Second Kiss
Title: Second Kiss
Media: Mulan
Pairing: Mulan/Original Female Character
Smut Level: Innocent
Reason: Kink Meme
Summery: They shared one night in bed, a hundred letters, and now a future.
Sequel to: contrary-izybel.livejournal.com/10474.html
Like all good gossip it was born as a whisper. A soft whisper between the neighbor who had first seen him and her friend. And this whisper spread until it encountered another whisper and that was how the gossip grew.
It started off as curiosity. The curiosity that grew when the crops didn’t need tending and the animals were well fed and happy. But after that little things happened. Someone would hear his voice floating over the wall. Someone would see him running to the house from the fields. Someone would sell him vegetables for his mother’s soup.
And finally the gossip made it to him.
“Oh, I thought everyone knew. My parents sent me to live with an aunt and uncle because they didn’t think they could support both me and my sister. Now she’s being sent to marry my aunt’s cousin and I’ve come back to help our parents.”
Of course it didn’t calm the gossip. It encouraged the whispers and stares and giggles and wondering.
And Ping was alright with that. Because at least they believed his lies.
And behind Ping’s smile Mulan rolled her eyes at how gullible her neighbors could be.
---
Once, during a time that seemed a life time ago, she had thought the Matchmaker was a demon. A fat little demon who had dressed herself in human skin and fed on the shame and fear of the girls she berated. Mulan wouldn’t have been surprised if she was right. But there was one big flaw in Mulan’s original thought.
The Matchmaker fed on the shame and fear of everyone.
“Ping, hm? Scrawny little thing, aren’t you?” She lowered herself gracelessly and narrowed her brow in a way that implied she practiced each day. It was a stern look. A mean look.
What a bitch.
“Oh, yes. That’s me. Haha.” The former soldier, hero of China and savior of the Emperor himself, suddenly found herself back before Shang for the first time. She wasn’t the advisor for the Emperor. She wasn’t the calm and clever soldier who walked through the world with confidence.
No, she was a scared girl in her father’s armor.
“Savior of China. That is what they call you.” She poured herself a glass of tea, leaving the pot beside her client. Somewhere in the back of Mulan’s mind she remembered the Matchmaker insisting to always pour tea for a guest. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Mushu responded to that corner of her mind by wondering if maybe she really was a demon.
A matchmaking demon.
“…so what makes you think you’re special enough to make requests of me?”
A matchmaking demon who was still talking.
Damn.
Putting on her best man voice, ‘Ping’ tried for sweet talking and modesty. “Madam, it would be presumptuous of me to assume I know better than you. They speak your name in whispered tones across the kingdom. The woman who can make a match for anyone.”
(‘with a few exceptions’ Mulan thought bitterly)
But it seemed to be working. The frown, the constant frown, was twisting up just slightly. Just enough that Mulan could mistake it for a smile.
“I don’t normally take requests, and she is very low class…” The Matchmaker pulled the paper close, staring at the name Mulan had written. “I will inquire with her mistress.”
“Thank you, kind and wonderful matchmaker.” Mulan almost tripped over herself bowing. But maybe, just maybe, her plan would work.
---
Unlike before this gossip was born in startle shouting. The kind of shouting between out of breath neighbors who had just heard it from the silk weaver who heard it from the Matchmaker herself. It was positive confirmation instead of just speculation and wondering. It was a fact!
And this gossip didn’t just simmer quietly. It ran over tongues and through mouths and into ears. It jumped and flourished. The fields were ignored for favor of this gossip. The animals left to wonder what their masters were talking about in excited tones.
But he was no help. He rarely left the house and when he did it was to the capital city to meet with advisors of the Emperor or even the Emperor himself. When he was among his neighbors he would laugh off their gossip with a charming smile.
With nothing to feed on the gossip withered away. They became bored of their guessing and arguing. Some claimed they had never cared, even when they kept an ear open each time they passed his house. Slowly the gossip died away, replaced with stories of marriage and death and gambling and living.
The gossip didn’t even return the day when the snow melt and three strange men arrived in the village. They were loud and they ate everything in sight and they laughed at strange jokes. But they were apparently also his friends. And two days after they arrived they left with him and with his parents.
It was one little girl, who had raced after them with a silk scarf that had fallen behind, who returned with more information than anyone else had managed to gather.
