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Shan-Yu's Victory	By : lightbird Category: +M through R > Mulan (Disney) > Mulan (Disney) Views: 16642 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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.

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Shan-Yu looked Mulan over.

He didn’t know who she was, but something about her struck him the moment he set eyes on her.

He found her walking in the hallway with a group of several other women, all of them beautiful; but she caught his eye immediately. She looked nothing like a concubine and didn’t fit in with the others at all.

She was not full-figured, nor was she attractive the way other women were, the way most men liked their women. She wore her hair short, just at her shoulders, unusual for a Chinese woman. She was skinny and she wore no make-up, none of the white face paint typical of the women in China and that the concubines were wearing. In fact, Mulan had a suntan, as if she spent her life outside. She was natural, and very pretty in a different sort of way.

It was painfully obvious that she was young and inexperienced, nothing at all like the seasoned courtiers he expected to find there.

The moment he picked her out and stopped her, she looked terrified, not only of him, he sensed, but of what she imagined he wanted her for. There was no way this girl was a palace concubine.

Then when he made a sudden move to get closer to her, she had taken a defensive stance, ready to fight him if he tried to harm her, her martial art form perfect. It was a completely primal and instinctive reaction and it had taken him aback completely. There were plenty of women warriors among his people, and the Hun women were fierce and ruthless fighters. But Chinese women were demure, quiet. They didn’t speak until they were spoken to, and they didn’t learn martial arts. Where had this little girl come to learn it, and so well?

She wouldn’t answer his questions. She stared at him defiantly, despite her fear, and remained stubbornly silent other than providing him with her given name. He had to admire her bravery.

She really seemed so familiar to him and though he couldn’t possibly know her he couldn’t help feeling that he’d seen her somewhere before. She was a complete contradiction and it was quite odd that she was there at all. He felt compelled to keep her near him until he could figure it out.

~~~

Shang pressed his hands against one of the walls in the room, beginning to work his way over to the next wall. He remembered his father telling him about the secret passageways and chambers within the palace walls. They were for the Emperor, so he could make his way through the palace without being seen if he so wished. They inevitably led to many of the concubines’ rooms, and he assumed that he must be in one of those. If he could get into the passageway, he could escape from the room and find his way out of the palace. What he didn’t understand was why it had taken him so long to think of it.

He'd lost track of how many days he'd been kept in that room as a prisoner. It seemed like forever.

He tested every inch of wall, not sure what he was hoping to find. A lever or something that would give way maybe. It was a painstaking process, but if he was lucky it would be worth it. He ceased his task when he heard the guards unlocking the door, marking with his eye where he had left off so he could pick up again later.

They beckoned him to go with them and led him to a room with a large table that was covered with plates and bowls abundantly filled with steaming, sumptuous-smelling food. No one was there, but the two guards gestured for him to sit down at the table, then took their places, standing on either side of him. He almost laughed. There were two of them, with swords, and he was unarmed; yet they still both guarded him. Were they that worried about what he would do?

Shan-Yu entered the room. The lithe, willowy figure of a woman trailed behind him and came up to stand beside him. Shang’s world turned completely upside down when he found himself looking at the face of the half-naked girl he’d last seen crouched on the snow-covered ground, cloaked only by a thin blanket. What was she doing there? Was she Shan-Yu’s concubine?

Several scenarios began to run through his mind at once. She might have been his lover and a spy. Maybe that was why she had infiltrated his camp as a man; to get information for the Huns by being in his camp, throwing them all off-guard by the fact that she was a woman.

No, that was impossible. She had buried the Hun army with an avalanche, on purpose. She wouldn’t have done that if she were a spy for Shan-Yu. And though he didn’t know her very well as Mulan, he’d gotten to know Ping somewhat. It was still the same person, as confusing as that was in his mind. Though he remained angry at her betrayal, he had to admit that the person he’d known as Ping was not devious or underhanded.

He cringed as he watched Shan-Yu’s large rough, calloused hand slide along the curve of her shoulder, then run down the side of her torso, coming to rest in the curve of her waist. Shang thought he could see a flicker of fear pass over her features and she seemed to shudder ever so slightly.

He had left her in the Tung Shao Pass and she should have been home by now. He wondered if maybe she had been captured there and brought to the Imperial City, for what reason he couldn’t divine. If Shan-Yu or any of his men wanted their way with her, they could have done so right then and left her there.

The guilt stirred up in him once more as he thought about leaving her, more powerful now that he was seeing her again, dressed as a woman.

He was astonished at how pretty this female incarnation of Ping looked wearing a dress and slippers, though he was completely puzzled as to how she came to attain them. He had left her in the pass with nothing but the soldier’s tunic and trousers, and army boots. Where had she managed to find women’s clothing in the middle of all the confusion?

“Eh, Commander?”

Shang blinked and turned away from her, staring at Shan-Yu blankly.

Shan-Yu whispered something to the girl and she turned and left the room, quickly glancing at her former captain. Shan-Yu took his place at the table then, gesturing to the large spread of food before them.

“Help yourself, Commander. As for the girl that just left,” he laughed mirthfully. “She’s an inexperienced one. I don’t know if she should be the one that I send to you for the night.”

Shang’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

~~~

The dinner had been delicious, a spread fit for a king. Shang was completely stunned that he was brought to have dinner with Shan-Yu and it was odd how they had dined together almost as if they were old buddies. If it weren’t for the guards standing behind him making sure he didn’t leap up and escape, and for the fact that Shan-Yu was his mortal enemy, it might have been a typical meal shared by two friends.

