Shen - Kung Fu Panda
Takes place in a universe where Shen does not die, after the movie.
Heal
Blood fades in time,
as does the wounds it leaves,
but the scars run deep,
the scars and crimson rain
will stain
the snow-white surface beneath.
.
.
.
They leave their marks
on fatal organs,
they set messages
carved in one's heart.
.
.
.
You can pretend you cannot feel
the pain preserved from the past,
but the mask won't last
not forever,
not until the day you finally heal.
Fully.
Truly.
Purely.
.
.
.
But for that, the body needs much more
than plasters, band-aids, bandages.
Your heart needs love,
your body needs time,
your soul needs forgiveness.
Only then you will truly heal.
.
.
.
H-O-H
.
.
.
He gasped for air in shallow breaths. His chest rose and fall with each gulp, as he savoured the air that finally graced his lungs. He was alive. There was no sweeter relief or more bitter pain than the knowledge of his survival.
Shen moaned in pain, his eyes opening just a slit as he surveyed his surroundings. The burning pain within his muscles would not let go, but he had to ignore it, to focus on a more important task. He had to get away. That's all he knew. What he remembered, of the battle that had been, of the bloodshed he had begun, was that he needed to run now; needed to hide. For who would welcome a monster in their arms?
His pupils strained to see the light dilating to take in more. It was night, though he had half-expected that. That was not what elicited the shock within him.
No, not at all. 'Where in the name of China am I?' he asked himself, confused. No, this was it. The confusion that followed as he turned his head, fighting the pain as he did so (he must have stretched several muscles during Po's attacks... and possibly collected a few bruises, several broken bones here and there), as he saw the landscape surrounding him. This was no city.
This was not Gongmen City. Not at all.
This was a cave. Solid; no, hard and rough would have described it more aptly. Dark too. Almost completely without light, save for the faint illumination of amber provided by the torches. They hung at the sides of the cave, kept in place by metal, possibly iron. Perhaps this once had been a mining shaft. Despite the lack of rails or any traces left after their removal, the possibility still stood. Why else who someone bother with adding lighting? No carts to be found either and deeper into the cave, there didn't seem to be any torches. Yet, someone had to have been here, lived here, to care about adding torches to this drab settlement. Not to mention the blankets. One of which was loosely draped over the peafowl himself.
Looking down at the kind gesture, he angled his head to get a better look at the blanket. Might tell him who had saved him. What sort of animal would dare, or who would have the mercy.
It wasn't fancy; bland would have been a better word. Criss-crossing patterns and cut out squares that had been sown together hinted on the rugs age. It seemed ancient, recycled by someone who had no choice but to make of what they could get their hands on. Whoever it was, could sow too, he noted. It wasn't particularly artistic, but it was fine enough. Whoever had given this to him... didn't have much themselves.
It made him squirm in discomfort. Whether because of guilt or out of some other reason, that he didn't know. He didn't want to know. What he did want to know was why someone like that would save someone like him.
"I see that you're awake," a soft voice spoke.
Maybe the speaker had been gentle, not a threat to his existence. That didn't mean he could trust the creature, the female creature. He backed away, cursing his ailments as he fell on his back, his body too weak to move.
The speaker moved closer, though their steps didn't seem to make much sound. He could see the outlines of her silhouette as she approached him carefully, as one would a wild animal. A dangerous animal. She should be wary too, he thought, he was a dangerous kind of person. Still, it irked him that she dared come closer anyway until she was right in front of him.
And when she finally did, he froze.
The female was wearing a black cloak that effectively covered most of her body. It was coal black, fastened together and held in place with a few robes and the odd button. Nothing spectacular, or posh, but he had expected that. Her talons, those of a bird, protruded from cloak with each step, appearing almost like that of a peafowl. She stood at his full height, perhaps a little taller. Viewing him from above, he caught a glint of pity in her eyes.
He didn't need pity. "Get... away from me," he croaked. His voice failed him, the words not forming quite as well as they should have. Shen knew he sounded pathetic.
"No need to fear me," she reassured him with the same, soft voice from before. She bowed her head. "I only wish to help you."
'I don't need help,' he thought stubbornly as he glowered at the taller figure.
It didn't seem to faze the female avian. "I need to cleanse your wounds," she insisted, as a wing stretched from her cloak, covered by the wide sleeves, reaching out to his own wing. Pull him closer despite his initial reluctance, she overpowered him with ease, before looking down at the damage done. She pressed lightly at one of the muscles.
"Agh!" Shen screeched in pain. "D-don't touch me!"
She sighed. "If I can't touch you," she asked, the spare wing slipping under his chin, "how am I supposed to heal you?"
He squirmed, hissing at her. He didn't care if he was being ungrateful. No one would touch him. He was an emperor! He was royalty. He was...
You are nothing.
A murder, a thief, an outlaw?
No, you are no more than dust now.
You are weak, petty, worthless.
You deserve to suffer.
So why then, if he deserved to die - he ought to have died after what Po had done, after what he had done to that stupid panda - was he alive? How had he come to be here, in the wings of someone gentle and caring?
