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A Tale of the Woman	By : lightbird Category: +M through R > Mulan (Disney) > Mulan (Disney) Views: 16127 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the cartoons of Disney Studios, nor any of the characters from them. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Part 1
- 2-Part 2
- 3-Part 3
- 4-Part 4
- 5-Part 5
- 2
- 3
- 4
Part 3: Coming Home

Chapter Seven

She was too numb to feel anger or even to weep as she disbelievingly surveyed the charred ruins of what was once her childhood home.

I guess I won’t need an excuse as to why I left the Li home.

The thought ran through her head as if from a great distance away, through an obscuring haze. She felt as if something had shut down inside of her. Like a somnolent, she wandered through the wreckage, feeling as if she wasn’t in her own body. Oddly enough the temple was the only thing that remained standing and she picked her way through piles of stone and burnt wood that littered the once-beautiful garden, ascending the hill and entering the place where she’d prayed to the ancestors as a little girl, where her father had prayed every morning.

It was eerie how their ancestral shrine had been left completely untouched. She lit a stick of incense from the supply and placed it in the holder, then knelt before the wooden tablets with the family names inscribed. Fa Zhou’s name was already there. The names of her grandmother and her mother would need to be added now that they’d joined the ancestors in such an untimely manner.

Mulan leaned all the way forward and pressed her forehead to the cold stone floor of the temple, eyes closed, lips moving in prayer. After a long time she raised her head and leaned back on her haunches.

Her mind clicked into a tired, shocked sort of order and she stood up. She turned and exited the temple, standing at the top of the hill for a few minutes and gazing out over the expanse of destruction. Then she headed down toward where the house had once been, stopping at the reflective pool. At one time it had been clear and peaceful; now it was murky and dirty.

The sound of shifting pebbles to her left made her jump and she snapped her head around to look toward where it had come from. A mouse was poking its small head through a pile of rubble. Paying no attention to her, it struggled to pull its body through a crack in the heap of stone. Once free, the rodent sat still for a moment, nose twitching, beady eyes staring at her.

Without thinking Mulan spat at it and the animal scurried away in fright. A carved face in the stone debris caught her eye and she moved closer, kneeling down to pick it up. She winced, half-mindedly shifting and grasping her knee after the jagged edge of a rock made a gash that began to bleed a moment later. Paying no attention she picked up what she now identified to be the head of the Great Stone Dragon that had once overlooked the pond.

The most powerful guardian.

That had turned out to be a useless idea. She was about to toss it back onto the pile, but something made her stop and gently place it back from where she’d taken it instead. An ingrained belief that she couldn’t shake perhaps.

Heaving a sigh, she stood up and absentmindedly dusted herself off, then turned and headed back toward where she’d left her horse.

The entire village was gone. As she approached from the south, the usual outline of buildings hadn’t appeared. Only the guard tower, the place where the drum was beaten to warn everyone of an approaching Imperial guard, remained standing amidst the devastation.

First, she would put the names of her deceased mother and grandmother onto the ancestral tablets. Then she would decide what to do next.

oooOooo

With deep trepidation, she pushed the vines aside and gazed down over the tents that blanketed the valley before her, her face creased into a deep frown. What was she thinking? This had to be the most foolish thing that had ever come into her head.

Her new black horse whinnied impatiently behind her and she turned to him, clacking her tongue at him to quiet him down. He began to stamp his feet and she moved toward him, reaching out to pat his nose.

“Shh! You’re going to give me away.”

He settled down finally and butted her with his head, nearly knocking her over.

“Well, what do you think, Khan? Should I go down there or keep going?”

The black steed neighed cryptically.

“That man in the village called me a young man when he saw me with my hair tied back. So I know I can pass. And I know some fighting techniques and self-defense. They’ll probably put me in with all the new recruits.”

She received another ambiguous whinny from Khan and fell silent. He must have been smart enough to realize that this was foolish, too.

And yet, ever since that man in the village she rode through referred to her as a young man, that part of her that had shut down seemed to switch back on as the plan formulated itself in her head in the blink of an eye. The idea had completely seized her, causing her to leap up during the middle of the night at times and begin pacing from the excitement of it. She could pull it off. Despite her anxiety about it, she felt unable to shake the compulsion, an inexplicable need to do it. She wanted to, needed to fight, for a reason that she sensed instinctively in the core of her being but couldn’t put words to. And her father’s name was all over the scrolls posted in the marketplace. News of his death had somehow been lost on the bureaucrats. But she could go in his place.

