I'm on a roll with these chapters! This is so awesome!
Shi Xin watched the young cockatiel girl with a suspicious look as she walked with him and Po. She seemed to be telling the truth but he wasn't 100% sure. How could she not know about this country and what was the United States of America she talked about? A lot of questions and very little answers.
"Guys...I don't feel so good..." Po and Shi Xin turned to see Carley walk slower and held a wing to her head. Suddenly, she crumbled down to the ground, falling unconscious.
Po and Shi Xin let out worried gasps as they ran over to her, rolling the cockatiel on her back, and seeing she was out cold. She was sweaty and slow breathing. Po gently cradled her in his big arms, picking her up.
"What's wrong with her? Is she hurt?" Shi Xin started looking at her, checking for any wound. As his eyes scanned her body, he could see her ribs sticking out through her feathers. "Poor girl. She must have not eaten anything in a while."
"We need to get to the Lee Da Academy and get her some food quick!" Po urgently said.
"Let's go!" Shi Xin ran on all four with Po holding Carley right behind him.
Mei Feng was sweeping up the teeth left in the training hall. She was very annoyed by this part of her job. "I ask them kindly to not bleed on the floor. What do they do? They leave bloodied teeth. I'm surprised some of them can still eat after that." she sighed. "I don't know why I bother asking. They won't ever listen to me." She sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead as she examined her work. "At least I'm done for now."
"Mei Feng! Someone took a hit to the solar plexus! Vomit clean-up over here!"
The crane face-winged herself. "I'm jinxing myself again. When am I gonna stop doing that?"
"Probably not for a while." Mei Feng jumped in surprise as Kai appeared behind her. The young male fox had orange and brown fur with white facial expressions, brown eyes, and a little tuff of golden hair between his ears. He was wearing cream trousers and a cream shirt except that the edges of the sleeves and the collar of the latter were dark gray; two white wristbands and a red belt. Also, to the neck, he wore a necklace with big scarlet pearls. He had a little grin on his face.
Mei Feng looked pretty much like Master Crane in terms of appearance except that she had white facial expressions around her eyes and big eyelashes. She was wearing a breastplate that was made of semi-flexible bamboo. She wore it because some of her pressure-point attacks left her open and vulnerable, especially those made when her wings were outstretched. She was also wearing green trousers made of silk along with a sash of the same material around her waist held by a rope that served as a belt. Mei Feng also wore two anklets made of silver with little silver bells hanging from them. They were a gift from her friend, Master Crane of the Furious Five, who knew how much she loved the sound of bells (they reminded her of the stream in the village where she was born, and therefore of her parents). She never took them off. They made a graceful tinkling sound whenever she moved, but as a cran,e she had the natural skill of walking slowly and carefully enough to keep them from jingling if necessary.
"Don't do that, please!" Mei Feng said with a wing on her chest. "Do you really have to surprise me like this all the time?"
"Hey, you know that I like to use the Ku Ju Lin Pow whenever I have the chance," the fox said with a chuckle. "Are you gonna clean your broom? It's all covered of...blood..."
"What are you doing here, Kai?" Mei Feng asked with rolling her eyes.
"The same thing as usual. Coming to see you once I'm done with class."
"Yeah but you came earlier than usual, didn't you?"
Kai shrugged. "Hey, not my fault if they have nothing left to challenge me with. So all I have to do now is walk around, buying lollipops, and looking after my best friend." Indeed, Mei Feng was not really appreciated at Lee Da. In fact, she was liked just a bit more than Crane because she was a female and she came from a family that was specialized in the art of making jewels. Outside of that, they didn't like her.
"You know that those guys are spreading rumors about me being a coward because I'm not as strong as Master Crane. They also don't like that an elite pupil personally selected by Master Mei Ling like you is hanging out with me all the time."
Kai pulled a strawberry lollipop out of his pocket and pulled it in his mouth without looking away from his friend. "Mei Feng, remember what Master Mei Ling told me at least a thousand times?"
The female crane rolled her eyes. "Friends and family must always come before money and popularity."
"Exactly. Now let's get out of here."
"Huh, Kai, they want me to clean vomit-"
"The guy just had to protect his torso better," the fox cut her off. "If it bothers them that much, they just have to make him lick his vomit off the floor; it'll teach him discipline while also cleaning the floor. Now come on." He grabbed Mei Feng's wing and dragged her out.
The two friends made their way out the academy and into the open where most of the area was covered in fog. Kai took off on all fours and Mei Feng flapped her wings close to ground level to keep up with him. The fox has always been fast on his paws, making it hard for his avian to stay close for long. Soon, they reached the edge of a cliff where Kai sat down and got joined by Mei Feng.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" the crane asked with looking at the seemingly endless fog spreading ahead of them.
"Yup," the fox nodded. "We could just stay here and look at it forever." Suddenly, his ears perked up as he heard a distant noise. "Hey, you hear that?"
"Hear what? You know that my hearing isn't as developed as yours."
"Listen..."
"...Help...Help...HELP!" Soon, three figures came into view. A white wolf running on all fours and a panda trying to catch his breath with an unconscious cockatiel in his arms. "Please...help...!" he begged while panting.
