Black and White
By: Cursor
Prologue
Po the panda stared up at the evening sky; a tranquil range of colors arcing from peaceful orange to peacock blue, like gentle strokes of a brush pulled over the canvas of the sky. The sun itself, burning her last hours of the day in beckoning red, was giving out a subtle aura of sleepiness to the residents of the Valley of Peace.
The panda, who had once been a colossal embodiment of laziness and gluttony, has changed much in the year he had spent in the Jade Palace along with his idols: The Furious Five. Both his body and mind have been honed every day in the past twelve months, guided and trained by the Palace's Master Shifu. Po's Kung Fu had improved greatly, reaching the point where he could easily compete against any of the other five. Perhaps even Master Shifu himself.
The now well toned Panda leaned back against the Sacred Peach Tree, and basked in the stillness of the evening. He only wished the stillness of the evening would inspire the same stillness in his mind, for it was troubled.
His once greatest hero, the Kung Fu Master Tigress, a member of the Furious Five and what he had hoped she would become a year ago, a friend, has been slowly changing as well over the past year.
While Tigress was never a social being, she was never really secluded as she had become: Spending hours over hours training and meditating alone, changing her entire wardrobe to dark combat uniforms leaving only her head uncovered and speaking less and less to her friends, and not at all to the panda.
The entire staff of the palace had been worried for some time, but no attempts to reason with the Master had succeeded, it seemed that even Master Shi Fu could no longer set her away from the dark path she was edging towards.
Po was afraid; would there soon be a second Tai Lung?
As his mind raced, his eyes closed, and his body relaxed, letting his thoughts drift, the panda slowly entered a dream state.
His eyes opened, his forehead was sweaty, his dreams haunted by visions of characters in black and objects placed irrationally in space, changing and altering impossibly.
The still peacefulness of the evening was gone, and now, in the dark, there was a certain sense of dread in the panda. There were no stars in the sky, and the moon was at the darkest point in the month, leaving the Dragon Warrior in almost complete darkness. The Kung Fu master got to his feet, squinting to see, intending to head back to the warm safety of the palace. The night was cold, and quiet.
As he rounded the peach tree, the panda thought he saw someone walk around on the other side of it. Curious, the panda followed the character, to find nothing there. He shrugged and turned about, starting to walk back to the palace. But before he could make the first step, his head turned around to the place he was standing in, and in front of him was one of the characters in black from his dreams. The panda screamed in surprise, and in his rush to step back from the character he tripped, rolling down the steep slope down from the Sacred Peach Tree.
The panda could have sworn that as he rolled, he could see the character crumble into dust, and vanish completely. He finally stopped on his back at the foothills of the climb, his eyes closed and his breathes coming in heavy, quick bursts. He opened his eyes, to see a person hovering above him. He yelped again, jumping to his feet. It was Tigress, wearing one of her full-body black combat suits.
"Ah, Tigress, I didn't see you there… I uh, was at the peach tree see…" He looked back to the peach tree, and then back at Tigress, "Uh, were you there just now?" He asked her, she did not respond.
"So uh, taking a late night stroll?" He asked conversationally, again, the tigress stared at him unblinkingly, but did not answer. "Right…" Po said, rubbing the back of his neck, not comfortable at all in the presence of the piercing glare of the female Kung Fu Master. "I'll be heading back to bed now… Heh, so uh, good night." He began walking quickly towards the dormitories, the tigress following him with her gaze.
As he entered the dormitories, he noted it must have been terribly late, for the rest of the masters were in deep sleep, as even Po's shaky steps couldn't wake them. What was Tigress doing out so late at night? Why wouldn't she talk to him at all? What happened near the peach tree? These questions haunted him with images, his dreams, the character in black crumbling into dust, Tigress' piercing glare.
The panda entered his quarters with a sigh, closing the door behind him, as he turned back towards the inside of the room, he noticed his bed was floating upside down somewhere near the ceiling, and his candle stick spinning around in the space in front of him. Drops of water from his bedside glass, now placed on the wall, dropped sideways, into a puddle on the other wall.
Po gasped, letting out a cry of surprise and falling back through his cloth door, in a bang on the floor. The rest of the masters were quick to jump outside and see what was going on, rushing to his aid, the four launched to his side, looking into his room, where his bed, candlestick and bedside water glass were exactly where they should have been.
"What's wrong Po, what happened?" Viper was the first to ask the question on their minds.
The panda, with the help of Crane and Monkey, got to his feet, "Nothing, sorry, I… just a weird night that's all."
Viper noticed sadly the lack of Tigress in the group, but did not ask where she was. She knew about the tigress' night wanderings, she had followed her once too, feeling at peril all along.
"I'm sorry guys; we should all get to sleep, okay?" Po offered, more than slightly embarrassed and much more unsettled by what had just happened.
"I'll help you fix the door tomorrow, if you'd like." Monkey offered, surveying the broken wood holding the cloth.
"That's okay Monkey, thanks." Po said, entering his room, "Good night guys."
The four cleared to their rooms, Crane sending Po back a 'I know something's up' look, before entering his room. Of course Crane knew something was up, among the Five, Crane was closest to Po, and the two had become great friends in the year that passed; Crane finding Po's humorous, easy-going personality very enjoyable and Po finding Crane's peace and patience to be a great quality.
The panda laid on his bed, his head racing about the events that had happened. It took him many moments to finally clear his head of fears, dismissing the character near the peach tree as Tigress trying to scare him, and the occurrence in his room as an after effect of his dream.
He decided he should tell Crane the truth about what happened tomorrow, Crane was his best friend, and have often joined him to help his father, Mr. Ping at his noodle shop, the two acting as a great customer attraction and having a chance to waiter displaying their Kung Fu abilities, which was an even greater attraction. He wondered what Crane would say, though he could guess. He decided to sleep with a candle burning tonight, just to feel safer. He lit the candle on the candlestick and went back to his bed.
Eventually, the panda fell asleep again, only to wake up sometime later, when it was still dark; he heard footsteps down the hall. They were slow, and even though they were as silent as footsteps could be, he heard them like banging hammers. He knew it was Tigress, coming back from her nocturnal stroll. She passed the others' rooms and reached his, slowing down. Suddenly, a sense of incomprehensible dread passed over the panda, and he cuddled into a fetal position under his covers, not daring to move. From the corner of his eye, he could see her silhouette through the cloth of his door, which was now strangely and completely fixed. She stopped, facing it, and Po began sweating, closing his eyes to pretend he was asleep, and holding tightly to his covers. He heard a creak as his door slowly opened. But then, as he dared open one eye, he saw the silhouette turning and leaving, going back down the hall.
Po let out a small sigh of relief, letting out his scared emotions and breathing in the sweet relief. He noticed that Tigress left his door opened a crack, he could see the hall through it, and he could see Tigress' door was opened even though she never turned from his own door to it, and left down the hall. He tried focusing on what was inside her empty room, but it was too dark to really see anything. Just then, his candle burnt out and right as it did, in the pitch black of his room, Po could see a single, burning orange eye staring at him through the crack of his door.