Hi everyone!
So it seems that with the unwitting help of DeGlace (she didn't know it, I didn't know it, but we both do now!) I have become fully focused on A Girl and a Mountain. I'm not saying that updates are suddenly going to become super frequent, but let it be known that I am actually one chapter ahead right now! Whoo! Hasn't been like that since I posted the sixth chapter! (or something like that)
Just a warning - and this will be repeated next chapter as well, when it becomes truly relevant - things are CHANGING. The dynamic between Shan Yu and Mulan will NOT always be the same. This is not like my other stories, but don't get your hopes up super high, either. ROMANCE IS NOT HAPPENING. I do not - cannot - write romance. It's just not in my repertoire. But this isn't strictly my usual brand of work, either.
That being said, it will be a slow process. But this story cannot move forward without character development, and I like to think that has always been a strong suit of mine. SO! Enjoy this chapter, drop a review, and I'll see how quickly I can get the next chapter out! Now that I'm ahead, I want to see if I can stay like that. Would take a lot of stress off my back.
Cheers!
"Well done, my khatun."
"Get out of my way, you bastard," Mulan hissed. Shuurkei drew his bow and aimed it at the shortest prisoner's head.
"You don't speak to my khan that way if you wish him to live," the archer said in his silky voice. "Hold your tongue, woman."
But Shan Yu only waved him off, chuckling at his khatun's ferocity and his best archer's determined defensiveness. It was a sight to behold, truly: Mulan standing in front of her three comrades and their captain, eyes stone cold and expression wild, and her bloody, beaten charges behind her with a look of resignation on their faces.
"I told you I would be lenient if you could manage to free them," he reminded her ponderously. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You got much farther than I expected, I admit."
"Your lies mean nothing to me," Mulan replied, much more confidently than someone in her position should have sounded. "Get out of my way or I'll kill you."
"Empty threats will get you nowhere," he told her, even more amused now. "You couldn't beat me one on one, and you certainly can't beat me with four wounded men to protect and another five against you."
Mulan went silent. If nothing else, she was practical, and she knew that he spoke the truth. She glared at him viciously for a long moment before saying, "What do you want, then?"
Shan Yu knew what he wanted immediately. He had planned this, after all, although he hadn't expected her to be so successful. If he had not spent so much time with Mulan on the way back to the Forbidden City after she had nearly escaped, he would have woken up the next morning with four less prisoners and a triumphant Mulan. It would have enraged him. But he had known better, and had won another victory because of it, although Mulan was about to get a tiny victory of her own—but it was different because he was granting this victory and not having it ripped from his grasping hands.
"Submission," he said, and Mulan immediately balked, her stance widening offensively without conscious realization and her grip on her captain tightening considerably. The miserable little Chinese boy winced, and Shan Yu nearly scoffed. Mulan was strong, but no blow she had ever dealt him had elicited a pained reaction from him. He wondered for a moment why he felt fleeting pride that he compared favorably to the ex-captain, and then quickly quashed it.
"You'll never have it," Mulan said coldly. Shan Yu had almost lost his train of thought when thinking about the captain and it took him a moment to get back to business. Inwardly, he shook himself. Now was not the time to lose focus.
"Then your friends will die." His khatun looked about to lunge and Shan Yu raised his hand. "Submit—publicly—and I will allow your…friends to be your official companions."
At this, Mulan faltered, and for a moment her face was an open book of emotions. First disbelief, then surprise, then suspicion, then anger, then a brief moment of fear—and then she responded. "You said publicly. What are you asking for, exactly?"
Shan Yu took a moment to appreciate the fact that all of the emotions on Mulan's face had been reflected in those of his subordinates, although they knew better than to argue and had enough confidence in his supremacy that he knew what he was talking about, although confusion was lingering on their faces. Shuurkei was the only one wo had successfully schooled his features back to blankness.
"Act as a wife should," he told her. "Respect my word and take it as law. Fulfill your duties…and they will live, and even prosper as your companions."
She was obviously torn; it showed clearly on her face. Pride, or friendship? Still, despite the war going on within her, Shan Yu knew which she would choose. She was probably forgetting a very important word in lieu of the rest of what he had said.
