Characters/Pairings: Mulan/Ting Ting (Mulan/Shang, Ting Ting/Ling)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Their first endings were not so happy, but they get there eventually.
Notes and warnings: Written for a femslash challenge community on Livejournal called 10lilies. My claim was Disney Princesses and the prompt "A long road". Slighty AU, depending on interpretation, to the ending of Mulan II, but otherwise takes Mulan II as canon. I feel bad for what I did to Ting Ting and Ling, because they were so adorable, but what the hey. Also, this is unbetaed and all the stylistic references to ancient Eastern poetry are completely faux and a bit Japanese, too. In fact, any criticism and beta-like comments would be very welcome. It can't really be all that authentic anyway since it's based on a Disney film, but I realize one could at least try.

The Princess and the Warrior's Wife

Gentle rain coats the veranda.

Mulan sits restless at the stairs, ruining her hairdo.

She is not waiting for her husband.

A warrior's wife approaches through the mist and water, carrying an umbrella.

Mulan greets her, and they go inside.

Caterpillars cling to the undersides of leaves.

'How is he?' asks Mulan as she pours the tea. Ting-Ting is wearing more makeup these days, and always carries her fan with her. It's not laughter that she is hiding now.

'Yesterday, he lost a cow and two porcelain figures,' says Ting-Ting. 'He needs a war, Mulan. He's not fit for peace.'

'More tea?' She really doesn't know what else to say. Ling is a good man, one of the best, and it breaks her heart to see that love doesn't last forever for other people, either.

Shoe after shoe in a neat line hits the mud.

Staffs strike the ground, breaking puddles.

The General smiles.

A young man looks up. He is a favourite.

Dainty-footed soldier, he brings elegance to the training field.

Her first morning as a wife, Mulan woke up with a soreness between her legs and an empty feeling in her chest. She got up quietly, even though Shang's breathing had hitched the moment she shifted. She left him to his pretense of sleep and padded to the water bowl her mother had left by the door. Sometimes, a woman could move more quietly than any soldier.

She washed her face, and then washed the blood off her thighs. It spread pink into the water for a moment, then dispensed, leaving nothing but grey liquid.

She had been told (but had not believed) that the first time would be the worst, but that it would get better, and great joy would follow, like it had for countless couples in the past, for the lovers of songs and tales.

She and Shang had had all their magic before they married. Now they had run out.

She closed her hands on a puddle reflection of her own smudged face, and so closed the book of their love.

The mattress under me is warm with my heat.

The mattress next to me is cold.

Long gone is my husband, long gone my travelling days.

I wish to be away, and leave behind two cold mattresses.

It's not a blow she could be proud of, as a soldier or a friend, but it hits home hard and sharp and Ling's head knocks back, and he staggers. She follows it with a stab to the side and a swift kick, and Ting-Ting's husband sprawls on the ground. The look in his eyes almost breaks through her anger.

'Bruises, Ling? Bruises, and she won't say why?'

'Mulan, why are you doing this?' There's a slur in his voice. 'Did Ting put you up to this? Aww...'

Drunk. He's a drunken gambler now. Her heart has turned into a sliver of steel, scratching at her chest, pressing her lungs, leaving her to choke.

Spring blooms early, in white flowers and fragrant waters.

Two skirt-hems leave traces on the dust on a bridge.

White fingertips peek from beneath their gilded sleeves.

Servants go in and out of the rooms at all hours, but it's night-time now and only Ting-Ting's old servant Jinlian sits by the doorway, humming an ancient lullaby, as deaf as any good servant. The room echoes with sighs and cries of the first discovery of ecstacy.

Mulan lies exhausted in Ting-Ting's old bed, surrounded by the silken memory of the princess's childhood. Silk under her fingers, decorated with golden thread; silk curtains around her, and all the luxury of the palace behind; next to her body, the greatest treasure of the realm, warm and soft, and crying softly into her shoulder.

Dust is high in the road.

Two old women pass, one perched on a horse, elegant like a girl.

They pause at the foot of the temple steps, and drink and eat under the eyes of the gods.

They are going to see their husbands.

Mulan leaves Ting-Ting in the arms of Ling's nephews and nieces, in the midst of laughter and merriment, and makes her way across the city towards the barracks. It's rare that Shang appears in this part of the country, let alone that he should send Mulan a note. It has been years since they have taken tea together.

She finds him sitting under a cherry tree, and is surprised to see one more wilting flower clinging to the branches. Shang seems hardly changed, but for a fresh bandage on his right arm.

He stands up to greet her, but they say nothing. She looks at him and sees a life well-led, but lonely. She cannot imagine what he sees.

'Let's walk,' she says at last, and they walk together towards the outskirts of the town, towards the paths winding through the wild. After a while they begin to talk.

When she makes her way back alone, she finds Ting-Ting still at Ling's house, her tall straight figure recognisable from all the way at the gate against the plain panelling of the house. She stands hand in hand with the old man who was once her lover and is now, again, an honourable man.

The lines of old hands are maps drawn on skin.

One placed over the other, they show the roads of new countries.

Two old women smile at each other as the sun sets.