“Fa Ping is going to get married to a girl he met during the war.”
And the gossip was revived.
---
“Hello again.” Her smile hadn’t changed. Since their last reunion her eyes had lost some of their original sparkle and two shadows had started forming under her eyes. But when Mulan took her hand the playful smile was still there, along with its ability to make her heart flutter.
She was no longer dressed in green and blue. Mulan’s mother had dressed the young bride in red, painting her face and covering her with jewelry. Her hair had been combed and braided and laced with golden wire and red gems. And in all that red Mulan realized Lifen, her beautiful Lifen, looked like the sun rising and burning over the morning sea.
Mulan wore only one piece of jewelry to her wedding. A green and blue bead handing from a string. And when she saw it Lifen, who had been collected and calm through all the wedding proceedings, burst into tears.
The Emperor married them. A rare privilege for the Savior of China. And when the Emperor announced them as Fa Ping and Fa Lifen a chuckle ran through the small crowd. Mulan’s friends and family laughed and wondered when the bride would discover her new husband was also a bride. Lifen’s friends and sister, her only family, laughed and wondered when the groom would discover the skill the bride had developed in her time working at the brothel.
And Mulan and Lifen laughed to themselves, pleased that their friends and family would never know how much they knew about each other.
As the sun set their guests ate mountains of food, all prepared by the Emperor’s chefs, and listened to beautiful music, preformed by the Emperor’s musicians. Lifen found herself surrounded by well wishers, each with advise for her life as a wife. Mulan found herself surrounded by her fellow soldiers and the other members of the Emperor’s council, each teasing her for her beautiful bride.
Their first moment alone as husband and wife came just after the sun set as Mulan tried to escape the crowds. Lifen pulled her into a shadow between two pillars, kissing her new husband-wife. “Tricky girl. First you sneak into my bed thinking I wouldn’t notice what you lacked and next you sneak into my heart.”
“Lifen, I---”
But Lifen didn’t want to hear her wife’s excuses and she set about shutting her up with her lips and her hands and her needy whimpers. One hand, the more daring, reached for the treasure Mulan hid under her shirt and was instead rewarded with the feel of string wrapped around her fingers. The bead, cool as night, fell into her palm.
“You truly are the most interesting person I’ve ever met, Fa Mulan.”
“I could say the same to you, Fa Lifen.” It was Mulan who shut her wife up this time, capturing her lips with a heated kiss.
A sudden yell forced them apart, Mulan pressing Lifen further into the shadows to hide from Lifen’s younger sister. The girl called out with a worried pout but neither groom-bride nor bride felt the need to reveal themselves. It wasn’t long before the girl was off and Lifen figured a whole three seconds was long enough to ensure her sister could no longer hear the rustling of their clothes.
“You ran away from home, stole your father’s armor, impersonated a soldier, and saved China. And now you take in a shameful prostitute and her sister while advising the Emperor. Such a strange thing you are, my Mulan.”
She could have said any number of things to defend herself. She could have mentioned her father’s age. She could have said she hadn’t meant to save China. She could have said that her position under the Emperor gave her to right to marry whomever she wanted. But she didn’t. Because she had a lifetime to explain those things to her wife.
Now was the time to celebrate the beginning of their future. And even while their family and friends looked for them they couldn’t find the energy to care. Because they had much better things to worry about.
Like how to remove Lifen’s dress quickly, without having to rip it.
---
Six years after Mulan disappeared from their village and five years after her brother left to marry a former prostitute, a horse and carriage came up the dusty road that connected them to the Emperor’s golden city. A handsome man with a clear face and bright eyes lead the horse, waving politely at the children that played along the side of the road. He even threw them treats, laughing warmly at their delighted smiles. In the carriage a beautiful woman sang a lullaby to her dark haired daughter. Occasionally the lullaby would be interrupted by giggles when the infant hiccupped in her sleep.
The young family stopped in front of Fa Zhou’s house and one neighbor watched, her embroidery forgotten, as the couple hugged Zhou and his wife.
“Welcome home, my child.” Zhou laughed, the first time his neighbor had heard him laugh in years, and hugged the beautiful woman. “My children.”
“It’s good to be home, father.”
And as Zhou closed his gate his neighbor dropped her embroidery and hurried to find someone. And the gossip prepared to be born again.
