Disclaimer: Mulan is owned by Walt Disney Animation Studios, a division of Walt Disney Studios and the Walt Disney Company. I own nothing except for the plot, but not the source material. All underlined quotes are from the movie, which belongs to Disney as indicated above. Feel free to rate and review. Hope you enjoy!
Mulan could still feel her heart pounding in her chest as she rode on. It was already bad enough that she had failed- absurdly- to impress the Matchmaker the day before and her father was no longer the able-bodied soldier he had once been, but now it seemed that her troubles were only mounting. She had broken a long-standing rule that women were to be quiet, delicate, graceful, and more by taking her father's place as a recruit to repel the invading Huns, and having a guardian dragon and a lucky cricket by her side didn't seem to help.
As morning dawned, the storm began to let up, but the wind still wailed through the trees like the ghosts whose stories haunted children in their dreams. In it, Mulan could hear the apoplectic voice of the Matchmaker ringing in her ears. She would've begged it to stop, but the words licked at her courage like fire to straw.
"You are a DISGRACE!" she heard the Matchmaker scream in her skull. "You may look like a bride, but you will NEVER bring your family honor!"
Mulan pulled Khan to a stop at the edge of a bamboo growth and dismounted to have a look around while Mushu and Cri-Kee set up camp as best they could.
As Mulan looked out at the camp, listening to the far-off sounds of the smiths at their anvils and the braying of horses, another weight was added to the yoke of doubt on her shoulders. This was the day her father would've come to report, but she was here instead, and she had never learned what it meant to live her father's way of life.
At this understanding, Mulan felt rather sick and went to join her new friends. Cri-Kee had piled some sticks for a fire, which Mushu was able to provide with a single breath (although it was an exhausted puff), and the humorous dragon began cooking bao on a stick when Mulan came to sit beside him.
Mushu noticed the dispirited look on the girl's face and wondered, "You feelin' okay, sweetheart?"
Mulan sighed and answered, "Mushu, are you sure I can help my father by doing this?"
"What makes you think you can't?" he replied.
"Well, to start off, I'm impersonating a soldier," said Mulan. "I don't know anything about war or fighting. All I can do is take care of the house and the farm, cook for my family, and ride. Besides, I'm not even able to be a perfect daughter at home. The Matchmaker practically hates me."
Mushu cracked a slight grin and said, "So what?"
He clearly tried a poorly made tactic of lightening the mood, for Mulan cried in frustration, "I'm a dishonorable disgrace, that's what!" Her frustration gave way to despondency and she continued, "That's no way to be a soldier, always failing to be the person everyone expects you to be."
Mushu and Cri-Kee could hear the wounded soul beneath Mulan's bluster and felt sorry for her. Cri-Kee hopped into Mulan's hand and chirped gently as if he were singing to her, taking care to give a cricket's kiss on her thumb when he was done.
Mushu came up to sit on Mulan's shoulder and said, "You're no disgrace, Mulan. You're just starting out. They'll be calling you a hero when this mess is cleaned up."
Mulan felt her spirit lighten at the words of her guardian and she shook his clawed hand, then shared in their breakfast of bao before the group traveled to the entrance to the camp.
…
As Mulan and her friends looked into the soldier's camp, they saw action at every turn. Mulan was still rather nervous as she had never spent a long time around men, but she screwed her courage where it would stick and took a deep breath.
"You ready for this?" asked Mushu.
"I'm ready," she replied.
"Okay, time to put on the grand entrance. Hold your horse's reins. Look proud to be there. Hand on your sword. And march."
Mulan followed Mushu's instructions to the best of her ability and entered the camp. As she did, she could feel that her unexpected arrival was attracting attention in the form of eyes following her and exchanges among the soldiers of curious murmuring. This made Mulan glad that Mushu and Cri-Kee were hiding in her armor, otherwise she would have a lot of awkward questions to answer. Then as she passed one of the tents, she noticed a soldier sporting a tattoo of a red dragon from his chest to his stomach conversing with two other young men. The soldier was boasting, "Look! This tattoo will protect me from harm."
One of the other two recruits: a short, brawny man named Yao with a thick mustache and his left eye blacked, looked away as if in thought, then delivered the tattooed soldier a punch to the stomach that sent him reeling away with a groan. Yao's companion Ling, who was tall, lean, and clean-shaven, gave a laugh and jested, "I hope you can get your money back!"
Mulan's courage dwindled a bit and she said, "I still don't know if I can do this."
"It's all attitude!" urged Mushu, gesturing to Yao. "Be tough, like this guy here."
Mulan took one look at Yao and started walking away, now deep in thought. Surprisingly, the recruit who noticed her was Ling. He elbowed Yao, who in turned whispered to a third recruit who was the third member of their triangle of friendship: Chien Po, who was taller than Ling and quite obese, but still strong for his weight.
The three soldiers privately spoke to each other, and then Ling said nonchalantly, "I sure wish we could meet the newest recruit."
"I quite agree," said Chien Po. "What do you think, Yao?"
"Oh yes, Chien Po," replied Yao. "I too wish we could meet him."
Not knowing whether she was being mocked behind her back or receiving a private invitation to meet the three soldiers, Mulan slowly approached them with an admittedly shy look. To her surprise, Yao, Ling, and Chien Po were all smiling. They greeted Mulan and then took her up to the practice field where a number of the other recruits were practicing swordplay and archery as well as unarmed combat.
