Inception
Tigress / Tai Lung
By: Skyyler
…
"Tai Lung..." Tigress could hear herself whisper, as her eyes fluttered open.
The night was cold. It was always cold. The room was pitch black, black for loss, black for need, black for her depression. But Tigress didn't feel cold. She was laying on her side, glowing eyes gazing at the bamboo-lined wall, paw softly underneath her furry head, drifting from consciousness to unconsciousness, but she felt warm, with only the small blanket Shifu provided her. She could feel a soft wet particle of water part from her ever-mourning eyes, as she took a staggered inhale. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. In...
What was that? A noise?
It was coming from right behind her. So close, that only her ear, her sensitive ear could pick it up. It was breathing, also. She opened her eyes, and looked down. A dark paw lightly stroked her arm, as hot breath traveled down her spine, sending her into slight shivers. Not of warmth, but of horror. The paw that grasped her was not from any of the boys she knew at the training school she applied, but one of difference. One that was strangely familiar, one that she thought she knew ever since she knew...
"Tigress..."
Tai Lung opened his blood-shot eyes, as his clenched teeth parted in a pant. He looked side to side. His wrists were shackled. Shackled to the unforgiving, damned grounds of this keep. He was bound. Bound to his own mistakes, and now his own torture. "Tigress." He blinked multiple times to keep the pulsing tears from breaking the barrier his eyes so fiercely held, even though he has sobbed profusely before, proven from a frozen puddle in front of him. "Why must this be..." He shoved his eye lids closed, begging to go back to that dream.
Tigress softly, steadily, slowly turned her head to the right, as the paw fell down to her naked stomach. Her eyes searched the inky black room for the solution to her confusion, questions on what it was that was keeping her so warm.
She then realized that it was a face that she knew. Knew fairly well. Her mouth parted, in heart-jumping realization, in stomach-lunging renovation, in a sudden feeling of dirty submittance.
It was Tai Lung.
The snow leopard opened his heavy eyes. Their yellow gleam filled the room with brightness. "Do you remember me?"
Tigress awoke with a quick inhale with shivering lungs. Same spot, but... She looked over her shoulder. But no warmth. It was just a dream. It's always a dream. She could feel the tear she thought she cried moments ago appear back into her vision, as she shut her eyes. "How could I forget you, you bastard..." Her heart leaped into her throat in denial, in loneliness, as she could remember what Shifu would tell her, about how Tai Lung used to be like, about what he became, and most of all, how much in love she had become with him.
She was lovestruck.
But just like Romeo and Juliet, love was never meant to be, at least, not the kind of love Tigress thought was. She closed her eyes silently, as she tried to dream again, amidst the freezing wintery night air surrounding her, pricking her with its thousand needles of condemnation.
Tai Lung held her in his arms, lightly stroking her sweet, soft fur with his foolish, unworthy paws. "How could I have made such a mistake, Tigress... I chose myself over you, over the only thing I knew, I knew my life would depend on... Now you're gone."
Tigress' brows lowered in disapproval. "No.. no I'm not gone, Tai Lung. I'm right here. I'm right here..." She brought her lips slowly up to his, as they touched. The mindless sensation sent explosions of shivers down her spine, as she grasped him tighter, and he, her. She brought her hand up to his cheek, as she came closer to him, as she maneuvered more intensely and-
"No." The snow leopard stood up, as he stared at her with his wanting eyes, his begging, needing but scarred eyes. "This is... just a dream."
Tigress stood up beside him, as she looked up to him, feeling the shivers return. "That doesn't mean that it has to stop." She placed a paw on his toned chest, as he looked away. "Look." She touched his chin with her other paw. "If this is just a dream, why not enjoy it?"
Tai Lung looked at her with such an expression that she herself could not keep her lips from quivering. "Because I wouldn't want to wake up, and face reality."
Tigress put her other paw on his bare chest, as she looked into the centre of his eyes. "Then kiss me, this one last time."
Tai Lung's jaw tightened, as his face seemed as innocent as a kitten. He took a careful hold of her waist, brought her in, and brought his face down to hers-
His eyes opened. Blinked. Seconds passed. She's gone...
Her eyes opened. Looked around. And once again, let the heart-felt tears urge their way out of her heavy eyes. He's gone... He's gone.
