FIVE MINUTES AGO...
Yinshen and I had just begun travelling down the hallway. The place was so quiet, you could hear the whistling wind outside. It seemed empty enough for Yinshen to speak at a normal tone without the need to whisper.
"This will take a few minutes".
"What, walking down this hallway"? I asked innocently.
"No Mike. I meant taking a quick lunch".
"Alright, sorry. Jeez, no need to be cheeky"!
"Know any short stories to pass the time"?
"Well, I suppose there is one. A little weird but entertaining. In its own way".
"Very well. Lets hear it".
"Okay, So one of my friends, Po, or as you may know him, the dragon warrior, managed to sneak me out of training for the second time to..."...
ONE WEEK EARLIER
"I don't know why I agree to this stupid nonsense sometimes". I muttered angrily as Po jumped off a table, acting like a young kid practising kung fu before turning to me with a joyful expression.
"Greetings my fellow kung fuer".
Fellow what?
"It's time for today's scrumptious drop of nourishing dragon warrior knowledge dew". The chubby panda spoke, pointing to his head as he did.
"Oh, you mean like last time when you broke your tooth"? I asked with a smug grin, remember last weeks "lesson". Po's kind hearted smile dropped to one of annoyance.
"Aw come on, it wasn't THAT bad".
"You're right. It was horrible! It took me and Mantis ages to find the right scroll to fix broken teeth"! I hissed, still holding a grudge against the six hours I had to search for one scroll out of ten bloody thousand. All the while as we did, Crane was persistent on keeping us "entertained" with long stories from his life. I've never felt so tempted to tape shut a birds beak until that one moment.
I gave a long sigh. "So? What did you drag me down for this time"?
Po's smile quickly returned. "Well, as you know, actions speak louder than words".
"True". I responded, interested to see where this was going to go. But before Po could continue, he seemed a little baffled at my response.
"Woah seriously? Is that true"? He asked in awe.
"What? What are you talking about? You're the one who just said that they were"?!
"Well, yeah but I thought that that was one of Shifu's metaphor-like words of wisdom"... Po smiled sheepishly while I felt my eye twitch.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't just turn round and leave right now". Po begun to do his best to act as serious as he could, which was still acted out in a childish manner.
"Because action is a language I speak fluently! Prepare yourself! As I'm about to speak to you using nothing but action".
I didn't have to wait long as Po yelled and stuck out his right flabby arm to the side and began to throw several weak punches and low kicks in every direction. As he did, I took a second to check that nobody was coming inside. Thankfully, we were alone.
"Did you get that"?
I turned back as I heard Po and shook my head. Mostly because I wasn't paying as much attention as last time.
"No"? He asked a little disappointed with a hint of pouting. "But my pronunciation was flawless"!
A couple of seconds passed.
"Po"?
"Yeah"?
"You're an idiot".
I was about to leave until Po spoke up again.
"Okay okay, let me rephrase! Please"?
"Jesus Christ. Fine".
I turned back to face Po and watched again, and this time, he looked to be clawing the ground before bringing his arms to his chest and was seemingly beating on it. Then, he did some sort of fist pump into the air several times, doing just as many grunts as the last one.
"How about that time, huh"?
Again, I shook my head.
"No"?
"No".
Po sighed and acted out the actions again as he explained what each one was supposed to mean.
"I was telling you, that Monkey... hides his cookies... on the top shelf of the pantry".
"Right... of course. How stupid of me". I grumbled. "Tell you what, here's one for you".
Po seemed excited as I did my own action type speech were I curled up my tail and stuck the tip of it through the middle of the small coils to mimic a rude gesture and pointed it at Po, then I pointed to him, then to me and then towards the archway behind me.
"What does that mean"? Po asked. I repeated the actions and spoke what each one meant as I performed them.
"Eff... You... I'm... Out". I then slithered out past the archway.
BACK TO NOW...
I finished the story and received a glance from Yinshen.
"A little harsh, don't you think"?
"He got over it quickly enough". I laughed. "Besides, it was worth it".
Before we could continue, Yinshen stopped at a narrow door. It looked rather small to be the exit.
"This doesn't look like the way out". I spoke quietly in case someone or something happened to be on the other side of it.
"It's not. I just need to grab something before we can leave".
...
I didn't have the time to write a full chapter so I threw in another bonus chapter based on another Dreamworks short over on youtube. (It's called "How to speak action" for those who have asked ;) )
Onto some rather great news regarding this story. It had now reached over ten thousand views as of today! Thank you everyone for all the support! I was expecting it to have reached such a high number during my trip to Scotland but I got to see it just in time so again, big thank you to everyone :D See you all in a weeks time. Cheerio!