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Her jade face who dares to watch?
She ruins cities with one chord.

“The Emperor of the Middle Kingdom sent an envoy?”

The trembling young man edged further into Shan Yu’s tent. He nodded, chin tucked tight into his chest as if he might disappear into his own body, and be spared the piercing gaze of the fiercest of the Huns.

The presence of a small regiment from the Middle Kingdom was no surprise to Shan Yu. They had been sighted as the sun had reached its apex. His men were fewer, and their horses faster, and so Shan Yu had decided to pick up the pace and to the main encampment. To his surprise, the men behind them had not followed: most had slowed their pace, leaving a party only large enough to track them. Their intent was neither battle nor capture. It was, it seemed, to deliver a message. “And what is the message?”

The man turned his head to the side.

“Speak!” What new humiliation that old nuisance of an Emperor wished to visit upon him, Shan Yu didn’t know, but his patience was limited.

 “…the Emperor…he…”

With movements fast and sharp as a bird of prey’s, Shan Yu seized the knife around his belt and sent it sailing towards the young man. It flew over his shoulder to lodge itself in one of his tent poles, dead at the center. “Speak. Now.” The message was clear, should the boy want to heed it.

It had been Shan Yu’s intention to die in the attempt on the Palace. To have failed in slitting the Emperor’s throat, to survive the fiery collapse of the tower, returning in defeat to what was left of his people…word around the camp was to keep one’s head down further than before when confronting Shan Yu these days.

The young man collapsed to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. “The – the Emperor has sent terms of surrender for us, including an offer of peaceful trade! To – to show us their goodwill, the Middle Kingdom will send fifty beauties to be taken as wives amongst our highest officers, for the continued peace of the realm.”

The soft, citified Middle Kingdom man that Shan Yu deigned to allow into his presence said much the same thing: as their tribe had been dealt a significant blow, the Emperor now offered to spare the lives of those who had survived Shan Yu’s ill-fated campaign past the Wall. In exchange for never again approaching said Wall as an enemy, the Emperor would compensate for his losses with riches. Not only would the Huns become trade partners, and be protected by the Middle Kingdom’s army should they ever need it: fifty dowries, on the heels of fifty women, who should be given to fifty of Shan Yu’s most trusted men.

A bounty, meant to alleviate the scarcity that drove them to scale that great stone monstrosity, and to replenish their numbers…though not too quickly, of course. The Emperor would be long gone by the time the boys born from his alliance, torn between the wild lands and the static cities, had grown into men.

It was a clever move. Many other tribes prowled the borders of that ancient fool’s domain, eager to breach the walls and take back the land, the riches. Even one enemy less was a measure of peace gained – and one alliance thwarted between the Huns and the rest of his enemies.

Ah, but that was the intent, of course. Who knew what spies, what whispers had accompanied this regiment? Neighboring tribes would know by now that he’d allowed the Emperor’s men into his camp, and that they’d left it alive. Whether or not he accepted the offer, he’d be seen as casting his lot with the Emperor.

He needed the Emperor’s mercy now.

(It burned more than the fires that threatened to consume his body, after that girl had bested him.)

The negotiations concerning the ‘peace-making beauties’ went on for an entire phase of the moon, progressing, stagnating and stopping altogether like a river in flood season. The envoys were unused to the manner of the Huns, too confined by politeness and ritual to state their intent - not unless they expressed fifty platitudes and quoted a thousand flowery poems first. Huns were not the uncouth barbarians that their Middle Kingdom allies expected, but theirs was the style of open, well-calculated quid-pro-quo, which the Middle Kingdomers found horrifically rude.

Shan Yu knew all of this. Every time he scandalized the envoys, he did so deliberately.

 He didn’t have fifty trusted officials, not after the slaughter in the Tung Shao Pass, but to confess such a weakness to his enemy would be like positioning a dagger over his own heart. Instead, he changed the stakes by infuriating his opponents: he protested that he couldn’t be burdened with fifty soft, useless Middle Kingdom women in these difficult days. There was no time to make them competent riders, weavers or hunters with winter upon them.

The Emperor countered with an offer to supplement their family dowries with season-appropriate provisions, an offer Shan Yu accepted with caution, already pondering what new argument might serve him to whittle down that number.

Should worse come to worse, Shan Yu would take several of them as his own wives, and make similar provisions for the rest with his surviving commanders. The thought of a tent full of thin, fragile women, with their poetry about birds, flowers and trees so far removed from the reality of the steppes, didn’t move his heart nor set fire to his blood. Nevertheless, a warrior knew to accept his lot.

 To his good fortune, the next imperial visit made it clear that these beauties were less than eager to leave their families in the numbers he’d been promised. Seizing the chance, Shan Yu made a great show of reducing the number to twenty, then to ten, magnanimous in helping his erstwhile enemy save face. He even managed to prolong things past winter, ensuring whatever brittle creatures were sent did not come to decimate their provisions, hungry and unused to the cold.

And Shan Yu had more than ten worthy, decent commanders.

The women, though scared and displaced, would be put in the tents of men affluent enough to care for them, and high-ranked enough to protect them, as they blundered into the life of a borderland tribe. They would be forced to do nothing, not even touch their husband’s hand.

In his more thoughtful moments, Shan Yu found humor in imagining the face of the envoy and of the Imperial minister (a shrill, shaking man called Chi Fu) should they ever learn of how thoughtful he had been of these strangers. Shan Yu had been decried as a monster all throughout the plains, sometimes amongst his own people, since he became a man after all.

But they all forgot that monsters were not always beasts. The fangliang ate only the dead, the jian only frightened other ghosts: the beast Shan Yu did not enjoy the suffering of women. He had slaughtered men, women and children alike in his attempt on the Middle Kingdom, but to those who were unarmed he granted a quick, easy death. Such was war, to destroy your enemy, even if he was still in the cradle. He had taken young lives, burned towns, yes, but he did not revel in the suffering, swift and practical rather than demonic. Only the weak considered the death of a helpless opponent, the needful act of burning down houses, an honor to be savored.

Which didn’t mean he was soft. One misunderstood Shan Yu’s true nature at one’s own peril: there had been whispers about his inability to make the Emperor bow. Shakes of the head, even muted laughter, a lot of noise made of such a small, old man and how he’d not quailed before the chieftain’s jagged sword.

Shan Yu had quickly deduced who spoke this slander, subjected them to twenty lashes, then made the punished parade their bloody backs around the camp until sunset.

(Ignorant whisperers. Nobody who’d been at his side in the Imperial City would have dared call the Emperor feeble. Foolish, proud, old of course, but not weak. Some begrudging respect had taken root in Shan Yu’s heart since that day, one that had made his survival less painful. Respect for the Emperor and for the woman, the same who was the soldier at Tung Shao, the one who infiltrated the palace and made fools of his best men.)

(Hua Mulan, they called her. Hua Mulan, savior of the empire. As Shan Yu and his men made his way back to Hun territory, fleeing the Middle Kingdom incognito, her name had been on the lips of merchants, travelers, soldiers and children alike. As if the woman were following them, a spirit escort ensuring Shan Yu left her home for good.)

But matters of war were matters of war, and the conflict was over. The women coming to join the tribe would not be adversaries. They were to be welcomed as Huns, because one the festivities were over, they would be Huns.