"Watch this," grinned Yao. He walked up to a dummy on a stick that resembled the Hun chieftain Shan-Yu, grabbed it by the collar and said, "I'm gonna hit you so hard it'll make your ancestors dizzy!"
Then he punched the dummy in the stomach as hard and as fast as he could, then did the same thing to its face. He kissed his knuckles and said to Mulan, "How do ya like them noodles?"
Thinking quickly, Mulan spoke in the deeper voice she had been practicing and said, "That was… impressive. Really impressive."
"Oh, Yao. You've made a friend," Chien Po said in his remarkably calming voice.
"If you thought that was good, look at this!" chortled Ling. He pounced on the dummy and hollered, "You're dead, Hun!"
He began pounding the Hun dummy like a maniac until the stuffing nearly fell out, and when he set it back up, Chien Po simply ran up it as quick as he could and his belly simply caused the pole to fly out of the ground, taking the dummy with it. It sailed through the air and landed in the cook's rice cauldron without spilling one grain. Of course, the other men pulled it out and started railing about who had thrown it, but then they thought of themselves throwing their rice at the Huns and hooted with laughter.
Yao, Ling, and Chien Po held their laughs in and even Mulan couldn't help smiling. Then Ling said, "Care to try a whack at it?"
…
General Li and Chi-Fu left the main tent while Li Shang considered the remarkable promotion he had just earned. Sure, he was the General's son, but he knew his father well. He wouldn't have been chosen to receive this position if he had been ill-prepared and had shown little capability as a soldier.
"Captain Li Shang," the young warrior thought out loud. "Leader of China's finest troops." Then he said with an added chuckle, "No! The greatest troops of all time!"
Shang went to join Chi-Fu and his father outside, and what he saw made him gape in shock before an amused grin spread across his face. He saw the men apparently proving their love for their nation by attacking the dummy Hun that would be part of their training exercises, and they were doing it in the most laughable way possible: punching, kicking, and dogpiling it and even sticking it with swords, spears, and loosing the chickens on it. One soldier even clobbered the dummy with a watermelon and Ling called to Shang, "Captain, look! It's Shan-Yu!"
Shang could barely contain himself as he watched this ridiculously humorous display of loyalty play out. General Li gave a humored smile and even the stoic Chi-Fu cracked a rather odd smile and said, "Now there's devotion to duty for you."
General Li would have loved to stay and witness this rare moment of levity, but he had his duty to carry out, and so he went and mounted his horse.
"Good luck, Captain," he said to his son. And then he led the first force of soldiers away to slow the Huns' advance.
Shang felt an air of worry fall over him as he watched his father leave, as if he wasn't going to see him again.
"Good luck, Father," he said softly.
Then he returned his attention to the "slaughter" in front of him. It was humorous, but now was the time to inspect the new recruits. Shang called to them, "Soldiers!"
All at once, the recruits stood at attention, the splattered dummy forgotten. Shang looked each of them over with the discerning eye of a much older officer. Then he saw Mulan, still armor-clad, and he raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Shang approached her, which made Mulan shift uneasily as though he could see through her masquerade.
Mulan braced herself for an awkward question or a cold reproach when Shang said something she had not expected to hear.
"It appears we have an unexpected recruit."
Mulan was caught off guard for a moment, but quickly prepared her deeper voice and said, "Sorry I didn't make my presence known earlier, sir. I just got here this morning and didn't expect anyone to just welcome me into the fold. Guess it comes from those manly concepts when you just gotta stick together. Fight your enemy as one."
Shang and Chi-Fu exchanged curious glances at this, and then Shang inquired, "What's your name?"
Now Mulan was at a loss, for in her time of working on looking and acting like a man, she had forgotten to give herself a man's name to hide her identity. She knew she had to think of something fast or her quest to help her father was over before it began, and she couldn't ask Mushu without giving him away.
Then Mushu whispered, "Ping! Ping was my best friend growin' up!"
"Ping!" Mulan blurted out.
Shang's eyebrow rose again as he pondered Mulan's pseudonym. "'Ping'?"
"Yes, sir," Mulan answered more confidently. "My name is Ping."
Shang was curious as there was no record of anyone named Ping as a named recruit. He said, "Let me see your conscription notice."
Mulan willingly did so, and Shang gave an impressed look when he read the name on the scroll. "'Fa Zhou?' The Fa Zhou?"
"I didn't know Fa Zhou had a son," mused Chi-Fu.
"You'll have to excuse Father," Mulan said, trying to make a decent explanation. "He wouldn't allow me to serve in the Army for fear that I would be killed. But he is too ill to fight and I have no brothers, so I had to come."
Chi-Fu whispered to Shang, "I can see why Fa Zhou would dissuade him. The boy certainly has a fiery spirit."
Shang gave a quick nod, then said to the other recruits, "All right, gentleman. As our new friend Ping is on his first day as a soldier, you will spend the afternoon doing all you can to earn his friendship. Remember, it's only by knowing one another and standing together that we can keep China safe. And tomorrow, the real work begins."
So Mulan spent the day with the other recruits, and they were easily impressed by her remarkable problem-solving skills and fanciful storytelling. No one had a problem with her and she could easily make them laugh. Even Shang found himself intrigued by Mulan's ingenuity. No one even suspected that Mulan was a girl, and she was grateful for that. Best of all, she felt that she had truly begun making real friends. This was the only first step in Mulan's journey to being the daughter her father truly needed her to be.
As she settled into her tent for the night, Mulan felt truly brave for the first time.
This is for you, Baba, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
