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In every mirror was a reflection of Mulan. Look hard at yourself, her reflections said.
Which is the real Mulan? The girl in a uniform pretending to be a soldier, or the girl in a dress pretending to be a bride? “Neither,” Mulan whispered. Correct. Both are lies.
Mulan flinched. “I’m not a liar.” You are nothing. No matter how hard you try, no one will ever see you for who you are.
“If I lose my wager against him, then I have no control over what my fate is. But I have not lost yet. I can still get out of here and bring Captain Li Shang back to the living world.”
Choose me, another reflection implored her. I’ve always been pretending to be someone I’m not. First the perfect bride so someone might marry me, then the perfect soldier so I might bring honor home. I need to accept there is no perfect path for me. Her reflection’s plea tugged at Mulan’s heart. No, that wasn’t her. She did have those doubts, but they didn’t make up who she was.
Yet now everything depended on her answer.
Did she see herself in any of them? “Yes,” Mulan whispered. “I’ve tried so hard to hide, to run away from who I don’t want to be. I never stopped to look at my reflection and tell it who I want to be.”
She spread her arms across the room. Her voice echoed from wall to wall. “Maybe I didn’t go for my father. Maybe what I really wanted to prove was that I could do things right, so that when I looked in the mirror, I’d see someone worthwhile. “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
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“This one. This is me.”
Are you sure? asked the girl in the mirror. “Yes,” said Mulan firmly. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m a girl dressed like a bride, or a girl dressed like a soldier. I know my heart.”
I am a girl who has fought battle after battle to finally recognize herself in the mirror. And now I do.”
A grin crossed over the young woman’s lips. She nodded. “Well done. This is my true form.” “Does that mean…” Mulan faltered. Her throat grew tight. “That I’ve—” “You’ve won,” said Meng Po, bowing her head. “You’ve passed the Chamber of Mirrors.”
“But I thought only a demigod could unlock the sword’s power,” Mulan said. “That is not true,” replied Meng Po. “Only someone with a hero’s heart could do that. A heart like yours,
“There. A reminder that where there is beauty, there is also strength and courage and resilience.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” she replied. “It was real. All of it.”