Publicly. He didn't want their daily battles to go away in private. That was between them, and he wouldn't give it up, but he knew that if he was going to rule such a large country, he had to show a strong, united front. Seeing his Chinese wife constantly defy him day in and day out would be dangerous to his status, but that didn't mean that behind the scenes they couldn't continue their feuding.
Even if it wasn't actual feuding on his part. He enjoyed testing her, and he was finding that in many ways, he enjoyed when she won her little victories.
But for now, she was thinking that she would have to give in forever. It would make it harder for her, but he truly did need her submission, especially if she was to be his right hand. It was just a fact of life.
Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. "You have it. My submission. But I want all four of them to be healed and treated well. And this is the final negotiation on their lives or wellbeing: the moment you go back on your word, I'm free to go back on mine."
He couldn't help it—he laughed. Always thinking ahead, always staunch and unrelenting. He'd accept it, though with a condition. Shan Yu hadn't had any intentions of betraying their deal, even though it was certainly within his power to do it as ruler of China and all its surrounding lands.
"Agreed—but if they rebel, you will be held accountable, and their lives with be forfeit."
Mulan nodded, as though she had already expected that. She probably had. "Fine." Her tone was flat, but he could tell from a sudden levity in her eyes that she was relieved and close to being happy.
Shan Yu smirked, unexpectedly feeling an emotion he refused to identify, but it was a good one. He nodded in agreement, and sent Baatu to go get the palace healers and dismissed the other four.
But when Mulan immediately turned to her friends and started tending to them with a gentleness Shan Yu had never seen in her before, that good, unidentifiable emotion curdled like sour milk and he turned and stalked away.
If she noticed his departure, she didn't show it.
"Damn. I don't think I wanna wake up ever," Yao said in his damaged, rasping voice, a look of abject wonder on his face. Both of his eyes were glazed and his pallor was unhealthy—he had a fever.
"This isn't a dream," Chien Po said quietly. He was panting a little at the strain of holding Ling. "I told you that already."
Shang groaned and shifted in her arms, his head tilting to rest on her head because her shoulder was too low, and a little trail of blood leaked from a cut on his cheek. Ling let out a snuffling, wheezy breath that spoke of lung damage.
Mulan sighed and horrible tears pricked her eyes. They were a mess, all a terrible, terrible mess.
But they were her mess, and she loved all of them dearly, even Shang, who had blanched in horror when he saw her. She was pretty sure her appearance was what had caused him to lose consciousness at last, but from what she could tell, he needed it. All of them needed rest, food, and healing.
Her deal with Shan Yu had put her at a great loss, but she was of the opinion that allowing her friends to live was an even greater victory. She didn't begrudge them anything—she knew that eventually Shan Yu would have wrested her defiance away from her. This was it was more formal, more damning, but in the end she had come out feeling like she had won.
Alba's words resonated with her: Your loss was Shan Yu's victory, and his loss would have been yours. If this were true, then Shan Yu had just lost a little, too. And he was underestimating her. When her friends were healthy again…
A long-lost smidgeon of honor naggled her. She had made a deal, and received a great boon for her submission. Was she really going to spit on that?
Mulan crushed that little remnant of her past. Her interactions with Shan Yu had taught her that if she wanted to win, she would have to forsake honor.
Not that that had done her or anybody else any good in the past. If this 'honor' had been disregarded, she would have been in the Forbidden City at the time of Shan Yu's attack. If they could have just looked past the fact that she was a girl, none of this would have happened.
At the same time, she shouldn't have given up, either. But all this was neither here nor there, and she had sick and wounded comrades to attend to.
But when an elderly Hun woman suddenly arrived, four large Hun men in tow, Mulan found herself with no one to attend to at all. With a few harsh words in Mongolian, Yao, Ling, Chien Po, and Shang were each picked up and carried away—or in Chien Po's case, propped over and shoulder and led more or less gently along.
"You go sleep," the healer snapped, clearly not happy about being awakened to care for the Chinese soldiers. She then waddled away and Mulan was left standing in front of the dungeons, bereft of all direction.
"Pssst!"
Well, not quite.
Mulan turned her head in the direction of the voice and when she saw the slightest hint of red scales from around the corner, she perked up and quickly followed.
