AN: Wow, it's been forever since I updated this. Short chappie this time. Sorry!
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Chapter 18: What the Other Self Said
Tai Lung felt, more than heard, the groan that accompanied his return to wakefulness. It reverberated from deep within his chest, resounding through his bones and throat, and tickled the inside of his nose oddly. So.. he still existed in some way? With an awkward grunt, he turned his head to blearily take in his surroundings. He was lying in a depression in a cold, hard, stone floor, someplace with a cold temperature and poor lighting.
Terrific.
He let his weary eyes drift back towards being closed again, unimpressed with his surroundings. He'd been having a dream, he thought, allowing his brow to crease with the effort of remembering. Something about his master, and a small child...? A warm day, that somehow chilled him more than the cold stone he was resting on.
"You're going to lie there forever?"
The soft, unexpected voice caused him to jump in alarm. He sensed no presence, and once he scrambled to his unsteady feet, he could see nothing except the rough, sheer stone walls that surrounded him and the rubble strewn across the broken, uneven ground. His heart hammered unsteadily in his chest as he tried to identify the intangible source of the sentence. A large outcropping of rock, skewed at an odd angle as though it were sinking into the stony ground, across the dimly-lit chamber drew his attention. It was the only place that someone could conceivably be lying in wait for him that he would not see them coming.
So.. why couldn't he sense their presence?
Frustrated, he stalked towards the hiding place, carefully placing his steps so that he didn't disturb the myriad small rocks littering the uneven floor. He paused, when he thought he was close enough. His muscular body tensed. His tail twitched in anticipation once.. twice... The pupils of his firey eyes dillated. He leapt effortlessly throught the air, landing with barely a sound on his chosen stony perch to glare down at the invader..
..But there was nothing there.
With a roar of confusion and rage, Tai Lung struck out at the impassive stone with his fists, bringing them down on the rock with all of the force he could muster in his dazed, confused state. He was only three blows into his knuckle-scarring tantrum when he noticed his guest.
The short figure stared up at him, apparently unimpressed, with a face he had not seen since he was approximately eight years old. The large eyes blinked slowly, evaluating their target, and a soft, disgusted sound escaped the tiny figure as it turned to walk away from him, small feet making nary a sound in the loose gravel scattered over the ground.
Tai Lung weakly reached out towards the retreating shape, finally managing to call after him in a weak stammer.
"W-wait!"
The smaller one paused, glancing back once more with an inquisitive expression, but said nothing.
"Why.. What are you?"
The other gave him an expectant look, as though demanding to know just exactly why it wasn't glaringly obvious what he was. The faint ghost of a smile briefly touched the small face.
"You look.. like... me?"
The eight year old apparition of Tai Lung gave a soft, cocky snort and crossed his short, still somewhat chubby arms as he gave the older cat an evaluating once-over.
"I am you. It's pretty obvious, isn't it?"
The cub sighed and grumbled unhappily, kicking at a random pebble and looking as though he'd like to be doing something, anything other than being there talking to the apparently rather slow-witted older version of himself.
"I knew the mind slowed down as it aged," the youngster finally murmured, allowing his shoulders to slump in defeat, "but I thought we had at least until sixty before it started happening to us." The cub shook his head and glared up at the dumbfounded adult.
"I am you. And you.. well, you were once me. You've been looking a bit more savage and a lot less fun lately, though." The small creature circled the larger, evaluating the leopard with a gaze that seemed oddly penetrating. Tai Lung shifted uneasily under the stare. Finally, the small one paused, nodding in satisfaction. "It looks like you've passed the first test, the acknowledgement of responsibility and the reflection of epiphany. It was a pretty easy test, but it looked like you had some problems. If you listened to Master Shifu more, you would have figured it out much more quickly."
"WHAT?" The adult leopard's face twitched at the mention of his former master's name in undisguised antipathy.
The cub's annoyed expression hardened. "What, do you want me to use smaller words? You managed to get out of the Astral Plane by accepting fault for your actions and allowing yourself to feel guilt over them. You saw yourself as others had seen you. You didn't like it. You saw what your faults had turned you into."
The older cat nodded slowly, and his young reflection mouthed a quick 'thank you' to the gods.
Tai Lung felt his massive hands clenching into fists and forced himself to relax. He was, he reminded himself, completely reliant on this odd apparition at the moment. "So.. what happens now? Where am I if I'm no longer in the Astral Plane? And.. why are you, a younger version of myself, here?"
The cub folded his short arms behind his head and leaned back against the rough stone wall, almost fading from sight in the dim lighting.
