A/N: Well hello there! And we're back, with another installment of "Blue Plate Special," also known as, "a series of awkward conversations." Now, first off, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed chapter one, and who welcomed me to the fandom. :) I also tried to be more descriptive in this here chapter. Anyway, ONWARD!
Disclaimer: Everything about Kung Fu Panda is the intellectual property of Dreamworks. That's called work for hire, kids!
Chapter 2: If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get out of the Kitchen
The Hall of Heroes was hands down the most ornate place in the entirety of the Jade Palace, and was the reason for the place's name to begin with. With its high ceilings, jade columns carved with dragons, and artifacts and paintings on display, it was a place of grandeur. However, it was also a place of quiet and tranquility, characterized by the Moon Pool, which Master Oogway decorated with peach blossoms every morning.
This was where Shifu found him meditating, as well. "Master Oogway," he greeted with a deep bow.
Oogway climbed down from his perch, balanced atop his staff, and gave Shifu a warm smile. "Greetings, old friend. You are looking well."
He certainly wasn't feeling well. "Master, there is something I must ask you, and while I don't mean to sound-"
"You are concerned over our new cook," Oogway interrupted.
"Master, I just don't understand why, if we needed a cook so badly, you would hire that vagrant. Did she have any references? Do you know where she came from?" Shifu could feel his fur bristling as he spoke; he couldn't understand why his Master would so flippantly add an obviously unqualified, and downright suspicious person to the staff.
"My friend, you are far too concerned with appearances." He reached out with his staff and gently touched the surface of the Moon Pool with it. "Look at these ripples."
Shifu watched as they gently grew, until they reached the edges of the Moon Pool and disappeared. "Uh..." He wasn't sure exactly which mystical life lesson he was supposed to glean from them.
"They start out so small, and grow so large. Just as a single act of kindness is capable of making a huge impact." Oogway smiled at him again.
"I... Understand, Master," he sighed.
Oogway nodded. "Good, Shifu. Good."
Shifu felt his stomach turn, but resisted the urge to frown in front of Oogway. It appeared that, like it or not, the cook was staying.
Tai Lung slumped in his chair, every muscle aching. Master Shifu had worked him to the bone the day before, and he hadn't even been that late for his training.
"Good morning." Lin put a plate piled with fresh fruit and tofu in front of him, looking nervous. "I'm not a morning person, actually."
"Me neither," he replied, shoving fruit in his mouth with his bare hands.
"Where's everyone else?" She gave his hand a light smack and handed him a pair of chopsticks.
He glared at her, annoyed, but took them anyway. "Master Shifu should be here to pick up his breakfast any minute. Master Oogway takes care of his own meals, if he even eats at all."
"And that's it?" She narrowed her eyes, lifting one side of her upper lip.
Tai Lung snorted at the expression. "Well, yeah! The servants take care of their own food, too, so you're pretty much just cooking for the three of us."
"And you said Shifu just... Picks up his food? He won't eat at the table?" Her expression remained.
"Call him Master Shifu or he'll get mad." Tai Lung shoveled some tofu into his mouth. "What did you do to this tofu?"
"I just grilled it with the fruit and some mint. So you all just... Eat alone?"
"Yeah." He shrugged. "It's not a big deal."
"It sounds lonely to me." She walked back to the stove, grabbing a plate. "I mean, eating alone just never feels like a real meal to me. It's less like I'm enjoying a meal and more like I'm just eating to survive, y'know?" She set a plate full of food down at the table next to him, placing a cloth napkin and a pair of chopsticks alongside the plate. "Want some tea?"
"Sure," he managed to get out around a mouthful of fruit.
Lin somehow produced two teacups, pouring a sweet-smelling tea into each of them and positioning them neatly in front of their respective place settings.
"How come you're not sitting down?" he asked as he grabbed for his tea.
"That's not my place setting," she replied.
Tai Lung shook his head. "You're just gonna start a fight."
"It's just a suggestion," she whispered, patting him on the back.
"Good morning." Master Shifu suddenly appeared at the door, everything about him radiating his dislike toward the current situation.
Tai Lung stood and bowed. "Good morning, Master." Maybe if he was extra disciplined he could get his Master into a better mood.
"G'mornin'," Lin muttered shyly, to Tai Lung's surprise. "Breakfast is, uhm, ready." She pointed to the place she'd set at the table.
