Ping struggled slowly out of bed as the sun began its journey through the day. He crawled out of his tent to go relieve himself as Mushu chattered away, tidying the tent up; he had, in the three weeks since joining the camp, found that Mushu disliked it when just dropped stuff wherever and had no intentions of tidying it up.
As the sun changed the colour of the sky through its usual warm-up, Ping began his. He worked his way through the various exercises Li insisted they do then, once confident that his muscles were prepared, he set off on a jog.
Despite having been jogging every morning for a couple of weeks now, Ping still couldn't go very far or very fast, but he had discovered that stretching before and after was very important; after all, it wasn't good to be hobbling slowly around when you were still the most unpopular guy in camp.
He was dreading the start of combat training though. Li had refused to begin until they had all improved in strength and discipline, but Ping knew no one would pull punches with him once they started.
Breathing harshly, he slowed to a walk as he began to ascend the incline that lay halfway along his current route. He actually found he rather enjoyed a morning jog though. There was something peaceful about moving through the countryside when everyone else was still sleeping. One of the advantages to waking up so early he supposed, grinning to himself.
His mother had always gotten up with the dawn as well. When he had been younger, she used to scold him for getting up before the sun had heated the day as she feared the cool air would make him ill, though in later years he wondered if she disapproved of him encroaching on her alone time… maybe when he returned, having been successful as a soldier, she would at last welcome the chance to spend time with him.
As the path turned back down, Ping began to jog again. He was past the halfway point… he was sure after 3 weeks it ought to be much easier, but it didn't feel it. Mushu had his own theory, that Ping shouldn't be jogging every morning, just every other morning, but the young man had come to realise his guardian was actually a mother hen, and so Ping often left him clucking away about one thing or another.
"Mushu?" Ping called as he jogged back towards his tent, where it was still on the very outskirts of camp.
"I'm over here, Princess. Go take your bath." Mushu didn't come out the tent, but he chucked out a towel and some clean clothing.
"Thanks Mushu." Ping laughed as he headed off to the river.
His guardian was still sulking then. A few days ago, Ping had referred to him as a huǒ snake, or the fire snake from the Zodiac. He had meant it in an affectionate way, after all Mushu had brought him a great deal of good luck already, he assisted him throughout the day and he could breathe fire. However, the dragon had taken offence at being compared to something so pedestrian and had taken to calling Ping 'Princess'.
It didn't particularly bother Ping though. A few times he had even tried to flutter his eyes and giggle like Mulan sometimes did, though he wasn't very good at it. The laughter that emerged as a result was a nice change from the glares he received from the other recruits, and he welcomed it.
The water was cool as the young man slipped into it, and he hissed slightly. It was the same every morning, but the shock still made him gasp. Mushu would undoubtedly be along in a bit, claiming that Ping was taking too long and had to get out.
He was glad of the friendship he had developed with the guardian. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before, but having someone who treated him as his own person with his own feelings was new.
He dunked his head under the water, scrubbing his fingers through his jet black hair and down to his scalp. He knew it was something of a waste of time to insist of bathing every single day, but he hated it when sweat caused his clothing to stick to his skin. Bursting up and spitting out water, Ping grinned as he caught sight of Mushu, stood on the back of Tianma and tapping his foot.
Ping swam languidly over to the dragon, fighting to keep a smile off his face and great the guardian with a serious expression.
"Hello, Mushu."
"It's time to get out." Mushu stared down at him from his spot on the horse's back.
"I've only just got in." Ping adopted a pout, hoping his guardian would allow him more time.
"You're going to be back in there soon enough anyway. You guys are starting jogging today. I looked at the notes that scribe makes."
"So? I jog every day anyway." Ping shrugged, once again feeling that the dragon was overreacting.
"This is longer than your normal jogs and you will have weights to carry. Now get out. You need to go eat and give your food time to settle before you head out on this."
"Yes, mother." Sighed Ping.
He obeyed the instruction though. As he dressed and headed off to get breakfast, Ping began to worry about carrying weights. He had no real upper body strength and the idea of being last was mortifying. Maybe Captain Li would start with something easy…
He was a fool for ever thinking Li would start them off with something manageable. As Ping forced one foot in front of the other, he wondered how long it was since the Captain had done his own basic training; so long that he had forgotten the best way to go about it.
"Come on, Ping. Just a bit further." Mushu whispered in his ear.
"C-Can't do this." He gasped, his limbs trembling as he moved.
"Course you can." Mushu snapped. "You have me and cricket here. You have so much luck, you'll fly through these things."
"T-That cricket isn't… isn't lucky." That cricket was the reason Mulan had struggled so much with the matchmaker; that cricket was clearly in hiding to avoid the consequences of his failure.
"Sure he is." Mushu defended him. Ping didn't answer though, instead he tripped over a rock and landed on his face.
"Oww…" he moaned, taking a moment to rest. It was nice to get the weight off his shoulders, but his face stung from where he must have scratched it.
"Come on, Princess, up you get. Uh-oh." Mushu slipped back into his collar, and Ping rolled his head to the side to see what he was hiding from.
"Get up, Ping." The Captain made no attempt to hide his displeasure as he picked up Ping's weight and jogged back to the front of the group.
"Come on." Mushu whispered. "Just ignore him. You'll get there."
Tears prickled at Ping's eyes as he struggled back to his feet. Once again, he felt pathetic. He had failed… no one else had fallen over, no one else had had their burden removed.
"It's ok." The soft voice of Chien-Po interrupted his thoughts.
