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In fact, the smell of smoke in the air was so strong that she was sure he would’ve noticed too, somewhere, wherever he was, far away, or even across the other side of the mountains, where the clouds had loomed threateningly over the Huns for as many years since they had first waged their war against the kingdom. So it seemed that he was waiting, waiting for her from that place beyond the distance. Nothing else but his falcon atop his shoulder, and an image of her still gleaming in his memory. She sighed. Watched her breath freeze in the cold. And made her way back to him.
The winters were cruel but this one was relentless. Fa Mulan stood calmly along the edge of a cliff overlooking the dark abyss of the tundras below, just shy of the entrance to his tent. He knew because he had watched her, in a manner not unlike that of his own falcon, whose stare was piercing in the amber light of the lanterns once she began to walk through. There was nothing subtle about Shan Yu. He smiled as their gazes met, towering over her like a shadow that was looming in the darkness. Little soldier, he said—it was what he liked to call her. When he had met his fateful end only days later, on the roof of a tower sitting far above the rest of the city while she drew her weapon carefully to the core of his heart, the phrase had followed them both even up until the last legs of his life, so that they became the only thing he said before she finally pushed into his chest. Little soldier. They both felt the sheer weight of the Earth shaking beneath them. It seems that every battle we must fight brings us back again to each other. That was the first time Fa Mulan had ever killed someone. But not the last.
“You fight rather valiantly for a pest,” she retorted, but refused to bend easily under his presence. Mulan stepped forward, her grip tightening on her sword, and in the cool metal of the blade, his smile grew in the face of her defiance.
“You will miss that about me,” he said, “when I’m gone.”
She stayed silent. His words rung in her ear. Drifted into the cool breeze filtering through the small gap of the tent. She looked beyond the opening, and at the stars that had just begun to settle into the sky. “No.” Their reflection shined in her eyes. “Just the view from here.”
Her resolve was unforgiving. They were one in the same, after all. Not people, but soldiers. She, much like him, restless in her sleep, spent countless nights awake dreaming about a life without the violence they’d grown accustomed to, and was paralyzed just by the thought of it. Shan Yu had told her once that he could never remember the few years of his childhood before everything else was helplessly swept into the war, but he remembered seeing her that day on the mountains while the sky hung grimly overhead. Then the fire in her eyes that rivaled a fury only he recognized in the heat of a battle—she was the first soldier that had ever come close to pinning him down. Shan Yu said that he saw himself on the edge of a river. He leaned closer, and caught his face folding into the ripples of a wave. But when he dived in, the version of her that greeted him was not the version of her that had turned back once he finished saying those words. I see. Nothing more, nothing less. He could never tell if she really meant it.
“So you’ll return,” he prompted, walking over to stand beside her, “after it’s over.”
Mulan looked at him now, with eyes that were unreadable. She had only laughed. “I can’t make that kind of promise.” Their knuckles brushed against each other. Her hand was small and shaking under his own. “Don’t.” She quickly moved it away. Her heart turned over, sick of its own nature, and she hoped the winter would freeze the tears that stung her eyes. “I could kill you if I wanted to,” she warned him, except the weight behind it felt empty.
Shan Yu did not say anything. He wouldn’t console her; Mulan would just turn him away. Instead, he gave her a piece of his shirt that he’d torn to dry her tears. The fabric was soft in the palm of her hand, and damp as she tried to give it back to him. Shan Yu only pushed it away from himself. Keep it. He ignored her protests. It’s not mine anymore.
Reluctantly, she agreed, and grasped it tight between her fingers. With finality, she made her way outside, long into the endless night. She would turn for the last time, against the black sky. “This could be our only farewell.” Her eyes were impenetrable. Even then, Shan Yu could never tell what she was thinking. He saw, although only for a brief second, himself on the edge of a river again. The picture was clearer than ever, and just as he imagined. But Mulan stood on the other side, and had disappeared into the darkness.
His falcon came to rest in its place on his shoulder. Shan Yu smiled, staring out at her retreating figure. “It may very well be.”