Hullo again! Fortunately for you all, I have at least one full chapter to post after this one. Chapter 13 will be a doozy, and so will Chapter 14, just fair warning. Chapter 13 is going through some major editing, so don't expect it for a while, mostly because I've been terribly busy at work and at home. I promise not to take so long to update this time!
Disclaimer: I do not own Kung Fu Panda, that belongs to Dreamworks Animation. All OCs are my intellectual property and should not by used without my permission. Thank you.
Chapter 12: One Month Before the Solstice
The past month had been especially hard for Mei Xing. Now eight months along a high-risk pregnancy, her husband gone far away for...heaven only knew how long, with the threat of a war on the horizon, and the even greater worry that he was the target of bounty hunters and soldiers alike, had done little to settle her nerves. Her sewing lay abandoned, to be picked up by Auntie Wu later, because Mei Xing had snapped the thread too many times from nerves. She had picked up knitting needles again and had furiously began knitting another baby blanket. Since she had gotten up that cold late autumn morning, she had noted with worry that there was a thick veil of frost on the ground and lining the dying leaves that still held a death grip to their branches.
Since discovering her pregnancy, she had made over a dozen small baby booties in as many colors as she could find, with matching sweaters. She now had three different blankets, and was working on a fourth. Halfway through, she had to set the knitting needles down to rub her hand over her stomach. Another cramp; she hoped and prayed it wasn't a contraction, even though she rationally knew it wasn't, that it was still too early. She rubbed at the jade pendant around her neck, sure that she would worry away the stone within the month at the rate she was going.
She couldn't sleep any more. She hated the bed now. And apparently, so did baby. Every time Mei Xing tried to lie down and get some rest as her doctor ordered her to, the baby would kick and tumble in her womb until she sat up or took a walk around the room. This was definitely her husband's child, she thought ruefully. He couldn't stand being bored, either. Not that Mei Xing was any better.
Palms pressed against the small of her back, she dragged her swollen feet around the room, taking deep breaths as she walked… Waddled, she thought scornfully. I'm as big as a house—I'm waddling worse than a mother duck with ducklings in tow. The female snow leopard stopped and looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. Eight months along…and gods, she was huge! She never remembered being this big for any other pregnancies… Which means this kid's probably going to rip me apart on his way out, she thought as she placed her hand on her stomach; the baby responded by moving a little, and she smiled a little bit. This isn't anything like it was before. Your in-laws care about you, you've got friends now, and they don't want you to die…
"Did you kill another one?"
Her breath caught in her throat and she choked. Mei Xing looked back in the mirror and remembered she was alone…which meant her memories were creeping back. She had to take her mind off it, immediately. She spied a basket of clean laundry in the corner. She waddled over as fast as her body allowed and lifted the basket onto the bed, clothes and sheets spilling out onto the quilt she had made specifically for her wedding bed. She began folding, focusing too much concentration on the act.
"Did you kill another one?"
Mei Xing looked at the bed and saw herself there, six years ago, weak, pale and still bleeding. The healer was throwing bloodied rags in a basket then laid a cool cloth over her forehead. Grandmother-in-law sat on her other side, holding her hand while tears poured down the young female's cheeks. The old snow leopardess turned to the door and shot back, "Maybe if you got off her once in a while, she'd carry one to term!"
From the door, he sniffed, "What's the point of marrying a peasant if she doesn't have babies? Every farm wife I've seen has lots of children; what's your excuse, Mei Xing?"
"It's your own damn fault for beating her, you damned idiot!" the old woman snarled. "I can see where I went wrong: I married in your mother! Yes, you, you worthless harpy! See what you've done, poisoning my grandson with your filth?"
"The only poison I see," Mei Xing's mother-in-law disdainfully replied, "Is marrying in that girl." She had never used her name. To her, Mei Xing was either "Girl" or "That Girl". "This is your punishment for marrying below you, son! A worthless, childless whore!"
"Get out," Mei Xing weakly said. The healer and Grandmother glanced at her, but neither spoke. Before her mother-in-law and husband could berate her, she grabbed the oil lamp on the nightstand and threw it at the door. "GET OUT!"
"Get out…"
"Sorry, I can come back later and why in Hell's name aren't you in bed?" Sonam roared. The old snow leopard stormed into the room and tore the sheet from Mei Xing's nerveless hands. "We've been over this, Mei Xing! You're not supposed to work!"
"So what, I'm supposed to sit around and be worthless?" she snapped back. Fury in her eyes, she shrieked at him, "Is that what you want from me, to sit around and do nothing so you have an excuse to tell me what a horrible wife and mother I am?"
Sonam caught himself just in time; he stepped back and fully assessed the situation. Mei Xing was out of bed. She was folding laundry. She had a haunted, faraway look in her eyes...a look he knew as the Thousand-Yard Stare. She thought he was calling her a bad wife... "Oh no," he groaned, shaking his head. "You know, my offer is still open…"
"What offer?"
"I'm very good at making things look like accidents. Or suicides. It depends. I'm rather looking for a traditional suicide at this point, as it gives me leave to be a bit more violent. An accident would be so impersonal, and you know me, I like leaving a personal touch."
"What—Sonam, are you talking about murdering my ex-husband?"
"Just for you, I'll give a seventy-five percent discount..."
"NO!" she snapped.
"Right, tell you what," he continued like a salesman knowing he was losing a pitch. "I'll stage it to look like he stabbed himself, but only if you promise to get back to bed to rest."
"I can't sleep anymore, godsdammit!" she shrieked at him, and in one breath, cried: "I'm as big as a house, I only have one dress that fits anymore, my feet hurt, my back hurts, and every time I try to sit or lie down, this little brat keeps kicking me until I start walking again! And if I have to eat one more bowl of noodles I'm going to hurl!"
Sonam took a deep breath and another step back. "All right. All right, how's this, I help you with the folding? You still get to do something, only I help in case you need it or get tired."
Mei Xing thought about it, then slowly nodded as her temper abated. "Okay. Okay, that's fine... You know, there was only one time I talked back to him that he didn't beat me."
Sonam held his silence and allowed her to continue.
"It was my last miscarriage before my Grandmother-in-law died; after she died, he got even more brutal, and it wasn't too long after that I ran away. He and his mother said horrible things to me the day of that miscarriage. I had been six months along when I lost it; and y'know, every time I miscarried or whatever, he'd tell me I 'killed another one'. Isn't that nice? I don't know why I did it, but when he said it that time…I threw a lit oil lamp at his head. It shattered on the doorjamb, but it splattered him and my mother-in-law with hot oil. I just wanted them to hurt like I was hurting… For some reason he never beat me for that, and my mother-in-law never mentioned it."
Sonam smirked proudly at her. "Did I tell you Nima threw a chair at me once, when she was pregnant?"
Mei Xing had overheard the conversation he'd had with Wu earlier that month, but feigned ignorance. "No. What happened?"
"I told her she looked like a fat cow."
"You what?"
"I meant it as a joke! …'Course, she wasn't laughing."
"No kidding. But she threw a chair?"
"Eight months along, and she threw a whole bloody rocking chair. In hindsight, I'm lucky she only threw a chair. She had been sharpening a bunch of kitchen knives at the time, and could've thrown them instead. I avoided her for a few hours until she forgave me. But I learned my lesson: never piss off a pregnant woman."
"I thought your overall lesson was to never piss off women, period."
"And I shall amend that by telling you what I told my son as the ultimate commandment to a lasting marriage: 'Thou shalt not piss off the source of thy nookie'."
Mei Xing laughed. "You didn't really tell him that, did you?"
He grinned proudly, "Damn straight I did! I also told him the same wisdom my father told me: Always answer her with 'yes, dear', and when you bugger something up, always—always—respond with 'I'm sorry, love. I don't know what I was thinking. It will never happen again.' And he was right!"
"Did that all work?"
"Saved my sorry hide more than once, I'll tell you that!"
She grinned and laughed, and he chuckled too, remembering the brief time he had with the love of his life. "Gods, I loved that woman…and what a woman! And, if it's not overstepping boundaries to say, I know for a fact my boy inherited his old cat's good taste!"
Mei Xing blushed. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."
"The hell I am. Nima was a wonderful woman. She would've loved you, I know; the two of you would've been thick as thieves, had she lived."
"Do you think Tai Lung would've turned out differently if you'd raised him?"
