"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

-The Buddha-

Three: The Tongue That Kills Without Drawing Blood

The ship was carrying them farther east than Aurora had ever heard of to a distant land known colloquially throughout the Enchanted Forest only as the Middle Kingdom. She had been woken before sunrise by her mother and quietly bundled up in layers of clothing and cloaks before being rushed onto a ship docked at the far end of the harbor.

"Mother, where are we going?" Aurora whispered.

"Don't ask questions, Aurora. We must hurry."

The queen had been shrouded in a deceptively simple cloak that hid her fine gown and allowed her to blend in with the men of her husband's guard whom had escorted them to the water's edge. Once they boarded the ship, they were met by a man dressed in leather pants that billowed out from his thighs down to the tall boots that ended beneath his knees. His cotton shirt was simple and a large blue coat, embroidered with silver and red thread covered that. The blue taqiyah that sat atop his dark head completed the intimidating ensemble. Had Aurora been more awake, she might've felt more fear at the odd situation than she did then, but as it was all she could do was follow her mother and go along with her plan.

"You must be the exalted passenger we're to transport, yes?" The man asked, approaching the retinue.

Queen Leah held her head high and kept her hands interlaced with her eldest daughter's

She didn't seem frightened or put off by the man. Instead, she was strangely relaxed, they both were, as if they knew one another or had known one another a long time ago. Aurora had never questioned her mother much on her past before she married King Stefan and became queen of their realm. Her mother had always just been her mother to her, never before had Aurora taken it upon herself to think of Queen Leah as a person separate from her family whom had lived a life before coming to the Enchanted Forest. Obviously, though Queen Leah was more than she seemed and it made Aurora's cheeks color knowing that she had thought so little of her outside of the role of queen and mother.

Leah stepped closer to Sinbad, relinquishing Aurora's hand.

"How are you, my sailor?" She asked with a smile.

"Never better, milady, never better. Though I must say I was surprised to receive a message from you after all of this time. "

Queen Leah cleared her throat and reached back for Aurora's hand again, pulling her daughter closer to the foreign man who now studied her casually.

"You owe me and I need to collect on that favor now, Sinbad."

Sinbad the sailor nodded his head resolutely. Though from an eastern kingdom far across the sea much like the Middle Kingdom only farther still, Sinbad had once fled to Aurora's land and had been sheltered from his enemies by her mother's family until it had been safe for him to return to sea. He owed his life to this young queen and he would repay that debt by spiriting away her daughter to a land where not even the most ruthless sorceress of their age would be able to get her hands on her.

"You have my word, Leah. I will do everything that I can to keep her safe," Sinbad said.

Queen Leah nodded and turned to her daughter. She leaned forward and placed an affectionate kiss on Aurora's forehead.

"Oh my darling girl! We will meet again when all of this is over and Maleficent has been dealt with. I promise you. You will come home from this adventure and find your family and your land far better than when you left us."

Aurora willed the tears burning behind her eyes not to fall. She hadn't known that her parents were planning to do this. They hadn't told her. They hadn't given her a choice. And though Aurora knew her parents loved her and were sending her away for her own protection, she can't help the hurt little twinge that rises in her chest that her parents couldn't believe in her enough to know that she would defeat Maleficent without needing to flee their own land to do so. They would always win.

Because good always wins? Right?

That day had been almost a week ago now and Aurora was sure now that she never wanted to set foot on another ship for as long as she lived. The High Sea which separated the realms of the Enchanted Forest from the Middle Kingdom was long and deep. It had taken the whole week's sailing, seeing nothing but endless horizon after endless horizon between sunrise and sunset to even get this far and still Aurora had no idea where they were or how much longer they had before they reached land again.

The ship's captain, Sinbad, seemed unbothered by the lack of visible progress. Aurora had already gathered that he was from a land called Agrabah, a desert country she remembered from her lessons that was so far away from the Enchanted Forest that it made the Middle Kingdom look like a neighboring state. She didn't know how long it had taken Sinbad to sail to the coast of the Enchanted Forest, but she guessed that he'd been at sea for far longer than a week. Aurora wanted to trust that Sinbad knew what he was doing, but a larger part of her screamed that this man was a stranger whom she didn't know and couldn't trust. Her mother knew him, but her mother wasn't her. Suddenly, Aurora was thrust into the middle of a situation that she was never trained for, a situation that nothing in her background had prepared her for and she was expected to deal.

