The people of the slum of Tunxi were… perplexed.

In just a mere couple of days, this part of the city witnessed more activity than it had in the last hundred or so years. Ever since the army of foxes marched in and took refuge in the tallest and most 'accommodating' building of the district, people had become curious. Heavy carts filled with clothes, herbs and food could be seen continuously leaving and entering the ramshackle building, pushed and dragged by steadfast, somber-faced foxes. No one knew the exact number of people suddenly residing in that building. Some guessed thirty to forty, some swore on a hundred and fifty, while the local nutjobs preached about tens of thousands of vulpines, infiltrating the town under their noses. What everyone knew is that over ten foxes never left the building at once, and that clangs of metal clashing with metal could be heard every single night since they had shown up.

This wasn't the case today, however.

The populous woke up to find a large influx of vulpines, clad in golden soldier armor and spears, gathering on the dirt road that functioned as the border with the adjacent district. From the side of the dusty road and from the windows of their houses, the people of Tunxi watched the foxes assemble like a proper army; A main body in the middle, and two wings on the sides, spears held high. They faced a makeshift podium, only big enough for a middle-sized person to comfortably stand on.

Speaking of, a middle-sized person was comfortably standing on there, with two bulky foxes at both flanks.

The person wasn't a fox, that was for sure. Unless they were a really slim and really feathered specimen. A mask concealed their long face, painted as a bloody, battered up depiction of the current Emperor himself, and a cape that reached the ground behind their form. He wore metal armor, its streaks of jade and iron reflecting the shine of the sun. There were only two words painted on the chest plate:

Honghe Dynasty

The figure opened his wings.

"My beautiful and valiant brethren-in-spirit!" a booming male voice filled the air, slightly muffled under the mask, "Today, we return home!"

The army broke out in fox-like howls, ones that echoed all the way to the neighbouring city.

"To Lin'an!"

The figure flapped his wide wings and began gliding towards Tunxi's gates at an incredible speed. The army began moving in an orderly fashion, following the two bulky foxes in their march. Their synchronized and hasty steps shook the earth, and the people of Tunxi watched awed.

They never broke formation.

In the meantime inside the capital, more accurately in the Emperor's palace, the air was dense with tension. Crane left through the Palace's backdoor, rapid steps leading him onto the wooden path to the garden. His eyes weakly pierced the ground, blinking wide on his sagging head. His strong wings crossed tightly in front of him, yet their hug was much too weak and not enough. The robe, that should have elevated his figure to heavenly levels, just looked like a lifeless, sad burden on his thin shoulders.

For hours now, thoughts bounced in his head like a loose rubber spring, or a child, high on sugar. Before he could carry on with a notion, another was already crashing into it. Sometimes they weren't even relating to the now dead-end thought, and Crane lived the last few hours in a minute-long, fast-paced torture. He was so detached from reality in fact, he tripped over his own legs upon stepping onto the humpy bridge.

I'm not ready. Not ready? What do you mea-, h-how do I even beginning to understand this? Me? The future Emperor of Chi- Me?! Is this a prank? Is this what an elaborate prank looked liked? No way, there is no way. What would that mean for the guys though? Will I have to leave th- Hell no! But what if-

For hours, he had been painting. Of course he had been painting. At least, right until one of his shaky strokes impaled the nth scroll and ruined the picture. He fled after that. Yet right now, barely minutes later, his talons still itched for the smooth touch of a brush and the pure white palette of an empty scroll. It was like having severe rash, spreading over his legs and thorough his whole body. By this point, he was twitching to turn on his heels, head back up to his room, and not come out until even the furniture dripped from his art.

A loud battle cry made him finally snap out. He raised his head, just to see his friends in front of him, in the middle of the sparring ground, dueling, getting ready to defend China's honor. In shambles as it was, something inside his mind gathered enough power to flip a lever in him. Thanks to that, he smiled for the first time that day, even though he wouldn't have normally.

For several reasons, actually.

He ignored how her injury reduced Viper to the sidelines, her tail still crooked and uneven. He ignored how Monkey's movements were lifeless, the Bo staff missing from his five-fingered hands like if they wiped the background out from a picture. He ignored how Tigress' hackles were standing so incredibly tall, they may have launched themselves off, and how her face constricted into the most unfeeling frown Crane had last seen from the teachers at Lee Da.

