Prisoner in the Mountains

This has been on my mind for a few days, I am trying to recall a dream I had earlier this week, and the best way to do that is find something in real life or fiction that already exists, that relates to it the most.

Did I find any answers? Yes I most certainly did, otherwise I would not be writing this.

I can’t remember much about this dream, so I’ve decided to take what I do remember, and turn it into a little story on here. For those of you who enjoy reading these things from my vivid imagination, you might like this even more!

The dream took place in the Himalayas. I’ve been to the Rockies twice, but these mountains were far too high and cold for me to realize that they were not the Rockies.

I was alone making my way through a pass, it was way below zero; like maybe minus forty degrees Celsius, and all I had to wear was a white dress and grey furry shawl and boots to keep warm. You’d think I’d want to bundle up in this dream a little more wouldn’t you?

These days, whenever I think of passes through the mountains, I am reminded of Mulan since a fair amount of the movie that takes place there. Yes, I have a long memory.

I would have constant flashbacks of the village I was living in being burnt to the ground by Huns, (sound familiar?), I escaped the attack, and ran deeper into the pass. Mind you, a smarter thing to do would have been to hide somewhere and stay in the burnt village after the attackers left so I could keep warm, and maybe find food until someone rescues me, but instead I thought heading out into the pass was safer.

Boy was a I wrong, way wrong. After I came up a steep slope and started down a long path, I heard the sound of horses whinnying in the distance behind me. At first I thought it was help, but as I listened, they didn’t appear to be stopping any time soon. I walked towards where I came at the top of the slope and I saw an army heading down the path at the bottom. I turned and ran as fast as I could, knowing that they were coming up the slope.

The cold and the snow began to slow me down and the army began to gain on me. I tripped and fell a lot, but got up and kept running until they were hot on my tail. I fell one last time and then next thing I knew, they circled around me as I lay there in the snow praying they wouldn’t hurt me.

There were whispers between them, some of them were:

“Hey boss! Think this might be one of the villagers that escaped! Should we kill her?”

“Nah, she’s helpless, we should take her in and enslave her!”

“Don’t bother, let the boss decide what happens to her.”

I lay shivering in the cold, begging for warmth, and then one of the men in front who appeared to be the leader, dismounted from his black horse. I couldn’t see his face because he kept his furry hood up, but if your memory’s good as mine, then I think we both know who this is going to be. He walked over and knelt down to look at me. All I could see was his eyes, and they were creepy. I shivered and begged him for warmth and then fell unconscious. But the dream wasn’t over yet.

Apparently, while I was knocked out by the cold, he carried me onto his horse, rode with me and his men back to their camp. I woke up inside a tent with a lantern and a grey falcon was perched next to it. I never felt warmer until the tent opened and the same hooded figured walked in.

In a deep voice he said: “You are safe now, my men will not hurt you.”

I asked him who he was and why he helped me, as I knew he was definitely involved in the attack on my village. Then he removed his hood. Guess who?

That’s right, it was Shan Yu, and inside I would have had a little attack of fangirlism, because he has been my favourite Disney villain since I was a kid. 

I’m going to go into a little rant before I continue on with the dream. During my childhood, I didn’t know why he was my favourite villain. At first I thought it was because he looked like a badass and talked like a badass. But now, as an adult, I reflect back and now I understand why I liked him so much. 

Unlike most Disney villains, Shan Yu doesn’t behave as quirky as most of them do. He doesn’t sing and that’s what most of these villains are known for, also he likes to be given a challenge. You know how he tells those soldiers to tell the Emperor to bring his strongest armies? He wants to give his enemies a chance to defend themselves, and fight his way to victory, instead of easily just going in there and claiming his prize. Battling it out, now that’s more fun when you know exactly what you want, isn’t it? Not just strong and intimidating, but he’s also smart. How many villains do we know that can tell where something comes from just by sniffing it? 

Despite that, he’s quite underrated as a Disney villain because he doesn’t have the common traits that most of them have. He’s more of a serious villain, and I guess I’ve always preferred that over the quirky ones. Don’t get me wrong, I love classics like Scar and Ursula, but Shan Yu still tops the list. 

Some people may argue that how can he be strong and intimidating if he doesn’t kill anyone? Correction: You don’t need to see him do that. You can tell that he’s going to slaughter a lot of innocent lives right away. “The little girl will be missing her doll. We should return it to her.” Then he flashes that evil smile, you can tell a lot of people are going to die when he says that. If this movie was not Disney, I can picture there being a scene where he and his army are burning that village to the ground, he approaches the little girl, and then slits her throat with his sword while giving the doll to her. Probably one of Disney’s most ruthless and cold-blooded villains ever. 

If you can picture that as well, then I salute you.

Alright, back to the dream. He didn’t speak at first when I asked him why he helped me, but then he knelt down to look at me once again. I stared into those eyes of his with fear. He never reached for his sword, and the whole time I was afraid that he was going to.

Instead he explained that his men were hungry and needed food in order to continue through the pass. He said that he would not kill me as long as I did what I was ordered by him or his men. So I agreed to cook all those Huns their dinner and surprisingly, they let me eat with them. Shan Yu gave me one of his coats so I wouldn’t freeze to death while outside. Every day we continued through the pass some more. Since there was no spare horse, I had to ride with him, so I sat in front of him on the saddle and was embarrassed the whole time, afraid he was going to try seduce me like the way Theon Greyjoy tried to with his sister while riding with her up to Pyke before he realized who she really was.

But surprisingly, Shan Yu never did that either. I would have tried to headbutt him if he did! Instead he kept his hands on the reins and my waist…..*blush*, and told me to talk to him about anything I wanted. He never apologized for burning my village, and I never pestered him about it.

Sometimes on the nights in my tent after I had done serving his men, he would come to see me after the candle flickered out. I don’t know if it was to manipulate me to stay, mentally bring me down, or try to prove that he’s not as evil as he seems. All I know is that he came in there to talk to me. I can’t fill in all the missing pieces of this dream such as the conversations we had, unless any of you have some good ideas.

He and his men were taking care of me, and that’s the real shocker isn’t it?

Well turns out that’s how the dream ended before we even reached the Imperial city, so there’s no telling what could have happened.

All I know is that he didn’t approach to kill me like this near the end:

Yeah that’s the last thing I want!

But above all it was still an interesting dream. One of my friends believes that Stockholm Syndrome was going to develop during it and we would kiss during one of the nights he comes into my tent, and go even further….but I will say no more about that. So do I have a crush on him? Oh God I don’t know. Every time I suspect I might have a new fictional crush (good or evil), it always starts with having a dream or memory related to them which usually leads to thinking about them a lot, then I start to deny it constantly when people ask me about it, after a while I start to accept it and admit that I actually do like that character, and finally I end up being smitten with them.

Oh God please don’t tell me Shan Yu is going to become that now! Well….not saying that would be bad. I do have a thing for scary guys with lots of muscle when it comes to fictional characters, he’s like a human Mongolian version of Chaor! At the same time it’s also unusual, because when it comes to this movie, girls are more likely to swoon at the sight of Li Shang instead. This is not to be confused with what my taste in men is like in real life, just so you know.

Well, this was certainly something interesting and fun to write about today. After you read this, you’re probably expecting me to add Shan Yu to my Fictional Loves page here a few days later aren’t you? Well just wait and see!

In the mean time, I think I’ll make a plan to watch Mulan tomorrow or this weekend, because this dream made me want to do so again. Might as well finish up things I wanted to do this week before reading week ends and I return to the pit of hell.

Ciao.

-Emily