That would mean, though they might not realize it, freedom. For all its claims of civilization, the Middle Kingdom was unique in its cruelty to its women, intent on making them meek creatures condemned to the boudoir. Shan Yu’s mother was the mistress of her own tent, a hero who rode a horse into battle, and while he intended to take none of the women for himself, his commanders would offer them the same dignity, the same independence.

 Some would learn to play the part of Hun women, but would no doubt long for their stiff, square houses for the rest of their lives. Some, though he hoped not many, would chafe at the freedom, and find nothing but resentment. Those he planned to send back without compunction – one did not raise a snake close to the breast.

And some, perhaps two, perhaps one, would thrive with the merry ferocity of the wildflowers that braved the cliffs. Those would bear him true Huns.

She arrived with the peace-making beauties. Her face was as outstanding as any one of the brides’, but she was not on any of the carriages. She rode into camp on her own horse instead, dressed simply, and carrying a sword.

Shan Yu recognized her, of course. He might someday forget how to ride, how to wield a sword or even stand, but he would not forget the face of Hua Mulan. Hers was the face of his most bewildering defeat, after all.

Some of his men recognized her as well. They moved and whispered, restless, as the soldier from the mountain, the woman from the palace, dismounted and walked into their midst, behind the envoy but in front of Chi-Fu, for the presentation of the brides. Once the formalities were over, Shan Yu pointed a finger directly at his enemy.

“Why has the Emperor sent you of all people, Hua Mulan?”

If she was surprised that the great Shan Yu knew her name, she did not act so. Instead, Hua Mulan offered him a respectful bow.  “I’ve come to escort the brides sent to you by our great Emperor. I will stay until I can report to his majesty that these women have settled into their new lives.” She raised her eyes, posture polite, but defiance burning beneath her lashes. “Should the great Shan Yu agree to it.” Her address was civil, but her tone indicated that the Emperor had her respect; to Shan Yu, she merely leant some of it.

To send her away would have been the greatest show of weakness yet. His people would assume he’d been afraid of her, the brides would have decried her departure as the loss of their protector, and the Emperor would be offended – and perhaps pleased to know this small girl struck fear in the hearts of the Huns with her mere presence.

But rather than the short, cold dismissal this woman warranted, Shan Yu smirked. “And if I don’t?”

“I would ask you to consider letting me stay, for the good of both our people.”

“These are my people now. The peace-making beauties are now Hun…princesses.” The word was awkward on his tongue – gōngzhǔ. Princess. A title to designate a noblewoman, above the peasants but below the Empress. The Middle Kingdom put all of its men on an endless ladder, and each one battled for a place on the neighboring step, jinshis and princes, dukes and scholars. Endless, pointless yearning. Women had less positions to embitter themselves over, at least.

Hua Mulan’s eyes widened for a moment in surprise, though if at his use of the title or some other matter, he couldn’t say. She glanced towards the carriages: the curtain of one of them had been pulled aside, and several heads, behind red veils, were peering out. “Then will the Hun princesses please grant their humble servant the honor of staying to serve you longer?” She called out to them with a shade of authority in her voice, not as a supplicant.

Silence. Then a soft, tremulous voice.

“Y…yes.”

Then more. “Yes.”

“Please stay, Hua Mulan.”

“Yes.”

The rest of the carriages opened their windows, their occupants joining the chorus of unanimous consent. With a bow only a breath too slow to cover her triumphant grin, Hua Mulan turned to him again. “The Hun princesses ask that I stay, oh great Shan Yu. This humble servant can only obey.”

Hua Mulan didn’t simply stay. She presided over the presentation of the peace-making beauties, and the wedding festivities, like a mother overseeing the marriage of ten precious daughters. Never mind that she and the brides were almost of the same age, or that many had outranked her back home.

She was clever, not usurping the Emperor’s simpering Chi-Fu in too obvious a way. But it was her ordering the Middle Kingdom soldiers to help the women off the carriages, it was her helping them negotiate the grass through their long red wedding clothes, flitting back and forth between one and the other with concern. It was her explaining to one of his commanders, offended at the long, thick veils (“have you sent us horrible ogres, or murderesses with knives hidden in their sleeves?”) that their custom was for the bride to remain covered until her husband removed the veil in the privacy of their quarters.

Once the formal weddings were over, the feast concluded, it was her pacing the spaces between his camp and that of the Middle Kingdom in evident agitation. She alone kept vigil while the rest of the delegation had long put out their candles. Shan Yu, who caught sight of her while on patrol, entertained the thought of calling to her that the Huns did not eat people.

He dismissed it. She wouldn’t see it for the joke it was – perhaps especially not if it was him saying it.

(Shan Yu did do her the courtesy of joining her in her vigil, though he kept his in the silence of his tent.)

And it was her waiting in badly disguised anguish during their morning-after feast until each new married couple emerged from their tent. Her hands did not unclench from a knot in her lap until the last pair, shy and happy, stumbled in through the leather flap. Something like triumph, tinged in sadness, finally lit her face then.

When the Middle Kingdom delegation began to prepare its departure, Hua Mulan sought Shan Yu out. Once his guards had allowed her to, she strode through the door of his tent, throwing the leather curtain aside with determination.

“I’d like to request that the mighty Shan Yu grant me permission to stay longer.”

Shan Yu took a deep drag of the fresh kumis he’d been brought before answering. “Are you still afraid we’ll chop up the beauties and eat them?”

Her suspicion was somewhat offensive, but her idea wasn’t without merit. Where the brides were hesitant, even scared, Mulan shrugged off the taboos of the Middle Kingdom like a man might dust off a spider’s web caught in his hair: she did not hesitate to address his men when necessary, and was the first of them to dive into any meal put before her, sometimes even more fearlessly than the soldiers of her land. She asked questions often, and took her newfound wisdom back to the girls under her care like a mother hawk returning to her nest with food.

Most of the brides were friendly to Hua Mulan, clinging to her like calves to their mother. Two of them had taken have a more genuine interest in her of late, finding inspiration in her boldness: these two had begun the process of embracing the spirit of his tribe with an enthusiasm that pleased both their husbands and Shan Yu. One of them had even asked for clothes, ready to shed the impractical silk skirts she trailed on the ground. Shan Yu hadn’t hesitated, granting her furs and boots fit for a chieftain’s daughter.

The rest were falling into line more hesitantly, and those he observed with more patience. Some blundered, some seemed reluctant to adapt altogether. One openly resented Mulan, though Shan Yu hadn’t yet figured out if this angry little chick persisted in presenting her comb-filled hair to the winds out of spite for Hua Mulan, or of sincere resentment of his tribe.

But Hua Mulan was relentless in her kindness, even untangling the girl’s jade pin from a tent flap on the day her hair was piled too high.

Mulan flicked her eyes at him from her kowtow. “I’m not. I simply wish to serve the Hun princesses longer.”

Shan Yu didn’t have to ask to know they’d agree. “You’ll have to join our camp.” The Middle Kingdom set up its own camp, with its own tents, beside their own. Now that they were leaving, it was both impractical and dangerous for a lone pavilion to remain outside the greater Hun encampment.

“Then I ask to be granted a space for my tent.”

