Carpet arrived before him.
Rustle!!
Aladdin shifted his attention back to Mulan and saw that she had disappeared.
"Of course, she ran away," Aladdin sighed.
Carpet carried a box with him and set it down beside Aladdin.
Realising that the box contained the Oracle Sceptre, Aladdin gave Carpet a high five. "Good job," he said, before storing the box in his storage ring.
Abu came out from the folds of Aladdin's clothes. He gestured in the direction that Mulan had run off to.
"Yes. We're going after her," Aladdin nodded.
He quickly got onto Carpet with Abu and chased after Mulan through the skies.
Meanwhile,
Mulan raced through the forest, filled with desperation and dread.
"I'm dreaming! None of this is real!! I'll wake up any time now," Mulan said to herself.
Perhaps the Huns had never truly set their camp on fire, and she had never truly faced a near-death situation. That man named Aladdin did not exist, and neither did that flying Carpet she had just seen. None of this was real.
"MUSHU!! MUSHU!!" she shouted. But she still received no response from her small red dragon.
"Can you stop running? I can give you space to recover your thoughts, but I'll have to take matters into my own hands to ensure your safety if you continue like this."
A familiar voice sounded beside Mulan.
Mulan snapped her head to the side and saw Aladdin sitting on a flying Carpet, with a monkey dressed in similar yet distinct attire seated beside him.
Her eyes widened in astonishment. She slapped her cheeks, then looked at the scene before her, then up and down, back and forth.
"AAAHHH!!" she screamed, increasing her speed.
Abu plugged his ears with his fingers. He turned to Aladdin and said, "This is not working."
"You're right, it's not," Aladdin replied. "The hard way it is, then.'
Aladdin knew his next action might make Mulan trust him less, but his goal was to keep her from getting seriously injured or falling to her death.
Aladdin steered Carpet towards Mulan, and once he was beside her again, he grabbed her and pulled her onto Carpet.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!!" Mulan yelled as she tried to pull Aladdin's hands away from her collar, but his grip was too firm.
After Aladdin suppressed her movements, he steered Carpet into the sky.
Once they were high above the clouds, Carpet halted.
Aladdin didn't speak because he knew that nothing he said at this point would matter to her. He simply waited until she tired herself out.
Thirty minutes later…
Mulan grew tired, and her voice turned weak from screaming.
She closed her mouth and held her throat, massaging it softly. However, her eyes remained firmly fixed on Aladdin, the monkey beside him, and the Carpet underneath them.
"That's it! I have no other choice…"
Mulan stood up and turned to look at the vast, magnificent clouds before her. Thinking that all of this was still a dream, she decided to jump down and use the shock from the experience to force herself to wake up from this terrible nightmare.
"Stop!! You're going to die," Aladdin warned and rushed forward to grab her.
But Mulan paid no heed to his warnings and jumped down from the Carpet.
"And she jumped," Abu massaged his temples.
"You guys stay here. I'm going after her," Aladdin turned to them and said, then jumped down as well.
Abu looked at his attire and Carpet, wondering if their team really looked scary.
"Maybe it's just her," he shook his head.
Carpet's edges nodded in response.
Abu walked to the edge of Carpet, lay down, took out a pocket telescope, and zoomed in to monitor them.
Aladdin quickly soared towards Mulan's position and used his magical powers to slow her descent. At the same time, he conjured strong winds to rush past her, creating the illusion that she was still plummeting at a breakneck speed.
This was one of his favourite tricks that he had learned from Genie.
"You know, you're going to die if you continue like this," Aladdin said.
Mulan stared at him in surprise. She turned around and threw her arms and legs in the air, moving her body away from him mid-air, as though she was swimming, without stopping to ponder how such movement was possible in her current situation.
Aladdin suppressed her movements and moved to her position.
"What do I have to do to prove that none of this is a dream?" Aladdin asked, with a look of concern on his face. He was concerned about her mental health and the fact that she might suddenly turn mad.
Mulan tried to move but realised that she could not. She looked at Aladdin and shook her head. She took a breath and closed her eyes.
'She's stubborn,' Aladdin sighed tiredly.