Taking a deep breath, she took hold of Khan’s reins and began to lead him out of the forest toward the camp.

oooOooo

Mulan’s breath caught in her throat as she found herself staring up at the angry-looking young man that she’d met in the corridor the first day she wandered around the Li compound. It seemed like so long ago, but two years hadn’t quite passed yet. General Li’s eldest son was the captain of the regiment of new recruits.

“Name?” he demanded, leaning in to get in her face.

“Fa, sir.”

“Fa? Do you have a first name?”

She tried to think quickly but her mind seemed to have come to a screeching halt.

“Well?” the scrawny man beside the young captain demanded. He clutched a writing tablet and a brush, which was poised to write at a moment’s notice, but now he gestured at her with it and she involuntarily pulled her head back away from him, thinking that he was going to poke her with it. “Your commanding officer asked you your first name.”

“It’s Ping,” she blurted out finally, thinking of General Li’s little son from Shan-hu.

Captain Li raised an eyebrow and fixed her with a quizzical stare. “Ping?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me see your conscription notice,” he ordered, holding out a hand to accept it.

“I don’t have one, sir,” she answered, swallowing hard and continuing quickly. “I was called into service…but my village and my home were destroyed. I had to leave in a hurry and wasn’t able to retrieve it.”

Heavy grief weighed on her heart but she made an effort to keep her face blank.

“Fa,” he repeated distantly. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. “Any relation to Fa Zhou?”

“He was my father, sir.”

“I didn’t know Fa Zhou had a son,” the skinny man exclaimed in genuine surprise. “He was one of the Emperor’s favored generals at one time. You would think that there would have been talk about a son following in his footsteps.”

“Well, he never talked about me much.”

“Hmph.” His eyes were narrow slats as he fixed her with an expression of disdain and suspicion. Then he leaned in to speak to the captain confidentially. “I don’t know where this boy is from. But if he’s Fa Zhou’s son, I’m the Jade Emperor.”

For another moment Captain Li held her gaze and her face flamed as she became intensely uncomfortable, praying that he didn’t somehow recognize her. She’d intruded on him that day and he was angry, but her status was so low in that household it was doubtful that he’d even paid her enough mind to remember her features. Still, he might have…

After a brief pause his face softened ever so slightly and he patted her on the shoulder in a manner of one comrade to another.

“You’ll get the chance to have revenge for your loss. But I won’t tolerate trouble in my camp. Save it for when we’re fighting the enemy.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered, resisting the urge to lower her eyes. A soldier was supposed to be unafraid to look his commander in the eye.

He strode off, circumventing her, and addressed the assembled company, ordering all of them to pick up every single grain of rice before they turned in that night.

There were grumbles and hissing behind her and she could feel the other recruits glaring at her. But they were of no concern to her. She was more concerned with the look in the cat-like eyes of the skinny man that had stood beside the captain.

He was eyeing her as if she was prey.

oooOooo

His name was Chi Fu, she found out that evening, and he was the Emperor’s council.

It was a long night and everyone in camp hated her already. They blamed her for starting the fight and for the fact that they were all stuck cleaning up the camp.

There was no reasoning with anyone here. She’d accidentally bumped into a guy who very clearly had a short fuse and he’d tried to punch her. His fist landed in someone else’s face as she dodged it. One thing led to another and soon she was being chased around the camp by a gang of ticked off recruits. She wasn’t sure if she was the one that had tipped over the kettle of rice, but it didn’t matter.

She was aware of a pair of gleaming eyes watching her as she remained bent on the ground with the others, cleaning up the mess. The large tent next to the captain’s was his; the flap was open. He stood there, his dark skinny silhouette the only thing visible. But she knew he was staring at her. She could feel it.

oooOooo

If being cooped up in General Li’s household had caused her to become sedentary and bored, military training would very quickly fix that ill. The very first morning they were lined up by dawn, ready to begin calisthenics. But she was grateful to be active. The pampered life she’d led as General Li’s fifth wife was comfortable but boring and depressing. At least being here had been her choice.

Captain Li Shang was tough. Disciplined, serious and strict he demanded the very best from each and every one of his men. He taught them how to fish bare-handed and drilled them in hand-to-hand combat, archery, staff and swordplay. He drilled them day and night, forcing them to build up their strength and stamina.

Mulan wasn’t used to this level of physical exertion and she didn’t have the brute strength that the others had. Training was very difficult for her. Even the little bit of self-defense that her father had taught her was no match against her captain’s prowess at hand to hand fighting and in her first sparring match with him he gave her a black eye.

And she found that she made mistakes constantly, so nervous had she become with the councilman’s eyes always on her. Why was he staring at her so intently all the time? Had he seen through her disguise?

