Hello, everybody. Maybe you are surprised, that I upload a new story, although I didn't finish "The last honor". Well, for the ones, who already know it, today is the 10th anniversary of the movie Kung Fu Panda 2, (22nd May Hollywood premiere) and I wanted to write a special story for Lord Shen. This story "Under Our Wings" will be different than the other Shen/parents stories. Well, I thought, what if his parents are still alive? What if they wanted more than to die in sorrow because of their loss of their son? Now, here you can read it. :-) Enjoy!
Here my version about the reunion of Shen and his parents - but NOT in the afterlife. ;-)
It has no connection with my current stories!
Little hint: For Shen's parents I chose names, which I liked the most. It doesn't have to mean, that these are their real names. It's sad that DreamWorks never revealed their names, and I have no knowledge about all typical Chinese names. Maybe there exist a lot of better names than I chose, but if I knew their names, I would write them of course. :-D But, well, it's just a fanfiction and maybe better than to write "father" and "mother" only. :-S
Well then, have a good reading time!
"They loved you. They loved you so much that having to send you away killed them." (Soothsayer, Kung Fu Panda 2)
Author's note: Did they really? ;-)
1. Reborn
(~ 2 years after Shen's banishment)
The evening hung heavily over the city of Gongmen. Anyway, there was not a single rain cloud in the sky. And not only in the streets and houses, but in the palace too, the mood depressed everyone's mind. Even of the soothsayer. The old goat set one foot one by one laboriously as she went into the private apartments of the royal couple. More precisely, a part of them.
She pushed the door open. The room was nicely decorated, almost like a living room. But none of the splendor could cheer up the sad soul of the ruler.
First, she didn't see him. Only a quiet sob made her sit up and take notice and her eyes wandered in a particular direction.
The lord was slumped on a sofa.
The soothsayer hardly dared to open her mouth. But somehow, she managed to do it, although there wasn't much that passed her lips. "Lord Liang?"
A jolt went through the elderly blue peacock. Still, he only raised his head slowly. His face was soaked with tears.
The goat found it hard to look into his face and looked down with remorse and sadness.
"I'm very sorry. I heard about it at this moment."
His wife's death had occurred a few hours ago. The doctor had already confirmed it.
"If I can do anything for you..."
"My wife is dead," the lord breathed in a blank, toneless voice. "What else should keep me here?"
The goat's eyes widened in horror. "My lord! Don't get me wrong, but your wife would certainly not want you to follow her so soon. Just consider what will become of your kingdom then."
"Who should I give it to?" The peacock's voice sounded so heavy that the goat was worried that he would choke on his own words. And that's what he looked like. Instead of getting up or walking a few steps at least, the blue peacock simply rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.
"When I die, may I be put in the coffin with my wife."
"My lord!" The goat hurried quickly to the ruler and grasped his wing. "You mustn't say that! Whatever happens on your way, I'm sure that you will get up again."
"Are you as sure as your fortune-telling about my son?"
The goat's demeanor turned into deep dismay and she leaned heavily on her cane. It was only two years after the massacre in the panda village and that the lord and his wife had to banish their own son from the city. Nobody wanted to be reminded of it anymore and despite all, the parents could not tear themselves away from it. Neither mentally nor physically.
"You had no other choice," the goat tried to continue the conversation. "Either death or exile. You did the only right thing."
At least she hoped so. She would never have admitted it to the others, but she might not have wanted to go on living if the young lord had been executed.
"First my son, now my wife." The Lord's voice sounded weak, which terrified the goat very much. "One is no more. At least not here. And she - she is no longer able to talk to me."
"You just have to rest," she said. "I could bring you something to calm your nerves."
"Calming my nerves?" Again the Lord's voice had become a lot lower. "Death is my only means to find peace and quiet."
The soothsayer moved away from him a little. That wasn't the same lord she'd been introduced to at the beginning. It was as if a complete stranger was lying in front of her. Before that, he was full of zest for life and always determined to achieve his goals. Now he was just a shadow who no longer had the will to live.
"My lord is having a hard time," she said at last. "I urge you not to torture yourself any further. Nobody can reproach you with that. You did everything you could for your family. Nobody can blame you."
She turned away. "If you wish, I will stay near that long. If you need something, you can call me at any time."
She took a few steps to the door, but before she left the room, she said a few more reassuring words to him. "Don't worry. Everything will turn out all right again."
As soon as she closed the door behind her, the blue peacock let out a deep sigh.
"I really hope so."
The soothsayer didn't stray too far from the room. In the next corridor, she sat down and leaned against the wall. For a while she hung on to her thoughts. She still felt responsible for the bad luck in the panda village. Perhaps nothing would have happened if she had never looked into the future and predicted a warrior in black and white to keep the future young prince from his plan. The goat cursed herself. Why hadn't she sensed that Shen had overheard her? And even if she did, why hadn't she foreseen the calamity that would come after that? Humiliated, she buried her face in her hooves. After a while, she finally fell asleep.
A few hours passed before the guards' shouts woke her up, which echoed through the corridors of the palace.
