The Last War

18. Heat and Coldness

"PO!"
Po couldn't believe it when Mr. Ping's warm wings wrapped his upper body.
"Dad?" Po was more than perplex. "What are you doing here?"
"An inner voice called me here," Mr. Ping explained. "And a flying messenger."
"But where did you get the force to pull me up?"
Mr. Ping smirked. "Well, with a little help."
Po looked behind him. A big figure with long hair in his face was bending down and was busy to release Shen from his shackles.
"Who's that?" Po asked.
"My household help."
Po stood there with mouth agape. "That's your household help?"
He eyed the big yack who was standing up now.
"For a limited time," he said a little grimly. "My wife caught a cold."
"But what have you done in the river?" Mr. Ping asked worried.
"That's a long story, but he needs a warm up immediately." Po pointed at Shen, who lay in the snow and trembled gently. Now Po felt a shiver under his fur and wrapped his arms around himself. "And for me."

"Like daughter like the father," Mr. Ping said with a gentle smile while he watched how a sheep handed a warm towel to Soothsayer.
The old goat smiled. "Indeed. Like his family."
Gently, she put the warm towel on Shen's head who lay in a bed with thick blankets. When the warming cloth touched his feathers, he trembled stronger. His beak didn't come to a break of shaking. The goat put the blanket higher until it covered the whole long neck of the bird.
His feet lay free where a sheep was busy to rub warm his cold feet. Since they had left the water, the lord didn't open his eyes yet. He just mumbled he felt cold.
Po sat not far away on a little bench, also wrapped with blankets and his feet in a bowl with hot water. In the meantime, he had told his father everything. Mr. Ping was very impressed.
"Unbelievable," Mr. Ping muttered. "I think, it was a big surprise for him to know that he has a family."
Po nodded with sad expression on his face. "You can't imagine."
"Oh, don't give up hope, Po." Mr. Ping touched his face. "You are just hungry. I will take a look into the kitchen. Maybe Yuan is ready with the soup."
After Mr. Ping had left the room, Po leaned forward to Soothsayer. "Did you send him the message?"
The goat leaned her head to one side to another. "Shortly after we left the city. I thought it would be the best to bring him here."
"Why?"
She wrung out another towel thoughtfully while she spoke. "I thought he should see someone in his near who already knows the father role."
Po became silent for a moment. Then he started when he was reminded of Shen's son when he heard the keyword "father". He looked over at the sheep with apprehensive look.
"How is he?!" he asked.
The sheep shook their heads. "Still unchanged."
Po let hang his ears. At this moment, Mr. Ping came back with a bowl of soup in his wings and held it against his son.
Po took it thankfully. "Thanks, dad."
They embraced. Both looked up when they heard a loud sigh. Shen was moving in the bed and his trembling movements were sent in waves through his body. Finally, he blinked and looked into the familiar face of the soothsayer.
He sighed deeply.
"Who else?" he muttered.
The old goat smiled. "You give me one worry after another."
The peacock wiped over his head. "As long as I don't have to see you next to my death-bed."
"Don't talk about that."
"But I..."
Suddenly, Shen seemed to remember of everything again at one go. He sat up like lightning and his eyes met the panda.
Po smiled shyly and waved at him. "Hi."
The peacock answered just with growling narrowed eyes.
Suddenly, someone other appeared in his visual field.
"Hello, welcome! Good to see you again. A little service with my very best recommendations."
The lord looked up in surprise. But when his eyes fell on the soup, he forgot to say "hello". He grabbed it and swallowed the spup down.
But Mr. Ping wasn't angry about it. That someone preferred his soup was still a compliment for him. Shen drunk everything out. Then he put the bowl down, Mr. Ping took it immediately before it fell down. But Shen didn't care. He closed his eyes, leaned back on the pillow and breathed heavily.
Meanwhile, the old goat had taken the towel which had fallen down and put it back on his head. But in the next moment, the peacock sat up in bed again.
Po tried to ignore his fury on his face and sipped his soup.
Shen took a deep breath. "Would you excuse us? All of you!"
All people around winced. The lord sounded more than angry. One by one left the room and Po was the last one. Quickly, the panda stood up and climbed out of the water bowl.
"Uh, I think I forgot something outside."
With wet feet, he went over the floor to the door.
"Panda!"
He froze.
"I said "us"."
Po swallowed heavily. Carefully, he turned around and looked at the lord who was still sitting in the bed. His eyes had filled over with hate and disappointment. The soup had warmed him, but hadn't washed away the ugly feeling in his stomach.
"Hey!" Po tried to laugh. "Nice to see you, dear, that has been a trip. We should – not – repeat that water rafting, right?"
He ducked his head. The wings of the lord dug into the blanket and trembled, but not because of coldness but of anger. Then his shaking finger feathers wandered to the back of his head.
"You promised never to harm me," he hissed.
Po pressed his lips together and wagged with his arms. "You forced me to do so!"
"We had a deal," Shen retorted shortly.
"It was self-defense!"
"You hit me."
"You would have made it ever worse for her. Do you know what had happened if you had said, that you and her... you know what I mean."
The lord's heavy breath became louder. "I wanted to destroy her!"
"Don't you think she suffered enough?"
Shen's wings cramped. His face directed at them. "It wouldn't be enough in one million years. Not for me."
Silence fell. Just the breathing of Shen was hearable in the room.
Po cleaned his throat before he spoke. "Oh, come on, don't act like a prima donna."