Sonam fell silent, but Mei Xing wasn't sure if it was because of concentration on the supposedly difficult task of folding sheets, or if he was actually thinking about it. "Well," he began, "He'd probably have still gone to prison for something or another. He's got a temper, which is his parents' fault, of course," he said with a wink from his good eye. "But…I guess all things considered…" he paused, then let out a sigh. "Though I give him a fair bit of ribbing, Shifu did a good job raising him. He only wanted for him what I would've wanted. No parent is perfect, Mei Xing, so don't try to be perfect…just try to be good."
"That shouldn't be too hard," she snorted. "I got plenty of examples of what not to do. My dad was hard on my brothers too. When we had a bad growing year, he blamed them for not working hard enough and shaming our ancestors."
"How'd he treat your mum?"
Mei Xing fell silent, having just finished folding some blankets. "He…she, I mean, they had their moments…" She hesitated, then stacked the blankets with some towels for the linen closet. "Every marriage has them, I suppose. They fought the most about food and money. Mostly food. Mom was a good cook, I mean, she was able to make a filling meal from rice, onions, and over-ripe carrots and nothing else; that takes a lot of skill. The only rebellions she ever had against him was when he complained about her cooking…she'd tell him 'either eat it, make it yourself, or go hungry'."
She sighed and sat down, suddenly feeling drained…though from standing too long or the subject of their conversation, she didn't know. "I'm lucky, I realize that. This is the first time I've ever lived in a truly supportive home. I've always felt like I should have existed in another time, another world…"
"You and everyone else in this house," Sonam said.
"True."
"And it makes sense we support each other, doesn't it?" he pondered as he finished the folding. "No one else would put up with our shenanigans, so we depend on each other. Every last member of our 'family' is an outcast of some type. We're individuals, we're different from other people…and so what? It makes us more fun."
She smiled a little. "I guess so." She sighed. "I miss him."
"I know. Me too." After a momentary pause, Sonam suddenly remembered, "Damn, that's what I wanted to show you! I finished the nursery."
Mei Xing grinned. "That's great! Mind if I see it?"
"Are you feeling up to it?"
"I'll be using it in a month anyway, right?" she asked, taking a moment to stand. She allowed him to escort her across the hall to the room that, until now, had been used for storage. Now, it had been transformed. Crane had offered to paint murals after the plaster and whitewash had dried, and now Mei Xing saw paintings of little baby animals of all types…but most prominently tiger and snow leopard cubs. Heavy curtains hung over the shuttered window to keep the cold out. Currently there were two cribs, each carefully handmade by Sonam, who had also constructed a cradle for his first grandchild.
He had stepped back to allow Mei Xing to look around. "I made a cradle for you to keep in your room—you'll want to keep the baby close by until his first year. As for the room, sure, nothing fancy, but I figure how much do you need until—are you alright?"
Mei Xing sniffed and nodded, turning back to look at him. There were tears in her eyes…but she was smiling. "Yeah…yeah, I'm fine." No one had done something like this for her, ever. She doubted her ex would have spared the expense to devote an entire room to a nursery, even if he desired as many sons as possible. She had, for the most part, been largely ignored and rejected for the majority of her life. Now she had a father-in-law who cared enough to make her a cradle and crib, little wooden toys for her child, and who took over chores she was no longer able to do. She had a husband who carefully watched her diet to make sure she ate enough, and then some, who would lie in bed with her at night and run his hand over her growing stomach and smile proudly at her, a husband who told her he loved her...and he meant it. She had dear friends who acted as her siblings, a "brother" who would protect her and his family at the cost of his own life, and a "sister" who looked after her health even when Mei Xing was ignoring it. She was blessed, and she knew it.
She cried a little harder when Sonam hugged her, and though he tried to shush her, calm away her tears in a way her father never had, that didn't calm her down. Now that everything was coming together, now that everything was ready for the baby's arrival, Mei Xing wished it was her husband she was hugging. She wished she could share this with him.
Sonam finally pulled away and held her at arm's length. "It'll be night, soon. I've started a fire in the common room, so lets go get you settled there, I'll bring you up some dinner..." he paused, then said, "Stir fry, I'm thinking."
"Good call," Mei Xing said as she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "Mind if I grab my knitting from the bedroom? I need to finish that blanket..."
Not bothering to point out that she had made enough clothes and blankets for a whole damn litter of cubs, Sonam only nodded and said, "I'll grab it for you. Do you need me to pick up more wool for you tomorrow?"
"I should have enough, but thanks." She allowed him to lead her into the common room, and set her in her rocking chair right in front of a warm fire. He disappeared for a moment only to bring her the blanket-in-progress, then made for the stairs. Su Lin was coming up just as he was going down, the female panda holding fast to a bag of sweet ginger cookies, a favorite snack. The panda caught Mei Xing's look and scowled, "Okay, fine, I'm cheating on my diet. Sue me."
Mei Xing shrugged. "Like I'm going to judge?"
"Point." Su Lin said, offering the snow leopard a cookie, then drew chair closer to the fire and took a blanket from the linen closet. "Sonam getting you dinner?"
"Yup."
"Not more soup, I hope. I heard your threat earlier."
"About the hurling? Did anyone else hear that?"
"Yes, the whole restaurant."
"Great," the snow leopardess said, not too enthusiastically as she nibbled on the cookie.
Su Lin wrapped the blanket tightly around her and settled next to her in front of the fireplace. After a long silence, she spoke up, "I hope Po and Tai Lung are okay. You know, warm enough, well fed..."
"Me too." Mei Xing paused, looking into the fire, then down at the blanket slowly materializing from her fingers and wooden needles. She focused too much on the pattern she was creating. Row nine: knit five, yarn over, knit five, purl one, knit five, yarn over, slip one stitch, knit two together, pass slipped stitch over the knit two together, yarn over...and repeat from first yarn over until the last ten stitches of the row, knit five, yarn over, knit five...then next row: knit five, purl until the last five stitches, knit five. The stitching resembled candle flames...or something, she couldn't remember. All the yarn overs formed little holes in the knitting that, when spaced correctly, formed the pattern in a series of full stitches and eyelets. She had made a shawl, once, with this same stitch pattern; it had been ingrained in her head since her first marriage, where she memorized patterns like these to help her cope with the constant fear of beatings and death...
Some people memorize sutras, I memorize knitting. I'm probably going to hell.
"The blanket looks beautiful, Mei," Su Lin said. "I especially like the mix of blue and red in the yarn color."
"Yeah, that was a dyeing mistake. Its pretty though. If its a boy, I hope he doesn't mind a purple blanket."
Su Lin made a face. "Why should he? His baba wore purple pants for a good twenty years..."
"Aren't you glad we smacked some fashion sense into him?"
The panda giggled and smirked at her friend, "I know you were glad to burn those pants once I got him into new clothes."
Mei Xing smirked back. "I did tell you that it turned the fire green, didn't I? I don't want to think of how long he wore those without cleaning them once."
"I've got it on good authority he didn't want to think of it either. You two are a lot alike; its eerie how well you two seem to know each other, like you've known each other your whole lives instead of just a couple years." After she stared into the fire a little longer, Su Lin finally cleared her throat and said, "This may seem silly, but I used to look down on love matches like yours...like a lot of people from my home village...now, I'm not so sure."
"Don't tell me we corrupted you," Mei Xing teased, counting stitches under her breath.
Su Lin wrinkled her nose at the snow leopardess. "No...but I've seen how successful love matches can be. So many people in this valley are married because of love, not arranged marriages. It makes me wonder what my mama would think if she had come here to settle."
The panda sighed, pulled her knees up to her chest and sighed. "Why didn't she just run when Jiao threatened her? She...she'd already hidden her best books and scrolls in a safe place outside the house. I think she honestly meant to get away from there before he showed up... Mama wasn't afraid of any man, but she was afraid of what they were capable of. I used to think there was a difference, but I realize now that there really isn't."
Mei Xing ran her hand over her stomach again, staring into the flames. "I believe it. I wasn't so much afraid of my ex as I was about what he'd do to me. To a point, I still fear what he can and would do to me. Tai Lung being gone...its only done more damage to my nerves than anything. I'm vulnerable right now, I can't fight for myself, and sometimes I want to be alone and yet hate being alone, because that leaves me open to attack."
"Mei-Mei, no one's going to attack you. This is a safe place," the panda reminded her.
"I know, I know, its an irrational fear...a lot of my thoughts have been irrational lately."
"Hormones?"
"I guess," she said noncommittally. Mei Xing's eyes strayed to her friend's, then down to the panda's feet. "You know...I can't believe I never asked you this, but you grew up in a pretty conservative area, right?"
"Right."
"Why didn't your mother ever bind your feet?"
