A/N: First off, I realize Mulan's life as a soldier was an integral part of her story. And Shang's too. Their dynamic was based on mutual footing. BUTT since I'm crazy and like to daydream about "what if's," I found it realistic to drum up an alternate reality. Mulan's original story is extraordinary, but it's not one that many women, during the time, were able to receive. This is just me examining that possibility — and who Mulan might be alongside Shang, even if she didn't go to war. I have a soft spot for the prolonged misfit.

Every day she lit candles for her father. In their ancestors' temple, in their house, and dearest to her heart — near the blossom trees. There, she secretly prayed.

Please guard my father, let him come home. Please, Baba.

But the blossoms wilted. The ground littered with their pink leaves. Mulan wonders if "her" late blossom flower will be the last to fall. She tried keeping track of it; her father's loving prediction for her life. But did it even matter at this point? They'd all fall and die, in the end.

These were the last true words she held with her father. Words she knew he meant in his heart — "But look, this one's late. But I'll bet, when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all."

When he left the following morning, in a rush to finish the long journey on his sore leg, he brushed hair out of her face, as he often did, and said a short goodbye. "Honor your grandmother. Your mother. Be a good daughter."

And still, when she begged, he quietly hummed her worries away. "I will return to my home. To my daughter."

It wasn't a promise he could likely keep. It wasn't the truth of her father, who always knew what to say to her. It was the goodbye from man, to woman. A woman who could only stand and wave goodbye. She curled her hand in anguish.

Mulan knew his return was as likely as a good match for a betrothal.

Ever since the matchmaker incident, she'd heard whispers from neighboring women. Uncouth and beautiful, the villagers called her. Two shades of the moon. Which could a husband choose? None dared when there were plenty of pretty girls in the village — those who wouldn't set their in-laws on fire.

"At least they said I'm beautiful," Mulan deadpans to her mother. As if she cares what anyone thought of her appearance. But suddenly, like a weed ripped from the garden, an image of her half-white, painted-face sprang to mind. You do care. Just not the right way.

"Mulan," Fa Li scolds. Her flighty daughter needed to learn to take such matters seriously. She was almost seventeen; no longer a child. Though a soft, maternal spot inside wishes her daughter could still sass and play like once-upon-a-time. Yet, she wouldn't let it derail Mulan's chances of a safe and happy life. This was her motherly duty.

"It's only this round's matches. We can wait for next season's boys! Who doesn't love a younger man?" Grandma Fa cackles.

Mulan giggles; always ready to laugh along her grandmother's brazen jokes.

"And what if the matchmaker won't see her again?" Li stops sweeping, this fear overriding any meager chore.

"Who says we need the matchmaker?"

"Ai-yah... and we wonder where Mulan gets her lack of tradition from?"

"What lack?" Mulan stretches out her hands, standing at a loss. "I do everything the other girls do. Why am I so different?"

"My dear..."

"Mama, it's not fair! It's not fair." She can already feel tears brewing. This was her deepest sore spot.

"Fair is not for womenfolk. We can moan about it, or keep our heads tall. It's a choice, Mulan."

Mulan often wondered if Mama had been able to bear other children, would she fret as much over one lowly daughter? It is an honor to have your parents' critique; any attention a daughter could get. Mulan saw it all over the village. But she never quite felt that burden in her parent's home. Where they played and fished as a young girl. Where her mother still brushed her hair. She owed them the world. She owed them her honor.

"Yes, mama..." she whispers, even if it feels like a lie on her lips.

"You need to be married. And now with your father..."

All three women felt Fa Zhu' s absence like a lightning storm in the sticky springtime. Not just in their love, but in their survival. The household requires a man.

"I hate this war. He should never have left!"

"It's not ladylike to complain about such things. It's none of our business."

"He's your husband... he belongs to you, to us. Not them."

"You do all you can to not understand." She sighs and walks out; mentioning her husband's expected fate always sent her crying to their bedroom.

"Do not fret, sapling." Grandma pats her cheek. "Our ancestors will take care of you."

But Mulan hoped they were busy elsewhere — like bringing home her Father, instead of a husband.

"And if not, I have this cricket!"

Fa Zhou recognizes the mountain's bypass. Lush and prosperous, just as he expected to find his home as well. "We're very close now," he comforts the anxious young man.

"Then you were right to bring us here instead of the Miu Gorge," Shang bows his head. He had been rather indignant with the legendary soldier. But no matter the honor he bestowed upon the man, his father's well-being was the most important thing.

"Do not let the Captain boss you around, Zhou. He's just a boy after all."

The men laugh in surprise, happy to hear the voice from behind, and dismount from their horses to check the open wagon where General Li was laying.

"I do not think a boy could lead a brigade as well as young Shang did," Zhou said, squatting near the frail man. "But it is good to hear your voice again. You've been asleep since yesterday."

"My stomach..." he groans.

"The healer said you will survive, father." He knows the hearer didn't actually say that. And he was only a mountain man, how much could he really know? But he believes it. Shang touches the general's arm, earnestly, before dropping it in embarrassment.

"You just need to rest awhile."

"My home was the nearest village and they have many healers, just in case," Fa Zhou explains.

"So, after all this time I endured listening to you moan about missing home, you bring me back as trinket of war? Perhaps, your wife would rather a sword to mantle the family wall?"

"It will be my honor to have you as my guest."

"How did you end up unscathed and I, the great General, am in a wagon?" he rasps.

"I think I owe that to you, my friend."

"Ah." The general weakly waves off the sincerity. "War heroes with limps do not deserve the front lines."

"Just young men, like your son here?"

"Heh..." he coughs. "He did pretty well, did he not?"

Shang lowers his reddened face — in satisfaction as well as discomfort. He's accustomed to his father talking about him like he was a spectacle, rather than another person in the room. Perhaps all sons felt that way.

"Let's get a move on, eh? The sun is hot." His forehead is sweating profusely, just like the rest of his grey and broken body.

When the war ended, Shang wasn't expecting to worry over an arrow wound in his father's abdomen. In all his years of combat, the general always came out unscathed. No matter what.

And things were looking so good. Their bloody battles conquered, the Huns outnumbered by the sheer size of China's forces. He'd just recently reunited with his father at the emperor's gates.

But when they returned to a Wu Zhong military camp, miles and miles inland, to dole out the remaining orders for the infantrymen, a scout of deserted Huns shot a round of arrows at their group. Most hit the horses. He doesn't think he'll ever get over that part; listening to an innocent animal, who was only doing their master's binding, die so painfully. They always sound terribly confused.

But then, he turned and saw his father... Luckily a healer was only a day's journey away. And Fa Zhou, who had more battlefield experience than the younger combatants. He was the one who suggested scalding the skin to stop the wretched bleeding…

He remembers his first day as captain, watching his father grasp the legendary man's shoulders, before departing together — "This man will come with us, we could use his wisdom! The emperor's forces need wise old men…"

Like always, his father was frustratingly right.

Shang thought they'd be spending their return trip home, talking and recounting battle stories — as he'd imagined since childhood. Now, he just prays he'll survive.

He barely wants to consider what the future will look like if he does die, though practicality nags at his head. He has no other family. Shang presumes he'll be returning to the army, as was always planned anyhow. A soldier's onward march.

But, in the meantime, what's he to do in this sheltered village, aside from caring for his injured father? He's spent his whole life in military camps and the imperial city. Shang was always uncomfortable around strangers, when there wasn't something like martial arts or soldier's rational to discuss.

What should be the greatest moment of his life, ascending from war alongside the accomplished General, turned into a murky stream of water; unknown and sinking like a fallen stone.