By Pooky
Chapter Ten:
Tie-lin sat with her arms folded, the silk of her dress doing nothing to keep out the cold of this place. Sighing, she looked around the room where Shang had left her, the hundredth time she had done that in the half hour or so she had been sitting here. It was small and dim despite the torches on the plain walls, even the light through the open doorway hardly seeped in.
Shang had tried to hide his panic through that rigid exterior, but Tie-lin saw it, she knew he had left her here in a rush to find the doctors for Mulan. But despite that, his abruptness with her gave Tie-lin the notion that her brother was running from her purposely, or more precisely, running from what she had to tell him. Their father, the man Shang had spent so much of his life trying to please, a traitor and much worse. Tie-lin sighed again, if only Tai-shan had tried to talk to Shang months ago, before the war, but he had adamantly refused.
The sound of boots caught her attention again, a tall officer making his way down the stairs with four or five men behind him, their heavy, measured steps echoing in unison. Tie-lin swallowed uneasily at those hard, shadowed faces passing in and out of torchlight. They seemed so foreboding.
The room was so dim that at first Tie-lin did not recognize the figure pausing in the doorway, not under all that armor and the heavy helmet which hid his face, but when he took it off and stepped forward, eyes catching the light, the silence in the room seemed more tense than any she had endured at her father's camp. Those eyes that were normally filled with seduction and humor now flashed in anger and disbelief. She half expected him to draw the sword at his side and explode into one of his outbursts at any moment, but he stood there biting his lip to restrain himself in the front of his men.
"My brother did not tell me that you would be here, Captain Meng," Tie-lin spoke first, hoping to sound distant and calm. "I thought you would still be in Louyang." Here was no place to let on that they were lovers, not where Shang could learn of it, and not with any of these men who may have shared his bed before. Better to keep to the dignity of an unmarried man and woman, betrothed or no.
"No..." He finally blinked, breaking their gaze, but was clearly off balance. "I'm not a training officer, I've never had the patience, Sha... General Li shouldn't have been either, really, but I suspect his father wanted to keep him off the field. Danger, you know." He gave her a significant look, Tai-shan hated her father, and with double cause. Setting his helmet on the desk, he continued, and formally at that. "We are trained to command elite forces. I am expecting a commission soon but," he glanced at the men behind him then shook his head. "They'll give it to a Han if they can."
She nodded, then straightened. "Why am I being kept here like a prisoner?"
Tai-shan blinked again, then gave her one of those smiles that made her wish she had a fan. "Well we don't want to cause a panic now do we?" The affection in his voice concealed nothing. "As you know the abduction of a beautiful woman is known to start bitter wars." She felt her cheeks growing hot at the way the men behind him snickered in amusement.
"You came here to flatter me?" Her irritation was hardly feigned. He was beautiful, and his words and his eyes could melt her, but this was no time for flirting.
Sighing, Tai-shan shook his head again, pulling the chair back and sliding into it casually, leaning back to look at her. "No, not to flatter. Right now it's business." He replaced his helmet for emphasis.
"Business?" She repeated nervously, sure he wasn't going to take her news well.
But he was busy drawing out paper and ink, his men gathered so silently behind him that she wondered why he did not wave them off. Holding the brush in the corner of his mouth, Tai-shan was quiet for a moment as he prepared the ink. "Business," he repeated, sounding tired. "You know, numbers, logistics... positions." He took the brush from his mouth and gave her a look that made her blush all over again. Laughing a little, he went back to scratching characters on the page, words she could not read from where she was.
"I was a prisoner, not a spy," she told him quietly. "All I can do is draw you a map of their camp and tell you the only number I heard thrown around was the three thousand men they claim to have. But whether that is all, I do not know. I was only meant to be Shan-yu's concubine, they told me nothing."
She rubbed her eyes suddenly, fighting back the images of Mulan, seeing her white face as the anguished screams echoed in her ears again. Tie-lin wrapped her arms tighter around herself, wishing his entourage were gone. She thought of the visits he'd pay her at home, at night after her father's tirades, and how all that would vanish once they fell on the bed. Sometimes she wondered if it was only the danger that kept him coming back. But watching him now, she didn't think so.