Shan Yu imagined the little cream and gold thing, rising defiant amidst the great tent-houses of his people, and allowed himself a laugh. “That little thing? It’ll be swept to rags by the winds before three days. I’ll grant you one of our own tents. It will be beside mine.” It would make it easier for him to keep an eye on her.

“Your humble servant thanks you for your consideration.” Her eyes were furious as distant windstorms as she bowed.

It was a pity that Hua Mulan had not been included as one of the peace-making brides.

It wasn’t that the rest had failed Shan Yu’s expectations. Half of the couples had fallen into an infatuated sort of fellowship, awed by the new worlds each other had made them aware of, and the other half were at the least making advances in becoming civil. Only the rebel, who Shan Yu now knew was called Lu Xiyue, seemed determined to sit in a corner of her pavilion in her silks and combs, ignoring her husband and her servants.

No. The problem was that, though she still dressed in a more practical variant of a Middle Kingdom woman’s silks, Hua Mulan seemed determined to be a better Hun than even his most trueborn general.

Though her primary concern was still her princesses, she began to dodge in and out of camp life whenever they were too engrossed in their own lives to need her. She started small, asking what this or that group was going, what they were doing, and how. She was clever, waiting until the sight of her wasn’t frightening to begin making greater demands.

“Hunting? Let me go with you, I don’t know how you hunt. I’ll help you carry the game back to camp.” Three outings later, she’d outdone their best archers, then almost reached the status of a goddess by shooting a tiger that had stalked them on the way back. She felled it with a single, well-placed arrow through the roof of the mouth.

The story rang in his ears for days. Shan Yu did not deign to acknowledge the feat beyond a short congratulation for saving his men. But he had ordered the pelt be treated and given to her. She seemed ambivalent at the present, even though nobody told her it was he who arranged it.

“Riding? I’ve never ridden the horses of your people. I’d be honored to be shown how you seat and ride your horses.” Soon, she took first place at every impromptu race she was challenged to, even when riding the short, strong horses of the Huns that her slender frame should have been too weak to withstand. Her own horse, black and sleek, was still her pride and joy however, and she refused any offers to trade it for another.

Haoyu, one of his most happily married commanders, approached Shan Yu at the next great feast – supplemented immensely by Mulan’s arrows. “Could that woman be a foundling, one of our own blood, misplaced as a child? She hunts and rides better than my own brother.”

Shan Yu looked across the fire to where Mulan sat, engrossed in cutting her meat. She was earning a place in the hearts of the husbands of her princesses, and in the hearts of those who hunted and rode with her. And yet she wasn’t one of them, a pure white doe in a flock of red deer.

“No. That woman’s blood hasn’t seen its like anywhere.”

As if she’d heard him, Mulan looked up, catching his gaze. Neither looked away, a subtle battle of wills, until a cracking log allowed them both to surrender at the same time.

The day came, of course, when Lu Xiyue offended her husband for the last time. The quarreling couple came before Shan Yu to settle the matter, though it was obvious that the only way out was divorce.

Though he allowed the two of them to state their case and make their demands, the matter was settled in Shan Yu’s mind long before they’d crossed his threshold. Once the shouting had become cold glaring, he turned to Xiyue, face blank. “What would the princess have me do?”

“I want to go.”

“Is there nothing here amidst my tribe that might keep you?”

Lu Xiyue turned away from her husband and Shan Yu both. “I’d rather die than stay here.”

He had supposed it to be so. “My people have no room for vipers. You will be granted a divorce and sent home.”

“The marriage hasn’t been consummated.”

“That is of no interest to me.”

That finally seemed to surprise Lu Xiyue. She turned her entire body back to Shan Yu, her face troubled. “But the dowry –“

“Is yours. You will take it back with you, down to the very last jade hairpin,” Shan Yu declared. “Your Emperor sent it with you on the condition that you become a bride, and you have not. You’ll return a woman unattached, with her dowry untouched.”

Lu Xiyue stared at him in disbelief. Shan Yu had no patience for yet another woman suspicious of his nature. “You.” He nodded at her now former husband, Ling Yu. “Have the girl’s belongings packed. Make sure everything in the dowry is accounted for, the dowry list will be in your hands in a moment.” Then, turning to the girl again. “You leave tomorrow at dawn. Don’t waste any more time. Prepare.”

Ling Yu left without a word. Lu Xiyue remained, staring in bewilderment at Shan Yu as if she expected him to change his mind. Shan Yu went to the ornate chest at the foot of his work table and produced the girl’s dowry list, then dropped it into her lax hands. “Go,” he ordered, “before I decide I might like to keep your dowry.”

“Ah – yes, yes Empe – I mean. Yes.” She bowed, her towering mountain of hair almost sweeping the rugs in the first show of true respect she’d displayed since her arrival, then bolted out of the tent.

Lu Xiyue’s departure occurred bright and early next morning. The grass was still thick with dew when the girl, with a joyful sparkle that nobody had ever seen in her, allowed Ling Yu to help her mount a horse. Though the match had been ill-advised, Ling Yu was a decent man, and thought it only right that he join the delegation now entrusted with escorting his unwilling former bride, along with all of her earthly possessions, back to the Middle Kingdom. She’d be safe, both from outsiders and other Huns, and would reach the Wall sore from horseback, but otherwise no worse for wear.

None of the other brides woke to see her off. She had, it seemed, irritated all of them enough to earn their enmity as well. But Hua Mulan did. She burst from her tent as Shan Yu prepared to address the departing party.

“Wait, what’s going on?” She had dressed, but her long hair was not in the orderly, unadorned updo that Shan Yu had grown accustomed to. It hung like a sheet of shining jet down to her shoulders, catching the morning light as she cantered to them? “What – princess, wha –“ she turned to Shan Yu with a hint of accusation in her eyes.

“The two people involved in this marriage are in disharmony. I granted them a divorce, and I’m sending the reluctant bride back to the Middle Kingdom.”

Mulan’s eyes darted between “She’ll have to ride for days.”

“She seems enthusiastic about it.”

“She doesn’t know how hard it can be. She and the other Hun princesses arrived by carriage.”

“I’m not a Hun princess, Hua Mulan. I’m a lady of the Middle Kingdom, the daughter of Lu Chen.” Lu Xiyue spoke with pride, but without malice, too happy to be going home to resent Mulan any longer.

Mulan turned to her with concern. “At least give me time to ride and inform the – “

“I don’t want to be here another day! You just want to preserve the precious accord! Well I will not be a peace-making bride anymore. I want to go home. The - the lord Shan Yu has already given his consent,” she exclaimed, her eyes cutting towards Shan Yu, then away, as if he might make her stay if she dared gaze too long. “You’re overstepping, Hua Mulan.”

“I don’t mean to –“

Lu Xiyue turned desperate, haughty mask crumbling to reveal the frightened child she’d been all along. “I don’t care what you mean! I’m not a pawn or a good! I’m a person, and I want to go home!”

At that, Mulan closed her mouth. After a moment, she bowed to a triumphant Lu Xiyue. “As the princess commands. I wish you a safe journey home.”

“Thank you for your care and your protection, Hua Mulan. You may leave.”

Mulan retreated from the scene without turning her back. When she did, however, Shan Yu thought there was rebuke in her gaze as it swept past him.

In dealing with such a woman, it was best to do as for a bitter winter: assume the worst and be prepared. As such, Shan Yu dismissed the Middle Kingdom-bound party and retreated to his tent, prepared to be braided by her in the most unfair terms possible.

