Title: The Life and Times of Lord Shen
Summary: The story of the albino peacock of Gongmen City, from cradle to corruption. Chapter 10. a prince should: A young Shen ditches lessons for a day in the city.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Kung Fu Panda or its sequel(s) and spin-offs, that's all DreamWorks' honor.
Spoilers: Both Kung Fu Panda movies.
A/N: Always, with this fic I want to mix on-screen canon with off-screen materials found online, i.e. "Although they still cared for him, Shen's parents were ashamed of his albino coloring and poor health, so they left him in the care of their advisor, the Soothsayer who raised him like her own. Traces of this can be seen as Shen is never outright cruel to the Soothsayer, such as how he releases her before the launch of his armada, meaning that he still respects her for showing him love" from character page for Kung Fu Panda. So I do want to make this mix of on-screen and off-screen materials as canon-compliant as possible.
I'm gonna try to individually reply to all your kind reviews with 's handy PM feature (except for users not signed in, since that feature's not available with them—those responses are at the bottom here).
Also, I have another Shen-centric KFP fic, "Change the Fate's Design," if anyone wants to check it out and leave a review. It should be in continuity with this fic (up to a point).
a prince should
Etiquette and government were up next, the last for the day. And, well, Shen figured it wouldn't be so bad if he ditched. Should he work on creating another firework in his lab? No, he'd go to the city before dinner instead of lessons, An should be there with some of his pack, they had a day off.
Nana would scold him when she eventually found out, but it'd be just the one time, he wouldn't make a habit of it. His parents would never know.
Shen had to fight back a snicker as his tutor walked around below his spot on the roof, looking for him. Once the grown-up was out of sight, the boy dashed off the roof tier and glided down and over the palace wall.
He missed one of the city's roofs though, and ended up landing on a line of lanterns instead. His talons slipped around the rope a little, so that the white fowl swung upside down. Shen weakly chuckled as the city denizens' gaped up at him.
So much for stealth.
A passing lion costume troop was nice enough to have its head performer stretch up, silently bidding their prince to get on. The boy dropped clumsily down on top, but the lion's head performer gently lowered him.
"Thank you," said Shen, looking up at the lion's head with a ram poking out of it.
"Don't mention it-"
"No, really, I-"
"Ever."
"Oh, okay, right," Shen mumbled in a very small voice, embarrassed as the lion parade trooped onward, resuming its interrupted practice.
Shen dashed off, ignoring the way everyone still looked at him.
The boy was sidetracked a little by a shadow puppet show he stopped to watch, sitting atop a barrel away from the crowd. But once that was done he continued to make his way to a tavern An said he was going to with his kin.
Shen had seen it briefly once before when An was showing him around, but they hadn't gone inside together. And last time a goose wasn't thrown bodily out the door, with someone shouting at him to remember some goddamn yuan next time. The prince stared at the goose for a while, further surprised when the man just sang nonsensically despite the growing bruise on his head.
"Prince Shen?"
The boy turned, finding one of An's older cousins in the middle of turning back and wiping his paws clean, but frozen as he stared at him.
"Hi Yang," Shen said as he walked to the tavern door. He frowned when Yang blocked the entrance, looking down at him.
"Lookin' for An?"
"Uh huh."
"Shouldn't you be with your tutors?"
"Did you just throw that goose out into the street?"
Yang grumbled, "We were playin' a game, guy said he was good for it, once I win, his yuan magically vanishes-"
The older wolf snorted, then shouted back, "HEY AN!"
"WHAT?"
"KID'S HERE!"
Shen rankled at the diminutive, though he'd learned the pack sometimes did that in an attempt to hide his identity. Still, the boy could poke holes in that sentiment. "You already said my name, title and all; and everyone knows or they're gonna know I'm the prince either way, there aren't any other white peafowl-"
"Which is why we get so goddamned nervous when you're out here, and now you're ditching!"
Shen scoffed. "It's not like anyone would try anything in the city-"
Yang scoffed back. "Like they didn't try anything in the palace, right?"
Immediately everything in Shen's face closed off, and Yang's ears flattened against his skull. The older wolf still thought he was right, but that was a bit harsh on his prince, who really was cooped up at the palace tower more often than not. Yang knew he couldn't handle it if he was in the boy's situation.
An arrived, somewhat breaking up the awkward mood, though Yang sounded too gruff when he asked, "Sober enough, pup?"