"Concubine," he echoed in a shadowy whisper. The brush slipped from his fingers as he drew a shaky breath, burying his face in his hands a moment. When he raised his head again he looked ready to scream.
His hand was trembling as he picked up the paper he had been writing on, folding it and handing it to the soldier on his right. No words were exchanged, but the men seemed to know what to do, saluting and filing out of the room, closing the door behind them. Tai-shan rose then, moving towards her unsteadily. Tie-lin could not take her eyes off him. She had seen him angry before, and even violent, but never like this.
"Shan?" She tried to sound soothing, but inside she was shaking too from remembering.
He did not seem to hear her. "Concubine," he repeated again, this time with a rougher edge to it. He was pacing with his back to her, making erratic gestures as he spoke. "They say a betrothal arrangement between families is sacred and unbreakable, but apparently not when it involves Meng Tai-shan. I know your father always hated me but he did agree, and now he thinks he can undermine what was promised and sealed under Heaven." He drew a deep breath, folding his arms. "There is nothing so amazing as how utterly the world disregards me."
Tie-lin felt her lips move nervously, trying to think of something to say. She suspected this was brought on by more than just her father, perhaps this promotion he spoke of, perhaps something Shang had done or said. Knowing him, the latter was the most likely.
"I killed him, Shan," was all she could say, confused as if she had just realized it herself. The sage does not kill, the teachings of the Tao advised, the sage arms herself with mercy. She swallowed. "And I saw things that I can't forget." A vision of Mulan suspended from Shan-yu's ceiling burned fresh in her mind. Even the absence could not wash the horror of that away, the powerlessness of wanting to help her. Not even the Tao was stronger than one man's twisted rage.
Tai-shan did turn around then, seeming resolved. "He deserved to die, Tie-lin. Ever since I was fifteen they've been sending us to clean up the villages he's plundered. We never did anything but gather cartloads of bodies. Ask Shang. They send you there because they want to harden you, so you will show them no mercy when you meet the Huns in combat. It never did anything but make Shang and I absolutely sick. But it's your father that I wouldn't show any mercy now."
"Please," Tie-lin sighed tiredly, her feet ached and she was shivering in this room. "All this talk of war hurts my head. It's all I've heard for days."
Setting his helmet aside again, he came forward and dropped to his knees. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, rubbing his head with one gauntleted hand and sighing. "Too many things to think about now, and I made a bet with General Xin that I wouldn't drink for a week. It's not as easy as I thought."
She only shook her head. Shang had told her that he drank too much. But she let it go for now, far from being in the mood to argue with him. "Shan," She began softly, watching the torchlight dance and reflect in those liquid eyes, staring up at her worriedly. He smelled of leather, and the amber of his perfume. "When everything is over tonight, will you come to me?" Tie-lin almost felt silly. There was no need to be coy, not with him.
Instead of answering, he leaned forward, holding her face with one hand as his lips came down on hers, making her sigh at their softness. He was toying with her as he always did, tracing along her lips with his tongue until she had her hands on his shoulders to pull him closer.
"Shan!" She heard the door open in the next moment, but Tai-shan did not seem in any hurry to pull away, in fact he seemed to be letting the kiss linger on purpose. Tie-lin finally pushed him back herself, lifting her head to stare into the angry face of her brother as she caught her breath.
Shang grabbed Tai-shan by the shoulder, yanking him roughly to his feet. Tai-shan shook off his grip, looking angry himself as he walked behind her to put his arms around her shoulders. "Did you want something, Shang?" He asked casually over that possessive gesture.
"Tie-lin," her brother was expressionless now. "I need information."
