--- Suitor ---
It was late morning and Master Shifu was overlooking his students practice session in the gardens of Jade Palace. Just another hot muggy summer morning; he grumbled to himself, hating that the warm water in the air was making his fur puffy and uncomfortably sticky. He wasn't the only one who hated it, Tigress, Po and Monkey were more sluggish (which doesn't mean much in regards to Po) in their training lately than the others were. Shifu held up his paw to signal his students to rest and break for lunch. Crane was about to dive back down to the others when he spotted something.
"Master! Someone is approaching." He said when he landed.
Shifu grumbled and laid his ears back, "Let him in."
Monkey and Po pulled open the doors to admit the stranger. He was a large, athletically built tiger with heavily distinct stripes and gleaming gold and red eyes. He bowed in greeting.
"Good morning oh great Kung Fu masters."
"Who are you and what do you want?" Shifu said annoyed, both paws grasping his flute behind his back. He wasn't in the mood for any visitors, Po had taken what was left of his patience for the day.
"My name is Xiang and I am from the Southern Mountain provinces of China." He said proudly with his head held high. He fixated his eyes on Master Tigress and walked past the small Grand Kung Fu Master as if he wasn't there. "I have traveled far and wide, faced many dangers and deadly challenges to reach the Valley of Peace and the legendary Jade Palace to boldly seek your audience Great Master Tigress.
Knowing well that you do not have proper parentage I am bidden to skip traditions and humbly ask to take your lovely paw in marriage." He kneeled and took Tigress's paw in his and kissed it; her jaw dropped. Behind the tiger, Shifu's expression went from shocked disbelief as this tiger's disrespect and disregard to annoyed anger at his cocky proposal.
Before the tiger could stand back up, Shifu whapped his nose sharply with his bamboo flute. The tiger recoiled his grasp from Tigress and found himself face to face with the Grand Master.
"Improper parentage hmm? Get this straight Tiger, if you knew that she did not have parents then you should have known well that I adopted her long ago," Shifu tossed the tiger on to his stomach and pulled his arm as far as he could behind his head and held his face down on the stone, "Therefore, that makes me not only her Master but her legal guardian and her father figure. And so far, you're doing a very poor job on impressing me."
Tigress smiled to herself as her master, and father, made an example of her first suitor similar to how he treated Po on the panda's first day 'in training' at the Jade Palace. The others gathered around her and watched the comedic spectacle of a tiny red panda making a lasting impression on a very large tiger.
"I'll never get married at this rate," Tigress laughed.