Before Sunrise

Act I - Chapter III - Befitting Bonding

A grandiose sunrise fell upon all of those lucky enough for those to live inside of the Valley of Peace. The sun had been relentlessly battering the majority of the populace for some time, yet that wasn't true for everyone. Unbeknownst to practically everyone inside of the valley, the previous night saw the coming together of a tiger and a panda under unlikely circumstances; at least as friendship goes. It happened to be 6 AM at the time the sun invaded Po's bedroom and shone onto his fur, beginning the chain reaction that would inevitably lead to him warming up to the point where he woke up.

Meanwhile, Tigress spent her time peacefully sleeping beneath the quarters of Mr. Ping's noodle restaurant, embracing the warmth that seeped through the cracks in the floorboards above her whilst simultaneously revelling in the comforting coolness that eclipsed her; especially following the previous evening where she had ventured home with a panda boy who offered her pies and subsequently earned her trust thanks to nothing more than his humble generosity.

In between all of that though, happened to be Mr. Ping and his awakening an hour prior. He had already boiled the water inside of the pots as well as rolled out the first batch of noodles that he would be serving up for that morning's special. He knew he had a promise to fulfil for closing up shop the previous night and considering he was now the guardian of a tiger as well as the parent of a panda and the pair of them had gone through so much in the past few hours, he saw a suitable reward in the form of allowing the both of them to rest in for an hour or so following their great hike home.

The grey goose was still in shock thanks to the circumstances, he couldn't believe that Tigress, the girl who was rumoured to have broken out of Bao-Gu Orphanage, happened to be found by none other than his son. Not only that, she happened to be quite friendly in comparison to the news reports that constantly villainised her and warned that she was a destructive force of evil. Even Mr. Ping could see that she was none other than a girl who was misunderstood.

After all, tigers, like pandas, had been considered borderline extinct for some time. That was no thanks to the warlords that happened to rule China during the split between the kingdoms and the nomadic insurgencies up north. It still may be a problem that affects the Chinese Empire but it's not something that covers the headlines like it did when Po was first found by his goose father all of those years ago.

As Ping cut up more vegetables, he could hear as the radiant noise of crowd chatter outside as it grew louder, almost overwhelming his sensitive avian ears. He knew what was going to come, and it had been several years since he had handled a morning this busy without any assistance from Po. Age wasn't something that Mr. Ping was worried about just yet, but he could tell that he was slowly but surely growing stiffer than he used to be as he reached for the wooden latch mechanism that would hold up the window into his restaurant before grabbing his small notepad. He brought it close to him as he poked open the window and welcomed everyone as always.

"Welcome to Mr. Ping's Noodle Restaurant! It's such a sunny day outside! May I take your order?" Yet, to Mr. Ping's horror, he was greeted by a familiar red panda who had attempted to harass him in the past about Po. None other than Master Shifu burned a hole through him as his line of customers impatiently waited behind Oogway's top student. "Master Shifu. I assume you're not here to order some noodles, are you?"

"You know what, I may take you up on that offer. But no, you know what I am here for, Ping. This is your third visit, if you do not turn up that paperwork, I will have to contact the authorities regarding your suspected illegal adoption of an endangered species," Master Shifu's gravelly voice, almost as if his real tone had been abandoned quite like how he was forced to abandon Tai Lung the moment he ravaged the valley, grated against Mr. Ping's ears like sandpaper. "It is a shame that I must undergo this procedure with you, Ping. The flooding of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers thanks to that recent incursion and its ramifications are still being felt."