A/n- I am SOOOO sorry, guys, that I haven't updated in so long. I've just been caught up with schoolwork and such, and I know that's not really an excuse, but… well… I don't know what else to say…

If you aren't too mad at me for updating seven months later, then by all means, please read and review this chapter!

P.S. To those of you requesting Shang's POV- Shang's feelings are supposed to remain a mystery! Sorry, but writing from his point of view would just show too much of his emotions toward Mulan. And I really really really really don't want that to happen until he's ready to reveal them.

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Chapter 3

"Um, Mulan?" Mushu asked impatiently as he and Cri-Kee ducked yet again to avoid getting hit by some sharp tree branches. "Do you even know where we're going?"

Mulan looked at Shang, who was several feet ahead of her. "Not exactly," she admitted in a soft voice. "But that's the whole point. We're supposed to just ride and go wherever the woods take us."

Mushu snorted. "Yeah, just keep telling yourself that. Maybe you'll actually start to believe it."

Before Mulan could reply, there was a very loud "Ow!" as Mushu was smacked in the face, courtesy of another thick tree branch. "What is wrong with this place?" He asked, a hint of irritation appearing in his trademark tone. "Why are Cri-Kee and I the only ones suffering here? How come you two humans don't even have a single scratch on you?"

"Keep it down, Mushu," Mulan hissed at him. "You're going to give us away if you keep yelling everything you say."

"Give us away to whom, exactly, may I ask?" Now he definitely sounded irritated, Mulan noted nervously.

Mulan didn't mean to make Mushu annoyed or aggravated. She just wanted him to be quiet, to stop complaining, so she could actually think. She had to, in order to figure out where they were supposed to head toward, where was the safest place to set up camp, and where was a big enough space for both her and Shang to spend the night at.

Unfortunately for her, Mulan couldn't think. Not with Mushu constantly grumbling about this and that, not with Cri-Kee chirping excitedly every few seconds. Mulan wished with all her heart for them to shut up, if only for a couple of minutes, just so she can figure out a way to start a conversation with Shang.

She had to talk to Shang. It's not like she had a choice. She had to ask him when and where he wanted to stop. They couldn't keep on going all night, could they?

Mulan cleared her throat loudly, and urged her horse forward a bit so that she was side to side with Shang. But when she was there, she didn't have a clue as to what to say. Gathering her reins more tightly in her hands, she stared straight ahead, yelling at her brain to start functioning and also mentally at Mushu to stop counting the number scratches he had gotten.

Thankfully, Shang glanced over at Mulan at that moment and smiled at her. It was a rather shy and uncertain smile, but Mulan ignored that part. She smiled back, and was surprised to see that Shang looked taken aback, as if he hadn't expected her to return the gesture.

"So, Shang," Mulan said casually, lessening her grip on the reins. She thought she could visibly feel her horse relax as she did so. "When do you think we should stop and make camp?"

Shang turned back so that he was facing directly the road again. He appeared as if thinking over her question. After he studied their surroundings for a moment, he turned back toward Mulan and shrugged. "It seems the sun has already set. Whenever you're ready, I guess."

Mulan nodded, grateful that he didn't care to march on for several more hours.

They went on for a few more minutes in silence. But the silence, Mulan noted, wasn't really an uncomfortable or awkward kind of one. It didn't feel as if she and Shang weren't talking because they didn't know what to say to each other, but because they both wanted time to think over some things. At least, Mulan knew that she did. Now that Mushu had finally ceased his complaints, she planned on straightening out some facts in her head.

First, she had to ponder over why she and Shang were acting so tentatively toward each other. It's as if they're both tip-toeing around one another, afraid to disturb or bother the other one. It seemed to Mulan that they both retreated inside their shells and thoughts once they're in close vicinity together. She didn't get it. She didn't understand why they were behaving this why, why they felt the need to act so polite toward one another, as if at one time, they hadn't been friends. Mulan realized that they seemed like they had just met, and that thought really troubled her.

