Ping wasn't exactly an expert on babies, but he had thought that the cub would at least have cried by now. Plenty of families brought small children to his shop and all of them chattered or cried or laughed at some point. Ping kept an ear out for all the noises in his restaurant, and the sound of children was one of the loudest and most frequent.
But the cub never laughed. He never babbled, or muttered, or cried. Well, to be fair, he did, but silently. When something scared him Ping would find tears on his face, but no cries in his throat. The baby would grin and clap his hands when something amused him, but he didn't make a sound. Once, before Ping knew to baby-proof the kitchen, the young panda had curiously picked up a shiny blade and sliced the pad on his paw, and Ping didn't know about it until he saw the dried blood on the knife; the cub had been completely silent as he cradled his paw against his rounded chest.
Ping had asked one of the village healers to come around and check on the panda, but the cub was healthy, as far as the other goose could tell; to be honest, he hadn't known much about pandas either; they were not exactly common around the Valley of Peace. So Ping was stuck wondering if something had happened to the cub (besides being left in a radish basket in an alley) or if pandas were naturally quiet creatures.
He began to talk to the baby; recipes and cooking tips at first, then whatever came into his mind, until he could keep up a constant stream of chatter. He would talk about the Valley, the villages, and the surrounding farmlands; he described the various trials and tribulations of running a business, and the rewards it could offer; he talked about his family, his childhood, and the legacy of the Pings' noodle shop. He talked for months, showing the cub how to make the words, trying to encourage him to speak. And around the six-month mark, he did.
Ping was in the middle of a diatribe on the outrageous prices of spices when, for the first time, a small whisper interrupted his speech:
"Can I call you daddy?"
Ping stopped mid-sentence and turned around, half a bok choy falling from his feathers. Little Po was curled as far as he could beneath the back counter, his radish basket over his head. Ping stepped closer and Po backed up. He looked completely terrified.
Ping slowly dropped to the ground and held out his wings. Something in his throat felt tight and he fought to swallow it down.
"Yes," he whispered hoarsely. "Yes, Po, you can call me daddy."
The panda peeked out from the edge of the basket to look at the goose, who was steadily losing the battle not to cry. He inched out from under the counter, eyes darting left and right and to both doors, before slowly crawling to Ping and pressing his face against the gander's chest. Ping wrapped his wings around the cub as much as he could and cried into his fur, his sobs nearly drowning out the little echoes of 'daddy, daddy ,daddy'.
By the end of the month, Ping was privately wondering to himself if it might not have been better for the cub to stay mute. Po had become a complete chatterbox after a few false starts, probably to make up for the many months of silence. He initially had had to rest his voice every hour or so, being so unused to using it, but when Po began to seriously speak he spoke, and he spoke, and he spoke. The kitchen was soon filled with descriptions of the panda's latest dream, or daydream, or notes and comments on everything the boy found interesting. When Ping enrolled him in the village school, Po would come home and describe every lesson, every classmate, and every teacher. Ping rather enjoyed the reversal of roles; the world from a toddler's perspective was always exciting and interesting, not to mention totally uncensored; if Po didn't like something he said so very clearly, as completely lacking in tack as all children were. Ping found his vivid descriptions of Mr. Yun's hairy warts and the odd smell that lingered around Mrs. Fa's house hilarious, though he bid the cub to temper his words outside of the kitchen. The panda was at first wary of speaking around other people, but he gradually began to get better at it, and by the time he was five (as far as Ping could guess, at least) he was openly chatting with the customers, mimicking Mr. Ping's customary questions and inquiries about food and drinks, and laughing with the children from his class. Ping had long decided that the sound of the panda's newly discovered laugh was the sweetest sound in the world.
It was a sound that, after one fateful day in the middle of summer, he would not hear again for twenty years.
Po hated nothing more than having to stay still. When his dad was cooking he would have to stay out of his way, but he was free to roam the restaurant and the street in front of it, as long as he didn't leave sight of the kitchen. He spent his time visiting with the customers – his dad called it 'pestering' – and he knew lots of the geese, rabbits, and pigs by name, and most of the children who lived in the village. Po, being big and different-looking, wasn't very popular at school but he did make friends easily, so every time a new face came into the shop he made a beeline for them, ready to learn as much as he could. One time he'd met a grown-up who was shorter than him, and had dark eye-patches too, and he lived in the big house on the top of the mountain. Another time he'd met the biggest person he'd ever seen, all grey with dots and a long, long tail that moved. He said that he was a snow leopard, that his fur did get hot in the summer, and he had gotten so big by eating curious children. That was even neater than the pig with one blue eye and one brown eye.