"Huh?" He rubbed his eyes and looked up at the man.
"I'm sorry we were unkind to you." The gentle expression caused the tears to start falling.
"D-Don't worry about it."
"Don't cry Ling." The large man laid a hand on his shoulder, before returning to his jog.
"My name is Ping." He whispered at the retreating back.
"What does he know anyway?" Mushu asked, angry on his friend's behalf. "Now come on, we need to catch up."
Ping sighed and forced his trembling legs to move.
"Today we begin archery practice. How many of you have ever held a bow before?" Captain Li stood in front of his troops, his strong body holding the attention of Ping. He was like a statue; beautiful, but cold and unmoveable.
Less than half the troops put a hand up, and Li sent them off to one side. He kept the absolute beginners with himself.
"Ok, we'll start with getting you your bows. There is a chance you won't get one the right size for you, but we do have those here who can make basic bows, so you needn't worry about that. Now, organise yourself into a line; size order, tallest over to this side and the smallest over there."
Ping was one of the smaller men, but he was glad not to be the smallest.
Once they all had a bow, Li showed them how to string it, how to check the string was tight enough and how to de-string it. Ping's fingertips were sore by the time he had managed to add and remove his string several times, but he didn't dare complain. It had only been a few days since he had failed so miserably at their jog, he didn't want to draw attention to himself.
"Now, to find the nocking point, you need to place your arrow at 90° to the bow. Then, use the ink to mark the point. You won't always need it marked, but until you can find it easily, use the ink as a reference point."
Ping's tongue was out the side of this mouth as he focussed on marking the angle.
"Next, I want you all to stand in a line in front of the bales of hay. You pull the string back with your dominant hand, so hold your bow with the other one." Li pointed at the large bales of hay that stood off to the side. Ping frowned, having assumed these were for the horses. Of course, he mused as stared down at his bow, most of the horses had with the main force. Even if the hay had been for them, it wasn't going to be used now.
"Captain? We haven't got a target." Jian spoke up, gripping his bow awkwardly. Several men nodded their heads at his statement.
"I'm not giving you targets yet." Li gave them a harsh frown as they fell back into the line. "Pick a spot on the hay if you want a particular target, see if you can hit it twice. It doesn't matter too much yet because I want to check your stance before we go to real targets."
"I'm making note of how this goes." Chi-Fu's voice called across the camp from where he was observing the more skilled men.
"Feet slightly apart and stand parallel to your target. Hold your bow with a relaxed grip and… not that relaxed! Pick it up. Slide three fingers to just underneath your mark… Not your little finger, Ling. Now notch your arrow and draw your bow."
"Ow!" yelped Ping as his fingers slipped and the string snapped at them before he had even pulled it back properly.
"Carefully!" Li snapped. "Now, hold your bow arm parallel to the target. Don't lock it out, but have some bend in it. Bring the elbow of your other arm up to your shoulder and turn your head to look directly at the target… Yao, can you do this? Your eye has been that colour since we came here. Can you open it?"
"Not really. Only a slit." Yao scowled at the Captain, but Ping understood why he was asking. Having one eye shut made it difficult to judge how far away things were.
"Right… well, look directly at where you want to hit and pull the string back to the side of your face. Careful! Don't let it slip!" Li scowled as men fumbled with keeping their arrows in position.
"I can do this." Hissed Ping, determined to do something well.
"Have your eyes just above the mark, so you can look down the arrow shaft."
"When we don't have a target." Someone else grumbled.
"You'll get targets when I'm sure you won't kill someone. For now stand about 6 feet from the hay and try not to miss." Li's face didn't look optimistic, despite the size of the hay bales in front of the recruits.
"I thought we were meant to learn how to hit actual targets. Not just a wall."
"Stop being clever! I'll make the wall into smaller targets when you are ready. Now, focus on the centre of your target and let go…. Urgh, we need to keep practising."
Ping's arm was soon aching, but he kept trying. The first day of archery practice they didn't manage to hit the same spot with 2 arrows once, but at least by the end there were more arrows in the hay than in the ground, so at least they weren't failing entirely. Each of the men learned to pull the bow string until it was a comfortable movement, though numerous complaints could be heard about the strain on muscles that weren't built up enough yet.
The next day they went for a group jog in the morning with the weights on their shoulders. Ping fell over again, but this time no one came back to help him. By the time he made it back to camp, they were tidying up from lunch.
"Come on, Ping. Let's go get you changed into something clean. I know you don't like to be sweaty."
"What does it matter?" mutter Ping, loneliness creeping through his body as no one noticed him.
"It matters because you're my friend. Come on, you change and I'll make porridge."
"Soldier!" A voice cried out as Ping turned in the direction of his tent. "Soldier!"
A hand landed on Ping's shoulder, making him jump.
"How dare you ignore me?" Captain Li scowled angrily at him.
"If you don't use my name, how should I know who you're talking to?" snapped Ping, his frustration causing him to shout, where normally he wouldn't.
"You are not joining in our next activity. You've done so badly that I want you to sit and make arrows until I tell you otherwise." Li turned and began to walk away, but he paused and looked over his shoulder. "And until you do something useful, you're nameless here."
Ping's face crumbled and he felt tears begin to fall again.
"I should never have come here." He whispered.
"What does he know?!" Mushu growled from Ping's collar. "You'll be the best soldier there is, just give it time."
"But how much more time do I have?" Ping wondered softly, before turning away and heading back to his tent. "Will they ever let me use my name again?"
"You'll do fine. Just wait and see."