She couldn't figure out what was with Shang, but she at least should know why she herself was acting the same way. However, she had no idea, and it annoyed her to no end. These were her own emotions, after all. She should be able to know what they mean and the reason behind them!

"Are you okay?" Shang asked her suddenly, startling her out of her reverie. He looked at her worriedly. "You seemed to be deeply troubled or annoyed. Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no… no, no," Mulan stammered, forcing a laugh. "Everything's fine. I was just wondering… how exactly we're supposed to get to the bottom of this 'secret clan.' It's not like they're going to have a sign over their hideout that indicate they're there. So how do we know where to look? How do we know when we've got the right persons?"

Mulan waited as Shang frowned, really wanting to know what his answer would be. She herself had been wondering those things moments after they set foot into the forest. It was a big relief to finally get those questions that had been frustrating her to no end out in the open.

"I suppose…" Shang began, looking at Mulan with a direct gaze. "I suppose we'll just know it when we get to them. They've got to stand out, right? They can't be normal, everyday people like us. There has to be something significant with them, something that separates them from the rest. I guess that's our only clue."

Before Mulan could speak, before she could even smile to show her agreement with Shang's reasoning, Mushu spoke up. Mulan wasn't suspecting it at all, maybe because she was too focused on Shang's gaze or completely drawn into his eyes or something corny like that, but she almost fell off her horse, she jumped so high.

Or perhaps she almost dived headfirst into the dirt ground was because of what Mushu said.

"Kind of like… rather like…" Mushu remarked, staring from Mulan to Shang and back again. "Kind of like falling in love?"

Mulan felt as if her face had terrible sunburn. She felt like it was igniting from her deep crimson blush. She couldn't believe Mushu had said that, especially considering he suspected, maybe even knew, how things were between Mulan and Shang right now.

But of course, Mulan wasn't even too sure herself, so she couldn't count on Mushu to figure it out. But she was still annoyed since Mushu knew perfectly well that things were awkward between them in the least, and he was making it even more so.

There was complete silence among the four of them (including Cri-Kee) for a moment, broken only by the footsteps of the horses. Mulan was breathing somewhat raggedly, her heart beating a mile a minute. She found herself once again not sure of why she was feeling that way, but she did discern that she was getting more and more apprehensive of Shang's response.

"Excuse me?" Shang spoke at last. His voiced sounded strange and a bit faraway to Mulan, as if he was in a different dimension even though he was only a couple of feet away from her. It didn't have the same ring to it as his normal tone.

"You know," Mushu replied, hopping up and down eagerly on the back of the horse. "When you fall in love and find the one you're destined to be with. You just KNOW it when you see her. From the moment you set your eyes upon her, you know she's the one, the one you've been looking for your whole life. She's your other half. There's no logical reason as to explain how you know. You just do."

Once again, silence settled among them like a thick blanket wrapping itself around the victims. No one spoke for a minute. Mulan wasn't sure what Shang was thinking, but she herself was wondering when Mushu had become so… so deep, or… had he always been that way, and she's just never noticed?

I suppose it's possible, Mulan thought, twirling a strand of her hair with her left fingers. All those times Mushu was advising me, all those times he's comforted me with such insane words… I thought it was him just being his usual self, acting out his own personality. I never knew that there could be another meaning within them…

"Girl," Mushu hissed softly into Mulan's ear, interrupting her thoughts. "Don't you be getting any crazy ideas, now. Don't be thinking that I'm poetic or whatever. Because I'm not. I'm doing this to make conversation. I'm not stupid. The tension between you and Shang is thick enough that not even that stupefying sword of yours is gonna be able to slice through it."

Mulan smiled guiltily, and chanced a look over at Shang. He appeared to be deep in thought, but other than that, his expression revealed nothing.