On some level, the thought if it was exhilarating. In theory if not in practice, it was thrilling to be able to get out of that tiny kingdom close to the sea and visit a land she'd only heard about in fairytales. But on a far closer level, the practice of leaving behind the only world she'd ever known filled Aurora's entire being with fear.

The vessel dipped just then, pulling Aurora from her musings and reminding her that they were indeed on a ship in the middle of an ocean like a spec of sand in the middle of a desert.

A deep throaty chuckle suddenly bubbled up from behind her.

"Land does not appear just because you want it to. Take my word on that, I know from personal experience."

Aurora startled and found Sinbad suddenly standing beside her at the ship's railing. How he'd gotten so close to her with her realizing it, she didn't know, but she didn't like it.

"Haven't you ever heard that it is rude to sneak up on someone?"

Sinbad shrugged—unbothered—and leaned his hands against the railing as he spread his feet to more comfortably hold his weight as he relaxed just a little.

He chuckled again, "I didn't know you were a someone, only a spirited princess who looks like the image of her mother from another life."

Aurora rolled her eyes at the roguish smile he directed her way. If the stories told to her by her nanny as a child were to be believed, Sinbad the sailor was a daring ladies' man, a rogue who was more tenderhearted than he liked to let on. It was in this moment, frightened and among strangers that Aurora was able to understand what her mother had to have seen in him and how his goodness could have tempted her heart before Queen Leah had even met Aurora's father. Perhaps it was the rush of salty ocean air that was making her lightheaded or perhaps it was the fact that her mother had trusted this man with her life and she should too, but Aurora suddenly felt the need to confide in him.

"How do you stand it," Auora asked, watching the waves swirl and slap together for miles upon miles of seemingly endless blue. "Don't you miss your home? Your family?"

Sinbad paused a moment then shrugged again and stood up straighter, crossing his strong arms over his chest.

"My ship is my home and my crew is my family. Everything else slips away," Sinbad admitted quietly. "But your fate will be very different from mine I think, princess. It must be hard leaving the only home you've ever known behind for another world completely foreign to you, but it will get better. You will see."

As tears collected in the corners of the princess's eyes, she gave into her heart's simple yearnings for home and hope and she prayed to whatever higher power was listening that this new land she was going to wouldn't be so frightfully different from the world she already knew.

Aurora was pissed. Utterly and truly fed up.

There was annoyance, then there was normal anger, and finally there was how Aurora was feeling right now, which went beyond words.

A new school day had come and gone and Aurora hadn't so much as looked at Mulan once during the whole eight hours of classes. Aurora had even taken the next step beyond the cold shoulder: the lonely walk home without her friends. She didn't care that they'd notice her absence and confront her about it tomorrow or sooner. And she certainly didn't care that that same hurt look of betrayal would be cast across Mulan's features like a great barren expanse of land where nothing grows anymore. Her heart didn't break for Mulan's pain at having chased her away. Aurora wouldn't let it. She'd already let herself be dragged down enough in the name of unrequited love already without adding to that humiliation more.

The blonde's gait subconsciously quickened as thoughts of the previous day ran rampant through her head. Aurora had done what she'd planned on doing and showed up at Mulan's doorstep on the previous afternoon with the homework from her missed classes. The blonde had expected Mulan's face to brighten the moment she saw her. She'd whittled away the hours that day daydreaming of how this bashful smile would overtake Mulan and light up her dark eyes, but Aurora's daydreams had turned out to be just that: dreams.

Instead, Mulan's expression when she had opened the door and found Aurora waiting there had been pensive and closed off.

"Jade said you weren't feeling well," Aurora said shrugging her shoulders and trying to keep her voice confident and steady. "So I got the assignments you missed from your teachers and brought them over."