Su Lin actually smiled and snorted with laughter. "Gods, I never told you that story?" she beamed proudly, "My mama was a very practical woman. Women used to ask her all the time why she never bound my feet or my sister's. She would always say 'Why should I cripple my daughters? Why should I do that? They are more useful to me and their future husbands if they can walk!' She didn't appreciate beautiful things for beauty's sake; it always had to have a purpose. She used to see what that practice did to women, how they lived every day in agony. She said the binding weakened women, and then weakened any children born to them. So when rich people complained to her that their son was sickly, she'd tell them, smart as you like, 'Well its your own darn fault!'"
"I think I like your mom."
The panda smirked and picked up some of the snow leopard's discarded sewing and began embroidering bats for good luck onto the baby's clothes. "Mama was very practical. Really methodical, too. She was a neat-freak, everything had a place, always. Always. Papa used to say she was more organized than the Emperor's entire council, and used to tease her that she alone could keep the empire in line. Of all the arranged marriages in the village, theirs was by far the happiest. Most of the men didn't like Mama because she was so outspoken, but they never suggested to Papa to rein her in."
"It sounds like he wouldn't've dared. I wonder why there's such a difference between how men behave, like how some are like your dad or Sonam, and others are like my ex?"
"Mama said it boils down to how secure a man feels, and how controlling he is. 'Su Lin,' she told me, 'No matter who you marry, you must never marry a man with insecurities or one who is very controlling'. She said insecure men take it out on whoever they think is weaker than they are. So I don't know if it helps," the panda said as she looked over at her friend, "But I think that your Headman...was actually afraid of you."
Mei Xing make a scoffing noise in the back of her throat. "Afraid...of me? So why'd he beat me so damn much?"
"If you were anything then like you are now, I bet he was intimidated by how you acted. Face it, you don't take crap from Tai Lung, and even less crap from Sonam, and they're easily the scariest felines in the empire."
"Su, its impossible. He beat me because...I don't know. I guess there were a lot of reasons."
"No," the panda said firmly, "There were a lot of excuses. Big difference."
Mei Xing thought about it, again rubbing at the jade pendant around her neck as a way to comfort herself. "He didn't start really beating me until I miscarried the first time," she said after a pause. "I shouted at him that the miscarriage wasn't my fault, then he beat the hell out of me." Mei Xing had started staring into the flames, but rather than the thousand-yard stare that usually fell across her eyes while recalling her past marriage, Su Lin saw something...spark...in the other female's eyes.
"He beat me because I miscarried...but how did he know that the beatings weren't causing the miscarriages in the first place? He was wrong. The whole damn time, he was wrong. It wasn't my fault..." Mei Xing said, a hard edge in her voice. Her spotted paw tightly gripped the jade pendant around her neck so hard, Su Lin thought it might shatter like glass in her grip. "It was not my fault...so why the fuck did he treat it like it was?"
"Because he was under pressure to produce offspring, and hadn't?" Su Lin offered. But she saw something glimmer in her friend's eyes, recognition, and quite alarmingly, anger.
"He was afraid of me..." Mei Xing said, halfway believing it, but starting to see it for what it really was. "He was trying to break my spirit. He didn't like not being in control, so he tried to break me, just like Tai's guards tried-" she stopped herself just in time and glanced at Su Lin.
Su Lin held up a hand. "Don't worry about it. I don't know, I don't care to know. Its in the past and can't be changed."
"No..." Mei Xing said haltingly, still horrified she had almost revealed her husband's deepest secret. "I think you do know."
"You mean the scars?" the panda asked. "The scars his fur usually hides? Yes, I've seen them. I don't know that anyone else has." She paused. "Its none of my business, and I won't say anything if you don't want me to. I just think..."
"What?"
"I just think he should try talking about it, like what you're doing. This is the most we've ever heard you talking about your ex, and I wish you'd told us sooner. But just the same, if talking about it is helping you...think how much it'll help him."
"He's not going to talk," Mei Xing said. "He's too stubborn." She paused. "How much do you really know?"
Su Lin's brown eyes locked with the snow leopard's amber ones. "I know enough to keep it a secret until he wants it revealed. That's the point of secrets like these: they're no one's business but ours until we decide to share. I know he's told you and Sonam; I don't think he's told Po."
"Why wouldn't he? Those two are like brothers, inseparable," Mei Xing pointed out, gently worrying the jade pendant. "Of all people, he'd tell his best friend, wouldn't he?"
Their conversation was interrupted when Sonam came back to deliver Mei Xing's dinner. The females swiftly changed topics to discourage the elder from inquiring into their weird moods. But Mei Xing knew he noticed how subdued she looked, how troubled. She worried the jade pendant more than usual, her thumb nearly rubbing another hole into it. For the rest of that uneventful night, however, Mei Xing could only guess how much Su Lin actually knew...and how much Po knew.
Shifu tried very hard to ignore his glowering wife's mutterings. He tried even harder to hide his own delight. He had been worried before, after the soldiers had left the Valley. He didn't like not knowing where Zang was heading, or what his plans were. He didn't like how silent the capital city was regarding Zang and his activities. He particularly didn't like not hearing from either Po or Tai Lung in nearly a month. He could have sent Zeng out to find them, but even he knew how dangerous that could be (and, the red panda figured, he had already endangered the poor bird too much).
Imagine his surprise, however, to discover that, against their better judgment, Zang and his men had returned to the Valley of Peace to seek medical assistance for their cadet. Shifu had reservations about inviting the war horse to reenter the Valley, but he knew an opportunity when he saw it...and promptly invited Captain Zang, Lieutenant Gao, Corporal Liu and the youth Quon to stay in the Jade Palace as honored guests while the tiger recuperated.
Wu Lien and the Furious Five were absolutely, well, furious to see Captain Zang Deshi back on their doorstep. Shifu could not have been happier. But he bit his tongue and graciously welcomed the soldiers back to the Valley, upon hearing of the unfortunate loss of their comrade, Sergeant Kong, and the injury of their youngest, Cadet Quon. Wu Lien - and the Furious Five - also bit back any comments, though Monkey and Mantis kindly offered their healing expertise in treating the cadet's injuries. Shifu went one step further and offered the soldiers all the comforts the Jade Palace had to offer "for their own safety", as he had put it.
To the red panda's credit, his offer was actually intended to keep them safe. Their interrogations around the village had not won them many friends, and if his suspicions were correct, the closer to the Jade Palace they were, the safer those soldiers would be from any type of retaliation. Kong's death was most certainly a retaliation.
"You don't give a damn about their safety," his wife bluntly told him later that evening. They sat together in their quarters, sharing a pot of tea. He had retreated to reading up on his kung fu scrolls, while she had resumed her old pastime of embroidery; she was making a baby jacket for little Shang, as he had quickly outgrown his old red festival clothes. Wu sipped her tea and placed the cup back down next to the lamp on the table. "I may not have known you my whole life, but lets face it, honey, you're a little too predictable."
"Lets hope they don't know that," Shifu muttered. He looked up from his scroll and glanced at her, then at the door. "I'm actually rather glad that they are here instead of out in the big wide world, where we can't track them as easily."
"So that's why you wanted to keep them here," she said evenly, but with a hint of aggression. The Jade Palace's Grand Master swiftly tried to quell her temper:
"Partly; keeping a close eye on them was certainly a consideration," he admitted. "But it is also my suspicion that perhaps Po and Tai Lung have unseen allies...with some rather unscrupulous means. Either way, Zang and his men will be safer here."
"What if they try to leave?"
"They won't. They want Tai Lung too much. But I must say," he said with a smirk, "Their odds and their timing suck. They waited until autumn to try and apprehend him, just the five of them, against a warrior who easily defeated one thousand guards? Tai Lung will be back before the Solstice, that much I know; he won't miss being here when he becomes a father. But by the time he does return, no one is leaving the valley until Spring."
"The snows will be too deep, and the weather on the bridge will be too treacherous." Wu froze, then glanced at her husband, who by now had given in and was grinning wildly. "...You paranoid old fool!" she admonished, but chuckled anyway. "You had planned on this!"
"Planned, no. Hoped, yes." He reached for his own teacup and said, "Zang will be trapped here until the spring equinox, and he knows it. He's already restless enough as it is. He knows he's in a tight spot, and that if he steps out of line, he has not just you and I, but all our students to answer to. He has to watch his back, and his manners, if he expects to bring Tai Lung to justice."
"And what of the emperor? Have you heard back?"
"Not yet. But rest assured I am going to keep a log of everything Zang does. He's brought his own rope, I just need to wait until he's got enough to hang himself."
