The title says it all. Read and Review as you would normally do!
They would be ready to leave within thirty minutes.
However, there were still a couple of things that needed to be done first.
Emperor Xian was currently doing the first thing. After changing out of his flowing silken robes and into a less glamorous outfit (specifically dark red pants, a long sleeved gold vest with some light armor covering his torso, far more suitable clothing for mountain terrain), he was now giving each member of his family a heartfelt goodbye, along with one or two apologies for going away for so long.
Monkey was doing the second thing; collecting the last of the supplies from the student barracks. He was taking a lot longer than usual, so Master Shifu had sent Po to find out what was keeping him. When neither of them came back, Shifu sent Mantis. None of them had returned yet.
Shifu would have gone to retrieve them himself, but he was currently stuck doing the third and worst thing: conversing with Princess Haoxin.
"How long did you say you would be gone for, Master Tree-fruit?" she was asking, currently dressed in robes of shimmering cerulean.
"A month. Two at the most." Shifu replied, his hands clenched into fists beneath his sleeves.
"Oh dear, that is a long time is it not? You will remember to cut your mustache so it does not get even longer and catch on a stalagmite or something?"
"Yes..." Shifu hissed.
"And you will brush your beard every day?"
"Yes..."
"And you will make sure dear Tigress gets enough to eat?"
"Yeeesss..."
"Oh good!" Haoxin replied. "You know, my biggest regret this weekend is that I never got a chance to spend some proper time with her! Oh well..."
"Oh well indeed..." Shifu muttered as they stepped into the Hall of Warriors and began making their way towards the moon pool. "Is there anything else you wish to check before I begin my last minute meditation?'
"There is just one more thing, Master Pikachu..." Haoxin said. "How is your poor little bottom after that terrible business in the tailor shop?"
Sincerely wishing that Haoxin hadn't decided to bring that up, Shifu gritted his teeth for the umpteenth time before answering. Letting Mr. Ping stay in the Jade Palace had been less torturous than this.
"It's recovering." he said. "At least it no longer hurts when I sit down."
"Oh good. You know, last night during the feast, I was telling my family all about your bottom and how nicely shaped it is." Haoxin said. "They all agreed that you had aged very well, aside of course from your winkles."
"I mean no disrespect, but people tend to get wrinkles regardless of how well they age." Shifu replied. The words he uttered in his head were round about the same as what had he had just said, with a few heartfelt profanities tossed in.
"Oh yes, of course they do! Silly me..." Haoxin chuckled to herself. "That just goes to show who has the brains around here."
"Quite."
"Anyway, before I leave you to your meditating I just want to ask one more thing."
"Go on."
"How is-"
The goose was interrupted when the doors opened and Master Eagle Jr. entered.
"Master Eagle Jr." Shifu stepped forward and bowed to the fellow master in greeting. "You returned quickly."
"I once flew all the the way from the Imperial City to Qidan on the other side of China, and got back again in six hours." Master Eagle replied. "From here to the Himalayas and back within sixteen hours is nothing."
"Did you deliver the message without any trouble?" Shifu asked.
"Do you really need to ask?" The eagle chuckled. "Where may I ask is Emperor Xian?"
"He should be in the Palace Arena with the rest of the royal family." Haoxin said.
"Right. I will see you in the arena, Master Shifu. Princess Haoxin..." he excused himself and departed.
"What message was he talking about?" Haoxin asked.
"It's just a reply from the Masters' Council." Shifu replied. "Nothing for you to worry about, your highness. What were you about to ask me before?"
"Oh yes, I just wanted to know how is Tigress doing?"
Shifu blinked in surprise.
"Why do you ask?" he asked.
"Well, it is just that last night I saw her storming out the hall looking rather distressed." Haoxin's usually cheerful expression changed to concern. "I would have gone after her myself, but the Dragon Warrior had followed her out, and I figured that he would have done a better job of comforting the girl than I could."
Shifu remembered also seeing them leave early, but having been half-distracted by Master Sheep didn't pay it much mind. As he thought about it, he also realized that neither of them had returned for the rest of the night.
"So, is she alright?" Haoxin asked.
"She didn't seem that upset when we woke up this morning." he replied. "But if anything else happens I'll ask her about it."
"Please do. I do hope that whatever it was that was troubling her was not too terrible."
