I know this chapter is short and was a long time coming. I've been battling a bad case of writer's block.
The three children slowly settled into life at the Fa home.
Mei and Liu loved it when Fa Li told them stories about Mulan when she was a child.
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When Mulan was four, she realized that her parents couldn't climb the trees as high as she could. It became her way to get out of chores, bedtime and even meal time, especially food preparation which Mulan hated to do.
What she hadn't bargained on was her grandma being able to climb trees after her. After Mulan had spent most of a day high up in a tree when she was supposed to cleaning the barn and helping with the rice harvest, it happened.
Grandma Fa had watched Fa Li and Fa Zhou yell up to Mulan several times to come down. Her granddaughter had merely laughed and made no move to do as she was told. She started scaling the tree, and soon was eye to eye with the defiant child.
"Didn't think your old granny could climb up here, did you? I suggest you get down now and do what you're told, before I whip you right out of this tree." Mulan quickly scrambled down the tree to comply.
Liu was contented to sit on the bench and talk to her grandparents, but Mei never liked to sit still very long. She loved climbing trees or climbing on top of the barn or the estate wall. The adults learned to look up high whenever they needed to find her. Her antics resembled those of Mulan in younger days.
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Mulan and Shang had been relying on her cycle to avoid having another baby, since Ling had been born. They both knew it wasn't foolproof.
Six months after the three children had joined their family, they had a rare afternoon alone while Kang and Ling napped and the older two girls went into the village with Fa Li and Grandma Fa. Seizing the opportunity for uninterrupted intimacy, they didn't stop to consider that Mulan was very fertile at this point in her cycle.
It was a few weeks before Mulan missed her monthly bleeding. It was with a panic that she relayed the dreadful news to Shang and her family. She nearly died after her first delivery. All four adults worried she would not survive a second one.
Every day that brought Mulan closer to her due date dawned with more anxiety. Although the children didn't know what was wrong, they could sense the stress in the adults.