Wu sighed and put her sewing down. "I don't like all this waiting. We know so very little, its making me uneasy."
"About Zang, or about Dalang?"
Wu scowled, and her answer told him that she was more concerned about the latter. "He knows who it is we're looking for, but he won't face it because it would mean facing himself. I don't know who it is, but I have my suspicions."
"Suspicions are enough to act on."
"Not this time. Believe me, I've tried to get him to open up, everything short of torture."
"And knowing your methods, I'm amazed he's not yet cracked."
"Why, do you think I am losing my touch?"
"Not at all," he said. "I believe this time around-if I may posit based on my own observations-for the first time in his life, he is not being hunted; he has a chance for a normal life, like anyone else. He wants to forget it and move on, and who could blame him? I don't think you are losing your touch, dearest, because a childhood with Jiao Shen for a father...it would have to be some horrible form of torture to get Dalang to talk."
Wu sighed and silently nodded, acquiescing the theory. She continued to sew for a while in silence, then paused mid-stitch, a thoughtful look on her face. Shifu noticed it, but waited patiently for her to say something. When she did, he was reminded that, though she loved him, and he her, she was still guarded about many things.
"He wasn't always the man we know today. As a teenager, he could be a right terror. I used some harsher methods to change him, to assimilate him to society...worse than what I used on Tai Lung to reform him. I'm afraid that in so doing...I may have inflicted more damage than I intended."
"Worse damage than Shen could have done?"
"I have a temper, darling, I know that," she said softly. "With Dalang, I allowed it to get the better of me, and it hurt him. I don't want to hurt him again. It took years to get him to trust me, and there are some days I wonder if he actually does trust me."
Shifu paused, then asked, "Do you think he would tell me if I asked him?"
She shook her head. "That is very doubtful. Shifu, he won't even tell his wife about that part of his life."
"Would Sonam have a chance?"
"Sonam. Who you had to literally twist his arm to tell you Tai Lung's real birth date and time? Sonam, get Dalang to talk. Right."
The Grand Master shrugged. "It was just a thought."
Wu sighed. "No, I'm afraid nothing short of a supernatural intervention is going to get him to open up."
If it was a supernatural intervention Auntie Wu wanted, that was most certainly what she got. Of course, Dalang did not quite know that. Yet. He had a feeling she was conspiring against him, but then, she was always conspiring against someone. In the meantime, the tiger chef kept his head down and focused on his work and his family. Tigress had gone with Viper and Su Lin to the old orchard for some training-Su Lin had complained of being out of shape, and the two female masters offered her some pointers. They had returned not too long ago, the female panda sporting a basketful of blackcurrants from the training grounds that had ripened quite nicely in their own little nook.
Baby Shang, carefully strapped into a special high chair at the table so he could watch his daddy cook, stared in fascination at the little dark purple berries that gleamed in the lantern light. The cub made little cooing noises and gummed his paw after Dalang had set a couple toys in front of his son to keep him occupied for a few more seconds. He turned back to see Shang reaching for the bowl of berries, then quickly pushed the bowl further out of the baby's reach. "No," he said gently, "Those aren't for you. Here, here's your little bunny. You want to play with Mr. Bun-Bun?"
Shang pouted, but accepted the stuffed bunny-rabbit anyway. Content that his son was sufficiently occupied, the chef turned away again to chop some vegetables. With Tigress not too far away, he didn't think twice when he heard something scraping across the tabletop...
He hadn't been sleeping well lately. He barely got four hours of sleep a night, and he worked hard all day in the restaurant, from opening to closing. It became harder to remember recipes he had created himself; Dalang prided himself on not relying on recipes to cook, but he kept going back to his notes, scribbled recipes on various pieces of paper, something he hadn't done since culinary school. He admitted he wasn't at the top of his game (and Mr. Ping had noticed it too), but the tiger knew he couldn't afford to take a day off now.
Something scraped across the tabletop behind him. Dalang looked over at his son's highchair…and looked again, feeling his stomach sink and then rise to his throat. Shang had gotten his hand on the bowl full of blackcurrants, and was happily plopping them into his mouth as he made little noises that sounded like words. Shang picked up another dark purple berry and smashed it into his mouth, repeating, "Ma, ma, ma, ma…" and "Ba, ba, ba, ba…", a fruitless effort to say his first word.
Ignoring the baby's glee, the tiger chef dropped everything and snatched the bowl away; Shang immediately started crying once his new plaything was taken from him. And Dalang immediately started panicking.
"Su—SU!" he screamed up the stairs as he plucked up his son. "Get your herbs, NOW!"
"What's wrong?" Tigress calmly asked as she walked back to the table.
"What's wrong?" Dalang demanded. "What's wrong? Did you see how many blackcurrants he ate?"
Tigress stared at him oddly. "Yes…he likes them."
"Tigress, they're poison! Almost everyone in my family is allergic to them!"
Her face immediately paled. "WHAT?"
"What's going on?" Su Lin asked as she poked her head into the room. "Why do you two look so pale?"
Dalang handed Shang to her. "He ate something he shouldn't—my whole family's allergic to blackcurrants, and he ate…I don't know how many!"
"Um…" she said, looking at the baby's vital signs with uncertainty.
Tigress was by now a nervous wreck. She paced the room and wrung her hands, "I should've known. I should've...No, you should have told me!" she rounded on her husband. "If you were more open about these kinds of things, this wouldn't happen!"
"Oh no," he glared and snapped back. "Don't you dare turn this on me!"
"Um, guys?" Su Lin coughed.
Simultaneously, the tigers turned and snapped, "What?"
The female panda held the baby up by his underarms. "He's fine."
The two tigers just stared back at her, then stared at their son when he burped and grinned, dark purple berry juice staining his gums and cheeks.
"He's…fine?" Dalang asked. "But, the allergy…"
Su Lin shrugged and set the baby back down in his high chair, and wiped berry juice off his face and paws with a wet cloth. "Well, Tigress isn't allergic, are you?"
"No, of course not," she said. "That's why I didn't think it was a problem."
"And its not," Su Lin said, mostly towards Dalang, who looked ready to contest Tigress's claim. "It's perfectly fine. He can have blackcurrants. He might have a tummyache from eating too many, but other than that, he's going to be okay."
"Oh thank the gods," Tigress sighed with relief.
Dalang, however, still looked pensive. "Okay…he's okay." He didn't say anything when, to further illustrate her point, Su Lin pushed the bowl back towards the tiger cub, who squealed and reached his chubby little berry-stained paws out to get more berries. Dalang watched him carefully, as the baby clumsily put more of the dark purple berries in his mouth; Shang was as happy as…well, as a baby with a bowl of berries. But it was the faraway look in his eyes that suddenly drew Tigress's attention. "What's wrong?"
"Shang wasn't…"
"Shang wasn't what? Eating berries?"
"No, my brother Shang…he wasn't allergic." The tiger chef kept studying his son, looking for any clues or signs of an allergic reaction. "Shang was the only one in our family who wasn't allergic to blackcurrants."
"Oh thank you," she sarcastically replied. "If we'd known that, we could've tried poisoning the Jiao instead of fighting them." She bit her tongue, realizing she was still bitter he hadn't told her, and she was still trying to calm herself down after fearing for her son's life. "Sorry."
"No, you're right. I should've told you. I'm sorry," he answered contritely.
"Anything else I ought to know?"
Dalang visibly thought about it, then smiled ironically. "Yeah, we're going to have to keep a short leash on him when he turns twelve."
"Why?"
"Trust me."
Still dubious of his guarded demeanor, Tigress let out a sigh of relief just as Mr. Ping waddled back into the kitchen. "Everything's fine," she told him.
"I heard yelling," the goose said fretfully. "And something about little Shang; are you sure everything is fine?"
"Yeah," Dalang answered. "Yeah, we're good. Just a misunderstanding, and me jumping the crossbow a bit."
"A bit?" Tigress snapped before she could stop herself. Knowing her husband was giving her a nasty look for her (admittedly) rude comment, she excused herself, citing a need to check on Mei Xing.
"Husbands and wives should not be like generals preparing for war," Mr. Ping told Dalang after Tigress was out of earshot. "Marriage is a partnership; you will not win by fighting each other."
Dalang suddenly snapped, "Ping, do us both a favor and don't stick your beak where it doesn't belong." With that, he turned back to the chopping block and started mincing garlic and ginger root. Mr. Ping kept his gaze on the tiger's back, and the goose knew that the tiger knew he was watching him. Dalang had never been so short with him, and that had the goose worried. Not as worried as seeing his employee wavering slightly in his stead, or the glazed look in the tiger's eyes, but he was worried just the same. But Ping wasn't about to try and order the tiger to take a break or a day off...at least not right now. So he let the comment slide, and silently returned to his work, knowing that Dalang would talk to him when he was ready.
