Strong

True Strength: Never Give Up

The massive mountain stood tall and silent. Its peak covered in a blanket of gray. It could be seen from three miles away, silhouetted against the graying sky. The wolf gazed at it, sighing in his throat. Years went by in his head, but a hand on his shoulder drew him back to the present. "We'll keep going tomorrow. Right now, we need to sleep," Tigress said. Lion nodded and walked back to the camp they set up. Just then, the team heard a loud snap. "Who's there?!"

Snap!

"OWW!"

"It's Po," The team muttered as the panda finally cleared the forest. 

"Don't sound so excited," Po huffed. 

"Sorry Po. We're just a little... tense," Viper said. The camp fell into silence around the fire. Lion looked straight at Po. 

"You went to see him, huh?"

"What?"

"Sho? You went to see him?"

"What?! I uh..."

"Po, there's no one else there other than that big lug," Lion pointed out. The panda sighed. "Don't worry, I don't blame you. In a lot of ways, he's still my big brother. Just like Tigress saw me as her second baba."

"Why second baba?" Monkey asked. 

Lion rose his eyebrow with a smirk. "Because her first one is the one who helped birthed her?"

"No, I mean why is that your nickname?"

"When she was a baby, Tigress started calling for her mom and dad, but for some reason she took one look at me and called me baba," Lion chuckled and shrugged. "I guess her mind thought every male was baba and every woman was mama. Makes sense."

"I guess," Monkey murmured. 

"Lion, why were you silent the whole time?" Viper spoke up after a long pause. "If you could talk, we could've avoided this whole mess."

Lion sighed, "I've learned that words are really useless sometimes and impactful other times. And I could never figure out which is when. I decided to let my actions talk. And... after Platon betrayed us..." The wolf stared into the fire before wiping his eyes. "I'm sorry... a lot has happened since then."

"I'm so sorry for your loss. We all know that pain," Viper sighed. 

"But why were you so okay with the cleaning stuff?" Mantis asked. "I mean, what's up with that?" 

"When you're dealing with trauma or your past, you often need a way to process it. For me, it's cleaning... and when you're in a cold dark cell with nothing but Mr. Four's snoring and Mr. Three's stories about the old days on Jai-Yin, you'll find something to prevent you from getting stir crazy." 

"I'm sure Zeng really appreciates that," Tigress smirked. "But what do you mean processing?"

Lion sighed, "What I went through... there are several ways to process it. Either talk through it, which is what most people do. The more you talk, the more your mind seems to make sense of the situation. But you have to be physical too. Physically doing something helps to let the mind just take in things quietly. But... at some point, you have to talk about it. Time helps, but you have to talk about it at some point. Otherwise, you'll be a bigger slave to it as it starts to affect other things in your life." 

"Like figuring out you're adopted?" Po smiled. 

"Or fighting your student," Shifu sighed. 

A silence hung over the camp. No one moved for a while. The cracking fire quietly disturbed the silence.