Hua Mulan, as it happened, was no slow, inclement winter. She was a wildfire, racing across dry grass with stealth and great speed.

 She didn’t come to his tent, or seek him out at any of the meals that day. She lay in wait instead, along the route Shan Yu took when it was his turn at night patrols, emerging from the dark like an angry spirit when he appeared.

“Honorable Shan Yu.” She bothered only with the slightest of jerks for a bow. “You should have sent word to the Emperor before you made a decision like that.”

“The Emperor rules over his subjects, I rule over mine. That girl was a Hun until the moment she rode out of this camp. I made provisions for her – provisions that she agreed to every step of the way.”

 “She’s young, and she’s never been outside of her parents’ house, not until she came here. She doesn’t understand.”

“She seemed to understand well enough when she demanded her dowry returned in full.”

“She knows the laws, but she is ignorant of reality.”

“A reality I cannot afford to ignore.”

Mulan’s eyes remained hard and unmoved. “No. Of this reality, you know nothing. You don’t know how hard it is for a woman to return to the house of her parents after a divorce. And neither does she: she’ll be treated as if she’s failed at her greatest duty. She’ll carry both the stigma of disappointing her family and of disappointing her Emperor, her people.”

“And you think delaying her departure would have made the world more accepting of her, do you?”

“No, but coming back at the Emperor’s order might have helped her save face. Now she’ll return home a banished bride, a divorcee.”

“A path that she chose. She can choose to seize this as a chance for a new life, whatever the whispers.”

Her face turned frantic. “But she doesn't know how! Choosing anything means having foresight, and Lu Xiyue can barely imagine her life an incense stick in advance. She didn't consider how she's never ridden a horse before agreeing to several days of it.”

“You saw her with your own eyes. A battalion couldn’t have convinced her to get off that horse. May the relief of leaving my tribe help ease the chafing of her legs.”

Mulan frowned, and her eyes became even colder. “You don’t care.”

“I cared enough to free her from this, her prison. Any other considerations were hers to make.”

Mulan looked away.

“You hate me.” It was a casual observation.

That made her look up once again, surprised. But those dark eyes remained opaque, wood coal drowned in water. No amount of fire would make them come to life. “I saw what you did to that village in the Tung Shao Pass.” She said after a moment, ice in her every word. “Even the children...” She looked away.

“We were at war, Hua Mulan.” There might come a time when one of the tribes grew big enough to tame the others, or when the kingdoms united into a huge, unwieldy monster that would then subjugate them all into its crowded, earth-bound houses, and all these endless turf fights might end. But that time had not yet come. “If I’d spared anyone, the children would have grown to men and joined your army, then ridden out for our blood.”

“Or they might not have.” Her voice was an angry hiss. “They could have chosen to become farmers, or monks. Or scholars. Or just fathers. You took that choice away from them.” She looked to the ground, somehow more haughty for it rather than less. “You believe the world is as dark and twisted as you are.”

Ah. Like the sun banishing morning mist, the truth of the situation dawned clear in Shan Yu’s mind.

Hua Mulan had made up her mind about him long before their eyes had met, her behind a cannon, him atop his horse. She expected a monster, from the moment news of the invasion reached her village perhaps, and so a monster was what she saw. What Shan Yu truly did mattered little: to her, he was a demon, whether he ordered the brides chopped and cooked into a stew or not.

The great Hua Mulan could see strategies where nobody else could, turn the most hopeless of dead-ends into victories, but could not see beyond her own nose when it came to the true nature of people. How…tragically amusing. He could appreciate irony, far better than the platitudes of overwrought poetry.

Outwardly, however, Shan Yu matched her coldness. “What of the hundreds you buried in that avalanche? Did it matter to you whether they were someone’s children? Many of them were fathers. Some were younger than you are now.”

The face that turned to him then was stunned for a moment before hardening in resolution. “They chose to follow you into territory that wasn’t yours, to take what wasn’t theirs.” Her words were as unwavering as her Emperor’s monstrous Wall, but her eyes showed a hint of something else, soft and conflicted. “They decided to attack. The Middle Kingdom was only defending itself. Its land, its people.”

“It wasn’t always your land, and your Wall hasn’t always been there. Your ancestors decided it was theirs, and slaughtered my ancestors until it became yours by force. Who has the oldest claim? Who has the truest one?” Shan Yu took a step forward. “What makes your cause fair, and mine unfair?”

Many a larger, more fiercely armed man had run at Shan Yu’s proximity. Mulan held her ground without a single hint of a tremor. “That you seem determined to make every step as bloody as you can.”

“War is war.”

“War is wrong. The choices we make may be necessary, but they’re no less wrong.” Something like pain flashed across Mulan’s face. “I know what I’ve done. That I’ve shed blood. I…there’s nothing to be proud of about it.” She exhaled. “How many have you killed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you remember their faces? Their names?”

“No. Do you?”

“No. But I regret that I don’t.”

“Is this why you hated the tiger pelt so much?”

A flash of surprise now showed on her face clearly for an instant. “I hated that I had to kill a living thing for acting as nature ordered it to. Tigers kill, for food. For the safety of themselves and their cubs.”

Shan Yu couldn’t contain his amusement at that. He allowed himself a chuckle, one that grew into raucous laughter before he could think better of it. “So you can find mercy for a wild creature, but not for us? My people fight for their survival, Hua Mulan, just like that tiger did. We become ever more dangerous when we’re wounded and desperate, just as it would have, had your arrows missed their mark.”

Shan Yu considered telling her that power, while quite welcome, hadn’t been the driving force behind his invasion. That there was scarcity here, even though it wasn’t evident now, that the Middle Kingdom’s rich, idle accumulation seemed to call for them when the border plains’ wild riches ran dry. Instead, he offered her the briefest of nods. “Brand us as monsters if you must. But even monsters have their conditions. Appease them or avoid them, and you’ll never need to fear them. Judge for yourself if not doing so is wise or not.” And he left, continuing his patrol without a second glance at the woman left in his wake.

After their encounter that night, Shan Yu stopped seeing any hint of Hua Mulan anywhere. Had it not been for the information of his officers, he would have assumed she’d left, back to the Middle Kingdom to stew in her misplaced anger.

As it turned out, she was simply avoiding him, with such dedication that she’d managed to cajole the rotation of men and women in charge of the cooking fires to feed her last. That meant she’d be served long after the last of his own men had sat down to their meals – and that Shan Yu couldn’t have waited for her without making it quite clear that he was, in fact, waiting for her.

Why she remained at camp was anyone’s guess. Without Lu Xiyue to disturb the process, the Hun princesses were growing into their roots apace. Her presence was more unnecessary with each passing day.

Perhaps she’d taken his advice, and had decided to remain forever, standing between her girls and the bestial nature of the Huns. The thought amused him.

Mulan didn’t deign to speak to him, or even appear in his presence, for many long days. Shan Yu was convinced she might have turned it into their natural state, mutual absence, had it not been for an incident that he would have dismissed as unimportant.

A common meal turned into a feast when a batch of especially rich liquor reached the camp, a present from the Emperor to his allies. (Let it never be said that the cunning old fox didn’t know how to cultivate his friends). There was revelry, joking, exclaiming and posturing. The men were happy, the women glad and tolerant, even the Hun princesses.