He accelerated their descent to the ground, and just when they were about to hit it, they halted mid-air.
"You can open your eyes now," he said.
Mulan slowly peeked out from one eye before opening her eyes, upon seeing that she was floating in the air with bushes right in front of her face. She stretched out her hand and touched them, determining whether they were real or not.
Then, she withdrew her hand and looked up at Aladdin intently.
Aladdin stared back at her silently.
"Are you truly not in my dream?" she said.
"I'm not in your dreams, and no, you're not dreaming," Aladdin said.
Mulan wore a thoughtful expression.
Aladdin turned her around so she could think properly.
"Prove to me that I'm not dreaming. Then I'll believe you and everything about this is real... that even that flying carpet and monkey are real, and this," Mulan said, moving her hand against the empty space below her as she completed her words.
Aladdin nodded. He shot into the sky without hesitation, with Mulan beside him.
"Wait!! Wait!!" Mulan pleaded, but he kept flying.
Her voice instantly dried up when she saw the burnt-down military camp.
Several soldiers struck down by arrows, swords, or giant boulders lay across the camp.
Aladdin gently landed on the ground.
Mulan collapsed on her knees onto the ashen field, staring at the state of the familiar military encampment that she and her companions had shared in preparation for their battle against the Huns.
Now all that was left was a ravaged encampment of ash and corpses.
Tears brimmed in Mulan's eyes and slowly began to roll down her cheeks. Overwhelming sadness and grief overtook her body. She didn't scream; instead, she covered her face to muffle her voice, lowered her head to her knees, and wept.
Aladdin didn't try to offer her any words of comfort or encouragement. He remained quiet and let her pour out her emotions.
After several minutes, Mulan stopped weeping.
"Do you feel better now?" Aladdin bent down and held her hand to help her back to her feet.
"No," Mulan answered truthfully. The realisation that everything she had experienced was reality hit her harder than the expectation that this was merely a bad dream.
"Let's go somewhere more peaceful so you can rest and cool down," Aladdin said.
But Mulan quickly shook her head as she wiped away her tears.
"I would like to bury my fallen comrades. Mysterious Traveller, can you help me do that?" She looked at Aladdin and asked.
Aladdin nodded. "Hold on a minute," he said, flew to the back of a tree and returned with two shovels and black aprons. He handed one of the sets to her.
Mulan looked at the two items in her hand and wondered how Aladdin had gotten them. She sealed her lips before she could open them and shook her head.
Too many strange things had already happened; this felt tame in comparison.
She wore the apron and walked out into the camp to dig burial pits for the bodies of her dead comrades.
Aladdin went to bring out the bodies from the camp, using a partly burnt carriage which he repaired with his abilities, before joining her to dig.
Mulan dug for two hours before she collapsed to the ground. She attempted to stand up but couldn't. Her body trembled, growing weak from prolonged digging.
Aladdin walked over to her and said, "Go and rest. I'll handle everything from here."
"No. I can still dig," she shook her head and attempted to climb back up to her feet before collapsing on the ground once more.
"You are stubborn," Aladdin remarked.
Without waiting for her response, Aladdin carried her and placed her back against a burnt tree, outside the range of the burial pits.
As Aladdin returned to dig, he stealthily used his powers to open several burial pits.
After resting for a while, Mulan forced herself back to her feet and returned to help.
It took another two and a half hours to finish digging the remaining graves, and two more hours before every soldier had been laid to rest.
The sun had already set, and the moon had taken its place in the heavens, radiating a bright milky glow across the earth below.
Mulan fell on her butt, trying to catch her breath.
"Here, thank you for your help," she said, handing the shovel and apron back to Aladdin and acknowledging his immense assistance.
As Aladdin retrieved the items, he set them aside to store in his storage ring later.
"What do you plan on doing now? If you want help, I can aid you in tracking down the Barbarians to find out if there are any survivors who were taken away as prisoners from your camp," Aladdin said.
Mulan shook her head.
"Thanks. But I can't handle the Huns alone. I think it's best to head over to the other camps and report what has transpired here so they can be prepared to act," she replied softly.
//////
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