"I found you by the river," the female explained as she traced her feather appendages over his own wings, checking for other injuries. She muttered 'broken', 'sprained', and even 'bruised', a couple of times, other times she would tut at the cuts that lined his flesh and stained the once pristine feathers crimson. "You were unconscious back then and heavily wounded, worse than you are now."
He had a choice now. Listen to her words, or focus on the-
"Ow!" he cried out again. Another breakage, dammit! She murmured a quick apology, sounding flustered for a moment, before getting back to her work. It seemed like a wiser idea to focus on her words after all.
"I'm not sure how you survived it, but I thought it a waste to let someone die. So I took you away from that city, Gongmen, I think it was called, taking you here, to my home. Then, I tended to your wounds. Apologies if the intrusion was unwanted, but you would have died from blood loss otherwise. Besides, having been unconscious for three days, anyone could have gone and finished the job they had begun."
Three days!?
She smiled weakly. "Perhaps it was a good thing too - if you hadn't you probably would have heavily protested against my methods," she murmured, stroking his shoulder absentmindedly.
Not realising that he was still under her touch, he let himself relax in her wings, his eyes closing as she stroked him soothingly. A small part of his mind wandered for a bit, wondering what she could have meant by her 'methods'.
He'd only been reminded of how close she had been after she had stepped away, walking from him.
Blinking owlishly, he found himself befuddled at the lack of pain in his wing. Instead, it felt as though it had never been injured in the first place, though, a few bruises still remained. Otherwise, it was-
Wait... shouldn't the wing have been broken? In several places?
'What has she done?!' the male peafowl freaked out, his feathers twitching in fear. 'What did she do to me?'
Though, when he stood up, to run, he came to realise that she had only managed to heal his arm. The rest of his body betrayed him and he fell over, slumping on the ground. The rest of his body was still very much in pain, relying on her to tend to him. With those 'methods' of her's.
Eclipse shifted her wings through the sacks of supplies. As she searched for some bandages for the un-healed afflictions that the peafowl still carried on his body, her mind thought back to the night she had found him.
Rightfully, the peafowl should have been dead. Even she knew that.
When she had scanned his body for injuries on that fateful night, she spotted several punctures in his chest. Even his lung had been pierced by one of his broken ribs and the internal bleeding would suffocate him soon enough. It wasn't so much the blood loss. Though the sheer amount of broken bones wasn't helping. If it hadn't been for the curse she had been endowed with since birth, she wouldn't have managed to save him. No other animal could.
Back then, just like now, she could only have healed so much. In order to have enough energy to get herself and him back, she had to work fast and efficiently, using her powers sparingly. She'd healed the punctured lung and a few of the deeper cuts on his abdomen, but there was no chance that she would be capable of healing the rest of him. It was a miracle too, that she had managed to carry the male all the way from Gongmen to her place of residence. That place where freaks belonged, the mountains. Here she tended to his skull injuries, the nerve and bone damage in his spine and the eyes that been narrowly saved from being gouged out of the sockets, or worse. He most certainly didn't look well at all.
Though, she suspected that some of those injuries were older, from years past. What he had done to his body, out of stress, self-hatred and pity. It may have been the exhaustion that had kept him asleep for so long. Though at least she was certain of a heartbeat.
'There it is,' she mused, brushing away the thoughts as she finally spotted the bandages. Most had been used up after she'd used them to stop the blood from leaking out of her guest's body during his stay here, but there were still some left. She would need to change them, hopefully without him protesting too much. She couldn't blame him of course, she wouldn't have trusted a freak like herself either.
Taking them out of the sack, Eclipse grabbed a knife, using it to cut up the bandages. Scissors would have been preferable, but currently unavailable. Being a healer came with a low income, especially with someone like her.
The female walked back, the cloak trailing behind her like a train as she moved. Eyeing the male carefully as he lay on the ground, she stopped in front of him yet again. "I'll have to change your bandages," she simply commented. It served more as a warning though, so that maybe the male would calm down. It could get so frustrating when people ran away from her. Especially when she was only trying to help them.
He seemed to give her a shifty look.
"I just want you to heal. Please...?"
Sighing, he closed his eyes, bracing for the pain that might come. It wasn't that he didn't meet her gentle side yet - he had, he could remember it - but it wasn't that she should have been gentle. She should have been the very opposite and the moment she'd recognise him, she'd likely turn cold towards him. Still, he would let go of his pride if it meant his wings would heal. Holding out his wing, he watched as she changed the bandages, cleaning his wounds, wrapping them and then shifting to the rest of his ailing body.
He couldn't deny it: her touch was rather pleasant. No, very pleasant.
"Despite everything you've done, everything you are," the strange female whispered as she held him now. He was leaning against her chest, too weak and too content in her embrace to move. "Everyone deserves to heal... even you, Shen."
He never reacted, asleep by the time his name slipped out of her mouth, not knowing that she had known of his existence for a long time. She knew who he was, what he'd done and what he could be. If given a second chance, she knew his better side. Even if it hadn't been seen or heard of for more than a decade now. Still, even that bit of goodness was worth fighting for.
A/N - That was my O.C. She knew Shen, first meeting him a little time after he had become vengeful, dark and cruel. Though, she knew unlike anyone else, his better side too. Everyone has redeeming characteristics, after all. I hope you don't mind the idea behind this.