snarky_panda (![]() ![]() @ 2007-07-21 02:40:00 |
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Current music: | Monk |
Entry tags: | 30_kisses |
30 Kisses: Mulan and Shang, Part Twenty-Eight
Title: The Journey Home
Author: snarky_panda
Fandom: Mulan
Pairing: Li Shang/Fa Mulan
Theme: #10, #10
Disclaimer: All characters, etc. from the Disney movie belong to Disney.
He glanced at her every once in awhile as they rode through sweeping grasslands of green and gold, worried at how quiet she was. Ever since their mission had been completed he’d felt ten times lighter, relieved of the heavy burden that had loomed so ominously before them. But rather than seeing relief in her expression, his wife appeared troubled.
“What?” she asked upon the last time he looked her way, her brow creased in slight annoyance.
“You’re so quiet.”
Mulan remained silent, appearing to be deep in thought. She finally spoke, surprising him with the question on her mind.
“Will you be going on border patrol now, then?”
“Border patrol?”
“Yes. Remember? You said that there was a good chance that you would be switched to border patrol.”
“Oh, yes…” he trailed off and cleared his throat awkwardly, attempting to figure out how to best explain that.
They were both so unhappy when he’d told her that lie. He’d been blaming himself for everything, including her unhappiness, and he’d thought that leaving her would be the best thing for both of them. At least he wouldn’t be causing her pain anymore that way. And with the story of an order from the Emperor he wouldn’t be hurting her feelings, making her think that he was leaving because he didn’t love her anymore.
He’d been worried about the mission as well, terrified that he would lose her too and doing everything in his power to distance himself so he wouldn’t feel. But their journey had gone smoothly for the most part. They’d escorted both the princess and her handmaid safely to their new home in the royal city of the rival kingdom and they were now on their way home with the rest of the Imperial guards that had accompanied them. The things that he feared never came to fruition.
And now Mulan and he had found each other again. Things would never be the same as before, but that was okay. He knew that they loved each other more than anything. Life continued on, despite pain and loss; and their lives would go on, together.
“So?” she prodded him. “Was that definite?”
He could have slipped out of this predicament very easily by telling her that it wasn’t definite. But just recently he’d chided her that they’d promised they wouldn’t keep anything from each other. No, he had to be honest. If she somehow heard the truth from some place else, he’d really be in for it.
“Mulan, I…I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
Her eyebrow quirked up and she gazed at him, confusion clouding her visage. He slowed his horse and she followed suit, sidling up close so that Khan was almost touching his stallion. She looked at him expectantly.
Shang took a deep breath and explained to her that at the time he’d thought it best for them if he went away. When he’d finished he remained quiet, allowing her to let it sink in and watching warily for her reaction.
Mulan looked utterly stunned. “So, you made that whole thing up? You were never ordered to go on border patrol?”
“No,” he whispered.
“You were going to leave me.”
“I never stopped loving you, Mulan. I just thought I was making you unhappy.”
“Then you were taking the easy way out.”
He hung his head, feeling utterly ashamed, like when he’d been a child getting spanked.
“Yes. I…was a coward.”
Nothing could have surprised him more than when she leaned up and kissed him tenderly. As she pulled back, his lips curved into a half-smile and he felt his spirits brighten.
“Then I’m forgiven?”
Without warning she smacked the side of his head.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, rubbing it. She hadn’t really hurt him, but her action had startled him.
“Now you are.”
She tugged on Khan’s reins and he began to move off again. Shang spurred his own horse on and rode up beside her.
“We’ll have to report to Chang’an with the others,” he told her matter-of-factly.
Mulan nodded. “I know it.”
She turned and grinned at him.
“How’s your head?”
“Fine,” he grumbled.
But he smiled a moment later. He knew that he was forgiven.
*******
After the long work out with his men he returned home and bathed before going in to see his wife. They’d been married for several years, but he still loathed the idea of appearing to her sweaty and smelly from a training session. One time she’d caught him before he bathed and called him silly, informing him that she didn’t care what he smelled like. She wanted him all the same.
“You’ll be getting sweated up and dirty again anyway,” she’d added in her most alluring, husky voice.
Today, however, he needed the hot bath, to relax him. For the first time since they’d returned from escorting the Emperor’s daughter to her wedding he’d been concerned about Mulan. She’d been quite ill for several days and that morning she’d looked positively green. He’d urged her to see the doctor. An odd feeling of premonition had plagued him all day, and so strong was it that he’d actually gone to have his fortune told, something he’d rarely done in his life.
“This is an auspicious day, General. After all, it is the tenth day of the tenth month,” the old fortune teller told him as he pored over the cards that Shang drew from the deck. “Ah, very interesting.”
“What?”
“There will be changes. And a surprise at home.”
Offering nothing more specific, even when pressed, the old man took his payment and called out to the next customer. Shang moved off, feeling more confounded than before he’d seen the fortune teller.
“Idiot,” he muttered as he lowered himself into the hot water now. “What was I thinking, going to a fortune teller? It’s all crap.”
Emerging from the bath about ten minutes later, he toweled himself dry and dressed in a plain tunic and trousers, then went to see Mulan.
The house was quiet except for the soft scratching of a brush on parchment that reached his ears as he neared the study. He stopped at the threshold and watched his wife as she etched characters on the paper. She was so engrossed in her work she hadn’t noticed that he was there yet.
Shang remained in the doorway, leaning against the frame, and watched her, a gentle smile playing around his lips as he took in every detail of her posture, of the intensity in her facial expression as she concentrated.
He released a soft sigh as she set the brush aside. She looked up with a start.
“I didn’t even hear you come in.”
She stood up and met him halfway as he crossed the room toward her. He embraced her and leaned down to kiss her, but she was grinning and his lips ended up hitting her teeth. Puzzled he pulled back and gazed at her; she looked almost radiant.
“Mulan…?” He trailed off, thinking of the fortune teller’s words again.
“I have good news. Well, I hope you’ll think that it’s good news.”
“What is it?”
“I’m going to have another baby.”
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