They were pandas.
Of course they were pandas.
Pandas, back at the Jade Palace claiming the Dragon Scroll, and now out here in the snow-packed wastes of Mongolia, in a miraculous valley between two peaks. Tai Lung struggled up the ridge carrying her limp body, accompanied by two bustling young females who were too short to offer anything in the way of support, but had more than enough to give in watchfulness and fussing. She watched one touch her limp wrist and shake her head softly at the other.
As they reached the lip of the ridge a figure momentarily blocked the light. A black and white hand reached out to Tai Lung, offering help over the last of the climb. Before him stood an old, stout panda, his fur greying. One eye was green, the other was a convex vacancy that had healed over into gnarled, fleshy bumps, part of a long scar that slashed diagonally across his face.
As he held his hand out to Tai Lung the panda's good eye flicked upwards.
My god, Tigress realized, he's looking right at me.
The panda smirked and turned his attention back to Tai Lung, who had taken his hand and allowed himself to be helped. The panda wordlessly held out his hands, offering to carry Tigress's body.
Tai Lung's mouth made a flat line. He shook his head.
The panda reached for her again. Tai Lung growled. The growl turned to a soft whimper as the panda placed a firm hand on Tai Lung's shoulder. Tai Lung leaned tiredly into the contact, bowing his head. His shoulders went limp. Looking at the ground, he slowly removed the sling and transferred her body into the waiting arms of the scarred panda.
The two females took Tai Lung by the hands and lead him down the ridge to series of large yurts, behind which great columns of white steam billowed into the sky. The panda stayed behind a moment and took Tigress's blank face by the chin, looking intently at her half drooping eyes. He glanced up at her spirit once more.
You can see me, she said.
Yes, he said, pointing at his missing eye. I got into a bar fight with a dragon god. He took my eye. Now I see in two worlds.
She nodded. We too have met this god.
Clearly, he replied. He adjusted her body in his arms and examined it once more, turned her head this way and that as though searching for something. Not finding it, he pressed his ear to her neck, shut his eyes, and listened.
What are you doing?
He didn't respond. After a moment he smiled. He opened his eye and turned towards the village.
Follow me.
o
Tai Lung looked as though he would be sobbing if he had the energy to sob. Instead he sat on the floor as five brightly dressed female pandas tended to him, his face limp with a blank despair. He weakly rose his arm in objection as the scarred panda brought Tigress's body into the yurt and laid it down on a long flat cushion. With a quick word and a click in his throat the panda summoned three others, whispering commands in hushed Mongolian. They began arranging her body, straightening her spine and limbs. One carefully removed her boot to reveal a shattered ankle, the foot twisted inward. The other opened her coat and began to unbutton her vest.
"Leave her alone!" Tai Lung demanded, and gave a great sagging lunge towards them. The old panda moved across the yurt far faster than he should be able. He merely blocked Tai Lung's way, knowing the snow leopard was far too exhausted and injured to put up a real fight.
Tai Lung fell to his knees and one hand. "Leave her alone," he wheezed, grimacing. He tugged weakly at the panda's coat. "Leave … leave her be. I will ...I will hold her vigil. I will hang the white banner above the door. I will … I will dig her grave," he choked, groaning in pain. "I will ... bury … her. Ah!"
He grimaced, pressing the heel of his hand to his chest.
In one elegant move the panda leaned down to pick Tai Lung up beneath his arms. Tai Lung did not fight as he was gently pushed onto his back.
"Stay there," the panda commanded.
The panda nurses hesitantly knelt at Tai Lung's side to continue tending to him. He shut his eyes.
The scarred panda gestured to Tigress's body. "Your wife?"
Tai Lung's face screwed up in pain. He grit his teeth and shook his head.
Tell him I'm here, Tigress demanded.
The panda glanced up at her over his shoulder, chastising her with his eyes the same way Shifu did when she said something insolent.
Tell him yourself, he replied, and turned back towards her body.
Tigress remained with Tai Lung for a moment, watching over him. Only when one of the nurses, an elderly woman, took a moment to stroke his head and whisper softly to him did Tigress turn to see what the scarred panda was up to.
