Things were going as usual up at the Jade Palace. The Furious Five and the Dragon Warrior had a small sparring session during this bright day at the courtyard. Shifu had just dismissed them.
"Great work today, you two." Master Shifu told two of his greatest students, Master Tigress and the Dragon Warrior himself. "Tell me, could you by any chance patrol the bamboo forest after lunch? Zeng has heard rumors of bandits frightening the area and all who passes by."
"Sure, Master Shifu." Po replied. "We'll patrol starting after lunch."
"Great, Po and Tigress. Keep an eye out for bandits."
"We will." Tigress replied.
The duo stood by eachother as the red panda left them alone. "So, let's go up and eat, shall we?" Po asked.
Tigress nodded and followed the panda back to the barracks.
Shortly after, the duo walked out of the barracks doors, heading down for the valley per Shifu's command.
"So what are we thinking, how many bandits will there be out there?" Po asked as he started descending the thousand steps.
"I don't know. Perhaps there won't be any, we all know what rumors are like and they're almost never true in the end. They're just there to cause fear among the people."
"Great point, Ti. We'll see. Personally, I'm just getting ready to kick butts and take name!" Po said and fistbumped the air.
Tigress huffed and looked at the panda. He's energetic as always.
"Hey Ti, what do we do if there's no bandits?"
She rose her shoulders. "I guess we can just explore or something. You decide, panda."
"Alright, then I say we go exploring! If we don't find any bandits, that is..."
After a while of walking, the duo reached the bamboo forest and so far there were no signs of bandits. The tall bamboos swayed over their heads after a breeze blew through. So far, everything seemed to be relatively fine.
"Hey Tigress, I don't think you've ever told me what your relations were like when you were in your adolescence years..?"
"Why do you wanna know that?" Tigress asked, curiously gazing at the panda.
"I just wanna know. I'm curious."
"I know you're a curious person, Po." She replied and smiled at him. "Well, for beginners, I haven't really had any relations during my adolescence years. Shifu was my father figure but he never really gave me that same care he gave Tai Lung all those years ago."
Po listened closely as they walked beside eachother.
"I tried making friends with people around my age back then, but they never saw me as *friend* material. All they did was being amazed by the fact I was a kung-fu master and only recognized me for that. Having tried for several years without any success I gave up at last and only dedicated myself to kung-fu. It wasn't until Shifu sent me to pick up other kung-fu masters that I sort of became friends with them. And they were Mantis, Crane, Monkey and Viper as you probably already know." She explained.
"You on the other side has had the privilege to grow up at the valley and establish small connections with the villagers, that's why many recognize you and socializes better with you." She said, a small grimace of disappointment appearing on her face.
"Oh, that sucks... I'm sorry for you, Tigress."
"Don't be, it was never your fault. It's just a shame I didn't get to meet you when I tried so desperately back then."
Po huffed and gently put his right paw on her left shoulder. "I may have made myself known to the villagers since I was young, but I had never considered them friends. Ever since I arrived in that basket I was only mocked for my clumsiness and weight, all the way up until I proved myself worthy as the Dragon Warrior."
"Really?"
"Yeah, it's true. The first friends I had ever made was you and the others, well, until you accepted me, that is."
Tigress couldn't help but feel worthless after having treated him so badly back then. She looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry for what I said back then, Po. I truly am. It wasn't until you said that we were your first friends it suddenly became clear for me."
"Oh, that's no problem, Ti. Look at us now!" Po exclaimed.
She smiled. "Yeah."
In the midst of their talking they didn't realize that they were headed for some sort of rocky structure in the middle of the forest.
"Woah Tigress watch out!" Po said as the tiger almost fell down a set of stairs.
"Thank you."
"No problem. Hey what is this?"
"No idea."
"It looks cool. Hey what's that shiny object down there?" Po asked, sprinting down the steps into the shrine. The tiger followed shortly after, taking a look at what the panda had discovered.
"Why does it glow?" Po asked.
