Prompt from SilverDrops-6593: Hi. I was wondering if you could write something along the lines: the first night after Kai's defeat, Tigress goes to sleep in the same hut as Po (like you mentioned), and there she sees that picture Li kept of baby Po and his mother. What kind of conversation they would have then?
It's just an idea I had while reading your latest update. ;)
ps.: could you make Po mention that he almost ate the paper? xD
Li was one of the few pandas who bothered to wake up for any longer than it took to get dinner, and as he greeted and bid goodnight to his sleepy villagers he realized how incredibly lucky they had been. If Po hadn't defeated Kai, the pandas would have been forced to endure another genocide; if the villagers hadn't learned how to give chi, Po would have fallen to Kai's power; if Tigress hadn't made it to the village, they would never have had warning of Kai's approach. Li couldn't help but compare the attack of his current home to the massacre that had occurred at his previous one. Things could have gone much, much worse.
As it was, watching his son kill himself in front of him had been horrific enough. After all the excitement had ended, the emotions had crept in from where he had pushed them to the back of his mind, and he knew that he was going to have nightmares about that for a long, long time. They could keep his nightmares of the panda massacre company.
The village itself had taken the most damage; the Jombie warriors had been ordered to round everybody up, as opposed to hurting or killing them. Frankly, the only person who was truly injured was Po's tiger friend. Li had liked her back in the Valley, but he felt an immense sense of debt toward her for the sheer effort she took to warn Po and defend the villagers. She fought Kai in the Valley of Peace, then had run, injured, the entire way to Li's village, beating Kai by half a day. By the time everything was over, she looked like she was running off of spite and adrenaline, and when Li woke from his nap around dusk to grab some dinner he was immensely surprised to see her still up and about, listening as the rest of the Masters from the Jade Palace talked and planned.
Po, placing candles across the table, greeted Li with a tired smile as he joined them.
"Hey Dad! How's Dad?"
Li poured himself a cup of tea, absently recognizing the scent of medicinal herbs coming off of the brew.
"Ping's fine, Po. He's in the storehouse with the triplets' father, making an inventory. Gotta give him credit for those organizational skills."
"Comes with running a restaurant," said Po, passing him a bowl of dumplings. Li noticed him trying to hide a yawn behind his paw. On his son's other side Tigress was leaning, watching the others argue about how and when to leave for the Valley with heavy eyes. Curled on the bench beside her was the toddler Lei Lei, still clutching that tiger doll. Li's mouth twitched.
"Y'know, son, if you want to get some shut-eye I can keep a watch on things here."
Po jerked up from where his head had been resting on a paw, trying to look alert.
"I can help. What do you need me to do?"
Li laid a paw on his shoulder, and pushed him away from the table.
"Sleep," he said gently. "Nobody's going to want to start repairs tonight, so it'll be quiet until tomorrow morning, at the earliest. Go." He nodded to Tigress. "Take care of your friend. I've got some bandages in my hut she can use."
Po turned to look at Tigress, and the argument that Li had seen on his lips faded.
"Thanks Dad," he whispered. Li waved a handful of bamboo at him, digging into his dinner. Po tapped Tigress on the arm and whispered something to her. She frowned at him, but nodded after glancing at her paws; Li noticed suddenly that they were bloody and cracked. The two rose and bid goodnight to the others; Tigress paused to bend down and gently slide the sleeping Lei Lei along the bench to Li. The others looked up as Po grabbed his jade staff and he and Tigress began to leave.
"We need your input on how to proceed with the village repairs, Tigress; Dragon Warrior," said Shifu testily. Li leaned forward, waving a hand.
"I can help you there. Go on, son."
Po shot him a thankful look and he and Tigress began to walk to the bridge that led to his hut, fading into the night and starlight. Halfway there, Tigress stumbled on her feet a bit, and automatically pulled her arm around his son's shoulder, and he wrapped an arm across her back. Li smiled as he scooted along the bench toward Shifu and the other Masters.
They both were in good hands.
Po had honestly not seen Tigress in such bad condition since she had saved him from being cannonballed in Gongmen harbor. Then, she had suffered broken ribs, fractures to her pelvis, and several nasty burns across her arms and abdomen. This time, she hadn't been hit with a flaming ball of metal, but frankly, Kai's hits had come pretty close.
