Title: Till We Sing You To Sleep
Characters: Tigress
Summary: She recalls the straw hat floating feebly to the floor and smiles fondly, only to remember seconds later and she drowns in choked sobs and the saline sting of tears.
The dusk vanishes slowly, a chary sunset. Colour drains from the valley as the setting sun pulls it all into its centre, darkening the borders and extinguishing the light pouring from a sky that remains as vast and empty as forever. She can barely make out the crimson coagulate smeared across the featureless visage of the solitary wooden warrior in front of her – it allows Tigress to forget that it belongs to her, but only just.
Tigress punches the hardened, steel-studded log again with a fist bundled in bloodied bandages. She can't remember how many times she's done this, though she remembers all the times he didn't show up. She could only continue to do this as many times as possible and hope that something would change. Fatigue tugging at her eyelids, Tigress genuflects before her inanimate foe in submission. There's a lilting footfall behind her – when it breaks, a hand touches her shoulder gently.
"Po –"
"Tigress –"
"Oh." Eyes lock, compelling recognition. "Monkey. What are you doing here?"
He fidgets uncomfortably, awkwardly. "I…uh…well…" He glances upwards at the metal rings suspended above them, the spiked hoops accumulating the debris of disuse.
"I see." She doesn't see his gaze shifting from the blood saturating the wood of the training warrior to the ensanguined fastenings on her hands, but he's tactful enough not to say anything. Tigress gets to her feet and makes her way towards the exit.
"Tigress?"
The door's a few feet away when he calls; she turns around languidly, eyes sorrowful and listless. "Yes?"
There's a pregnant bubble of silence; a long pause in the terse dialogue. "If you need anything…if there's anything I can do…" Monkey trails off, uncertainty creeping into his posture. They've had this conversation before; why did he think that this would turn out any different? He knows – everyone knows – fully well what (no, who) she needs and there's nothing anyone can do.
Tigress doesn't exhibit any response; something in her face tightens. For a second, Monkey thinks he sees a glimmer of life, the fire that used to burn behind her orange irises a long time ago. Finally, she nods once. "Thank you," she says, and she walks out of the training hall. She doesn't look back.
The Adversary standing sentry over the training hall keeps a lonely vigil by candlelight, the ghost of a panda's fist moulded into its pliable face.
.
He's so close his breath falls on her face in waves; it's the only air that she needs. Tigress leans forward to kiss him and he accepts this gift shyly. When their palms press together in unequivocal surrender she notes the way Po fits so snugly against her own body, the way she feels right again.
Po kisses her back, his arms locked tightly around her waist. For all the food he eats, he doesn't really taste like much, though Tigress thinks she knows who's been stealing Monkey's almond cookies.
This moment is all that they have, as Po leans backwards to bear the weight of her requited, reciprocal love.
.
The first time round's a screeching hunk of exploding magnesium to the abdomen, the second a dagger thrust through the lung and into the heart, impaling cardiac muscle and pulmonary tissue. Except this time, there are no ifs or maybes or perhaps; she can't hide behind lexical uncertainties anymore or hope for him to rise from a hypothetical grave deep within a river which may or may not exist. Even with the body as concrete proof, she's waited through three scenarios where everything seemed lost and he doesn't materialise from the scourge of night like a spectre, bringing the salvation which she had to find for herself on all three counts.
(She recalls the straw hat floating feebly to the floor and smiles fondly, only to remember seconds later and she drowns in choked sobs and the saline sting of tears.)
.
"Are you sure that you'll be fine on your own?"
"Aw, come on, Tigress! Give me some credit here. The Dragon Warrior has to carry his own weight sometimes –"
A loud gurgling noise emanates from his stomach and he clutches at it, embarrassed. Tigress tries to suppress a grin.
"Well, just be careful. Granted, these are common bandits, but you never really know what to expect. Master Shifu said –"
"Yeah, yeah, I know what Master Shifu always says! Never underestimate your opponent and always look both ways before crossing the street –"
"Po, please." She takes his hands. "Just promise me that you'll be safe. We can't always be there to watch your back, you know."
Po smiles at her reassuringly. "Don't worry, I will. I promise you that I'll make it back to the Jade Palace safe and sound, all right?" He pulls Tigress closer to kiss her and this argument is all that she needs to be fully convinced.
.
"Liar," she whispers bitterly. The nacreous crescent moon hangs in the halcyon night, a memorial for the fallen.
.
Tigress pays him a visit in his quarters the month after. Crane is practising calligraphic techniques when his door drifts open slightly. Looking up, he meets her stare.
"Can I talk to you?" She's been crying again; he picks up the uncharacteristic rasp in her voice which rings harshly in the ears.
Crane thinks that he should be more surprised than he actually is, but it wasn't like he didn't see this coming. With a sigh, he releases the bamboo brush and pushes his ink pot into a corner. "Sure, Tigress." He motions for her to sit, but Tigress doesn't move from her spot.
"I need to know," she says quietly. Crane understands this ambiguous request immediately – she had Po, and he had Mei Ling.
Trying to busy himself with the ink-blotted sheets papering the floor, Crane gives his reply slowly. "It gets easier," he muses softly, the look in his eyes a thousand miles away. He only talked about her once with the rest of them and it had been uncomfortable even then. It isn't something he wants people to analyse; the less they know the better. At the very least, he's entitled to burying his own ghosts and living with them whenever they returned to haunt him.
"How long…until?"
A loaded question – rhetorical, even – that needed to be asked. Suddenly, Crane remembers the pulse that pounds in his ears and the blinding silhouette plummeting, a looping image that tattoos the back of his eyelids in every nightmare. When he finally looks at Tigress there's an incommensurable sadness that he hasn't felt in years; his sealed lips confess the answer that they already have. I don't know.
.
In all the things he has handled she imagines traces of him interspersed within. Tigress thinks about the bowls that had once held his Secret Ingredient Soup, steaming broth that was homely and quaint but no less worthy of the grandiose title bestowed upon it. The broken floorboards which have been patched up since then; she smashes through the repaired wood one day, because the inexplicable cavity in the hallway needs to be there. She runs her fingers over his action figure of her, wondering if he had loved the painted toy as much as he did her.
They don't do morning greetings anymore because it has become too difficult with just the five of them. Shifu doesn't bother trying to reinstate the practice; they know it's not for the inchoate reasons he claims but rather to avoid experiencing the absence of that sixth greeting, a harmony thrown off balance. They train as usual, though; Mantis jokes once about Level Zero and he laughs half-heartedly because it isn't all that funny in the first place. Setting the dinner table for five takes practice for Tigress; she forgets and remembers several times over until Viper offers to take it off her hands permanently.
Her world continues to turn, just a world without him.
.
Do you remember the nights? They're much quieter nowadays, now that you're not here.
Your smile – I think that's what got me at first. I can't explain it past facial geometry or muscular synchrony; I guess it's because that smile covers so much about you – your optimism, your ecstasy, your innocence. You smiled that same smile the day you defeated Tai Lung, when we saved all of China and even after I called you a disgrace to kung-fu. In that smile I managed to find everything I love about you.
I remember so much about you.
A/N: Tigress's conversation with Crane is in continuity with Crane's chapter in 'A Master's Lesson'.