He felt a little bubbliness in his gut. The guys… Yeah, won't leave them for anything.

He decided to focus on Mantis and Po first. While the insect's movements did lack the angry momentum people associated him with, Po's infectious enthusiasm certainly made it hard for Mantis to not be invested in sparring. Crane watched them contently roleplay an actual fight, laughing in the inside how Po exchanged witty taunts and exaggerated impressions with the bug

"Is that all you can do, Master of the Mantis style? The stories had foretold your forecoming oldness, but I have never thought it would be this soon!" the panda shouted as he executed a fast series of offensive punches, mixed in with some belly thrusts; it made the insect unable to counterattack.

"What did you just say?!" Mantis shouted back, finally managing to jump over Po's belly and finding a precise kick to the lower jaw. The panda stumbled back, but righted himself just in time for the follow up strike; the insect bounced off easily. Mantis landed on the ground and turned to deflect a strike from the Po.

Crane's smiled widened. Even if things aren't necessarily looking up… I still have them.

And of course, then things had to go south.

Out of the shadows, bushes, and honestly, thin frickin' air, people of all species jumped out, phasing through the sides of the avian's vision.

Tigress was swept off her foot, literally. She angled her body to right herself, but a big foot stepped on her back and pushed down. She coughed the air out her lungs upon impact with the ground. Crane looked up and saw a bear, an axe and a spear bound to his naked back, trapping her under his weight. The tiger Master tried to struggle out from under the foot, but the bear twisted it. She screeched; his heel almost punctured her spine.

"Stay there, female."

Her sparring partner, Monkey, quickly rushed to help her. Yet he stopped, when something green slithered up his leg and around his body. His trials to get out from the hold were fruitless, the hold was fixed. Soon, the body wrapped around his torso in a cocoon, and lifted him off his feet. The simian looked up into slitted, poison yellow eyes, and a forked tongue caressed his cheek.

"Never had I tasssted ape… Thisss will be fun."

Mantis did not even see what captured him. Only thing he knew that one moment he was free and the next he was not. He looked up, past the sharp talons holding him tight to see a muscled falcon. Then he looked back, because duh, sharp talons. Moving was out of the question, he would be sliced open right away. He gulped; these were not Crane's dull claws.

"I would advise keeping yourself phlegmatic. Otherwise, this drama would get a tragic turn."

Po watched, stunned by how quickly his friends were being picked off. Viper's frightened gasp made him turn her way. A bare-chested buffalo stood before the snake with a withering gaze. Thankfully, she let her head drop, and didn't fight back; her injuries were too fresh still. The buffalo grunted dismissively.

That didn't matter to him, his job was done.

Suddenly, a feline landed before Po. She stood up, showcasing an extraordinary weapon in her hands; A sword, or at least at first it looked like a sword. Then she lashed out with it, and it elongated like a whip, crashing into the ground before his legs. Po backtracked, spooked, and watched as the weapon was torn back from the dirt. It retracted its blade-like state.

"Greetings, Daddy bear," a sultry purr colored her voice, and she smiled at him sweetly.

"Um, hi? Are you… here to attack me too?"

The feline, frailer in physique than Tigress, looked up in thought. She let her 'sword' rest on her shoulder.

"Hm. Not really. You were already taken, sadly."

Po blinked at her, confused, before a pair of double daggers appeared from behind him. They crossed in front of his neck in a scissor-like way. The panda looked down at the sharp weapons, aimed right at his jugular, and almost gulped. A snarling snout appeared above his shoulder.

"It's payback time, panda," the snout said, and yep, it was a wolf. One didn't need much time to figure the canine's backstory. Shen's wolves were pretty easily recognizable.

The feline licked her finger and began motioning to each Master, counting them one at a time.

"One, two, three, four and… five. Huh, weren't there a bird too?"

Crane didn't even remember - when did he jump behind the northern tree? The rough bark irritated the feathers on his back, even through the expensive robes. But he endured; he couldn't afford to out himself. Rotating his head slowly, and making sure his beak pointed down, he glanced back at the training ground. From his position, he could see how his friends were either subdued on the ground, or in the air, and not even Tigress had any success struggling out. Under his furrowed brow, perfect shining yellow eyes stared at the bitter image of his toughest friend, on the ground, being literally stepped on like a mongrel. He occasionally glanced downwards in worry, his mouth copying this move to the letter.

Then he heard it. It.

