Chapter Three: Feathers and Stripes
Crane was gaining a greater sense of pride with each brushstroke. His current artistic composition was turning out even better than he had envisioned, and suddenly the last few weeks of dedicated precision weren't looking like such a wasted effort anymore. Putting on the finishing touches, he stepped back to survey the entire piece, twirling his brush aimlessly between the talons of his outstretched leg.
The painting was of the Furious Five, naturally; but it was his first attempt at adding Po - the one who had been requesting the piece for a year - that didn't go horribly wrong. He had figured the best way to depict them all was to frame the art such that the viewer would see them up close and from below. The background had been easy enough - it was a deep striking red, divided by shooting rays of white light. Perpetually self-conscious, he had obscured his own features for the most part with his typical rice hat. At Po's request he had also given the panda similar headwear and a golden robe which, he had to admit, looked kind of badass.
With the Five each masterfully portrayed and huddled in defensive stances around the Dragon Warrior, the piece was near-perfect. Every second of its production had been pure catharsis for the bird, as artmaking was largely his only mode of emotional release. All it needed now was a fitting title which - ironically enough - was the part Crane always struggled with the most. Though he enjoyed calligraphy, he was no poet.
He started pacing up and down his living quarters, stopping to open the sliding door as the smell of the paint was by now quite strong. He was, frustratingly, still at a loss for an appropriate epithet for the artwork. Then he thought of Po, and it gave him an idea.
What's that thing Po's saying all the time? My fist hungers for battle? No… it's justice… My Fist Hungers for Justice. That's it.
He chose to write the title in strikingly exquisite calligraphy on the work itself, enclosing it perfectly between the paws of Tigress, which were outstretched in her famous Double Palm Strike. Taking a step back, he couldn't help but smile. It was a masterpiece; Po had been right from the start once again.
The avian had always looked at the foolhardy panda with admiration… or was it envy? Po just always seemed to be so carefree, hardly ever uptight or stressed, and when he was you could see it right away because the guy wore his emotions so openly; Crane secretly wished he could be more happy-go-lucky like the bear style master. When he wasn't being so reserved, the avian always became shy and nervous something fierce. He sometimes wondered if things had worked out better between himself and Mei Ling, maybe he wouldn't be this way. He found a great deal of meaning in his dedication to Kung Fu and his mastery of art, but despite what he would try to make himself believe, Crane didn't want to be alone forever.
The more he dwelled on these thoughts, the more he realized he had in common with Tigress. Sure, he wasn't an unfun hard-ass, but both of them tended to be distant, and had a degree of social illiteracy. When he thought about the feline's greatest weakness, it had always been the same as his: it was emotional. He knew all too well his own internal volatility, but with the tiger master, it was sheer process of elimination: she was invulnerable to everything else. Her famously short temper was evidence enough, but Crane's suspicions had been further confirmed when he'd witnessed Tigress' utterly crushed and defeated state when she'd thought Shen's weapon had killed Po.
The bird master owed his disillusion to being constantly haunted by past failures; but the obvious source of Tigress' was her relationship to Shifu. The dynamic was defined by the tiger's desperate need for validation from her adoptive father - that much was clear, not to mention that matters had clearly been complicated by being denied the Dragon Scroll. Even now, with Shifu having achieved inner peace, the tiger master still radiated that icy stoicism. She never engaged in idle conversation, and if she did talk to the Five, it was almost exclusively about Kung Fu and how they needed to be training more.
However, the Dragon Warrior remained an exception to the rule, for reasons that continued to elude Crane. But then again, Po had an uncanny way of changing people, and not even the perpetually-apathetic Tigress was immune to this. The panda was no-doubt oblivious to the fact that Tigress only became mildly personable around him; and for the briefest moment, Crane wondered if their relationship constituted something… more. He shook it off abruptly.
Now that was certainly an unsettling thought…
But the fact remained that Po, and Po alone, was bestowed the gracious honor of knowing she had a personality.
If I were ever to say such things aloud… He shuddered at what the consequences might be. That tiger was downright lethal, and had the temper to match.
Crane paced over to the Tigress in his painting, which he had given a full smile - in real life the rarest of sights. Then again, perhaps he hadn't given her the credit she deserves. What if fostering a sibling-like relationship with Po was her own way of trying to combat the shortcomings of her formative years? Now he just had himself confused; that was the other thing the panda was capable of. No matter what, who he was and everything he touched seemed to always become infinitely more confusing.
