Disclaimer: I do not own Disney's Mulan, nor any of the characters and plotlines therein.

Author´s Note: Thank you for the continuing feedback. I am sorry to be slow with the reviewer responses; I happen to be studying abroad in Spain at the moment. Internet access is limited, especially when traveling. Here´s an update from the Rock of Gibraltar.

Chapter Two: Debacle During Dinner

"Your Excellency." A servant entered the room and kowtowed. "I regret to announce that Fa Mulan will be arriving late to the table. She says that there is some 'unfinished business' to take care of."

The Emperor, who had been in conversation with Captain Li Shang, frowned at the interruption. The captain's eyes widened considerably when the servant gave this excuse.

"This is unusual," mused the Emperor. "I wouldn't have thought that she would keep us waiting."

Shang looked worried. "Your Majesty, if Mulan is delayed, she surely must have a good reason for it."

At that moment, a second servant appeared behind the first, almost knocking the latter down in his rush to the Emperor's side.

"Your Excellency!" said the second one in panic. "Chi Fu's apartments have caught fire!"

This time, both the Emperor and Shang rose to their feet.

"Is Chi Fu hurt? Are the flames spreading to the rest of the palace?" asked the Emperor at once.

"No, Your Excellency. It was contained within his quarters, though it very nearly engulfed the corridor. Fortunately, the consul rushed out before more than his clothing was burnt."

At this, the captain suddenly acquired a hacking cough, as he covered his mouth with one hand and tried to look very distressed about this news.

The servant pulled out a green hair tie. "I'm afraid this was found at the scene. It got caught on one of Chi Fu's hanging scrolls, probably while the perpetrator rushed to exit the chamber."

"Hanging...scrolls?" Shang wrinkled his forehead.

"Self portraits," the Emperor explained.

"Ah. But what..." The captain scrutinized the tie, disbelief etched on his face. "Mulan? This...this can't be. Your Majesty, I can't believe that she..."

The Emperor looked gravely at him. "I would have thought her to be incapable of such a thing, myself," he said. "Still," he added thoughtfully, "Chi Fu was the one to press for her execution on more than one occasion. I understand that there must be bad blood between them."

"She wouldn't have risked setting Your Majesty's palace on fire to settle a score!" Shang insisted.

"Hmm," was the Emperor's only remark. With an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach, Shang remembered the damage Mulan had wrought on the palace when she had destroyed Shan Yu. But surely, she couldn't...she couldn't have...

She couldn't have!

"Your Majesty," Shang began, but was interrupted. Behind the two servants, a young woman entered the room, looking distraught. She threw herself to the ground before the Emperor. "Sire!" she said plaintively. Shang recognized her as the woman who had dressed Mulan. "Mulan will be delayed, she has..."

"Unfinished business to attend to," said the Emperor dismissively.

The woman gulped. "No, Excellency," she answered. "I was going to say that Fa Mulan is recovering in her room. There has just been an...accident...when I was adjusting her dress."

That got the Emperor's attention. "Her dress?"

The maid looked mortified. "Yes, sir, I'm so sorry, I didn't know that—"

"Your Majesty," said Shang, glad that for once he was cutting her off. "Mulan went into the Imperial City wearing her armor, but afterwards she put the armor away and changed into a dress. She could not have left that hair band; it was lying on the table in her room a few minutes ago. Someone is framing her."

The Emperor raised an eyebrow. "Do you know this for certain? She may have told you that she was changing into a dress to forestall any suspicions."

"I saw her," said Shang.

Both eyebrows were now raised. "You saw Fa Mulan change into a dress?"

"Yes." Abruptly, Shang turned white. "I mean, no! No, I, I didn't see her change, I saw her afterwards."

"But she," the Emperor indicated the cowering maid, "has told me that Mulan had not yet finished dressing when the accident just now occurred."

"She had indeed finished dressing, Your Majesty..." Shang didn't want to bring up Mulan's fashion fiasco if he could help it.

"So the maid is lying to me?" asked the Emperor, beginning to get angry.

"No..."

"Are you keeping information from me, then?"

"No!"

"Your Excellency? Your Excellency!"

Chi Fu burst into the room behind the maid, and, true to his habit of ignoring servants, failed to see them in time to stop. He wasn't a large man, but his momentum was enough to knock over Mulan's maid, who careened into the second servant, who bumped into the first, and they would all have landed in a heap atop the Emperor if Shang hadn't stepped in between him and the pile of underlings.

"Yom Mexiwency," came Chi Fu's muffled voice. "Fis time, I wiw fee to it fat Fa Mmmlan if hanged—Meep!"

A very high-pitched shriek rent the air.

From the tangle of limbs, two thin arms gesticulated wildly. "Heeeeeeelp!"

Figuring that things couldn't get any worse, Shang reached in and pulled Chi Fu out. As Chi Fu dangled in the air, he flailed, hitting Shang in the eye with much more accuracy than he could have managed intentionally. The captain let him go and was about to boot Chi Fu through the nearest wall, but was checked by the consul's screams. "It's crawling all over me! Get it off! Get it off!"

It was turning out to be a Ping kind of day.

At that moment, as it happened, who should come through the door but Fa Mulan herself, though she was staggering slightly and taking deep breaths as she entered.