The goose's silence said more than he knew. As soon as he'd turned away, Dalang knew he was out of line, but was too proud to admit he was wrong. He was too proud to apologize to his wife. He was too proud to apologize to his boss. And he was too much of a coward to tell anyone the truth about his past.
Having such deep introspective thoughts isn't generally advisable when using sharp knives, which was a lesson he learned the hard way when he felt was a slight tear in his skin, and a sharp pain followed by red blood blooming across his hand from where the knife had met its mark. Dalang hissed and quickly stifled a curse, jumping to grab a clean rag.
"What's wrong?" Mr. Ping asked.
"Sliced my hand open," Dalang gritted out, hissing more curses as blood drops splattered onto the kitchen floor. Neither of the cooks noticed that Baby Shang had gone completely silent in his highchair.
Dalang grabbed a clean rag from the table, dabbing at the small wound and pressing the cloth against it to get it to stop bleeding. Gritting his teeth and pursing his lips, the tiger chef looked down at his infant son, who was sitting completely still. The child's curiosity-filled expression soon crumpled into a grimace as a long, high wail erupted from his throat, so unexpectedly that Dalang was panicking more about his son's sudden mood swing than he was about his own injury.
"Shang, Shang, c'mon kiddo, what's wrong?" he asked, unintentionally reaching out with his injured hand. Shang visibly recoiled from the bloodied hand, shrieking louder, and making clumsy movements that made it look like the baby was trying to get away.
"What happened?" Tigress demanded as she rushed down the stairs. "Why's he cry—what happened to your hand?" she gasped when she saw the blood.
Dalang grabbed the rag again and pressed it to his injury, "Knife slipped, I picked up the rag, and Shang just started freaking out. I don't know what happened!"
Tigress quickly picked up her sobbing son, holding him to her chest and gently bouncing him in her arms as she shushed him. "It's okay, honey, its okay…shh, shh…you're okay, sweetie."
Dalang rushed over to the first aid kit and tore open the box, grabbing some gauze and a disinfectant salve. "When someone gets a chance, give me a hand or a wing?"
Mr. Ping lowered the heat on the stove and waddled over, bidding the other chef to sit at the table. "There, sit, sit, let me see to that…"
Tigress was still soothing the baby, whose cries had slowed, until tapering off as unexpectedly as they had begun. The tiger master gently caressed Shang's head until he lay his head on her shoulder, fat tears still running down his cheeks while quiet sobs still raked through his little body. "See? You're okay," she soothed. "There's no boo-boo, you're okay. Daddy's okay, too, isn't he?" she asked and looked over at her husband for confirmation, who winced as Ping applied the antiseptic salve.
"Yeah, Dada's real copacetic," he sarcastically replied. "I'll clean up the blood, Ping, don't worry about it."
"Just be more careful with those knives, young man," the goose scolded. "With business the way it is, I couldn't handle all the cooking alone if you seriously injured yourself!"
Tigress walked over, still bouncing the baby on her hip. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," he sighed. "I'm fine."
"No you're not." She gave him a worried look. "In all the time I've known you, you've never cut yourself by accident. Dalang, is something wrong?"
"I'm fine—really!" he said in answer to her dubious look. "Okay, so maybe I've been feeling a little out of it today, but Tigress, it's just one day, okay?"
"You haven't been sleeping lately."
"So?"
She frowned. "What do you mean 'so'? I'm worried about you!"
"Tigress, I'm fine," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his uninjured hand. "We've just been really busy. It'll die down soon, and I can get some rest then."
Tigress sighed and shook her head at him. "I just don't like you working so hard…that's something I would do, not you."
"Tigress, sweetheart," he said, standing with a weary sigh. "Believe me, the last thing I'm going to do is work until I collapse. I've got more discipline than that."
Clearly doubting his claim, Tigress peered closer at him. "Maybe you should go rest, now. You look a little pale."
"I'm fine, just a little tired."
"Not to mention the blood loss."
"There wasn't that much blood. It's fine."
"Dalang, it's not fine—go get some sleep. A short nap would do you some good. I'll wake you before the dinner crowd comes along, okay?"
He turned to look his wife in the eye and saw that she wasn't just ordering him around for the sake of it: she looked genuinely concerned.
"How pale do I look?"
"Like Po without the black patches over his eyes," she answered quickly.
Mr. Ping had turned at the mention of his son's name and froze, looking just as concerned for Dalang as Tigress did. The goose waddled over and looked up at his business partner imploringly. "Miss Tigress is right…you don't look well at all."
"I'm fine," he said stubbornly. He wavered a little bit and grabbed onto the tabletop to steady himself. "Maybe a little tired, but I'm fine…"
Now even little Shang was giving him a concerned look.
"Dalang…" Tigress said warningly.
"Okay, okay," he caved, his eyes squinting shut as he moved to the stairs. "Maybe…I think I should lie down…"
But when he got to the stairs, he froze, staring out at the entryway where the family altar stood. It may have been a trick of the light, or maybe his own fatigue causing a hallucination, but Dalang could have sworn he saw someone standing in front of the altar, their face trained up at his mother's portrait. Once the person was aware of his presence, he—for it was undoubtedly male—turned his dark-eyed gaze to him.
It was the last thing Dalang remembered before he blacked out.
"Okay, good training today; really good, actually. You did a lot better than I expected."
"Okay, that's good."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm peachy."
"So what are you doing lying on the ground?"
"Bleeding internally."
"Oh grow a pair, you're fine," Lan Duo said while rolling his eyes.
Lang stared back up at him. "Fine? You just beat the crap outta me!"
"No, I was going easy on you today. Now get up."
"I thought you weren't going to hold back."
"I wasn't, until I saw how damn pathetic you looked. Now get the hell up."
Wu Tian wrinkled her nose at the display, glancing over at Koshchei. "This is your great hope? He is the one you expect to lead us to victory?"
The Amur Leopard's whiskers twitched and his tail curled in on itself. He was about as impressed by Lang's training as the other witnesses were, and most of them, having been assassins and bandits longer than Lang had even been alive, witnessed his training with outright derision. Koshchei didn't like thinking he had made a serious error, but the longer Duo attempted to teach Lang how to fight, the more the leopard began believing that his faith in the young wolf was completely unwarranted. That had been his hope, his plan, that Lang had untapped potential to be a great feared warrior, whose crowning moment of glory would be leading this force of five thousand to victory over the Valley and its protectors. He hated being wrong, and if he didn't remove himself of this situation soon, he would take out his frustrations most violently...on the nearest idiot he could find. Not that he was averse to killing, in fact he freely enjoyed it. But his success depended on these warriors and outlaws trusting him enough to risk their necks for him and his cause, and for some reason they didn't look kindly upon someone savagely killing one of their own for no good reason.
He took out his pipe and muttered to Tian, "Taking break, don't look for me."
"Of course not," she smirked. "I'm not a total idiot."
Koshchei normally had very little patience for females, but he was beginning to find the Wu Sisters were unlike other females...and he was grateful for that. He returned her smirk and retreated deeper into the underbrush. He stuffed his pipe and lit it by drawing a claw along a piece of flint. As he inhaled the deep fragrant smoke he pondered over his current situation. Lang was much smarter than he had given him credit. Koshchei himself would have never thought to include a huge band of Furious-Five-Haters as a distraction. Koshchei tended to avoid large groups in general, but ironically, he would be better hidden among so many. Five thousand was nothing to sneeze at (as the saying evidently went), and he would have an easier time attaining his goals if he didn't have to fight the kung fu warriors head on. He exhaled a long stream of smoke through his nostrils. But in battle, brains were nothing without having something to back them up. He had been fighting long enough to know that brute force alone was not enough to win a battle (though it certainly helped), and that strategy would win over force any day.
That was one of the first lessons he had learned from Shen.
Koshchei coughed when someone tugged sharply on the back of his collar. "Alright, talk!"
The leopard whirled and snarled, catching the interloper by the neck. Remarkably, Lan Duo was perfectly cool…except for the accusatory glare he sent in the feline's direction. "Tell me what you know," the wolf choked out.
Angry he had been interrupted during his smoke break - and quite rudely at that! - Koshchei applied more pressure to the wolf's neck. Duo choked, but still managed to sputter out, "He's not learning…"
"Who is not learning?"