An rolled his eyes as he walked by Yang and out the tavern. "I'm fine."
Shen shuffled his talons. "We can still stay if you want-and I want to see-"
Yang barked out a laugh. "Nah, widdle An here can barely stomach one drink-"
Yang only laughed louder as An gave him a rude gesture while taking Shen away.
Still the prince mumbled when they turned a corner, "Sorry."
An blinked. "For what?"
"That you had to leave the bar 'cause I'm too little-" Shen shook himself, correcting, "Because you all think I'm too little-"
The teen wolf chuckled. "Yang's not the only who thinks I'm still too 'little' for the place. Me and Jie and the others are barely allowed there."
"But you sneaked around before," Shen pointed out.
"Just their storage the one time, and you remember what happened after that, right?"
Shen laughed as An grumbled.
"Yeah, all the grown-ups gave you extra chores even though you all got real sick-"
"If only you'd laughed then," An said, smiling this time. "You thought we were gonna drop dead. Only the Soothsayer got you to calm the hell down."
Shen huffed. "Well, you guys looked really bad."
"That, my prince, is what a hangover can do to the uninitiated." Then An blinked. "Shouldn't you be in a lesson or something right now?"
Shen groaned. "C'mon, you've ditched before."
The older boy snickered, "Guess I've been a bad influence on you after all."
"Not so bad," Shen said, with a roll of his eyes and a grin. Then he quickly pecked An, who shoved him back with a pleased bark. Soon the boys were shoving and biting gently, roughhousing, before Shen broke away, daring An to catch him.
The boys ran, until Shen dashed up some crates and then onto a roof. The chase resumed as An climbed up too, jumping over rooftops. Some people at their windows went "Oh my!" as the boys dashed past, to which Shen hurriedly said "Sorry!" while An just laughed louder. But children-especially really young ones-at the windows would just shriek in delight as the boys dashed past, then stay for a while watching them jump across the rooftops.
The white peacock and the wolf soon reached a familiar building gap. As usual, Shen glided across. He turned back to An on the opposite side, saying in a mock-innocent voice, "Think you can make it now?"
"Definitely!"
Just in case, Shen went to the lantern line that always ran between the two buildings, gripping it tight with his talon. An had been using the lantern line and the straw storage below as safety precautions ever since they started this game ages ago.
An ran back as far as he could, then dashed forward as fast as he could go, then he cleared the air and-
The wolf made it close enough so that Shen could even grab him with both wings, just as he missed the edge. But Shen was caught off guard-and soon the extra weight was too much and the boy was starting to fall with An. But as they went, An grabbed the ever reliable lantern line-and soon the line broke. Shen held onto An holding the line as they both swung down and for the previous building. With practiced ease, even with the extra weight, An lifted his back legs and had them press firmly, securely against the wall, instead of crashing.
Once the boys climbed down the line and flopped into the hay, An snickered. "It's been a while since you went along for the ride."
Shen flushed. "I hadn't noticed the straw the very first time, I thought you were gonna break your neck!"
"Still can't pick me up-" An sang-song before Shen threw some straw in his face.
An approached him with a mock-predatory smirk.
"Oh no, remember Song, she said she'd skin us alive the next time we messed up her straw, and I just hit you with a little of the stuff so she won't notice-"
Shen shrieked with glee as An tackled him off the straw stack, and the two boys wrestled on the ground.
When both got up, cleaned themselves of the straw as much as they could, and began to make their way back to the palace, Shen decided ditching had been a very good decision indeed.
Nana would scold, but it would be just the one time. And his parents would never know. Surely they wouldn't know. (They wouldn't care.)
###
"My Lord, you are blowing this out of proportion."
"Am I?" Baojia said in a voice that was too quiet, facing the Soothsayer.
The old goat continued, "Yes. Shen is not by any stretch of the imagination the first prince to skip his lessons-"
"-but he is the first one inexplicably born of a color steeped in the worst superstition."
"Lord Baojia-"
"He is watched far more closely than any other heir, his proclivity for mistakes has to be minimized as much as possible, and to make one that could've been avoided-!"
"He is still a child," said Lady Fen, and both her husband and goat advisor stared at her. "And this is a childish mistake we can allow." Her eyes hardened. "This is not like concerns over lineage, this is schoolwork that can be made up. There is no need to be harsh with him in this case."
