A/N: finished with my second to last semester of school. leave me reviews please.
"Rise and shine! We are moving out pronto!" Mushu's grating voice invaded Eleanor's not unpleasant sleep. "Mulan is not gonna be late on the first day! The troops are movin' out to the summit!"
She opened her eyes slowly and the pile of her new friends around her began to shift as they too sat up. Sometime during the night Goofy and Donald had snuggled up to her back and she had curled herself around Sora's middle, who had in turn been stretched out with his arm functioning as a pillow for her head and Goofy's. She let out a long breath. They disentangled themselves from one another and Sora rubbed at his bright eyes.
"The summit?" He asked blearily.
"I hate the cold." Donald groaned as he stood and stretched.
Goofy pulled Eleanor to her feet and with their few belongings packed into a nap-sack, the group set out to meet the rest of the troops. The men were gathered at the base of the mountain path. The summit, Ling explained to them, was just a snowy outpost about ten miles up the rocky mountain pass where they would meet the rest of the soldiers who were already there. Shan-Yu had been supposedly seen nearby.
"And Shan-Yu is.." Sora asked sheepishly.
"The leader of the hun army pretty boy. Don't you know nothing?" Yao rolled his eyes.
"Be nice Yao. These are our new friends. Shall we meditate together?" Chan-Po's soft voice made the stalky man clench his fists.
"Buzz off." He growled.
The higher they climbed up the treacherous rocky pathway, the colder the wind got. Eleanor wrapped her arms around her middle to try to keep the biting wind from getting through her clothes, but it did little to keep her from shivering. The icy wind whistled through the treetops. She stole a glance up at the sky as a hawk screamed and soared over their heads. She paused to watch its wings slice through the updrafts.
"You okay El?" Sora's voice made her return to the world.
"Oh sure. Nothing I like better then walking through the snow you know?" She tried to smile. "I'm fine."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "If you say so. Just let me know if something's bothering you okay?"
She nodded and they continued on their way up the mountain. The farther they hiked in elevation the colder it got and the more treacherous the slippery rocks became. Soon tiny ice crystals drifted down from the grey clouds over head and landed on the unwelcoming landscape in a fine white powder. Eleanor thought briefly how much she had always wanted to be caught in a snowstorm. She reconsidered greatly as they neared their snowy destination.
It wasn't until long after nightfall that the troop reached the outpost. A thick blanket of white powder covered the ground and grey clouds hung heavy in the sky above them. Eleanor, Sora, Donald and Goofy sat huddled around a small fire wrapped in thin blankets.
Eleanor sneezed and buried her face into the itchy blanket, trying to thaw her frozen face. "This is miserable. I've decided I hate the cold."
"You have snow in your eyelashes." Goofy gave her a worried look. "You're not freezing over are you?"
"Here take mine." Sora pulled his blanket from around his shoulders. "It's nice and toasty."
"Oh no, I can't possibly take yours. Then you'll be cold Sora." She was genuinely touched by the sincerity in his voice and gave him a smile.
"Well I'm not gonna let you freeze." He sat beside her and wrapped his blanket around her shoulders.
"No I'm really fine-"
He rolled his bright eyes. "Would it make you feel better if we shared?" He slipped under half of the two blankets and bumped his shoulder against hers. "There see? Nice and warm right?"
Eleanor stuttered out the start of an answer. His eyes were completely blinding so close. His breath hit her cheeks as he laughed quietly. She thanked the cold for staining her cheeks a frozen red already so her blush was completely covered. She heard Donald and Goofy laughing but they sounded a world and a half away.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" His voice was so quiet she barely heard it.
"Hey there you guys are!" Mulan's voice snapped her out of the daze Sora's eyes had cast on her. "Mushu said he found something."
"Help?" Donald hardly moved away from the tiny flame dancing at the tip of his wand. "Help means being cold doesn't it."
"What'd you see?" Goofy asked.
Mushu hopped down from Mulan's shoulder. "I saw I guy creeping around by a cave just outside of camp. And I thought to myself, why tell the captain when we could all get together and take him out. It'll make us look great since we didn't spend anytime training with the troops and all."
Sora hesitated then nodded. "Yeah I guess that sounds like a good idea. You said it was just one guy?"
"Yeah sure. Are we gonna get a move on or what?" The tiny dragon hissed impatiently.
Donald and Goofy begrudgingly stood and let their blanket fall to the snow. Sora stood before offering Eleanor a warm hand and pulling her to her feet.
"Woah your hands are so cold!" He held onto her fingers before she could pull them away.
"My whole body's cold." She removed her hands from his grasp bashfully.
"We'll find someplace inside and get warm when we get back okay? Promise." Sora said as they slipped through the camp as quietly as they could.
There were a few soldiers still awake or standing guard at a pair of towers beside the gate Mushu lead them out of. There was little light as they slipped around the frozen rocks towards the shadowed cave entrance.
"Gawrsh, in there?" Goofy asked, and poked his head around the craggy corner.
"It looks spooky." Donald poked his head into the cave entrance right beneath his armpit.
