23. Clouds of Smoke
The friends looked up, startled. Tigress was the first one who rose from the crowd. In the meantime, they had got the enemy army under control when suddenly the ground trembled beneath their feet.
"PO!" Tigress took a giant leap and landed on the palace wall. In the distance, houses had collapsed with a loud rumble and moaning and disappeared in a thick cloud of dust. The other four jackknifed after her and stared ahead in disbelief.
"Po wasn't there, was he?" Viper asked anxiously.
In the next moment, the Furious Five felt loud wing beats next to them. Xia and Sheng had landed on the palace wall, too. Both got a bad feeling.
"Father?..." The rest of the words of her question stuck in Xia's throat. Everyone knew that Shen had followed Xiang. Only one of them could have caused the explosion. Sheng set up his peacock comb and tried to see something in the thick smoke in the distance.
"What happened?!"
Everyone stared at Yin-Yu in horror. The peahen was still covered over and over with half-dried white paint that had stuck all of her plumage together. She was extremely restricted in flying, but that didn't stop her from coming up to them.
"Mother, I don't know," Xia tried to downplay her concern, but she was unsuccessful.
"I'll check now!" With these words, Tigress jumped off the wall and raced from one roof to the next to the scene of the accident. Her friends followed her as fast as they could.
Sheng immediately flew after them. Xia wanted to go after him until she remembered her mother. "Mother, you stay here."
"No! I need to know what happened!"
"You can't fly in this state..."
But her mother just pushed her aside and swept over the rooftops, albeit somewhat with awkward flaps of her wings. First, Xia looked after her in amazement. Then she rose into the air as well, heading straight for the remaining cloud of dust.
"Po!? Po! Po!" The five kept calling their friend. They had reached the edge of the rubble and were feverishly looking for a sign of life.
"FATHER!" Sheng and Xia shouted now, too.
And her mother couldn't suppress a helpless shout either. "Shen!"
Everyone carried hope and deepest concern around with themselves. Especially the extreme silence gave them a cold chill. In addition, the visibility was quite low because of the dust that was still blowing up. You could only see a few meters clearly.
During a pause, the group huddled together and listened. There was just silence again, as if the world had held its breath in horror after the bang.
"Hey, friends."
All faces turned to the left, where in a wall of dust the outlines of a large figure became visible, moving with difficulty.
"Could someone call the fire department?" The voice gasped on. "I think, someone left something burned in the kitchen."
The person, who turned out to be a panda and a peacock, fell to the ground with a cough.
"PO!" Immediately, the friends flung their arms around their panda friend's neck while the three peafowls threw themselves on the immobile figure of Shen.
"Shen! Shen!" Xia and Sheng let their mother through. With trembling wings, she straightened Shen's head. But after some gasping, the white lord slowly came to.
He blinked up at Yin-Yu, which took a great burden off his shoulders to see everyone safe and sound. Still a little dazed, Shen took her wing in his. After so much extreme excitement what he didn't have to endure every day, her presence in the dirt and dust was pure relaxation.
"Did you see the explosion?" Po's excited voice interrupted the moment of reunion. "Wow, that might have been loud." He wiped his ear theatrically. "I think, I'll be running around half deaf for a while."
The five couldn't suppress an amused laugh.
"Dragon Warrior?!"
Everyone raised their heads in surprise. In the next moment, not only King Wang appeared, but also the soothsayer.
"Shen, you are fine!" the goat said in relief.
The white peacock rose quickly and brushed off his clothes. "I don't know why you have to worry about me."
"I didn't say anything about that," she said with a smile.
Shen paused. "But you thought so."
"But we were worried!" Xia cut him off.
Shen wasn't angry with her and sighed with a smile. "The main thing is that nothing happened to you."
Xia looked down. She was close to tears, but she suppressed them in time. The white lord's eyes slid over his family. Sheng didn't say anything, but his gaze was evicted of a peaceful calm and his father nodded gratefully to him for his silent gesture. But then he could no longer hold it back and spread his wings, which he wrapped around all three of them. He couldn't close it all the way, but it was enough for everyone. "I'm just glad that I didn't lose you."
"Father." Xia and Sheng returned the unfamiliar hug immediately, only Yin-Yu hesitated a little.
But before anyone could wonder at her behavior, Wang asked a question which no one had asked before. "Where is Xiang?"
Everyone turned to where traces of the explosion still rose in the sky. Po stood up sadly. "Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything. The time was too short for that." His gaze looked at Yin-Yu. "I'm sorry."