Tigress shrugged and walked closer to the object.
"Should I touch it?" Po asked.
"If you deem it safe, then go ahead." She said, glaring at the panda.
Po stood by the shiny object, unsure of whether to touch it or not.
"I'm gonna skip this one." Po replied, walking up to Tigress and away from the object.
The tiger grew curious as each second passed. She eventually started nearing it. "Hey Ti??" Po asked from behind. "Are you sure you wanna investigate it closer? What if it's some trap?"
Tigress said nothing, for her desire to touch it outvoting that of Po's voice.
"Tigress?"
Tigress eventually rose her paw up.
"Tigress, don't!" Po yelled.
Too late. She touched it. A mighty shockwave was released, making the stones rumble around them. The bamboos swayed away from the shrine.
"Tigress, you okay?" Po asked, hurriedly walking up to Tigress. "You okay."
She nodded.
"Great. Let's head back." Po replied, grabbing hold of her shoulder.
The duo headed back the way they came from.
"Hey Ti what was that do you think?"
No answer.
Po looked sideways. She shrugged.
"You're being awfully quiet, Ti."
That's when Po noticed. Tigress was opening her mouth wide as she tried to speak. "Are you miming something?" Po asked. "Ah, I should have guessed."
She facepalmed.
The duo reached the village. Po was approached by none other than his dad, Mr. Ping.
"Hey son, have you been patrolling with Tigress?"
"Yeah. We patrolled a little in the bamboo forest."
"Ah."
"Did you find any bandits out there?" the goose asked.
Mr. Ping watched as the tiger master opened her mouth, seemingly only miming.
The goose got confused. He looked at his son. "Is something wrong with her?" Mr. Ping worriedly asked. "Uhh, no I don't think so, she's been weirdly quiet ever since we headed back. She's probably just tired."
Tigress' mouth started opening and closing yet again. "What are you doing, Tigress?" Po asked. "You're behaving really weird, ever since we went to that shrine."
She started miming yet again, looking both frustrated and angry.
"Am I deaf, orrr.. OUCH!" Po said as he started rubbing his arm after a hit from Tigress' fist. She was indeed angry. And she looked quite furious aswell.
"She's angry." Mr. Ping said. "Yeah dad, I can tell." Po replied, still rubbing his arm.
"Tigress...?" The goose said, earning the tiger's attention.
"You can hear us, right?"
Tigress nodded.
"Can you speak?"
She shook her head.
"I'm pretty sure she can't speak." Mr. Ping said, gazing back at Po.
"What do you mean she can't speak?"
"Clearly she lacks the ability to speak."
"Dad, she could speak mere minutes earlier!"
"Well, whatever it is she can't speak now, that's for sure."
Po sighed, looking at Tigress, who gazed back at him with a mad face. "Tigress, calm down, we have no idea what has happened." He finished. "Hold up, could it be that weird object in the shrine?"
Tigress nodded.
"Hah! I'm genius! See ya dad, I'm gonna find something to heal her or at the very least bring her ability to speak back!"
The goose nodded, smiled and waved at the panda.
And so the duo headed up the thousand stairs, directly into the hall of heroes
Po hurriedly headed for the stairs in order to get Tigress' voice back. In moments like these, the stairs were no match for the panda warrior. He ascended the stairs with ease. "Look Ti, I can get up here in no time!" Po exclaimed as he stood by the huge doors to the palace, Tigress looking *very* interested.
The duo reached the shelves, full of ancient scrolls containing all knowledge there is to know.
"Tigress, do you happen to know how the scrolls here are sorte- oh yeah, I forgot, you can't speak." Po said, earning a glare from Tigress.
Po started by grabbing one scroll, unscrewing the cork and opening it's contents.
"Hmm, nothing about voice here." Po said, throwing that scroll behind him, almost hitting Tigress on the run. She figured she wanted to speak, so she opened her mouth but nothing was heard. She facepalmed and returned to gazing the panda down even more. She walked up to the shelf and started opening some herself, not getting any luck either.