Media: Mulan
Pairing: Mulan/Original Female Character
Smut Level: Innocent
Reason: Kink Meme
Summery: They shared one night in bed, a hundred letters, and now a future.
Sequel to: contrary-izybel.livejournal.com/10474.html
Like all good gossip it was born as a whisper. A soft whisper between the neighbor who had first seen him and her friend. And this whisper spread until it encountered another whisper and that was how the gossip grew.
It started off as curiosity. The curiosity that grew when the crops didn’t need tending and the animals were well fed and happy. But after that little things happened. Someone would hear his voice floating over the wall. Someone would see him running to the house from the fields. Someone would sell him vegetables for his mother’s soup.
And finally the gossip made it to him.
“Oh, I thought everyone knew. My parents sent me to live with an aunt and uncle because they didn’t think they could support both me and my sister. Now she’s being sent to marry my aunt’s cousin and I’ve come back to help our parents.”
Of course it didn’t calm the gossip. It encouraged the whispers and stares and giggles and wondering.
And Ping was alright with that. Because at least they believed his lies.
And behind Ping’s smile Mulan rolled her eyes at how gullible her neighbors could be.
---
Once, during a time that seemed a life time ago, she had thought the Matchmaker was a demon. A fat little demon who had dressed herself in human skin and fed on the shame and fear of the girls she berated. Mulan wouldn’t have been surprised if she was right. But there was one big flaw in Mulan’s original thought.
The Matchmaker fed on the shame and fear of everyone.
“Ping, hm? Scrawny little thing, aren’t you?” She lowered herself gracelessly and narrowed her brow in a way that implied she practiced each day. It was a stern look. A mean look.
What a bitch.
“Oh, yes. That’s me. Haha.” The former soldier, hero of China and savior of the Emperor himself, suddenly found herself back before Shang for the first time. She wasn’t the advisor for the Emperor. She wasn’t the calm and clever soldier who walked through the world with confidence.
No, she was a scared girl in her father’s armor.
“Savior of China. That is what they call you.” She poured herself a glass of tea, leaving the pot beside her client. Somewhere in the back of Mulan’s mind she remembered the Matchmaker insisting to always pour tea for a guest. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Mushu responded to that corner of her mind by wondering if maybe she really was a demon.
A matchmaking demon.
“…so what makes you think you’re special enough to make requests of me?”
A matchmaking demon who was still talking.
Damn.
Putting on her best man voice, ‘Ping’ tried for sweet talking and modesty. “Madam, it would be presumptuous of me to assume I know better than you. They speak your name in whispered tones across the kingdom. The woman who can make a match for anyone.”
(‘with a few exceptions’ Mulan thought bitterly)
But it seemed to be working. The frown, the constant frown, was twisting up just slightly. Just enough that Mulan could mistake it for a smile.
“I don’t normally take requests, and she is very low class…” The Matchmaker pulled the paper close, staring at the name Mulan had written. “I will inquire with her mistress.”
“Thank you, kind and wonderful matchmaker.” Mulan almost tripped over herself bowing. But maybe, just maybe, her plan would work.
---
Unlike before this gossip was born in startle shouting. The kind of shouting between out of breath neighbors who had just heard it from the silk weaver who heard it from the Matchmaker herself. It was positive confirmation instead of just speculation and wondering. It was a fact!
And this gossip didn’t just simmer quietly. It ran over tongues and through mouths and into ears. It jumped and flourished. The fields were ignored for favor of this gossip. The animals left to wonder what their masters were talking about in excited tones.
But he was no help. He rarely left the house and when he did it was to the capital city to meet with advisors of the Emperor or even the Emperor himself. When he was among his neighbors he would laugh off their gossip with a charming smile.
With nothing to feed on the gossip withered away. They became bored of their guessing and arguing. Some claimed they had never cared, even when they kept an ear open each time they passed his house. Slowly the gossip died away, replaced with stories of marriage and death and gambling and living.
The gossip didn’t even return the day when the snow melt and three strange men arrived in the village. They were loud and they ate everything in sight and they laughed at strange jokes. But they were apparently also his friends. And two days after they arrived they left with him and with his parents.
It was one little girl, who had raced after them with a silk scarf that had fallen behind, who returned with more information than anyone else had managed to gather.
