Love of the Dragon Warrior

How to grow a new heartbeat

Po woke up the next morning with a bunch of weird feelings fluttering in his stomach. His mind was still racing from the kiss. He definitely was determined to get rid of this evil and vicious ex of Tai Lin's. At the very least, she could finally have a normal life without worrying of stalking or leaving with only the clothes on her back in desperate efforts to not be found. He didn't want her to vanish into the unknown. He was afraid for her safety.

The master laid in bed for a while before finally signing and getting up. He wasn't sure what time it was, but he could still hear the rain pounding on the window outside, so it wasn't going to be easy for him to really tell anyway. He decided to just get up and head into the kitchen to eat. Some tea and food would help wake him up fully before he planned out talking to Shifu on the matter. As he made his way down the hallway though, he was interrupted out of his sleepy fog brain by humming. Po listened for a second before realizing it was coming from Viper's room. He walked over to her door and knocked.

"Viper?" he asked.

There was quiet before the door opened. "Oh, Po! Good morning!" Viper exclaimed sheepishly. "I hope I didn't wake you up! I forgot you were still sleeping."

"No, no, it's cool. I just heard you being chipper and all...aren't you guys supposed to be training? Or is it really early?"

Viper laughed. "It's early, but not that early," she told him. "Shifu canceled training this morning on account of the weather being really foul."

"Really? It doesn't sound stormy at all."

"From the way the clouds look, he's expecting it, so he's letting us have a rest day."

"Oh, cool. Well, I'm glad you guys have the morning off. Are you just hanging out then?"

"Yeah. I decided I'm going to go shopping this morning. I just need to find my parasol. I left it in one of my chests, but I can't remember which one...."

"I can help you look if you want me to," Po offered.

"That's sweet, Po, thanks. Just don't make a big mess."

Po walked into her room and glanced at the numerous chests scattered on the floor. Viper normally had them stacked in a very nice pattern along the wall, so she must have really misplaced it to be opening every box.

"I hope the parasol didn't go missing either..." Po remarked, taking a blue box from a top the others and opening it to see what was inside.

"I would hope not. But I'm pretty sure I just forgot what I did with it. I came back from my date in a rush the other day and I brought it because it looked like rain. Normally I'd put it on the wall to dry off, but the weather was fine, so I just threw it in one of the boxes before Crane found out. I didn't pay much attention to which color though."

"Wouldn't it have been the one on top?"

"That's what I thought, but I forgot I took them all down to get to my silk box on the very bottom, and I didn't feel like putting them back before I left...." Viper dug around in a box of ribbons she had out before sighing, closing it, and moving onto another box, this one a dull red with black trim. "It was a bit chaotic that day, what with the emperor leaving and me being late and rushing about trying to get ready, and whatever else was going on that day."

Seeing that his box also didn't have a parasol, Po put it back in the floor and grabbed a green box. It was one out of three left to look for. He didn't say anything for a little bit, but eventually his thoughts drifted back and forth over the conversation and he glanced over at the master with a concerned look. "I hope this doesn't sound like an odd or uncomfortable question," Po told her with a hint of nervousness in his voice. "But...well, I was talking with Tai Lin yesterday about Xiaobo, and I told her maybe we could get a restraining order or something better, and...well, she asked how come Crane was still allowed to stay at the Jade Palace and harass you, and...well, I didn't have an answer for that."