Two.

The warm, solid stars were out, the moon a slim bluish-white, curved line in the sharp black. The houses in Mulan's village were glowing softly with internal golden light, as if they themselves were the stars that the true stars looked at during the night. Somehow these lights from the ground were colder, like a turned shoulder. Mulan's house was flooded with this cold candle-light in the paper windows--the light mostly came from the dining room, where three figures sat in silence, only two poking clumps of rice into their mouths.

Mulan poured a cup of tea for herself and stared at her untouched rice. 

Her ba calmly chewed on his mouthful, his face a mask of resignation. Her ma sipped her tea and stared at the table, then opened her mouth. "To be beautiful enough to impress your suitors, you must eat, Mulan."

Mulan slammed her bowl down on the table.

"Mulan--"

"Why should they force you to go like that?!" she demanded of her ba, who slowly blinked and kept chewing.

"Mulan!"

"You'll die out there! And no one with a leg injury can be any use as a fighter for the Emperor! Why should they force you to serve them when--"

"Enough!" her ba roared, finally looking at her--with a mix of fear, anger, and grim determination that splashed into his eyes like a rock into a once peaceful pool. "Li Shi was right about you, Mulan! Your purpose is to give honor to the family through an honorable marriage and sons, and not to be a disobedient child who never listens to her elders, and worse, the Emperor himself. I will serve the Emperor, and I will die with honor."

Now Mulan was shouting. She couldn't help it. "So you'll just go to your death!"

"The path you are taking, Mulan, is one that I will not have for a daughter of mine, and if you refuse my fate--and yours--one more time, I cannot have you for a daughter either!"

Shock filled the room like a scented fog--nauseating, misty, but all at once like a slap in the face.

The next few moments were a blur. Later, Mulan could remember staring at her ba--her kind, calm, gentle ba--in stunned silence, then feeling her eyes grow hot in the corners, but no wetness came. 

Then all motion disintegrated into a blur. Running. Running over cracks in wooden floor beams and dusty stones. Running into the wide courtyard, where the hard clot in the back of her mouth finally dissolved and the relieving tears finally came. She sank to the grass and sobbed, her voice muffled as she laid her hands against her face, lying on her back and shaking.

The tears flowed like the Yellow River for a while, soaking Mulan's ears and hair, but at last her eyes dried and she stared blankly out at the all-encompassing night sky, looking at but not seeing the stars wink and chime through her fogged, green-and-red-streaked vision.

She was branded, she thought dully to herself. Branded as a useless, stupid girl. Gone were the dreams of exploring what lay beyond the cobblestone road. But what did it matter. Her father was resigning himself to his death. And she had to watch as he sacrificed himself for an army that was likely not even going to defeat those dreaded Huns.

There was no difference between the lights in the houses and the lights in the sky. They were all cold. Cold, hard, and unforgiving.

She rolled over onto her stomach and rested her cheek on the soft, yielding grass. A final tear slipped out. Her father was going to die. She would be disowned if she tried to help. She knew she wouldn't be able to live in a world like her ma's. Oh  yes, and her ma would be forever shamed as well, if Mulan tried to stop her ba's death.

Mulan closed her eyes and rested her face on the grass.

Unless...

She sat up.

No.

Mulan racked her brain for less fatal ideas and came up with none. It was the most far-fetched concept of all time, she knew, not to mention that it was against the law, but if it worked, everything could be solved.

Could she--

Mulan slapped herself. Of course she couldn't do it. If her father didn't believe in her, it couldn't be possible. She'd be caught. And then she'd be put to death.

But could it work?

She looked up at the sky, but this time trained her gaze at the moon. It glowed delicately, as if to urge her on.

With a jolt, her ba's voice came back to her, something she'd heard him say years ago. A northern wind may shriek and grind away at the mountain, and perhaps one day crush it with brute strength, but the scattered stones that once formed the mountain will spread as the wind unknowingly carries them, and the stones will form more mountains twice as tall as before.

She set her eyes on the dim glow of the window of the dining room and looked through the paper to her ba's shadow--still without his cane--as he opened a chest against the wall with a sense of respect and dread that even she could see from outside.

The silhouette turned, holding the outline of a sword. Her ba unsheathed it and thrust at an imaginary opponent, turning and parrying a strike, then twisted--and collapsed. Mulan couldn't hear the agonized groan, but it came automatically onto her lips when she saw him fall.

Her ba staggered, then stood again, leaning against the wall and slumping in pain and weariness. He looked at the sword in his hand.

There was no other way, his daughter realized as she watched from the courtyard. No other plan. No other crazy plan that could either save her ba's life or destroy China.

Mulan set her jaw. Fine. Then she'd start multiplying the mountains.

She looked up at the moon once more and prayed without words for luck, then hiked up her skirt and ran from the grass to a side door in the house, where she quietly let herself in.

She waited until she heard the familiar creak of the floorboards, signaling that her ba was going to bed. Then she slipped down the corridor, carefully avoiding the wooden planks that made noises when stepped on, and found her way to the dining room. 

The sword. She located it in the chest: a beautiful steel blade with a swirling dragon emblazoned on the sheath, an object never seen in her smaller years. Sitting innocently next to it was the scroll of conscript orders--she took it and set it down next to her on the floor.

The sword was unsheathed, with a rasp that made the girl cringe.

Mulan ran her fingers through her hair, closed her eyes, and made the first cut. She tried not to shiver in a cold draft of air wafting through the house--or was that the tingling of her own spine at the unfathomable thing she was doing?

Thick black locks fell to the floor. Mulan decided not to look, then quickly took her ba's suit of green-and-black armor from the chest and taught herself how to tie the arm-guards.

She was not going to say goodbye, she decided as she strapped on the plate armor and slowly transformed herself into a man.

Saying goodbye might tempt her to stay, and that was a move too dangerous to take.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tranquil night, the cheeping of crickets, would have been severely disturbed had Mulan's horse not recognized the man dressed in green-and-black plate armor and carrying a sword.

As it was, a spare moment to calm down poor Lao was all that was needed before the doors to the Hua family courtyard were opened and two figures--a man and his slightly startled horse--quietly escaped into the night.