Chapter Thirty-Eight: Voyaging the Elysian Teal
The ethereal sea stretched out in every direction, its teal waters shimmering under the ever-present glow of the golden sky above. Adrift on the currents of celestial happenstance, Tigress pressed on alone in the void. Heavenly floral petals of black and white lotuses drifted freely amidst the waves, swaying ever so slightly as she strode between them. Her determination drove her onward through the boundless expanses.
The Realm of the Prophetically Cursed. That was what Shen had called it. If the curse in question had been one of sheer monotonous boredom, then this place had been aptly named.
He said I'm cursed… cursed from death. Isn't that just rich.
While Tigress did not regret taking leave of the Lord of Gongmen, she wished the peacock had been more forthcoming about the nature of this confounding place. She coursed weightlessly over the cerulean liquid beneath her, casting back a steady wake of ripples as she pushed onwards. Motivated by frustration more than anything else, she would not stop until she had found the elusive ruler of this place - the Wind Lord himself, Fei Lian.
With seemingly all the time in the world, the tiger master had ample opportunity to summon every recollection of the mysterious deity. Not having expected to cross paths with a literal god, she could be forgiven for never paying much attention to the childhood stories and legends that surrounded the tales of the Wind God. But if the tumultuous events as of late were the doing of such an infamous troublemaker, it certainly made a good bit of sense.
Tigress' thoughts were interrupted by a sudden shockwave as something shot past her - accompanied by a blinding flash. The surface of the waves trembled into the distance, before settling just as quickly. As she had been moving at a fair pace herself, Tigress was amazed by the speed of whatever it had been.
She came to a halt at last, and for a moment, the void surrendered nothing.
A rumble in the distance grew stronger as the waves began to solidify into a reflective blue ice, the frozen sheet rapidly expanding towards the tiger master. Unsure of herself, she took a half-stride back, relieved to watch as the ice stopped just before it reached where she stood. What sounded like an abbreviated note from a guqin struck out against the hollow silence of the void, and a crystalline mist spat forth a figure just opposite herself.
It was a fox of sorts, and an unusually tall one by Tigress' reckoning. This new arrival to the accursed realm boasted cimmerian black fur which contrasted strikingly against their flowing white garments. The sharp-eared mammal seemed to survey the tiger for a brief moment before speaking.
"Greetings, warrior of the Mortal Realm." the black fox acknowledged, its tone of speaking having revealed it was female. "What brings you to The Realm of the Prophetically Cursed?"
Tigress was somewhat taken aback by the directness of the question, as the sudden appearance of this interloper had left her with no small number of questions herself.
"I am Tigress, a master of the Jade Palace. I am here because I-"
Now that she came to think of it, having to say this aloud felt strange.
"I fell in battle."
The fox tilted her head slightly in understanding, but did not speak.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" Tigress eagerly asked back.
"I am Sabik." the black fox answered with a bow, "I am not of this realm, but for now I serve its interests."
"So you work for Fei Lian, then?"
Sabik grinned, "I have many such clients. The Wind Lord is but one of them."
Tigress remained silent as she folded her arms, unmoved by what she was hearing.
"I suspect you may have need of my services - for a nominal fee, of course." Sabik added tritely. "Well, actually, I know you need my services, but it's much less fun to put it that way, now isn't it?"
"And what might those services be, exactly?" the tiger asked with a twinge of annoyance.
"You seek the Lord of the Realm. It appears you require a guide who knows the ethereal plane, and I aim to provide."
Tigress was certainly enticed by a potential way out of the quagmire of this void, but also - per Shifu's instruction on a multitude of occasions - knew to be naturally cautious of anyone trying to sell you something.
"I have nothing to offer you, Sabik. As much as I would like a guide, I can't pay you." she admitted.
"Nonsense." the fox shot back, gesturing her to come closer. "Come here."
Despite her better judgment, Tigress acquiesced, moving closer to the vexing vixen.
"If you don't mind." Sabik offered, extending a paw to the tiger.
Still unsure, Tigress took the appendage into her own. At the very instant of contact, her consciousness was taken to another place and time entirely.
Warm. Quiet. The smell of freshly brewed tea. Golden hour on the horizon. A deep breath of relief released into a calming breeze. She didn't have to look around to know where she was.
Her last day at Bao Gu Orphanage.
The Mahjong tile hit the wooden table in front of where she was sitting; where there had been just one, now there were two. Tigress looked up with pure joy and excitement.
"Shifu!"
He had come back for her. Her father.
"Come. Let us go home." he answered.
A vibrant sunset. Even knowing it was a memory, Tigress felt just the same as she had all those years ago.