Except for Shen Guo, one of Shan Yu’s own, and his wife Gao Zhilan.

Shan Yu knew Guo as a perfectly capable subordinate and warrior. He had, however, the most unfortunate sense of his own inferiority, threatened by the talents of his brother at arms, of the other men in the camp. When alcohol flowed, Shen Guo might become loud and pathetic, or quiet and shy; this time however, his silence was sullen. Perhaps it was the drink itself, a testament to their defeat, or the fact that it was the first time he’d drunk too much while in the presence of his wife, but he’d become silent and glowering. He watched Zhilan deliver witty remarks and landing clever jokes with something like distaste in the twist of his mouth.

The same instinct that had often alerted Shan Yu of enemies in the darkness urged him to keep an eye on the proceedings, and so he did.

Not a whole incense stick later, Zhilan delivered a gentle barb at his expense, and Gao’s face went deathly white.

Shan Yu had seen the signs, tasted the hints of aggression in the air. But he was still surprised when, by way of a reply, Shen Guo pulled back his arm, as if preparing for a strike.

Whether he simply meant to scare his wife, or whether he meant to follow through with the act, nobody ever knew, for Guo was flat on his back before he’d finished blinking. The man looked up, irritated, until his alcohol-hazed eyes cleared enough to see just who loomed over him. Sobering terror flooded them instead.

“Shan Yu! Chief Shan Yu!” He blinked again, perhaps at the enormity of what he’d almost done, perhaps at the mere horror of being caught.

Regardless, his days as one of Shan Yu’s sworn men were over. A man so weak he could not take his own wife's humor, so stupid that he could respond to someone more capable with thoughtless violence, would one day make a mistake too expensive for his life alone to atone for it. “You will report to my tent in the morning. Your wife will be there. You will give her, and me, an explanation for your actions tonight.” He didn’t need to give him a time. Everyone at camp knew that Shan Yu would wake near dawn, no matter how long his patrol the night before or how many beers he’d consumed. Guo would be there as the sun rose in the East, or face grave punishment.

When he turned to the girl, Zhilan was already bowing in deference. “I request the honorable Shan Yu let me spend the night somewhere else.”

“No.”

“But – “

“You are the mistress of the home,” Shan Yu interrupted, raising a hand. “He is the one who decided to treat the mistress of his home with such carelessness. Let him find a place to sleep elsewhere. If anyone will have him.” And the cold look that Shan Yu bestowed on everyone, lingering here and there, indicated that Shen Guo would spend the night stumbling alongside the night watchers or huddled with his horse.

Guo stumbled out of the tent they were carrying on in, more in shock than in his cups. The party resumed after a lull.

And, somewhere outside the reach of his eyes, Shan Yu thought he could sense the keen eyes of another woman, no rebuke in the air. Even you will find no fault with me tonight, Hua Mulan.

Shan Yu Granted Gao Zhilan the divorce she requested the following day – alongside a request to remain with the Huns. He couldn’t hide a small eyebrow quirk of surprise at the request. “You want to stay?”

Zhilan had not been amongst the fastest to adapt, or the most enthusiastic. There was a melancholy in her that most had taken for homesickness, for nostalgia. On some nights, the scouts had reported a shrill keening – only to discover the young lady of the Gao clan, singing opera to herself away from the tents.

(Shen Guo had reprimanded her harshly then. Shan Yu had assumed he’d been concerned that the distance from the camp might have put her in danger, the unusual sounds attracting both enemy scouts and curious predators. He knew better now).

Now that he was looking at her more closely though, her sadness seemed all gone. There was new life to her movements, a glow to her eyes. This woman would adapt better on her own terms.

“I want to stay, great leader. I have seen the beauty of these lands, of these people. Your people. I wish to embrace them as my own, if you’ll allow it.”

“You may never watch another opera if you stay.”

An unusually amused twist of the mouth illuminated her face. “Noble women are allowed to sing opera, chief Shan Yu, but only at family functions.  They can’t become performers to a real audience, or abandon the back rooms to travel the world. I can sing my songs to the crickets here, just like I did at home. All I want is freedom.”

And to that, Shan Yu was perfectly amenable. “What does your name mean?”

“Zhilan. Iris orchid.”

He knew that. “Iris orchids thrive on the stony ground at the base of the great mountains.”

Zhilan looked up in surprise. Something in Shan Yu’s face made her smile, sincere this time. “I will not disappoint you, great leader.”

After the sun had slipped past its apex, as the separation of the households of Shen Guo and Gao Zhilan was witnessed by everyone in the Hun encampment, Hua Mulan finally deigned to reappear in Shan Yu’s sight.

She hovered at the very edge of the activity as Gao Zhilan was moved into her new tent, all her dowry placed in her new home with enthusiasm from her new servants. Shan Yu made note of her presence but did not acknowledge her.

She kept appearing, always at the edge of his vision, quite often after that.

She was as distant as she ever had been in the past, but some harshness, some silent ember of anger, was extinguished. When they'd crossed paths before, she would sink into a bow immediately and stay so until he left, warding him off rather than welcoming him with her acknowledgement. Now she would continue what she was doing, be it chatting with whoever was manning the cooking fires, bow, then continue her task or her conversation, no longer unwilling to allow Shan Yu to witness her life.

Shan Yu didn’t think it necessary to mark this change. He behaved as he always had, silent and ponderous, but never forbidding.

“Lord Shan Yu.”

He didn’t look up from a report from the Middle Kingdom (long, excessively ornate, a waste and a half) about the movements of hostile tribes, acknowledging his visitor with a nod instead.

“Hua Mulan has requested to join the watch rotation.”

Shan Yu paused and looked up at that. “Did you answer?”

“I said this was your decision to make.”

Had the request come from any other Middle Kingdom resident, anyone at all, Shan Yu’s “no” would have been swift and unhesitant. Even now that he didn’t need to fear a spy reporting on his people’s movements (not daily, at least), he would not trust a foreigner to take care of his camp and his people the same way one of his own would do. Keeping the tedious, uneventful watch bored even the best of his men; it was only concern for the safety of their family that kept them somewhat alert.

This woman, he knew, would be neither. Even though she was his greatest enemy, and the architect of his great defeat. No, Hua Mulan would keep an alert ear and eye, would gently reprimand anyone falling short of their duty.

She would protect these people who’d fight her to the death, perhaps at the cost of her own life.

“Tell her she has my permission.”  When the guard did not leave, Shan Yu suppressed a sigh. “What is it?”

“She…she asked for us to put her on the same watch rotation as yourself.”

Shan Yu only hesitated for a single heartbeat. “Do as she asks.” He would accept this for the wordless apology that it was.

It was three entire rotations of the watch later that his path and Mulan’s crossed again. It was night, a quiet one with a sense of emptiness that promised peace across the plains, at least for the time being. Shan Yu was circling back to where the next group would relieve him of the watch when the small, slim shadow crept closer to him.

“Honorable Shan Yu.”

“Hua Mulan.”

In the wan moonlight, he could see her straighten from the most respectful bow she’d ever offered him. She rose, but didn’t make a sound.

Shan Yu counted off slowly in his mind. As he reached one, he began to raise a foot –

“Who are you?”

