Author's Note: I was struck by the notion that maybe all the fireworks going off at the end of KFP2 were Shen's doing? His way of saying he'd found peace, and since Soothesayer is his morality pet, it seemed fitting that she would have been the primary target of that message.
Disclaimer: I don't own.
The Final Salvo
Shen sat up on a green island, bathed on golden light, surrounded by blue water, glinting soft waves of gold. He knelt looking down, and as if through a window he could see… the panda, his friends, but the one he wanted to see.
A noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh, punched its way out of his lungs as he saw her.
The Old Goat, with solemn brown eyes, staring out at the wreckage of the harbour and his ship. He reached out, but wing dipped into water, and the ripples ruined the image.
Hissing in panic he withdrew, showering droplets that seemed to float on the air, in defiance of physics, before softly returning to the pool below. Watching with bated breath, grasping his sodden wing in a vice-grip, he waited for the vision the Soothesayer to return.
Slowly the ripples stilled and his vision of her returned. Sorrowful, guilty, and sad, she was like a lonely island of pain amid the crowds, and guiltily he bowed his head.
He'd never meant to cause her pain. He'd gone out of his way to spare her-sending her away, but it hadn't worked. It never could have, after everything, but maybe he had needed to believe that for his own sake.
But it was true. He had not wanted her hurt on his account, and he did not want her hurting now that he was gone.
"I'm sorry." And he was for such much, where she was concerned at least. "I just- I'm going to be alright now." He wasn't sure if he believed it. He was dead, on a tiny island, in the middle of Spirit Realm with no sense of direction, and no sense of purpose. He wasn't sure of anything at the moment, but he'd always been good at lying through his beak, and talking out both sides of his mouth.
Sighing he closed his eyes. If only he could…
His eyes snapped open, glinting with wicked keen intellect, and with much greater care than before, he slowly, feather by feather, slid his wing into the water, reaching, and concentrating on that one thing.
Above his mangled body, which he tried not to think about, there was metal, that one piece of metal. His feathers grazed over hard metal, fallowing the contours, groping in dark waters, searching for that one thing. That one thing.
It was silly, what he was attempting. Impossible perhaps, but when had that ever stopped him? Besides, he was dead. He was pretty sure certain rules no longer applied. Or maybe he was about to break them all? He had no clue and didn't care.
AH-!
"Yes! Yes!" Bending all his thoughts on it, on the fuse, he kept his feathers in place, and trying as carefully as possible, he reached for his feet, feeling the weight of gauntlets, and blindly sought the tiny clasps, that kept them in place, and then yanking it off his foot.
"Please work."
Just on one more time, he scraped metal against metal, in one swift precise moment, and sparks flew. Under water they flew, and he laughed, dropping his gauntlet. They flew farther than reason allowed.
The weapon fired, harmlessly, hitting submerged wooden crates, and hastily he focused back on her.
The familiar squeal of a firework split the air catching her attention, and ivory white light was reflected off her glasses and her fuzzy wrinkled face.
More swiftly followed, and quietly urging her to understand, he shaped the blasts into something resembling himself. It was crudely done, but it only mattered that she understood.
And after a moment smile touched her face, lighting her brown eyes, and Shen pulled himself out of the water, losing sight of his childhood nanny in a blur of tears.
Wiping at his eyes, and smearing water across his face he cried. He hugged himself as his body shook with the force of his sobs. Long and hard Shen wept, and it felt like a release, while in harbour of Gongmen City, the sky was lit with brief mirage of the Yin and Yang, and an old tired goat, found her peace.