Just as quickly as she had arrived, her consciousness returned to where she had been before as she released her grip from the fox's paw. The tiger looked around to see the vision had passed, and was disappointed to see it go.
"What… What was that?"
Sabik had drawn back somewhat, apparently having savored the vision somehow.
"Ahhh, that was an especially good one! And here you thought you had nothing to offer me!" the fox practically squealed.
Realizing what the implication was, Tigress shook off the vulnerability of her nostalgic embarrassment, "What did you do - is that what you wanted?!"
"Please be at ease," Sabik raised her arm in reassurance. "You must understand, the only thing of real value in this place is memory. Memory is all that is left."
Tigress' frustration diminished, looking around again at the void and somberly acknowledging the truth in the fox's words.
"Your fee is paid." Sabik added, breaking the quiet once more. "You seek Fei Lian. His sanctum lies on the far reaches of this realm. The void is endless - but fortunately, I know a few shortcuts."
"Shortcuts?"
The fox smiled, the ice sheet she stood upon now expanding under Tigress as well.
"Yes."
To the tiger master's dismay, the ice began to cast up intermittent sparks, the air around them palpably charged with phantom voltage. Her eyes widened in fear, but before she could even speak a word in protest, a white hot flash of mythic lightning consumed her and the fox, and they were both being launched across the spiritual void at unfathomable speed.
Sudden glimpses of numerous far-flung strata of the Spirit Realm flashed before their eyes, all of it nothing like anything Tigress had ever seen before. Any semblance of her corporeal form was gone, and yet she still felt wholly present as the whirlwind passed her by. This went on for some time, each interlude of supernatural milieu more ridiculous than the one preceding it; the thousands of unrecognizable faces of the prophetically cursed soared by, much too quickly for Tigress to discern any meaningful detail. Finally, a loud crack of thunder sounded out around them, and they came to a standstill once more.
"Perhaps-" Tigress panted, "Perhaps a word of warning next time?"
The fox just shrugged, "It cannot harm you."
"Sure - but I didn't know that!"
"I swear, you folk in this dimension sure can be irritable at times." Sabik scoffed.
Having recovered her senses somewhat, Tigress took the opportunity to survey their surroundings. The infinite teal sea remained, but here there were noticeable disturbances - rock outcroppings with fragmented structures ornamenting their jagged surfaces protruded from the waves, and in the far distance she could see some of these great earthen masses floating aimlessly about the horizon. It was strangely comforting to the tiger master that this detail reminded her of how Po had once described his own impressions of the Spirit Realm. At the very least, it was a break from the monotonous emptiness she had been stuck in before. Looking down briefly, she could see the same ice from before quickly receding away under their feet.
"What was that anyway, just now? Some kind of sorcery?" she questioned, returning her focus to the fox.
Sabik had since produced an ivory-colored abacus, flipping the beads of the counting tool back and forth as part of some sort of tedious calculation.
"No… not that one… if I just…" she trailed off to herself, apparently having disregarded Tigress' query. "Ah yes of course, then we'll be back on track."
Her frantic efforts with the counting frame were interrupted as Tigress stuck a claw between two of the beads right as the fox had slid them.
"Ahem."
Looking up and seeing the look on the tiger's face, and realizing she could not return to her calculations without answering, Sabik finally resigned herself to her patron's curiosity.
"My counterpart - he likes to call it Riding the Lightning." the fox said, still moving the beads to and fro. "Which I think is ludicrous, by the way. We're not actually riding it, per se - and it is most definitely not lightning. But that's neither here nor there. Especially not here - which is nowhere, of course."
With as little sense as any of that had just made to Tigress, she elected to drop the inquiry. Still observing the strange white-robed dark fox and her odd mannerisms as she used the abacus, the tiger master decided to pry at something else.
"So let me guess - this counterpart of yours must surely be a white fox who wears black."
"Correct." Sabik confirmed, not having looked up. "Have you seen him before?"
Tigress smiled a little; this ridiculousness was even starting to get a little predictable.
"No, I have not."
"Shame. He would love to meet you. He's a bit busy at the moment though, so I'm stuck doing all the work here."
"Fascinating. And what about this," Tigress gestured to the abacus, "is his black since yours is white?"
"What?" Sabik had to pause her calculations momentarily, now thoroughly annoyed at these trivial questions. "No, he has no use for one of these - and they only came in astral alabaster for whatever reason."
"That's just a dumb way of calling something white." Tigress deadpanned.
Sabik's brow furrowed.
"You know it's actually carved from the remains of an extremely rare time-distorting clam species - but I mean, who really cares, right?" the vixen fired back. "Do you wish to see the Wind Lord, or not?"