She was met with the sight of her own naked form being folded up in rough white linen, the branch removed from her shoulder and the wound still open, but clean. Her wrecked ankle was set straight between two sturdy branches. Once she was wrapped in cloth like a baby the scarred panda gently lifted her and walked out of the yurt.
"What are you doing with her?" Tai Lung demanded, coughing.
The panda did not heed him. Tai Lung struggled to get to his feet. The panda nurses encouraged him to lie back down, pressing on his shoulders, but they were no match for his strength even in a diminished state. With a growl he stumbled out of the yurt and followed them.
Where are we going? She asked the panda.
He didn't reply, but he was headed towards what Tigress realized was a hot spring, the source of all the steam billowing above the yurt village.
"Where are you taking her!?" Tai Lung demanded. He stalked the panda down, followed by a gaggle of worried looking nurses chattering at him in Mongolian. The panda turned suddenly, his chin high, and offered her body to Tai Lung to bear.
"Carry her if you must," the panda said, "but follow me."
o
"Put her in the water," the panda commanded.
They'd gathered at one end of the steaming pool. Someone handed the panda a long staff made of gold, silver, and copper, smelted with complicated swirls, runes, and omens. But Tai Lung did not hear the panda's order. He simply held her close, bereft, stroking her face.
"Put her in the water, leopard," the panda commanded once more.
"In – in there?" Tai Lung asked, looking skeptically at the pool. "Why?"
"Do you want her back or not?"
Tai Lung blinked. "Want her back?"
"Yes. Do you?"
"Do I what?"
The panda rolled his eye. "Want her back?"
"Of course I want her back! But if you haven't noticed she's dead."
The panda ignored this. He looked up at Tigress's spirit, floating above her body.
"And do you wish to return?" he asked. "Or does the song of the Spirit Realm beckon you?"
Tigress glanced up at the heavens above, shining with golden light and a feathery warmth that threatened to melt her heart. But a song?
I hear no song.
He nodded. "Your business here is unfinished."
I must protect him, she said. He cannot die while he is still in danger of being taken by those … those things.
The panda inhaled sharply, glancing at Tai Lung. "I see," he said.
"Who are you talking to?" Tai Lung growled.
"Your wife," the panda replied casually.
"You're -" Tai Lung asked with a hush, following the panda's eyes to where she hovered, but seeing nothing. "You're talking to Tigress?"
"She says she must protect you, and she has good reason. If you wish to help her in this quest you must put her in the water as I asked. Do it!" the panda ordered, and Tai Lung, bewildered, set her body down on a gentle incline of smooth stone. Two of the female pandas, stripped down to their underclothes and shivering, got into the water on either side of her pulled her in up to her breastbone.
And how exactly do you plan to bring me back? Tigress asked.
My eye allows me to see between worlds, he said. And what I can see I can bring here, should I choose.
What do I need to do?
You'll know it when you see it, the panda replied.
The two female pandas climbed out of the water. Their leader motioned for everyone to stand back, shut his eyes, and began to spin the staff in the air. As he spun it it made a golden spiral that turned faster and faster, like a whirlpool gradually gaining speed. As it grew larger and larger Tigress could feel it pulling at her. His missing eye glowing white with power, the panda turned the staff in the air, and with one great motion slammed the end of it to her chest hard enough to break her sternum.
Tai Lung cried out in protest against further damage being done to her body, but nothing could stop the process the panda had begun. The tunnel of light pulled at her, and with one last look at the triumphant heavens spinning above her, Tigress allowed herself to fall into it, to become small, to travel at the speed of light down through the enchanted metal staff. Her body arched. With a burst of electricity that spread out over the surface of the pool, Tigress was back in her body.
She gasped, her aching lungs filling with air, and let out a cry so agonized and pure that it may as well have been that of a newborn. Each nerve in her body sprang back to sensation, thick and stinging, the pain in her ankle and shoulder and chest agonizing. Five sets of furry black hands reached out to settle her.
She looked up in confusion, squinting against the overcast sky. The panda smiled down at her. Tai Lung's eyes were wide with incredulity, his mouth bobbing with unsaid words.
Tigress smiled up at him despite the pain.
"I'm here," she gasped, and passed out.