"Can't you see she's tired?" Tai-shan snapped, then recovered himself with a sigh. "Look Shang, she doesn't want to talk about it anymore. Walk with me and I'll tell you what I know. " Tie-lin gave a sigh of appreciation, but he needn't think he had to protect her from her own brother. Shang was right, there were things he needed to know. But Tai-shan was speaking to her again. "What do you want, Tie-lin? Food? Sleep?"
She shook her head. "Clean clothes and a hot bath." It was freezing in here, and she wanted an excuse to be left alone.
Shang nodded, "I'll find someone. They want you, Shan, on the tower." He turned out of the room towards a man in the hall, leaving her and Tai-shan alone for another moment.
"He's going to see Mulan," Tai-shan told her quietly, sounding unhappy. But then he leaned down and kissed her cheek. "I'll be back," he sighed, letting her go and tucking his helmet under his arm. "After I see what kind of mess they've made of my orders."
"Be careful, Tai-shan," she murmured as he moved through the door in a flourish of red cloak, swaggering down the hall and swearing relentlessly at a soldier walking towards him. Tie-lin shook her head at how ironic it was that she had fallen for a military man.
~ * ~
It would have been such a relief to Mulan's tired muscles if she could just stretch out on her bed, but her only reward for that attempt was the sting of her raw back, her torn shirt sticking to her flesh. She was left alone after the medic ascertained she suffered no vital injury, aside from Shang, her friends, Tie-lin and even Tai-shan, her return did not send anyone in too great a fuss, either that or Shang had kept her capture a secret. It would be like him, a captured general - their good luck talisman no less - would be a threat to morale.
Sighing, Mulan laid on her stomach, unable to get comfortable without putting pressure on her bruised cheek. She sighed again and curled up on her side. When she closed her eyes, flashes of her captivity rushed back to her. She shuddered.
Mulan tried to hide her delight when Shang entered the room, still in his armor despite the hour, but instead of the helmet he usually carried, he held a tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table beside her bed, he smoothed his cloak fastidiously and knelt down beside her. His mood carried the usual gravity, and more. He seemed inwardly shaken.
"Shang we don't have much time," she was surprised at how easily important matters leaped to the front of her thoughts. After a day in the Hun camp she longed to forget Shan-yu's face and General Li's taunts that belonged in her worst dreams. She could forget all of it looking into those serious dark eyes, wondering what it would take to soften them. Not the news she had to give, surely. "The Huns are-"
He cut her off gently. "Tie-lin told us everything." By the weight of deep unhappiness in his voice Mulan would wager she had.
"Tie-lin's saved my life, and she killed Shan-yu without doing a thing. I wish I had these powers of hers."
His solemnity lessened a bit. "Tie-lin is a true mystic, just like my mother. Her connection with the Absolute has taught her ultimate humility, it allows her to see through what confuses ordinary people and to act with compassion. The Emperor has promised you the highest education, you will learn more of this sort of thing." She was surprised to hear him speak of Tie-lin with a faint touch of envy.
"That sounds wonderful," Mulan smiled, then groaned as the gesture tugged at her puffed lip.
His hand was on her shoulder suddenly, tense yet careful as he fingered the severed cloth. "You're hurt? let me see," Did the doctor's report not satisfy him?
In the back of her mind she felt that the request should have made her uncomfortable, that she should have refused it in her modesty. But she was tired, though her cheeks colored imagining what she would say in protest. She was a wounded comrade, for the moment at least, he had every right to want a look at her injuries. It was ridiculous that should no longer be acceptable because she was a woman and he a man. Who was watching them anyway? Still, they were more than friends and less than lovers, sensible explanations were only sensible when there were no feelings between them, and there were, on her part at least. She didn't know why she was even pondering the idea so much at all, the wounds were only her back, it wasn't as if he had asked to see the scar on her side. The image of that happening made her face flush terribly.
Turning onto her stomach she tried to relax as he brushed her hair aside, so gently his fingers seemed to purposely linger over the shorn silky locks. That was all in her mind of course, he was simply taking care that the disordered strands did not stick to the dried blood. He was careful by nature, and a man was supposed to be gentle when touching a woman. That thought was wayward and unexpected, forbidden for an unmarried girl, and frivolous given the impending situation. But she became aware of nothing else but his hands peeling away the edges of cloth, whimpering as they were detached from her wounds, recrudescent when the cool air struck them, like the sting of salt water all over again.