"Oh, not now, not now…"

Her voice was, once again, heavenly, even Crane could admit that much. But who cared about divine beauty and quality of the highest standard when it was nothing but a bad omen to guaranteed catastrophe? The mother-like voice flowed inside his head, beating his rapid heartbeat in audacity, and the avian felt like crying.

That damned Siren.

"Come on…" his fragile body slid down on the body of the steadfast tree, clutching his shaking head between his wings, "Not now, not now, please, not now…"

His controlled breathing cut short when the sound of a whimper reached his ears from the training ground. His head snapped back, and he couldn't believe what his eyes were telling him; the buffalo snatched up Viper, the very much injured Viper. She was hurt, and the buffalo squeezed her - then tossed her away, like a broken tool, onto the rest of the captives.

A scorching reflection passed in his slit-like pupils.

In the meantime, the falcon hovered above the ground, Mantis still neatly clutched in his talons. "The drama needs all the components to be perfect, we must have all the characters present!" He puffed his feathers, irritated.

"Yada yada, drama drama, I know," the feline said dismissively, craning her head to look for the last of the six Masters.

The bear huffed and looked up at the stoic buffalo. "Is it just me, or it's getting warm here?"

The buffalo ignored him. The python hissed instead. "The heat isss coming from the Palace's direction. It'sss everywhere…"

"Na, your clothes," the wolf pointed out, and his daggers kept even closer to Po's throat, who, by now, opted to awkwardly fumble with his fingers in place. The bear dug his heels further into Tigress' back as she tried to struggle out again.

Na, the feline with the form-fitting, beige combination of tunic and trousers, looked down at her attire. A transparent material hung from her waist, like a miniskirt, decking the trousers under it. Upon being pointed out, Na noticed something weird; her miniskirt really was being licked by fire.

"Damn it. The clothes man, why always the clothes?" she said, frowning. She was about to pat the little flame out with her free paw, when something, or rather, somebody impacted with her head-on.

The rest of the attackers tensed when they noticed an orange figure shouldering Na away. The two animals hit the ground, and harshly drifted away, drawing a line behind them in the smooth ground. Then they halted, and only then did everyone realize who was the attacker.

"Crane!?"

Even Tigress had stopped her struggling and admired as her friend, engulfed in flames now, kept the other cat pinned to the dirt by the throat. What's worse, fire also consumed the leg he used, which meant that the choking sounds Na was emitting were only half coming from the fact that Crane's grip was tight as hell.

The buffalo grunted and took off in a hasty sprint, fully intent on swatting the pesky bird away. But Crane's head snapped to his direction, pupils devoid of any emotion except burning rage, and a rumbling earth pillar emerged from the ground in front of the massive animal. The top of the pillar hit the underside of the buffalo's jaw with impossible speed, and the horrid crack that came after sent a shiver through everyone's spine.

The big guy let out a throaty whine, before falling over; his jaw hung in a strange angle.

By now, Na was writhing for more than one reason. Choking was one of them, and the smoke that ascended from her neck, smelling wildly of burnt fur, absolutely didn't help her. The other was that the sneaky flames have reached the skin under her pelt, and it was plain agonizing. Her arms hovered around the leg, obviously yearning to take hold of it and forcefully remove it, but the fire was just too hot to even get close too.

She gazed up amid her struggles; Crane was looking at her again. His beak, ember dancing around its length to the hot sounds of crackling with little popping sparks, leaned in close to her frightened face.

He whispered. "Unhand them."

Na bit her lip. The pale-yellow fear struck bits of her cheek with pin-point accuracy, and she raised a trembling paw, then snapped her fingers. Upon that, the bear stepped off Tigress' back, the python uncurled from around Monkey, and the falcon opened his claws for Mantis to jump out. The three of them immediately backed up Viper and stood ready behind her. The wolf growled audibly and spat sideways, before removing the daggers from Po's throat and pushing the Dragon Warrior forward.

"We are not done panda."

With Po awkwardly stumbling back to the rest of them, Crane stepped off Na, his flames dwindling. The feline just laid there, her eyes wide and her body motionless. Then her paw went up to her neck – soon it held several strands of her fur. She brought them to her face and scrutinized them; the pelt burnt into dead, black strands and ashes. A thin grey smoke rose up from her neck area, where a single thread of fur was still in the embrace of flames. She licked her fingers and put it out.