Mulan didn't say anything at first. Just stared back at Aurora listlessly. It wasn't hard to tell that she really had been sick. Mulan's normally vibrant olive complexion was sallow and her usually bright brown eyes were dull and supporting large circles that appealed to be weighing them down. Right now the other girl was leaning against the doorjamb across from Aurora and the blonde was glad of that for she was sure that without the wall's added support, Mulan would've surely collapsed under the weight of her own frame.

"Thanks. You didn't have to do that," Mulan finally mustered. "But I do appreciate it, Aurora, really I do."

The blonde couldn't help the redness which surged into her cheeks any more than she could the feeling of immense joy that spread through her entire being from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Mulan's lips even twisted up briefly into a weak smile, but it was short lived. They continued to stand together in awkward silence for a few minutes even after Aurora had handed over the folder filled with eventual homework. Then Mulan briefly closed her eyes and refocused on Aurora as if steeling herself for what was to come.

"You shouldn't be here, you know. I mean I appreciate your bringing over my assignments, but I thought we were going to try to distance ourselves from one another for a bit," Mulan said softly, so softly that it seemed like she'd almost never said anything, but she had and she couldn't take it back.

Aurora's expression instantly fell.

"That's news to me," she said.

Mulan kept quiet at that. It was true they hadn't exactly had a heart to heart about their feelings, but Mulan had taken it for granted that her refusal of a relationship meant they would be spending more time apart from now on. Aurora though, wasn't one for assumptions or the ambivalence of silent communications. She was straight forward and if Mulan was going to brush her aside like she was nothing, then Aurora needed to hear those words from her own mouth.

"Come on, Aurora. You know this thing between us…it just won't work. It can't."

Everything about the way the sick girl was acting right now was rubbing Aurora the wrong way.

"And you know that without even trying because you're just so wise aren't you, Mulan?" Aurora snapped, not knowing if she was more upset at Mulan's lack of will to try or her own foolish notions that showing up at the other girl's doorstep would fix everything. "I can't believe I came here thinking—well, I don't know what I thought anymore. I just—I need to go."

Aurora hurried down the stairwell from Mulan's door and was almost at the sidewalk when Mulan caught up with her and grabbed her coat sleeve to slow her progress, their hands brushing warmly together in the process.

"Aurora—," Mulan tried when she couldn't get the blonde to stop.

The other girl used the momentum of her fleeing to turn and propel herself into Mulan's startled arms. Slowly in comparison, she reached up and held Mulan's face between her hands, the only other sounds registering in the late afternoon town was that of their breaths mingling. The brunette's dark gaze met Aurora's light one and seemed to get lost there, stuck like a drowning animal who didn't seem to care that they were drowning at all and rather welcomed the feeling. Their eyes continued to stare into one another, only breaking contact when Aurora's focus dipped to Mulan's parted lips and then back up again.

Mulan's mind was buzzing a million miles a minute. There was disorienting dizzying and at the same time intoxicating about how their two bodies seemed to fit together where ever they touched and how the chill Mulan had been feeling in her bones all day seemed to fade away in the wake of the undiluted warmth shared by Aurora's small frame.

"I know you love me. I can feel it even if you don't want to admit it."

The sound of Aurora's steady voice, confident, determined, and yet somehow sad broke Mulan out of her musings and she had to pull her gaze away from Aurora and focus on a fixed point across the road or else she feared that this united front of resistance might fail. Needing the distance to reinforce her resolve, Mulan took a step away from the blonde, remaining within comforting halo of their shared personal space, yet no longer touching. The coolness of the autumn breeze splashed against Mulan's face and seemed to wake her up, helping give her the strength for what she needed to do.

"Aurora, this cannot be. You know it as well as I do," Mulan sighed, after they parted.

At the admonition, the confident hope in Aurora's expression fell away and renewed anger, stronger than before, bled into her cheeks. Without saying anything, she turned and tried to flee again. Mulan reached out for Aurora's arm a second time, but this time around the other girl recoiled from her as if she'd just watched the girl she loved do something horrific like drown a kitten.

"Aurora…" Mulan tried again, her throat feeling tight.

This had been what she wanted right? What she'd needed? To push Aurora away? If that was so, then why did it hurt so damn much seeing the betrayal in the other girl's eyes?