The Soothsayer pressed on, riding on Lady Fen's support. "I know you both have a whole province to serve and protect-" though now was not the time to again broach the topic of their fear of attachment to their only sickly son, despite the fact that he was growing stronger "-but Shen probably assumes you'll be too busy to notice if he misses a class or two."
The old goat's voice grew quieter. "The reverse is possible too-that punishment from you is better than no attention."
Lady Fen's face remained impassive, but Lord Baojia blew out a frustrated breath.
###
Shen lowered his head back down when he spotted Nana waiting for him.
But the old goat called out to him, "I saw you, dear."
"Busted," whispered An with a light snicker as Shen raised his head back up and began to complete the climb over the wall. The prince thought he'd have a little more time before the Soothsayer caught him.
"Nana, it was just the one time-" Shen began, thinking he'd have a go first. But then his voice broke off into a horrified silence as he saw his father waiting at the foot of the steps.
At first Lord Bajioa's face was unreadable-but then his eyes snapped in An's direction, and a clear spark of anger entered them.
Even as the Soothsayer shot his father a warning glare, Shen felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. What if father blamed An? That had never occurred to the prince, but maybe it should've. His parents had never seemed to really understand or approve of his friendship with An and his pack...
For his part An fought back his sudden burst of panic, approaching his Lord and bowing before him, just waiting.
Shen hurried to his friend's side.
"Father, I found An, it wasn't his idea to-"
"He should've escorted you back."
"But he has to follow my orders too, right? I ordered him to play with me!" That wasn't true, but Shen had to convince his father it was.
His stomach still wasn't feeling any better, Shen was beginning to think his father could see through the lie. "His first duty is to me, and he along with his pack have a standing order to protect you."
"And he was! He was guarding me the whole time while we played!"
Baojia stared down at his son's red eyes.
(And he remembered when he'd been a boy, younger than Shen, and his own older brother had told him that red means good fortune.
Boajia shook his brother's voice from his head-if his brother were here, he wouldn't be in this situation, would he? He would have no concerns with Shen being heir, Lu would've had his own-
Baojia's heart hardened at the memories, the what ifs. They were neither here nor there. Lu nor anyone else had anything to do with his own shortcomings as a father.)
The Gongmen Emperor's eyes finally flicked from his heir to the young wolf guard. "Does my son speak the truth?"
An tried to think very, very fast. He'd inherited obedience to Gongmen's peafowl rulers, and Lord Baojia was at the very top.
But wouldn't Shen get in trouble? Not any more trouble than he was already in, perhaps.
But he'd only courted this extra trouble when trying to defend An. And Shen's parents seemed harsher than his own, and the prince was still just a young boy.
But it wasn't as if An would be punished by his own parents instead, it would be his lord's wrath, and what if it extended to his pack? But Shen-
Shen thought very fast too, trying to predict what An would say. Would he play along with the lie? Or would he forget his self-interest and obey his father as he was supposed to?
There was a 50-50 shot that Shen's lie would work, but the boy still didn't like those odds. And maybe it wasn't fair to make An lie to his lord-
"Don't make him! I-I lied, okay?" Shen finally burst out, stepping in front of An, whose head had perked up in shock. "But I would've ordered him to play with me if he'd tried to take me back-" another lie, An had never needed an order, Shen had never thought of it before, but maybe this lie would work "-and he would've thought he had to listen, even if you said he really didn't have to because your words were kinda va-" it was too late, Shen had to finish the rambling thought "-gue.
Oh gods, he was so doomed.
Shen looked up at his father, terrified.
Lord Baojia recognized his son's fear. It made his stomach clench. (But was it so different from respect? Did it not serve his desire that the boy not challenge his authority until he himself was ruler? Would it really change his actions in the long run? He'd been rather terrified of his own father as well.)
The Soothsayer walked forward, silent save for a particular, insistent thonk of her walking stick.
Finally Baojia dismissed An, who bowed again and retreated to the barracks. He spared Shen one last glance over his back, then was gone. The older boy knew better than to press his luck and refuse his lord's dismissal.
"Come Shen, walk with me a moment," Baojia ordered, and immediately turned his back and started off, expecting his son to follow.
The boy shot the Soothsayer one last pleading look. But the old goat gave a reassuring nod and waved her hoof in his father's direction.
With a certain slump to his shoulders, Shen followed his father. But the boy gave himself his own reassurance too-An hadn't gotten in trouble.
For a time the white peacock and his blue father walked the grounds.