She knew the captain wasn’t happy with her performance. While Chi Fu eyed her with an expression that made her skin crawl, Captain Li scowled at her constantly. He wasn’t cruel; in fact, he spent a lot of time with her, giving her special attention and helping her to improve her form and her skill. But she could sense his patience wearing thin, his attitude toward her as the puny, weak recruit who would never measure up. Often she questioned herself why she had even taken it into her head to do this.

One day, several weeks into the training, the captain led them on a long hike through the mountains surrounding camp. They left before sunrise, each of them carrying weights on their shoulders. Mulan fell behind and didn’t return to camp until well after sundown, without the weight, defeated in body and spirit. She had fallen underneath the burden that she carried earlier in the hike. Captain Li had backtracked to where she was, picked up the weight easily and, glancing down at her in disgust, turned and left her there on the ground, hurrying off to catch up to the rest of the recruits.

The rest of the troop had eaten dinner already when she returned.

“Ping.”

Mulan glanced at the captain as she entered camp. He stood in front of his tent, arms folded and she stopped.

“The cook saved some dinner for you. Go to the mess tent and eat. When you’re finished eating report back to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dread gripped her as she turned and trudged toward the mess tent, not feeling much like eating. She was sure that whatever the captain had to say to her, it wouldn’t be good news.

oooOooo

Mulan stood in the place where they’d lined up the first morning of camp, Khan’s reins in her hand, her eyes trained on the ground dejectedly. Not surprisingly, the captain had dismissed her from the army. His demeanor was stern as usual, yet he broke the news to her as kindly as possible.

“You’ve worked very hard over these past weeks, Ping. But you’re just not suited for battle and you’re too young. I have no doubt that you’ll make a fine warrior some day, when you’re grown up, but now I need men who are up to the task.”

Where could she go now?

In the dark she raised tear-filled eyes to the top of the pole that rose up out of the ground a few feet from where she stood, absently noting the arrow that still jutted out from the top. Captain Li shot it up there on their first morning of training, challenging them to climb up and retrieve it. With the added catch of heavy bronze discs tied to their arms and weighing them down, to this day no one had been able to scale the pole and reach the arrow. One disc represented discipline, the captain told them. The other represented strength.

“You need both to reach the arrow.”

She looked away and began to lead Khan forward, toward the edge of camp then stopped as a thought occurred to her. If she could be the first one to reach the arrow, maybe the captain would let her stay and give her another chance to prove herself. Those discs were so heavy though, the wood of the pole so smooth it was almost impossible to climb. She had to try.

The discs lay in the box that Chi Fu had brought to the captain the first morning, in the area where the weapons were kept. Setting the box on the ground near the pole, she opened it and retrieved the discs, tying one around each wrist, and preceded to try to climb the pole.

But the task was impossible, and as had happened the very first time she tried it, she skidded down and landed on her rear end before she was even more than a foot off the ground. There was nothing to anchor her and it was impossible to keep a foothold on the sleek finish of the wood. And those damned bronze discs were so heavy she could barely lift her arms.

A snicker in the night made her jump and she whirled around, her eyes darting this way and that, trying to figure out who it had come from. She saw nothing and her eyes fell on Khan, who stood patiently and watched her.

“Did you hear anything, Khan?”

The horse snorted at her.

“Maybe it was you laughing at me.” She sighed. “I don’t blame you. I’m pretty laughable.”

Taking one more look around and seeing no one she turned back to the task at hand.

Strength and discipline.

She didn’t know how many times that night she thought of those words and tried to climb the stupid pole, to no avail. This last time she managed to get a little further up but not much.

Sighing heavily, she remained seated on the ground and peered with annoyance at the weights tied to her wrists.

“This represents discipline. And this represents strength. You need both to reach the arrow.”

What was she missing? The weights were representative, the captain had said. That meant they had some purpose other than being the burden that they were. Otherwise, what was the point?

Mulan thought of her father. Fa Zhou had always spoken in riddles and used symbolism in his talks with her. She closed her eyes and thought of him.

You need both to reach the arrow.

Something clicked into place in her mind. The weights weren’t supposed to be a burden, they were supposed to help. That’s what it meant.

Opening her eyes again, she studied the weights carefully, pondering how they could possibly help her. The problem was getting a good foothold, and for that she needed something to anchor her. The bronze weights.

With renewed vigor she stood up and hooked the weights around the pole, locking them together. They clicked right into place and she tugged at it. Strong and sturdy.