Then she laughed.

It started off as a small titter. Then, as her body started shaking on the ground, she boomed into laughter. And wasn't that an ugly, tarry laugh? Not the soft giggle of Viper or the amused, humorous snort of Tigress, no; it was unguarded, cackling and deafening. She cackled with one hand covering her stomach, the other raised to point at Crane's heated being.

"You are-" and there, she let out something akin to a pig's snore, "You are familiar!"

"Oh my!" the falcon brightened up, his giant wings grasping his chest, "How I couldn't foresee this plot twist? The son of the king is a fabled warrior!"

Dull silence met his exclamation. Most of the falcon's friends, namely the wolf, and the bear, shared a dumb glance between each other. Much to dismay of the large-chested avian, they shrugged; the wolf even shook his head to signal his lack of knowledge.

On the sidelines, the snake facepalmed himself with his own tail. "He isss Qiang's ssson… You dimwits."

"Huh," came the intelligent reply from the wolf, whereas the bear picked his ear, "With all due respect, his Majesty didn't look the kind who could get busy."

Mantis and Monkey slapped their arms over their face, trying not to burst into snorts, while Viper cringed in the shadow of her friends. Po subtly stepped away from Tigress, the tiger looking ready to tear into the guy even harder than before. Crane just froze hearing this blatant and sudden offense to his father.

Na, in the meantime, managed reign on her laughter. She sat up, wobbly yet sure on her feet. Gripping the burnt patch at her neck, she managed to stand up in a bent-over-knees position, her wheezing laughter present thorough.

"You know-" she said, a girlish giggle interrupting her string of words, "I was really worried that you people will be boring. But you, you look fun! So much fun!

Suddenly, she moved. After straightening out, she began playfully skipping around Crane's still on-fire form in a circle. What was even more astounding, is the fact that she did all that while singing:

"So much fun! Fun fun fun! We are gonna have so much fun! Fun fun fun!"

Crane's flames weakened, and his offended frown on the behalf of his father's honor morphed into bewilderment. His head tracked the childish feline around him, his beak falling lower and lower; one would think he should have been used to eccentricity, what with being surrounded by the most diverse group of people for years and Po - especially Po - but this was a whole other level.

"Eeerm…?"

"Atta boys!"

Abruptly, all the newcomers jumped up at once, right onto the branches of the training ground's southern tree. While her friends ran into the crown of the giant tree until they disappeared, Na turned back and winked at the Crane.

"Don't disappoint me, you real soon!"

And then she was off too.

…

…

"I think we aren't ready yet."

Mantis' blank statement was more like an open-ended question. Crane and his friends continued watching the same spot, not taking their eyes off the branches from where their future opponents scurried from, not even after they huddled around the avian Master's now fireless form.

Monkey shrugged. "We just got caught off-guard."

"Guys… I think… that was one of the wolves I knocked out in Gongmen."

"There were a lot of those, Po," Viper meekly replied, taking her eyes off the branches first to look at the panda.

"Yeah okay, but- he definitely knew me. And he called me 'panda' in that really hateful voice, like – like Shen did."

Monkey's body slackened with a sigh, and he crossed his arms in front of his body. "And now he's here with some powerful new friends."

"Scary friends," Po added, looking back up at the trees and wondering. "Hey, do you think they are like the Furious Five of the North or something? 'Cause that would be sweet. Just the thought makes me pumped up for the incoming-"

Tigress growled in disgust and gripped Po's shoulder, then turned on her heels. She, with the surprised panda in tow, walked away from the group to the center of the training ground. Upon arriving, she put her friend in front of her, jumped back, and readied herself in the starting stance of her technique.

"Tigress?" the panda said, much less excited than he had initially pumped himself to be. The tiger didn't answer, instead she began her offensive with a flurry of wild strikes. Po scattered back and held up his defending arms, wide eyes watching Tigress' firmly wrinkled face.

"We-" she quickly aimed a kick at Po's short legs,

"are-" using her momentum, she tried to sweep the panda off his feet,

"severely-" then she straightened out and aimed an air-ripping punch from upwards. Po, like he did in the last two of her attacks, just hopped back. The tiger's fist missed, but she continued onward. She kept on punching and the panda kept on dodging; meanwhile Po's back neared the end of its free space. Once the panda hit the same tree behind which Crane had hid once, he held up his arms weakly, looking up at the tiger's furious form pleadingly. When that happened, Tigress leapt up with a cry, and after doing a somersault in the air, she descended towards the panda with her fist held straight forward. Po closed his eyes tight and looked away.