She began to undress the moment they entered Li's hut, allowing herself to slouch for the first time in the entire day. Personal privacy was a distant concept when on a mission, and a near impossibility when one was injured. Po had had difficulty adjusting to how physically open it was sometimes necessary to be when one was a master of kung fu, but after years of missions, injuries, and impairments of himself and the others, he had long ago stopped feeling uncomfortable about pulling an arrow from Crane's bare leg or allowing Viper to wrap up a cracked shinbone.
Po quickly became Tigress's proxy when it came to dressing wounds, especially after the events of Gongmen, their similar sizes simply making easier to deal with each other. Tigress may have had nerves of steel, but even steel could bend under pressure, and it had taken many days and many bandages to recover from that mission. Not that Po had been in the best of conditions himself; they had each patched the other up on the trip back home.
Po set aside the jade staff and searched around in the candlelight for where his dad kept the bandages while Tigress sat on the bed and washed her paws in a bowl of water, one of the many that collected snow and ice run-off from the peak on which the hut was built. The pads of her paws and feet had been cracked, scraped, cut, and bruised during her near-continuous journey to the village; Po was suddenly reminded that she had actually climbed up the frozen waterfall in order to reach them. He shuddered, feeling sympathetic aches in his hands. He found the bandages in a low chest in a corner, stacked amongst bottles of herbs and salves. Grabbing the ones he recognized, he turned back to the tiger on the bed, setting a few candles on the floor beside them. Bloody cloth lay by her feet, and Po handed her the bottles and bandages before he took the pink-tinted water away and brought back a clean bowl, which he put aside.
"I'm gonna get your ribs first," he said quietly, kneeling in front of her. Tigress, looking too exhausted to speak, nodded. Robe already pulled down around her waist, she lifted her arms and Po began to wrap the bandages around her torso.
"We're definitely going to sleep after this. I dunno about you, but pandas sleep past noon, and I really think we've got something going there."
Tigress smirked.
"To be honest, sleeping past noon does not sound like a bad plan."
Po paused in his wrapping to grab a wet rag and dab at a cut on her side.
"We'll make you an honorary panda next. First lesson is sleeping. Then it's hacky-sacks and hammocks."
"You are not launching me up a hill on a hammock," said Tigress.
"Aww, but it's so much fun!"
Tigress shook her head, smiling. Po handed her the end of the bandages and picked up a jar of salve.
"This one helps with burns, I think. My dad used it on his back. Wanna try?"
Tigress examined the pale goop, sniffing it lightly.
"Almonds?"
"Yep."
She nodded and returned the jar. Popping the lid off, Po shifted through the patchy fur of her abdomen, spreading the salve on the burn scars below. Shen's weapons had left as many physical scars as emotional ones, and Po was eternally thankful that his dad hadn't noticed the little variations in the fur of his arms and stomach that marked the shiny scars beneath. Both he and Tigress had shared burns from the cannon fire, hidden beneath slowly-regrown fur, and the thought of telling Li, who had burns across his back from the attack on their village, that Shen had hurt him again did not make Po feel good.
Po finished up with the salve and quickly brushed a little bit of honey on the cuts he could see. He finished wrapping her ribs and moved onto her paws.
The tough pads on her palms and fingers were in bad shape; several of her claws had been reduced to bloody stumps.
"I still can't believe you actually climbed up that waterfall. That was seriously hardcore," he said, dabbing garlic and ointment on the ends of the torn claws, which were the most susceptible to infection.
"Do not underestimate me, Dragon Warrior," Tigress gently teased. Po's face darkened as he bound her paws.
"Believe me, I could never do that," he said quietly. Tigress bet a little to look at him, her eyes illuminated in the candlelight.
"Po?"
He shook his head and dropped her paws, reaching over to wrap his arms around her. She leaned into him and he pulled her as tightly as he dared, feeling her breath rustle against his sternum and her warmth spread into his chest. He had almost lost her today. He had almost gotten her killed today. He'd almost got all of them killed today.
"Po…"
"I'm not sorry," he muttered into the back of her neck. Two arms snaked around his belly to rest on his back.
"Do not do that again," she whispered. He shook his head.
"Po, do not-"
"I couldn't watch my family be killed," he said. He felt Tigress sigh, fists clenching in his fur, then they released each other. Unbidden, he glanced to his right, where candlelight filled the small alcove cut into the rock. Tigress followed his gaze, and he leaned over to take the little paper from the hollow, noticing with a warm flush that the portrait of him and both his dads rested in there as well. He gently grabbed the portrait of him and his mom, then handed it to Tigress when he felt his nose start to sting. She took it with bandaged fingers.