So do I, Shifu inexplicably found himself thinking.
"It would be such a terrible shame." Haoxin went on. "After all, it is wonderful that she became such a beautiful, king hearted young woman, considering how she was raised."
Shifu merely nodded in response.
"If I may, I would like to begin my meditation now." he spoke politely.
"Of course, Master My-Toe." Haoxin replied. "I won't bother you any longer."
With that, she excused herself and left the hall.
Shifu, immensely relieved at her departure, turned to the moon pool and sat down at the water's edge.
He closed his eyes. Took rhythmic deep breaths.
Suddenly his eyes snapped open.
He leapt to his feet and sprinted from the hall of warriors.
"Mr. Ping! Mr. Ping! Mr. Ping!"
Mr. Ping was cheerfully humming as he finished the dusting in Po's old bedroom, which for the next month or so would belong to little Su. The little girl was currently out and about, Mr. Ping having requested that she go and play somewhere while he tidied up the old bedroom. Luckily there hadn't been too much effort, aside from retrieving the countless bowls his son had stacked up when he still lived here.
Half way through sweeping the dust off of the last object in the bedroom (the throwing star embedded in the wall), Mr. Ping's smile faded. The tune he was humming fell into silence.
Two more deaths.
A chill shot up his spine.
He wished he had spoken. He wished that he had protested before Tigress had dragged Po from the noodle shop.
Mr. Ping knew he had no right to interfere. Po was the Dragon Warrior now. He had a duty to protect the innocent. Stopping him from performing that duty could create more victims.
But Tigress had said that there had been two more deaths.
"Son..." Mr. Ping whispered as he flicked the last speck of dust off the throwing star and then made his way back down the stairs. "Please be safe."
He stepped into the kitchen and picked up his B ladle. The customers would arrive at any moment.
He was lowering his ladle into the simmering pot of noodles on the stove when-
"Mr. Ping! Mr. Ping! Mr. Ping! Mr. Ping! Mr. Ping!"
The goose looked up, eyebrows raised.
"Master Shifu?"
The red panda rushed into the noodle shop, shouting Mr. Ping's name over and over. The goose blinked in surprise. This was very out of character for the grandmaster of the Jade Palace.
"What on earth is the matter, Master Shifu?"
Shifu skidded to a stop right in front of Mr. Ping. He panted several times before speaking.
"Mr. Ping... Princess Haoxin..."
"Who is Princess Haoxin?"
"A member of the royal family... Princess Haoxin has just told me that she's glad that Tigress became who she was... despite how she was raised..."
"And?" asked the very perplexed goose.
"You're a father! What does that mean?!"
"Oh! Ummm..." Mr. Ping paused in thought, unsure how best to answer that question. "I think what she means is that it is good that Master Tigress became the person she is now in spite of the environment that she grew up in."
"I know that!" Shifu snapped impatiently. "What I want to know is what is Princess Haoxin implying?"
"She probably just thought that kung fu training wasn't the best scenario for a child to be raised in." Mr. Ping replied.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Shifu retorted. "I have lived around kung fu since I was twelve years old, and look at me now!"
Mr. Ping didn't dare reply to that particular statement.
"Master Shifu..." he hesitated. "What kind of figure were you to Tigress while she was growing up? Princess Haoxin was probably referring to that."
"Master and student of course!" Shifu replied impatiently. "Our relationship was business. Nothing more."
"Really?" Mr. Ping was surprised. "I thought Po told me that you had adopted her from an orphanage."
"So? So wha-" Shifu froze, the full realization of exactly what Princess Haoxin had implied to him hitting him like a ton of bricks.
When he had travelled to Bao Gu Orphanage to deal with the 'monster' all those years ago, only several months after Tai Lung's rampage, his first thought that he was going to be dealing with a troublemaker, the bully of the orphanage. After all, that been been the impression he had been given after hearing the matron's stories. Of course, that impression had been shattered when he had gazed upon Tigress for the first time. He could still remember their first meeting. A little tiger cub sitting huddled up in one corner of the trashed, tiny dark room which she had probably been imprisoned in all her life. An aged red panda with a barely healed leg standing in the doorway of her prison, determined not to show any affection yet at the same time feeling his disapproval redirect itself towards the orphanage staff who had done this to her.