"No!" Aurora turned on the brunette sharply, looking at her with the most chillingly broken expression Mulan had ever seen as her voice wavered, "I never thought I'd ever say this, especially not to you, but you're a coward Hua Mulan and I don't want to see you ever again!"

With that, Aurora had scurried away in the direction of her home, barely bothering to look both ways to check the traffic on her way across the main street. Mulan watched her go, feeling the early autumn chill again in her bones, but not moving to return back inside into the waiting warmth of her building. She deserved this. She deserved to be cold because she had taken the most precious thing in her life and thrown it away like it meant nothing to her. That hadn't been her intention, but that had been what had happened nonetheless. Aurora was gone and—despite her better judgment—Mulan couldn't help but think that she wasn't coming back this time.

Now, it was a day later and Aurora had avoided Mulan like the plague and intended to keep up that trend for as long as possible. Even the mere sight of the other girl chatting with Jade or just looking at her in the same forlorn, dejected way she had all day whenever Aurora walked into the room and ignored her, had been enough to send Aurora's heartbeat into overtime and call her resolve to stay away from the other girl into question. Through some miracle, the blonde had managed to make it through the day without giving into the urge to speak to Mulan and apologize for her behavior (though she knew it wasn't completely her fault—Mulan had rejected her after all!) and her righteous anger encouraged her to keep up the same pattern tomorrow.

I hope, Aurora thought forlornly as she brooded her way up the long driveway her father had paved and repaved until it was smooth and crackless. The blue Victorian home Aurora had always known loomed ahead of her seeming taller and somehow judgmental as she climbed the front steps up onto the porch. The Edmonton's Victorian home had been bought for the beauty of its symmetry and its closet space. Large cylindrical alcoves with high windows and spiraling rooftops that resembled towers on a castle framed the edges of the house.

The much coveted spaces had been fought over by Aurora and her siblings. Both Aurora and her younger sister, Amalie, had coveted those two tower rooms so they could feel like princesses situated in some far off castle of their own somewhere overlooking the town like it was their own kingdoms. Their younger brother, Julian, had wanted one of those corner rooms because his sister's wanted them and for no other reason. Being the eldest had given Aurora some leverage in the matter but not enough to secure her own room. She'd had to settle for sharing the room she'd bargained for with her sister so Julian—ever the cry baby—could have his way and have the tower room on the other side of the house to himself. It had been the compromise their mother had struck for both girls to be able to be princesses in their own right—just not in their own castles. That particular family conflict had been six years or so ago in the making, but its implications were still being felt in some ways.

Most days, sharing her space didn't bother Aurora much beyond manageable annoyance, but today wasn't like most days. Today and yesterday both had gone beyond Aurora's tolerance for emotional toil. She didn't want to see anyone, let alone her little sister.

As she opened the unlocked door and stepped inside, her anger dissipated into an empty unhappiness. She could hear the rush of water and the clang-clank of ceramic plates that meant her mother was doing dishes in the kitchen while something that smelled delicious (probably her mother's world famous south western chicken with braised asparagus if Aurora's trained nose could be trusted) simmered away in the oven. Normally, Aurora would shed her backpack in the living room and watch something mindless on TV before resigning herself to her homework, but today she continued straight up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door shut behind her without a care as to the sound it would make or how it would rattle the house.

Her backpack landed unceremoniously in a heap in a far corner while Aurora flopped heavily down onto her bed and tried to weather the torrid storm cloud of agonies brewing inside of her, but despite her best efforts, her chest still felt heavy and the world around her appeared dull and colorless. She dreaded going back into school tomorrow. She dreaded seeing Mulan and the mournful, dejected look on the girl's face and the resentment that look would immediately cause Aurora to feel and then guilt for being its cause. She dreaded ever rising from her bed again at all. She even dreaded going down to dinner and having to endure her parents' questions about how her day at school had gone. Nothing seemed bright and sunny, though the sun was technically up outside. There was no hope, there was no optimism inside of her clawing to get out. Everything seemed bleak and filled to the brim with discontent.

