The Countdown

Jaded

As the afternoon began to turn to dusk, Crane and Tigress decided to head down to the festival to see if anyone needed any help with anything.

"You don't want to wear anything nice to the festival?" Viper asked Tigress, heading back to the barracks to change her hair lotuses.

"I'm good," Tigress assured her, getting ready to head of the gate.

"What about that cute shirt you have in your chest?"

"That doesn't fit me," Tigress answered flatly, quickly walking out with Crane.

The two walked down the stairs and to the village where they saw lanterns being steamed across the village, heard musicians setting up their instruments, and smelled delicious aromas drifting around.

"I'm gonna' go see if they need help with the lanterns," Crane said, walking over to a group.

"Why?" Tigress asked jokingly. "Too many lanterns in one spot?"

"Don't try my decorating skills, Tigress. You know I'm excellent with it."

Tigress rolled her eyes and walked through so as to see if there was something that she could do as well. Sometime after meeting Yijiro, Po had almost gotten married to a young goat named Lu-Shi who was tricked into the marriage by means of Junjie. He held her brother hostage, meaning that Lu-Shi had to go through with marrying Po or else. Crane, who was assigned the task of decorating the village for the wedding, was a little bit obsessive over how the flowers on the lattice were arranged as there were "too many flowers in one spot". While Tigress was relieved that Po had not actually married Lu-Shi, the main reason for that was because their friendship had grown stronger since Tai Lung's defeat two years prior to the incident and she wasn't about to watch someone throw away two years of hard work that Po had put in just for some marriage to someone he barely knew. (Although she didn't quite appreciate Po's insinuation that she was jealous, especially now that Mr. Ping seemed to have that idea following the bandit incident a few months earlier).

Tigress' feet took her to Mr. Ping's noodle shop where she saw Po and his dad cooking up a storm. Po was helping to drag certain foods up from the basement so as to restock the shelves as well as a decorations box to decorate the noodle shop.

"Po, do you mind replacing the lanterns for the festival?" Mr. Ping asked, adding vegetables to the soup pot.

"No problem, dad," Po said, going outside with the box so as to take all of the lanterns down from the noodle shop. Because of the box he was carrying, he didn't see Tigress standing just outside of the noodle shop and as he turned his back towards the door, he didn't see her walk over behind him.

"Hey, Po," Tigress said as she stood behind him.

Po jumped in startledness, losing his balance and toppling off of the ladder. He tried to grab onto the line that held the lanterns to keep himself upright, but wound up dragging the entire thing down with him.

"Po!" Mr. Ping cried in alarm, rushing out to make sure his son was alright.

Tigress rushed over as well as the goose took the box of festival lanterns off of Po's head.

"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly, helping to untangle to rope Po had around him from grabbing it.

Po nodded. "I'm fine," he assured her, sitting up with a moan. "Just lost my balance; that's all."

Mr. Ping raced into the kitchen, calling over, "I'll go and grab something from the ice room for your head, son!"

Tigress gathered the rope together along with the remaining lanterns that were on it. "Are you sure you're okay, Po?" she asked. "I hope I didn't scare you."