What few people but Oogway himself ever knew was that it was not love that had initially driven him to adopt Tigress, but redemption.
During the many months he had spent training her to control her strength and her temper, Shifu had begun to see some small part of Tai Lung in her. Not his arrogance, never his arrogance. But aside from strength, Tigress had also shown determination, resourcefulness, perhaps even the same wish to please her teacher. It was for this reason that over time, Shifu had gradually begun to see the girl as his second chance, his chance to redeem himself for the terrible mistakes he had made in raising his former student. And so, after completing her training and later learning that all the adults were still afraid of her, he returned to the orphanage and took her away. It was of course a good reason for his doing so... but at the same time it was also a selfish one. For more than anything, the purpose for making Tigress his student was to ease the torment in his own mind.
Shifu had known this, yet over the years, he still pushed her away, criticized her rather than praised her, unwilling to make the same mistakes he had made with Tai Lung. It was only when the first of the future Furious Five, a teenaged primate named Monkey, arrived at the Jade Palace and became her first companion that Shifu's deep internal guilt had begun to lessen. By the time that Viper, the last future member, came to the palace, that guilt had faded to a mere irritation. Yet it never completely disappeared.
And now that Princess Haoxin of all people had pointed it out...
I have to set things right.
"Mr. Ping, I need your help."
"What with?" Mr. Ping asked. During Shifu's silent epiphany, he had pulled out a pair of radishes and begun to slice them.
"I need advice on how to be a parent." Shifu said, keeping it short and to the point.
Mr. Ping stopped chopping.
"Oh my..." he uttered. "That was unexpected."
"Just help me!" Shifu snapped.
"Alright, alright! Well, I can't say much right now. The customers will be arriving soon for breakfast noodles and you will be going away for several weeks. Why don't you wait until you get back, and then we can have a good talk about this."
Shifu wanted to protest, but Mr. Ping was right.
"Fine. Is there anything you can tell me quickly before we leave?"
"Well, all I can say is that you should start relying less on what your head tells you and more on what your heart does."
Shifu stared at the goose.
"Seriously?"
Mr. Ping turned his gaze to the little picture on the right hand shelf. Shifu followed his gaze and saw the little panda cub, one of his leg wraps loose and trailing on the floor, and the younger Mr. Ping standing beside each other with warm smiles.
"It worked for me." replied Mr. Ping.
At that moment, Shifu felt a small tug on his green grandmaster's robe. He turned round and found little Su staring up at him.
"Master Shifu." she said, a scowl on her cherubic face. "I have a very big bone to pick with you."
"What's the problem?" Shifu asked, surprised to see her so angry.
"Why can't I go with you to the mountains?"
"Su, you already know why. It's too dangerous for a young girl."
"But..."
"The answer is no." Shifu replied firmly. Out of the corner of his eye, through the entranceway to the restaurant, he saw his students, Emperor Xian, Master Eagle Jr., and Di Tan, along with two supply carts carrying bags and crates. "Now please go inside with Mr. Ping."
Su wordlessly stepped into the kitchen and sat down amongst the bags of flour. Shifu flashed her an apologetic expression.
"Goodbye now, Su, Mr. Ping." he said. "We will see you in a couple of months."
With that, he left the noodle shop, passing Po on the way. He heard the panda share a heartwarming goodbye with his father complete with hugs and apologies for going away for so long.
Shifu left them to it and stood beside his students. After a moment, he heard Po ask;
"Hey, where's Su?"
Indeed, the young cub was no longer sitting by the flour.
"Oh she's probably gone upstairs." Shifu heard Mr. Ping reply. "She's probably still upset, so it'd be best not to bother her."
"Okay. Tell her we said bye. Bye, dad."
With that, Po left the shop and joined the others.
"Is everything ready?" Shifu asked.
"All the supplies are in the two carts." Master Eagle Jr. said before turning to Xian. "Shall we begin our journey, your highness?"
"We shall." Xian replied.
As the traveling party made their way through the village, Mr. Ping made his way up the stairs towards Po's old room.
"Su..." he called as he ascended. "I know you are upset, but please understand that they are only forbidding you to go because you could get hurt... Su?"
He poked his head through the opening in the bedroom floor.
"Su?"
And so the journey begins... with a cliffhanger! :)