One.

Stuck inside weaving patterned cloth, while a cool breeze from the quiet, fragrant outside wafted into the house--pure torture.

The slim, small girl had slender but uncoordinated fingers. She paid no attention to the skeins of yarn next to her, dyed pastel colors, as she clumsily moved the shuttle back and forth to combine the colors. She let out an exasperated puff, rewinding her work for the fourth time, and stared out the window into the bright spring courtyard, watching as the chickens pranced outside underneath the curtains of falling magnolia blossoms.

She had less freedom than a chicken. How depressing was that?

Next to her, her ma's voice: "Mulan, please don't sigh like that. What's wrong?"

Mulan opened her mouth--then closed it. "Nothing." She couldn't tell her ma. The woman sitting next to her with the placid, passive face and the expert fingers understood housewife language, but otherwise? It was hard to imagine her ma wanting anything more than a quiet household and her daughter married off to some man.

The lunch bell rang abruptly, startling the chickens into a squawking clatter.

Mulan sprang up, anxious to get away from that loom, and nearly knocked the said loom over. Her ma yelped and straightened it before it crashed to the ground. "Sorry!" Mulan called vaguely--but she was already sprinting through the corridor to the kitchen. "Slowly!" her mother cried. 

Mulan wheeled around the corner and nearly rammed into her ba, who stood at the entrance about to seat himself at their low wooden dining table, in a room adorned with paper windows and more cushioned mats. "Mulan!" he exclaimed in a quiet voice.

The daughter screeched to a halt and bowed before guiding him to sit and taking the steaming pot of jasmine tea from the table. "Ba. Good morning."

"Mulan--"

"How was your visit to the Ancestors' Temple?" She poured him a cup of tea.

"Mulan--"

"Ma says that the silk will arrive in time for the new year."

"Mulan--"

"The tea's hot. Be careful."

"Mulan!"

She stopped the nervous rambling and blinked, finally setting down the teapot. "Yes. Sorry. Yes?"

He carefully leaned down his walking stick--he was old and had a leg injury from fighting in a war--and smiled gently. "How was your weaving lesson this morning?"

Her shoulders slumped and she scowled at the teapot. "It was fine."

"She is making progress," Ma spared her, walking into the room and letting Mulan pour her a drink. "Her skill is improving."

"Good, good."

Mulan frowned, peeved, at Ba's apparently single-minded fascination with her progression in housewifery. Her purpose of existence: to marry and have sons as soon as possible. Again, chickens didn't have this much pressure, did they?

Their wispy maid scurried in and deposited steaming bowls of white rice and fish in front of Mulan and her parents. Ba nodded to the maid, who bowed and left; despite her state of dreariness, Mulan scarfed down the food. 

"Not so fast, Mulan. That kind of thing doesn't impress in-laws..."

Mulan resisted slamming down her cup and took a breath. Calm down. Think of clouds, Mulan. Quiet. Unassuming. There you go.

She finished the food in a collected manner.

"Don't you think, Mulan?"

Her head jerked up. "Wha--oh!" Her parents were staring at her expectantly--they must've asked her a question. 

She knew one answer. "Yes, um, of course."

Her parents' bowls were empty, so she took them outside, breathing in the clear, fresh air as she scrubbed them with well-water.

Mulan stared at the trees, the chickens, the grass, the sky. The outdoors were too tempting.

She then poked her head into the house. "Ma, can I go...um...pray in the Temple?"

Her ma waved a hand. "Of course, you may go."

Her chance to escape, and she took it like a trophy.

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Mulan ran into the garden, shedding her shawl and taking out all the uncomfortable pins in her hair, and dodged the magnolia saplings until she found the oldest of them all, a seasoned veteran at who knew what age. She bit her lip in concentration and pulled herself up the trunk, getting leaves in her hair, but who cared; for this moment she was free! She sat on a branch high up off the ground; from this point in the air, she could hear every little rustle (even if her sight was mostly blocked by the magnolia blossoms): the chickens fussing in their yard; the horses whipping their tails in the stables...and the murmurs of a crowd of villagers right outside the courtyard.

"No, it can't be possible," she heard a man mumble.