Sora and Eleanor peeked around the other side of the cave. "Are you sure about this Mushu? It's really dark in there."
"Absolutely. Now come on." Mushu hopped onto Mulan's shoulder as she crept into the dark cave.
Donald and Goofy followed after a short hesitation.
"Something doesn't feel right about this Sora." She grabbed hold to the back of his shirt as they followed the group into the shadows. "It could be a trap."
A thoughtful look passed over his face as he peeked back over his shoulder. "A trap set by who?"
"Does it matter?" She shook her head. "We shouldn't be here. Something is off."
He spun around quickly and grabbed her elbows. He leaned in towards her with an enthusiastic smile. "I promise everything'll be alright. Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"
"Quite a lot actually." Eleanor whispered as he turned back to the dead end of the cave around a corner. It was completely empty, with the exception of a few glowing candles and a shrine against the rocky wall. "There you see? Nothing here. Come on let's go." She grabbed Sora's hand with both of hers and tried to pull him back the way they had come.
"There is nothing here at all Mushu!" Donald turned and waved his hands into the cold empty air.
"Now I know what I saw." The tiny dragon hopped down from Mulan's shoulder and made angry eye contact with Donald.
"It was obviously nothing."
"Hey duck boy, my eye sight is perfect, twenty-twenty." He straightened up to eye the duck angrily.
"Hey stop guys. Whoever you saw must have left before we got here." Mulan said as she scooped Mushu up to stop the fight between the pair. "That would have been my chance to prove to the captain I could fight."
"They'll be another chance. Don't worry Mulan." Sora pulled his hand from Eleanor's in order to make his way deeper into the empty dead end.
"Sora.." Eleanor insisted as Donald and Goofy joined her at the mouth of the cavernous space.
He sighed but gave her a soft smile. "You worry too much."
"Come on Eleanor." Goofy wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her away from Sora. "Let's get back to that fire okay? How does that sound."
"Warm." She muttered.
The cave opened up to the chilled night air. Snow still drifted softly down from the heavy grey clouds. The smell of smoke cut through the crisp night air.
"The outpost!" Donald squeaked.
Fire had erupted, practically disintegrating the thin walled structures.
"Whatever Mushu saw in that cave was a trap. We have to act fast. Goofy, with me. Find any survivors and see that the Captain is safe. Donald, please get Sora out here as fast as you can. We'll need his help." Eleanor suddenly couldn't feel the cold. "Come on!" She rushed forward.
"Right behind you." In a flash, Goofy's shield was in his hands and he followed her into the smoke.
"Sora! Sora!" Donald slipped back into the cave.
Eleanor covered her mouth with her hands as the smoke surrounded her. "Captain Shang! Is there anyone there?"
"Help! Over here!" Ling's voice made her turn. He and the other soldiers were trying to pull a fallen wall off a pile of smoldering coals. "The Captain's pinned."
"Goofy over here!" She called to him as he righted another solder in the snow.
As a group they were able to haul the shattered wood off the smoking pile. Chan-Po tossed the smoldering wall and Ling and Yao dragged the Captain out of the coals. The snow fall managed to put out the rest of the fire, with the help of Donald's magic wand. A medic was brought immediately to tend to wounded Captain. Sora and Mulan appeared from the cave, looking slightly disheveled. There had been an ambush of heartless as Eleanor, Donald and Goofy had fled to help with the fire.
"It's only a scratch. I'll be fine." Captain Shang shooed the medic away when he was done stitching up the wound in his side. "Go see to my soldiers."
"Sword'll do that to you sir. I've seen much." Eleanor leaned in to examine the cleaned cut. "Did you see who was responsible?"
"The smoke shrouded the culprits." He stood carefully. "I've ordered the others to look for survivors. Can you rally your friends to climb up further to try and find the monsters responsible?"
"You can count on us." She turned to Sora, who was sitting against the broken and smoking wall with a distraught look on his naturally bright face. "Hey are you alright mate?"
"If we had just listened to you and Donald we might have been able to stop this." He ran his hands through his spikey hair. "People were hurt."
"Well gawrsh Sora, you were fightin' heartless who mighta come out here and killed someone. At least we only had to deal with the fire." Goofy set a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah Sora. There was nothing you coulda done." Donald added.
"The Captain has instructed us to climb further and see if we can find the monsters responsible for lighting this fire. We can help." Her voice was quiet and she knelt in the snow and caught his gaze. "Come on. We can go be hero's yet. Gain the Captain's respect? Mulan will go home full of honor or what have you."
He wore a miserable expression as he cast his gaze at the summit of the mountain.
"Come on." Eleanor patted his knees. "The monster's getting away."
"I know you're right." Sora hopped to his feet with a small smile. "Let's get moving. We can only stop them for what they've done."
Mulan nodded. "We can still fix this."
Donald and Goofy gave each other a discreet thumbs up, as Eleanor rolled her eyes. The trek further up the summit would no doubt be even colder and the snow would fall harder the further up they climbed.
"I've decided that I, in fact, despise the snow."