The tigers fist struck the ground in front of him, denting it.

By now, the rest of the bunch was watching the spectacle unfold with worry souring their perfect features. Tigress let her fist linger in the ground, her ragged breaths being the only voice filling the silence of the garden. Steely amber eyes focused blankly on a piece of earth, one that quietly begged to deteriorate into dust under her gaze.

She closed her eyes and sighed heavily.

"…behind."

They stayed in between the two great trees 'til dusk.

Their bodies felt achingly sore all over, yet they kept on training. Getting jumped on and completely neutralized was a deep jab at their pride, a complete embarrassment to some even. Round after round, they sparred and fought, their limbs clashing until they almost bruised, only taking breaks for a refresher.

New thing was Crane actually partaking in the spars for the first time - even if he had to restrain himself greatly. He couldn't go against Viper for obvious reasons. Mantis was out of question too; turns out, the bug gets easily blown away by the gusts of the bird's every movement. The rest of them were doable though, and it gave him a chance to find an equal wavelength with his friends, since neither had actually seen him much these days. Least to say, it left them astounded. Crane was literally untouchable; either a windy wing blocked their punches here, or a stone pillar emerged from the ground there, blocking any sneaky trials to put some hits in. Tigress broke through most of these pillars, but this allowed Crane to take on the offensive - much to the chagrin of the tiger. She didn't enjoy defending, but… she went along with it.

She enjoyed seeing his friend coated in fire even less.

Po, bless his heart, had been relentlessly encouraging the whole time, no matter if the current sparring duos had already fought five times already. Without him, they knew they would have given up and called it a day by mid-evening. Then at once, Shifu came down and threatened to use the Wuxi fingerhold if they didn't rest. They knew it wouldn't have worked on any of them, the move heavily relied on the actual intentions of the user, but they were tired and hungry, so they gave in.

After rest, they came back, but only to meditate. When the training ground didn't witness the supreme art of fighting, it was otherwise a really peaceful place. The tender quietness that only the rustling leaves and steadfast air could co-create sent everyone to serenity. Even the most rambunctious of people could find their muscles easing into soft relaxation these times.

The Masters sat in a circle. The ones who had no physical means of sitting opted to stand instead, but that didn't deter them from reaching the peace needed for meditation. Monkey preferred balancing on his tail usually, and he didn't break tradition this time either. His upheld figure and down bent head reached the height of the person next to him, Crane's height. The avian stood on one leg, the other hanging in front of him, his wings held at his chest until the tips touched. At the other side of him was Viper, tail still jerking instead of flowing seamlessly.

Facing Monkey was Tigress. Her face, guarded and emotionless at most times, was now relaxed and even; one could see a small smile there if they squinted. Next to her was Po, mirroring her pose. Difference between them was that thanks to a lone mosquito buzzing around his nose, Po had a really hard time actually reaching inner peace. Between him and Monkey was the last of the Masters, Mantis, with his twitching antennas and unmoving forearms.

There was no talking. Only the sounds of synchronized breaths.

That is, until Tigress' ear twitched.

"Oh. Should I… not… bother?"

Crane sighed on the side, while Po smiled. "Oh, hi Bao!"

"Well then!" the disheveled newcomer chirped, and walked up to the circle, "If I truly am not a bother, then Qian- His Majesty made some tea for y'all."

That got the attention of the Masters. They looked up at the shorter avian, noticing both the platter with the six steaming cups and that heavy panting of his. Tigress moved first, taking the first cup slowly, faintly nodding at the correct title used for His Heavenly Figure. She tensely ignored the cheeky wink directed her way.

"Don't you want to rest a bit?" Viper accepted her cup too with a wobbly tail, while watching the Emperor's Trustee worriedly, "Sweetie?"

Monkey nodded. "Yeah, man, I've seen Crane's legs shake like that before. They usually don't mean no good."

Crane snorted mid-sip and rolled his eyes.

Bao looked up at them, and he took a deep breath through his nose. Letting out the air, he smirked his new conversation partners.

"Your worry is greatly appreciated, but sadly misplaced. It's just – apparently this is how it is. Big event coming up, all the important people must be notified of it, which means poor ol' me has to go from one compound to another, and then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and then a ninety-eight. It's taxing but… had worse."