The expression on Master Shifu's face was identical to what it had been the previous day. Tai Lung wondered if he would even eat the food she'd prepared, although to be fair she had cleaned up significantly. She wasn't the prettiest girl Tai Lung had ever seen, but she looked healthy: her fur was now soft and fluffy, her teeth were clean and white, her pointed ears were perked up in an alert and friendly way, and most importantly, she didn't smell anymore.
"I see," Master Shifu finally said. He picked up the breakfast and utensils and, nodding to Tai Lung, left the kitchen.
Lin calmly watched him do this, then walked to the door and peeked out. After a moment, she turned to Tai Lung and made that disgusted face again. "How rude!"
Tai Lung nearly snorted tea out of his nose. After he managed to swallow his drink and calm down, he replied. "He probably heard that."
"With those honkin' ears, I'd believe it."
"That's horrible!" But he laughed. "He probably heard that, too."
"The first thing that you need to learn about women, my young friend, is that they only insult people behind their backs." She made herself a plate and sat down at the table with him. "It's just our way. Besides, it's more polite to be nice to a person's face, even if you hate him."
He watched as she devoured her breakfast like it was the first decent meal she'd ever eaten. "So you hate Master Shifu?"
"I never said that." She grabbed a cup of tea and drank it all in one go. "I'm just sayin' he ain't giving me much to work with."
"He'll warm up to you... But you have to know him really well to be able to tell that he's warming up to you."
"You mean he acts like that all the time?"
"Yeah."
Lin started giggling. "Oh, God."
"It's not that funny." He finished up his breakfast about the same time that she did, and helped clear the table. "I'd better get to the training hall. If I'm late again I'm really gonna get it."
"Good luck, kid." She handed him a peach. "Snacks keep your energy up."
He waved as he ran to the training hall, hoping his soreness would go away. Or maybe he would work so hard that he'd go numb. Either one would be good.
Lin looked up at the one thousand steps that led up to the Jade Palace, and then at the basket of groceries she'd gone into the village to buy. "There needs to be a better way to get up there," she muttered, opting to climb up the mountainside instead. She'd always hated stairs, with a passion.
Halfway up the mountain she stopped to have a snack. She glanced up the intimidating slope as she chewed on a pear, wondering what she'd gotten herself into. It wasn't like she'd had much of a choice. It was either find a live-in job or live on the streets, and the only place in the valley that offered live-in positions for servants was the Jade Palace. And the only skill she really had to offer an employer was cooking. If she were to be perfectly honest with herself, Shifu's reaction to her was what she'd been expecting. To actually be hired was last on her list of possibilities, and she definitely hadn't thought there'd be a kid living up there.
She shook her head, talking to herself as she was wont to do. "A kid, of all things..." She wondered where his parents were, if he even had any. With a shrug, she discarded the core of the pear and continued up the mountain.
By the time she'd made it back to the Jade Palace with her groceries, she was panting and heaving, her tongue hanging out of her mouth. She headed straight to the kitchen to brew some tea; it was about an hour and a half until lunch, and she figured that sucking up really couldn't hurt her situation at the moment.
She was soon heading toward the training hall with a tray laden with freshly brewed tea, a bowl of almonds, and a little bit of honey. However, she found the front doors closed, and didn't want to make another awkward impression on her new employers. She also didn't think it would look to good if Shifu saw her put the tray on the ground. She tried to push the door open, but she would have to use the handle. She tried to position the tray on one knee so she could hold it steady with one hand, but the cups rattled ominously and the container of honey slid toward the end of the tray. "Shit!"
"Curious about the training hall?"
Lin nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of the voice behind her. With a small squeak she whirled around, managing to keep the tea from spilling. "Master Oogway!" She knew that she should bow, but she didn't want to spill the tea. Instead, she managed an awkward nod of her head. "Hi! Hello. Hi. Um, yeah, I was gonna bring tea..."
He just smiled at her.
"D'you want some?"
"Why thank you." He gently lifted a cup from her tray and took a sip. "Ah, how lovely. You have a real talent, my friend."
"Aw, thanks. I mean, shucks, it's just tea, I didn't do anything special..." She shifted uncomfortably. Tai Lung had told her that this turtle invented kung fu and was almost a thousand years old, yet he acted so casually. She wasn't quite sure how to act around him. He'd probably also heard her curse.
"Allow me to open the door for you," he offered, and she stepped aside for him, muttering another thanks.