"Every family?" she heard another ask incredulously.

Trying to part the sheets of flowers did nothing, so Mulan leapt down from the tree and ran to the gate of the courtyard, where her parents already stood, about to exit to find the source of the commotion. Her ba went first, slowly, leaning on his cane. Ma went out next and motioned to Mulan: Stay inside. 

Mulan humphed. Well, then, she'd find another way. She ran back to the orchard and found a smaller tree near the edge of the wall, climbed it, and peered past a tree branch to watch the commotion occurring over the stone wall. 

Her ears began to echo with the sounds of hard hooves striking stone. Horses? Finally she clambered up the wall and peered over the edge.

What she saw made her eyes grow to saucer size.

Two tall, bearded men wearing plate armor, carrying spears and pulling on the reins of restless white stallions clip-clopping on the cobblestones, held the crowd of villagers back as a tall man with a long nose in a blue, tasseled hat rode forward, a lumpy pack hanging from his waist. "Villagers!" he screeched, the hat flopping forward. "I am Li Shi, the Emperor's senior advisor. We bring urgent news from the Capital of China." He cleared his throat dramatically. "The Huns have invaded our border!"

Gasps of fear emanated from the crowd and filtered into Mulan's ears. She blanched. The Huns had gotten past the Great Wall? It wasn't possible. She saw Ma gasp and look up at her husband, who already had a grim look on his face.

What was happening?

"I assure you, the news is true," the man told the crowd. "Therefore, the Emperor is in dire need of an army to defeat the Huns. He has determined that one man from every family in China--" The crowd gasped again and began to babble questions at the same speed Mulan's chickens scuttled to their breakfast. 

The soldiers slammed their spears onto the ground, stunning the villagers into silence. After a moment, Li continued. "The Emperor needs one man from every family in China to serve in his army, so that a force as great and powerful as the Huns may be vanquished." He looked around. "It is an honor to serve in an Imperial Army that will once and for all destroy our long-term enemies." 

Watching from the tree, Mulan's head yanked back from the view and laid itself against the tree branch, blood pounding. Shock made her mind swirl, and she couldn't process what was happening, but she knew it somehow had to do with her father.

Li reached into the lumpy bag at his waist and pulled out a scroll. "I will now distribute your conscript orders." He opened the scroll and barked, "Zhang!"

A young, tall man with half a beard stepped up, took the roll of paper, bowed, and retreated into the throng of villagers.

"Chao!

"Xin!

"Su!"

Mulan bolted down the tree trunk and ran out of the courtyard, pushing open the doors and dashing straight into the center of the stone road as the Emperor's advisor called: "Hua!"

Mulan pushed her way through the crowd. "No!"

All eyes turned to her in surprise. She vaguely saw her ma burying her head in her hands. "Sir, my father will die if he joins the Imperial Army once more. He fought for the Emperor once before--"

Li Shi's two bodyguards crossed spears and thrust Mulan backwards. She stumbled and tripped on the cobblestones. "Please, sir," she half-sobbed, staring up at the indifferent face under the ornate hat.

Li Shi looked down at the girl in front of him with disdain and disgust. "Who is this snake? Have your parents yet taught you how to hold your tongue in front of a man, you peasant?"

She felt a hand on the back of her dress and turned--Ma, with a half-angry, half-desperate face helped her up. Mulan turned to her ma, who lowered her voice and drew in her eyebrows. "You dishonor your father, Mulan," she whispered harshly. "Let him go."

But as Mulan wrenched herself away and stood apart from the crowd, she did see a flash of grief dart across her ma's face as she was handed her husband's cane.

Ba grimly limped towards Li, his left leg bearing most of his weight. Li paid no attention to his injury as he took the scroll and gave it to him. Mulan's ba bowed and turned around to go back--and crumpled.

Mulan suppressed a scream and tried to get through the crowd, but Ba stood up quickly, waving off the villagers, and continued his walk back to the house.

Li Shi watched dispassionately, turned to the scroll in his hand, and shouted, "Shui!"

Mulan and Ma walked down the path back to the house in silence, but Mulan's mind was whirling in a confused mess.

Her father...