Holiday Prompting Post

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Warrior Child [1/2]

[anonymous]

A/N: Hoping this might be something like what you're after?

He calls for one man from each family in the village. His people are warriors, horsemen; there is more excitement than anger when the word goes out. From some families multiple sons come, with or without their fathers, with pride in their eyes and their horses' reins in their hands. For too long have they looked at the fat, gloating Kingdom to the South, China thinking that it sits happy and safe behind its wall, and envied it.

There is one voice among the glee that rises in anger. The perpetrator is dragged to his tent: a young woman, jaw set and eyes flashing.

"You will not take my father!" she says. "He has done his fighting for you."

His men are holding one of her arms each, but she struggles valiantly against them. Shan-Yu regards her mildly. The women of this land are no wilting flowers either, not like the pretty painted things that China to the south seems to like.

"China will not defeat itself, little one," he replies, a hint of a purr in his voice. "I need men. And if your father is good enough a warrior to have come back once, he will do so again."

"He is old!" she cries, not an insult but a statement. "He was lamed defending you before. He could not fight again."

"Then send one of your brothers," he says, starting to turn away with a wave of his hand. "A cousin, an uncle. Find another."

"There are no others." Her voice goes cold, level, and he turns back with a curious twitch of his brow. She has fallen still in the men's grasps, hair hanging over her face, fire in her eyes. She is nothing more than a farming girl, he is quite sure, able to ride and to wield a scythe but not having held a sword in her life. "I have no brothers, no uncles. If you will not take my father, you must take me instead."

His men laugh, but he can see the fire in her eyes. "Very well," he says. "Cut your hair, bear your father's sword. Prove yourself alongside my men."

A wave of his hand, and the men release her. She shakes them off haughtily, and glares at each in turn with a venom he would be quite worthy of himself. Shan-Yu folds his mighty arms across his chest, and she turns her gaze on him for a moment longer, actually meeting his eyes. A rarity these days. Then, just before she can turn to go, he adds:

"What is your name?"

"Mulan." She replies with a haughty tilt of her chin. "Fa Mulan."

He smiles like a predator. "Then welcome to my army, Fa Mulan."

---

He keeps a particular eye on her as she learns to fight. With her hair cut short and tied in a bun, her chest bound (or so he presumes, though occasionally he amuses himself with thinking of her face should he ask) and wearing the same rough clothes as the others, the men do not seem to notice that there is a woman in their midst. They are too busy with swords and spears and bows in any case. At first she struggles, and once or twice he makes sure that he passes close by her as she trains, close enough for her to see the smirk on his face.

It always makes her redouble her efforts.

After a while she becomes... competent. Slips into obscurity with the others. Shan Yu thinks that his interest in the girl might be over, until he hears one day of an accident within the camp. It does to care for his men, and he follows the sounds of hubbub and worry, and finds streaks of blood on the snow and a man with blood spurting from his arm as others try in vain to stop the bleeding. Standing a short way off, sword in hand, blood on her face over her impassive expression, is Fa Mulan.

"He did not believe that I could fight," she says, by way of explanation, when he asks her what has happened.

Despite himself, Shan Yu finds himself smiling. "I'm sure he has learnt," he replies.

She snorts. "Not if he is dead."

She sheathes the sword and leaves, wiping blood from her forehead with the back of her arm as she does so. He wonders whether she had noticed that he had stopped watching so closely, and that thought too makes him smile.