Anoter sound in the night made her start and she glanced around warily, wanting to call out and ask who was there. She had a sneaking suspicion it was the councilman, who had always seemed to be lurking about wherever she was, watching. It was rather creepy. Yet he never approached her, never let on that he knew she was anyone other than who she said she was.

Turning back to the pole she shook off the thoughts and hoisted herself up with the aid of the weights. She had a task to complete and at this point she was supposed to be gone from camp. Ignoring whoever might have been watching her, she braced herself and eased the locked weights higher to give herself another lift.

Little by little she inched up the pole. By the time the sun began to rise she was more than halfway there and she became aware of someone watching her. Catching sight of Chi Fu’s gleaming eyes, she nearly lost her grip, so rattled was she to see him there. He had been watching all this time.

Exhausted and worn out, her muscles hurting from working all night, she slid down and lost some ground. But she retained her foothold and kept going, finally reaching the top of the pole as the sun peeked out just beyond the horizon.

To her great surprise she was greeted with loud cheers as she grabbed the arrow and took a seat at the top of the pole. She grinned down at the troop, now gathered outside of their tents and shouting wildly, as proud of her as she was of herself. There were only two people missing from the crowd. The captain and the councilman, who’d disappeared. Maybe he’d been hoping to see her fail.

She kept her eye on the captain’s tent, and as the flap moved aside and he stepped out, she sent the arrow whizzing toward him to land at his feet.

oooOooo

Splashes in the water and shouts from the men filled the air. Mulan remained as still as possible, hidden behind the large rock. They should have all been in bed by now. She had been so sure that it was late enough and that they would have bathed long before now.

She shivered and cursed inwardly. The water wasn’t that cold but she’d been in too long and the crisp chill of autumn was already in the night air.

It was possible that she could slip out of the lake quickly and hide herself. She was very close to shore. But then there was the chance that someone would catch a glimpse of her before her body was sufficiently hidden.

I have a knack for getting myself into terrible situations lately, she thought with a frown.

Holding onto the rock with one hand to keep her head above water and wrapping her other arm around her chest she peered around the large boulder to see what the others were doing. They were busy splashing each other and chances were they wouldn’t hear her, or see her.

Mulan drew in a breath and inched toward the shore as quietly as she could, the rock still obstructing the view of her. Ducking her head and wrapping her arms around her chest she dashed out of the water and into the clump of trees where she’d left Khan. She snatched the towel that she’d left on the tree and wrapped it around herself quickly, still shuddering from the chill that had seeped into her bones from remaining in the cool lake too long.

Thinking that she heard the sound of a twig snapping she froze and her eyes darted around nervously. She quickly grabbed her tunic and slipped it on, closing it and easing the towel further down to cover her waist and thighs.

“Fa Ping.” She recognized the silky, taunting drawl of the councilman.

Schooling her face into an impassive mask, she turned to face him. “Councilman…” she greeted and stopped, taken aback by the sight that greeted her.

Chi Fu was in nothing but a robe and slippers, his bony limbs poking out here and there. His eyes combed her from head to toe in a way that made her excruciatingly uncomfortable. Then he licked his lips in a manner that she’d only seen General Li do when he took in her naked form.

She could have taken him easily if it came to that. After her triumph in retrieving the arrow the captain had let her stay. She’d found new strength inside herself and improved in all areas of the training then. Chi Fu was a weakling and skinnier than she was. But she didn’t want things to come to that. He was the Emperor’s council, after all, and she was in the awkward and vulnerable position of wearing nothing around her waist other than a towel.

Involuntarily she took a step back away from him, giving him space to pass and hoping that he would.

Shouts and laughter interrupted the tense moment. Several of the men had moved to the rock where Mulan had been hiding and they glimpsed the two of them standing there.

The councilman sniffed at her and strode toward the water, passing her by. Mulan released a relieved exhale and turned back to her horse, not wishing to glimpse him removing his robe. She grabbed her trousers and began to lead Khan away.

Once out of sight, she quickly slipped on her pants and hurried back to camp.

oooOooo

Troubled and unable to sleep, Mulan remained outside of her tent.

“What am I going to do, Khan?” she murmured to the steed as she groomed him where he was tethered to a nearby tree. “That man…looks at me…he must suspect the truth. If he thought I was a man, he wouldn’t look at me that way, would he?”

This time she’d escaped from the awkward situation; but what about next time?

There was no time to brood about it further. The captain called them all to order and they lined up in the center of camp. They were going to be moving out to battle in the morning. General Li’s troop was stationed in a village in the mountains, on the way to the Imperial City, and they would be joining it.

Now she had something else to worry about.
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A Tale of the Woman