chapter 37

not the legend of you

The initial planning was carried out in secret, and only between Shifu and Tigress. He insisted - demanded - that Habika not be told. "She'll worry herself into an early grave," he said. "No. We'll just … go. I'll … I'll leave a letter." The look that crossed his face at this made Tigress want to beg him to reconsider, to just stop all this and let whatever happened happen. Seeing her father plan to leave his lover with a mere note as he marched off to sacrifice himself for China was wrenching to her soul. Tigress would, of course, do everything possible to keep him alive, but it was unlikely he would return from this mission and they both knew it. Especially since Shifu insisted on being the one to put the Emperor to the blade.

"I won't allow you or the others to put yourselves at that risk. The five of you will make sure I can get in, and after the thing is done I'll let the guards capture me so you can get out. If they have me, the … the murderer, they are unlikely to start looking for you or the princess before you're well on your way out of China."

"Father - "

"It's the only way, Tigress."

"It … it can't be," she said, her voice suddenly small. I can't lose you, she wanted to say. Not after I just got you.

He patted her hand. "Don't forget your training," he said softly. "What must be done must be done, regardless of the love we bear. That is part of the burden of love." He sighed. "Nothing lasts forever, little girl."

They sat together on a rock in the Dragon Grotto, where Tigress had taken to visiting him every day to discuss the plot. It was a bright, if chilly, fall day. The merry and relaxing sounds of the waterfall were so divergent from her mood that it seemed to worsen it somehow. She sank to the ground, sighed, and put her head in her father's lap.

"What's this about?" he asked, but there was a smile in his voice.

"I never sat in your lap as a girl, and now I can't, so this is what you get."

He laughed. "Fair enough."

They sat that way for a long while, in familial silence. Shifu scratched her head affectionately, and she tried her best not to weep.

000

The Harvest Festival came around once more.

"The flowers on your head are new and they look pretty and festive!" Crane said, pointing a wing as Viper and Habika rounded the corner in the bunkhouse. "Bam!"

Viper blinked. "What?"

"Remember last year?"

"No?"

"Last year you when asked me how your flowers looked and I made an idiot of myself?"

"No?"

"Well I didn't this year!" Crane said. "They look very nice."

"Thank you," Viper said, smiling.

He raised his wings in victory. "Go team Crane!" he said, then trotted happily back to his room.

Habika raised her eyes at Viper. "That was something."

The snake shook her head. "That wasn't anything."

Habika shrugged. She often wondered if Viper wasn't confusing Crane's obliviousness for disinterest, but she knew better than to say anything about it. Viper all but shut down whenever the topic of her ongoing unrequited affection for Crane was breached, so Habika did not breach it.

She reached up to adjust a small headdress into which she weaved chrysanthemums and blackberry lilies, accented with crisp peach tree leaves, which matched Viper's. Over time their friendship had grown into a celebration of all things indulgently girlish - dresses, jewelry, fashion, sweets, things that weren't interesting to anyone in the Jade Palace save them. That year they'd decided to coordinate their outfits for the Harvest Festival.

"This is so cheesy, I love it," Viper had said as they admired themselves in a mirror in Viper's room. Habika wore a beautiful hanfu in warm oranges and dusty violets, and found ribbons of the same color to wrap around Viper's length.

"We look like a dance team," Habika said.

Viper used the tip of her tail to snatch a powdered rice candy from a nearby box and popped it in her mouth. "Jade Palace cheer squad," she said, nodding approvingly.

Suddenly the door opened a crack, just enough for Po's thick black hand to slip through, palm up. Habika and Viper looked at it, then at each other.

"Can we help you, Po?" Viper asked.

"Candy," Po said. "Give."

"How did you know?" Habika marveled.

"I know that particular paper sound anywhere. Give."

Viper rolled her eyes and set a piece of candy in Po's palm, and the hand withdrew, sliding the door closed.

"Where'd you get candy?" they heard Mantis ask Po.

"There's candy?" Monkey asked.

"What's all this about candy?" Tigress called from downstairs.

Habika shook her head as Viper opened the door and pushed the open box into the hall, then closed it.

There ere steps down the creaking hall. "Little one, are you in here?" Shifu asked. "Po, have you seen -oh, candy!"

Viper leaned down and whispered in Habika's ear "Do you have that flask?"

Habika smiled and produced a delicate china flask from her embroidered sleeve, which was filled with sweet gamju dessert wine. Viper unscrewed it and took a swig.

"Candy," she whispered, and they chuckled.

"Do you guys have wine in there?" Po asked.

"Nope!" Viper said. She turned to Habika. "This is why we should always get ready at your place."

"Noted."

"Who has wine?" Tigress asked.

Viper opened the door and beckoned her inside.

"Why does Tigress get to come in?" Crane.

"Girls only wine party!" Viper said, slamming the door shut.