Why did Mulan have to be such a coward? Aurora knew the girl well enough to know that cowardice wasn't her usual state of being. Mulan never backed away from anything. She'd proven through years of stubborn pigheadedness that she would stand firm in any situation no matter if she hated it or not. She always pushed forward, she never gave up no matter what the cost and yet she had given up on Aurora and any chance of developing the feelings they both shared. How little did Aurora have to mean to Mulan for her to give up on them before they had even begun? Perhaps, she had mistaken the attraction Mulan had for her as something more than it was.

Tears dribbled down from her red rimmed eyes for the fifth time that day. Aurora didn't both wiping them away. It felt as though a part of her that had always been there had been forcibly ripped away from her body and the pain was unbearable. Why did it have to hurt so much?

"Darling, I'm home! You look like shit, by the way." Amalie piped up as she walked into the room and closed the bedroom door with her foot behind her. She gave Aurora another sidelong glance before dumping her book bag in the middle of the room and flopping down theatrically onto her own twin bed and staring at her sister like she was the most interesting entertainment in the world.

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" Aurora sniped, rolling so that her back was facing her sister on the other side of the room.

"Hmmmm," Amalie pretended to think about it. "Why I believe that is a custom practiced in most polite societies, but since this room is my room too, I'd say you're just going to have to deal."

Aurora screwed her eyes shut again as another wave of grief washed through her. She wished she could be left alone again to her own devices like she was for the first ten minutes of being home before her sister crawled like an amoeba back into her personal space. No, apparently that was too much to ask of whatever sadistic/lazy higher power was watching over then in their sleepy seaside hamlet.

"Seriously, though, what's up with you? You look absolutely miserable. Is it boy troubles?"

Aurora snorted, finding some small humor in that.

"I wish. Might be easier if it was," She sniffled.

Aurora yelped as she was suddenly upended into the air as another weight dropped itself down into the meager space of her bed beside her. When she opened her eyes again, Amalie was face to face with her, light hazel eyes staring back at her with a happy sparkle in them that Aurora used to feel and wished she could feel again.

"Is this about Mulan?"

"What? Wh—why would you think it was?" Aurora croaked, trying but failing to hide her surprise that her sister guessed the cause of her misery right on the nose.

Amalie rolled her eyes and propped her head up on her arm.

"I'm fourteen, not two. You two are like, joined at the hip. Very seldom is one of you seen without the other and yet both yesterday and today you've been all quiet and broody and not gushing about her like you usually are when you get home from school."

Aurora cringed, "Am I that obvious?"

Amalie's eyebrows rose into her hairline, "Am I subtle?"

Aurora sighed, finding a great deal of the heaviness that had been weighing her down all day suddenly gone and smiled despite herself. Amalie always did have a way of putting her in a better mood without seemingly having to try. Everything wasn't okay and tomorrow would suck regardless, but being here in this moment with Amalie, everything was somehow better, if only temporarily.

Drums pounded and a trumpet blew from the town center. A representative from the emperor's court had arrived. The village had been buzzing with talk that he would be coming. Men from the next village over had already been recruited to fend off the army invading from the North. It had only been a matter of time until they came to Mulan's village as well. It was the afternoon and her family was settled around the main table chatting and eating, but everything stopped with the sound of the drums.

Hua Zhou struggled to rise from his kneeling position at the head of the table. Mulan and her mother moved to help him but the old soldier in him was too proud and he waived away their reaching hands. Without a word passing his lips, he led the family out past the gates of their ancestral home and into the center of the town where a crowd was gathering. The emperor's representative wasn't clad in armor so resplendent as to serve as the seal of his office, but instead in fine silk robes that made him appear more refined that the man probably was. His hair was pulled up into a topknot so tight that it looked painful and had been combed so slick with oil that it reflected the shine of the sun like an obsidian mirror.

As his audience began to murmur and grow restless, the great man dismounted his horse using the back of a guard kneeling on all fours as a stepping stone before his polished boots touched the ground. Another guard approached holding a long yellow roll of paper tied with a red ribbon that bore the heavy seal of the emperor in one fist and the strap of a leather satchel in the other. He bowed low and upon standing again, held the scroll out to the emperor's representative. The man took it and unrolled the paper, clearing his throat, he began to read.