"So this whole 'knowing the secret clan when you see them' is basically the same thing," Mushu continued in a loud voice, meant for both her and Shang to hear. "We'll know it's them when we meet them. It's that simple."

Shang nodded his consent, and Mulan, following his example, did too. She grinned at Mushu, wordlessly thanking him for trying to make break the silence. Cri-Kee saw and chirped merrily, as was his nature.

Just when Mulan thought everything was back to "normal" again, with her and Shang in their own little worlds, Shang spoke. It wasn't to Mulan, though. It was directed at Mushu.

"Do you really believed that?" He asked the guardian dragon, fixing his dark brown eyes on the animal. "Do you really believe that just by looking at someone, you'll know for certain that she's your true love?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Mushu tossed back, jumping onto the horse's head so he can see Shang better. "Just because I'm no human doesn't mean I can't fall in love the same way as humans, you know. Us guardian dragons have the same practices as y'all, believe it or not."

It's at that moment that Shang seemed to finally realize that he was talking to a MINIATURE DRAGON.

"Who are you?" He gasped, looking from Mushu to Mulan. "You can… talk?"

"Evidently," Mushu replied, glaring at the captain. "My name's Mushu. I'm Mulan's guardian dragon. Now, getting back to what we were talking about… you were saying?"

Shang still looked shocked beyond belief, and Mulan could tell that he wanted to ask more. Mulan shook her head at him, motioning for him to just let it go. It wasn't worth it, causing a commotion over a fire-breathing lizard.

Shang, thankfully, didn't ask anymore, even though it was obvious he so wanted to. But he must have realized that pressing further would just annoy Mushu and possibly hurt his feelings, so he dropped the subject. Mulan silently promised to explainit to him later.

Clearing his throat, Shang reluctantly resumed his converstaion with Mushu.

"So," Mushu said, cocking his head in Shang's direction. "You think animals aren't worthy of falling in love?"

The captainlooked a tad bit taken aback by Mushu's comment. "Oh, that's not what I mean," he said hastily, shaking his head. "I didn't mean to imply that you aren't worthy of falling in love just because you're not a human. I only meant if you really think love at first sight is a true concept. If it's something worth believing in."

Mushu scratched his chin, thinking this one over. "Well… you're not gonna get hurt by placing your faith in that belief, that's for sure. You may get cheated later on when you're 100 and still single, but… I daresay you're handsome enough to have been married at least once by that time, Captain Li Shang."

Shang again seemed somewhat surprised by what Mushu said. But he smiled just the same and nodded for him to go on.

"No harm will come out of believing in such a thing as that," Mushu went on. "So you might as well try. Give the notion a chance. It may give you a kick to that patootie later on, but… let's not play precognition here."

Mulan had no idea what in the world was going on. Her head was spinning from the conversation Mushu and Shang were having, and she felt unusually dizzy. She wasn't used to Mushu sounding so unlike his mocking self, or Shang actually conversing with a being as deranged-acting as Mushu. She also wasn't accustomed to be feeling as lost as she did right then when listening to a conversation.

"What do you think, Mulan?" Shang suddenly asked her, turning to look at her sitting there in the saddle, frozen like a statue in the moonlight. She searched her mind for an answer, but she wasn't even entirely sure what the question was referring to.

"What do I think of what?" She said finally, mentally kicking herself for sounding so ignorant. But Shang either didn't notice or just didn't care, for he did not look bothered by it at all.

"What do you think of the whole love at first sight thing? Do you believe that it's real, that you can tell the one you're meant to be with for forever just from one look?"

How did we get from secret clans to love at first sight? Mulan wondered frantically, racking her brain for something even semi-intelligent. I see the connection, but… my opinion of whether love at first sight exists is quite irrelevant to anything…

In her haste to search for an answer and a reply to Shang's question, Mulan wasn't paying attention to what Shang was doing. But Mushu was. He observed the way Shang's eyes roamed all over Mulan's body, finally settling on her face. He mentally took notes on the tighter grip Shang had his reins in when he was studying her. He surveyed the peculiar manner Shang was looking at her, waiting expectantly, as if her answer was the most important thing to him in the world.