"I thought you said you didn't have wine!" Po cried.

"There is some sexist shit happening in this here bunkhouse," Mantis said.

"Mantis, that sort of language is unbecoming of a warrior," Shifu scolded as he chewed on a piece of rice candy.

"Pot kettle black," Mantis retorted. "Get some baijiu into you and you're the biggest pottymouth alive. Master."

"Get that much baijiu into just about anyone and bad things will happen."

Viper handed the flask to Tigress, who unscrewed the top and tilted her head at the two of them. "Did you dress in matching outfits?"

"Yes and we look great," Viper huffed. "Just because you're too hardcore to be a girl doesn't mean we can't be girls."

A brief hurt look crossed Tigress's face. "I'm a girl! No one asked me if I wanted to dress in matching outfits."

"Because you don't," Viper said flatly.

"Of course I don't, but you could have asked."

"What's this about matching outfits?" Shifu asked.

Habika slid the door open to let him in, then closed it.

"Wait, now Shifu gets to go to the girls only wine party?" Mantis cried.

"You're damn right," Shifu said as Tigress handed him the flask. "You two look lovely!" he said, and kissed Habika on the cheek.

"If I'm smooth like Shifu do I get to go to the all girls wine party?" Monkey asked.

"You'll never be smooth like me, Monkey."

"Sick burn," Mantis said.

"Mantis, from what I can tell I'm at the all girls wine party and you're still out in the hall with Po and an empty box of candy."

"Fine, how do I get to the all girls wine party, Master?"

"First you have to have seen a girl naked," Viper said.

"Ouch," Po said.

"Wait wait wait, so, you're saying you three have all seen a girl naked?" Mantis said. "This just got a lot more interesting."

"In every argument Viper has with Mantis, it ends with Viper being a lesbian," Crane said.

Viper huffed and threw the door open. "Myself, Mantis! I've seen myself!"

"Ha!" Mantis said dashing past her and into the room. "In!"

"Very smooth, Mantis. Well done," Shifu said, handing him the flask.

Crane, Po, and Monkey piled inside.

"Raided!" Po said triumphantly.

"Go team Crane!" Crane cheered.

000

After passing the flask around the eight of them strolled down to the Harvest Festival together, laughing and chatting. Father and Habika held hands. Tigress found herself wondering what it might be like to be that openly affectionate with Po, but their relationship -if that's what it even was - was unspokenly secret. Neither seemed overly eager to be out with it. Tigress had her reasons -her feelings were complicated things she didn't wish to justify or explain to anyone just yet - but she was surprised Po cooperated with this unspoken code of silence.

He must have his reasons too, Tigress figured. Is he ashamed of me?

His arm brushed hers. She looked up at him and he smiled.

That's probably not it.

She watched her father with Habika, talking happily with herself and the others, and her heart sank. This would almost certainly be his last Harvest Festival. He had so little time, and no one knew but her. She felt angry for a moment - why had he burdened only her with this knowledge? When would he tell the rest of the team? It felt, at times, like more sadness than she could bear alone. She wanted to be able to talk about it with someone but could not, and it weighed on her.

And Habika! Why, the woman would throw herself from a cliff! Tigress ran the idea past Shifu that Viper should be commanded to stay behind, to take Habika out of China as soon as they departed on their mission to assassinate the Emperor. He was still considering it, but Tigress saw no other way. They could not trust the palace servants with a mission this delicate - no one could know.

Tigress's stomach twisted. The palace servants, even. Would the denizens of the Jade Palace would be left entirely in the dark, waking to find the Masters gone one day? What if the Forbidden City sent an army to raze the palace, or the Valley of Peace itself? Who would protect them?

"You okay?" Po asked quietly as they alighted from the staircase into the village.

"Yeah, I was just … thinking about some stuff."

"How about we think about grabbing some wine and having a fun night for once?" he ribbed her. "C'mon."

She smiled but it didn't touch her eyes. He wasn't wrong.

"Sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"That I'm always a bummer."

"It's okay. I love you."

Tigress turned to him, her eyes wide.

"Did I just say that out loud?" Po said, looking like a startled deer.

She nodded.

They stood there for a moment, staring at one another. The Harvest Festival seemed to fade into the background, the weight of their exchange pressing the celebration out of them.

"Do uh … do you want to go somewhere and talk?" Po asked uneasily.

She nodded, unable to speak.

"Um … let's go to my house," he said. "Dad's working the banquet."

He gingerly took her hand and leading the way. They weaved their way through the crowd then into Mr. Ping's restaurant. Po unlocked the door and took her upstairs to his room. "Wait," he said when they reached his door. "Have you ever been here before?"

She shook her head.

"Oh gods. Okay. Well this is gonna be awkward. Maybe not as awkward as saying what I just said out of nowhere but … yeah, wow. Crap. This is not my night." He sighed and pushed the door open, and Tigress stepped inside.

