Recently Added:
Prompt Answers
Postcard Mouth

Progress Report:
psych fic: 3k
siat ch 34: 2k

Tentative Update Schedule:
survival is a talent, ch 24
wing bones touching, ch 2

Pride prompts will open at 6pm PST on June 1st! Please don't submit early, as they won't be counted.

*

Mulan, General and Ghost Bride
Previous Parts Here

~

Mulan’s arms burn and sweat keeps dripping in her eyes and she’s trying to think of what she could have possibly done to Liu Guo to deserve this.

She steps back, dodging another swing as he stands from the side and watches. She feels a surge of irritation and this time she decides it’s worth the bruises to end this, and to make the point that she’s been out here sparring for hours while he’s just been standing their watching. Changrui makes another swing and Mulan dodges almost enough to avoid it, letting the sword glance off the metal of her shoulder. A ringing pain descends down her arm, but it also sets Changrui off balance enough that she gains an extra two seconds to surge forward, driving her shoulder into his side where the plates of his armor gap just enough to make it through. He stumbles back and she brings her sword up to just beneath his neck, panting.

Changrui drops his sword, holding up his hands even as he wheezes.

Mulan tears her helmet off, throwing it to the ground and running the back of her hand over her forehead. There’s a smattering of applause and shouts from the gathered soldiers – including nearly two dozen she’s already fought sitting up front and center.

“I didn’t say we were done,” Liu Guo says, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.

“I’m saying we’re done,” she snaps. “You had them all go through two rounds, but me – what are you doing? Is this punishment? It’s not like I reported to training any later than you did-”

“Enough,” he says sharply and she falls silent, a scowl she can’t help still curling around her mouth. “With me, Hua.”

Yichen steps up to take Liu Guo’s spot. Mulan scoops up her helmet and goes after them, waiting until they’ve gotten to the edge of the forest to say, “If you’re going to discipline me for being insubordinate, then you should be doing it in front of everyone.”

“If I was going to do that, I would have already done it,” he says. “Besides, that’s not what this is about. I wasn’t just doing that to torture you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Just? Thanks.”  

He stops, turning around to face her. She thinks she knows Liu Guo pretty well by this point, but the look on his face right now is making her question that because she can’t read it at all. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a red scroll.

Her breath catches in her throat. “Are those – does this mean–”

“We have our orders and we’re moving out,” he confirms. “Yichen has been promoted to Captain with me, and we’re each able to choose our own lieutenants.”

Mulan looks up from the scroll to his face, sure he can’t mean what she thinks he does. “Lui Guo. You can’t.”

He continues on as if she hasn’t said anything. “That demonstration out there was so that every one of them knows that you’ve earned this, Lieutenant Hua.”