2. Memories

Yin Yu blinked. A bad feeling plagued her stomach. When she realized she had been dreaming, she calmed down again. She felt tears on her cheeks. Had she really cried? She sat up and wiped her face. She didn't always have these nightmares from her childhood, but they still happened from time to time.

"Yin-Yu?" she heard a whispering voice next to her, closely followed by a tired, quiet sigh and groan. "Are you okay?" He had to cough.

Slowly, Yin-Yu turned to Shen, who was lying next to her in the large bed and trying to suppress the next urge to cough. Yin-Yu looked down at him worriedly. In the past few years, Shen had rarely gotten sick, but now it occurred more often and she feared it had something to do with his recurring immune deficiency, even though he took his medication regularly.

"No, no, everything is fine," she reassured him and laid down next to him. "They were just dreams. Did I wake you?"

Shen rubbed his face. "I was dozing anyway." Another hoarse cough escaped him.

Yin-Yu reached out to him with her wing and stroked his forehead. A thick scarf was wrapped around his long neck, but it didn't seem to provide much relief.

"How are you feeling?" she asked carefully, as if she was afraid her voice would hurt his ears.

"My throat is still a little itchy," Shen answered hoarsely.

Yin-Yu nodded understandingly. "I'll get you something to relieve you."

She got out of bed, put on a dressing gown and went to a dresser where there were all sorts of bottles and glasses. Yin-Yu had to squint several times to read the labels with her still sleepy eyes. The old Soothsayer, who had now called herself just Ān-Mā, had provided as much as she could for Shen's treatment. She came back with a filled glass. Shen had struggled to sit up in bed and was patiently waiting for her to return. When she handed him the glass, Shen gratefully took it from her.

"I'm so glad that I have you," he croaked.

Yin Yu sighed. "I wish my father could have said the same about me."

Shen looked at her in surprise. This was the first time that she spoke about her father in a long time. She usually avoided this topic. And anyway, they barely got around to talking about it openly. A lot had happened since their reunion. Especially last summer when Shen learned that he had a missing brother, and to make matters worse, Xiang turned out to be his stepbrother. At this thought, Shen's anger rose again. He had promised to try for a reconciliation, but inside he couldn't feel forgiveness.

Shen shook off this train of thought. He had to try to cope with it. Even though the whole event was several months ago and it was slowly getting to be spring outside, he couldn't use the "short" time as an excuse. Gently, he swung the liquid in the glass back and forth. So much had happened in his family, but he knew next to nothing about Yin-Yu's family. And when he asked her about it, she put him off until a "later, more convenient time" and she blocked him. But Shen had never dared to push her. He respected her confidentiality and that she never wanted to be reminded of her past again.

"I guess, you were happy that you were away from home, weren't you?" Shen dared to ask this question, watching Yin-Yu's reaction closely. Her wings twitched a little, signaling that he had hit a sore spot.

"I was just thinking out loud," he tried to soothe.

Yin-Yu was silent for a moment. Then she sat down next to him on the edge of the bed without saying a word.

"Yes," she said quietly, "yes, I was."

Shen hastily placed the glass on the bedside table and reached for her wing, rubbing his finger feathers against hers in a sign of reconciliation. It seemed to work. Yin-Yu looked at him and smiled slightly. Shen returned the gesture, but then he had to cough again.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, reached for the glass and drank it in one gulp. "Now of all times I had to catch a cold."

She giggled. "You know, this reminds me of something."

"To what?"

He winced as she began to rub her finger feathers against his. "It reminds me of after we first met. Do you remember? * We together, in a cave? You wanted to watch me to see whether I would spy on you. You slept in bed, I slept in a corner. That evening I was coughing non-stop until you got up." She looked away ashamed. "Were you angry with me when I coughed so much and kept you awake?"

Shen raised the corners of his beak. "At first…admittedly, I was annoyed. But you couldn't do anything about it. You had a really bad cold."

She sighed as if she was relieved to hear it. Shen looked at her in surprise as she crawled onto the bed and lay down next to him. "But then you came to me and kept me warm." She placed her head on his upper body – like long ago.

At first Shen was a little confused, then he smiled. "I still remember that well. You were very shy at first."

Yin-Yu looked up at him. "I wasn't used to lying next to a man."

"Understandable." Gently, he stroked her beak with the tips of his finger feathers. "I wasn't friendly to you at first either. But besides the wolf pack, there was never anyone I could trust."

Yin-Yu lowered her gaze and let her head rest on his chest again. "To be honest, neither do I. It was the first time I had left the palace. I had also never been on my own before. Everything was so strange… so different."

They were silent for a while until Shen broke the silence with a sigh. "Hmm, it was a big change for me too, not having a permanent place of residence until I eventually decided on the place in the mountains."

He noticed her looking up at him again. Her look was compassionate. Normally he hated such looks from others, but he made an exception for Yin-Yu because she had been in the same situation as him.

He wrapped his wings around her. "It was probably fate that we met in the mountains."

Yin-Yu inclined her head. "Do you think so?"

"It doesn't happen every day that a peacock meets a beautiful peahen in solitude who got lost in the snowstorm, does it?"