"You'll need something to keep that from being infected. I've told them to bring you water for a bath to clean up, and an ointment. I'll ask Tie-lin to help you." Despite the obvious consideration for her comfort, his voice held a hardened edge, like a sword drawn in anger. It made her feel protected and confused at the same time.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
He seized her arm. "Here, sit up." She did her best, every inch of her felt stiff and bruised. Shang seemed to know it and kept his hand where it was to steady her. But of course he knew, he had taken a good beating himself from Shan-yu once. His eyes were on her face now, unflinching and unavoidable, searching and searching, alight with a forlorn anger. "Mulan... it's my responsibility to ask you something, and you have to tell me the truth. I won't tell anyone but your father..." He was stumbling over the question, his tone declaring it too awkward and personal, his hard eyes vowing to tell truth from a lie in her answer. It was an awful, unbearable moment. "At any time with Shan-yu... or my father... you weren't... "
"No." She managed to answer in one short breath. His heavy sigh of relief seemed to lift a weight from the room itself. Why, with the coming Huns and his father's treachery, did he regard her honor as the most crucial of things?
"Tie-lin told you everything?" Mulan made a clumsy attempt at a distraction, and after his grim nod. "I'm so sorry, Shang. I know how much you wanted to live up to him. But you don't have to be him, the men respect you for your courage. He will have to be defeated though."
"I know," he sounded so lost. "And this time I won't..." he did not continue, looking away from her. Mulan wondered briefly if he had regretted leaving her alive, until she had proven herself useful to him that is. "This time it won't break my heart any." He finished. Picking up a bowl of stew from the tray, he glanced over her critically. "Can you eat by yourself? he asked matter-of factly. That made her blush a little, the thought of him feeding her like a baby.
Remembering her dignity she took the bowl and chopsticks. "I'm not critically wounded," she protested. "Just a little sore, so you can stop babying me." Chuckling, he gave her an amused salute. "And I'm sorry for running away." What had he meant to say to her when he had tried to call her back? There were so many times he had been close to revealing something before changing his mind.
"No, that was my fault," he answered all too quickly before he began to rant. "I should never have acted the way I did - and that goes for all the wrong I've done to you since I've known you were a woman. I wish I could go back to that day in the mountains, I wish I could have thought clearer, shown you more compassion. There have always been whispers about my father, but in a Court there are always whispers, it comes to the point where you don't know how to trust and that can you drive you mad and make you very cold. When you were revealed in the mountains I felt that all over again and in the same moment I hated you and felt for you at the same time. When Marshal Yu came to me suspecting the worst, I was torn, and thought that you were the only trustworthy person besides Tai-shan, until I heard what Yao said. From now on I swear I will always trust you. Promise me you'll never run away again, things are much more clear-cut when you come after me with your Shaolin moves. Pain is something that I understand."
She was beaming around her chopsticks, and trying to hide it with the bowl, lest he think her the sort who reveled too much in apologies. He had never been this sincere or open with her before. But really, that night had not been very clear-cut at all, it was the whole reason she had run away in the first place. But it seemed to settle something for him. "I promise to beat you up," she agreed with a smile, setting the bowl in her lap. "But you have to promise not to let me win. I want to beat you up fair and square."
"Anytime, Mulan," he patted her hand.
Then he turned serious again. Taking her chin in his hand he turned her face towards him, gazing in concern at the bruise on her cheek. With his free hand he stroked the sore spot almost tenderly, a foreign gesture coming from him. "Who did this?" he demanded, Mulan wondered why that harshness entered his voice again.
"Shan-yu," Mulan answered quietly, trying to conceal how his touch had made her warm inside. "It's the least of my injuries."