Duo waited until the leopard loosened his grip before spitting out, "Lang! Who else? I've been at this for two weeks and he hasn't learned a damn thing!"
He thought so. If Koshchei was getting impatient, Lang's teacher had to be at his wit's end. "So you are taking back vord?"
Duo's answer surprised him: "The hell I am! What the hell is wrong with this kid?"
Koshchei shrugged, even as he silently asked himself the same question. "Is nothing wrong; he is slow learner…"
"Even a total moron knows to block when someone's trying to hit you with a big stick! He's not getting it!"
The leopard stared back unblinkingly at the wolf before speaking; he remembered - quite clearly - having been in a similar situation before, long ago. "Is he problem…or is problem you?"
Duo froze and stared back at him, but instead of getting angry, he appeared to actually consider his words. "You're saying my method is wrong, not him."
"Da."
"So what am I doing wrong?"
"You vant advice?"
"Weird as it is to admit, yeah, I want your advice."
Koshchei's black lips curled up into a grin. "Vell naow! Isn't this nice? Old teacher now teaches new teacher…is good, I do not mind. Someone needs to continue my vork after I die, vhich may be sooner than I am thinking, yes?"
Duo warily took a step back. "What're you talking about?"
The leopard gave him a flat look as he took a long drag from his pipe. "I am eight and seventy, malchik."
"Bull shit."
He chuckled. "Is true. One of only few true things I eva tell you. I have seventy-eight years. A man like me has lived too long, and not live much longer. I am thinking…you are not as bad as other volfs—you do not, eh, make nonsense."
"Make nonsense?"
"Ach, vhat is term…?"
"I don't bullshit anybody?"
"Da, that! This I am liking about you. You are direct. Direct people make alvays best teachers."
"But I am being direct with Lang, so why isn't he getting it?"
"Vhy do you think is not getting it?"
Well, it was clear Duo hadn't exactly thought of that before. The rather apathetic wolf was, at least in Koshchei's eye, not as indifferent as he wanted people to believe. He wasn't as lazy as people thought him to be either. Unlike his brethren, Koshchei noticed, he didn't go chasing after something just for the hell of it. If he wanted something bad enough, he waited for the right opportunity.
Just like a cat.
The old leopard grinned.
"Well, I guess I could stop calling him a pansy-ass weakling," Duo said. "Offer a little bit more encouragement now and then."
"That vould help, yes," the leopard agreed with an understating nod.
"Wait…" he said as the recognition dawned. It was like someone had lit a bank of candles behind the wolf's eyes. "I'm teaching him with a pack mentality. He doesn't have a pack—he's a lone wolf. I need to teach how a lone wolf fights! That's why he's not getting it!" For the first time that Koshchei knew, Duo actually smiled; then the wolf turned back to him before resuming his teaching: "You're pretty good at this."
The leopard shrugged, puffing on his pipe. "Vhat can I say? I haff much experience." He watched as Duo retreated to continue his lesson with the rookie, the leopard now deeper in thought. Koshchei knew he was a creature of habit, and he had trained many like Lang before.
He clenched his teeth around the mouthpiece. Shen had never much trusted individuals, felt that their loyalty lay elsewhere, and the Amur tiger had demanded utmost loyalty from his men. Koshchei had been loyal...to a point. He'd had a good relationship with Shen before their falling-out; the two felines understood each other. It helped that Shen was as fond of his ancestral land as Koshchei was, and that they carried the same derision for lower creatures. They had a chance meeting; Koshchei had killed Shen's best assassin, but Shen saw a golden opportunity and hired the leopard straightaway. It proved to be a great partnership.
Until she arrived.
Koshchei heavily exhaled through his clenched teeth. What in hell's name had Shen seen in her? She wasn't a warrior, like that tigress Koshchei had introduced him to (the leopard didn't much care for anyone, let alone women, but felt if Shen had to get married, it might as well be to someone as tough and ruthless as he was). Instead, Shen had left one night and returned the next with a dancer - a dancer - as his bride. She was pretty little thing, the leopard admitted, but not enough to turn his eye. She turned out to be rather fertile, too, much to Shen's delight.
The leopard remembered the day the first brat was born. They had scheduled a raid in the nearby village, until that foreign witch went into labor. Shen had called off the whole thing; he wanted to be around for the birth of his heir. Shen's followers only saw him stay stoic while his wife's screams tore through the camp, but Koshchei had seen what a wreck the tiger became until it was announced he was the father of a bouncing baby boy, and that the mother was fine, too. It was disgusting, the way that witch changed a perfectly respectable man into a trembling jumble of nerves. And it only got worse with every succeeding child. When those damn twins were born, oh ho!, Shen was over the moon. Twin boys, perfect rowdy duplicates of their father, except they smiled more; and that woman had survived, though Koshchei had hoped that labor would kill her like twins killed other women. No, she had yet one more to bring into the world, as if giving birth to twins wasn't a good enough feat to cement Shen's affections forever. No, seven sons, she would be blessed in Heaven for bearing seven sons, who were nothing like their father, no matter what anyone told them.
Koshchei hated those boys, every last one of them, because they had changed the man they called Father. Shen's wife had begun the process, but Shen had completely changed once Shang was born, that little bastard; he had even inherited his mother's green eyes, which made the leopard hate him all the more. His intense dislike didn't turn into outright fury until young Shang had attacked him and gave him the scars that still crisscrossed his forearms (an incident he never told anyone about, more out of pride than anything else; what would people think of him if they knew he'd been viciously clawed and bitten by a three-year-old?). And the brat was never punished for it; his mother had praised him on his strength. It wasn't until that point that Koshchei realized Shen's wife hated him almost as much as he hated her.
"Mr. Koshchei," Wu Tian called from a distance, mindful of his earlier request for privacy, "You might want to come see this."
The leopard sighed and dumped out his pipe before joining her and her sisters. The trio sat on a pile of rocks overlooking the clearing, now in an uproar of activity. Koshchei paused in his step and watched in utmost amazement as Lang finally blocked a strike from Duo, then quickly swung the pole around and slammed it into the other wolf's side. Duo took a fall and held his ribs, his face scrunched up in pain, but he still got up. Lang held his staff in a defensive position, waiting for Duo to attack.
"Don't stop now, runt," Duo mocked. "You think a pack's going to give you time to take a breath? Come on, hit me."
"Stand your ground," Koshchei heard Wu Zhu whisper, "C'mon baby, don't fall for it..."
Lang stood his ground, staring back at Duo with narrowed eyes.
Koshchei crept up to the Wu Sisters, startling not a one of them as he leaned against the rock and whispered in Russian, "Good, stay, wait, watch..."
Now Duo was getting angry. "I said attack you little idiot!"
"Why should I take orders from you?" Lang coolly asked him. "I'm not your bitch, remember?"
"Fine," the older wolf said, adjusting his grip on his staff. "Gimme five minutes, and you will be!"
Lang adjusted his footing, but other than that, he didn't move. Duo took this chance to make a running charge, swinging his staff around like a pudao. Lang cut off his attack with a swift downward block, then jabbed the other end of his staff into the other wolf's head. When Duo staggered back from the blow, Lang swung the staff and tripped him; he twirled the staff again and knocked Duo's weapon out of his hands and subsequently pushed him down into the dirt, the older wolf staring back up at him in utter surprise.
In the ensuing silence, the only thing anyone heard was Koshchei swearing in Russian. Wu Jiang then offered the closest possible translation: "Son of a bitch, he's got it."
Wu Tian narrowed her garnet-colored eyes at the young wolf and frowned. "He's got something, alright."
Wu Zhu noticed her unease...and so did Koshchei. "So what's wrong?" Zhu asked. "New teaching method's working better than the old one."
"My concern is for Lang, of course," Tian said to her sister. "It seems to me that he doesn't get physically stronger until he gets angry."
"That's a good thing," Jiang argued. "Anger is how most men fight. Its a survival mechanism; the most aggressive one wins."
"Not every time," Koshchei said. He looked between the three sisters before his eyes settled on Tian. "Is good point; anger can be gift and curse."
Tian coolly replied, "For the time being, it should be fine; it will teach him to figure out his own strength. But once he knows what that is and what his limitations are, he'll need to know how to control his temper. Once his enemies know his temper is a weakness, they'll exploit it. Too many warriors get sloppy when they get angry."
"Give one example," Koshchei demanded.
Tian thinly smiled. "I'll give two: Tai Lung...and you."
Koshchei's lips curved upwards, but it could hardly have been called a smile. His eyes flashed dangerously at the female, who only returned his glare with a secretive smile, as if she knew something he didn't. He didn't like that. Shen's wife had often used that smile, and he would have given anything to rip it off her face while he still had the chance.