The peahen's eyes went to the ground. Shen felt her shiver and put a wing over her shoulder.
Tigress had less understanding. "Maybe it's the best for him."
"We'll take care of his dead body," Wang said finally. "Would that be okay for you?"
By that he meant Yin-Yu. The peahen looked up at him, then she nodded to him. She stroked her head hastily. "I'm sorry. It's all so much today..."
"I can imagine," Soothsayer said and looked around. "I think, we should go to the residence. You can rest there. And maybe washing, too."
Po looked down at himself. "Is it already Sunday today?"
The residence, more precisely a guest residence, had located right next to the palace wall. It had once been a kind of guest house when the palace had more than a few visitors, such as for large celebrations. Now it was mostly empty. Since Shen's parents died, there have been not many colorful, fun celebrations in the city anymore.
Po and Shen had separate rooms where they could get rid of the dust. Po finished faster than Shen because the lord preferred a total cleaning in a bath, which was to be expected given his status. In contrast to Po. A wet sponge and knocking out his pants were all what he needed. As soon as he had finished with his quick cleaning, he stormed out of the room and ran to the large kitchen, where he assumed his friends. Soothsayer met him halfway. In her hooves, she held a folded silver robe.
"Ready so quickly, great warrior?" She asked with amusement.
Po spun on his heel and walked backwards. "Oh yeah. I have to inspect the kitchen. There could be a few bad boys lurking around. See you!" But it was only his growling stomach that lured him into the pantry. Because he hadn't eaten much on their way to Gongmen City. At least not by panda standards.
Smiling, the old goat continued on her way and stopped in front of a room door where Shen was staying. She knocked gently, then she opened the door and peeked in. "Are you ready?"
There was a lightning-fast movement in the room. Shen was going to climb out of a bathtub. With anger, he tore a long cloth from the holder and threw it quickly over his dripping wet plumage.
"Can't you wait?!" he scolded.
She giggled and entered. It hadn't been her intention to catch him off guard like that. Or maybe she had somehow instinctively worried that he might have passed out. It had happened to him quite a lot as a young child. His weaknesses were even chronically for a while. Now he was an adult, but it never became second nature of her. Somehow, he was still like a helpless child to her who didn't know which direction it should go.
"I'm sorry," she quickly apologized. "I haven't thought about that."
Shen rubbed his feathers dry sullenly. It had to be an elderly disease to see any middle-aged man as a toddler.
"I brought you something." With that, she put the silver robe on a table.
Shen looked at the garment in surprise. "Where did you get that?"
The goat put her hooves together. "It comes from your closet." She looked down. "Before you had to leave the city. Your parents kept it all the years."
He took it in silence with still damp finger feathers and looked at it thoughtfully. It didn't even have moth tracks. Had they perhaps even glanced at it now and then, just to have something of him around at least?
He shook his head quickly as the soothsayer watched him and pulled it on hastily. It fit perfectly.
For a while neither of them knew what to say and the goat took the beginning off of him. "Your wife is two rooms down. If you want to talk to her."
Shen sighed and smoothed a sleeve. "I wonder why she didn't take a bath with me-" He stopped. Angrily, he looked at the goat, who had slipped a slight smile over her mouth.
"That's private! Alright?" Shen hissed at her.
The goat turned. "So if you want to ask her, then ask her."
With that, she went out through the door. Shen paused in the same place for a moment, then he left the room, too. From there he went two doors further and paused for a while. After thinking a few words, he knocked.
"Yin-Yu? It's me. May I come in?" He listened. But to his surprise, he received no answer. Perhaps she had already gone out?
He knocked again, then he pushed the door open. There were also a large bathtub and bathing suits in the room, but without a person in it. Shen was about to turn around when his gaze caught something in a corner. First, he thought, it was just a mountain of clothes. But then he recognized a peahen who had wrapped herself in a bath towel.
"Honey, what's wrong?" He came closer quickly. Only now, Yin-Yu seemed to have noticed him and jerked her head up. A few lumps of white paint still hung on her face. She had tried to scrub the paint out of her feathers. The bath water was completely white. Anger rose again in Shen. He would have loved to cut out Xiang's heart in the aftermath.
"It's not that important," Yin-Yu said, wiping his cheeks. But it wasn't just bath water that wet her face.
Shen raised his eyebrows. "You cried. Why?"
The peahen pulled the bath towel tighter around her body.
"It was my fault," she whispered.
"Fault?" At first Shen didn't understand what she meant by that. "What should you be to blame for?"