Mulan, meanwhile, still didn't know what to say. She wanted to please Shang, to give him the answer he wants, but of course there's that problem that she has no clue WHAT he wants. So she decided to just give him the truth and deal with the consequences.

"No," She said quietly, and the word echoed through the woods several times, finally settling down to just the tiniest detection of a whisper. "I don't."

Mushu regarded Mulan with an expression that evidently told her that she was crazy for admitting that. Mulan ignored him, instead focusing on what Shang was appearing like. He merely nodded, not even looking at her, and Mulan couldn't tell anything at all from his facial expression.

Was that the wrong thing to say? She thought frantically, chewing on her lower lip. Should I have just lied and said yes? I would have, if I knew that saying no was going to make things even more awkward between us…

Mulan was still battling with herself when she saw Cri-Kee jumping into her vision. She was startled to say the least, since Cri-Kee always stayed and agreed with Mushu. She waited, wanting to see what the cricket could possibly want.

But Cri-Kee didn't chirp or tweet or anything. He merely gazed at Mulan, his small, beady eyes containing something that's not his usual mirth. He didn't look as fragile as Mulan thought he would. Instead, his legs were planted firmly on Khan's back, his arms crossed over his tiny chest.

"You think I did the right thing, Cri-Kee?" Mulan asked the cricket, leaning forward a bit so she could see him better. "You think I was right in telling the truth, even if it meant Shang and I probably won't have a normal conversation again for the rest of this journey?"

Mulan had thought that Cri-Kee would remain in his stance of defiance, but instead, Cri-Kee chirped and jumped up and down, back to his usual self.

Smiling, Mulan gave Cri-Kee a heartwarming "thanks."

Well, it's nice to know not everyone thinks I should've just fabricated, Mulan thought to herself. Even if he is the lucky cricket.

"Mulan," Shang called, sounding not as close as before. Mulan realized that she and Khan had lagged behind, and gave her horse the sign to canter so they could catch up.

When they reached him, Shang was staring at an open area in the forest. It wasn't too big, but big enough for them to set up camp and spend the night. Mulan was happy, since that meant no more riding with that eerie silence between them, even if just for several hours.

"What do you think?" Shang queried, indicating the vacant spot.

"It's great," Mulan said enthusiastically, getting off her horse. "It's the perfect place to spend the night."

Shang followed her example and descended his horse too. Together, they set up camp and built a fire. The emperor had given them plenty of food for the journey, so they ate their dinner around the fire, watching the embers rise and fall in a startling familiar rhythm.

Finally, when they were full, Mulan crawled into her sleeping bag, glad to be done for the day. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to lose conscious and glide into her dreamland. After mumbling a "take the first watch" to Mushu, she immediately fell asleep.

"Take the first watch, huh," Mushu muttered to himself, very much annoyed. "As if I'm not as tired as Miss I-Don't-Believe-In-Love-At-First-Sight here. As if I wouldn't love to go to sleep too. Hmph."

He was just getting ready to continue his string of complaints when he caught sight of Shang. He was leaning against a tree trunk, staring into the fire. The fact that his eyes were glazed over and unfocused made Mushu reach the conclusion that he really wasn't all that interested in the bright flames. Instead, Mushu suspected the captain's thoughts involved Mulan in there somewhere. It was the same look he'd gotten when Mushu was studying him earlier.

This is stupid, Mushu thought to himself. He likes her, she likes him. They should just come out and admit their feelings and then kiss and get married. It's as simple as that. Why all these misunderstandings and concealment of real emotions?

Cri-Kee, also watching Shang, had a different opinion. He deemed that things between Mulan and Shang were complicated, more complicated than he, a mere cricket, could ever even hope to understand…

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A/n- Please oh please review…