"You haff never lost temper in fight?" he asked her, a slight edge in his tone.
"Once," she replied. "That's why I won't allow it to happen ever again."
He paused, staring her down, and it took all of Tian's inner strength to keep from blinking or looking nervous. Before Koshchei could say anything further, Duo tapped him on the shoulder.
"Since you're so good at this, I gotta question."
"Da?" he replied with strained patience.
"Don't you Siberians have a strength-training thing to do with carrying a log for a few miles? I'm thinking of getting Lang to do that, build up his core muscles."
"What're you nuts?" Jiang asked, clearly knowing which process he was referring to. "That would kill him!"
"Vhat doesn't kill only make stronger," Koshchei said with a nod to Duo. "I am knowing vhat you mean. Get yak ova there, one vit axe, chop down tree and make big log. Smallish-type carry ova shoulders until not-so-smallish-type, da?"
Duo nodded with satisfaction. "Thought so. Thanks, man," he said and, forgetting himself a moment, slapped the leopard on the back in a show of camaraderie. It wasn't until he'd begun to walk away that he realized with horror what he had done...then he walked a little faster.
Zhu couldn't help giggling a little at Duo's hasty retreat and Koshchei's scandalized expression. Even Jiang had a hard time hiding the smirk.
Lang's training progressed this way the very next morning, the youth forced to carry a roughly fifty-pound log for ten miles the next day, jogging the whole way. He feet blistered, his arms ached, and every muscle in his body screamed in protest from sudden usage of muscles the wolf didn't even know existed. The only thing that kept the young wolf going was Lan Duo's encouragements...
"C'mon, maggot, pick it up! My 'ole granny can walk faster than that, and she's dead!"
"Whatever happened to positive reinforcement?" Lang complained, but this was the only complaint he'd made all day. He was simply too exhausted to think of something else.
"This is positive," Duo protested. "You want me to go back to calling you a girl?"
"I resent that comment," Wu Jiang said as she suddenly jogged in step with them.
"The hell are you doing?" Duo asked, surprised to see her as far ahead of the pack as they were. Because of the nature of this training, Duo had gotten permission for the two of them to progress farther than the scouts. At this rate, the rest of the horde was a good couple miles behind them.
The snow leopard shrugged a sarcastic reply, "Watching my girlish figure."
"Being one of the few women in this horde, I bet you're not the only one."
Jiang smirked at his retort. Then she turned her attention to Lang, "You dead yet? Give me a status report, babe."
As Lang was panting to keep up, Duo answered for him: "He's getting there. He'll rest when we stop at the next river..."
"Oh thank the gods," Lang gasped.
He should have waited until Duo finished: "He'll have to do some lunges and knee-bends with the log."
"I'm gonna do what?"
"Yeesh," Jiang winced, "Slave-driver."
"Its not like I'm asking him to sleep with the damn thing. This is the quickest way I know to build the muscle he's going to need. Those skinny arms aren't good for anything."
"I'm right here, you know!" Lang spoke up.
"I don't hear running, small fry," Duo snapped. "Double-time, hut!"
Lang grunted and forced himself to run faster, gritting his teeth as sweat ran down his face and stung his eyes. But to his credit, he managed to forge ahead of the other wolf and snow leopard. They lightly jogged behind him, keeping a few paces back on purpose.
"Think he'll be ready?" Jiang asked breathlessly.
"He better be," Duo said as he started to pant; he'd been running about as long as Lang had, and it was starting to show. They had both been up since before dawn, and it was now midday, and for mid-autumn, the sun was unbearably hot. "Otherwise my plan is worth shit."
"You're not going to fill me in?"
"It doesn't concern you." He hesitated, partly to catch his breath. "I mean that in a nice way."
"Sure."
"You don't need to get involved. Revenge is a nasty business."
"Duo, honey, I'm an assassin. Revenge is sorta my bag."
"Point."
"You're not plotting against the old cat, are you?"
"Fuck no, I'm not an idiot. Much as I hate to admit, Koshchei's the best ally I can get."
"But you don't trust him, either."
"Would you?"
"Fuck no, I'm not an idiot either." After she hesitated, she asked, "What else you have up your sleeve? For Lang, I mean."
"I'm gonna keep him running, gonna make sure he works on balance and reaction times. I asked a couple of those mountain folk to give him the low-down on unarmed combat. Koshchei said he'd teach knife-fighting when he's ready."
"Think it'll happen?"
"For the kid's sake, I hope so."
Jiang slowed down to a brisk walk and called after Duo, "Okay, this isn't just about your plan anymore. Admit it: you actually care about him."
Duo abruptly stopped and turned on his heel. He hissed at her, "Let's get one thing straight, lady, that kid only means one thing to me, and one thing only: he's a means to an end. I don't care what happens after I get what I want, as long as I get it."
Jiang narrowed her green eyes at him. "So once he's outlived his usefulness, you're throwing him to the wolves?"
He gave her a hate-filled glare. "For future reference, I resent that comment. I find that specist."
She returned his glare with one of her own. "And I find your 'girl' comment sexist, so now we're even, puppy-boy." After a pause, she said, "And what I meant when I asked you what you had in mind for Lang...I didn't mean training."
Duo hesitated. "You meant why I'm helping him? I told you, its about revenge."
"You're using him to get revenge on someone, and its not Koshchei? Then who?"
"Its really none of your business."
"I can make it my business, if this plot of yours is going to get us all killed."
"I'm not planning on killing anybody. I plan on getting back at someone, but I don't want anybody dead."
"Why use the kid? What does he have to do with it?"
Duo looked over his shoulder at Lang, who was quite a ways ahead of them, then told her, "We're both connected to this guy. Public humiliation is one thing, but I want to completely destroy him."
"Jeez," she winced, "What'd this guy do to you that was so awful?"
Duo sent one more warning glare at her, then turned to run after Lang. "Do yourself a favor, Wu Jiang, and stay out of my business."
Jiang snorted and watched as the wolves trotted off, and wondered if she should bother telling her sisters about this.
Duo, meanwhile, picked up the pace to catch up to Lang, who had finally reached the bank of a shallow, rocky but quiet river, and was hunched over with the log still resting on his shoulders. His face was pale, and he looked to be in absolute agony. Duo finally took pity on him.
"Okay, you can take it off. You did good today, you deserve some rest."
Lang didn't move.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yeah."
"So you can take the log off your shoulders now."
"I can't."
"Yes you can. I said you cou-"
"No, I mean physically, I can't. I can't move my arms."
Duo outwardly winced; maybe he'd been a bit too harsh on the kid today. Sighing, he helped lift the log off the youth's shoulders and let it drop to the sandy bank. Lang sank to his knees and doubled over. Duo knelt next to him.
"Don't do that, you won't be able to breathe. Here, lean back against this tree." He helped ease the younger wolf into a reclined seated position, a pained look on the small wolf's face. "Where's it hurt?"
Lang sent him a dirty look. "Everywhere."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Sure: every-fucking-where."
Duo rolled his eyes and looked over Lang's arms. The veins in his forearms and hands bulged visibly through his skin, and he could see his heart pounding in his thin chest. The elder wolf instructed him how to breathe so he could relax and bring his blood pressure down. While Lang practiced his breathing, Duo filled up their canteens and gave him a cold wet cloth to put over his forehead and eyes. He really had been too hard on him. Duo had once been small and skinny himself, and he couldn't remember or imagine his own master doing something like this. Now, he couldn't say he had good reason to force this training, no matter how much Lang needed it. Duo had learned a hard lesson that day, and to his worry, he realized it wasn't the one he thought.
"So why are you really helping me?" Lang finally asked him. In the time it took him to recover enough to speak and eat without losing his breath or his lunch, the rest of the horde had arrived and set up camp. Duo had caught the glances coming from the other wolves, and so had Lang, who interpreted their expressions to mean that they were impressed. Duo brought his attention back to the present. Should he say something? His argument with Wu Jiang earlier had got him thinking...
The bandit wasn't lying when he said that, though he trusted Koshchei about as far as he could throw him, he still considered the Amur leopard an ally. If his survival depended on his leasing his soul to the Devil, then he was willing to do so. His motivation was not so simple as the prospects of wealth or power; those were nice, but not what he really wanted. And he had an inkling that Lang didn't care for acquiring more wealth than the Emperor, or having his power either. Duo decided that, yes, Lang would probably want in on this plan, because he had as much invested interest as Duo did of seeing one particular individual go down.
