Love of the Dragon Warrior

Yin to my yang

The day eventually wore down and soon it was time for everyone to eat dinner. Once again, the emperor and his family were eating upstairs in the Sacred Hall of Warriors, so Po was obligated to cook for his guests. Lam offered to cook with him, but since the masters needed their own food, one of the palace servants needed the other side of the stove for the task. The only time one of the masters even bothered to show up in the kitchen was when Tigress came to collect a covered cake pan that had been placed high on the shelf. She had quickly taken it off to make sure no one got into the frosting which immediately caused the entire group to gawk at the size and beauty of it. It was a tall cake with a white frosting on top which dripped in beautiful stripes down the side. It consisted of twelve very thin layers of alternating color which gradually changed as one looked around the outside parts which were not covered in white frosting.

"That's the fanciest cake I have ever seen!" Lu-Shi exclaimed, eyeing the six different colored flowers on top before the cover was put back on.

"This is twelve crocus korolevsky cake," Tigress explained, and made her way out of the kitchen before anyone could ask her further questions.

"Oh, that's a shame," Madame Zhou commented. "That looks delicious! But I suppose with all the special guests, we won't be getting a piece."

"That's okay," Po said. "Maybe she can make it another time."

"It kind of looked too pretty to eat," Xiao-Niao noted. "She made it look really nice!"

"I say we make our own cake," Ordai suggested. "Since there probably won't be any leftover. Why not have our own happy slice of rainbow cake for dinner?"

"A rainbow cake?!" Destiny shrieked excitedly, startling Kay and Lam who were sitting next to her. "That sounds like fun! How do we do that?!"

"I'll show you once Po's done at the stove."

The rainbow cake Ordai had been thinking about was fairly simple to make since it mostly required making a vanilla cake batter, poking holes throughout the softened consistency during the baking process, and then filling each different section with different colored dripping icing. What came out was a gooey rainbow lava cake which Destiny had no problem gobbling up along with everyone else at the table. (Except for Lam and Jai-Tong who were not a fan of overly sweet desserts). Afterwards, they stayed and talked for a bit while some of the palace servants wandered in and out of the kitchen, cleaning up after the meal in the Sacred Hall of Warriors. Eventually, it got a bit late in the evening and everyone decided they should head off to bed. Po wasn't very tired, but he definitely wanted to rest his head from the mental exhaustion of the past few days and allow himself time to brace for whatever Ming and Ella had in store while they were here. (Fortunately Ming wouldn't be there much longer. They were just waiting on the emperor to have a chat about state laws and wait for Superintendent Woo to reinforce them before departing, which wouldn't take more than a week).

As he was laying there, his door suddenly opened and the master was startled by Tigress' sudden appearance in his room.

"Sorry," she apologized after seeing him nearly jump off his bed.

"Hey!" Po exclaimed, sitting up to face her. "What brings you in here? Looking to chat?"

"Nope. Looking to train," the Dragon Warrior corrected, and before Po could react, she had thrown a thin heavy object at him and caused him to fall off the bed and onto the floor. The master laughed and added, "I noticed today you needed some more practice, and since I've had a very long day, I figure we could both use some good old fashioned venting."

She reached behind her and pulled out the metal fan, though it remained closed in her paws at the moment.

Po eyed her. "You want to practice with the fan?" he questioned.