snarky_panda (snarky_panda) wrote in mulanficspace, @ 2007-06-06 23:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | 5trueloves, a tale of the woman, au |
A Tale of the Woman, Part One, Chapter Three
Fandom: Mulan
Title: New Home
Author: snarky panda
Theme: #3, Moving
Pairing/Characters: Fa Mulan/General Li (Shang’s father, NOT Shang)
Genre: Drama
Rating: NC-17 (Rating for sex, adult situations, and for safety)
Disclaimer: Anything from the Disney movie belongs to Disney. Anything from Raise the Red Lantern belongs to Su Tong.
Summary: 1st part of a crossover fic (sort of) inspired by Raise the Red Lantern and alternate storyline based on another outcome that could have occurred because Mulan failed the matchmaker’s test. (Link to beginning of story)
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Chapter 3
The coldest, dreariest winter that she could remember descended upon them without warning shortly after General Li left for battle. Mulan found her mood becoming gloomier with each passing day and she longed for escape. The days were so cold she couldn’t even venture outside for walks; she would be chilled to the bone before getting very far.
Those first winter days were spent either by herself or with Yun. But she was becoming less comfortable around her Second Sister. General Li’s second wife had seemed kind and motherly when Mulan had first arrived at the Li compound, with an outwardly pleasant demeanor; but now, after spending time with her, the young girl sensed something else. Perhaps she was merely becoming paranoid; the more time she spent stuck in that house the more she imagined that it would be quite possible to lose her mind from being cooped up for so long, seeing chimeras and seeing deception and ill-will everywhere around her. She didn’t do anything except remain inside and maybe drink tea and chat with Yun, which was getting boring too. It was enough to make even the idlest mind crazy.
And she found that she was having odd physical withdrawal, too. She’d grown to enjoy her nights with General Li; he had come to her almost every night that he was home. How she had managed to not get pregnant was beyond her; she supposed that maybe she was barren. In any event, she found that she missed him; her body craved the physical contact.
One day when she stepped outside in the late morning she found that the temperature had warmed up, though it was snowing heavily. She decided that she didn’t care if she got wet and cold; she had to spend some time outside, moving around. Even if it was the same old garden, at least she wouldn’t be staring at the same four walls.
Withdrawing her father’s old uniform from the trunk, she dressed and called Fu-ling in to help her pin the ends of the trousers and the sleeves, which were too long for her. She glared at the odd expression on his face and he lowered his head, bending to the task of helping her fit the uniform to her body. Taking her father’s sword with her, she ventured out to the garden to practice the old martial arts moves and swordplay that her father had taught her as a little girl. She knew that Fu-ling would go and chatter with the other servants and even First and Second Mistress about her; but she didn’t care. Her mind and body needed to be occupied with something new. And General Li wasn’t there to scold her about it.
Finished with her workout a couple of hours later, she began to walk through the snow-covered garden to wind her body down. As she walked toward the far end of the grounds she caught sight of Honglian in the distance, wandering around aimlessly in the area that she always occupied. Unable to help herself, Mulan ventured toward her.
“Murderers,” Mulan heard the woman muttering over and over as she approached.
The woman turned to her but her eyes were wild and unseeing; Mulan wasn’t even sure if Honglian really knew that she was there.
“Murderers,” she repeated in a whisper.
She knew she should have turned and walked away, but she felt compelled to ask, to unravel the mystery of what had happened to this woman while she lived in General Li’s home.
“Who are the murderers, Fourth Mistress?”
“Murderers, all of them. I saw it…but no…” she stopped in her tracks and stared into space in confusion. An expression of deep and utter anguish crossed her face then. “I saw nothing…but I know what I saw…”
“Honglian, tell me, who are the murderers?” Mulan pressed, calling her by name even though she knew it was improper for her to address the elder woman by name. She was hoping it might catch her attention.
“Shan-hu.”
“I know she jumped in the well.”
“No, no…I won’t jump.”
“But Shan-hu jumped,” Mulan offered, hoping to coax her into revealing something.
“Yes…she jumped…they murdered her and she jumped…”
It made no sense and Mulan shook her head, resigned to the sad fact that Honglian could no longer form a coherent sentence. The snow was coming down harder now, she noticed.
