Cold light illuminated the room Mulan slept in and the wind which sneaked in through the window was icy too. But the eight-year-old did not sleep anymore, she just kept her eyes shut to stay in the deepness of the warmth within her bed and forget about her dreams. A golden butterfly – an emperor. A sword covered in blood – a heavy, smelly burden in her hand. Indeed, she had the same dream almost every single night, but it was not important anymore. Not special. Another gust of cold wind lifted the leather cloth which was supposed to cover the hole in the flysheet and made her shudder, watching her hot breath rise in little clouds. Her room wouldn't get warmer if she refused to leave her bed so she pushed her blanket away and jumped off her mattress with one bounce, pulled her dress over the grey chemise and slipped into her soft leather shoes that were fur-lined and very warm. But still Mulan shivered. Smiling to herself, she sung an old children's song while she opened the wooden chests. "Snow owl, sing a song for me, when I'm sitting here under a pine tree, picking asters in lilac and larkspur blue while water dances ´round my shoes all through. The hills are my brothers, my confidants the rivers as they float, the sky is the other, the snow my warming coat. Oh, snow owl, I shan't bother your lovely voice and grace! Your song and my flowers for my mother when you fly to another place." Finally, she found her coat which was her everything, dark red as heavy wine and warm – oh, so warm! Mulan felt protected and full of expectations as she opened the door and stepped into another room, where a tiny fire was burning in the middle. Obviously one of the elder women had already fulfilled one of her duties as it was up to her to take care of her father's household. Since her mother had died three years ago. Mulan felt a numb pain in her stomach when she threw dry branches into the dying embers to renew the fire that seemed to hold on for dear life for a few hours now though it was still very early in the morning. The sun was still hidden behind the hills and the camp was very silent, only a horse neighed every once in a while and somebody passed their hovel with an empty bucket and hastened away to the river.
Mulan fixed the huge copper bowl at the three-legged trestle above the fire, grabbed a bucket and a bowl herself and slipped soundlessly out of the room. Cold wind made tiny snowflakes dance around her and settled on her shoulders and hair, frostbidden grass graunched under her feet and her lungs filled with fresh air. Spring was coming but the wind still smelled of winter, of snow and frost so the river was covered with a thin layer of ice she could break easily with her foot. It bit her fingers when she dipped the vessels into the liquid, Mulan bit her lower lip and placed them carefully next to her on the frozen grass so they wouldn't pour their content immediately and she had to fill them again. She blew on her stiff and shivering hands that felt numb, eager for them to turn warm so she could return to the warm fire. Finally, she decided to grap her stuff though she still felt the itching of cold in her fingers and turned around, heading for her home and the tiny column of smoke that arose from their warped chimney. "I surely have to get more wood.", she said to herself as she opened the door with her hip and looked sadly at the tiny fire which was sooting the whole room. The smoke was so thick it burned in her eyes but Mulan saw gladly that it vanished through the opened door and the fresh air stirred the embers to arise in a pretty fire. Humming to herself she poured the water into the heated bowl and placed the vessels she brought the water with in the corner of the room, turned around and searched for something she could cook for breakfast.
Their provision had shrinked recently during the long and cold winter but Mulan knew that neither she nor her father, nor any family of their tribe would starve. Whenever they'd find some wild cereal grains, had the great hunting in autumn or raided somebody, her father would split their achievements justly. The bigger the family the much they would gain and sometimes when the food was short, her father would spare their own larger ration though it was due to him as leader of the tribe. While Mulan chopped up some bones and flesh for the soup, she remembered that she'd once asked her father why he would give away one of their Yak to another family though they didn't have enough food for themselves during the long and hard winter. She remembered the look her father had given her and the smile of her mother, before her father had pulled her onto his lap and said: "Well, my little Magnolia, imagine: a flock of horses deputise one of them as their leader because they think he will look after them. But in the winter, when the snow is thick and the ice hard, the whole flock except the leader is starving because the latter knows a place where grass is growing and a hole in the ice on the river, but his people are not allowed to eat or drink from it because he's the leader and doesn't want to share. He's not well-born or noble, he's only the leader by the grace of the other horses, so they start wondering: why should we starve, our children die? In the end, the other horses will expel the leader who will lose all his friends, family and position and it's all his own fault." Her father smiled about her shocked face but finally Mulan understood that this was the reaction her father had hoped for.
