The Last War

20. The Missing Dumplings

"Dad?" Po looked into the kitchen. "Did you see Shen?"
Po had worried about the peacock and had dared to take a look into his room, but it was empty.
Mr. Ping was busy to make a little dinner for their hosts. "Oh, as far as I know he went out."
"In this weather? It's snowing heavily."
Mr. Ping shrugged his shoulders. "That's what I said to him, too, but he seemed to be very abstracted."
The panda rubbed over his head. "Alright. Thanks."
With that, he walked to the house door, but before he opened it another sheep crossed his way.
"Excuse me, do you know where Shen is?"
"He is standing outside," the sheep answered. "And is staring dead ahead."
"And where exactly?"
"Look through the window."
Po did. But he had to look twice until he realized the white peacock on a hill not far away from the house in the dark snowed night.
"How long has he been standing there?"
But the sheep was already gone. Po battled with himself whether he should go over to the lord or not. Finally, he opened the door. An icy wind flew into his face. Footprints of a bird leaded away from the house in the snow.
Carefully, Po made one step after another through the snow, closer and closer to the peacock who didn't move.
"Is he going to spend the night here?" Po asked himself.

A cold wind blew over the landscape. But he didn't feel it. The white lord just stared ahead like in wide distance.
"Shen?" A voice called him, but he didn't react. "Shen? Hey! It's cold and snowing, don't you see it?"
He didn't answer. Not even if a white-black figure appeared in front of him and waved with his paws.
"Shen?" The panda looked at him with an apprehensive glance. "Can you hear me?"
"How can you stand it, panda?" an apathetic voice said.
Po dilated his eyes in surprise. "Standing what?"
For the first time a deep sigh came over the lord's lips. "How can you stand to see me?"
"Uuuuuhhh..." Po had no idea what the peacock wanted to hear. A philosophic thing or something? "Well, meh, seeing someone is a very, very complex notion."
The panda forced a smile, but Shen's face was like stone. Po looked ahead and tried to find out where the peacock was staring the whole time. But all what he saw was snow and darkness. He paid his attention back to the lord who still didn't change his position.
Po rubbed over his neck and dared a new try of communication. "Are you... are you thinking about her?"
Again just silence. Po meant to give up, but then the white bird moved his beak. "Snow is a beauty, isn't it?"
Po looked around with irritation. "Uh,... yees. We, uh, we all like snow, don't we?"
"Although your parents died on a snowed night?"
This time it was Po who gave a deep sigh. With a silent thud, he let fall himself in the snow and watched the peacock silently. His wish to see in his mind grew up with every cold minute. What's going on in the lord's head? It had to be the letter. Xinxin had just told him parts, no more, because of the secrecy of letters. But it was enough for the panda to understand what the peahen had felt for the army leader of Gongmen City.
Still silent Po drew something in the snow before he looked up again. "I'm sure she will forgive you."
Suddenly, without warning the lord turned away and walked down the hill with firmly footsteps. "I'm feeling cold."
"I- I didn't mean..."
But Shen interrupted him with a warning rising of his wing while he didn't stop walking. And without one word more, he entered the house and left the panda alone in the snow.

Shen didn't think about where he went and was. He just walked around without target and followed some lights. And that is how it came that he found himself in the kitchen of the house where Mr. Ping was still working.
The gander turned around when he saw a movement in the corner of his eye. "Oh, welcome, sir! I didn't expect you, sorry for the mess."
He made a low bow, Shen returned the gesture, then he walked over to the table and seat himself on a pillow.
Mr. Ping watched him and moments later he put a bowl of soup on the table.
The white ex-prince eyed it but he pushed it away. "I'm not hungry."
The gander looked at him in confusion. But the peacock folded his wings together and shirked from his glance. Mr. Ping took the bowl away and put it back on the sink. Then he took a spoon and stirred the soup in the boiler.
For a while nobody spoke a word, until Mr. Ping cleaned his throat.
"Well, it must have been a complete surprise, wasn't it?"
The peacock directed his eyes at him. "How do you know?"
"Po told me."
Shen narrowed his eyes angrily. "In this case, everything, right?"
"I will not let it go any further," Mr. Ping affirmed.
The peacock snorted and looked away.
After seconds of silence, Mr. