╣happy birthday angel!╠

Ji-ji, again ji-ji, 
Mulan faces the door, weaving…

The susurrus click and slide of the loom was familiar to her from childhood.  As a little girl, Mulan had played on the floor as Mama wove, a safe distance from the imposing structure: which Hua Li cautioned her daughter not to touch.  Whether she was holding a wriggling puppy in her arms or dressing her dolls in leftover scraps of finished cloth, Mulan would pause from time to time to admire her mother.  

Though Li - like any well-bred matron - moved through her home at a sedate, graceful pace, her fingers as she leaned over the wood beams flew so fast that the little girl was amazed.  Sometimes, Mulan ran to the window to watch her father coax one of their precious oxen out of the stables.  She fancied that Mama and Baba were the weaving maid and cowherd from a favorite story, perhaps having served their time of separation and returned to earth.  The only thing that was not quite right was that Mulan was certain there were two children in the story.  And Mulan had no older brother.  So the little girl wondered if her parents would be separated when Mama had another baby.

Of course, as Mulan had grown up, she had learned the difference between stories and life, yet the role of weaving maid had fallen on herself.  There had been no little sibling, no separation ordained by heaven - until she herself rode away from home in Baba’s armor.  But now Mulan was content, especially at a chore which she was skilled at and required little thought.  The shuttle flew left and right; Mulan shifted back and forth, using muscles that were stiff from disuse and muscles that were sore from overwork.

“You know, you could stay in bed for two more months and no one would blame you.”

Mulan jumped, and hid her slight wince behind a rueful smile.  Shang lounged easily in the doorway, the only one who would notice if her movements were even a hair slower than usual.  

“I have to do something,” she protested, smoothing short strands of hair back from her eyes.  "Even if you and Mama make me stay indoors.  Was I supposed to reread the same handful of scrolls and dispatches a fifth time?“  Soreness emanated through her body, starting with her belly. Mulan shrugged one shoulder, although she was sure her reluctance to rise from the loom belied her nonchalance and Shang could tell.  As he unfolded himself from the door frame and crossed to her, Mulan set down the shuttle and shifted to face him.  "Someone left me ink sticks and brushes but no paper.  Should I have written on my arms and legs to amuse myself?”

She admired the look on Shang’s face, a familiar mixture of affection and bewilderment and one that Mulan had learned to take as a compliment.  Eyebrows raised in a way that was not unfamiliar to anybody he’d trained, General Li Shang decided it was best to pick his battles with his wife and instead knelt beside the wide, sturdy basket to Mulan’s left: this, too, a change in the room where Mulan had spent much of her own girlhood.

“Huīyìng,” crooned the new father, as if it was a song of two syllables, or as if the infant whose gaze he now held recognized her name.  Somehow Mulan doubted this was the case, but she also could see the logic of repeating a word until it was learned.  Besides, Li Huīyìng did have a beautiful ring to it.  Mulan leaned over from her bench to smile at the baby.  Instantly, dark eyes switched over to scrutinize the new face.

“Your mama,” Shang told Huīyìng, as seriously as if he really was convinced she could understand every word, “would have written letters all over your stomach and back too, if she was made to stay in bed any longer.”

“I would not,” protested Mulan but laughingly, resting her hand on Shang’s shoulder for support.  Though he stirred under Mulan’s touch, Shang soon lifted their daughter out of the basket and straightened, perching carefully on the seat beside Mulan.  The parents peered at Huīyìng with a great deal of love and some trepidation: as if she were, perhaps, a new weapon to be learned, polished and refined.  Only a baby was (thought Mulan) much more interesting and much more terrifying than any weapon she had ever handled.  As if to underscore the feeling, Huīyìng opened her tiny mouth in what looked like a yawn but soon turned into a wail.

“Oh,” said Mulan, and her husband was unsettled to hear a strange note of relief in her voice.  His curiosity was only satisfied when Mulan reached for the newborn and said, sheepishly, “I think she might be hungry.”

“I should leave the two of you alone.”  Shang stood.

It was Mulan’s turn to consult the baby.  "He’s seen me wrapped in bandages and a blanket,“ Mulan singsonged as Huīyìng gripped her sleeve in tiny fists, ” - sometimes only the blanket - and he thinks he should give us privacy.  Who’s silly now?  Me or your baba?“

To tell the truth, despite her teasing Mulan had all but forgotten Shang as she struggled to push her collar aside one-handed.  It was only when Huīyìng was contentedly nursing at last that Mulan looked up, hair swinging around her face.  

Shang had paused on his way to the door.  The look on his face as he watched his wife and child was a new one, but Mulan thought she could become accustomed to it easily.  

Their eyes met, and she smiled.