She looked up at him. She was about to burst into tears again.
"I shouldn't have kept him alive..." Her voice broke off with a low sob.
Gradually, the white peacock understood what she meant and bent down to her. "No, it wasn't your fault. It was his. It was just him."
Again, Yin-Yu buried her face in the bent wings. Shen knelt in front of her and put his wings on her shoulders. But he kept silent at first and hugged her deeply.
"He was my husband," he heard her muffled, tearful voice beneath her plumage.
He began to stroke her back. "I know."
He intensified his embrace. Inwardly, it was no different for him. He didn't want to express his thoughts, but Yin-Yu did.
"If he had been dead one year ago," she whimpered, taking repeated strong breaths. "Then none of this would have happened."
Shen screwed up his eyes. Basically, it was a truth, what she said, but yet...
He took a deep breath. Then he touched her face and lifted it up with firm but gentle grips.
"Listen to me," he began and looked sternly into her eyes. "No matter what you did, he was the only one who caused the disaster. The water is innocent, but it's the wind that stirs it up." He pressed his forehead to hers. "It was just him. Only him. You were just his victim. What he took advantage of."
He felt her tears again, dripping onto the floor. Instinctively, he tightened his wing on her face. "It was just him."
She suppressed her crying. And he felt it. Nevertheless, she still found the strength to put her wings on his shoulders and both remained in the head-to-head sitting position.
"Hey! Look what they gave to me!" In the next moment, the door swung open and Po jumped into the room. When he saw the two birds sitting together in a corner, he immediately froze and fell into a contrite posture. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb..."
"Panda!" Shen yelled at him, pulling his wife up quickly. Hastily, Yin-Yu released herself from Shen's embrace and wiped the remaining tears from her face.
"No, no you didn't disturb," she said in a shaky voice. "I better go now. I think, you still have something to discuss."
With that, she passed the panda, who was still shamefaced and she left the room. When Po looked into Shen's angry face, he wanted to retreat quickly. "Well, I ... I better go too..."
"Panda! What do you want?!"
Po rubbed his fingers ruefully. "Uh, well... a soldier gave that to me." With that, he produced something long, metallic. It was Shen's sword. For a very short moment, the peacock forgot his anger. But then he remembered the rowdy entry of the black and white fur ball and walked up to him.
Po smiled pained. "It survived the explosion unscathed..."
With a quick flick of his wing, Shen snatched it from his paw.
Po was still ashamed of his behavior and took a step back. "Well, it was a useful thing."
The white lord screwed up his eyes angrily. Then he turned his back on him and looked at the window.
"If you have nothing else to say," Shen finally began after a brutal minute of silence. "Then you can leave again."
Po might have complied with this request, but there was still something heavy on his soul that he wanted to get rid of immediately. "Listen, if you still... if you still hate me, then I wanted... I just wanted to say that..."
Shen didn't look at him. He just kept staring at the window.
Finally, Po couldn't take it any longer and let out a deep wistful sigh. "I had tried to save them. I'm so sorry. But... I should have been more careful. If I had known that Xiang would have been around, I would have taken him into custody."
"How do you know all that, panda?" Shen hacked bitterly.
"Um... well, that was again..."
"She?"
Po nodded. Knowing well that he could only mean the soothsayer.
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" the white lord growled. He impaled the lance-like sword to the ground and pressed his forehead against the hilt of it.
"Are we...?" Quickly, Po swallowed down the word "friends". "Uh... is it peace again... between us?"
Shen's eyes moved back to him slightly. He hung like in the air. For the first time, in his emotional chaos, he had no answer.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door frame, because the door was still open and King Wang entered the room.
"Oh, Wang, hey, buddy!" Po greeted.
But this time the king of the Huns did not return the greeting, which surprised Po extremely. Instead, he walked past the panda with firm steps and placed himself next to the lord. Shen raised his head in disinterest. Then Wang leaned over and whispered something to him. Shen jerked to a stand with his back straight.
"Uh... what's going on?" the panda asked.
First, the white ruler was silent. Then he slowly turned to face the panda. There was a darkness in his eyes with a deep furrow on his forehead.
In confusion, Po looked from one to the other.
"Is anything wrong?" Po asked worriedly.
But Shen just pushed him aside and rushed out through the door. Po looked after him with a question mark on his face, then his eyes wandered to the King of the Huns, who looked more than gloomy.
"What happened?" Po repeated his question.
King Wang cleared his throat briefly before he gave the answer. "Xiang survived."