Throughout Fearful Symmetry, FalconMage helped me. He gave me reviews, he gave me support. He was that one special person I try to get in every story, who forces me to improve and make my stuff better. If not for him, Fearful Symmetry wouldn't have been nearly as developed or polished. When I finished, he asked if he could use Werner, and of course I said yes. At the very least, it would have been cool to see how someone else views a character that I am so close to. Then a few weeks ago, he said that nothing would ever come of it. So all I can figure is with that door open, I had the spontaneous inspiration to do something.

This whole thing was inspired by FalconMage, and some conversations that we had. He had some fascinating insight into Werner, and I took a lot of what he said and put it into this.

FalconMage, I don't know how this came out. I wish I could write something truly epic. But you're a great person, and I want to give you something. This ones for you.

Danke

"I must admit, this level of security seems excessive."

"The same was said of Tai Lung."

"With respect, Master Tigress, this is no Tai Lung."

Tigress was quiet a moment, and the only sound was padded feet lightly touching the ground as she walked, the noise echoing off the stone walls. Her footsteps made noise because she chose to make noise, because any company she kept tended to get nervous when she walked without a sound. "No, he's not."

"He gives us no trouble. Never tries to escape. Never attacks any of the guards. I wish the whole prison was as docile as him. Make my job a lot easier."

"Perhaps he deceives you. He's waiting until you let your guard down, then he will strike."

"We know the protocol Master Tigress. I can assure you, he won't be going anywhere any time soon."

"Have you been feeding him. Has he been eating? Sleeping? Has he been sick or anything?"

"He hasn't been sick and he's been sleeping, as your orders we keep a guard posted here at all times. And he eats a bowl of rice and a cup of water every few days."

"Have you been withholding meals?" She spoke so sharply, and with such ferocity in her voice, her escort recoiled in fear.

Fearful of violent reprisal, he lifted his arms in front of his face and said quickly, "We feed him daily. He just doesn't always eat. What would you have us do? Force it down his throat?"

He was nervous as they continued, as any would be when in the presence of such a renowned master as Tigress. He let out a sigh of relief when he unlocked the door. The very large, mostly ornamental skeleton key turned with a loud, shattering clink. He struggled with the weight of the solid door until Tigress leant her strength, and eased it open with no effort at all.

The cell was fairly large, ten feet by ten feet. An old cot at the far wall, a bucket at the other, and Werner at the center, sitting with his back against the wall. Eyes forward. As if he were waiting for her. But he couldn't have been. She had come in secret, not even Shifu knew where she was at the moment.

The door closed with a loud whine as her escort struggled with the weight, and the skeleton key turned in the lock. She turned her focus back to Werner. "You look terrible."

When last she saw him, the wolf had been rather small in that he didn't ripple with muscle like, say, Tai Lung. He didn't spill fat like Po. His shape could best be categorized as slim and lean. Now he was sickly. His scrawny shape emphasized by the rags of a prison uniform, what she would give to see him get lost in the vastness of a greatcoat, that would be easier to see. This once beautiful specimen now reduced to a malnourished beast. His once puffy and clean fur now coarse and lacking anything of an attractive sheen. There was more than one bare spots, where albino skin showed brightly against the rusty hair. A steel choker around his neck, so tight that the fur struggled to escape from under the embrace. She traced a chain attached to the choker to the wall. He would be able to reach maybe halfway through the cell before he would start to strangle.

"Hello ma'am. Good to see that you're doing vell. You've put back on zee muscle zat you lost, and you're summer coat is coming in quite nicely. May I ask vhere Herr Alexander is? I expected him and I to share a cell."

"Lord Alexander has chosen a path of salvation, rather than imprisonment."

"Poor Lex," the wolf said with a shake of his head, the chain attached to the choker chinking. "He still believes zere is redemption for creatures like us. Zat is why you are here, isn't it? To save my soul from zee pits of hell? Zat is certainly kind of you, ma'am, but as I have said, I am a lost cause."

"You never said that."

"Vell I meant to."

Tigress actually chuckled. "People thought I was a lost cause. I guess I was, but Shifu plucked me out of the abyss. I just want to understand. What is wrong with you? What has made you like this? No matter what, I just can't comprehend it. Tai Lung was cheated out of his scroll, and he grew angry. I was abandoned, and I grew angry. But you."

"Ven we first met, I told you, I am not your case study. I am not your path to enlightenment. I cannot, and will not, aid you."

She sighed, lowering herself and sitting on the ground, across the cell, and just watched him. "If you showed the slightest bit of remorse for your crimes, perhaps we could let you out of this cell. Don't you want to feel the breeze again? It would be fun, we could go for walks on the beach. You would still have to wear a leash, but it's something. Alexander understands his missteps, and he has chosen to change. Why can't you? What's wrong with you?"

