Lover with Wings

Chapter 5: The sins of Vison

When morning came, Shen had already been up since dawn. He was looking through reports he hadn't gotten to the day before. When all was in order, he left his pagoda to inspect the cage. He was pleasantly surprised to see it was still occupied.

 Christine and Lian were still in their cage. Even though the door was unlocked she decided it better to stay than try to leave. The wolves had her outnumbered, so escape was rather pointless. Plus, she didn't want to risk the chance of lian getting hurt.  She was laying on her back and was watching the clouds float by while lian was was playing on the bars. She heard Shen come by. She only recognized it was him by the knives scraping against the ground.  She turned her head only to see him walk by like nothing happened last night. christine just frowned, shook her head and continued looking at the clouds.

  This went on for about a week. Shen would be almost gentlemanly one day and act like nothing ever happen the next. christine realized he was leading her on, trying to mess with her head by giving mixed signals. "Shen you sly bird" she chuckled to herself upon the realization. "No matter. Two can play THAT game."

" play what game mommy?" lian asked curiously, tilting her head. Christine chuckled while ruffling her daughters fur

" nothing my blossom"

 christine went from humming tunes to singing short songs. Lian and the wolves would sometimes sing along, if they knew the words. Some would even dance along with her. Shen would often come by during times like these to see what was going on. He would meet christine's eyes and felt his cheeks get rather flush. lian would giggle when this would happen because he would then hide his rosy cheeks then hurry off before anyone could notice. Moral in the camp seemed to be up lately so Shen allowed the wolves to keep singing and dancing with christine as long as they kept doing their chores and their stations were in top order.

Everything was going well until....

   Shen started his day like all the others; finished any reports that were left over from the day before and then left his pagoda to inspect the wolves' stations. When he turned toward his prisoner's cage, he saw many wolves rather than a cage.  "What's going on?" Shen demanded as he made his way through the crowd and toward the cage. Boss wolf was one of the first wolves to get to the cage so he was the closest. "We're not sure sir" Boss wolf answered as the lord made his way over. "It looks like she's meditating? but..." He moved to the side so Shen could see past him and at the cat. It was true, she did look like she was meditating but with one difference; spots appeared on her pure white fur glowing a bright fluorescent green-blue. Shen looked at her with awe.

She looked so peaceful, so beautiful.

Lian laughed "mommy's acting funny". standing, she came to her mother's side and held up a tiny finger towards her the adult cat's face. Shen began protesting when she chuckled " she doesn't feel a thing, look!". She proceeded to poke her mother's face with a childish giggle. She then followed that with high pitched screaming, running circles around her mother and putting more emphasis on her mothers meditative state.

Christine wasn't really sure what was going on but she did know she was meditating; at least she thought she was. The last thing she remembered was settling down for the night and then felt a great amount of chi overcome her. She was looking at the wolves working like they did every day, Shen getting in some training, and eight or nine wolves pulling a cart.

This is some time in the past she said to herself.

She followed the wolves to a small pavilion and saw them unload a large mold. Shen walked in a few minutes later and looked quite pleased. "Excellent" . The scene moved to a strange village. It was populated by giant pandas, farmers by the looks of it. She looked around and found a baby panda crawl down some stairs and plop onto the ground.

Po she realized.

She went to take a step toward him when the scene changed again. This time it was the Valley of Peace. It didn't stay very long as it quickly switched to the Jade Palace years later with a young tigress training. Then it switched to the furious five training together, Oogway picking Po as the dragon warrior, Tai Ling escaping and finally Tai Lung's defeat. She quickly snapped out of her dream-like state, but her eyes and spots were still glowing. The sudden movement of her head from down to an upright position made some of the wolves and lian take a step away. Only Shen and Boss Wolf were up close to the cage.

christine looked around until something caught her eye. To the right of her were two smokey figures, one seemed to be holding the other.  he cat stood up and walked over to them to get a better look.  When she was a few feet away, she realized they were peacocks. They were royalty too by the looks of their robes.  They were looking at her, no doubt because of what happened just moments before. her eyes grew wide as she realized who they were. "Your highness'" she said bowing respectfully.

   All the wolves looked at each other with a confused look on their faces. Boss wolf looked at Shen puzzled, but narrowed his eyes as he continued to watch intently.  lian also was curious. Being a child she did not fully understand what was happening. "mommy?" She tugged at her mother's blue tai chi uniform.

   "You-you can see us?" The peahen stammered. "How?". hristine looked up. "With all due respect, I cannot tell you. Not now any way."

 "Why not?" asked the peacock.

 “ Well, Shen here has taken me and my daughter captive. until he lets us go, I'm not telling him anything.".   The peacocks looked over at Shen, still watching intently with eyes nearly closed he narrowed them so much, and then back at christine. "We understand" the peahen replied sympathetically, a small smile on her face."Growing up, Shen didn't have a very open mind."

"So I see" christine agreed and mirrored the peahen's smile. "Your son is most difficult to understand."

"So, we will speak to you in the future?" the peacock asked."In the future, yes." the feline replied with a nod."The near future I hope" The two peacocks disappeared.  christine's spots began to fade, starting from her head and ending at her tail with her eyes being the last to return to normal.