"Aren't you holding this position for only a few weeks?" Tigress neutrally asked, still blowing her tea. She liked it a little lukewarm.

"Yeah, and I already saw it all! Can you imagine the fuss they made when Jia's dad was made Emperor?"

"That bad?" Mantis asked from the top of his cup.

"I was not ashamed to collapse in front of your dad, let me tell you that much," Bao replied giving a pointed look right at Crane, "You will see me do that day by day anyway, what with you moving in the Palace and all."

…

…

"He will what?!" the bug cut back in explosively, making Monkey lose balance on his tail and topple over with a shout.

"What did you mean by that?" Tigress asked, and the polite passiveness disappeared from behind her words, the tension seeping back into it.

Bao blinked at the sudden verbal attacks. Looking around, he noticed both the snake and Jia blinking at him like what he had said surprised them. Even the monkey, after sitting up from his fallen over state, looked at him weirdly instead of his spilt cup of tea.

"W-wait, you didn't figure? Seriously?" he asked, looking around, "Crane is the prince to the Big Chair, did you all just assume after all this is done, he can up and leave? Just like that?"

From the uncertain looks most of them suddenly exchanged, Bao knew he hit the nail where it mattered. And he laughed, because frankly, the concept of all these people not realizing such a crucial fact was ridiculous to him. Tigress and Mantis, on the other hand, did not appreciate the thought.

"Crane is a Master of the Jade Palace and he belongs there. He will come back with us once we finished the task his Heavenly Highness the Emperor had given us," Tigress said stoically, looking into Bao's eyes and daring him to speak against her words.

Thankfully, for once Bao had other things to say than to debunk her.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger! For all I care, Jia could leave the country and live far away. It's his Heavenly Highness you have to take the issue up with, 'cause, hint hint, he's already planning the beginnings of his introduction into the wonderful world of the Palace."

Mantis frowned, and opened his mouth to say something, when the wind moved. Heads whipped over to Crane's place, just to see an empty cup pathetically lying on its side on the ground, the bird missing. Looking up, they barely spotted Crane's shrinking figure in the distance, as it ascended to the Palace's tower.

Po sighed, looking into his cup sadly.

"Oh boy, he was right…"

Paper shuffled over paper, the sound filling the small, dimly lit room at the top of the tower. Qiang's wings held these papers up for himself to read. His yellow eyes inspected the brush-stroked words that contained the specific orders for the entourage leaving to Guang province tomorrow morning. He smiled; the phrasing was adequate and becoming, partnering with a neat penmanship, one that read admittedly worse than his son's. He rolled the paper up into a scroll and sealed it together at the middle. His weaker writing skills never bothered him - Jia always had a knack for the wonder of the ink and the brush. Sighing, he put the orders into a growing pile of scrolls at the side of his wide table, before taking out another piece of paper. He paused when the virgin space before him showed its perfect whiteness, one that he would fill in with the brush he held in his talons in the next couple of minutes.

Ah yes, Jia. Just the thought of his son made him smile; such a fine man he had become, and Qiang just simply couldn't not feel ecstatic whenever he passed his mind. A famous Master of the Martial Arts, with immortalized stories intertwined with his name like ivy on a wall? The Prince to the throne of China, one that the Empire would be proud to call the true son of Heaven?

It was all his little colt.

Though that reminded him of the incident earlier today. He sincerely hoped his son didn't drown himself in the bottomless ocean anxiousness was. Qiang wasn't a hopeless fool; he could make an educated guess that the revelation of his apparent princehood must have had been quite a shock to Jia. Though the fact that not even two days of living in Lin'an had been enough for his son to figure out such a basic connection was mindboggling to the older avian, but he let it slide.

He just hoped his son had learnt to control his thoughts.

That was one thing Jia had always struggled - adapting. Flowing through life's repeating patterns like a certified professional, enjoying the naturally slow changes and rules; that was his element. But when things turned upside down, oh boy, Jia might have as well smashed himself into the same deadend wall, trying to get out.

He was halfway through the orders for his own personal servants, when he heard knocks on his window. Surprised, he put down the brush and left his table to open the latches – but then he had to step back quickly, because speak of the devil…

"H-hey dad…"

Qiang blinked down at his son's form on the ground.

"Good afternoon to you too, son."