"Vhy do you concern yourself? Everyone else dismisses me, even Herr Shifu has seen to my imprisonment. Vhy can't you? Vat's wrong vith you?"

Truth be told, Tigress wasn't sure.

It was Alexander who tore the very first brick from Haven's walls. "I thought I was doing what was right," he had said. "I really did. But now I just ask your forgiveness."

He, this massive lion, greatest of his kind, lowered to his hands and knees and bowed his head before the red panda. Tigress suspected there was still a deeper tension between the two, scars that would never heal, but Shifu gave a respectful bow to his nemesis.

Alexander was blind now, and mostly deaf. Tigress had to talk loudly so that he would hear, and even then she may have to repeat herself once or twice. His hand was on Tigress' shoulder as they walked along the river side, he said he enjoyed the cool breeze and the clean scent, two of the only senses that still functioned like they did in his prime. Perhaps she should have felt some ill will towards him, but she just couldn't fathom hating this delusion old man. Deep inside, she couldn't sense any malice or hate that Shifu still seemed to see. This poor creature had believed that what he was doing was right, perhaps he had been. In that brief time she spent on the Dark Continent, tearing down Haven's walls and liberating those inside, she learned what a horrible place it really was. He had wanted nothing more than to help his fellow creature, and he had protected his charges from any number of atrocities. Now his fortunes passed away, he lived simply, helping the townspeople with what little he could still manage.

"If we could stop a moment, I would like to catch my breath."

She helped him sit down on a fallen tree, and waited patiently for his heart to slow to a steadier pace.

"What do you have on your mind?"

He was so much like Shifu in fact, having that keenness that came with age. Perhaps her scent betrayed her, but somehow he always knew when something was wrong.

"Werner."

Alexander was distraught at the mention of that name. He fidgeted unsurely, pale, milky eyes shifting.

"How well do you know him?"

"As well as anyone, I suppose. He isn't an easy creature to know, but I was there since he was a pup."

Tigress paused. "What happened to him?"

"I'm not really sure. As far as I know, he's always been an orphan. A war perhaps. Not from my wars, though I'm sure my cruelties have left hundreds of orphans in my wake. I am aware of a few of the wars that touched Werner's homelands. It not just those that lift their blades. The fallout; starvation and death. I have intimacy with such things."

"How did you find him?"

"I was traveling through the lands when I stumbled upon him. This tiny little whelp, half starved, armed with a sharpened rock and demanding my money. He was a brave little thing, or possibly very, very stupid. I was much younger back then, with my armies at my back, and he was such a tiny thing. I don't know why, but I guess I took pity on him."

"And you made him into this?"

"I can assure you, the damage was done to him before I ever laid a hand on his shaggy little head. Something in the eyes, something missing, no spark. Perhaps that's why I took him in, I can't remember. I must have thought he would be useful. And he certainly was."

"He said he was a soldier for you."

"I had given up my life as a warlord by the time I found him. I was trying to give something back to this world that I have taken so much from. I was gathering any who sought sanctuary." Alexander rubbed his dead, milky eyes. "I always liked children."

It was true. How many times had Tigress seen the great lion cuddle piglets in his massive arms. So gentle and kind. That body that rippled with muscle, stroking a baby as she whined and laughed.

"I never sired a child myself." He chuckled. "At least to my knowledge. I was always moving with my armies, never in one place long enough to settle down. And then with Haven, I didn't have the time. I think that's why I took him in. I raised him. I fed him. I tucked him in every night. I made sure his nails were clean before dinner. But more and more, I had to acknowledge there was something amiss in him. I will never seek to justify what I did, but I always had my limits, certain lines that I would never cross. He didn't have such boundaries. I really did try. Even in war there are certain rules that must be followed. He wouldn't accept them. And I suppose I just gave up. To maintain what little peace I could manage, certain things had to be done. Certain conflicts had to settled. I used him. I used him to do the things that I couldn't bring myself to do, in the interest of peace. I suppose I did have a hand in what he has become. I am so sorry for that."

Tigress sniffed the bowl of rice and finding nothing wrong, licked it off her finger with experimental care. "Do you not like rice?"

"I'm trying to grow skinny enough to slip through zee bars."

"The only bars in this cell are in the ceiling, and that's twenty feet high. Not mention that choker. It's not as if your head will shrink."

Dazed, Werner looked around. He lifted the chain and touched the collar, as if noticing it for the first time. "Huh?"