Mulan was too busy looking past him through the open doorway. Tai-shan had appeared in the hall a few feet outside her door and suddenly Tie-lin was there too, her silk dress gone and wearing what could only be his clothes. She watched enviously as the pair smiled at each other as he took her little white hand and kissed it. Tie-lin was beaming, pretending to swat him away. Just as suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace, lifting her off the ground, both of them forgetting all dignity. Then they were smiling again, clasping hands as they continued on down the hall. Mulan sighed, it was a pretty picture.
"What's the matter, Mulan?" Shang had noticed the change in her.
"They look so happy together."
That made him laugh, if not bitterly. "Tai-shan has no shame. In the years I've known him I've seen him with so many lovers, whoring himself to his superiors to get out of trouble. Now he thinks he's in love. He'd better-" His words halted and he turned to her in panic. "Mulan?"
She had stopped listening. Her thoughts drifted when she sought to relieve her eyes from the candlelight, pressing them closed. Shan-yu's face hovered there, his gold eyes, his cruel smile, and then General Li's shouts. A hot tear rolled down her cheek, and then another, and another. She tried to swallow them, hold them back, she couldn't cry in front of him. The last thing he needed was a hysterical woman on his hands. Capture was a part of a soldier's life, and soldier's didn't cry, not a general anyway. But the images were so horrible, she found herself shaking and clutching her fingers in remembered pain.
And there she was, weeping like a child before him, wrapped in his awkward embrace. It was so frightening and exposing, like a dressing stripped off a wound, make-up smeared from a blemish, destroying every pretense of perfection or beauty. He said nothing, no soothing words, but were than any? And he was smarter in that way. A perplexing thought found its way to her then, were tears the only way to wrench affection and tenderness from him?
"General Fa?" The softened voice was not Shang's. Mulan raised her head slowly to see the worried faces of Tai-shan and Tie-lin through her tears. The captain was holding her hand. "There is no need for tears, General Fa, those barbarian bastards aren't going to be alive very much longer."
Letting her go, Shang rose slowly, sighing. "Come on, Tai-shan, let Tie-lin help Mulan clean up. We've got work to do." Taking his friend's arm, he ushered him out of the room, closing the door behind him.
~ * ~
Shang watched his sister anxiously as she emerged from Mulan's room. He had not been standing in the hall long, only a moment after Tai-shan had run by again to organize the men on the tower. The man made no mention of Tie-lin, not that he ever had. That was strange in itself for Shan to keep quiet about something. She had been with Mulan for an hour, helping to bathe and climb into bed. But now the normally serene Tie-lin only appeared worried and tired, looking as ridiculous as "Ping" in Tai-shan's clothes and her red slippers. Shang set his mouth angrily, it was one matter to capture a general, but kidnapping an innocent woman was a lack of honor..
"Brother," she acknowledged him calmly and fell in beside him, though hardly able to keep up at his pace. She seemed thankful when he slowed down for her sake, holding her arm. "She is comfortable at least, but I don't know if she'll sleep."
"And you?" He asked quietly. He had been cold to her in his rage over Mulan, and even more so after not seeing her for so long. But little brother did not compete with future husband, this was for Tai-shan. Shang sighed with guilt, Shan was so much better at offering comfort than he, so much more tender at showing affection, not at all frightened and distant like him.
Pausing in step, she turned to him, her face composed now, a tranquil mask. "Heaven and earth endure because they abide and let go, and do not live for themselves. It will be the same with me, brother. Water may be soft, but nothing can break it."
Fixing her with a thoughtful look, he sighed. "Everything you and mother say to me makes me feel like a fool."
"You know she didn't think you would come for her."
That brought him to a halt. He grunted something in disappointment to himself before turning to face her again. He felt ashamed, and rightly so. "Tie-lin, you're smarter than I am. What do you do when you have hidden yourself so much that you can't find your way out again?"
The utter hopelessness in his words made her smile. Poor brother, he could see her thinking as she held his arm, on the verge of laughing. "Try crawling at her feet." He was ready to tell her he was in no mood to be mocked, but her look was so serious that he did not think she was mocking. How his stupidity could amuse her sometimes.