His eyes became bigger. Shen moved and lifted his head very slowly and directed his eyes on him.
"I shouldn't be angry with her?" A dark wave of bitterness overcame him. "She humiliated me!"
Po was ready to run out of the room, but he collected his courage and stayed.
"Tell me exactly why!" he arrogated.
Shen snorted. "That's my affair."
"You talked about a letter," Po continued. "What was that for a letter? What was the content?"
"Nothing for your ears!"
"Tell me. Maybe I will understand it."
Shen constricted his eyes. "Only over my dead body."
"But about the dead bodies of others, right?"
Shen hissed darkly. "Maybe because of your blow, I will have an amnesia and forget what we agreed in your damn primitive village."
"Oh, don't come me with that."
Suddenly, somebody knocked against the door.
"What?!" Shen cried.
The door was opened and a little sheep looked through it. "Excuse me, there is a woman. She said, she has to say something important."
Peacock and panda exchanged glances. Who could it be?
The door was opened completely and a in long coat covered person walked in. When the figure entered the room, he removed the hood and a face of a gray female fox appeared.
Both stared at the vixen.
"Uh, who are you?" Po began before Shen could ask.
The vixen put her paws together and bowed. "My name is Xinxin. I'm the maidservant of Yin-Yu. I've been standing in service to her for a long time. I left our attacked city when I heard that Xia was seen here. In the company of a white peacock."
Po pointed at Shen. "You know him?"
"Yin-Yu told me," she replied.
"Must have been a funny woman gossip," Shen hissed bitterly.
The vixen's eyes focused him calmly. "You're really beautiful like she described you."
"That's a bare derision!" Shen cried. "How many times does she want to mortify me more?!"
The fox woman lowered her glance. "She admitted me often that she didn't many things right."
"Is that all?!"
Po walked a few steps back. Shen was at a point of a new rampage.
"My lord," Xinxin started over. "I can imagine how you must feel, but be sure, things were different from you think."
"Different?!"
With one jump, the white peacock left the bed and landed with a loud crash on the wooden floor in front of her.
"She told me a wrong name!"
"I know."
"She left me silently!"
"True that. She didn't want that the palace soldiers discover you."
"No excuse for that she has done to me. She only used me for her pleasure!"
"No, my lord."
"You malicious woman of falsehood!" he shouted. "You're so steeped in mendacity. I curse the day of my birth! But more the birth of her!"
The vixen sighed gently. "You've got a letter many years ago, didn't you?"
The lord gasped for air. "Your equanimity proves you aren't better than her."
Po thought he would hit her, but instead... Po winced. Tears filled the white bird's eyes. He turned away from her, covered with one wing his face and sighed a convulsive sobbing. All his hate and anger released him what he had dammed through all the years.
Carefully, Xinxin stepped up to him. "Do you still have the letter?"
Shen winced at that question with a loud sigh.
"I burned it!" he hissed. "But I still remember every ideograph what she had written with her poisoned feathers."
Still turning his back on her, he lifted his head slowly. He wiped over his cheeks and stared at the wall. "From that day on, I wanted to kill her." He swung around. In his wing a knife feather. "And all the others of her!"
But before the lord could throw the knife, something fell on him and pressed him to the ground.
"Get off!"
But the panda who had thrown himself on him, didn't move. Shen tried to stand up, but he couldn't more do than to stay laying on his belly.
"I will keep sitting on you, until you are ready to listen," Po said firmly.
"There is no reason for that!" Shen cried and gave up the fight. "Why can't you stop torturing me?"
In the blink of an eye, he lost all his force.
"Why?" Po heard him muttering. "Why for what?"
Xinxin came closer and kneeled down. Her face filled with pity. "How painful was it?"
The lord glared at her, defeated in his suffer.
"How painful could it be more if you get a letter where you read that she hates you?"
Po raised his eyebrows. "Did she write that?"
"Much worse!" Again Shen's eyes became wet. "She was ashamed that she lost her virginity for me!"
Po couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I can't imagine... that she would write..."
"Who slept with her? You or I?!"
Po rubbed his head nervously. Shen didn't mince matters. Po could guess only how much Shen must have loved her.
"She, she..." The lord swallowed before he spoke on. "She also wrote me whether I would be impotent. – You heard nothing!"
Po winced when Shen pointed so threateningly at him.
"Yes, yes... no, no, of course I heard nothing." And covered his ears.
"And that she found someone who satisfies her expectations better than me. I hadn't been good enough for her. I should go somewhere else." He sighed heavily. "After I read it, I threw and broke chairs and tables. Over one year, my soldiers searched for her. But they never found her." He sighed deeply and took a strong breath. "And I've never stopped hating her. I swore, she should never get the chance to hurt me again."
He closed his eyes and lay powerless on the floor under the panda.
"I've wrapped my soul with metal like my weapons," he muttered weakly. His voice was hardly hearable. His finger feathers dug into the wood floor.
The fox woman had listened to him without a move on her face. Finally, she stroked her fur and tapped her fingertips together very, very calmly and thoughtfully. "But you have to know something. That's the reason why I came here."
With that, she walked to the little bench, wiped several times with her fox tail over it and sat down.
Po meanwhile deemed it best to climb down from Shen, who stayed lying down on the floor.
"Listen, my lord," she began and bent forward. "The letter what you've read – Yin-Yu never wrote this letter."