"Master Oogway!" Shifu bowed deeply when they entered, and Tai Lung immediately ran over to them and bowed as well.
Lin just stared at the training hall. She could imagine a master of kung fu making his way through the swinging spiked clubs, the twisted rotating branches, the spiked crocodile dummies, and- a floor spouting fire? She could see a child of Tai Lung's age training with the squishy-looking dummy in the corner of the room, or maybe the jade bowl-looking thingy she caught sight of, but when she had entered with Oogway, Tai Lung had been beating on one of the spiked crocodiles.
"Is there something wrong?" The acidic tone of Shifu's voice snapped her out of it.
"I, uh..." She could feel her face heating up as all three of them stared at her expectantly. "Tea?" She held out the tray, and Tai Lung was immediately drinking a cup of tea and shoving almonds into his mouth.
"Thanks!" He sprayed a few crumbs in her direction, but she didn't mind.
Shifu was glaring at her... Again. "I would appreciate it," he managed to say somewhat politely, probably because of Oogway's presence, "if you did not interrupt Tai Lung's training."
"Ah, that was entirely my fault," Oogway answered before she could say anything. "Lin was kind enough to make you and Tai Lung some tea, and I told her it would be fine to interrupt you."
She tried not to laugh at how embarrassed Shifu looked upon hearing Oogway's explanation. It sounded like the kind of guilt tactic her mother used to use on her. "Do you, uh...?" She held up the tray, attempting a friendly smile.
Shifu made no effort to return her smile, but took a cup of tea. He seemed surprised upon tasting it, which made her feel rather smug.
"I'll just... Leave this here." She looked around for a place to put the tray, but Tai Lung took it from her and set it down near a rack full of weapons. "Right. See you at lunch, then, I guess." She made a break for it; she liked Tai Lung and Oogway alright, but as far as she was concerned, the less time she spent in the same room as Shifu the better.
"So what's that thing called again?"
"The Jade Tortoise Shell," Tai Lung replied, eagerly devouring Lin's lunch of chickpeas and vegetables as they sat at the kitchen table together. "You have to balance on the edge while you fight someone else or do kung fu moves or something."
"Right." She took a long swig of tea. "So is this okay for a kung fu type diet? I mean, I'm not doing anything too incredibly wrong, am I?"
"If Master Shifu hasn't said anything about it, then it must be fine."
"Okay, good." She played around with the scraps on her plate (she'd been done eating before he'd even sat down) and stared off into the distance. "How'd you get to be a kung fu kid, anyway?"
Tai Lung shrugged. "I was good at it, so Master Shifu decided to train me."
"Yeah, but how'd you get to meet him, then?" She brought her teacup to her mouth again, gulping down the contents.
"Well, he found me when I was a baby and..." He shrugged again. "He took me in."
Lin choked on her tea, coughing loudly and hitting herself in the chest. "He's your dad?" she managed to rasp out.
"Well... Yeah." He watched her gulp down more tea in an effort to soothe her throat. "It's not that unusual."
"I... I guess not." She took a few deep breaths. "But he's so... Strict."
"Some fathers are like that." Tai Lung sipped his tea, raising his eyebrows at her.
"Yeah, yeah." She tapped her fingers on the table. "I guess you could say my mom was kinda like that."
"I don't think there's anyone on the entire planet who's stricter than Master Shifu," he grumbled, taking one last sip of tea.
"I heard that."
Which he promptly spit across the room. "Master Shifu!" He stood up and bowed, his heart practically punching a hole through his chest. "I- I didn't know you were... I mean..." He trailed off, blushing as he heard Lin snort with laughter. He wondered if it was okay to stand up straight yet.
"I suppose you didn't," Master Shifu replied in his usual clipped tones. "But how could I not hear you, with my 'honking ears'?"
Lin's chuckling came to an immediate stop.
Tai Lung wasn't sure if it was the right time to straighten up or not, but he did anyway; he wanted to see what was going on. He tried not to seem too curious as he glanced between his master and Lin.
She looked like she wanted to crawl under the table and never come back out.
Master Shifu looked like he wouldn't have a problem with that course of action.
"I, uh..." she finally choked out. "...Made a plate for you." She clasped her hands tightly, her eyes darting around the room, apparently waiting for a reply.
Master Shifu just stood there, stone-faced.