Mushu led her back to her room, which she wouldn't have found on her own with all her wandering looking for the dungeons, and when she arrived she found what she had needed since the moment she had laid eyes on Shan Yu the second time.
There was a gleaming sword laying on her bed. No sheath, unfortunately, but she could wrap it in sturdier cloths. It needed to be hidden anyways.
"Where'd you find it?" Mulan said curiously, inspecting the weapon and finding no flaws with it except that it had a few notches in the blade from hard use.
"Nu-uh, baby girl, you don't get to learn secrets from the master that easy," Mushu said, pride evident in his voice. There was some harsh chirping from Cri-kee, and Mushu said indignantly, "I told you-"
Mulan shook her head and hissed for quiet. Mushu and Cri-kee immediately desisted. "I'm sorry, guys," she said contritely, "but I really can't take any bickering tonight." And she told them about what had happened with Shan Yu.
"Baby girl…you're not serious, are you? You can't be serious!" Mushu cried angrily. "You told Big and Scary that you'd—after what he-"
"Yes, Mushu," Mulan said quietly, and at her tone he immediately stopped talking. "It's the only choice I had. I'm not going to see any more people sacrificed because of…whatever is going on between me and him." She was referring to Alba's prophecies, but unbeknownst to her, Mushu took it a very different way.
His ears and tail drooped, and it was like his inner fire had been doused with cold water. Mulan took no notice as she tucked the sword under the low bed for safekeeping, an uninspired hiding place but the best one her tired mind could think of at the moment.
She took off the remaining sashes that she hadn't used and shed what clothing she didn't need to sleep in. Then she tucked herself under her covers and closed her eyes.
Mulan wasn't sure why she was suddenly feeling depressed after recounting the story to Mushu, but after it had all come out, she had felt a sudden weight on herself, like the world itself had been dropped on her shoulders. She didn't like it and didn't understand why, after literally saving her friends' lives, she felt so bad, but she did. Agreeing to submit couldn't really be that bad, could it?
But the more she thought about it, the more clear her situation became to her, and why she disliked it so much. Submitting in every way…meant submitting for the night of her wedding and afterwards. And Mulan wasn't sure she could do that. She couldn't just not push him away, couldn't just lay back and spread her legs. She wouldn't. But then her friends' lives were forfeit.
She had thought she was past it, but maybe not as much as she'd thought. In that moment, she wanted her mother, or her father, even as much as she'd hurt them with her disgrace. But all she had was Mushu and Cri-kee, and they didn't know, and she wouldn't tell her comrades what had happened on pain of death.
Tears gathered under her eyelids and she willed them away, but they wouldn't go. As if to spite her, twin tears escaped and slid down her cheeks. She brushed them away and tried to be still and quiet so that she wouldn't alert her companions to her pain, but a sob built in her chest and in her effort to tamp it down, it caught in her throat and then escaped.
Mercifully, no one said anything, but at the same time, Mulan had never felt so alone.
The candles chose that moment to flicker out, burned down to their bottoms. Mulan continued to cry, as silently as she could while still trying to stop. She blanked her mind to the best of her ability, but the tears wouldn't cease no matter how hard she tried. She prayed, begged for peace to come, for the purple or the white or something to come and comfort her, but nothing did.
Slowly, her turmoil died down enough that she felt drowsy, and she welcomed the oncoming sleep and hoped that nightmares wouldn't accompany it. Taking a final calming breath to excise the last of her tears, she blanked her mind one last time.
She only wished she had someone to talk to, even if they just were there to listen and understand. Not pity her, or patronize, but just to listen and really hear what she was saying. However, that was not something she had ever experienced as a woman, only as a male soldier in the Imperial Army.
And now, surrounded by enemies and a few male friends who would never understand, Mulan felt more alone than ever.
All she wanted was just someone, anybody to listen.
Briefly, she thought, Alba…Alba could listen.
There was suddenly a bright white light in her head, and two transparent blue forms appeared in her mind's eyes.
"That took you less time than expected, I see. It's nice to see you've gotten the hang of this so quickly," said the white form of a middle-aged woman glowing blue in her mind's eye.
Yes, Alba's back! Please drop a review, it's like anger for the Sith. We're all on the dark side here, so give me a review and fuel my writing! :D
(Yes, TFA has not left me unscathed. Am Reylo trash 4eva.)