Unknown Happen Stance

Chapter 53: Autopilot Imbalanced Insecurities

"The kind of strong you make yourself wear isn't realistic, Musa. It's a fake-out!" Mulan shouted, her voice ringing with the authority of a seasoned warrior. "It doesn't need to exist, and it shouldn't! Stop feeding it!"

Musa, taken aback by Mulan's intensity, struggled to comprehend. "No, how could one fake confidence, Mulan? I don't understand it."

"Evie fakes it all the time she's been here, but hers isn't heightened because she doesn't consent to heightening her overconfidence. But you are! Tell the truth about your insecurities to yourself. Say you don't recognize yourself. Say you don't know how to be a Realist."

The word "Realist," spoken with Mulan's steely resolve, triggered a visceral reaction in Musa. A flashback flickered in her mind; the image of her father's face, harsh and disapproving, superimposed itself over her own self-image in the reflection.

"Stop it, love, you need to be more realistic," Matlin, Musa's mother, scolded her husband. "I want to spend the night before the rehearsal and performance with you and Musa."

"But Matlin, your practice requires you attend," her father countered, dismissing their annual May date night—a date night consistently delayed since Musa turned two. In the flashback running through Musa's head, she was about to turn five.

"It's my time to do with it what I will, love. Quiet hours with my family is what I choose."

'Realism,' 'Realistic,' and 'No Way' – words Musa learned early, alongside her basic vocabulary at age five. Mulan splashed her again, cold water shocking Musa back to the present. She shivered, but shrugged off the water seeping into her clothes.

"Hey!" Musa groaned as the dampness soaked in, remembering a time when her mother and she were splashed by a playful, purple singing whale through its blowhole.

The gritty, slimy feel of the whale's water mirrored the feel of the new insecurities that were locking into place in her heart, forming a cold wall that blocked her head and left her dangerously unguarded. Mulan threw pebbles at her, forcing Musa to dodge, echoing the voice of her mother: "We cannot plan unrealistic options or choices." The echo blended unsettlingly with a similar phrase from her father before he became abusive – "We must stay within the realm of realism; even the unrealistic has limits. Idealism can be dangerous, erosive, corruptive. Don't build too many castles in the air, or the wind will sweep you right off your feet."

"I'm calling it how I see it!" Riven's voice echoed in Musa's head, a combined line from two different, haunting episodes—memories from both Season 1 and Season 2. "We need to keep this realistic."

The grasses trembled as Musa, on her knees, struggled to evade both Mulan's physical prods and the relentless verbal accusations designed to break through her defenses.

"Stop!" Musa cried, the dam finally breaking. "I am insecure, overconfident, arrogant. And I absolutely detest the world of realism, of realists. I heard it so often when I was little, from two to five years old. Then at five, my mom passed away. I forced myself to believe realism betrayed both my parents—that it turned one into a monster and snatched the other away from me. All my dad cared about was how realistic my dreams were; whether I wanted to pursue them was never part of the discussion. So I left. My guardians warned me about my overconfidence levels, but I failed to listen, even to them. The mother I saw in the Golden Kingdom was an illusion offered by the kingdom; one could be real, in another dimension—but my 'real' mother would look at me, and say..."

Musa paused, gathering the courage to utter the heartbreaking truth. "She would say, 'You are not my daughter.' She'd frown and treat me like a stranger."

"And that's not the outcome you want," Mulan said, slapping Musa even as she was on her knees. While the slap stung with physical pain, it also held the firm, disciplinary hand of a soldier—a hand that had finally spurred Musa to confess her deepest insecurities and the life experiences that had shaped them.

Musa, tears streaming down her face, winced at the sting of Mulan's disciplined slap. She preferred this kind of physical correction, this push-and-pull method, to the harsh whippings of old Chinese culture on Earth; thankfully, the Descendants' universe had evolved a milder, yet effective, disciplinary tactic. It was a method that pushed until the truth—the raw, unfiltered truth—sprouted forth.

"You finally let your reflection show who you really are inside, Musa," Mulan said, her voice softer now, though another slap landed, eliciting a cringe from Musa. Musa looked at the stream; red flecks, the remnants of her buried insecurities, were now breaking loose from her reflection.

"Having broken your chains is one thing, Musa. But your paradox parasites still linger—the ones the Mogwai planted. They can only be removed by people just as more or less overconfident as you. I'd start pushing Evie to start confessing her overconfidence the same way I did you," Mulan whispered, her gaze intent. The weight of responsibility now rested not just on Musa's shoulders, but also on the shared burden of confronting their interwoven insecurities.