When Po had grown up a little he was allowed to help his dad in the shop. He could sweep and mop and bring customers drinks and sauce to go with their meals, and by the time he was nine (by his dad's estimation, whatever that meant) he was allowed to go to the vegetable and spice stalls by himself and get anything his dad needed, though he sometimes messed up on quantities. He chatted with the people who ran the stalls and traded stories with their children; by then he no longer got weird looks or people asking him strange questions.
One evening, just in time for the dinner rush, his dad ran out of fresh ginger. He gave Po a handful of coins and sent him off to Mrs Chang's across the bridge. Mrs Chang ran a spice stall; she closed just after sunset, so Po would have to be quick. He had crossed the bridge several times before, but never on his own, and he wished that he didn't have to hurry. The setting sun made the small river turn bright orange, and the whole village was dusted with golds and reds. Up on top of the mountains, the big Palace looked like it was on fire.
Po wound through the market stalls, all in various states of closing, and found Mrs Chang packing away her spices for the night. He gave her the coins in exchange for the ginger but didn't linger to talk, having to remind himself that he needed to get back quickly. Po was about to cross the bridge when a loud crash startled him. He turned around, clutching the ginger tight, and something slammed into the ground next to him hard enough to dent the stone. He fell backward and scrambled to the edge of the street, and suddenly everything seemed loud; people were yelling and screaming, stuff was flying everywhere, and a red wave of fire was glowing on the edge of the market. Po felt something cold inside his stomach and he pressed himself between the wall of a house and a large potted plant, shaking so hard that the world looked blurry. The air was hot and dark, full of loud screams and a strange, eerie crackling. People shoved past each other to avoid a large figure that barreled down the street, kicking and punching at everything that was in its way. Po tried to call for his dad but the words wouldn't come out of his throat.
The huge figure kicked at a half-closed stall, sending it flying down to the bridge. The lanterns on it burst and caught the wreckage on fire, and suddenly Po's vision was filled with flames. He whimpered involuntarily and clapped his paws over his mouth, his terror increased tenfold. He felt like the eyes of the entire world were boring into him. His chest felt tight; something was caught in his throat; something was going to get him.
Po curled into a ball as tight as he could as the fiery figure jumped past him, barely five feet away, throwing people into the air as it ran down the street. He turned his head toward the wall and sat as still and quiet as he could, hearing the panic grow and fade, the heat of the fires searing his back, until he fell into a fearful daze, oblivious to anything but darkness and the smell of smoke.
Ping found his son wedged between a house and a heavy pot, his back covered in streaks of soot and pieces of debris. The destruction Tai Lung had left in his wake was incredible; markets stalls smashed against buildings, the wreckage still flickering with dying flames; people rushing everywhere, strangely quiet, their voices hushed as they searched for family and gathered up the wounded; the still shapes lying beneath crumbled stone or burning wood. Ping felt fear like he had never felt it before, working himself almost into a panic as he searched for his son. Was he one of the bodies being gathered up? Would Ping find him in a still room, laid out next to the other victims? He cast his eyes over every part of the street, searching in the moon - and firelight for a ball of black and white
Ping almost missed him the first sweep around the street, but the strange angle of a plank of wood caught his eye, and he saw underneath it a large, huddled form. Ping rushed over to it and shoved aside the plank; Po twitched at the noise and movement.
"Po, Po, please, turn around and look at me," said Ping, his voice shaking. The panda slowly uncurled. Tears had streaked through the ash and dust on his face, and Ping's own watery eyes made his son look blurry and soft. He gathered the panda in his wings as best he could, clutching him tight as he shook.
"Oh, my son. You're safe, you're safe…"
Po grabbed him and pulled him closer, silently crying into his robe. Around them, people scrambled to and fro, putting out the fires and tending to those who had been injured, but Ping and his son stayed huddled, oblivious to the commotion outside of each other.
Ping's relief did not last long. It was another hour before he tried to get Po to speak, and a week to realize that he never would. His son had fallen silent again, and in the dark of the night Ping wept for the loss of his child's happy laughter.
A/N:I have no idea if anyone's done a mute!Po AU, but I was thinking about it all morning and really, really, really, really, really wanted to do it. I might turn this into a full-out story.
Po is a little bit older when his village is attacked, between two and three or so, just old enough to know that he'll be in trouble if he makes a noise, even if he doesn't understand why or what trouble. So when he speaks, it's not really baby babble. Even if babies and toddlers don't have a fantastic grasp of language just yet they do recognize and understand a decent bit. I imagine that Po's been working on this tiny sentence for weeks, practicing to himself and thinking it over and over. I almost made it 'Can I call oo daddy' but that was more cute than dramatic.
At first I had it that Po reverted back to being mute after encountering the bandit from Hajin Province, but it didn't fit with my plans for the story, so now Tai Lung's rampage was the trigger. I'll post the alternate chapter sometime.