Shan Yu lowered his foot back to the ground. “I thought we’d already had this argument before. I am the monster that eats men whole and forgets their faces the next moment.”

“You are,” she replied, voice soft. “And you’re also the man who didn’t hesitate to strike a man he trusted, for a woman born to be his enemy.”

“I struck a man for raising his hand to his wife.”

“Disciplining one’s wife is normal.”

“In your kingdom, perhaps. Here, we scold unruly colts and misbehaving children. Gao Zhilan was neither.”

Somehow, even he could sense a fog of confusion descending upon the woman in front of him. “Who are you?”

“I am a monster, Hua Mulan,” Shan Yu insisted, stepping around the woman as he did. “It is up to you to decide what kind.” And he walked away, conscious of the resounding silence at his back.

“Lord Shan Yu.”

He turned from where he was reviewing a map pinned to his wall to find Mulan yet again in a respectful bow, a box and a small leather bag at her feet. His sentries had been instructed to allow her in without demanding she state the reason for her presence, but Shan Yu hadn't expected her to use this privilege at all.

He turned away from his map. “Hua Mulan.”

She straightened, and for the first time, dared to show a hint of apprehension in his presence. “Has…has the great leader of the Huns ever heard of elephant chess?”

“No. Should I have?”

“No.” Mulan picked up the box and bag. “It’s a game. I’m fond of it, and I haven’t had the chance to play it since I came.”

“You could teach it to any of my men. They're starved for entertainment more often than I care to acknowledge.”

“This is a game of war. I think nobody here would appreciate its intricacies better than the honorable Shan Yu.”

Clever as a silk merchant she was. “Very well.” Shan Yu headed to his desk and cleared it of its maps, messages and correspondence. He watched as Mulan spread a board run all across with lines. “What is it that you’re truly looking for here?”

Mulan looked up from the leather bag where the pieces were, colors rising on her porcelain face.

“Are you hunting monsters?”

She looked away, ashamed for the first time. “No. I’m…I hope to understand you better.”

“I am not the sum total of the Huns. You’re wasting your time if you intend to gain a better understanding of all of us through me.”

With a quick glance in his direction, Mulan resumed removing the pieces from the leather bag. “I understand.”

Which meant she was aware, and determined to try anyway. Shan Yu found little reason to spoil her chosen pastime. “What are the rules of this game?”

The game was, as she’d mentioned, a war: two armies faced off against each other from either side of the board, intent on capturing the other side’s general. They moved along the lines carved into the board, intent on reaching the other side. A river crossed the middle of the board, making some pieces more agile, like the soldiers, or becoming an unpassable limitation to others, like the elephants. There were horses, chariots, and even cannons, each moving in accordance to their nature over the spaces.

Once he'd heard the exact nature of each piece (the short strides of the soldiers, the slow lumber of the elephants), Shan Yu raised a hand. “Very well. Let’s play.”

Mulan looked up from where she'd been illustrating a specific move with a few pieces in bewilderment. “But I haven’t finished explaining all the rules.”

“Explain as we go. Everything will make more sense in practice.” Even as the words left his mouth, Shan Yu could almost see the way Mulan took note of them, adding another item to her imaginary list of things concerning Huns: ‘monstrous leader likes hands-on explanations’. He felt content with the assessment.

Mulan looked at the board, then at him. “I agree.”

Mulan won their first game, as was expected. She moved her pieces efficiently, blocking Shan Yu’s efforts and securing his general before long. She was gracious in her victory, thanking her opponent for his time and his patience rather than gloating. “You really did grasp the rules better from watching me,” she commended, putting the pieces away. “I could see you plan as I moved my own.”

“Your Sun Tzu said something about knowing oneself and knowing your enemy, I believe.” When the slim hand paused, Shan Yu barely suppressed a laugh. “Do your people believe monsters are illiterate?”

“No,” she replied in a hurry. But when next she came, she attempted to ask him about some poet or other.

“That a monster can read doesn't mean he is interested in every bit of writing.” And he punctuated his statement with the swift capture of one of her soldiers.

“I didn't want to assume. Not anymore.” She winced as he put the piece on his side of the table. He'd called it the “cemetery” until he noticed her discomfort, and it became merely the “prisoners’ camp” by silent agreement.

“Assuming in life can be as near-sighted as assuming in war.” That was as close as he cared to rebuke her.

Mulan lowered her head chastened - but she won both that game, and next four, with ease. The fifth she won with one or two frights.

“Some men spend their entire lives figuring out just how to cross the river,” Mulan commented. There was admiration in her tone should he choose to find it.

“A man, am I? Should I be grateful that you've noticed my humanity, or saddened that you think I'm merely a mortal now?”

Mulan had only bowed, face very red, and Shan Yu’s laughter had escorted her on her way out the tent.

By the tenth game, Mulan spent more time focusing on the board than she did explaining why this or that move was illegal, or attempting to coax out the great truths of his nature from Shan Yu. She did, of course, continue to find simple truths on her visits, but the conflict at their fingers demanded most of her attention.

Shan Yu won their twelfth game. Mulan conceded her defeat with as much generosity as she did her victories.

Shan Yu found no reason to tell her so, but he too enjoyed both their games and their meetings. He too made note of things: Mulan was as careful of the pieces as she might have been of a real army. Once Shan Yu became capable enough to make his pieces cross the river, she’d fall back, intent on protecting her general and her army rather than making inroads into his territory.

It got to the point that Shan Yu made a remark about it as he captured one of her soldiers. “These are pieces. Not people.”

“They could be.”

“In real war, you don’t have lines and rules to govern you. You could stop your campaign at once, order your captured subordinates rescued.”

“I know.”

Shan Yu found it amusing. “Very well. I suppose it doesn't make a difference that, in our game, every prisoner returns home alive, no matter who wins. Should this be the cemetery again?” He tapped the captured pieces for emphasis.

“No!” She exclaimed, then covered her mouth in embarrassment.

Shan Yu laughed at her, of course, but took care to do so kindly. Though for different reasons, he too would not mind it if a war ended always with no casualties.

By their thirtieth game, Shan Yu finally remembered that Hua Mulan was beautiful.

He’d noticed before, of course, but beauty without substance had always meant little to him, like the ornate doorways of the mansions of the Middle Kingdom: elaborate, expensive and pointless. Now, knowing the rosy-cheeked beauty had the mind of a strategist, her appearance became achingly human, and Shan Yu could only lament that she’d not joined the peace-making brides. What a Hun she would have made.

He didn’t need to ask why she'd not been one of them, of course. The way she moved about the world left no doubt in anyone’s mind that this woman would only submit to marriage on her own terms. To be given away to an unknown man in an unknown land, for the sake of a fragile peace, would have been heinous to her.

But what a shame that was. Her strategizing, while too focused on preserving lives rather than accomplishing her goals for Shan Yu’s taste, was truly ingenious. Her hunting, her riding, were exceptional. He couldn’t fathom which of his men he would have given her to, had she come in a bride’s red dress, but he’d begun to feel truly sorry that she could not be bound to his tribe. Maybe, in another life, if the gods were kind.

The realization changed little about their shared company. Their shared chess games had, of course, made their daily interactions less trained, and Mulan would often speak to him when their rounds about camp ended, but her beauty and her merits did not make Shan Yu stumble, stutter or gape. It was a fact, an observation of nature: the sun rose in the east, the moon waxed and waned, Hua Mulan was as clever and brave as she was beautiful. Shan Yu could stare at the moon's glow without being affected by its departure during the day; he could watch Mulan exist beside him without it disturbing his peace.