"Am I late?" she asked, then faltered as she looked at the scene before her. Shang saw that the area around her throat was red. He had remained calm in the face of the previous chaos, but seeing Mulan hurt threw him into a panic. He leaped over the struggling bodies and tilted her chin up. Inspecting the wound, Shang looked at the Emperor. His eyes were flinty. "Attempted strangulation, Your Majesty."

The Emperor looked taken aback. He was even ignoring Chi Fu's perpetual pleas for aid. "Fa Mulan, what happened to you?"

"She's clumsy, that's what!" came a voice from beyond the door. There was a brisk knock. "May I come in, Your Majesty?"

"Permission granted." The Emperor wondered who could possibly walk through the door next.

A small, wiry dame with white hair entered the dining room. She was carrying a small, empty cage in her right hand. Completely unfazed by the mayhem, she bowed to the Emperor and then proceeded over to Chi Fu. She grabbed the back of his robes and shook them. "In you go, Cri-Kee!" A few seconds later, a small bug leaped out and the woman caught it, putting it in the cage whence it had presumably escaped.

The Emperor was about to ask who she was, but found that this was unnecessary. "Pardon the interruption, Excellency," she said. "I am Mulan's grandmother."

The Emperor inclined his head graciously. "You are the first person who has managed a polite introduction today."

"Why, thank you." Grandma smiled at him. "As I was saying, Mulan's 'strangulation' mark is about the same place where her neck scarf would normally be...not uncommon if one ties the wrong knot. Which can happen, if one is bad enough at dressing oneself that one's maid has to intervene and redo everything. Right, Mulan?"

China's heroine blushed and nodded. Everyone else pretended not to have heard this explanation.

Without pausing, Grandma turned to the first servant, who had told them all about Mulan's "unfinished business." He had managed to extricate himself in the meantime, but looked inexplicably nervous under Grandma's inquiring eyes. "By the way," she said, "you should return my daughter's hair band to her room, don't you think? It was bad enough disguising yourself as that cleaning lady, but don't think you could fool me, Mister. I've been keeping house for longer than you've been alive, and you are an amateur duster, at best."

As everyone else in the room gasped, the first servant growled with rage and tried to grab Grandma. He had just seized her by the shoulder when a blow to the head sent him backwards.

"Hands off," said Mulan, her normally sweet face dark with fury. He drew a knife on her, but she grabbed his weapon hand and twisted his wrist, using her right hand to thrust a finger into each eye. He yelped with pain, and Mulan, still breathing heavily, managed to knock him down. Pinned with his neck beneath her foot, he could only swear at her.

"Hey!" Mulan nudged him. "Less foul language, please." She grinned at her grandmother. "We are in the presence of a lady."

"Young people these days," muttered Grandma. The Emperor looked at her sympathetically.

Shang, however, was more interested in interrogating the Emperor's consul. "Were you in league with him? Did you want to make Mulan look guilty? If you even tried—"

"No such luck," sneered Chi Fu. "Did you honestly expect me to set fire to my beautiful hanging scrolls just for that girl?"

Shang immediately revisited his idea of kicking Chi Fu in the rear, but the Emperor, perceiving the captain's anger, held up his hand. "It's all right." He regarded the first servant impassively. "I believe I know what this is about."

The Emperor inspected the prone man closely. "No wonder you had to use a disguise," he chuckled. "It was lucky for you that my eyesight isn't what it used to be. Impressive fake beard, though...I imagine it's handy to take off when disguising yourself as a woman."

The servant glared at him.

"This man," explained the Emperor, "is Chu Wang. He is actually a noble, if you can believe it. While he was visiting me, Shan Yu attacked the palace. All of Chu Wang's possessions were stored in the room below the tower where the fireworks were lit. It made him bitter, and after listening to him ranting about Fa Mulan for days, I had him expelled from the palace. He must have seen you coming in dressed in armor, Mulan, and assumed that you had only to rearrange your hair to complete the ensemble. Funny, though. I thought he'd come back to take revenge on me."

"I'm easy an easy target for anger," said Mulan, not appearing too perturbed. "I stand out. Lucky that Grandma spotted him."

"Don't forget, I also made you wear the dress!" Grandma chimed in. "You had an alibi because of that."

"Mmm." Mulan examined the now rumpled fabric. "I guess it served its purpose."

"Eh, don't worry about it. It's just a dress."

Mulan looked surprised. Grandma nodded her head. "You really can fight well, child. I enjoyed watching you."

Mulan leaned over and gave her grandmother a one-armed hug. She couldn't move too far without inadvertently liberating the arsonist. Grandma didn't mind.

"I believe all is well, for the time being," announced the Emperor. Everyone faced him. "Still, I think we can use some time to recover. The formal dinner is cancelled...let us make it a formal breakfast, instead, and extend the invitation to all of Mulan's family. You," he motioned to the second manservant, "will see to Li Shang, and make sure he gets a cold compress on the eye that Chi Fu hit. You," he pointed to Mulan's maid, "will tend to your mistress's neck. Chi Fu, you are always aware of China's rules...see that you recover any damaged property from Chu Wang. And you," he indicated the defeated arsonist, "will clean every room in the palace, after which Mulan's grandmother will inspect your work. If she says you haven't done your job well, you will do it again."

Grandma's face creased into a mischievous smile. "Your Majesty is truly a superb ruler."

Epilogue to follow.