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Shang wakes up with his heart racing, and grabs for his sword, which is right where it ought to be at the side of his pallet; the hilt fits easily in his hand and he lets out a long breath of relief and then goes still again, because if the pallet and the sword and the tent above his head are all correct and comforting, the warm weight of someone else sleeping next to him is absolutely not.
Slowly, he turns his head, and sees to his rising dismay that the person sharing his bed is a woman, sprawled out on her stomach with surprising inelegance, hair a mess. Oh - oh gods and ancestors, what has he done? If he has dishonored some woman he will have to wed her, and his father will be furious. Given that he can’t remember how she got here, it’s entirely possible he was drugged in some fashion in order to make him dishonor her. She might even be entirely innocent, if her family arranged the scheme.
He shifts carefully, attempting to ease out from under the blankets, and to his dismay she makes a soft discontented sound and wraps an arm around his waist, hauling him closer with astonishing strength. “‘S not our watch yet,” she mumbles.
Our watch? She…stands watch with him?
That makes no sense.
“What,” he says aloud, half-panicking, and she wakes with a disgruntled noise and shoves herself up on her elbow, graceful but still not elegant, to frown down at him.
“Shang?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”
“You know me?” he replies, bewildered. She’s beautiful, with big dark eyes and her hair a tangled mess falling about her bare shoulders. She’s scarred, too, one mark down her cheek and another that looks like a healed stab wound on her right arm. And there’s a clear strength to her, muscle in her arms and the curve of her body, nothing like the delicacy he might expect. That also makes no sense. Why would a woman wear battle-scars? Why would she have muscles like a soldier?
“Of course I know you; you’re my husband,” the woman says, frowning harder.
Shang blinks at her. “Since when?” he manages thinly.
“About three years ago?” she replies, clearly bewildered.
Not ‘last night’.
“I don’t remember,” Shang says. “I - I’ve never seen you before in my life.” And he’s trying very hard not to look at her bare chest. It’s not going well. She’s really pretty.
The very pretty woman gives him an incredulous look. “How much did you drink last night?” she asks, which to be fair is a question Shang would also like the answer to.
“I don’t remember,” he offers unhappily.
“I’m going to string Mushu up by his tail if this is another of his tricks,” the woman says; Shang adds another item to his list of things that currently make no sense at all. “We’d better get up and see if the medic has any idea what’s going on.”
Which is a pretty good plan, honestly, so Shang nods, and then hastily covers his eyes with a hand as the woman just gets up, blankets sliding off her body, without any sign of modesty at all.
She really is very beautiful. And even if she’s telling the truth and they’ve been married for three years (?!), it’s the first time Shang remembers seeing a woman in the nude.
Thankfully, she dresses quickly, only laughs at his blushing a little, and considerately turns her back while he gets dressed before leading him out of the tent and across the camp to the medic.
She’s wearing men’s clothing. Shang can’t help staring at her as they go, though he knows he should be paying attention to the soldiers and the camp’s layout. She’s wearing men’s clothing and a sword and no one so much as bats an eye. It’s all clearly made for her, too, and she moves comfortably in it, and what is she?
Other than very compelling, and apparently Shang’s wife.
He learns her name when the medic steps out of his tent and says, “Fa Mulan! Have you gotten stabbed again?”
She laughs, as if being stabbed is a normal and unworrisome part of her life. “No, I’m fine. General Li seems to have lost at least three years of memories, though.”
General?
The medic bustles them into his tent, and Shang puts up with being poked and prodded and peered at until finally the medic shrugs eloquently. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he admits. “The General does not seem to have hit his head, and as far as I can tell he is neither drunk nor hungover.”
Fa Mulan sighs and thanks the medic, and Shang takes the opportunity to escape the tent and take a proper look at the camp. It’s well laid out, just as it ought to be, and the soldiers move with brisk competence, and if this is his command, well, he’s pleased with it, at least on first impression. Several passing soldiers give him crisp salutes, which he returns. One gangly young man actually comes over to him, salutes, and then asks without any lead-in, “Has Mulan gotten stabbed again?”
How often does his apparently-wife get stabbed?
“No, she’s fine,” Shang replies, too bewildered to reprimand the soldier for his lack of respectful conduct.
“Whew,” the soldier says, grinning, as Fa Mulan steps out of the tent.
“Hey, Ling,” she says easily. The soldier - Ling, and does no one but the medic use proper courtesy in this company? - gives her a quick salute, aims a slightly crisper one at Shang, and goes trotting off to a mismatched pair of soldiers who have been watching with some anxiety, and relax immediately at the hand-signals he flashes to them. No injuries, Shang reads. Well, evidently he’s got well-educated troops, even if their courtesy is lacking.