"The lord is dead!"
"How did this happen?"
"Poison."
Completely shocked, the goat jumped up and ran. She stumbled over the end of her skirt several times until she reached the room, breathing heavily, in which she had previously talked to the ruler. Two antelope soldiers came out. In their hands they held a stretcher covered with a bed sheet.
The doctor, an older gazelle, accompanied the funeral procession. When he saw the soothsayer, he bowed his head. "I'll take care of the funeral."
In disbelief, the goat watched as the lord's body was removed. Then she collapsed, and another wave of guilt swept over her. Now her prophecy had not only taken the life of an entire village and the lady of Gongmen, but now the lord as well.
The goat held her hooves to her head. What would become of her son now? He was completely on his own in the world from now on. What would happen if he found out that he had lost his parents? The two hadn't even reached their old age yet.
The old woman was so lost in her misery that she didn't even notice the conversations around her.
"He wanted to be put in the coffin with his wife."
"The coffin lays ready downstairs."
"When should the funeral take place?"
"In three days. The lord had ordered it that way."
"Master Thundering Rhino. From this day onwards, the Master's Council of Kung Fu has the floor over Gongmen City."
The rhino tapped the ground with the big hammer. "We will honor the legacy of the peacock clan."
The lord blinked. It was pitch-black around him. The air smelled stuffy and musty. Lord Liang felt an icy chill under his feathers. The thought of having to lie here as a corpse now, he could never have imagined his existence after death.
Gradually the numbing effect of the potion wore off. Shortly after he had drunk the drink, he had collapsed.
Just like he planned.
He moved his wingtips and toes. He could feel the soft cushion beneath him. He would never have admitted it, but it was kind of comfortable to lie in a coffin. At least in terms of convenience.
He sighed heavily. The peacock couldn't believe that he was doing it. He had lied to the whole world. Both friends and strangers. Everyone thought he was dead. The same thought everyone about his beloved wife who was lying next to him.
"Ai?" He whispered cautiously; afraid she wouldn't answer him.
Relief crept in him when he heard a low murmur and rustle.
"Liang?" The strong sleeping pill that he had given her many hours ago was gradually waning. "Are we... are we..."
"Yes," the peacock breathed in confirmation. "We are in a coffin."
He could feel her tension.
"Don't worry," he quickly reassured her. "There is still enough air –"
"You know that I'm claustrophobic!" the peahen hissed a little louder and more urgently this time.
Liang didn't mind that much, but he also felt a restlessness build up in himself.
"Wait a moment."
Slowly he straightened up and lifted the lid. The coffin wasn't locked. Just as he had ordered. Carefully, he peered through the crack. They were alone. They were in the lowest part of the palace. Just as he had told the doctor to do. Everything went exactly according to plan.
After making sure that no one was around, the lord lifted the lid of the coffin higher and held it over his head.
"Climb out," he whispered to his wife.
Immediately, the peahen got up on all fours and swung out of the wooden prison. Then she helped her husband to hold the lid so that they could put it back in its place without making a sound.
Both paused for a moment and listened.
Nothing could be heard. They were alone. And there was no one who saw them.
Lord Liang looked around. The basement consisted of bare stone walls with a few ornate pillars and scattered torches on the sides.
"Come along."
He took her hand and together they hurried down a hallway down the stairs. On the last step they came to a kind of storage room. Liang knelt on the floor and felt the stone floor. When he pressed on one of the plates, it gave way for a moment, then it swung to one side and opened the way to a secret passage.
Both peafowls looked inside.
"Follow me," the lord said, going down first while the lady hesitated.
"Can't we take a torch with us?" She asked unsurely.
Liang shook his head. "We mustn't leave any traces. Including any kind of objects, we can't take them with us. Come on! I know the way blindly."
He held out his wing to her.
Finally, Ai pulled herself together and followed him into the darkness.
The underground passage once acted as an escape route that was built many years ago in the event of a siege on the city. The corridor ended behind a rock under a grass-covered trap door in the bushes. After making sure that no one was watching them, the lord got out and helped his wife out of the hole.
They stood in the adjacent forest now. The city was almost half a kilometer away. From a hill they looked down on the gleaming metropolis of Gongmen, which was illuminated by the morning light.
This was their home. For generations. The land of their ancestors.
The blue lord laid his wing over his wife's shoulders.
"It was the only way. There is no going back now."
He took his wife by the hand. "Come on. I have already prepared everything. We will find the things in an old hut in the forest. There we will dress up. - For a new life."
The couple hurried. They couldn't risk being spotted by a wood walker by accident. The wooden hut was well camouflaged and extremely small. There they took out a bag with old peasant clothes.
"Here the color."
Liang passed some kind of colored powder to his wife. Quickly, she undressed herself and rubbed herself with it, so that her pink-turquoise plumage turned into a wooden brown.
Before her husband turned to this work too, he took out a knife.
When his wife saw the knife in his wing, she got an uneasy feeling.
"Liang? For what reason?"
The lord's eyes were serious. "Nobody is allowed to recognize me."