He truly is Oogway's successor.
The heavy steps emanating from the hallway outside announced the arrival of the panda in question. Before Crane could even turn all the way around to greet him, Po had already dropped to his knees, nearly tearing up as he gazed upon the masterstroke of artistic genius before him. He was at a total loss for words, and at first all Crane could muster for a response was his usual nervous chuckle. Struggling desperately to forget all that he had just been contemplating, he greeted Po with a respectful bow, as he was indeed quite proud of his work.
"Crane, it's... perfect!"
"Well, I wouldn't say that... You really like it, huh?"
Po nodded.
"You were right about the hat, by the way; it looks quite good on you." he added, smiling.
Crane wouldn't make eye contact with the panda master, bashfully gazing downward as he spoke instead; he hated unnecessary attention, which Po's rather noisy praise would be sure to attract before long.
Po walked up to the painting, looking closely at all the details, and trying to emulate everyone's individual poses and facial expressions; Crane just reveled once more at how the panda really was living his dream. In all honesty, so was he, but he couldn't remember a time where being at the Jade Palace had made him half as fulfilled as Po appeared each and every day. Maybe being a Kung Fu warrior was enough for him; perhaps Kung Fu truly was his greatest desire in life.
Po at last seemed to snap out of his gushing over the painting and looked to back to its creator.
"I almost forgot what I came to tell you."
"Yes?" Crane raised a brow.
The panda cleared his throat before speaking in a jokingly authoritative tone.
"I want you, Master Crane, to join me on an epic quest to liberate a priceless relic of awesomeness from the crippling jaws of anonymous ownership!" Po stopped for dramatic effect, one paw raised in a shaking fist. "Are you willing to join me in the harrowing pursuit of the Dagger of Deng-Wa?"
"So… we're going shopping for Master Shifu's relic collection, then?" Crane asked through a wry smile, trying not to laugh at his new master's excessiveness.
"Yeah, pretty much." Po said as he dropped the act; this was a much less awesome way of putting it.
"Okay, care to give any more details about where we're going, or this… Dagger of Den-what now?"
Po proceeded to tell Crane - probably with too much detail - everything Shifu had told him about the mystical weapon and its location.
"All right, I'm in. When do the two of us leave?"
"First thing tomorrow. And you mean the three of us." The panda started for the door.
"Three?"
"Yes. I'm asking Tigress to go with us." And just as quickly as he had arrived, Po was already down the hall and gone.
Crane didn't know how he felt about this journey now. For a moment there he was kind of looking forward to the simplicity of a one-on-one mission with Po. Regrettably, he was the only member of the Five that had never had the pleasure of going on an outlandish quest with just the Dragon Warrior. He had sat through more than a few stories from Mantis and Monkey about the crazy stuff Po has done when he isn't under the scrutinizing eyes of Shifu and Tigress. Having the tiger master with them was no doubt an asset, as she was a force of nature in combat, but that also meant it would be a lot less easygoing trip. She was a born leader, and that seemed to be a benefit to their team's effectiveness just as often as it was a detriment to their inner peace. Either way, he felt honored to be selected to travel with the Dragon Warrior, no matter how menial the task at hand might be, and he set about preparing for a journey.
Po knew finding the master of tiger style would be the easy part; talking her into this glorified shopping trip was another matter entirely. Even though it was everyone's day off from Po's innocently moronic training regimen, he knew she would still be trying to hone her skills. She didn't have family to go visit like Viper, she didn't have an art like Crane, and she wasn't one for relaxing around town like Monkey or Mantis. Hell, the word relaxation had been purged from her vocabulary long ago; it was just a synonym for weakness in her eyes. Her Kung Fu was like the prized sword of a master smith: it could only ever be made so sharp, but it was taken to the grindstone every day nonetheless. He had tried to introduce her to the idea that there was more to life than Kung Fu, but it was a work in progress.
A hopeless work in progress.
Po was greeted by the smell of shattered wood as he entered the training hall, meaning it had been a particularly busy day for the palace servants who had to replace the wooden warriors. Tan Xiang incense and freshly-split redwood; that was the smell of Tigress, and for most people she met, the very essence of their defeat. It was actually a rather ataractic scent, perhaps meant to lull her enemies into a false aura of calm. Rather conveniently, the striped feline appeared to have just finished for the day and was walking toward where Po had entered.