"Was that a threat?" Tigress huffed. "I'm pretty much dead already, guess you must have forgotten that part."
At that moment, Sabik was finally able to finish her quantitative work, exasperated from the numerous delays; the ice sheet had begun to reform below them. The fox now produced an outlandish looking measuring device that seemingly calculated an angle of trajectory, eyeing it carefully. This was so far beyond Tigress' understanding that she didn't even bother to question what it was.
"Correction." the fox interjected with a raised digit. "You are not 'pretty much dead already' - your body may have been destroyed, but your chi has not yet been allowed to pass into the Spirit Realm. Very important distinction."
"Ah, then tell me how-"
Tigress didn't get the chance to finish, being cut off once more by the sudden rush of bright energy launching them across the expanses of the realm.
Perfect. This again.
The nauseating dash across oblivion was somewhat longer this time, and Tigress was greatly relieved to see it come to an end with another white flash and rumbling of thunder. The ice receded away once more, and again the two stood atop the glass surface of the teal waters.
Glancing up ever so slightly, the tiger saw that they were near the base of an extravagant temple complex boasting numerous towers rising proudly up from the jagged rocks on which they rested. The tiered structures of richly-colored redwood and lazurite stone-tiled roofs grew ever more massive as her focus was drawn to the centermost edifice - an unmistakable masterpiece of construction, a great pagoda of teal stone and bleached marble, periodically accented with gold ripples that mimicked the erratic whims of the wind.
Truly, it was the most beautiful structure she had ever seen.
"Behold, the Temple of Fei Lian." Sabik announced.
Following the towering heights back downward with her gaze, Tigress could see a pathway of stairs that led up the rocks to the temple. Scattered amongst these lithic heights were a great host of hundreds of warriors who stood resolute with ghostlike stillness, all of them wolves.
"Who are these warriors?" Tigress asked Sabik, already having her suspicions.
"They are the Five Hundred, revered slayers of the ten thousand demons of the Scarlet Moon. You probably know them better as-"
"The Tenshu Army." Tigress interrupted.
"Yes. They are neither living nor dead, as their souls remain in the mortal realm. This makes them the perfect guardians for a place such as this."
Sabik paced forward, standing between the temple entrance and the tiger master before continuing, "Not just anyone can speak with the Wind Lord. The Five Hundred protect the water margin where the Elysian Teal meets the rocks. Should you fall to their blades, you may never return to the mortal realm."
Tigress considered the fox's grim warning for a second, and then stepped toward the margin, "Fine then."
"Wait." Sabik protested, standing in her way. "There is someone who wishes to speak with you first."
"What do you mean?"
"Like I told you before, I have many clients. I have a feeling you're going to want to meet this one."
Even though she was frustratingly close to her goal, Tigress yielded to the fox, backing away. No sooner had she done so than Sabik had raised one arm, made a soft waving gesture, and the entire surrounding reality inverted on itself. The suddenness of the transition would have been quite terrifying had Tigress not already become accustomed to these sorts of things. She now found herself standing upon a sea of bright gold with an aquamarine sky above. Surrounding the tiger on all sides were small patches of land that supported groves of peach trees; the gilded liquid at her feet was ornamented with numerous pink blossom leaves.
"Take as much time as you need." Sabik said, starting to walk towards the nearest tree. "With memories as rich as this one's, I've been very well paid."
The black fox seated herself beneath the shade of the tree and between a swirl of petals materialized an ornately carved guqin before her. Without hesitation Sabik struck out the first deep notes against the strings of the instrument. Tigress had been so distracted by this display that she had hardly noticed the tortoise who now stood in front of her amidst the heavenly glade.
The tiger master saluted him at once, bowing before the ancient former Grandmaster of the Jade Palace.
Oogway regarded her with eyes that held the weight of countless lifetimes, a sense of serenity emanating from his countenance. For a while, he just smiled at his former student. Tigress remained in her respectful posture, struggling to contain the tumult of emotions that swirled within her.
"Master Oogway," she began, her voice trembling slightly with the weight of her unspoken questions and regrets, "What brings you here? What wisdom do you have for me… now that I feel more lost than ever?"
Oogway smiled with a gentle understanding, "The journey is never a straight path, old friend. It bends, it twists, and sometimes, it leads us to places we never expected. But every step has its purpose. With a soul such as yours, you are never truly lost, Tigress."
She looked up at him at last, having sorely missed their conversations that now felt as if they were from a lifetime ago.
Tigress felt a lump form in her throat.