“You’ve been here for a long time now.”

“Half a year, chief Shan Yu.” Mulan didn’t look up from repositioning her cannon as she spoke.

“Your family must miss you.”

Her eyes became softer, a sad smile making her features gentler. “They must. But being the Emperor’s right hand means I’m not as free as I was when I was just the daughter of the Hua clan.”

“And yet you’re not here on the orders of your Emperor.”

“I am and I’m not. He’s interested in the welfare of this alliance, and he suggested I stay for as long as I needed to, to make sure it prospered.”

“But your meddling was your own.”

Mulan tucked her chin into her chest.

“It’s been useful. You’re welcome to keep meddling for as long as you remain here.”

“That may be a long time.”

“Then you may stay a long time.”

Mulan smiled, and did not lose her contented air when Shan Yu captured her cannon a moment later.

Life out in the Hun encampment, harsh though it was, had a cadence, a stability to it. Even the camp’s movements, following the movements of game and the shifting moods of the heavens, didn’t break the sensation of constancy and safety.

But there was no true refuge from change anywhere in the world. Just as trees grew and fell, calves grew into horses, young men turned into old men, the year of the peace-making brides wore on, and the Emperor found the need to communicate further with his new Hun allies.

 A boy came to the camp at first light, on the day which would have marked Shan Yu and Mulan’s sixtieth game. He came under the Middle Kingdom’s banner and escorted by a small enough group of horsemen as to not cause alarm.

He was well fed, evidence of a good life, but his muscles were strong. He had the telltale air of a man who’d seen battles, not a city boy hardened by play-exercise. This was a man who would wake as you sneaked up to his bedroll to kill him, and fight back with the knife he kept beneath the sheets.

“Li Shang greets you, Chief Shan Yu. I come with good wishes from the Emperor, and treasures that he wishes to grant you in the name of friendship.”

“Thank your Emperor for me, then.”

The boy was nothing but polite and serious, but there was something anticipatory to him, like a horse sensing a distant storm. He was half distracted as the treasures were presented to Shan Yu, then outright nervous, staring at the leather curtain as some of the Hun princesses came in to greet the envoys from home.

And the Mulan entered the tent. She froze, looking at the boy, before smiling and calling out: “Shang!”

The boy’s entire face lit up like the plains at dawn.

Ah. Shan Yu studied both of them as they greeted each other, hands outstretched. Like watching thunder strike a tree: a unique spectacle, governed by forces outside his control.

Mulan did not appear with her chess board that day, nor the next, nor the one after that.

Shan Yu examined the boy’s face as he walked, talked and ate with Mulan, tenderness evident even to an outsider like Shan Yu. This boy knew the face of every man he’s killed. No doubt he’d see them in his dreams, suffering over them when he woke. He may even have taken to the great scrolls that idle men penned, men who passed judgement without ever having killed, about how to think and when to think it, for comfort.

Shan Yu did not disdain written words, not even the ones penned by his enemies. But he had no use for the ones obfuscating the great, simple truths he had tested a thousand times.

That was what he'd have told Mulan, had she ever ventured to ask about what books he had and hadn't read: a book, a scroll, would only gain his trust if it spoke truthfully, rather than soothed his mind. It should treat death as a natural thing, like birth. To wallow in the precise tone of a man's emotions as he imparted death was to miss its place in the process of life altogether.

He supposed that this method might have deprived him somewhat. There might be wondrous words he’d never know, poetry he might like, but never appreciate, buried in the obfuscation. But that was alright by him. Shan Yu was who he was. There was also no escaping the fate he’d wrought with his own two hands and his great, curved sword, be it his defeat at the Forbidden City or the coming of the boy.

(He stopped listening for soft steps, stopped waiting for a dark head slipping into his tent with chess pieces clinking in a leather bag, faster than he thought he would).

The reunion, cheerful though it was at the beginning, soured quite suddenly by the fourth day. After three days of seeing Mulan and Li Shang at ease in one another's presence all the time, Shan Yu was taken aback to notice they both took seats at opposite ends of the camp for meals.

They argued that night, audibly. The boy kept trying to take Mulan’s hand over and over, eager to make some point. Over and over she resisted, and the standoff continued for an entire shift of the watch. It was her who left at last, the boy staring at her retreating form with a thunderstruck expression.

Mulan avoided him altogether the following morning

He and the other envoys left soon after, business concluded. The boy was as courteous as he’d been at the start as he took his leave, but with a distinct hollowness to his eyes.

Mulan returned to Shan Yu’s tent that night – without the chessboard.

“I’m surprised to see you again, Hua Mulan.”

She made no move to reply, only stared at Shan Yu as if he should know what was to be said. “Li Shang was my commander in the army.” She said at length.

“I remember him.”

“You…you killed his father. General Li.”

Which made his composure even more surprising. The boy at least understood that war was war, no pointless grudges held against Shan Yu or his people. “I have killed many.”

“He was the general stationed in the village you burned in the Tung Shao pass.”

And that, surprisingly, Shan Yu did remember. The general with the feather on his helmet had fought with both skill and courage. His son's actions at the palace would have pleased General Li greatly.

“He asked me to return. That I could request to be assigned to matters within the kingdom. I…he said we could be married.”

Ah.

“I said no. I said…I said I wanted to stay. But I couldn’t explain why to him, and we fought.”

That came as an ever greater surprise to Shan Yu. Not her refusal: he’d noticed his life and his world creeping into Mulan’s heart like a tree stretching its roots. It was her confusion about why it was that she wanted to stay, a confusion even he himself had no recourse to assuage.

Had she been any other woman, Shan Yu would have assumed she was fond of freedom. But this was a woman with an unusual status, equal to the highest of the men in the ridiculous staircase of merit of the Middle Kingdom. What could have caught her eye, he did not know.

“Has your Emperor called you back?”

“No, he just requested information on the Hun princesses from me.” Still staring at him.

Regardless of her desires, Shan Yu knew what his answer should be. “Then stay and figure out what it is that keeps you here. You have my permission.” Nobody that wanted to leave was kept, but nobody that wanted to stay was forced out.

Mulan blinked, her fixed stare easing, and she bowed with a small smile on her lips.

Hua Mulan did not return to his tent with her chessboard again. But Shan Yu didn’t miss her presence very much, as she seemed to be everywhere he turned: three men away during mealtimes, a step and a half behind him during patrols.

She spoke to him too, true conversation rather than interrogation even:

“I think Hailan, Haoyu’s wife, might be pregnant. She's become very fond of kumis, and the scent of cooked meat makes her sick. Do pregnant women develop aversions to things they loved like that? Her husband is happy enough to make her stews, but he's concerned that she may lose weight. Would it be inappropriate to send the midwife to them?”

“You know her better.”

Shan Yu was a man of few words, even when he wasn’t being probed with questions, but Mulan took it in stride, and seemed content to hold the silences when they came as well.

Her keen eyes were also quite capable of noticing things he himself had missed.

“Zhilan seems to look at you often,” she informed him one night.

“As she should. I am to her now what your Emperor has been to your people all their lives.”