"Hey Tigress, you wouldn't mind one more fight, would you?"
Po had figured out a while back the best way to talk to Tigress was to spar with her at the same time. Straight-up discussion usually became awkward, as she didn't respond positively to Po's antics and fanboy-ism the way the rest of the masters did.
"And risk missing another chance to defeat the Dragon Warrior? Of course I don't mind." she responded assuredly, brushing tiny shards of wood from her tunic.
That confident look she gave him; in all their countless sparring sessions, Po still hadn't managed to humble it.
"You mind if we take it outside?"
She shrugged her shoulders and led the way down to the walled courtyard outside. Po couldn't help but notice the feline's tail flicking back and forth blithely as they walked down the steps. She was indeed elated to face a live opponent after a whole day of destroying hopelessly unrealistic targets; it took a live spar to actually get her blood pumping. The warriors reached the courtyard and prepared to fight.
As they faced each other down, Po looked over to see the magnificent sunset that was now coating the Jade Mountain in a lush gold tint. He thought about how far his life has come since he had crashed into the very same spot a few short years ago. He looked over at the tiger he was about to fight, the gold landscape blending perfectly to her similarly colored attire and highlighting its crimson floral patterns. She was clearly less interested in the surroundings, eyes already scanning the panda's form for weaknesses.
As Tigress assumed her ready stance, poising her tail up behind her in a precise curve, she noticed Po had an unusually wide smile for someone about to get pummeled into the ground.
"Po, are you ready?"
"Ha! I was born rea-" The first hit threw him back a fair distance.
Some things never change.
The tiger master was not holding back, but that was to be expected. Po was on his heels, as he had most certainly not been ready. He was parrying strikes as quick as he could, trying to match her lightning pace. She really was pulling out all the stops: front leg sweeps, fist and palm strikes, acrobatic midair attacks. All the while he was trying to figure out why he could never defeat Tigress when he could best someone like Tai Lung, who was of the same hard-style form of Kung Fu and significantly stronger. He had kind of beaten her when training to fight Kai by using the Wuxi Finger Hold technique, but she had also kind of beaten him by breaking the hold, something he didn't even know was possible.
He tried to favor defense a little, and it seemed to earn him some openings. But as usual, the very ground itself seemed tilted in her favor. Between heavy breaths, he started to propose the mission to her.
"So, yeah. There's this dagger, see." He dodged a roundhouse that would have probably shattered his jaw.
"Yes?"
"And, uh, Shifu wants us to go get it for the Hall of Warriors." His palm strike was countered with a redirection.
"Intriguing, truly intriguing." she voiced mockingly, delivering agile jabs at his torso.
"And we have to- oof! Wasn't ready for that one." The panda quickly regained his balance before continuing, much to the tiger's amusement. "We have to go to this town north of the Yangtze and I was wondering if you would join me and Crane."
He tried to go for one of her weak spots, namely the underarms and ears, but she intercepted his fist with an ease that humbled him. In Po's desperate attempt to talk while fighting, he had been rather careless. In a single motion, she launched him completely overhead and brought him to the ground in a body-slam that knocked the wind clear out of his lungs.
Tigress is super hardcore and all, but would it kill her to go easy on me - just once? Feels like I'm about to cough up a lung…
Struggling to catch his breath, he looked upside down at Tigress, who was smiling wide enough to make the white of her pointed fangs visible; a rare sight indeed. She gave him a bowing salute, palm-in-fist.
"I would be honored to join you, Dragon Warrior."
Tan Xiang incense and freshly-split redwood. The smell of defeat.
Author's Notes:
- Crane's painting in this chapter is based on the part of Po's opening dream sequence where Monkey says "We should hang out"
- In this story I am assuming that Crane and Mei Ling had something of an unconfessed love while at Lee Da
- Since this is the first chapter where I handle Tigress and Crane, I should explain my reasoning for how they are portrayed
- My "versions" of Tigress and Crane are based on a combination of their behavioral trends in the movies and shorts, plus my own interpretation of their respective psychological personas; I see them both as somewhat emotionally volatile individuals for the reasons discussed in this chapter
- Writing this chapter forced me to really think about these characters a lot, but I may have missed something obvious
- The thought "Some things never change" was left intentionally vague as to who was actually thinking it; depending on how you see it, either of them (or both) could be thinking this in that moment
- Thanks for taking the time to read!