"A leader should always feel responsible for his people and look after them, they chose him as their leader and he must do everything to help, support and respect them." "Because he was only one of them when he was born, only one of the tribe.", Mulan muttered and her father caressed her hair. "As you, father"
"Yes, Mulan, when I was born I was only a tiny boy, not stronger or better than the others." He carried her over to the fire and sat her down in front of it. "One day I will die", Mulan felt tears well up in her eyes, "and the man who will succeed me will never success as a leader when he forgets where he comes from. It's called humility."
The knife cut through the meat and Mulan murmured to herself: "Humility." Never ever she would forget her fathers words or the expression on his face. In those days he'd smile, not often and not with everybody, but whenever he did Mulan knew that one was for her and for her mother.
She took the flesh and the bones from the worktop and threw them into the bowl where the water had begun to boil, added some dried coriander, a chopped onion and some peppercorns before she closed it with the lid. The soup would not be as delicious as her mother's who had been very good at cooking. She'd been responsible for making something to eat, cleaning and sewing while her grandmother did the laundry, helped with butchering, weaving and all other work, but now she was too old, her hands shaky and her eyes nearly blind so Mulan had to do all the work alone since her mother had died three years ago. She never played or ran around on the fields like other kids when they were supposed to herd the sheeps since her family's animals were herd together with all the others. Mulan had no time for that and though she often envied other girls and looked longingly after playing children, she knew that she was not unique in her fate, that a lot of other motherless daughters had to take care of their families too. And her fate wasn't even that bad: sometimes they had two or more siblings, a father and grandparents. Mulan didn't even want to imagine the noise, the arguments and especially the work, mountains of dirty laundry, hungry mouths to feed.
"Good morning, my magnolia."
Mulan cringed within her movement and turned around juts to see that her father had stepped into the room. She ran over to him and hugged him around the trunk and now she was tall enough to embrace his whole body. "Good morning, father! You're awake early this morning!", she said and moved back to the worktop and poured him a bowl of tea. Her father took it gratefully and ruffled her hair which made the girl giggle. "I see you already took care for our breakfast."
"Yes, but it will take some time until it's ready.", Mulan mumbled and felt ashamed for herself, but her father shook his head lightly and kneeled down in front of her. "That is alright, first of all I'm going to see the other men and the horses anyway, so take your time, magnolia:" He was an impressive man, tall with broad shoulders, black hair though it increasingly reduced at his temples and strange eyes; sometimes they'd look green but most of the time they were black. Previously his eyes had smiled at her in such a moment, but Mulan saw only cold and emptiness on his iris, like a blade that ripped her heart. The little girl felt tears in her throat and tried to gulp them down but that hurt even more and made her feel guilty.
"Father..."
Though he'd been about to leave, Shan Yu eyes his daughter once more and noticed the agonised expression on her face. "Are you sad when you look at me?" He was surprised about her question, actually startled about its serious tone and the trace of hurt within. He wanted to ask his magnolia why she would tnink such thing, when she opened her little sad mouth and explained: "Because you always said I look like mother and" "No, I'm not sad.", he quickly responded and arose from his knees. "Now I have to go.", he simply said and left the room but Mulan had seen the pain of a hidden wound inside his eyes, as if they were swamped by blood and she felt horrible. Why was she doing everything wrong?
Mulan was sure her father wouldn't show up for breakfast and she was just about to burst in tears when the door opened and Yang Fei stepped into the room, an elder woman with a round face who had been something like a mother to her in the last three years, full of compassion and friendliness for her. Fei's eyes widened when she saw Mulan standing near the steaming and rattling copper bowl. "Child, how do you look? Did something happen to you?"
Mulan gave her a small smile and shook her head. "Thank you for making the fire this morning."
Fei gave her a look which meant that she did not believe in Mulan's words and pulled the soup off of the fire before the bowl could explode and leave ugly scars of burned flesh on girl's face. She knew the hard life of a maimed woman since exactly the same had happened to her when she was fifteen years old and had to marry a man who didn't want her and whom she also didn't like. Her love did turn away from her in those days and Fei never forgot the whispering and the glances she earned in future though she was still a rather beautiful woman with dark eyes and shiny hair. Of course Mulan knew that story of Fei's face and the boiling water but she couldn't imagine that a man could love her less because of that scars though she was such a warm and friendly woman.