“She seems to look at you a little more…brightly than I’d look at the Emperor.”

“I am not an old man after all.”

Mulan had laughed at that, but seemed no less concerned.

She was right, as it turned out, for the very next day, when Haoyu proposed a toast after an especially successful hunt, Zhilan rose to join as well.

“To the ancestors! To the gods!”

“To the Emperor, may he be good and just!”

“Nobody is as good and just as the great Shan Yu,” Zhilan declared, raising the cup aloft. There was a sparkle in her eyes that Shan Yu was a heartbeat too slow to identify.

Admiration wasn’t a terrible ingredient in attachment, but it seemed to be the only element in hers. Shan Yu would have to remember to arrange some other match for her soon. Just a possible match, not a fixed arrangement; women of warm affection like that did their best when there was an object of desire to focus on.

Two days later, Mulan appeared at his tent with her chessboard. It was dusk, and neither of them had patrols that night. She was idle, perhaps bored. Shan Yu welcomed her presence all the same. “Don't suppose I'll be gentler with your soldiers just because we haven't played for some time.”

“I expect no less than our chief’s best.” She hesitated, then cleared her throat. “I propose a challenge to you, chief Shan Yu.”

“Speak.”

“I’d like to ask you for a boon if I win.”

“I agree.” Mulan coveted so few things, Shan Yu was curious about what had caught her eye. A horse, a particular sword perhaps.

She looked at the rugs, unusually meek. “Am I allowed to choose anything I want?”

“Anything, as long as I can grant it to you.”

Dark eyes landed on his from beneath long lashes. "What can you grant me?”

Shan Yu spread his arms. “Horses, cattle. Anything in this tent, except for my personal documents.”

Mulan’s entire face seemed intent on something behind Shan Yu. “What if I asked for all the dirt beneath your floors?”

“I’d ask that you wait until morning. I’d never get sleep if I had to hear men toiling all around me through the night. But I've accepted your challenge, and I'd grant you the dirt.”

Mulan chuckled, then nodded. “Then we have an agreement.”

“And what if I win?”

“I’ll give you anything I can grant you, though I’m afraid this is far less than you can offer.”

And yet, Shan Yu had an inkling that she might have what he would ask of her. “I accept.”

Mulan won.

It was a hard-earned victory. The strategizing and counter-strategizing became very intense half of an incense stick in, so much so that very few words passed between them until the final moves. The prison camps were piled high on both sides at the end, precious elephants and cannons gone, but Mulan captured Shan Yu’s general after a last, quite desperate ambush.

“You've won, Hua Mulan. Be kind in your triumph and remember what you said about being mindful of my sleep.”

Mulan sat in silence, turning his general's piece over in her hand as if she hadn't heard him. She had always been a gracious winner, but there was reluctance to her humility right then.

“You may make up your mind later.”

“I…I'd chosen my boon before I came tonight.”

That made Shan Yu even more curious. “Then claim it.”

“...you said anything in the tent was mine if I asked.”

“I did.”

With a great, bracing breath, Mulan rose, walking around Shan Yu’s table. She picked up his right hand by the wrist, then cradled it in both of hers. “This is what I want.”

Shan Yu looked up at her. Her proud face was all tension. The meaning of her words was clear, clearer perhaps than the starry sky on a summer night – but some demon suggested he visit one last, harmless torment upon her. “This isn't my sword hand, Hua Mulan. If you intend to do your kingdom a service, you should have requested to be given the left.” But then he laughed, cutting off her indignant reply.  “You want the chief of the Huns, Hua Mulan? Is that your boon?”

“I – Zhilan has been asking around camp if you’ve ever had a wife. She’s enlisted Haoyu and his wife to help her approach you about becoming your wife.” She didn't release Shan Yu’s hand as she fretted.

Shan Yu froze in surprise for a moment before laughing again. Many things he’d entertained possible – none of them was to be the thing that had tied this fierce, fiery woman to the Huns for good. “And you’ve decided to apply a chess move against her? Are you the river, cutting across the chessboard? Huns have many wives, Hua Mulan.”

She closed her eyes, colors rising in her fair face. “I know.” Her entire forehead wrinkled in tension. “But I had to try.”

“A bold, thoughtless move. You’ve learned the value of a sacrifice, at least: a precious soldier captured to achieve your ends.”

“A soldier?”

“Yourself. Isn’t that how I called you? The soldier from the mountain?” And, still merry, Shan Yu held out his other hand to her.

Mulan stared, took a step forward, then a step back.

“Come. Isn’t this what you asked for? I am a man of my word. The hand of chief Shan Yu is yours.”

As Mulan’s small hand slipped into his, Shan Yu seized both of them tightly and tugged at her. After a brief moment of confusion, Mulan let him guide her up; she ended up seated across his legs, her side pressed to his chest. She threw her arms around his neck for balance.

“What -!”

“You’ll be my wife. You’ll have to be comfortable in close proximity. Consider this practice.”

Though her eyes remained wide in shock, the corners of Mulan’s lips turned up.

“Get word to Zhilan that I never intend to have a harem, but that she’s welcome to any other man in camp. I will not force any of them, but I will intercede on her behalf as much as possible.”

“You don’t want a harem?”

“Had I wanted one, I would have one.”

Some measure of tension left her frame. “It’d be normal for you to want many heirs.”

“Yes. But I don’t need many heirs.” He raised a hand to sift through her long, silken hair. She wore it loose at the end of the day, and Shan Yu was pleased to feel its softness between his fingers. “Give me two good sons or daughters. Their merits should be enough to make the tribe forget they don’t halve ten half-siblings.”

Mulan looked away, cheeks bright red. “How do you know they’ll be meritorious?”

“They'll be of your blood and mine. They'll be born to ride like the great Attila, and to hunt like the wolves.”

Mulan’s blush darkened, but her arms around him did not loosen.

“Would your family like to come here and live with you?”

Embarrassment forgotten, Mulan turned to stare. “You’d bring them here?”

“They’re your family.”

She pondered, thoughtful. “No,” she replied, “not every plant thrives in the same soil. My parents, my grandmother – they’d wilt here. The village, my village, is where they belong.” A small smile bloomed on her face. “And I'm afraid nobody nowhere is prepared for Grandma. She'll swindle your soldiers until she's made them all beggars.”

Now that was a story he’d ask about later. All Hua Mulan’s stories were his business now – Shan Yu felt unusually fortunate. “Then go to them. You should not be forever estranged from those you love.” Shan Yu considered for a moment, then nodded. “A quarter of a year there, the rest here. Enough time to assuage your heart and do your duty by your Emperor.” It was in his best interest that she remained on good terms with the old fool after all.

“A woman isn’t supposed to go back home after her marriage visit unless she’s divorced.”

“You’ll be the Queen of the Huns now. Middle Kingdom rules no longer bind you.” Shan Yu held her chin, turning her face towards his. “Now, the rules will be yours to make. Or break.” And, too amused by her surprised expression to resist, Shan Yu’s hand drifted to her cheek, then pulled her close enough to lay a kiss on her slack mouth.

Mulan braced herself on his shoulders, but didn’t pull away for a long time.

I wouldn’t mind standing here longer,
I only want the singer’s happiness
I long to ride homing goose plumes,
Wing to wing we’d soar in shared flight

- Lu Chi, Sad Echoes Sweet