stayyourcourse:

 

_{He was a young thing; maybe twenty, but only by a few hairs. Long-limbed. Still handsome, but boyishly so, the jaw not so strong as his father’s had been, (at least not yet) though it stuck out with his cheekbones against his pinkish-cream skin. More tan now..not so much cream, thanks to the exposure to the sun, which was shrouded today by pearly clouds. The sea looked gray. Thinking of London, John decided it was almost nostalgic.} 

_{Young he was, and still with a fresh enough mind to have patience for nostalgia, even though he was - by all rights - hiding. Behind a fruit stand, idly leaning against the splintered cart, every now and then checking the docs a distance behind him, listening for shouts of  ”Oy! Where’s the Smith boy?” mixed with any other number of expletives. It wasn’t that he was lazy; tell any other restless young man to lift hefty loads of cargo for hours and see how much enthusiasm they had for the job.}

_{Men stood in clusters, bartering in tongues that meant mostly nothing to John. He knew a few phrases, coined from other men who had also taken this particular journey more than once, but there was no fluency to be had, no skills of conversation.} 

_{No, John Smith had set out to sail the high seas for something much more promising than cargo. Hadn’t he paid his dues already? Couldn’t he get work of some real substance?}

_{He saw her out the corner of his eye. A tiny thing. Kind of cute. A sea port was no place for a kid, let alone a girl, knowing what these people were like. He made a sounds like a click to get her attention.}

_{“niūniu —” He smiled, jerking his head, indicating she should approach.}

With some of the coins Baba had given her, Mulan bought a pocketful of lóng yǎn and continued on her way, happily munching one.  The soft brown rind rolled thoughtlessly into the gutter, and Mulan was careful not to swallow the hard seed at the center of the “dragon’s eye.”  

She thought she might feed Khan one of the fruits, but did horses know not to eat the skin or choke on the seeds?  Maybe because he was so much bigger than Mulan, it wouldn’t matter.  She decided to wait and ask Baba before giving fruit to Khan.  At eight, Mulan was sure that her father knew everything about everything.  He was so wise!

Mulan spotted a stall piled high with carrots, niúpícài and onions.  She was just wondering if Khan would like a carrot instead when somebody called out: “Little girl - ”

Eyes wide, Mulan looked around, but there was only a tall lǎowài staring at her - a foreigner.  His hair was as yellow as the Emperor’s robes!  If she had been a little younger, Mulan might have put her thumb in her mouth.  Instead, she stopped confusedly on her side of the street, toes pointing inward, and stared back.