For a moment, Yin-Yu lowered her gaze. "Well, to be honest, I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with this area."

Shen raised his eyebrows in surprise as Yin-Yu continued, "Well, the location where you wanted to build your factory was a dilapidated building, wasn't it?"

Shen nodded. "The old abandoned property in the mountains, yes. I wanted to expand it. That was the best place for my plan to build a factory." **

"Well, I had seen this place and this building somewhere before…"

"Where?"

Yin Yu blinked. There was her father again and that painting where he had been sitting in front of it…

"That's unimportant. But I had seen it before, and when I ran away from home I had assumed that it would have been the best refuge for me. But I was probably wrong. It probably wasn't such a coincidence that the guards found me there."

She winced slightly as he gently stroked the tips of his wings over her neck. "Why didn't you call for me when they abducted you?"

"You know why I didn't do that," she breathed. "I was too afraid for you at that moment. You don't know my father. If he had known that we were as good as married to each other, he would definitely have executed you."

Shen looked at her skeptically. "Did you really think, that he would have done that?"

She looked at him seriously. "Yes, I would have thought he could do that."

From her voice, Shen could hear that she really believed it. Sighing, his facial expression turned into deep sadness. "Still, you didn't have to make such a big sacrifice."

He stroked her back. She, in turn, pressed herself against him like a little child.

"I don't know," she whispered dejectedly. "We were so young back then. We had just learned to stand on our own two feet. Maybe we made a lot of wrong decisions back then. Maybe everything would have been completely different. Maybe then things would never have come to this with my mother…" She faltered. "The children... our children weren't born yet back then... and she wanted to kill them."

Shen winced when he felt her hugging him tightly, as if she were afraid of something.

He calmly pushed his wings under her face and lifted her head so that she had to look in his face. "You shouldn't blame yourself," he said calmly but firmly. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect them. Instead, you had to do it alone." He felt her body tremble slightly.

Finally, Yin-Yu raised one wing and pressed one of his wings harder on her face. "Even though I hated her, it was still terrible to see her dead on the floor."

Shen narrowed his eyes as he saw tears forming in her eyes. He let go of her face and forced her to lie on his neck.

"I wish I had spared you this," he said, causing Yin-Yu to lift her head to look at him again.

Shen narrowed his eyes at her worried look. "I've seen corpses often enough," Shen confirmed his statement. "It wouldn't have been difficult for me." He sighed and stroked her forehead. "It was self-defense. You had no other choice."

Sadly, Yin-Yu sank back onto Shen's body. "I could have tried to run away," she breathed bitterly. "I just didn't make it."

He stroked her back again. "But if you hadn't done it, we wouldn't have adult children now. Our first children."

They looked at each other. Shen smiled. Gently, he stroked her face, then her shoulders. "You look beautiful, like you did that night."

Yin Yu sat up. Shen looked at her with such fascination, as if he had only just now realized what a beautiful woman was sitting in front of him. Especially in the same bed with her.

Shen leaned towards her. Yin-Yu held still so that he could calmly stroke her neck and shoulders with his wings. But just as she thought he was about to take off her dressing gown, he let his wings rest on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. "I promise you one thing," he began matter-of-factly, "you will never have to be unhappy again. You're too beautiful to be sad."

He raised his wings and encompassed her face. Yin-Yu's body tingled and it didn't take long for their beaks to come closer to each other. But before there was any contact, Yin-Yu pushed Shen back onto the pillow and stroked his chest.

"You won't win me over that easily this time," she bantered, nibbling his neck with her beak while continuing to stroke his chest. Shen enjoyed her caress for a while. He might have started purring like a cat, but then he unintentionally started coughing violently. He turned to the side to breathe better until, after a few gasps, he thought his lungs were finally clear again.

Yin-Yu looked at him worriedly. "Shall we postpone the planned family gathering?"

Shen cleared his throat forcefully and seemed to think for a few seconds. "No," he finally gasped, stifling another coughing fit. "Shenmi is really looking forward to it. She doesn't talk about anything else anymore. I don't want to take away her… anticipatory excitement."

Yin-Yu tilted her head doubtfully. She had the impression that Shen would have preferred to cancel. He still wasn't particularly good with Xiang, who was reluctant to be persuaded to come with Liu and Xiu. At least, Dao had promised to be there, too. And Yin-Yu also hoped that Shen's direct brother could dampen the tension between the two half-brothers.

"But the children will definitely have a lot of fun," she tried to lift Shen's spirits. "Zedong would like to train with Dao. And think about Xiu. The company of others will definitely do her good. Maybe we'll have a meeting like this more often in the future. Maybe at least once a year. And who knows, maybe our children's children too. Just imagine we could become grandparents one day."

Shen's face froze. Yin-Yu looked at him in shock.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Shen looked to the side and shook his head slightly. "No, I was just thinking about something." Before Yin-Yu could ask him, he answered the reason on his own. "It's just that Shenmi always talks about her grandfather so often. She is always excited about him. I just wonder whether he would have been thrilled with her, too."

He looked at her. Yin-Yu caught his gaze in shock. "So you're wondering how your father and mother would have reacted if they had known they had become grandparents?"