"Oh.. well that's simple. You're back in the mortal realm. But.. you're still sort of stuck." The young Tai Lung's grin managed to look a little more apologetic than cocky for once. "You see.. like Master Shifu's always saying, the most important thing is balance." An odd look of concern flitted nervously over the cub's face. "You *do* remember that, don't you? You know.. light and dark, up and down.. you remember, right?"
At the adult's bursque nod, the youngster continued. "You took on a lot of guilt when you fell off of your self-assured cloud up there Astral-side. Think of it sort of like soul-weight. That's why you're down here. You fell, and were drawn to a place with similar energies to what you took on- you've acknowledged your fault, but you haven't accepted it, atoned for it and purified it from yourself... So that's why your heart feels so heavy.." He grinned suddenly, indicating their setting and the deep crater that Tai Lung had awakened in with a wave of his hand. "..And it's why you made such a deep dent in the ground."
The knowing way that the cub said this made Tai Lung feel anxious, suspicious, even. He didn't care if this kid was him in some way, he didn't like the smart-mouthed little brat.
"So.. unless you want to spend the rest of your life down here in the hole your guilty soul dragged you down into..." the cub gestured up towards the faintly glowing point of light high above them with a smile. "I suggest you get to work climbing out of it."
Tai Lung stared up at the nearly-sheer walls, agog with an eerie feeling of deja vu and hopelessness.
"You must be joking. There's no way I can climb that! Why should I listen to a brat like you, anyway?"
The cub sighed. "Well, you're sure not climbing it by standing there complaining. I'd think you'd be happier to see me than that other you that you faced before, though. We're both aspects of you. We're always with you. The side that wants power and to dominate everything around you, and the side that wants to build instead of destroy."
The child-version of Tai Lung looked down at his small hands and shook his head sadly. "You haven't let me out in a long, long time, in case you hadn't noticed. This is about how old you were when you stopped listening to me and started listening to him instead. I think it's stunted my growth." After a thoughtful pause, he added "And yours."
The warrior didn't inquire as to the cub's meaning, instead he engaged himself with examining the steep walls of the pit they were in. There was no readily apparent way out, it was like a prison. His eyes dillated in shock as the reason for the nagging feeling of deja vu that he'd felt since he awakened revealed itself. He was back in Chorh-Gom prison. He was certain, down to the last finely-spun fiber of his soul, that was true. After all the work getting out of this hellhole, he was trapped within its' ruin once more. With an agonized cry, he sank down to his knees.
"Damn it all!" His fist pounded the cracked stone beneath his feet.
The cub version of himself strolled over, eyeing him curiously. "It's not hopeless, you know. You've gotten out of here before. And it was much harder then."
"Harder then?" Tai Lung snarled, knocking the cub aside. He squinted upwards, finally picking out the small outcropping that denoted the one-time exit to the cell.
The cub easily took the momentum of the blow and rolled with it, rebounding skillfully off of the stone wall and launching himself back into Tai Lung's midsection. The snow leopard, not anticipating the movement, was knocked off of his feet with a startled sound as his breath was knocked out of him.
From his now-familiar vantage point on the ground, the leopard reflected that this defeat was doubly humiliating since the rebound had been one of his own favorite moves as a youngster. He really should have anticipated as much from an apparition of his childish self.
"Now look," the young Tai Lung lookalike instructed with a sigh. "This isn't helping you or me at all." The cub leaned forward, staring significantly into the large leopard's eyes. "Don't forget, regardless of which one of us you fight, you're still only fighting yourself. Stop sulking at take a look around you. The walls are cracked now, there are handholds. Use your hands and your feet, forget about all the fancy moves and just pull yourself out."
Tai Lung gasped for breath, glaring at the impudent small form sitting impassively on his chest. "That'll take too long."
The cub smiled. "You have an audience somewhere that you have to make?"
The adult growled in the annoyed negative. "You remind me far too much of-" he caught himself awkwardly in the middle of the thought and reworded it. "..Of my former master." He sighed in relief as the child-like version of himself hopped down, allowing him to breathe once more. The little imp chuckled ruefully. "You say that like it's a secret who Master Shifu is. You stopped yourself as though you could prevent us from thinking about it. And you don't remind yourself enough of him these days... do you? That's why what I say bothers you so much, isn't it?" The youth snickered childishly. "That, and the fact you've basically been talking to yourself for the past hour."
Tai Lung thrust a hand into a handy crevasse in the stone wall and flexed his muscles into a tight fist, beginning the arduous task of ascending the intimidatingly high stone wall. "Shut up," he advised the cub. The supposed youngster cackled at that, and vanished from view.