Crane smiled awkwardly at the amused greeting he received. Bracing himself, he pushed his whole body off the ground. His father held out his wing quickly, and clutching that, Crane managed to shakily balance his body upright.

"To what do I owe this hasty visit?"

"W-well, I wanted to ask a question, actually."

Qiang smiled, before turning on his heels and walking back to his table. "Must be some question if you had to break in through my window."

"Yeah, sorry about th-"

"You won't be able to do that in the future though," Qiang continued distractedly, while skimming over the orders he wrote, "It wouldn't be a bad idea to acquaint yourself with the door."

Crane's blinked at the interruption. He closed his beak with a clack and flexed his folded wings. "The future, right, about that… it's kinda what I'm here for, actually."

Interest peaked, Qiang turned his head back to his son. "Oh?"

"Yeah, so Bao brought us your tea – it is still really great, don't worry dad - and he happened to mention the small fact that I'll be… moving in. Apparently."

Qiang blinked, fully turning around to face Crane. "Yes? Is there something wrong-"

"Besides everything?!" Crane almost shouted, and his father had to rear his head back at the sudden heatwave he felt hitting his face, "Sorry, I mean, not everything of course. I would very much like to live with you again dad, and Bao too, but I can't move in. I have a responsibility in the Valley and f-friends. I can't just leave them!"

At first Qiang didn't understand what the outburst was for. His son couldn't honestly refuse the calling of family, right? But then it suddenly dawned on him that yes, twenty years was more than enough for one to establish similar familiar bonds with even the most different people. While the father in him wanted to clap his wings together at the concept of his son finding such close friends, his newfound duties stopped him from doing just that – history had shown that intimate connections often times don't coincide well with the good of everyone. Still, he had been a father first, and he never was the man of firm words and bloody knuckles.

Qiang frowned sadly and approached his shaky son.

"Jia," he said, resting a wing on the Master's shoulder, "I understand. I really do. And… if there were any other way, where your friends could stay too, I would support it in a heartbeat. But there isn't. They have an obligation to defend the Valley of Peace, while you have a new one now."

Crane blinked at him, his body feeling limper and limper as his father spoke.

"N-new obligation?"

"Yes, you are an heir, Jia, you are the Prince now. This binds you to Lin'an."

Qiang watched all fight that his son had in him dissipate, making way to the seeping, void-like, monstrous purple hopelessness, and he felt his own fragile heart convulse at this sight.

"Oh, son… I'm truly sorry."

He couldn't help it, he had to listen to his impulses. Drawing Crane close to his body, he embraced his son, holding him tightly. The warmth of the younger avian's body was comfortable, even if a little too warm. He was just about to say something reassuring once again, when much to his surprise, Crane ripped himself out of his wings forcefully, pushing his body away and stepping back from the older bird like a prey on the run. His widened eyes found his son's, and it left him confused; why was Jia looking at him with such apprehension, such… despair?

"I… I didn't ask for this," Crane mumbled under his breath, and his eyes went down to his right wing. Qiang didn't see the inside of that appendage, but there must have been something, if his son's intense look was anything to go by.

"I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to hurt people, or… to destroy their lives."

"…Son?"

"I didn't ask to become the Prince."

Crane backed up, before jumping back suddenly, right on top of the windowsill.

"I sure as the Heavens didn't ask to be an unstable freak."

"Wha-"

A big gust of wind blew on Qiang's feathers, while his only son left. The gust pushed the window outwards with such force, that upon smashing into the wall, the glass broke, and the latches punctured into the surface, effectively getting stuck.

Qiang could only blink. His overwhelmingly increasing worry made it hard to move.

Story Miscellaneous
#25: Pay attention to two things: Colors and Elements. The more passionate KFP fans know what I mean by 'Colors'.
#26: The story had officially reached its middle point. But it ain't the lowest yet...
#27: Merry Christmas to my Readers!
#27A:...and a Wonderful New Year!

Chapter 9 Miscellaneous
#1:Shortest Chapter so far. With a mere words. The Author will try to keep the length around there.
#2:Speaking of, Tunxi is once again, a real life place; Tunxi district is a central district of the city of Huangshan, Eastern China.
#3:Hint hint, eagle eyed viewers... Have a field day with this chapter.
#3A: 'It's funnier to see people trying to guess how many mice live in the Palace, but it's even funnier how none of them ask: Is there even any?'