“Right,” Fa Mulan sighs. “Now we get to go find Mushu and figure out what he did.”
“Who is Mushu?” Shang asks warily.
“It’s easier to show than explain,” Fa Mulan replies, and leads him out of the camp at a brisk pace, past the last row of tents and into the paddocks. There’s a fine handsome black stallion off in a corner, and she heads right for it, Shang trailing at her heels.
The stallion is pawing irritably at something on the ground; as they get closer, Shang can see a small red creature of some sort dancing around the horse’s hooves. It’s long and thin and agile and -
A dragon?
A very small, very red dragon is either playing with or being beaten up by a horse.
Shang is abruptly not entirely sure he isn’t dreaming.
“Khan, leave it,” Fa Mulan orders. “Mushu!”
The horse snorts irritably and puts its hoof down hard on the dragon’s tail, pinning it to the ground. The dragon makes a spirited attempt to run away, then finally turns and faces Fa Mulan, shoulders hunched like a soldier being called up for disciplinary action.
“Mushu, what did you do to Shang?” Fa Mulan demands.
“Nothing?” the dragon replies, so unconvincingly that Shang snorts aloud. Fa Mulan shoots him a brief, devastating grin before turning back to the impossible creature.
“Try again.”
“It was supposed to be a nice surprise?” the dragon says, reaching down to tug at its trapped tail in what Shang thinks is meant to be a surreptitious manner. “Let you fall in love again, very romantic, lots of swooning…?”
Fa Mulan puts a hand over her face. “Oh, for - how long does it last?”
“Only a day! He’ll remember everything again tomorrow!” the dragon assures her hastily.
Fa Mulan sighs. “Don’t mess with anyone’s head without asking me ahead of time,” she admonishes the dragon firmly. “Or I really will let Khan trample you.” The horse snorts agreement.
“I won’t, I won’t!” the dragon promises frantically.
“Good,” Fa Mulan says, and turns back to Shang. “I’m sorry about this, but you know how he - actually no, you don’t currently know how he is,” she corrects herself.
“You have a dragon,” Shang says, trying to put all his incredulity into the words.
“It might be more accurate to say the dragon has me, but yes,” Fa Mulan replies.
At which point Shang gives up on anything about this day making sense, and surrenders to the chaos.
He trails along behind Fa Mulan as she joins the soldiers for breakfast; as she runs (and participates in) a series of really quite advanced drills, which the soldiers all complete very satisfactorily; as she takes the stallion out for a ride, his own handsome gelding keeping up quite well; and as she writes letters to an astonishingly wide variety of correspondents, from the expected - her family - to the extremely unlikely.
“Are you writing to the Emperor?” he asks at last, unable to keep from boggling.
“Oh, yes, he likes to hear about Little Brother’s antics,” Fa Mulan replies cheerfully.
Shang has started wondering how he managed to earn a wife like Fa Mulan. He had hoped, vaguely, for an intelligent and attractive woman of good lineage; to find himself married to a brilliant, beautiful woman with remarkable martial prowess and presence of mind and the personal friendship of the Emperor himself -
To find himself married to Fa Mulan, who is beyond all simple descriptors frankly magnificent -
Is a wonder and a glory he could not have dreamed of having.
What does he offer so marvelous a woman?
Except that he can tell already that she looks to him for - for steadiness. For advice, drawing on his studies or his father’s words or his own experiences. For affection, given how often she leans closer to him. For approval, strange as it is to think that his approval matters to such a confident and competent person.
She laughs when he makes dry jokes, and she lights up when he offers to spar with her, and she’s just…
Perfect. She’s perfect.
Which means that when night falls and she leads the way to his - their - tent, he blushes crimson and stammers horribly over a fumbling explanation that he understands that they’re married but as far as he knows he’s never actually done anything with a woman before.
Fa Mulan laughs. “I wasn’t going to ravish you, husband,” she says warmly. “One awkward wedding night was enough for me.”
Which is an incredible relief. So is the fact that she puts on nightclothes before getting into the bed and giving him an expectant look. Shang has also found a set of nightclothes, rolled up at the bottom of his baggage, and the bed is wide enough that he doesn’t actually have to touch her when he lies down beside her. She huffs quietly, rolls over, and is asleep before he’s even blown out the lamp.
Shang does his best to follow her example.
*
Shang wakes up with Mulan pressed against his side, and for a moment is deeply baffled that they’re both wearing nightclothes. Usually they don’t bother unless they anticipate an attack -
Oh. Right.
“Dratted dragon,” he mutters, and rolls over, pulling his wife closer. Mulan mutters something incoherent and doesn’t wake. Shang chuckles and kisses her head.
He could have done without the confusion and general panic, but Mushu wasn’t wrong. Shang did, in fact, fall in love with his wife all over again.