The Dragon Awakens

Chapter Fifteen

Lanie insisted on being at the back of the caravan, riding on Khan and watching over everyone. Shang only grudgingly agreed when she told him that should anyone get injured or even desert them, she'd be able to see it immediately and stop it. Mushu would be beside her and so would Yao, Linc, and Po because they refused to leave her side no matter what she yelled at them. She thought it was both endearing and foolish. They shouldn't have gotten so close to her and she shouldn't have let them. It was nice to have her own kind of bodyguards though, even if she was perfectly capable of protecting herself on her own. She supposed at night though, when they all set up their sleeping bags under the stars, it was nice not sleeping in solitary away from everyone else. 

"Why did we have to leave so early," Yao whined, stomping his feet in the dirt.

Lanie rolled her eyes. "Watch it Yao or I'll unhook this cart from Khan and make you pull it," Lanie snapped. Yao grumbled, mumbling something about a hot breakfast, but kept his mouth closed. 

Lanie glanced at Mushu who was walking beside her, his eyes darting around. It took her a second to realize that he was actually wearing computer contacts. Even when they were marching through the countryside, Mushu was working. He glanced up at her and patted her lower leg briefly, giving her a comforting smile. No one noticed. 

Last night after everyone had gone to sleep and she was doing patrols, they had gone over the plan for how Mulan would eliminate the General. They went over schematics, time schedules, bodyguard background files, and weapon training because that's definitely what she needed more of after all her work with this calvary unit. A pistol was tucked securely into her waistband where no one would ever find it, along with the sword strapped around her hips. It was minorly uncomfortable digging into her and bumping against her leg but the ornate handle and the fact her father once owned it and used it meant enough to her to keep it where it was. She wouldn't need the sword at all for her mission, the General would receive a misplaced bullet to the head in training and if that opportunity didn't present itself Mushu had a few chose vials of incurable poison strapped to his chest. Mulan preferred the later to the physical violence of shooting someone but what the DA wanted the DA got.

"You know what I miss," Linc blurted as they began the climb up the mountain. "I miss women."

"What?" Lanie's head snapped around and all three men next to her were nodding vigorously. 

"I mean yeah like, the physical stuff is great," he whistled and they all laughed and Lanie's hands tightened on the reins. "But you know... I just miss her. Seeing her every day and that smile. My girl is paler than the moon with eyes that shine like stars," he pulled out a picture and showed it to them, his voice mockingly poetic. Yet you could still tell in the way he held the crinkled picture and beamed at her that he looked at it often, and he missed her just as much. Lanie glanced at her, a petite dark-haired beauty who was looking lovingly at the camera; at Linc.

"Geez when did you turn into such a poet," Yao smacked Linc who frowned as he tucked the picture away.

"Oh yeah? And you don't have anyone?"

Yao crossed his arms and puffed out his chest. "No. I'm looking for a girl who loves my strength and will appreciate my battle scars," he flexed but Lanie couldn't find the courage to laugh with them. She didn't want Yao to get battle scars. She didn't want him, or any of them, to get injured. Or even worse, killed. She didn't want him mourned by a beauty clad in black because she didn't want him to die.

"Alright well that's nice and all, but my fiance is a professional chef and my god do I miss her cooking," Po rubbed his stomach and to this Lanie actually smiled. Of course, Po would marry a cook. She couldn't imagine him with anyone else.

"What about you Ping? I bet you were quite the charmer," Linc asked, looking up at Lanie and giving her a playful nudge.

She shook her head but her cheeks turned pink. "No one. Too busy with work. I, uh, went to an all-boys academy so we didn't mingle much," she mumbled, looking down at the reins in her hands. It shouldn't have been such a sensitive topic to her, but when her roommates came back from a date or an extended night out with one of the boys from their brother academy, she couldn't help but feel removed and isolated from it all. She couldn't connect on the most basic level of boy talk and the gossip of who was texting who to the girls around her. She liked to blame the DA for this, for keeping her distanced, but she knew there was more too it than that. She could hunt down a man in the middle of the city, flirt with him to let his guard down, but when it came to the matter of her own heart? She was just too shy. 

"Are you a virgin?" Yao asked and Lanie blushed and looked away. Mushu, with all his good sense, was looking away too. He was looking out at the rice fields where a crowd of women was working, stopping to look up at them. Linc whistled from beside Lanie and all the women turned and looked and waved at Lanie with flirty smiles and she only nodded back. She turned her eyes back front and squeezed the leather in her hands. Change the subject, change the subject, change the subject, she thought. 

"God are they hot," Yao muttered and Lanie huffed.

"So what, you only care about women for the bodies? What about their brains and what they have to say? Their personality? Doesn't that matter at all?"

Po shrugged. "Sure it does, my girl is probably over half of my impulse control and the only reason I can get out of bed some mornings, but it doesn't hurt if they're nice to look at it."

"I mean my manly ways and poetry are how I got my lady," Linc boasted and Yao and Po burst out laughing, wiping fake tears from their eyes.

"Sure okay, lady killer."

Lanie sighed and nudged Khan forward through the men and up to Shang's side. She couldn't stand being around those three for another second with their sexist talk. Maybe they meant well but it still bothered her. Even after all this time, all the progress made, men still managed to see women as objects. She flexed her fingers and looked down at her scarred knuckles. Yeah, an object that can kill. 

As she approached the captain's white stallion, she realized Shang had been talking quite secretively with Clark, who glared at her as she rode up to the left side of him.

"Yes Ping?" he asked impatiently.

"Not that anyone is complaining or anything, but how long until we're there?" she asked and Shang rolled his eyes. "We might be running a little low on supplies and morale," she tried again. Isn't this why he had promoted her? To report to him the inner workings of his unit? Why was he sassing her?

"As soon as we get over the mountain we'll be there. And then their morale will perk up. Just wait and see." He dismissed her with a nod and she frowned but eased Khan back into the middle of the pack. She watched his back as they marched, her stomach turning at the thought of what was really going to happen when they crossed that mountain. That the unit might cheer up, but she'd be crushing Shang's heart. 

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