"Master, I've always tried so hard to be what everyone expected me to be. But... I wasn't chosen as the Dragon Warrior. I accept that I wasn't meant to be the one to fulfill that destiny. But now, I've fallen in battle, and surrendered the true Dragon Warrior to a terrible fate. I feel like I've failed everyone."
Oogway's expression softened further, his gaze steady and compassionate, "Come, walk with me." he said with a motion for her to follow.
The two began to meander through the peaceful glade, the pronounced notes from Sabik's guqin reverberating through the trees.
"The mantle of the Dragon Warrior was never a measure of personal worth, Tigress." Oogway continued, "When I chose Po, it was not because you lacked the qualities of a great warrior, but because his journey was meant to intertwine with yours and the others' in a way that would bring out the best in each of you. This is something that I fear neither Shifu nor your brother ever fully understood."
Deep down, Tigress did understand, but in her heart she still felt a sense of frustration. She looked away solemnly.
"But why did you leave without telling us? Without preparing us for what was to come? When we needed you most… you were gone."
Oogway sighed, the rustling in the trees accompanying his disposition. "My departure was part of the natural order, Tigress. To stay any longer would have hindered the growth of those who were to follow. My presence was a guide - not a permanent solution. Each of you needed to find your own strength, your own way."
Tigress did her best to be satisfied with his answer, looking back at the tortoise at last - but she could not summon any more words. Sabik's tune continued on, increasing in intensity before returning to measured plucks once more.
"It has been my great honor, and privilege, to witness what you have become in my absence." Oogway consoled. "You say you have failed the others. I don't think that is true."
Tigress clenched her fists, but when she spoke it was barely above a whisper, "But it is, Master. I was so tired… but I should have persevered - I should have been stronger."
"Failure is not falling down." Oogway said, his tone firm yet kind, "It is refusing to get back up. You are here, standing before me, because you still have a purpose to fulfill. Your journey is far from over."
"I just want to do what's right." she said, her resolve gradually returning, "I want to protect my friends, my family. I want to make them proud."
Oogway reached out, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"You already have."
Tigress paused to look her old master in the eyes. A gentle breeze swept blossoms between them; a weight was lifted, and the tiger gave a genuine smile. It was the first in such a very long time.
"Thank you, Master." she said, stepping back and bowing once more as Oogway returned the gesture. "What must I do now?"
Oogway's expression grew serious.
"You must face Fei Lian. He holds the key to your journey forward, but you must be cautious. The Wind God is consumed by chaos, and his nature is unpredictable. He will attempt to manipulate you, try to exploit your fears and desires. But remember not to lose sight of who you are and what you stand for."
Tigress' eyes narrowed with determination, "I will face him, Master. I will find a way to return and help the others."
Oogway smiled with pride before speaking, "I have always believed in you, Tigress. You possess the heart of a true warrior. Trust in yourself and in the strength that comes from within, and you will have the power to overcome any challenge."
"Your guidance means everything to me, Master Oogway." Tigress said, feeling a surge of gratitude and determination well up within her. "Until next we meet."
"Until then." Oogway assured, saluting her with a gongshou gesture. "Remember that you are never truly alone."
With a final look of respect and admiration, Tigress turned to Sabik, who had since finished playing and had been watching the exchange with silent respect.
Standing tall, Tigress spoke with newfound confidence, "Lead the way to the Temple of Fei Lian. I am ready."
Sabik nodded, "As you wish."
The dark-furred vixen waved her appendage once more, and the heavenly glade vanished from their sight. In another moment, the tiger master was once more standing below the Temple of Fei Lian. She eyed the numerous defenders - the legendary Five Hundred of Tenshu. They stood ready to meet her advance, already beginning to draw their weapons.
Tigress took one final deep breath, and crossed over destiny's threshold.
Author's Notes:
- Once again, my apologies for the gap in updates; this one in particular witnessed almost an entire year and even a new movie in the franchise…
- It is worth noting that the new movie had a not-so-subtle referencing of the Dagger of Deng-Wa (Zhen does have excellent taste); my long term goal still remains to have the events of this story somehow reconnect with the canon events, so I have my work cut out for me it seems - nothing a good retcon can't fix I suppose! I'll figure something out ;)
- Also I think I should point out that the previous chapter will in all likelihood be the emotional "low point" of WoC, so I really did not intend to leave you on that note for so long but hey, life happens, I got really busy! So sorry about the wait once again
- There's a (sort of) reference in this chapter to one of the six great Chinese classic novels, Water Margin - if you've never looked into it, I highly suggest giving it a read
- The character Sabik is actually the OC of my friend CasterWay, and is making a cameo here in the Realm of the Prophetically Cursed; including her is something that was years in the making, so I am very glad to have finally done so!
- Thanks for reading - until next time!