Book Ideas That I Have

Wild Orchids

This is going to be a Mulan story. Mulan is the princess of China. She has two brothers. Neither is her full brother. The oldest brother is the heir, the son of the emperor's first wife and empress. He is just like his mother, and neither Mulan nor her other brother like them. Jin, the younger of her two brothers, is the son of her mother's best friend. The two women met when they married the emperor, and had their children only a few months apart. The emperor loved these two women, while his first wife was a marriage arranged by his parents for the good of the empire. His first wife despises this fact, and detests the other women. Jin and Mulan are very close, and when Jin is captured by the Huns, Mulan wants him rescued. When she cannot convince her father to send an army to rescue him, she takes matters into her own hands.

She disguises herself as a boy, Lin Bau, and enlists in the army. Her commander, Li Shang, doesn't know what to make of this young boy. He is fiercely determined, but weak. He doesn't seem to know what he's doing, but tried anyway. He resists the chain of command, and gets upset when things don't go his way. But he improves. He soon is at the top of the "class", and is giving Shang himself a run for his money.

When it is discovered that the Huns are camped nearby and that the prince is being kept there, it is easy to convince Shang that the course of action that they need to take is to raid the camp.

When they reach Jin, Mulan runs to him and jumps into his arms without thinking, and Jin, immediately recognizing her, is incredibly confused as to what she is doing there. He inadvertently gives her away, and when Shang finds out that Lin Bou is really Mulan, the princess of China, he is furious with her. Namely because he has found himself caring for someone he thought was a boy and confusing himself, only to find that the object of his affection has been running head first into danger, not even caring about the consequences.

But they escort the prince and princess back to the imperial city, and in the day that they return during a dinner to celebrate the return of their prince, the Huns, led by their leader, Shan Yu, attack the city, and take the royal family hostage in the palace.

With the military in a tizzy, Shang frantic because Mulan is in danger, and the men that she befriended there panicking, Mulan finds a way out, and gets out.

Gussied up in traditional clothing, headdress, and makeup, her father's sword in hand, Mulan make sher escape onto the roof, and just as she is trying to figure out a way down with the people, Shan Yu appears behind her. The people down below, who had been cheering when they realized it was their beloved princess on the roof, cried out in warning, and the battle between Mulan and Shan Yu commences.

Mulan is disarmed, pinned down on a ridiculously high roof, with a man in the mood for murder before her. Fumbling around in her robes, she finds her silk fan, and pulls it out. Shan Yu stabs at her with his sword, she punches the blade in-between the spokes of her fan, snaps it shut, twists, and disarms him. With the tables turned, she now has the upper hand. But, she knows she cannot best him, so instead, she turns, runs to the edge of the roof... and jumps. She grabs a hanging lantern, slides down the cable that runs down form the roof to another building down below, and releases before she crashes into the wall of said building. Of course, she lands on Shang, knocks him down, and they tumble across the stone courtyard area there.

Shan Yu follows her, but they cut the cable, and he catches a wall. Hanging there, unable to move, the archers riddle him with arrows, and he falls to the ground, dead.

A punishment for Mulan was spoken if right before the Huns attacked, proposed by the empress and backed by her allies in the parliament. Now that punishment is to be settled and carried out. The emperor tells Mulan, "Your empress would like to see you punished for: insubordination, running away, not dressing according to your station, lying, imbedding yourself in the imperial army under false pretenses...and being more loved than her own son." This, showing that he was not oblivious to the empress' hate. The empress is visibly shook for a moment, and in this moment, Mulan's and Jin's mother's snicker together. The emporer goes in to say, "However, in some if these things, she is right in you deserving consequences for your actions. It is by my command, that four weeks from now, you shall be married. And in these four weeks, you shall learn and study to be a good wife to your future husband, your wedding will be planned bad organized, and your husband will be found."

Shang steps forward at this time and says, "Your Majesty, if I may say, I know of a man who might be good for this position." And the emperor asks him who he has in mind. And they have a cryptic conversation, but both if them understand that Shang is speaking of himself, and that he lives Mulan, and that he would very much like to marry her. And then, four weeks from that day, they are married, and they live happily ever after.

Obviously, I need to work out names. Research genuine Chinese names. Oh boy, I need a lot of names.

Also, military terms and words, the words to address the different members of the royal family.

Lots of things.