"Okay then..." Her voice was getting quieter by the second as she grabbed the plate she'd left at the end of the table and held it out to him. "Here you go."
He grabbed the plate from her, his expression completely unchanged, and left the kitchen.
Tai Lung dropped back into his chair, slumping as he let out the breath he'd been holding. "That was... Awful."
"Oh dear God." Lin covered her face with her hands and leaned her elbows on the table. And then she giggled.
"How can you laugh?" He pushed his food away, no longer hungry. "That was terrifying!"
"Sorry, sorry." She leaned back in her chair, scratching behind her ear. "Can you even believe that happened?" She shook her head. "He really hates me." She laughed again.
"I don't get you. You weren't scared of being fired?"
"Yeah I was! But the giggling's a nervous habit. Can't help it." She began scratching the back of her neck. "The scratching is, too."
"I hope I don't get in trouble for saying that..." He could feel his stomach sinking because he knew that yes, he would indeed get in trouble, the moment he stepped into the training hall.
"You can blame it on me, if you want."
"Nah, I can't." Tai Lung passed her his plate when she stood up and started clearing off the table. "He'd never believe me."
"Well, I'll have a delicious dinner ready for you, so at least you got that to look forward to." She gave him a pat on the shoulder as he left the kitchen, but it didn't really do much to help his nerves.
Lin sighed to herself as she finished washing dishes; dinner had been more of the same routine. She sat and ate with Tai Lung while Shifu grabbed some food and ran off with it. She didn't understand why the guy refused to eat with his own son; Tai Lung was a fun kid, although he acted disturbingly mature for his age. She'd taken a break after dinner to contemplate her new situation, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Perhaps she was thinking too much; it wasn't like she was going to live there for the rest of her life.
She was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of a throat clearing, and turned to see Shifu standing in the doorway, with his empty plate in hand. It was an unexpected sight, to say the least. "Um, hello." She wondered if she should brace herself for some type of tirade, or maybe a threat.
"I thought you would be done cleaning by now," he replied tightly.
"Oh." She tried to think of something slightly more intelligent to say. "I'm... not."
"So I see."
It was the longest conversation they'd had so far, and she couldn't honestly say that she was enjoying it. "...D'you, uh, wanna gimme that plate?" She was surprised that she was able to speak with even a remote amount of confidence in his presence. Shifu was the kind of person who had a knack for making others feel about an inch tall, which was something she'd been able to detect upon first sight.
"I can take care of it myself, thank you." He was acting like she didn't know how to wash a dish; she let out an annoyed snort.
"So..." She trailed off, watching him just... Stand there. "You're... Uh..." She gestured in a circular motion. "Just standing there?"
"I will wait until you finish." He drummed his fingers on the plate, making no move to leave.
She wondered if this was supposed to be some kind of challenge, or dominance thing. She'd never met a kung fu master before, so she wasn't sure exactly how to handle one. She supposed she could have just treated him like a regular guy, but then she would probably be fired. "Right." She decided to play it cool; she only had a couple of dishes left. Still, she hated being watched, even for such a simple task. Maybe if she tried to actually start a conversation, he'd warm up to her a little, like Tai Lung had said. "So... Tai Lung's your son, huh?" It was as good a place to start as any, she supposed.
"Yes," Shifu replied curtly.
She waited for elaboration, but got none. "...And you... uh... Teach him kung fu?"
"Yes." He wasn't giving her much to go on.
"...Just Tai Lung?" She started scrubbing faster; the more time she spent in the guy's presence, the more she wanted to jump out a window just to get away from him.
"Yes."
It wasn't so much that she disliked him as it was that he very obviously disliked her, for no discernible reason. "Fascinating," she muttered under her breath, realizing belatedly that he had probably heard the sarcastic comment.
"Are you done yet?" he snapped.
"Almost." She kept her voice as calm as possible. She dried her last plate, returned it to its rightful shelf, and turned toward the doorway, where Shifu still stood. "I'm done." She watched him walk to the sink, completely ignoring her. The urge struck her to make sure he didn't do anything to mess up her new system of organization, but it occurred to her that it would probably come off as obsessive.
Instead, she decided that it would be best to take a walk through the grounds of the Jade Palace and familiarize herself with the place. Maybe she would have some dessert, too.
A/N: Well, that's the end of that. I'm trying to keep the chapters shorter for this fic, since it's easier for me to write and I'll be able to update more often (always a difficulty for me).