Tigress was sitting on the table, reading a scroll while drinking some tea. That's when there was another crack of thunder. Her ear twitched. Sometimes she wished she didn't have such amazing hearing. It made the sound much louder. That's how she knew someone was coming into the kitchen. "I'd like to be alone right now, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind," Po had said, innocently. He started taking out a pot and lighting a fire for the stove. Pumping up some water, he tried to get a mug. This did not turn out too good. While reaching for the mug, he dropped the bowl holding the water and it crashed to the floor.
"Po!" She yelled, slamming her palms on the table. "I am trying to get some quiet. Please stop making so much noise."
"Right," he whispered. "I'll be a bit quieter."
Tigress let out a silent sigh. Another round of thunder. She was going to lose her hearing if this kept up. She didn't want to lose another one of her senses.
She could tell that Po was trying to his best to be quieter, but the lack of other noises made the little ones sound louder. The glass being swept up and thrown away, the water pumping again. And he also kept humming and stopping and humming and stopping. She sighed and gave up. She turned to Po with a forced smile. "So, why are you here, Po?" She knew he was cooking, but it was getting late and they all already had dinner.
"Just making some tea so I can listen to the storm." He answered as he poured hot water into his mug. He added some tea leaves inside of it and started mixing it. He then added a few sugar cubes. Tigress only really took one sugar cube. She didn't like it that sweet. He then came to sit next to her. A few minutes of silence later, he spoke. "So… What are you doing up?"
"I'm just up," she answered. "There's no training tomorrow, so it'll be fine to sleep in."
"I didn't know you slept in." He sounded so surprised she almost laughed. Instead, she smiled.
"It's rare. But when I do, it's just an hour. I'm always awake before you either way." She smiled at him.
He smiled back and then took a sip of his tea, real slow. Smart move, she thought. He took it from his lips a second later. "It's still too hot."
Tigress took a sip of her own tea and realized that it was a bit cold. It was almost to the bottom anyway. "Is it ok if I use the water you boiled?" Po nodded, glaring at his tea, as if it would cool it down. She smiled softly and refilled her drink. When she sat down, there was another crack of thunder. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Po twitched a bit along with her ear. "So what woke you? Was it the storm?"
"Nah." He waved his hand as if to dismiss the idea. "Just a silly dream. That's all."
"About what?"
"Ugh…" She noticed that his eyes roamed the room. They landed on his tea. "I was dreaming about tea."
She didn't believe it for a second. "You were really dreaming about tea?"
"Yeah," he said in a higher voice than normal. "That's why I, uh, came here. To, um, make some." He gave her a fake smile and then lifted his mug to drink his tea. Before it could even reach his lips, Tigress stopped it. He looked at her confused. She gave him a look. "Oh, right." He put the tip of his finger inside. He smiled at her. "It's all good." He then took a gulp.
Tigress sat back in her seat, watching him as he drank his tea. "I used to have weird dreams too. They weren't about food, though."
He looked at her. "Really?" They had been getting along these past few weeks since that laughing incident. But he never would have guessed that it would be this soon that she would let her guard down a bit.
She nodded. "They were crazy little nothings about the palace. But I haven't had them since I was a child. They were usually about the relics in the Hall or some of the things in storage. Some were even about the scrolls."
"What were they about?"
Tigress let out a little, breathy laugh. "The one about the scrolls had Shifu in it. I was walking through the many hallways in the palace and I stumbled upon the kitchen. I forget what, exactly, I was trying to find, but I know it wasn't the kitchen. When I entered the kitchen, I saw a bowl on the table. So I went to go check what was inside of it. The bowl had tiny versions of the Thousand Scrolls. And they were just floating inside some kind of broth. I was about to try some when Shifu came in. He said, "Don't eat my soup! You can try, but you won't be able to."" She smiled. "I thought it was kind of funny. He was so protective of his soup." Of course, a few years later she found out the meaning of the dream. But Po didn't need to know that.
Po laughed. "Sounds like my dad." He took another sip of his tea and almost dropped it when another sound of thunder went off.
"Po," Tigress said when he started cleaning the table. "Are you afraid of thunder?"
He stopped dead in his tracks. He stopped wiping up the spilled tea and sat down, not looking her in the eye. "It's not that I don't like." She waited for more. "It's just, when there's a storm, me and my dad would just go to the basement and play mahjong to wait it out. We were always so focused on the game, I guess we didn't hear the thunder. And now that I'm here, and he's down there, I guess I forgot how loud it was."
Tigress looked at him. He really missed his father. "You know you can visit him whenever you want, right?"
"Yeah, but it's not the same."
"You know…" She started. She took a sip of her tea before she spoke again. "I can never forget how loud a storm is." He looked at her confused. "I have extraordinary hearing. Everything is louder than it should be. I guess that's what I get for meditating every day."
"Wow, poor Shifu," Po said with a look of devastation.
"Why poor Shifu?" She was pretty sure she had been talking about herself a second ago.
"Ya know, his ears."
It took Tigress a second to get what he meant. She then let out a few laughs. "You're right. He hears ten times better than I do. But I think he's used to it in his age."
Po nodded. "Yup, his age." He let out a snicker.
Tigress smiled as she shook her head. "You know. I have a mahjong kit in my room. We could play."
"Really?"
"Sure. I'll go get it now." She stood up to go get it.
As she passed Po, he grabbed her paw. She wasn't aware until she felt a tug on her shoulder. She turned to look at him. "Thanks, Tigress."
She smiled at him. "No problem."