Hour after hour went by, and Tigress was increasingly getting more and more tired and irritated by both the scrolls not containing anything of value and the panda still not aware of where he's throwing the scrolls.
They had almost emptied the shelves. Po sighed. "There's literally nothing in here!" Po yelled as he threw another scroll, almost hitting Tigress once again.
The panda took a deep breath. The sky was getting dark, letting everyone know nighttime's arrived. He sighed. "The last scroll." Po said. Tigress standing beside him to look at the scroll's contents.
She didn't dare look in fear of there not being anything on there, but Po's reaction said otherwise. "YES! HERE IT IS! HOOHO HOO! YEAH!" Po yelled, his excitement cheering the palace up.
Tigress looked, and for the first time in hours, a smile grew on her face. Po sat down on the floor and inspected what it had to say.
"The Whispering Silence is a curse held within an ancient artifact. It's location is unknown, legend has it that whoever touches the artifact loses their ability to speak. The only way to break the curse is to sacrifice something that someone holds close, whether it be a person or an object." Po read out loud. Po's hands sunk down as he looked up at Tigress.
Po sighed. "What should I sacrifice?" Po asked, looking as clueless as Tigress did right now.
Suddenly Po got an idea. He rose up quickly and sprinted out of the palace doors and up to the barracks. Tigress barely had time to react, so she followed behind and stayed by the doors, looking at where he was going.
Po ran into the barracks, slamming through the paper doors. He went into his room, grabbing an object close to him.
He then turned and burst through the paper doors yet again, this time down to the peach tree.
He stood by the cliffside, taking a last look at the object in his paw. He gave it a small hug and at last dropped it off the cliff.
Tigress walked up to him.
Po watched as a light burst through the clouds below the peach tree cliff. Suddenly, Tigress felt her voice come back.
She cleared her throat. "So, what did you sacrifice?"
Po kept looking down the cliff. "Something I worked on when I was young, something I held in my paws everyday. And still it was just a piece of wood."
Tigress gazed at him, well, his neck as that was pretty much all she could see as of now.
"Which is..?" She asked.
"The action figure resembling you." Po said, turning around to meet her.
Tigress was quite shocked. "Did that really mean so much to you?"
"You can speak."
"Fair enough. But how though?"
"You may not have known about it yet, but I brought it with me to the panda village back when Li came over here for the first time. And then I also brought it on our journey to Gongmen, and I've had it in my bedroom window down at my dad's when I lived there, well, with the other four aswell."
Tigress huffed.
"I- I've grown quite.. Err... Close. Close to you. So I figured that I could now replace the action figure with the real version." Po said as a smile grew on his face.
Tigress walked up to him and gave him an unexpected hug out of nowhere. Po quickly sunk in to it though.
If there was one thing Po liked, it must've been the hugs Tigress gave. She may be cold on the outside, but if you were to get a hug from her, which often came unexpectedly, it was very often filled with emotions and care.
Po also likes getting hugged by her, it's just that every hug she gives always feel so magical. And it's such a huge contrast to everybody whose hugged him before, whether it be Mr. Ping or Monkey, well, excluding Li Shan then but he's mainly just fluffier and well, he's Po's dad.
So it's probably just Tigress being around Po's size and length, and perhaps the fact that she's female. Po never really gets hugged by females. Well, Viper can't really hug.
This isn't the only reason though. The last reason why Po finds her hugs so magical is that he's the only person so far to having been given a hug from her. Being the stone cold warrior she is, it really means alot to him. Maybe Po's just overspeculating, but it's true and it will always be so.
Po found himself lost in his thoughts when Tigress broke the embrace. She put a paw on his right shoulder. "Let's head back."
Po smiled and nodded.
The duo started walking up to the barracks.
"Po?" Tigress asked.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for everything today."
"No problem, Ti." Po said and wrapped his left arm around her neck, though she quickly took it off of her. She smiled instead as she pushed the door into the barracks open.