Po motioned to her feet and she scooted back on the bed, leaning against the wall as he sat in front of her and pulled her legs across his knees.
"This is your mother," she said quietly. Unwrapping the bindings from her feet, Po nodded. She examined the picture as he washed the blood and debris from her cracked pads and between her toes, splinting one that looked a little crooked. Tigress winced, but didn't say anything, still staring at the little paper.
Po had told her and the others of what had happened to his village, but it had taken several months before he told Tigress about his mother, with broken words in a quiet corridor. They had talked only rarely on the subject since.
"I don't…I wish I could remember. More about her, y'know."
Tigress nodded silently.
"She couldn't watch her family be killed," Po whispered, his throat uncomfortably tight.
"Po…"
Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against her shoulder, absently massaging the bottom of one of her feet. The air in the hut suddenly felt cold, and he shivered.
"No promises," he murmured. Tigress's arm shifted as she sighed, tracing a bandaged finger over the side of the picture. A smile crept across Po's lips unbidden. He gently touched a claw to the corner of the portrait, drawing Tigress's attention to the little bite mark. She chuckled softly.
"You tried to eat the paper?" she asked. Po nodded, pulling himself up to continue tending to her feet, the chill that had washed through him fading.
"Told you my dad had to put down a trail of food just to get me into his shop."
Tigress shook her head, smiling down at the portrait. Po wrapped up her feet and took back the picture when she offered it, placing it beside its new companion. The candle in the alcove fluttered gently as he touched the paper.
"Goodnight, Mom," Po whispered.
The medicinal salves and ointments were set back in their box, put beside the bed to use in the morning. The bed creaked a little when Po slid down beside his friend, but it had been built for a panda rather bigger than he, and there was just enough room. He blew out the candles on the floor, the light from the alcove the last illumination. Tigress settled down against him and pulled Li's blanket over them both, lying across the arm that he offered. He absently rubbed a paw across her bandaged stomach, feeling her heart beat against his skin and her breath against his chest, before he finally closed his eyes and found sleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, when darkness had sank into every corner of the room, Po half-awakened, the other side of the bed still warm but empty. A soft, almost silent Thank you echoed on the bare edge of his hearing and he blearily looked around, seeing Tigress silhouetted, the dim light in the alcove glowing on the edges of her fur. She rose from her crouch and lay back down behind him, pulling him into her strong embrace. His closing eyes rested on the glowing portrait of his mom, and within seconds he fell back asleep.
A/N: I hope this came out well, SilverDrop. If not, feel more than welcome to ask me to revise it, since it is your request and I spent three whole pages even getting to the actual prompt.
Okay, I totally need a big bear hug right now, and cuddles under candlelight and a starry sky.
The headcanon that Li has burns from Shen's attack belongs to jadepandacub321 on tumblr.
We need Panda Mom's name and we need it now. Po wouldn't be alive if not for her and I think that Tigress would totally be her groupie. Anything that involves Panda Mom Tigress would involve herself in, because if it weren't for Panda Mom she wouldn't have her bestie.
I understand that the movie's aimed at kids, but the lack of lasting injuries still annoys me. Tigress ran miles and miles after her fight with Kai and there was no way she should have been back in peak condition by the time the fight with the Jombies happened. Her feet would be torn up, she climbed up the freaking waterfall, she'd have pulled muscles and cracked bones, and I wanted her to be injured, but I also wanted her to be taken care of, so there's this.
I have used raw (NOT Grade A) honey on cuts and scrapes before, with reasonable success. It's a natural anti-bacterial and anti-imflammitory, but I would recommend researching this before taking me at my word.
After examining the harbor scene in slow-motion, I don't think that Tigress was directly hit by the cannonball, like Po had been in the factory. She pushed him out of the way and was certainly closest to the line of fire, but I think the cannonball hit the debris or the ship or wherever it was that they were standing, sending everyone flying back, not just Tigress.
It's a little weird to think that Tigress spends the majority of this chapter naked, but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, and I didn't want them to make a big deal out of it. The movie showed that she was certainly comfortable getting very close with Po, and even though she's touching him and he's touching her and she's got her shirt off I didn't want any part of this to be awkward or nervous or uncomfortable. I've never, in any film or short, seen Po's crush on Tigress negatively affect his interactions with her; she's a person and a friend first and foremost, his crush second. Neither of them have ever been awkward around each other (until someone else shows up, and even then only a few times). Li totally ships it.
I need to stop writing these before bed, because I'm racking up too many drabbles about sleeping.