“Fa Ping is going to get married to a girl he met during the war.”
And the gossip was revived.
---
“Hello again.” Her smile hadn’t changed. Since their last reunion her eyes had lost some of their original sparkle and two shadows had started forming under her eyes. But when Mulan took her hand the playful smile was still there, along with its ability to make her heart flutter.
She was no longer dressed in green and blue. Mulan’s mother had dressed the young bride in red, painting her face and covering her with jewelry. Her hair had been combed and braided and laced with golden wire and red gems. And in all that red Mulan realized Lifen, her beautiful Lifen, looked like the sun rising and burning over the morning sea.
Mulan wore only one piece of jewelry to her wedding. A green and blue bead handing from a string. And when she saw it Lifen, who had been collected and calm through all the wedding proceedings, burst into tears.
The Emperor married them. A rare privilege for the Savior of China. And when the Emperor announced them as Fa Ping and Fa Lifen a chuckle ran through the small crowd. Mulan’s friends and family laughed and wondered when the bride would discover her new husband was also a bride. Lifen’s friends and sister, her only family, laughed and wondered when the groom would discover the skill the bride had developed in her time working at the brothel.
And Mulan and Lifen laughed to themselves, pleased that their friends and family would never know how much they knew about each other.
As the sun set their guests ate mountains of food, all prepared by the Emperor’s chefs, and listened to beautiful music, preformed by the Emperor’s musicians. Lifen found herself surrounded by well wishers, each with advise for her life as a wife. Mulan found herself surrounded by her fellow soldiers and the other members of the Emperor’s council, each teasing her for her beautiful bride.
Their first moment alone as husband and wife came just after the sun set as Mulan tried to escape the crowds. Lifen pulled her into a shadow between two pillars, kissing her new husband-wife. “Tricky girl. First you sneak into my bed thinking I wouldn’t notice what you lacked and next you sneak into my heart.”
“Lifen, I---”
But Lifen didn’t want to hear her wife’s excuses and she set about shutting her up with her lips and her hands and her needy whimpers. One hand, the more daring, reached for the treasure Mulan hid under her shirt and was instead rewarded with the feel of string wrapped around her fingers. The bead, cool as night, fell into her palm.
“You truly are the most interesting person I’ve ever met, Fa Mulan.”
“I could say the same to you, Fa Lifen.” It was Mulan who shut her wife up this time, capturing her lips with a heated kiss.
A sudden yell forced them apart, Mulan pressing Lifen further into the shadows to hide from Lifen’s younger sister. The girl called out with a worried pout but neither groom-bride nor bride felt the need to reveal themselves. It wasn’t long before the girl was off and Lifen figured a whole three seconds was long enough to ensure her sister could no longer hear the rustling of their clothes.
“You ran away from home, stole your father’s armor, impersonated a soldier, and saved China. And now you take in a shameful prostitute and her sister while advising the Emperor. Such a strange thing you are, my Mulan.”
She could have said any number of things to defend herself. She could have mentioned her father’s age. She could have said she hadn’t meant to save China. She could have said that her position under the Emperor gave her to right to marry whomever she wanted. But she didn’t. Because she had a lifetime to explain those things to her wife.
Now was the time to celebrate the beginning of their future. And even while their family and friends looked for them they couldn’t find the energy to care. Because they had much better things to worry about.
Like how to remove Lifen’s dress quickly, without having to rip it.
---
Six years after Mulan disappeared from their village and five years after her brother left to marry a former prostitute, a horse and carriage came up the dusty road that connected them to the Emperor’s golden city. A handsome man with a clear face and bright eyes lead the horse, waving politely at the children that played along the side of the road. He even threw them treats, laughing warmly at their delighted smiles. In the carriage a beautiful woman sang a lullaby to her dark haired daughter. Occasionally the lullaby would be interrupted by giggles when the infant hiccupped in her sleep.
The young family stopped in front of Fa Zhou’s house and one neighbor watched, her embroidery forgotten, as the couple hugged Zhou and his wife.
“Welcome home, my child.” Zhou laughed, the first time his neighbor had heard him laugh in years, and hugged the beautiful woman. “My children.”
“It’s good to be home, father.”
And as Zhou closed his gate his neighbor dropped her embroidery and hurried to find someone. And the gossip prepared to be born again.