I don't own Kung Fu Panda. Kung Fu Panda is the property of DreamWorks Animation, and are not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

The sun was soon enveloped by the night and the sky changed from a rich tone of red into the black void full of sparkling stars.

Tigress couldn't sleep and it was strange, if you take into consideration absolute silence of her cabin shared only with Viper's quiet snoring, the heavenly feeling of the soft, expensive bed and the air which was a bit thinner and colder up here.

She got up from her bed and silently left the room without waking up her snake friend.

She made her way to the end of the hallway, only to run into Po and Monkey.

"Oh, hi T-Tigress what are you doing out s-so late?" asked Po nervously.

"Okay, what are you up to this time?"

"Nothing..." Said Monkey innocently.

"Spill it."

"Okay fine, we are going to check out Baihus storage room."

"Why?"

"Why?! There might be something awesome locked in there, cursed weapons, evil creatures, that sort of thing. Wanna come with?"

"No Po, I am not gonna break into somewhere if it belongs to someone who has the best hearing I've ever seen."

"She kinda has a point, Po."

"Oh come on, it'll be fun we'll be gone before he finds out."

"Po, do you realise that you are listening to the one place in your brain, which Shifu titled as 'your worst enemy'."

"Yeah the 'fun' place. Quickly Monkey, we've got to hurry."

And just like that they went to pick the lock.

She sighed and walked up to the main deck.

Everything looks so small from up here. She thought leaning over the railing.

Tigress could see Baihu lying on the other side of the ship, with one foot calmly resting on the ship's wheel.

She didn't have any idea why, but a certain weird urge to talk to him suddenly arose within her. It was probably due to the fact, that she didn't want to end up somewhere over the ocean by tomorrow, because some white tiger fell asleep while piloting the ship.

She slowly made her way but stopped when he spoke up.

"So, best hearing you've ever seen? I must say that I am flattered by you once again."

"Wait, you heard all of that?"

"Yep." He simply answered and continued to lazily watch the stars in the clear sky with a slight smile.

"Does that mean that Po and Monkey are in trouble?"

"Nah, don't worry about it, I made that rule mostly because I knew that they would get bored and curious."

"Does that mean that the storage room is empty?"

"No of course not, but since it's practically imposible to pick or damage that lock, I think that they will give up soon enough." He calmly said without even glancing away from the beautiful constellation above.

Their conversation was overtaken by silence, which Tigress suddenly broke with a question.

"How do you do this?"

"What do you mean? I am not doing anything right now?"

"Exactly, how are you able to just relax like that?"

Baihu chuckled lightly.

"Lie down and look up."

"What?"

"Come over here, lie on your back and look up. I will show you something." He said calmly.

Tigress did as she was told.

"What do you see?" He asked.

"The sky, stars, clouds..."

"No no no, what do you see?"

"I just told you."

"No, you just told me what everyone sees, but what do YOU see."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed.

"Whenever my eyes look at the part right there I see sparks flying from a camp fire. And so I think about the last time when I had to set one up too keep the cold away at night and just like that I allow my mind to revisit my old memories. And that's what it means to relax, at least for me. Now, what do you see."

Tigress focused on the sky and couldn't find anything.

Does this mean I don't have any imagination? she thought, when suddenly she pieced the stars together into a familiar shape.

"Those look like the dragon scroll." She said with a smile.

"If you think so."

"No, I am sure, I've spent so much time looking at it, when I still dreamt of becoming the dragon warrior. I even used to punch iron-wood trees to get stronger, until I lost feeling in my hand. It was my dream." Tigress sounded almost nostalgic.

"The funny thing is that I was exactly the same when I was younger."

"Really?"

"Yes, I always wanted to be the strongest, but after some time I realised, that it was pointless."

"Why?"

"Well, it was becoming too easy to beat my opponents and so I had begun searching the world for someone to have a good fight with, but all of them failed my expectations and my life slowly became empty, the challenges became pointless and simple and I registered that my life had lost its meaning."

"That sounds like the worst thing ever."

"I thought so too, but it helped me. I noticed that my whole life was centered around kung fu and I found a way to change that. One day I bought a pipa and began practicing it, it was hard and anger inducing during first few weeks, but it felt nice to learn something new, it felt exactly the same as it did when I started training with Oogway. And just like this I've learnt so many things and skills. It made my life meaningful againg and I realised that the world was beautiful from the start. I just couldn't see that before."

It took her some time to absorb his words and after a few long moments Baihu spoke again.

"How do you feel now?"

"Prety relaxed I guess."

"See that wasn't so hard was it?" He asked.

"No, I just need someone really old to talk to, a couple of stars, a flying ship and I am all set." She said sarcastically.

They spent the entire hour talking and when Tigress's mind felt as light as a feather she excused herself and went back to bed, her dreams filled with nothing but stars.