Well, I've said to myself that I would try this for the longest time and now I finally have! Four short shuffles for Tai and Tigress, a pairing that continues to be extremely well-received by the fans :-) It's a tough pairing to write for since both parties have quite the baggage to deal with, but I hope I managed to write them well enough to be believable.
Please read and review!
"Are You Gonna Go my Way?" by Lenny Kravitz
Tigress felt her heart pounding against her sternum as she inflicted a barrage of punches, chops and kicks against her opponent. She rarely had to really unleash her full strength against her sparring partners, even if the rest of the Five were fully capable of taking it – there was always something in the back of one's mind that told them never to hurt someone that you had to share a meal with afterwards.
"My, I'm afraid I was wrong about you my dear," drawled her opponent, blocking her attacks with one (dammit, one) arm, the action akin to him swatting flies from the air.
Tai Lung smirked as his sparring partner struggled to hide her frustration, controlling her breathing so it that didn't look as shallow and rapid as it actually was.
Pushing his luck the snow leopard, let out a low chuckle. "You hit like a girl."
With a loud roar, the striped feline leapt at Tai Lung and tackled him to the ground.
"Say that again. I dare you," she snarled, her face inches away from his.
Tai Lung raised an eyebrow, managing to seem nonchalant despite the female tiger straddling his waist, albeit the action had murderous intentions. "I never said it was a bad thing."
Tigress was confused this time. "Huh?"
"I mean, you are a girl aren't you?" the snow leopard said smoothly, meeting her eyes with his own.
Quick as a flash, Tigress jumped up, mumbled a quick apology-excuse combination and ran off.
Dusting his trousers off, Tai Lung let out a low whistle as he watched his sparring partner leave. "And what a girl you are, indeed."
"Tell The Truth" by Paul Gilbert
"I'll take your sword slashes," said Tigress, smoothing out the orange fur on her wrists to expose the scars. "And raise you my rope burns."
Tai Lung smiled before standing up and doing the same around the fuzz covering his ribs, showing an exact same scar pattern. "Heh, same here except they tied me to a mountain while they were at it. Took me two hours of chewing to escape."
The female tiger's eyes narrowed slightly, looking defeated.
"What about this," said the snow leopard, sitting back down on the floor of Tigress' room. "I got this when I was delivering farming implements to a village in Tibet." With this, he loosened the iron studded belt he wore and lowered the waist band of his trousers slightly to reveal a rather large scar on his left hip, undoubtedly made by something very sharp.
"Is that an arrow wound?" said Tigress, "On your butt?"
The snow leopard flushed. "No, it's my hip! I did not, nor have I ever, been wounded on the backside."
"Oh, I think I know an arrow to the ass when I see one," said Tigress, barely restrained giggles coming from her throat.
"Yeah? How so?" demanded Tai Lung, quickly pulling up his pants.
Sighing dramatically, the female tiger stood up, loosened her own white cloth belt and repeated the snow leopard's earlier action, except this time lowering the right side of her waistband.
"There you go," she said. "Spear to the butt."
"Ahem."
Both felines looked at the unexpected visitor, the tall bird looking somewhere between disapproving and highly amused.
"Am I interrupting something?" said Crane, keeping his voice even. He motioned with his beak towards Tigress, still exposing her hip.
The striped cat quickly pulled up her pants and turned crimson before sitting back down with a plop. "Nothing. There was nothing to interrupt. You are interrupting nothing."
Crane raised an eyebrow. "Alright, if you say so. Tai Lung, shouldn't you be getting back to your own room?" said the avian, eyeing the ex-convict who was hugging his knees and looking decidedly uncomfortable.
"I will, just give me a damn minute will you?" came the terse reply from the larger feline, bringing his knees closer to himself and muttering odd things. "Dung beetles, dung beetles, dung beetles…."
"Party Hard" by Andrew W.K.
This was why Viper was always wary about drinking games. Every time, someone would suggest some liquor to take off the edge and everybody else would try to hide the event from a certain striped someone. Said striped someone would then inevitably find out about the game, forget about the last time she tried it, and proceed to get drunk off her gourd in the first few minutes.
"And then, I ha' to go so I jus' went right there," said a certain very drunk someone, unabashedly regaling their recent newcomer with the tale of her answering the call of nature during a very, very long trek in the woods.