"Of course I made fire, you can't do all that work alone. Where's you grandmother?"
"She's still asleep."
Fei nodded and caressed Mulan's hair. "Well, then let her sleep, she's already very old and needs some more rest. First of all we take care of your hair, then I'll help you with the laundry." Before Mulan could protest, the elder woman grabbed an osseous comb out of a leathern bag hanging from her belt and started combing her wild hair, then she put it into a bun with a red ribbon. "Now you look like a leader's daughter.", Fei said proudly and her jaw dropped when the girl started crying immediately, hiding her face behind the hands. Obviously she was not sad about the nearly burned soup. When she asked Mulan what was wrong, the girl could barely speak.
"Father doesn't like me anymore because I remind him of mother."
It was a heartbreaking image of a little girl crying and Fei felt like crying too. She doubted that the leader was really upset about his daughter because of her appearance though she knew that he was still suffering so hard from her passing away. So she embraced Mulan in a big hug and caressed her bag. "Don't be silly, magnolia, I'm sure your father will always like you. He's just sad because he misses your mother." It may was disrespectful to speak of the leader in such a way and Fei nervously looked around if nobody was there before she spoke on: "It's not your fault your mother died, you should never forget that. It was fate."
She looked at the little girl in her arms and felt bad for her, the poor motherless child. Fei would never forget how Mulan's father had given her a whole Yak as she'd asked him for help in her despair; the winter was the hardest she could remember and her four children were ill. They had nothing to eat anymore and though his own family had a hard time to live from their provisions until spring, Shan Yu did not hesitate to help her. It was her duty to look after his daughter.
"Come on, magnolia, smile for me. Everything's alright!"
Mulan tried to wipe the tears from her eyes but they always filled with new tears. She'd totally forgotten about Fei being right in front of her, hugging and comforting her like her mother would have done in such a moment. She smiled weakly at Fei but deep inside Mulan felt no peace or joy when the elder woman grabbed her hand, helped her wash and hang up the laundry and fed grandmother. Mulan knew that ger grandmother was happy to see another person since her only companion was Mulan and a songbird in a cage and she'd always liked Fei for helping her granddaughter with all the housework. While the women spoke in her grandmother's chamber, Mulan sat down sewing on a rip in one of her chemises and listened to them. Now and then she heard something of a wall, then of an emperor and her father's name. "What a fool he is!", grandmother cried and took another spoon of the soup. "This oh-so-great emperor does not know which tiger he wakes by completing his wall, does he? The building already started before my birth and it didn't make our lives easier." "Eat your soup, Coranja." The old white-haired woman took another spoon of the soup.
Then Fei said something in a low voice but grandmother shook her head: "No, no, no, it's impossible! You know I have no influence on my son's business, in the end he will do what he thinks best. I don't care if he will start another war with China, that is nothing new since I've seen wars come and go seven times in my old life." Her face shadowed. "I'm just concerned about the girl."
The two women looked over to Mulan who tried to act like she hadn't heard anything of their conversation. "The soup is good, Mulan. One day you will be a good bride for a lucky man."
She felt her cheeks heat up and smiled to herself. "Thank you, granny. Do you want some tea?"
"With milk?"
"Yes, of course!"
The grandmother nodded and only lifted her bowl from the floor next to her bed so Mulan had to stop her sewing and carry the teakettle over to her to pour some hot steaming tea into the empty bowl. The old dark eyes watched her granddaughter and they seemed pleased with what they saw. Mulan would be a pretty girl one day, not a breath-taking beauty like her mother, but very pretty. Only her stubbornness had to vanish as soon as possible but she, Coranja, would take care of that since her son was always busy with planning a new war and didn't have much attention for his daughter though he loved her to madness.
"You're a good girl."
Mulan's heart took a leap and it was hard to stop herself from singing and dancing when her grandmother ordered her to go outside and pick some wood for the fire.
She could do something properly.
Thank you for all the nice reviews and the support, I was overwhelmed by your feedback! Thank you so much!
Because the grandmother remains nameless in the movie I just made up a name and called he Coranja. I don't own Mulan, onlay the fanfiction!
Well, I hope you enjoyed reading and please don't be angry with me for spelling and grammatical mistakes, I still have much to learn! Seriously! ^^
Thank you all!
PS: Check out my other story Through your eyes about Avatar. Maybe you'll like it!