Title: "Ironwood Refuge"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary: Tigress doesn't do feelings.
Warnings: Het
Word Count: 1,258
Date Written: 17 January, 2012
Challenge: For a AphroditesBlessings' Yuku forum weekly challenge
Disclaimer: Po, Tigress, Shifu, all other characters mentioned within, and Kung Fu Panda are ﾩ & TM DreamWorks, not the author. Everything else is ﾩ & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Hers is a precarious perch and an equally unstable grip upon sanity. She crouches on the highest of all the mountains, overlooking everything else. She watches the trees sway in the gentle, Spring time breeze far below her. She can see the temple and every inch of the village. She sees the people moving around below her. From up here, they're no bigger than ants, but even in person, all but just a few mean no more to her than the insects they now resemble.
She can see most of those rare and extremely few individuals who have managed to inch their way into her ironclad heart. Shifu is meditating on a hillside underneath a cherry blossom tree; his fur does not even twitch as a pink leaf drifts down and lands upon his black nose. Monkey is out in the village playing pranks while Mantis is approaching what she knows will prove, yet again, to be a disastrous courtship. Crane and Viper are practicing kung fu together. She's unaware that her furry lips twitch into a smile as she watches them. Those two have been spending more and more time together.
Yet, of all her friends, the one she can not see is the one who weighs most heavily upon her heart and also whom she will not admit to liking. Her striped fur ruffles at that thought. Okay, so she did finally admit to liking him as a friend when she thought was going to lose him, but that was different. That was then, when they were facing the end of kung fu and of the world as they know it. It was when the odds looked impossible and she had truly feared for his safety.
Those times have passed now. A time of peace has settled amongst them, but she knows it will not last. Her black irises narrow. Peace never lasts in Tigress' world. Her long tail lashes out at empty air. Her hands tighten their grips on the mountain, her claws extending and cutting into the rock. Peace never lasts, but she doesn't need peace. She doesn't want peace, she tells herself, for all peace does is lure a warrior into a false sense of security. A true warrior never relaxes her guard, nor does she let any one convince her not to be wary or allow them to work their way, all the way, into her heart. Peace is for wimps, she decides with a soft growl.
Movement at the hut she's been secretly watching catches her attention. Tigress leans up onto the balls of her sandaled feet and watches as Po emerges from the noodle shop. Her eyes narrow again as she watches him turn back suddenly, and then she smiles with a mist she won't admit flittering in her amber eyes as his father runs to him and hugs him. The small duck is barely a tenth the size of Po, but his heart is far bigger than the panda bear. His heart is big enough to hold him, Tigress finds herself thinking, and their whole world.
She shoves the betraying thought away with a growl. She's happy for her friend, but she doesn't want what he has. She doesn't miss not knowing her real parents. That pain left her long ago. It left her when she was up here, battering the ironwood trees. It left her as the feeling seeped out of her broken, bloody paws, and it won't come back. She hasn't felt anything for years - until recently.
She silently watches Po as he begins his trek back to the temple. It has been years since she felt anything. Her long, striped tail swishes again as she stands and continues to watch Po silently, unaware that the Sensei who took her in when she had been an abandoned cub whom no one had wanted has opened his eyes underneath the cherry tree and is watching her with an intent gaze and a knowing smile.
Tigress unconsciously raises a paw and gingerly touches her cheek. Her striped fur fluffs out underneath her rare and gentle touch. She felt something this year. When she had thought she was about to lose Po, when he had believed she had not understood the trauma through which his big heart was suffering, she had hugged him. She's never hugged any one in all her life except for Shifu and her parents. She remembers their touches, her parents' hesitant caresses and Shifu's reassuring grasp. They were sweet and reassuring. They felt like home, but none of them ever once felt like Po did when he touched her.
He was as soft, she remembers now, despite her refusal to admit her thoughts even to herself, as he looks. Pandas have a reputation for being soft and cuddly; it's something that their enemies were constantly throwing at Po. A smile sneaks over Tigress' lips; her tail twitches. Po is the softest thing she's ever felt. He's also the gentlest, and those two hugs they'd shared, even if she'd refused to return his hug the second time, when he'd dared to hug her after he'd believed her to have been killed protecting him, are the most wonderful things Tigress has ever felt.
She realizes a second later where her thoughts have led her, and if any one had been on the mountainside with her, they would have noted the way her orange and black fur darkened to a deeper shade. She growls, her amber eyes flashing, and starts running down the mountainside and heading back to the safety of her ironwood trees. She needs some more practice to stop these thoughts that will only end with some one getting hurt. She needs to focus on striking down a few more ironwoods to stop these crazy thoughts.
She's been accused of being crazy many times. When she was younger, she took the accusations as the offenses they were meant to be and almost killed some of her enemies who called her such things. Yet now, when they call her crazy or insane, she looks at them and laughs before beating their butts thoroughly. Those who she meets she tramples, and they'll never call her anything again or even dare to look at her.
Her tail again cuts through the air as she runs and admits at last, to herself, that she is crazy. She's crazy to even be looking at a doofus like Po as a friend, let alone as anything more. If Viper knew of her thoughts, she would romanticize them and tell her that she had a crush on Po, but Tigress doesn't do crushes. She doesn't do emotions or feelings other than anger, and she most certainly does not like Po!
Yet, as she runs to the safety of the ironwoods, another smile sneaks across her furry, striped lips. She doesn't like Po, she tells herself. She doesn't want him as a friend or even an ally, let alone anything more, but maybe, just maybe, her Sensei did know what he was doing when he chose the fluffy, cute - she growls again at that adjective that comes, unbidden, to her mind -, crazy, accident prone, and definitely not funny, no matter how hard he tries, panda as the Dragon Warrior. Maybe, despite all her training and dreams of being that Warrior herself, just maybe, Shifu did make the right decision. Only time will tell, but right now, Tigress needs some enemies to slaughter, and she flies, claws first, into the waiting ironwood trees.
The End