Sitting with the Hun leader in a more…social situation, for lack of another way of describing it…he had seen a side of Shan-Yu that surprised him. The man was actually very conversational and quite friendly when he wanted to be. They had conversed about fighting techniques, about typical military strategies, about hunting. If Shan-Yu had been Chinese and not Hun, Shang might have actually called him a friend.

He had been floored, however, when Shan-Yu spoke about sending a woman to him for the night, especially when he suggested that it could have been Mulan.

He was completely confused by it all. Was this some sort of newfangled Hun torture method? Were they treating him like royalty and befriending him, maybe to get him to let his guard down?

His thoughts drifted to Mulan and trying to figure out what she was doing there. He wondered why he had involuntarily shuddered so when he watched Shan-Yu touch her in such a possessive way.

The sound of the lock turning interrupted his thoughts and he looked up as the door opened.

"I get cold easily," the girl was saying to the guard with a giggle as she stepped into the room.

“Mulan,” Shang murmured in disbelief as he set eyes on the small girl that he’d left in the snow and had just found again, by Shan-Yu’s side. He had sent her to him after all.

Shang realized that his tone of voice sounded much more caring than he would have ever expected. He became annoyed with himself and angry with her once more.

She watched as the guard closed the door and listened as he locked it from the outside. Then she turned to Shang and approached, sitting beside him on the bed. He blushed and inched away from her, surprised at her gesture but noting that her face was red as well. She was carrying what looked like a folded dark green blanket and the bundle now rested on her lap. That explained her remark to the guard.

“I have to speak quietly, Shang,” she said, softly, indicating the door with her eyes. “They’re going to execute you tomorrow morning.” She gestured to the bundle in her lap. “You can get out of here. I have…”

“I don’t need you to rescue me, Mulan,” he retorted, angrily. Somewhere inside of him he knew she was bravely and nobly trying to help him, but it infuriated him that he had been reduced to relying on this woman to save him.

“Listen to me…”

“I don’t need your help. Why should I trust you anyway?” he hissed, allowing the feeling of bitter resentment and betrayal to seethe as vividly as ever inside of him.

“But they’re going to kill you…”

“I don’t care,” he answered, not looking at her.

Her tone was one of surprise. “That’s not like you, Shang.”

He turned to her abruptly and glowered at her, his eyes blazing, his muscles taut with the tension of his anger. “What do you know about me? You think because you spent a couple of months in my camp you know me?”

Her answer was passionate, and she seemed to ignore his disparaging tone. “I know you’re someone who is brave. You rose above your own personal grief to lead us on in an effort to save the Emperor. You’re not someone who gives up.”

“Get out of here, Mulan.”

An expression of genuine hurt crossed her features and though he felt gratified that he had put it there he also had a sudden pang of remorse for causing it. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He felt like he had to hold onto his anger at her, at everything; there would be strength in anger. He set his jaw and glared at her, giving her a look as if to question why she was still sitting there.

She folded her arms, returning his glare with a stubborn but serene gaze. It irked him that she was so calm when he felt as if his blood would boil.

“Well, the Emperor has ordered me to stay with you tonight. So, since I’m here, I have the opportunity to help you escape…”

He leaned toward her. “So, you’ve been sent for my pleasure? Is that it?”

He noted how her chin quivered and her body trembled as he moved in close to her. Was she afraid of him? The image of her crouched underneath his sword flashed in his mind and he shook it off.

“Scared?” he taunted her.

“Are you?” she retorted, defiantly. “Is that why you’re so willing to die?”

“Mulan, get out of here!” he lashed out at her, furiously.

“Are you so angry at me, Shang, that you won’t take help from me? You’re unwilling to try to help yourself, help our country? I’m sorry I deceived you. But it wasn’t personal against you. I wasn’t out to fool you or to make you feel stupid. I was just trying to help my father and bring honor to my family because I couldn’t seem to succeed at that in any other way!”

“Oh, well, you’ve certainly succeeded now,” he replied, contemptuously. “Being Shan-Yu’s…”

He was cut off by the loud thwack as her hand came in contact with his face in a violent slap. His hand involuntarily went up to his stinging cheek. He gaped at her, his face red, angry and mortified, unable to believe that she had dared to slap him and unable to believe himself, that he had started to say what he had to her. No matter what she had done, she didn’t deserve for him to talk to her that way. But it was too late to take it back.

“Do you think I wanted this?” she hissed at him, furiously blinking back tears that had formed in her eyes. “In the first place, he caught me in the hallway with a group of women and took a liking to me. In the second place…”

“How did you even…?”

“Oh, never mind, Shang. It’s not even worth explaining to you.”

He remained silent as she threw him a look of disgust.

“I’ll be going now. If I'm asked I’ll say that you had a great time and wanted to spend the remainder of the night alone.”

She stood up and tossed him the bundle that had been on her lap. It thudded softly as it made contact with his own lap, and he grasped it, becoming curious as he felt a solid, thin object wrapped in it. He began to pull back the folds of material, staring down as his father’s sword was revealed within the blanket. He had dropped it in the hallway when he was fighting Shan-Yu, when he first came into the palace. He never saw it again until this moment. He looked up incredulously.

She had already crossed back to the door and was rapping loudly on it and calling out to the guard.

“Mulan, how…?” he began.

It was too late. The door was unlocked and opened, and she was already following the guard out without so much as a glance back at him. The door shut and locked behind them.
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Shan-Yu's Victory