Mei Feng and Kai exchanged concerned looks as they quickly went to meet them and look at the avian. "What's wrong with her?" Kai asked.
"She's about to starve to death! And she's tired!" Shi Xin answered. "She needs help right now!"
"Quick, let's take her inside!" Mei Feng said and urged the two newcomers to follow her and Kai as they ran back into the academy.
Carley wasn't sure for how long she has been unconscious, but when she finally woke up, she felt a huge pain in her head that made her groan. Luckily, she felt someone place a wet cloth on her forehead. She slowly forced her eyes open and was surprised to see a female golden cat standing above her. She had a troubled look on her face.
Carley then saw the door and noticed her panda and wolf friends standing there with a fox and a crane. She couldn't catch what they were saying and only heard pieces like "No major wounds", "Hasn't eaten in a while", and "As soon as she's up, we need to get some food into her."
They were probably trying to help her. She stared at the animals for a while, not wanting to close her eyes, worried that this was all a dream and that it would end soon. Then, she felt a wave of tiredness wash over her. She soon forced her eyes closed and passed out again.
She woke up again much later on. For a slight moment, she thought that she had dreamed of everything. That her mother would come walking through the door telling her to wake up and that it was time to feed the girls. Her wonderful stuffed animals. But as she looked around the room, she remembered what happened. They were all gone...
She felt tears starting to roll down her cheeks and closed her eyes, trying to forget the horrible memories that still played in her mind. Trying to forget the look on her parents' faces as she said her last goodbyes.
"Hey, are you okay, sweetie?" Carley opened her eyes to see Po, Shi Xin, and their two new friends standing in the room with her. She looked away, not wanting them to see her crying.
"I-I miss my mom and dad!" she quietly said while sniffing. Tears began to come out faster as she thought about her parents.
Mei Feng came to wrap a wing around her shoulder. "Yes, Po and Shi Xin told us everything. I'm really sorry, sweetie."
Carley looked up at her and did the only thing she could do: sitting up and wrapping her wings around Mei Feng, sobbing into her feathers. It just all came out and she could no longer hold it back. She missed her parents so much and she had to release the pain.
Mei Feng, not taken aback at all, smiled and gently hugged the cockatiel. "Shhh, everything will be alright," she softly said with rubbing Carley's back.
The poor cockatiel just kept crying into her feathers. "I tried but I couldn't help them! I wanted to save them but I couldn't!" she sobbed.
"I know, sweetie, I know. But you need to calm down or you're going to wear yourself out again," Mei Feng quietly said.
After a few minutes, Carley's sobs quieted down until she was shedding only a few tears.
"You feel better?" Mei Feng asked and gently wiped Carley's tears away from her cheeks.
The cockatiel nodded. "S-Sorry about that...I just..."
"Don't worry; there's no problem, my friend," Kai gently said, still having a lollipop in his mouth.
Suddenly, Po returned into the room with a bowl of noodles and one of dumplings. "Are you hungry?"
Carley quickly nodded her head and picked up the two bowls. She managed to empty them in like a minute flat. This caused the four others to look at her with wide eyes. "Wow. She WAS hungry!" Shi Xin said with a chuckle which was shared by the others.
Carley nodded and licked her beak. "I was. Thank you." She pulled the bowl down. "So, who are your two new friends."
"I'm Mei Feng and this is Kai," the crane said with pointing her wing at herself and at her fox friend who waved at Carley with a smile. "We're at the Lee Da Academy."
"Really? That's exactly where Po and Shi Xin wanted to go and find someone to teach Po Kung Fu." She looked at her panda friend. "Did you found one?"
The panda looked down sadly and shook his head. "No. They said I "don't have what it takes to be a Kung Fu pupil". Master Mei Ling wanted to take me in, but all the other masters refused. There was nothing to do."
"Seriously, are all Kung Fu masters so arrogant and pretentious to think of themselves to be superior to commoners?" Shi Xin spat with venom in his voice.
"I'm really sorry for this," Mei Feng. "If it makes you feel better, you're welcome to stay here for the night before going back to your home."
"That's nice, thanks." Po smiled and then turned to look at Carley. "Goodnight, Carley."
"Megui," she softly said.
"What?"
"If I'm to start a new life in this new world, I'd like to leave everything behind me and get a new name. Mergui means "Rose" in Chinese. So I'd like to be called like that as it would surely fit more than Carley."
"Mergui..." Po and Shi Xin exchanged a look before smiling. "That actually sounds good. In that case, goodnight...Mergui."
There, you now know why Carley changed her name for Mergui. I sure hope it doesn't sound too dumb as an excuse to change her name *chuckles*.
Mei Feng is an OC of my own - I know you must think she's just a Crane 2.0, but I'll elaborate more on her later. As for Kai, believe it or not, but he's actually a character from a Kung Fu Panda online game called Tales Of Po. You should go check it out; it's a fun game.
Will Po find someone willing to teach him Kung Fu? He got rejected by the Five and now by Lee Da Academy. Let's pray for him, okay?