Long Shot

Chapter 3: A wake-up call

Xun was not surprised when, upon waking, a thousand new aches and pains made themselves known all over his body. With his only working eye still closed, he wondered, vaguely, what he had gotten into that had resulted in so many new injuries. It wasn't unusual, of course, not anymore…but being used to it didn't make it hurt any less.

He didn't move for quite a bit, not just because of the pain, but also because wherever he'd found to crash last night felt…oddly comfortable. Almost like being in a real bed, although he hadn't been in a real bed for a year and a half and had all but forgotten what that felt like. But eventually, his acute nose informed him that this place smelled wrong – in fact, it smelled nothing like the forest clearings or back alleys where he usually took shelter for the night. Faint scents of incense and brewing tea and polished wood filled the air.

His insides tightened; he didn't dare open his eye now. Oh gods, he'd been taken into prison now, hadn't he? He'd stolen one too many things from merchant carts, and someone had finally caught him and locked him up. And after being on the streets and in the wild for so long, even prison felt comfortable and smelled nice to him…

"Is he going to wake up?"

Xun stiffened, his ears twitching involuntarily. Whoever had said that was close by, that was for certain.

"Soon." This was a different voice, a female's. "I gave him a medicine that should hopefully make him lucid. He should be around any minute now…"

Medicine? Xun had been in desperate need of medicine for quite some time now. His injuries had been deteriorating his physical state quite a bit, and he had recently developed a cough that persisted no matter how warm and dry he tried to stay. It reminded him a little of Shen, and how when they were kids Shen had always seemed to be sick with a cough. It made him ache inside to think of when he and Shen were little, though…

He felt someone gently scrubbing away the dirt on his face with a cool cloth. The touch of the damp fabric was wonderfully refreshing, and he opened his eye.

A shyly smiling face was leaning over him – dark, spotted, furry, with large gleaming yellow eyes. Some kind of a cat, by the looks of it. A panther, maybe?

"Wh…where am I…" he muttered. He pushed himself up a little, but a stabbing pain jabbed him in the chest, and he groaned as the black cat eased him back down.

"Easy," she told him gently, in the saccharine tone of voice that Xun had only ever heard from doctors. "You're at the Jade Palace."

"Jade…Palace?" Xun blinked; that name sounded very familiar. It definitely wasn't a prison, he could tell that much; as he looked around the room he was in, he saw that it was simple, but elegant and well-made. He was laying on a bed mat with clean sheets, bound in many places with fresh bandages, and his eyes were distracted by gleaming wood and finely-crafted hanging lanterns. He had been taken in, all right, but not taken into a jail.

As his eyes continued to move around the room, his breath caught in his throat when he saw what – or rather who – was sitting at the foot of his bed, watching him with an unreadable expression. He blinked rapidly and scrubbed at his eye, afraid that he might be sick and hallucinating, but the image of the very familiar albino peacock never wavered.

"Shen?" Xun exclaimed before he could stop himself, then quickly added, "I mean, ah…Lord Shen?"

Shen's head feathers flattened. "You…don't have to call me that," he murmured in a barely audible voice.

"Uh, I don't know about that," replied Xun testily. He recalled being threatened with a knife when he slipped up and called the peacock just plain Shen…or worse, Sheng Li. After Shen had thrown away their friendship and turned Xun into nothing more than his subordinate, such informal addresses were inexcusable.

But Xun, unable to keep from staring at Shen, couldn't help but notice that there was something very different about him. Was it his clothes? Yes, his robes were no longer the fancy, silk-hewn garments that he was used to seeing on the peacock! And there was something else, too…something about his eyes…

Shen's expression still couldn't be read. All he said was, "I'm not a lord anymore."

"Technically you weren't even after you returned to Gongmen," Xun couldn't help but point out, and then immediately winced when he realized what he had said, bracing himself to be struck or stabbed. But after nearly a minute, he was still untouched.

He opened his eye. Shen hadn't budged an inch from his position at the foot of the bed.

"Yes, you're right," he stated simply. "It took me quite a while to admit it…"

"What…?" Xun pushed himself up all the way this time, ignoring the pain. Why was Shen being so calm and tolerant all of a sudden? He hadn't been this way since they were chicks! Yet when he examined those ruby-red eyes again, he could only see a strange clarity within them – no anger, no insanity.

Suddenly Xun realized what the "unreadable" expression on Shen's face was: shame. But it had been so long since Shen had looked ashamed that he hadn't been able to place it.

Shen cleared his throat and stood up. "Do you know how long it's been?"

"No…" Xun coughed. Oh, that stupid cough was still there, huh? Although it didn't sound nearly as harsh as before.

Shen brushed his feathered fingers over the back of his long neck nervously. "Well over two and a half years since we last saw each other…"

Xun swallowed. "That long, huh."

"And, needless to say…a lot has changed."

"Tch, I wouldn't say so," the wolf snorted bitterly. "I'm still a deadbeat beggar and a thief."

"Well, I'm…" Shen sighed, his shoulders descending, looking as if he didn't know how he could possibly explain everything. Whatever "everything" was.

Xun's brain picked this moment to remember where he had heard the name "Jade Palace" before.

"Uh, Lo – Shen," he started uncomfortably, more than a little nervous about dropping the peacock's honorific title. "Did that…panther lady…say that this was the Jade Palace?"

"I did," answered the panther lady in question, who had been so quiet that Xun hadn't realized she was still there and jolted painfully when she spoke up. "And I'm a melanistic jaguar, not a panther. It's a common mistake."

"Uh, whatever." He looked up at Shen, his eyes flitting restlessly. "Well…isn't the Jade Palace where the Furious Five and the, um…Dragon Warrior live?"

Shen just barely nodded.

Xun exhaled, remembering all the trouble that the kung fu warriors had caused with Shen's plans. "So, what are you doing here? Are you a…prisoner or something?"

Shen shook his head very, very slowly. "I live here," he said.

Xun suddenly felt quite dizzy. "You live…"

"Here," Shen completed, nodding. "I was named a kung fu master."

Xun was pretty sure that his eye was twitching.

"And I'm sort of…" Shen looked like he had some reservations in saying this, but he decided to press ahead. "A totally different person now."

"Are you." Xun figured that he didn't have much choice other than to just go with this. He wasn't in any condition to get up, let alone get out of this place. "How so?"

"Well, for one thing, I'm not a psychotic evil dictator."

Xun's lips twitched – something about the plain way that last sentence was spoken struck him as funny – but Shen's somber expression never changed. "Well, I guess that's a start."

A/N - Sorry about the kind-of abrupt cutoff, but if I didn't end it there I would be rambling on for a while. Besides, I really wanted to get this up and I didn't have much more time to write it.

For every review you submit to this story, sad baby Shen gets a warm hug. Last chapter he was hugged by four people. If you don't want sad baby Shen to have a breakdown, please review so his parents will love him again.