to the stream. I'm angrier than I've ever been. Picking up one of the rocks on the streambed, I hurl it as hard as I can into the water. It smacks the water in a violent, satisfying way. One after one, I pick up rocks of various sizes, throwing them into the stream.

Father always tells me that it's bad to hate anything, but I am as close to hate as it gets when it comes to Jinjing. I can't stand the way she insults me with that sickeningly sweet fake voice of hers. I can't stand how she can easily find a way to mock and ridicule everything I do. And I can't stand how I let her get me upset so easily. What does she know?

"You're either trying to raise the water level of the stream, or you're extremely ticked off," a familiar voice states from behind me.

I don't turn around, just keep chucking rocks. "I'm not in the mood, Melei. Go away."

I pick up another rock and pull my arm back, ready to throw it, when her hand catches my wrist. She's barely touching me, I could pull my arm away easily, but, for some reason, I don't. I let her guide my arm back down to my side.

"What happened?" she asks gently.

"It's nothing," I tell her, shaking my head. "I'm fine."

"You're a rotten liar, Fa Mulan."

"I'm working on it," I grumble, looking at the ground. "How'd you find me?" I ask after a moment.

"I saw a certain someone looking just a little too pleased with herself. We both know how Jinjing likes to gloat, especially about her favorite target- I mean friend."

Melei's joke almost makes me smile. Almost.

"What did she tell you?"

"No details or anything, just that-" she clears her throat and does a not half bad impression of Jinjing, "That little freak you hang around with is awful upset. Maybe you should go find her."

I glower at the ground.

"So what happened?"

My mouth is fixed to deny anything happening, but I make the mistake of looking up at Melei's face. Those deep brown eyes, they get me every time. So, I spill everything, telling her about my ruined book and the names, the way she and the others laughed at me, how they didn't even think me a real girl. By the end, Melei has me pulled into a tight embrace, my face buried into her shoulder. She smells good, like jasmine and flowers.

"Who cares what they think," she tells me after a moment. "Because you know what?" She pulls me away from her, holding me by the shoulders. "One day, you're going to do something that's going to prove every single one of those brats wrong."

I shake my head. "I doubt it."

"I don't. Now stop being such a pessimist."

"Realist," I correct.

"Sure, really wrong."

She pulls me back into a hug. Her long black hair forms a curtain between us and the rest of the world, and, for a few moments, I forget the world exists, focusing only on the comfort of having her near.

-End Flashback-

Melei. Sometimes she really was the only one I could talk to. Why she cared about me was always a mystery to me. Mushu and I were outcasts, Melei could have easily fit in with the other girls in the village if she wanted to. I'm glad she never wanted to.

It had taken me two whole afternoons to piece the ripped pages back together as best I could and then another three to carefully rewrite them on a separate piece of paper. After that, I made sure to keep my books a safe distance from Jinjing.

After Melei left, there was no one ready to push me to open up, no one who really tried to get me to talk. I locked myself inside. I think it's too late now. I remember saying something like that to Melei once. I remember her response as if she had said it to me seconds ago.

"It's never too late, Mulan. I wish you could see what I see."

The truth is, I never really knew what she saw in me. I still don't.