A/N: I don't even know where this came from but I was rewatching Mulan and Shan Yu/Mulan took me hostage when I noticed he was the only one in the whole movie that didn't react negatively when he knew of her. Kinda wanna write slowburn longfic for those two tbh. Enjoy, I guess?

There is little Shan Yu respects more than the forces of nature.

Strength, surely, though it means nothing by itself. Instinct, too; he understands instinct, as quick and faithful to rely on it as Hayabusa. Bravery. Cunning. Resilience.

The emperor has none of these, and though Shan Yu remains injured and bound, he does not bow to him. There come men to make him bend, their weapons striking at his back and knees, but Shan Yu does not bow to anyone who does not deserve it.

"You have not defeated me yourself," Shan Yu speaks, grin undeterred by the painful burns stretching across his cheek. "And so I do not respect you. There is but one person in your empire to whom I'd bow."

Fa Mulan. He learns her name, the name of the warrior in the mountain - tiny, unremarkable, with nothing to speak to her greatness but her burning eyes - but as clever and as fierce as any predator he's ever fought. They speak of her in whispers, in shouts - he hears tales of her bravery told by the guards who are too cowardly to get close, even in his weakened state, hears wondered daydreams about her beauty, hears derisive comments about her place in society and how she does not fit in it.

He could not disagree more.

That is one of the problems with China and its rule; how it strives to keep half of its population down and treated like breeding cows. They do not deserve their women, not any that have a speck of what makes Fa Mulan herself, though he shall be forever doubtful that she is truly human instead of a dragon in hiding. For she is mighty, she is brave, and every time his burns make him want to rip his skin off he remembers her: lovely in her defiance, balanced and swift as a river, unapologetic and unrelenting as she took him down.

"Very well," says the Emperor, deceitfully calm. "Then we shall send for her. And you will bow."

Shan Yu dreams of Fa Mulan.

Her journey will not be fast. He knows this much; he has heard that they've given her three days to arrive and prepare for it. She plagues him, both while awake and asleep, a warrior across time and space and never too far from his thoughts from the moment he saw her on that mountain.

If he had a sword, it'd sing for her blood. He wonders if hers does the same. He wonders if she can feel it, if she can hear the battle in the steel, if the deadly dance calls to her as much as it does to him.

Shan Yu has no doubt that it does. He has seen her eyes.

Restless, he waits.

Fa Mulan does not arrive with the sun. Instead, she comes with storm - with howling winds and rustling dark clouds, threatening storms in the horizon - and it fits her, he thinks. She belongs within the grey strength of it, within the force of a typhoon that has not yet arrived, unrelenting and defying and unyielding.

"The Emperor says you would only speak to me," she says, her voice and eyes as cold as the avalanche she had set upon them. But there is a spark there, the kind that makes him think that he's not the only one cursed to relieve her victory over and over again, to be thrilled by a fight with - finally, finally - someone worthy. "I want to know why."

He shuffles forward, somewhat gratified by the way she refuses to flinch when all others did. "No one in this kingdom has earned my respect as you did."

"The Emperor-" she starts, but he shakes his head, a derisive grin curling on his lips.

"The Emperor is nothing," he sneers. "I will not bow to someone who sits in a golden throne while sending men to their deaths. In my lands, a leader that does not ride with their warriors is unworthy."

"Your lands," she scoffs. She does not back down, even when he brings himself to his full weight; Fa Mulan is small but braver than most. "You laid waste to our lands. You killed people that had nothing to do with the war."

Shan Yu laughs. It is deep, and it jars his wounds, but he cannot stop himself from doing it. "This is war, Fa Mulan. Do you think your Emperor is innocent? Do you think your men have not done the same? We have only brought war to where war was dwelling."

She does not relent. He does not expect her to. "There were innocents in Tung Shao. Children."

"Parents too, I expect." He can tell how his calm irks her, how her fist clenches at her side with deceptive strength. "There's such fire in your eyes, Fa Mulan, like you think yourself to be above all this. But you, too, have killed many with your own hands.

"You logic is twisted."

He shrugs magnanimously. "I never claimed to be the opposite. I don't pretend to be good or pure or all-knowing. Do you?"

There's silence. Shan Yu hears the echoes of dripping water, the rustle of chains, her measured breathing - it all reverberates within the walls of his cell. There's something to the way she holds herself, like every glance sent her way holds a hidden sword, like every word is laced with poison. This is a woman grown suffocated, wilting under the shackling iron of the rules set upon her.

"Look at you," he says, and it's almost sympathetic. "Purposeless, unsure of your path now that the war is over."

She stiffens. The gold of the Emperor's medallion around her neck glints in the light; yet another shackle to bind the warrior to her country. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Are you satisfied, then?" He chuckles darkly. "Do you enjoy what they have you doing? Simpering for politicians, holding back your wit and words when you could put them in place if you so desired. Gone from mighty warrior to breeding mare as soon as they marry you off."

She does not deny it. There is a resigned kind of slump to her shoulders, stiff with forever holding back her true worth. "Your words don't change anything."

Shan Yu closes his eyes, savouring the darkness. "In my lands," he says. "With my warriors, you would have belonged."

"I won't join you." She's stiffened further, glare like thunder. "I won't set you free."

"I didn't ask you to." Shan Yu smiles. "But now you'll always think of this. When I'm executed, when you're back in your little farm and married off to the best suitor, when your sword has rusted and your armour has fallen apart, you'll remember this. And you'll wonder."

You'll ask yourself what you could have been.

He bows to her, stiffly stretching his injuries - hers, all hers, he has never faced anyone who defeated him so mightily - but not mocking.

"I have only one request, Fa Mulan."

He looks her in the eye. The warrior looks back. Unyielding, unrelenting, fierce as fire, but she's listening. The only one he would call his equal stands in front of him, and something in his chest burns.

"When they execute me," he finishes. "I want you to swing the sword."

She's the only one to whom he'd bow, after all.