Title: Viper's Tea
Author: Dorri
Summary: Viper loves to ask Tigress the same question over and over again when serving her tea. And that simple little question has so much meaning to it, that while it may annoy the feline, she wouldn't give anything for her to stop asking it.
Rating: K
Disclaimer: The characters of Kung Fu Panda belong to Dreamworks animation.
Author's Note: This story really doesn't have much of a plot. This is supposed to be just a cute little one-shot featuring my two favorite characters of the Furious Five. There really wasn't any interaction in the movie with Tigress and Viper, and I just thought I would remedy that with this little one-shot. Hope you enjoy.
Viper's Tea
Taking a seat in front of the table, Tigress looked towards Po as he prepared the meals for his friends like he always did. It wasn't often that Tigress ate much of anything, but after having warmed up to Po after Tai Lung's defeat, she quickly warmed up to his incredible cooking.
A bowl of noodles was slid her way and she reached out a paw to catch it. Sliding it over to the front, she reached for her spoon, while Po passed the rest of the bowls across the table with grace to the remaining Furious Five.
"Tea, Tigress?" came Viper's voice on Tigress' right, just as she had anticipated.
"Yes, Viper. Thank you."
Viper grabbed the pot of tea she had made and emptied the hot beverage into Tigress' cup. She had always prepared the tea, as it was one of her many talents, just like Po and his noodles. But with her question of whether or not Tigress wanted tea, came the other question Tigress could always predict:
"How many sugar cubes do you want?" the snake asked as she grabbed the container of sugar cubes with her tail.
"Just two," Tigress answered, a slight hint of annoyance in her voice.
"You always say that," Viper replied with a laugh, tossing two sugar cubes into Tigress' tea cup.
"Then there really isn't any need to continue to ask me then, is there?" said the feline with a half smile. Viper returned the smile as she pushed Tigress' tea to her. The snake then turned and asked the others if they wanted a cup and tended to them before taking her share of the delicious beverage.
After taking a few bites of her noodles, Tigress reached for her cup of tea to satisfy her thirst, all while watching in mild amusement as Viper added a grand total of seven sugar cubes to her tea. After adding her desired amount, Viper quickly stirred her tea, making sure it acquired a nice, sweet flavor. She had always loved her tea sweet, which probably explained why she always had the energy of a five-year-old at a festival.
Tigress had also noted that for as long as they had lived in the Jade Palace, Viper had always asked her first if she wanted a cup of tea, as well as how many sugar cubes she wanted. And it had always been Tigress who Viper pestered about adding more than just two sugar cubes to her tea, and not anyone else. But it was no mystery to her why Viper did this. It went as far back as their childhood.
0ooooooo0
Tigress had been the first to come to the Jade Palace, and with her master's unsettling habit of giving her next to no praise for her accomplishments in Kung Fu, it wasn't exactly a pleasant environment for her. Only when Viper arrived months later did things become more exciting for her.
The snake was younger, but showed quite an interest and talent in Martial Arts. And she was quite the chatter box, too, which got on Master Shifu's nerves rather quickly. Tigress soon found her master's stern and seemingly heartless personality tolerable, as she now had someone to share her love of Kung Fu, and who offered her the praise she desired.
Viper loved many things, including her large stuffed animal collection, which she had brought to the palace with her, much to Master Shifu's annoyance. Being a man who wanted his students to learn and mature at an unnatural pace, he tried to dispose of the toys one night, but Viper found out very quickly. And she. Had. A. Fit. The snake had screamed so loudly that it nearly shattered Shifu's sensitive ear drums. The red panda had quickly returned Viper's animals, and just decided to let her mature on her own and outgrow them at her own pace.
Never having any toys of her own when she was living at home, Tigress found a lot of joy in playing with Viper's stuffed animals. Viper had even given Tigress her stuffed orangutan to sleep with at night, much to the young feline's delight.
Tigress soon discovered that Viper had another interest - tea parties. The snake would set up her stuff animals around a table and she would pretend they were humble guests as she prepared tea for them, and even little snacks to go with it. And one afternoon, Viper had been inclined to ask her master to join her.
"Do you want to have a tea part with me, Master Shifu?" the snake asked hopefully, but the red panda simply shook his head as he walked by, barely even acknowledging her. Tigress saw the display and frowned when she saw the look on Viper's face, that same heart-wrenching, disappointed look Tigress had harbored when Shifu would not acknowledge her accomplishment of knocking the training dummy across the room. She knew that pain all too well. Viper had only wanted attention and maybe a little affection. Every child craved that. Tigress craved it all the time, but up until Viper had arrived, she never got it.
"I'll have a tea party with you!" she piped up as she ran over to have a seat across from the snake. Instantly, Viper's azure eyes lit up with excitement and happiness. She quickly set to work at pouring Tigress a cup, and up until then, Tigress had not even known that Viper used real tea. "You know how to make tea?" she asked.
"Yep, Mom's recipe! How many sugar cubes?"
Tigress scratched the back of her head. "Umm…I guess two," the child responded. Viper frowned.
"Two? Is that all? Are you sure you don't want maybe five?"
"No, two's fine."
After preparing Tigress' tea and pushing it her way, Viper turned her attention to her many stuffed animals all lined up around the table. "Good evening, Mrs. Mouse. How are you? I love what you've done with your fur."
Tigress giggled into her cup of tea as she held it up to her mouth. Listening to Viper greet inanimate objects was quite the sight, but to Viper, they were anything but lifeless. To her, they were her companions and had their own personalities.
As months progressed, Tigress saw from Viper's tea parties, and the little games she convinced the feline to play with her after training sessions, that she had a vivid imagination and always kept her entertained. And the tea parties were something they engaged in often, even as Monkey, Mantis, and Crane each arrived at the palace over the months. The group of young boys had even strangely wanted to play with the girls one day.
"Can we play?" Crane asked hopefully, Monkey alongside him with Mantis perched on his shoulder. Viper gave them a quizzical look and stuck her nose into the air.
"No boys allowed!" she said.
"Yeah, no boys allowed," Tigress agreed, trying not to laugh.
The boys, slightly hurt, walked away with scowls, all while muttering, "Yeah, well we didn't really want to play with you anyway" as well as "Girls are dumb," under their breath. Of course the girls' attitude towards the boys quickly changed with time and they had all come together as one big group of playful children with a love for Kung Fu. But Tigress and Viper had always remained as an inseparable pair as kids.
0ooooooo0
As years progressed, both Tigress and Viper had obviously outgrown the tea parties, and the dolls…and the games. But through that time that they had spent together as children, playing and learning each other's deepest fears, and greatest passions, they had grown to deeply respect each other as friends, but also as warriors. They were now both skilled Kung Fu Masters, never fearing to charge into battle and showing the world that women could do anything men could do.
To Tigress, Viper was a friend, a noble fighter, and the first person she felt comfortable turning to whenever she felt troubled, not just because of the fact that she was also a female, but by the sheer fact that she had known her longer than any of the Five, and because Viper had been the first to offer her her much needed affection and reassurance.
So, while Viper's continuous question over sugar in her tea grew tiring and somewhat annoying, Tigress saw value and meaning in the question. Truthfully, Tigress never wanted her to stop asking, and she knew Viper probably never would.
End.