Honglian had been staring past her, but she suddenly turned to her and Mulan was startled to see the clarity that was now in the woman’s eyes suddenly.
“They are lucky, the ones that have died. It’s easier to die than to live in misery.”
Prickles formed up and down Mulan’s spine and she felt her heart skip momentarily. Honglian’s voice was sad but firm as she spoke those words; she sounded as sane as anyone else in that moment.
“It’s snowing and getting very cold, and you are not dressed warmly enough, Fourth Mistress,” she began quietly, offering a hand to help her. “Maybe we should get inside.”
But Honglian ignored her outstretched hand, her eyes clouding over again. She drifted back toward the well, muttering, and Mulan followed. The vines that covered the old well were covered with snow and the water in the well, if there was any, was no doubt frozen over. Honglian peered down into it nevertheless, staring fixedly toward the bottom at something that only she was seeing, Mulan realized as she leaned over and gazed down at the frozen water.
“Murderers. Murderers. I won’t jump. I won’t jump.”
Mulan sighed sadly finally and turned away, heading back toward the complex. She hated to leave the woman out in the cold and snow; but she was at a loss as to what to do, and feared that she might scare her if she touched her.
“Mulan.”
Yun was standing inside her doorway as she passed by her house. She eyed the sword in Mulan’s hand.
“What are you doing out in such weather?”
“Getting some exercise. Good day, Yun.”
“Ji-li brought sweets from town this morning. Come in and we can have tea together.”
She was feeling rather melancholy and shaken after the interchange with General Li’s insane Fourth Mistress, and she wasn’t really in the mood to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting with Yun and talking about nothing.
Still, she had to think about status. It was something she wasn’t used to thinking about, even after all this time; she’d come from a small family consisting of herself, two parents and a grandmother. Status was clear by their age and place in the family. Here, with so many wives and the wives’ children, it became much more complicated. But one thing was certain; Yun was Second Mistress and she was all the way down at Fifth Mistress. She had to behave as was proper.
“Thank you. I feel that I’m dressed inappropriately. Perhaps I should go and change first.”
“Nonsense. We are informal here. Come, come.”
oooOooo
“Do you know who the murderers are that Honglian refers to?” Mulan asked as she sipped her tea and ate the red bean soup that Yun had served her.
“Honglian? Have you been going near Honglian?”
“It was starting to get colder out and I saw that she wasn’t dressed warmly. I went over to help her inside.”
“Leave her be. The servants will tend to her eventually.”
“She’s very pretty and it seems like she was very intelligent,” she argued, leaving out Honglian’s moment of clarity that she’d witnessed. “Something terrible must have happened for that to happen to her.”
Yun shrugged. “Her father committed suicide. She saw it. Then when she saw Shan-hu jump…I suppose witnessing a second suicide was more than she could bear.”
“Oh.”
“You’d best forget about both of them. That place is a place of death. Shan-hu is dead and death surrounds Honglian. You are a young girl, among the living. That’s where you should stay.”
Yun hadn’t taken her eye off of the sword by her side for the entire time that they sat together but she didn’t mention it and Mulan wasn’t about to bring it up. It really shouldn’t have mattered; but something about it made her uneasy. As if Yun might use this against her for some ulterior motive that she was unaware of.
Li Song was older, had borne a son to General Li and no longer cared whether he spent the nights with her. Her position was secure. But Li Yun was second, and she’d been unable to raise her position by bearing a son; only a daughter, who had died. Second Sister no doubt considered her competition.
Both of them started at the sound of sudden screams and hurried into the next room, where there was a window with a view to the back of the house. The servants were dragging a bedraggled looking woman along. Honglian.
“I won’t jump! You murderers! I won’t jump!”
Yun tsk-tsked softly. “Such a shame.”
“See? She keeps calling them murderers.”
“She’s a crazy woman. They’re no more murderers than you and I. And all they’re trying to do is bring her inside of her house so she won’t freeze to death.”
Mulan didn’t answer. But she made up her mind that she would visit Honglian again and try to get her to talk.
(Link to Chapter 4)