And smiled.

His room was filled to the brim with kung fu - posters, toy weapons, hand-drawn pictures and hand-carved figurines of the Furious Five. The walls were pocked with holes from throwing stars, a few of which were still lodged in them, and small dents at about the height of a child's fist. The walls were smudged with years of steam and grease from the shop below, and his bed, just a thin mattress on the floor, was unmade.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm a huge nerd."

"I know that," Tigress said.

And then she saw the wall at the foot of his bed.

Sketches, hundreds of them, and impressively skilled, of the Furious Five in various fighting poses, but upon further inspection she realized that most of the drawings were of her. She stepped in closer, tilted her head. They weren't all of her fighting, either. Some were of her as a girl alongside Nanny Goat, of her as a teenager at the market with Shifu, but mostly pictures of her as an adult - fighting, but also walking, or looking thoughtfully at something, or dancing, pinned between several lovingly detailed renderings of her face.

"I, uh … I liked to draw as a kid," Po said, sounding as though he wanted to sink into the wall and die.

Tigress took one last look at the wall of drawings and turned.

"You said you love me," she said.

"Yeah. I uh … I probably shouldn't have, but I did."

She swallowed. "Do you love me or do you love this?" she asked, gesturing to the room.

Po blinked. "This?"

"This. Her," she said, pointing to a picture of herself punching a ghost army to pieces that was unmistakably hero-worshipping. "Do you love this Tigress, or do you love this Tigress?"

Po's face fell. "Don't even," he said.

She raised her eyebrows. "Don't even what?"

"That's really unfair. Tigress, what do you think?"

She crossed her arms. "Maybe I don't know what to think."

"That's a load and you know it."

"Do I?" she asked, feeling riled.

"Look, I mean - I've always thought you were cool. And … and beautiful. And this picture, it's…." he gestured to the picture or her fighting the ghost army, "it's cool, it's you doing cool hero stuff, and there's like … there's a place in my heart for that version of you, but I never loved it, and it's in the past. I mean I'd be lying if I said there isn't a nine year old kid inside me freaking out because Master freakin' Tigress is my room, but it's not … that was before I knew you, and before I … before I loved you. You, you. Not the legend of you. You, the person I've gotten to know. Just Tigress, this Tigress, my … my girl." He looked at the floor. "If … if you are my girl. I, uh … I don't know if you think of me like that. But I guess now it's obvious how I feel."

Tigress gave a deep, long sigh and sank down to sit on his unmade bed.

"Crap," Po said, sound almost panicked. "Crap. Ok. Oh gods. Look, I mean, if you don't just tell me. Just … just drop the hammer, don't draw it out or - "

"Po…" Tigress said. "Sit."

He did as he was asked, the floor creaking under his weight.

She was silent for a few long moments, thinking. "It's not that I don't…feel that way," she began.

"Yes!" Po exclaimed, punching the air.

Tigress raised her eyebrows at him.

"I mean … sorry. You were saying?"

"I was saying that I … I'm scared. I think there's something wrong with me."

"Are you talking about that thing that happens whenever we …?"

She nodded.

Po considered this. "Can you tell me what happens?"

Tigress grimaced. "It's hard to put into words."

"Try?"

She sighed and grew thoughtful. "It's always when we … at the end," she said, "and you have your arms around me and it's peaceful, and I just …" she gestured helplessly at the air. "It's like I'm dying. Like it's just dark and I can't see or feel, and something awful is happening but there's nothing I can do, I'm too small and weak to do anything."

"You said it's not anything I'm doing, right?"

She shook her head. "No no no. I don't think it has anything to do with you. It's like I'm … like I'm remembering something."

"But you don't know what?"

She shook her head.

"Do you want to know?"

She swallowed, and after a moment nodded. "I think … I think it's something I need to know."

"Okay. Well, then we can work on it."

"What do you mean?"

He leaned over to stroke her face, the gathered her up in his arms and kissed her.

000

"Father," Tigress said the next morning. "I need to speak with you."

"Good morning Tigress," he said, inviting her into the sangha. "Join us for breakfast. Well, me, anyway. She's still passed out," he said, chuckling, gesturing to the loft, from which came a loud and unladylike snore. Shifu laughed and offered Tigress a seat at the table, pouring her a cup of tea.

The Palace routine started later than usual. When Po and Tigress crept back to the bunkhouse they fully expected to be the last to get there, but to their surprise everyone was still down at the festival, and would stumble back tipsily later on. The two of them sat in Tigress's room by the hearth, talking quietly and looking up at the moon. It struck Tigress that when she sat and gazed at the moon with a man, she ended up with that man. Given it had only happened twice - once with Abasi and once with Po - but she still considered it a pattern. She sidled up to Po and put his big arm over her shoulders. He held her close.

