Truth in Punishment

By: PointyEdgesofaSign

A/N: I own nothing. Done to sedate Vachir and his wish that the truth be told. I did not write this, I merely was the conduit for his words. Review if you think he should continue, and please say more than just 'yes' or 'no'.

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I have read what you all have commented, and I agree that my actions were rash. I did not understand the angel, nor did he know me. It was simply a folly hope that we could fall in love right then and there.

Now I know better.

Then, I had hope.

I recalled what he had asked of me, the only thing that had been asked of me, and vowed to build a prison the likes of which the world had yet to see. I spent days on end designing every crevice, every pulley, and every crossbow, down to the last, minute detail. My friends, the Anvil, simply thought it was out of respect for Grand Master Oogway, and did as they were told. I worked out the schematics for every last device that would hold the leopard in place, from a bottomless pit (nearly bottomless, I set up poisonous pikes at around two hundred feet down) as a mote around the platform upon which Tai Lung would stand, two, giant boulders weighing down his arms, held by cerametallic chains made of a mixture between ceramics (obviously), titanium, a newly discovered metal, and steel. All of this, everything I did, it was all for him.

Zeng.

A year later, the prison was completed, and we were told to report this to Grand Master Oogway.

That night, I was unable to sleep, so excited to see Zeng again that I could hardly blink.

The next morning, I was pleasantly surprised.

Now, to be fair, it was more like floored. Grand Master Oogway, Master Shifu, and, most importantly, Zeng, had traveled with Tai Lung all the way to us. I, of course, wasted no time in requesting to speak with Zeng. Grand Master Oogway agreed, smiling in a way that I had always envisioned Buddha would look, and the small goose followed me out of the room.

Once we were far enough away, I wasted no time in falling to my knees and begging forgiveness from the feathered beauty. I admit to feeling no shame pleading his favor, and, despite what you may think, were he to have asked me to stop, I would have.

But he didn't.

No, instead of telling me to stop, he froze, his eyes seeming to search mine, though what they were searching for I am not certain. We remained that way, him looking deep into my soul for some answer to a question only he knew, for a time I cannot recall, but it felt not nearly long enough.

He must not have found it, though, for in the next moment he had taken of and was flying away from me, careening madly through the air in a frenzied escape.

My heart and knees sank simultaneously as I fell to my paws on the floor, my spirit continuing the descent for me to far beyond the bottom of the temple, but just as I thought I would never have reason to love again, I heard him call out, "Not here! Not now! Meet me in your prison, after Tai Lung has been placed there!"

A smile crept across my face as I stood.

Maybe he had found it, after all.