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“That’s it,” Mushu encouraged. “Keep going. Maybe you should give him a little kiss.” “Mushu!” The dragon shrugged. “Hey, it works in all those folktales.”
ALL OF LIFE IS A DREAM WALKING, ALL OF DEATH IS A GOING HOME.
Mulan hadn’t understood what he meant then. She hadn’t understood the significance of what it meant for her to be the only girl in the village who skipped learning ribbon dances to ride Khan through the village rice fields, who chased after chickens and helped herd the cows instead of learning the zither or practicing her painting, who was allowed to have opinions—at all. She’d taken the freedom of her childhood for granted.
Making use of the break, Mulan untied the knot on her head. Her hair tumbled down again, brushing against the nape of her neck. She unfastened her armor, freeing her shoulders of their heavy burden. The demons watched her in disbelief. “A girl?” “I am Mulan.” She raised her sword high. She’d never fought as herself before—as a woman, not a woman pretending to be a man. No more hiding, no more pretending. No more fears that she’d endanger herself and her family. She was who she’d always wanted to be.
Speed, endurance, strength. Precision, focus, confidence, Mulan told herself. I am the coursing river, the raging fire. I am the warrior.
“My father encouraged me to see the strength within,” Mulan told the mirror crisply. “When I was a little girl, he told me that life is a journey, one whose path diverges due to the choices I made. He told me not to worry about how difficult a path might look, for the only one worth following was the one that my heart chose.” She waited, but the Fa Zhou in the mirror said nothing. “My father would understand what I did. He believes in me.”
“I want to honor my family by being a good daughter,” she continued, “but I also want the freedom to be myself, to say and do what I think is right, even if that means deviating from the path that is expected of me. For so long, I’ve been scared—scared of what my parents will think when I go home, scared of what my friends in the army would think if they found out I’m a girl. I’m not scared anymore. It doesn’t matter if I’m pretending to be Ping or if I’m Mulan. As long as I am true to myself, then my reflection will show who I really am.”
A reminder that where there is beauty, there is also strength and courage and resilience.”