Shen adjusted himself in bed and leaned his back against the wall of the bed frame with the pillow, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Sometimes I think about it."

There was a silence. Finally, Yin-Yu leaned against him encouragingly. "I'm sure they would have been happy."

Shen was less convinced. "I don't know. How would things have been with your father? Do you think he would have been happy about his grandchildren...?" He paused. He talked about her father again.

At first he didn't dare to look at Yin-Yu. But he had noticed that she had moved away from him a little. "I'm sorry," he apologized hastily.

He dared a sideways glance at her. But Yin-Yu didn't seem angry, but she still made a bitter impression. "I never meant anything to him," she answered calmly. "I don't think he would have been interested in my children."

She turned away from him and sat on the other side of the bed. Shen cursed himself for his slip-up. He thought feverishly about changing the subject.

Finally, he got up and wrapped his wings over her shoulders, snuggling against her back. "Listen, as soon as the family gathering is over, we're going to take a few days off and do something alone together."

Yin-Yu looked at him in surprise. "Alone?"

Shen smiled. "Have you noticed that since we got back together, we've never spent any time alone? I want us to live again like we did on our first day. We'll just go somewhere."

Yin-Yu's eyes widened. "You want to leave Yin Yang? Without the children?"

She giggled loudly as Shen tickled her under her armpits and on her side.

"So I think of it as a kind of second honeymoon," he crooned playfully. At least Yin-Yu accepted his suggestion and in a few moments they were wrapped in the blankets. With Yin-Yu lying on her back and Shen on top of her, they looked deeply into each other's eyes. Yin-Yu stroked his face.

"Just you and me, all alone in the world?" Yin-Yu asked quietly.

Shen smiled. "Completely alone, and no one to bother us."

They rubbed their beaks together, but before things got too far, Shen had to cough again.

Yin-Yu rolled away from him. "Get well again first."

Shen raised a wing in protest. "It's just this scratchy feeling in my throat..."

He froze when Yin-Yu placed an admonishing finger feather on his beak.

"No back talk," she reprimanded him in a sweet voice. Then she sat down in bed with her back on the pillow and pointed next to her. "Come to me. You kept me warm in the past, now I'll keep you warm."

Shen raised his beak. "So I'm not that ill anymore. I'm even fit again and could go for an evening walk..."

"Don't exaggerate," she interrupted. "Ān-Mā has specifically prescribed bed rest for you. - Come on. I like doing it."

At first, Shen sat quietly. But Yin-Yu looked so inviting that he gave up after a few seconds. "You persuaded me." He pushed forward and rested his head on her torso. Yin-Yu giggled as he wrapped his wings around her waist. They cuddled for a while. Then Shen slowly became overwhelmed by the exhaustion caused by illness and fell into a dozing state.

"Yin-Yu?" he murmured.

"Hm?"

"No matter why you didn't mean anything to them back then, you will always be something special to me." He hid a part of his face in her gown as if he expected a reprimand from her. But then he rubbed his wings around her body, and she interpreted it as a gesture of forgiveness. Yin Yu smiled. She couldn't be mad at him. "It's okay," and stroked his back. "Thanks." She felt Shen's relief and how the white peacock let himself go. And it didn't take long before he fell asleep.

Yin-Yu looks at him in silence. He always wanted to appear strong, and yet sometimes he was so fragile. She hugged him gently. It was really like that time in the cave in the mountains. Even the smell of medicinal herbs was in the air. All that was missing was the snowstorm. There was still a bit of snow outside, but it would melt soon. And this thought brought her back to the previous conversation.

A family gathering, she thought, but not everyone would be there, which made her very sad. She imagined Shen's father taking little Shenmi on his lap. She would have loved to meet Shen's father. But that would remain wishful thinking for all eternity. But maybe Shen was right after all and it was probably for the best that he never found out about his grandchildren. However, she would prefer Shen's father to her own father. She couldn't even say for sure whether he was still alive. Since she and her mother left Jingang City and moved to Medong City, she had never heard from him again. He hadn't even reacted when her mother "died." It was probably one more reason that she never contacted him. He didn't want to know anything about her, so it was probably a good thing that she never got in touch. Shenmi was the only one who had once asked her about her second grandfather. But Yin-Yu had refused to tell anything about him or to invite him and simply put her off until "maybe later".

Yin-Yu sighed wistfully. As much as she would like to ask her father, it was probably best for all and everyone that he never found out about her family. Especially since she didn't know how he would react to Shen. In the eyes of many, he was still a former enemy of the state.

At that moment, Shen made coughing noises again, but immediately he calmed down again. Yin-Yu lowered herself a little closer to him.

Whatever happens, she thought, I will protect you.

She gently rested her cheek on his.

"Sleep well, my love. I will never leave you alone again."

* The Last War, flashbacks in chapters 6, 8, 10, 11.

**To avoid any misunderstandings, the factory building in the "Kung Fu Panda 2" movie is NOT the same building in the mountains where Shen found Yin-Yu in "The Last War"! How Shen came to the factory in the movie and what happened with his first factory, it will be explained in this story soon.