A Kind Of Bravery: A Mulan Retelling [1st Draft]

19: Honored

"I- well, I know it wasn't," Harriet said, looking down at her own hands sheepishly. "I know it was stupid, and I know that what I did hurt you, but it was unintentional and I'm sorry that it did. I know you probably won't believe or forgive me, but I-" Harriet's voice cracked and she gulped down a breath of air. "I  had to do it. It was selfish and stupid, but I'm glad I did it all the same."

The sunny room was quiet as Harriet's words hung in the air between the two women. Harriet waited for her sister to say something. She heard a quiet sigh leave her sister's lips and the bed dipped as Clara took a seat beside her, wrapping her arms around Harriet.

"There's nothing to forgive, Harriet. You wouldn't be my spunky and confident little sister if you had acted any differently. However, that's not to say you're not still in trouble," Clara said, squeezing Harriet's uninjured shoulder. "Don't worry, it's nothing too terrible."

Harriet looked at her sister skeptically. Nothing too terrible? Seeing the smile on Clara's face, Harriet began to feel a little suspicious. Oh she definitely had an idea of what her "punishment" would be.

"There's a ball coming up to celebrate the end of the war. You will be there, early, and you will stay late. You will also enjoy yourself."

"Clara, you're asking me to enjoy myself at a ball? I don't think that's possible," Harriet retorted, but Clara's lips just curled into a secretive smile as her grey eyes shone. Clara was up to something.

"It might be more possible than you think." Harriet did not like Clara's smirk. Clara with a smirk was not natural, but she didn't have time to pester her more about it as the door opened and her brother-in-law walked in, two little bundles in his arms.

For a moment, Harriet's heart stopped and she looked back and forth between Clara and the two babies.

"Can I hold them?" She asked hopefully, and Frederick immediately nodded, helping her hold onto the one swaddled in a blue blanket. Clara took hold of the other one wrapped in a light yellow blanket.

Harriet stared down at the baby in her arms, her throat closing up a little. He had Frederick's brown hair, pink cheeks, and as his mouth gave a little yawn, Harriet was unsurprised to feel tears prick at her eyes.

Frederick began to chuckle quietly. Harriet turned her head to look at him, but he was just shaking his head with a smile on his face.

"Look at you; a brave fighter crying over a baby," Frederick said fondly, and Harriet gave a watery laugh. He was right. She had made it through a war, getting shot in the shoulder, stabbed in the back by someone she had counted as a friend, and meeting a dragon, and here she was crying from just holding her nephew for all of a few seconds.

"They're beautiful, Clary," Harriet whispered to her sister. Clara just nodded. "What are their names?"

"We decided on Evangeline Katherine and Wilhelm Harrold. As you can tell, we decided to name their middle names after two wonderful people," Clara replied, and Harriet furrowed her brow in slight confusion. Katherine was obviously their late mother, but she'd never met a Harrold.

"Harrold?" Frederick let out another small laugh.

"Well, we couldn't very well call him Wilhelm Harriet. I think he would've objected to that once he got older." Harriet stilled instantly, gaping at her sister and Frederick.

"You named him after me?" Harriet said, her voice cracking at the end. Clara just smiled sweetly before kissing the top of her head.

"We did. Of course at the time we had thought it was to possibly remember you by, but upon hearing from Leopold, we found it was a more fitting name than we had originally thought," Clara gave an unladylike snort of laughter. "We gave our son the name my sister chose to use as she pretended to be a man."