Shen probably shouldn't have broken the silence, but he asked anyway, "Where's mother?"
"Attending a council meeting. She represents the both of us."
Oh gods, I pulled father out of a meeting. With a lurch of his stomach, Shen remembered that had happened before when he almost killed a child with his stupid tail feathers.
Baojia sighed. "So I suppose you were correct in assuming that we would have been too busy to notice your actions."
Shen twitched.
"That is what you thought, yes?"
The boy nodded, gulping.
Baojia tried very hard to keep the edge out of his voice, to keep it gentle and soft. "Even so, I expect you to attend all your lessons, to be on your best behavior. You can go to the city during your free time. But son, you must understand, this is more than I would normally ask, and it is because of your differences."
Shen stopped, as did Baojia. The boy could no longer look at his father.
The older peacock forced back the urge to make his son look at him. It was a hard truth to swallow for one so young.
But it would stick, Baojia did not have to force eye contact to make it stick.
Baojia couldn't remember ever telling this to Shen outright, but it had surely been implied as the boy had grown.
Baojia continued, repeating what he had told the Soothsayer and his wife earlier. "Our people watch you more closely, expecting mistake and weakness. You cannot show them that."
Shen folded his wings, began to shuffle his talons.
Baojia sighed, admitting, "I know mistakes do happen. And you try your best. But you should not make mistakes that you can avoid-"
"It was just one day, Baba, I didn't mean it to be so bad-!"
Baojia raised a wing for silence, and immediately Shen stopped, gulping. Inwardly, Baojia was angry-but with himself, he was still doing it all wrong, clearly. (But had that mattered before, will it still? Right or wrong-as long as the boy obeyed...)
But still he said words that cost his pride; "I'm sorry, Shen. I've made this specific case more severe than it really is, or may be."
"You're…overreacting?" Shen flinched and stared at his father, horrified at the treacherous words.
But Baojia just smirked. Somewhat fondly, he said, "You sound like the Soothsayer."
Baojia's heart warmed, yet twitched painfully at the same time, when Shen straightened up a little at that.
"You should not skip your lessons. That was not the best thing to do. But it's not something I should regard as a grave error."
Baojia sighed, and he noted with some irritation he tended to do that a lot with his only son. "Admittedly I may be only causing more problems by giving it such attention." Was it foolish to admit such a thing in front of the boy? And yet it was a sudden truth that occurred to Baojia, something he should've noticed before.
Shen's brow furrowed. "It's okay, Dad," he said instinctively. He awkwardly patted his father's wing, trying to reassure him.
Baojia shot his son a look, then chuckled softly, fondly ruffling the boy's crest feathers on his head.
"Come. I must see your mother, and you have to eat."
As they walked back across the palace grounds to the tower, Baojia told Shen that he had skipped too, started even younger than Shen.
"Your grandfather-well, he left it to your grandmother actually. What to do with me. Regardless, she handled it better than I've done," Lord Baojia admitted softly.
"Well, you were normal, not..." And Shen's eyes were downcast again.
Baojia stiffly wrapped a wing around his son's thin shoulders. "More importantly, I was not the heir. Your uncle Lu was."
Shen blinked. "I have a-had an uncle? L-like aunties from Mama's side?"
The Gongmen Emperor felt suddenly quite numb. Had he made his wishes that plain to everyone when he desired no reminders of his brother? Shen had heard nothing of him, not even from the Soothsayer? Then again, it was the Soothsayer that had found him in one of his worst rages during the most recent aftermath of Lu's death years ago...
"Yes, you did. When your grandparents were alive, Lu was next in line. He was scolded harshly whenever he ditched lessons."
After that, Shen asked nothing else about his recently discovered uncle. Perhaps Baojia's voice had been too bitter when he spoke.
A/N: A new semester's starting soon, so updates may come less frequently still, sorry. And it's not just RL, I'm also doing fic for Transformers Prime (an excellent show that should be checked out), but I have plans for where this fic/my interpretation of Shen's past will go and how it will end.
So I couldn't resist echoing Po and Crane's exchange from Kung Fu Panda 1 with young Shen and the ram in the lion costume, which was its own extra nod to KFP2.
Thanks CKDrake for reminding me to separate A/N from actual fic—A/N will be bolded in from now on, and I'll try to edit previous chapters to include that.
Moonstripe-The-Wolf: Thanks! Enjoyed your use of Kung Fu Panda classic lines. :D