"I'm helping you because those guys," Duo said, thumbing over his shoulder back at the camp, "Will turn on you one day. You can't hide behind the old man forever, and when that day comes, you'll want a fighting chance."
Lang furrowed his brows and stared accusingly at him. "But won't you turn on me like the others?"
Duo took a long drink from his canteen. When he looked back at the young wolf, he asked, "And if I was going to do that, why would I bother teaching you anything at all?"
"Okay, I'm confused."
"That doesn't surprise me."
"If you're not going to turn on me like the others, and you don't really care about me, why are you teaching me to fight?"
Duo stared at him a moment. Then looked around to be sure no one was eavesdropping. "Do you really want to know?" he asked. He leaned closer and whispered, "Because you're not the only one Zi Hao's ever terrorized. Karma is a bitch, and when karma bites, she bites hard. This conversation doesn't leave this bank, got it?"
Lang slowly smiled, but willed it down so no one else would see. "What conversation?"
Duo smirked. "Good boy."
"How is he?"
Corporal Liu looked up from his chess game against Captain Zang, then looked back at the door to Cadet Hu's room as Lieutenant Gao exited. The soldiers had been set up in an older part of the Palace, that had once served as lodging for students before the newer dormitory had been built in the last century. It was rumored that these stone walls, which had some veins of jade lined throughout the hewn stones, had been quarried from the very mountain the Palace stood upon. It was somewhat dark, drafty and a little dingy, but the quartet had seen worse barracks than this. And they weren't ones to question a gift when it was granted to them in a time of need. Zang, however, had his suspicions, and was getting increasingly aggravated that his men didn't see the potential trap they had fallen into as a result of the Cadet's injury. Despite what he had told the cadet, Zang was very resentful about the events that followed Kong's death. It would have been better if the boy had died; at least then Zang would have had more flexibility to find and defeat Tai Lung. Now not only was he a man down, he was trapped on a mountain behind enemy lines at the mercy of a man who was known to be a hard-ass master of kung fu, a master he knew would break him like a toothpick if he felt so inclined. Not for the first time, the black warhorse was resentful of the cadet for getting them into this mess in the first place. If only he had just followed orders...
Lieutenant Gao sighed and shook his broad head. "He still gets dizzy when he stands. He tried walking around the room a bit, but he kept falling over. Master Mantis was here earlier, and he figures Quon's not out of the woods yet, but he's better than he could be."
"How long did they say it would take for him to recover?" the black warhorse asked.
"About a month, sir," Liu replied, moving his pawn across the board. "Quon wanted to resign his part in our mission, but I told him it was up to you."
"And it is," Zang nodded, moving one of his pieces across the board and capturing one of Liu's pawns. He wanted to grant that resignation, but it would have involved too much paperwork, and maneuvers of this delicacy required as small a paper trail as possible. So he told them (and himself), "The cadet is still too important for this mission. He can take his time in recovery. We are in no hurry. We are exactly where we want and need to be." He was really telling himself this information, if only by saying it, he could come to believe it.
"So we're no longer tracking down our quarry?" Gao asked with a lowered voice. Corporal Liu leaned forward to hear his captain's reply.
Zang looked between the pachyderm and bay horse and picked up a chess piece, patiently waiting for Liu to make his move. When Zang set his piece down, Liu winced at the position he'd put himself into. "There's no need to. When I notified Kong's widow, I also sent word to a colleague of mine in Yunnan Province. He'll have guards along the entire border of Tibet, on orders to capture Tai Lung, dead or alive." At least he prayed that would happen. He had heard nothing from his colleague to suggest the message was even received by the right people.
"How do we know he'll keep his mouth shut?" Gao asked, already suspicious of the unnamed colleague.
"Because I paid him an indecent sum to get the job done and not tell anyone," Zang hissed, implying that that was as much as they needed to know. "Once we have word that Tai Lung is no more, we can move forward with Phase Two."
"What's Phase Two?" Liu whispered.
"That's on a need to know basis," Zang said. "And as the saying goes, you don't need to know." Truthfully, not even Zang knew what Phase Two was, but he was confident he would know what to do when the time came. For now, he would keep playing the bluff, hoping that no one would call him on it.
Behind the closed door, Quon felt dually dizzy and nauseous for two completely different reasons. Dizzy because of the head injury, of course, but nauseous from the anxiety that suddenly spiked in his veins. He had limped from the bed to press his ear to the door to see what his comrades were talking about. He expected them to be complaining about his injury slowing them down and jeopardizing their plans. He had not signed up for this. He thought he was just bringing a criminal into justice, to stand trial for a crime. No one had ever said anything about murder!
He'd had a feeling from the get-go that Captain Zang wasn't telling him the whole truth, but Quon was used to that. As Zang had said, most of the time in the military, if you didn't need to know about it, you didn't know about it, and you certainly never questioned authority about whether they knew about it.
Quon carried himself back to the bed and slumped down into it as a wave of dizziness made him lose his balance. The bed creaked loudly beneath him, and he knocked over the pewter water pitcher on the nightstand. Stifling a curse, he heard footsteps at the door. Quon prayed that it would be someone agreeable...
"Quon?" Corporal Liu whispered, poking his head into the room. "Are you okay?"
The tiger came up with a quick lie: "I was trying to get some water, the pitcher's almost empty, and I just got really thirsty suddenly..."
"Did you just try walking to the door?"
"...I got dizzy again and had to lie down or I would've passed out. I'm sorry, sir."
Liu stepped into the small room and placed a hand over Quon's forehead. The tiger recoiled a little from his touch, even though it was a gentle one, wincing as his head throbbed. His head hurt too much for him to hope that Liu took his sweaty brow for fever and not fear.
"Your head hurts again?"
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Stop apologizing, Cadet."
"Yes, sir, Corporal."
Liu picked up the pitcher and walked back to the door. "Are you nauseous too?"
Was he ever. "Yes, sir."
"I'll get Master Mantis or Master Monkey for you. If I can't find them, I'll find whatever healer this palace has. You'll get better, Quon, don't worry."
When Liu closed the door behind him, he left it open a crack to allow a thin sliver of light in. Quon heard him explain to his superior officers "It sounds like a migraine, but he really needs a doctor...when I felt his forehead, it felt like he's running a fever."
"Fever?" Gao asked. "How bad?"
"Burning hot to the touch, incredibly pale, labored breathing, his clothes and the sheets are soaked with perspiration...Captain, I don't think the dizziness is related to the head injury; Quon's really sick."
Quon heard Zang raise his voice and order "Get Master Mantis, now. I don't care if you have to drag him out of Shifu's clutches."
It was an odd paradox, Quon thought as he heard Liu vacate the other room in search of a doctor. Zang Deshi was perfectly fine with murdering a married man and father-to-be whether or not he was guilty of a crime, but when it came to a worthless Cadet, no expense was too great to save him? Or maybe Zang was just concerned Quon had a communicable disease that he could catch. Judging from the horse's recent testimony, Quon was willing to bet he was more concerned with saving his own skin that his underling's health.
Not too long after, Master Monkey was the one to come into the room, bearing a bag of herbs he had taken from Mantis's room. The simian examined the tiger carefully, looking at his eyes, nails, tongue, and gently applied pressure to the feline's temples to ease the blinding migraine. Monkey was even kind enough to jump out of the way and provide a bowl for Quon when he hunched over and vomited. Monkey gave him some ginger to chew on as he continued to look him over. Finally the kung fu master and part-time healer packed up his bag and left a parting shot to Quon, "Just the migraine; I've left some herb packets to make into tea, and that should ease the headache and the stomachache. Try drinking more herbal teas; your anxiety level is through the roof! You should really learn to relax."
Quon didn't say anything to that. He just accepted a drink of water and fell asleep. Just like another tiger that same night, his sleep was anything but restful.
Yeah, a lot going on here. Not really much to say or explain. Except for the following: Sonam's lines 'I'm sorry honey, I don't know what I was thinking, It will never happen again' are taken right from family lore; its what my dad always told my mom when he did something she didn't like. The "knitting pattern" Mei Xing memorized is...actually, one I memorized too XD for a shawl I made, that does make a "candlelight" motif in the stitching. Considering Tai Lung's new position, and the fact that the kid's sure to be as much of a hellraiser as its parents, I thought it would be appropriate ;) . And Lang's training with the log for miles and hours on end is actually based on real training employed by Russian Special Forces...I've seen documentaries on these guys; they're hard-core. Aside from that, not much in the way of author notes. Hope you enjoyed, the next chapter will come soon!