"She wouldn't know me that way," he mumbled quietly. He had never given up on anything in his whole life, why was he so afraid now with Mulan?
Before she could try to reassure him, Tai-shan burst through the outside door, running straight for him with his helmet under one arm and sheathing his sword with the other. "Shang! It's the Huns. They've sent a runner from a smaller camp five miles west, he says they're headed for us, three thousand, and that we have about an hour he figures."
"Three thousand, one hour," Shang repeated these essential facts, formulating a hurried plan in his mind. The responsibility weighed on him, but at least he had Tai-shan. They had been trained to depend on each other as comrades, his absence had made everything seem odd at the Tung Shao Pass.
Mulan suddenly appeared in the hall, after a bit of a meal and some ointment for her wounds she looked no worse for the wear, but he eyed her cautiously as if she were still in danger. The signs of her mistreatment had enraged him, so much that he worried he could not keep a clear head tonight, that worried doubled when he wondered if Tai-shan felt he same.
"I thought I heard you say the Huns were coming?" The question was for Shang alone.
Giving her a grim nod, he placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her in the direction of her room again. "It's alright, Mulan, go get some rest. Everything is under control." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tie-lin shake her head at him in a warning and Tai-shan looking ready to laugh, the he did whenever Shang made a silly mistake in sparring. By now, Yao, Ling and Chien-Po had also entered the hall, no doubt with similar news, staring between the four of them.
Glaring fiercely, Mulan shook off Shang's hands. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
"You're hurt," he said as if it were the most obvious thing. Indeed she did look hurt, but more her feelings than anything now. He did not understand, what was so wrong with trying to protect someone you cared for? He would have told the same to Tai-shan. Sometimes even Shan seemed cooperative in comparison.
But with his comment, everyone began to shout at once.
"She was hurt in the mountains and you didn't care!" Yao accused boldly. Shang tensed with a twinge of apprehension. That was cruel and unfair, and he was ready strike at Yao for it but managed to shake off the urge. Was there no forgiveness for what he had done then? Maybe there shouldn't be, he sighed inwardly.
She had her hands on her hips. "I'm fine and if you want me to prove it I'll spar with you right now!"
"Fair enough," he stepped back from her, but his concern had faded to frustration. Mulan should have known he was only trying to protect her, wrongly or rightly, and that he did not want her to see what he was going out there to do. He did not want to see it himself either. "If you win, you can come, if not, you're going back to bed. There's plenty of opium around here to make sure you sleep, too!"
That remark sent Ling fuming. "I thought the Emperor gave her her commission, not you? You can't tell her she can't do her duty!"
"That's right, she has the right to serve her country, as much as you do," Yao agreed with Ling, which seemed to surprise everyone. "You aren't her father, or her husband."
That comment caused Shang to falter a step as he took a fighting stance after Mulan. Even Mulan's cheeks turned crimson. But they both recovered quickly, concentrating once again on each other. The way her eyes held his, no one else may as well have been in the hall.
"We don't have time for this!" Tai-shan was between them suddenly. "You can...spar...all you want later tonight."
Everyone looked to him in shock, including Tie-lin. Shang saw the color creeping into Mulan's cheeks again at his emphasis on the word, feeling himself blush as well. He expected Tai-shan to laugh at his embarrassment, but his friend was standing there with an expression that was uncharacteristically hardened.
Shang took a breath to calm himself, and saw that Mulan had done the same. "Are you sure you want to go?" This time he was asking, but not without some hesitation. "If you want to prove something this isn't the time."
Mulan nodded, but did not look affronted. "I have to do something."
Drawing another deep breath, Shang shrugged, following after Tai-shan
who had by now stormed off halfway down the hall. Shang wondered briefly
if his friend was angry at him, or if he blamed him for Tie-lin's capture.
But that was not like Shan at all, his nature was too forgiving for a grudge.