Tigress stood up, crossed the room, and sat back down in front of the wolf, whose eyes never stopped their dead forward gaze. Not at her, not at the door, just forward at nothing. Playfully, she lifted one finger and moved it from side to side, he followed passively. His white eye was almost the same as Alexander's, and silently she wondered if he were blind in it too. "Are you sick?" She leaned close and placed her muzzle at his neck, sniffing carefully, searching for a whiff of disease. But despite his confines and malnutrition, he was hardy as ever. The gesture served another test, exposing her throat to his fangs, but he tried nothing. She sat back.

"Zee panda's noodles are quite delicious," he said. "Such exotic ingredients. Vell, not to you. You've always known zem. But zhey are are exotic to me. If I'm ever hired to kidnap you again, I'll have to show you some of my local cuisine. It would be nice to go back. I haven't been there in years. Spargel. You have lived until you've had it, doesn't matter how its prepared. Pull it right from the farm and just chew it."

"Are you planning to escape?"

"No. But things have a funny vay of vorking out. An earthquake, a prison break, a war. You can have the rice if you vant. I haven't much of an appetite."

Tigress took another fingerful of the rice. "You ever know you're parents?"

"No. You?"

"No, I was in an orphanage as early as I can remember." Tigress took another lick of rice. It was stale and old, but she was hungry. "They thought I was a monster. I guess I was. The fur and claws and teeth. And I didn't know my own strength."

"Must be nice to have strength," Werner said. "I wish I had strength. I've always been such a weak little mutt."

"Shifu saved me from becoming you, I guess. He taught me restraint. And he showed me love. Do you know what that's like? To feel loved when everyone else thinks you're a monster?"

Werner took a deep breath, and exhaled through his nose, but more than that didn't make a noise.

"I know it is hard," Shifu said. "All life is sacred, and never should you abandon a worthy cause."

"I just wish I knew what to do," Tigress said. "What would Oogway say in this situation? Something soft and confusing that we would pass off as banter, then it would all be clear in a day or so."

Shifu bowed his head at the mention of his deceased master. "My words of wisdom may lack a certain poetry, but allow me to try. When you are trying to save someone from drowning, and they're fighting you so hard that they are going to pull you down with them, you have to make a choice. You can either let them go, or drown with them."

Tigress sighed, skipping a stone over the pond that lay before them.

Shifu continued. "I wanted to hard to save Tai Lung. I tried and I tried, knowing that eventually he would have dragged me down with him. And even when I knew that, I couldn't stop."

"Then you understand."

"You're going to get bored by this before I do."

Sitting beside Werner, so close the static of their fur gave her an occasional shock, Tigress shrugged. "Probably. Probably, I won't be coming back after this. Just tell me, so that I can give up on you, were you born like this, or was this thrust upon you? I just want to know. I want to understand. For the future. I'm sure there are others like you."

"I can't say. I don't remember much about my earliest years."

"If there hadn't been a war. If Shifu had stumbled upon you, rather than Alexander. Have you ever wondered what could have been?"

Werner's head bobbed loosely on his neck. Once or twice he rested his skull on Tigress' shoulder for longer than he should have. "I suppose. I think we could have been something more than friends. I think if we knew each other when we were still children, how our lives could have been different. You wouldn't turn out like you, and I wouldn't turn out like me. Maybe I would be better, maybe you would be worse."

"If Shifu hadn't saved me, I'm afraid of what would have happened. What I might have become. I was so angry. I guess I shouldn't have been, but I just couldn't understand why no one wanted me. What was so wrong with me?"

"Herr Shifu wanted you," Werner offered.

She smiled sweetly. "He saved me. And I wish that I could save you. I wish that I could help you, like he helped me."

"I wish you could too."

Tigress took a pair of chop sticks out of her pocket. She put a bit of cloth just before the ends, then tied them together. She placed them at the ground in front of Werner. From her bag, she took a large porcelain bowl, a top secured over it to prevent spills and keep in the warmth. She put that beside the chopsticks before standing up. "Good bye," she said. He just stared forward.

It was a while before he took the bowl, slicing the secured top away with his overgrown claw. The smell of steaming noodles tickled his nose. He took up the chopsticks, a little awkwardly in his clumsy fingers, and brought up a mouthful. Oh the taste, the exotic flavors, soft and spicy. Just the right mixture of tastes. Just the right amount of warmth to fill you without burning your tongue. The panda certainly could cook. He took another bite, savoring the flavor as it slid down his tongue. And what was that? He chewed thoughtfully. Then he brought the bowl up to his good eye and stirred the thin broth, uncovering something tubular and white. Not the proper way to prepare spargel, but the panda could make anything work. Werner didn't concern himself with how Tigress had managed to obtain such a vegetable as he chewed it gently. He looked back to the door she had disappeared through.

"Danke," he said.