Unnecessary Burden

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Several days went on, and Viper was guarding the wolf who tapped his foot impatiently. Viper rose a scaly eyelid. "What are you waiting for?" Wolf just gave a brief smile and went back to tapping his foot. Viper sighed and tended to her boring duty. Then webbed footsteps drew closer, perking up the wolf's attitude. "Zeng? Is that you?"

"Oh, Master Viper," The duck bowed, carrying a ton of scrolls. "Don't mind me, I'm just enlisting Wolf's help."

"What? How?" 

"He's helping me rewrite the scrolls. Shifu's asked me to do it, but it's twice as much and I'm the only one he really trusts to do the work. I need help, Master Viper, so, since Wolf isn't doing anything right now, I... wanted his help," Zeng replied. Viper tilted her head.

"Why don't you ask us?"

"None of you have the time," Zeng readily answered. "Plus, what I gathered from Tigress, you all have more important things to do than do my small chores." Wolf winced at the words as Viper frowned. The tiger could be blunter than she needed to be. 

"Tigress doesn't speak for all of us, Zeng."

"I-I-I-I know," Zeng shrank a bit, "But with you guys constantly fighting off bandits at a moment's notice, I need someone's help." 

Viper sighed. He had a point, and even she knew that Shifu wouldn't help with Zeng's chores. And with Wolf added in the mix, the Furious Five really didn't have time to help the duck out. "What about Po?" She asked. 

"Uh... I... don't trust... him to... find this... exciting," Zeng replied slowly, "He's not the kind of person to really sit down and write something... history related." Viper rolled her eyes and smiled. Of course, the panda would get bored. Unless he was writing the next great fiction, it wouldn't really interest him. 

"Okay, go on."

"Great! Thank you Master Viper," Zeng bowed and got prepared. He placed the writing board inside Wolf's cell and faced him as they began copying the scroll laid out. It was sideways so that they could both understand the words, rather than have one of them write upside-down. "Okay, that's the last one. On to the next pile." Interestingly, the wolf made fewer mistakes than Zeng would make, even though the duck was faster. Wolf smiled as he wrote. Viper couldn't figure out why he was so happy about it, but a small smile of her own rested on her face as she listened to the calming scratches of pen to paper. 

A few moments of this continued until they came to a scroll that Wolf glared and frowned at. "What's the matter?" Zeng asked, seeing his change of face. Wolf picked up the scroll through the bars and shook his head. "Huh? What are you trying to say?" Viper perked her head up from her comfortable snake bundle. "That's just a history of some village the Emperor conquered. The Jai-Yin bandits." Wolf still shook his head. Zeng huffed, "You're gonna have to use some kind of words or charades. I can't figure out what you're talking about."

"Maybe I can help," Viper spoke up. She slithered closer to the bars. "Is something wrong with the scroll?" Wolf nodded. "What is it?" Wolf pointed to a section on the page and 'asked' Viper to read it. "The Jai-Yin bandits were a menacing army organized by four warlords atop of their mountain. The Jai-Yin repeatedly attacked the villagers and farmers at the foot of the mountain, scattering them. Then the mighty Emperor Fu came and vanquished the Jai-Yin, destroying their small hovel in the mountain." Wolf shook his head. "So none of that happened?" 

The wolf made a shaky wave with his hand as if he meant yes and no. "Do you know about the Jai-Yin?" Viper asked. Wolf nodded. The snake thought for a moment. "Here's an idea. Zeng will copy the imperial record and Wolf will write what he knows. It is important that we know a little bit more about these people."

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