With a quick movement, he cut across the far ends of his long tail feathers. He did the same with his long beard feathers on his beak. Then he cut all the feathers into small pieces and put them in the sack. Then he picked up a colored powder, too. And it didn't take long and his dark blue plumage turned into a dark green.
They stowed the remaining materials in their luggage and put on straw hats at the end. After making sure they hadn't left anything, Liang called out to hurry.
"Come over. The ship from Japan will arrive in the port any moment. We have to watch the timing exactly so as not to arouse suspicion."
They went to the country road that ran along the coast.
From this point on, they continued walking at a moderate pace. On the way they met a ramgoat. Liang felt Ai getting nervous again and took her wing reassuringly.
"Stay calm," he whispered to her. "They don't know us and we don't know them."
Liang nodded to the passerby in greeting. The ramgoat stopped briefly. Apparently, he thought he knew their silhouettes. No wonder, everyone knew the Gongmen couple. But when he dared a closer look at the two ragged birds, he only greeted them briefly back and shook his head about himself.
After a short distance, Liang stopped and pointed forward.
"The next village is over there."
They marched towards the front house, in front of which a sheep was just chopping wood.
"Greetings," Lord Liang began.
The sheep paused in his work and looked at the pair of peacocks in amazement.
"Can I help you?"
"We are from Japan," the green peacock explained. "We have just arrived here from a long voyage and are looking for a place to settle down."
"And with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?" the sheep asked.
"My name is Makkuro," the former Lord of Gongmen City introduced himself. "And this is my wife Nara."
Nara, aka Lady Ai, bowed respectfully.
"She's not very good at Chinese yet," Makkuro, Lord Liang, added.
The sheep rubbed his chin. "Well, we really have a couple of huts empty. Gongmen City is no longer the great bloom which it used to be. It has displaced of some people, especially since the terrible incident in a panda village."
The peacock sighed heavily, but he didn't show anything.
"It would be enough for us," he said instead.
"Alright. Then follow me."
The sheep put the ax aside and led the couple along a few abandoned little houses, which he introduced to them one after the other.
Liang, or Makkuro, took a close look at each of the huts. Only at the last house, which stood at the very end of the village, he finished his appraisal.
"This one looks perfect."
The sheep nodded and stepped across the terrace to open the door.
"Well, here we are."
The pair of peacocks entered. In front of them was a table with chairs, next to it was the kitchen with a fireplace and beds in an adjoining room.
Liang walked through the dining room and ran the tips of his finger feathers here and there over the surfaces.
Finally, he folded his wings together and gave his wife a satisfied look.
"We'll take it," he said finally.
"I'm glad to hear that," the sheep said. "In that case, we will take care of the formalities later as soon as you have recovered from the journey. And then also the tasks that arise in our village."
Liang nodded. "Of course, you can do. Iroiro to arigatōgozaimashita (Thanks for everything)," he said at the end in Japanese. For the first time in his life, the peacock was grateful for his education. Especially when it comes to foreign languages.
The sheep was about to turn towards the door when he turned again.
"Forgive my remark. But with all due respect, I always thought peacocks have long tail feathers."
Lord Liang already had an answer to this question.
"It's an old custom in our municipality to cut off our tail feathers after the wedding," he said.
The sheep frowned. "Okay. Stone the crows. Very strange."
Mumbling, he left the hut.
Lady Ai looked around. She had never lived in a hut before. Neither earlier nor at any time. Not even on vacation. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and there was dust everywhere. And she knew there was no cleaning service here.
"Liang?" She finally began. "I don't know if I can get through this life forever."
Her husband put his wings comfortingly on her shoulders. "Do it for him. We have to try to live a life like that."
She held his wings sadly. "I miss him so much. If only I could see him again. Just for a last time. Just to touch him again."
The lord hugged his wife tightly. "We will. Take my word for it."
He stroked her head. "But come on now. We still have to make a fire."
Before long the fire was burning in the fireplace in the kitchen. The two peacocks sat in front of it and cut their royal robes into strips, which they gradually threw into the flames. The same thing happened with Liang's clipped feathers. Sadly, they watched as the blazing fire ate their past.
"Liang?" Ai began after a while of silence. "Now, after we are no longer under surveillance... Couldn't we leave this place and look for him?"
Her husband gave her a warm look, but then he shook his head and grasped her wing.
"He swore it to me. Back then. On that day. He wanted to come back. I'm sure he will do."
He stood up and went a few pensive steps up and down. "Until then we will stay here... and wait for him. And when he comes... we will watch over him. Without that he notices us."
He looked out of the window into the distance, as if he were seeing his son. He was there. Somewhere, out there.
My son.
Well, I hope I didn't scare you with my "what-if-shen's-parents-still-alive" theory. I don't know their true characters and everything in this story is based on speculations. For this reason, don't be angry with me, if somebody thinks that I missed their possible characters. It's my first time that I work with them in a story. And what exactly they induced them to do this endeavor, it will be explained through the story.
The next chapter enters directly into KFP 2. :-) Enjoy.