The newcomer however, seemed to share something in common with the striped someone.
"Mmm, yeah, I know whatcha mean. When you gotta go, ya gotta go…" he said, before falling asleep, still muttering incoherently.
"Yeah, I was holding it fer like a million hours! I thought my bladder was gon' blow!" laughed the striped someone passing out as well.
Watching the scene around her, Viper could only imagine how Shifu would react if he saw his two best students passed out on top of each other. Maybe the fact that the three other males had gone off their own rockers a while ago, left, and decided to launch fireworks into the village Consul's house would soften the blow of seeing Tigress and Tai Lung in a very compromising position.
"What's My Age Again?" by Blink 182
Tigress shivered as the cold night air continued to blow against her bare fur, causing the orange and black filaments to stand on end. Instead of rubbing her arms to bring heat into them, she chose to keep her self adequately covered, one arm draped on her chest and the other hand on her groin. The bush she hid behind was large and very leafy, yet she couldn't bring to drop her arms from their current position.
"This is all your fault!" she hissed over at the other bush, housing a snow leopard in a very similar state as she currently was. "'Oh, don't worry, they'll be gone all day!' A little off the mark weren't you?"
"Hey, as I recall, you didn't have any other questions nor objections after that!" replied Tai Lung, sticking his head out of his own hiding spot, glaring at his partner in crime. "And wasn't it your idea in the first place to do it, 'out under the stars' as you put it?"
"Well, if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have had all our clothes stolen!" snapped Tigress, hiding a pang of guilt, as it was her idea to go skinny dipping by the nearby river.
"If you couldn't tell, I was a wee bit distracted at the time!"
"Shut up, just shut up! We have to get to the Palace before they notice we're gone!" hissed the female cat, mustering up her courage and bolting out of her hiding place, still covering herself. This made running on all fours quite impossible; not that she'd want to do that in her current state and being followed by him.
"Fine, fine, I'm coming..." said Tai Lung, emerging from his own spot and preparing to run.
"K-keep yourself covered! Dammit! You damned deviant, exhibitionist!" yelled Tigress, averting her eyes from her companion and shuffling away as fast as she could on two legs.
"You didn't have a problem with it when we were by the river!" said Tai Lung, posing in a way that made Tigress turn red from head to foot.
"Sideways" Citizen Cope ft. Santana
"You alright?" asked Tigress, joining the silent snow leopard on his perch by the bar of the small tavern.
"Sure, why wouldn't I be?" he drawled, drinking from his cup. "I mean, we saved the farming village and stopped the flood right?"
"Yeah, we did good. You did good," she said, awkwardly raising a hand to pat him on the back.
"They still hate me, not that I can blame them" said the snow leopard quietly, hunched over in his seat. "I mean, the only reason Rong here hasn't thrown me out is because he's blind and only speaks Cantonese."
The bartender, a sheep with a blindfold over his eyes turned his head at hearing his name and smiled while continuing to clean a cup with a rag. After a few moments, he put down the cup and went over to the two felines sitting together.
Standing in front of the two cats, the bartender leaned over the counter and whispered, "I don't just speak Cantonese, you know."
Tai Lung's eyes widened. "What? I made a damn fool of myself trying to order a drink from you not a minute ago!"
"Ain't nobody made a fool of you when there aren't any witnesses," Rong replied, raising his blindfold to show one milky white eye. "Too bad your lady friend here heard everything."
Tigress wrinkled her nose at the non-too-subtle implication. "Just a friend. Not a 'lady-friend'."
"So, why haven't you thrown me out yet?" asked Tai Lung, nursing his drinking cup like precious jewel. "I still can't make them accept that I've changed. I didn't even manage to save all the crops. I'm a damned failure."
"I've never let what I can't do interfere with I can do," replied Rong, deftly grabbing three tall bottles their necks, tossing them in the air, catching one behind his back and the remaining two with one hand. Amidst all this, he had managed to procure a new cup and mixed the contents of the three bottles into a new brew.
"Drinks' on me, you two," he said pleasantly as the two felines looked on in awe of his skill. "Non-alcoholic, for you kung-fu people."
Special thanks to nievelion for allowing me to base one of the shuffles ("What's My Age Again?" if you couldn't tell) on his fic "Different Lesson" ;D He's the one who encouraged me to give this pairing a try and I think I've warmed up to it quite well.