"You did really well," he said. "I think."

She nodded. Earlier they lay together in his childhood bed, the flutes and drums of the festival pounding away outside. His arms were secure as a vise around her, and whispered in her ear I'm right here, I'm right here, as the blindness overtook her and she fell into the the void. She howled and cried and sank her claws into his back but he didn't let go. Something about that acted like a rope tying her to sanity, and for a few fleeting moments she hung suspended in that space, eyes open, able to perceive.

"Talk to me," he commanded, his weight crushing her, his voice more forceful than she'd ever heard it. It was a voice of pure authority, a Shifu-level timbre, and she responded in kind.

"It's so bright. It's bright and I … I'm on the ground. Lying in straw. It's so BRIGHT, it shouldn't be this … this bright … we're … we … I - "

"You and who? Tell me," Po ordered.

"Me and … and …." in her mind's eye she rustled in the itching straw, wriggled out from beneath something heavy and cold, the light blaring in her eyes, and turned her head. She began screaming before it fully registered, before the vision before her became a thing with a shape, a name. An orange striped face.

Opened mouth.

Bloodied nose.

Two eyes, pointing different directions.

And the cleave between them, the head split in half, opened like a melon. Flies on the flesh inside.

So much despair and helplessness - nothing she could do - she ripped, she pulled -

Po freed her then, forcing her to sit up. "Tigress!" he yelled. "Tigress, stop!"

She snapped back to the present, back to Po's huge worried eyes. Her skin burned. She opened her her paws and found them full of orange fur - her own, which she'd pulled out of her sides. She was so shaken she could barely speak, anemic, the terror having left her hollow. She cried in Po's arms and he rocked her like a child and spoke to her quietly, soothingly. When they finally decided to go back to the Jade Palace she was almost tempted to ask him to carry her.

She lifted the tea to her mouth. "Father, I … I've had a vision," she said carefully. She'd decided this was how she would frame it. She was not ready to tell him about her relationship with Po. Besides, it wasn't the source of the vision that was important - as far as Shifu was concerned, anyhow - it was the content.

He raised his eyebrows. "Have you? Concerning what?"

"I believe I've begun remembering my life - my early life, before Bao Gu."

"Are they good memories?"

She shook her head, shuddering.

"I see," he said.

She took a sip of tea. "When you decided to adopt me, did they tell you anything about my past? Where I came from?"

"No. They claimed not to know. All they said was that you'd been transferred from another orphanage in the south because they were unable to deal with you. Usually they have some sort of paperwork, a record that explains the circumstances of each child, but in your case there was nothing." He face took on a skeptical expression. "A curious nothing, I always thought."

"You think they were lying?"

"Something didn't feel right."

"You never asked after it?"

"I did, but they kept insisting ignorance. In any case, what did it matter? You were a good, clever, talented child who responded well to instruction," he said, smiling. "And now look at you, my lovely daughter."

She smiled sadly. "Thank you father. But these visions are … very disturbing. I must find out what happened to me. I need to go back to Bao Gu."

"Then go you shall," he said. "I'm proud of you for facing your fears this way, Tigress. You never did lack for bravery. Though it may be trying. Perhaps it would be wise to bring a friend along? Viper?"

"Po is coming with me."

"Po?"

She nodded. "He knows all about disturbing memories that come back unbidden."

"Ah. So he does," Shifu said. "It seems the two of you have struck up a new friendship since you returned from your travels. It is good to see."

You have no idea, Tigress thought, but she merely nodded.

Shifu sighed, then walked over to a closet, beckoning her to follow. "Well, my dear, if you are going to go uncover your past, now is as good a time as any to give you this. It's not quite done yet but it … it's for you." He opened the closet door and took out a long, carved wooden staff.

She took it in her hands, studying it. At the bottom was carved the imposing facade of Bao Gu, and on top of that, dominoes. After that was the Jade Palace, and a section for each major lesson she'd learned in Kung Fu. Eventually there was an image of a traveler on a road, into a sunset, and below that a broken heart. A lone figure on a stage, then in an exotic palace, then looking over her shoulder at a male figure in the distance. Finally it came back around to the Jade Palace, and she and Shifu sitting together under the peach tree, hand in hand.

"The rest is blank, for you to carve," he said. "Because I … I won't be here to carve it."

Tigress flinched. How easy it was to forget their plot in the midst of happiness, of tenderness.

"It's beautiful. I don't know what to say," she said. She dropped to her knees and hugged him.

"You needn't say anything. Just promise me you'll live well and long enough to carve many happy chapters into that staff."

She pressed him close, nodding, and looked again at the very bottom of the staff, the carving of Bao Gu. Perhaps it is not the top I'll be be adding to, she thought as fear prickled at her, but the bottom.

000

Quick question, dear reader: In your esteemed opinion, what rating should this story bear? T or M?