"By decree of his Imperial Highness the Emperor, every man from the Northern settlements is to come forward and give himself in service to protect the kingdom from the invading barbarians. When your name is called, step forward and accept your reporting orders."

The emperor's servant read the list of names at an unhurried pace, in that formal way of Confucian ceremonial procedure that so defined everything about the imperial court from deciding who was good enough to pay tribute to his imperial highness the son of heaven to the meticulous dimensions of the ceramic tiles that populated the palace floor. When they called her father's name, the old man marched forward like a feeble version of the young soldier he used to be. He tried to hide how his hand shook when he used his cane to support the useless leg he'd sacrificed years earlier in another war against the Mongols and how unsteady he was on his feet when he marched straight-backed into the crowd. It wasn't hard for Mulan to catch up with him once he'd been handed his orders and retreated. They were still only half of the way from walking back into the safety of their own courtyard, but Mulan couldn't help addressing her father before they were behind closed walls, so great was her curiosity to know if he was seriously considering going back to the army, which would surely be suicide at his age.

"Papa, you aren't really thinking of going are you?"

"The emperor has summoned me. It's my duty to serve him and my honor."

"But papa, your bad leg…how will you fight? You can't," Mulan protested loudly.

Though they weren't speaking any louder than usual, a few of the families around them had begun to stare unapprovingly at the interaction between Mulan and her father. Every family in the village had to sacrifice their fathers, husbands, and brothers so that they could all be protected against the invading hordes and yet no else was openly causing such a display over it in the town center as Mulan was. She was aware of the collective disapproval of her neighbors, but it didn't trouble Mulan enough to deter her from her mission to stop her father from giving up his life just because he didn't have a son who could take his place on the battlefield.

"I must," Zhou said with conviction.

"But—"

"Mulan," her father sighed in exasperation. "You are my only child. You need to focus on finding yourself a suitable husband and leave the business of war to me."

Mulan scurried around so she was standing in front of her father now, grasping his hands firmly and standing resolute so he couldn't just step around her and ignore her pleas as he usually did.

"I don't want a "suitable" husband, papa. You know that. I am just as spirited and able as any young man to go out and experience the world and I am a better swordsman than most of the boys in the village. Let me go in your place. I can fight. You know I can. Believe in me, papa, please."

"Enough! You are my daughter, Mulan, and I have always allowed you to get away with more than I should have because I love you and indulge you your foolish whims, but you are not a child anymore and it is well past time for you to grown up and give up these childish notions of adventure and swordplay and take a husband, make grandchildren I can be proud to give my life for. Settle down and become the woman you were meant to be. Do not shame us both by continuing with this masquerade any longer."

Her father wrenched his hands from her grasp, stood straighter, and marched past her leaving Mulan adrift among the not so quiet admonishments of her neighbors. Her behavior, she knew was unacceptable in many ways, but Mulan couldn't will herself to take it back. If it meant saving her father's life then her arguments were justified and no one could convince her otherwise.

"Really, Mulan," Her mother scolded as she slowed to follow her husband into the house. "Have a care. Your father is a great man from a family of warriors. Do not shame him for all the town to see. Sometimes I wish I had borne him sons instead of a daughter too strong-willed to know what is best for her. Come along, we have tonight's dinner to prepare. I shall be your father's last before he sets out for the Ordos."

Mulan nodded, but didn't follow her mother inside. Her pride was too hurt. Like her father, she felt the blood of the legendary warriors that had helped bring the emperor's empire into being burn indignation in her veins. Was it her fault that she wasn't born a boy? And why did it matter that she hadn't been? She had the same blood her father had, the same blood a son of his would have carried into battle to shed against the Mongol horseman trying to take over the region. Why did being born a daughter with the same blood as a son make her less worthy to protect her family from those whom would threaten to take it from her?

None of it made sense to Mulan. She wasn't a coward and she would prove it. Wiping the tears from her eyes before they could fall, she pushed down the anger that had risen up inside of her and vowed to put her energy to better use later.

To be continued...