steadyasthewind:

 

_{If Ping was currently having trouble in keeping his facade of passing as a different gender, Pocahontas didn’t notice. Even if he was rather small and scrawny for a man, she thought it was only because he was still young rather than he was  a woman in disguise. His inner turmoil over acting like a boy and listening to her, went unnoticed and she continued to move about the clearing, gathering various twigs and dead leaves to throw into the growing pile.}

_{“I can tell you haven’t,” she chuckled, “You would have been sitting here all day trying to light it with what you had earlier.” she went on bluntly, and took the branch from him to inspect it. The wood was far thicker than the others he’d collected earlier, and had a good weight to it  ensuring a longer blaze. “This is much better, and it’s dry too, see?” she held the branch up for him to take a closer look, hopefully the man was taking note of what this, and would know what to do in the future. Pocahontas couldn’t always be there to help him build a fire, and it was lucky that she’d found him today before he set the woods on  fire. She silently prayed that he would choose a different location to ‘practice’ next time, preferably away from the forest.}

_{“Sword? What’s that?” she furrowed her brow and handed the branch back to ping. She assumed it was some sort knife, as he’d indicated that it was used for cutting, but what kind of knife was foreign to her. “Can I see it?”}

Ping hesitated.  On the one hand he had enough common sense not to hand his sword over to everybody who asked to see it, especially after several weeks at Wu Zhong, where the hapless Ling had fallen for this trick twice.  (Ping had had to hide his smile behind his hand, because while Ling wasn’t as prone to ball up his fists and charge towards Ping as Yao was, the lankier man was very good at nasty, revenge-driven pranks.)  On the other hand - though he could almost hear Captain Li groaning in disappointment - Ping felt he could trust Pocahontas.  After all, she was doing so much to help him build a good fire.  Why be so kind, when a trained enemy would probably have killed Ping on sight?

He drew the sword from its sheath at his waist almost reverently, although this had a lot to do with the fact that if he unsheathed his sword too quickly, Ping had learned, he often dropped it.  Stepping towards Pocahontas, he held the sword gingerly out to her, gripping it nearer the pommel so she’d be able to grasp the handle above his fist.  Despite his decision to trust her with the sword, “Please be careful,” Ping blurted out in a low voice.  "It’s my father’s sword.“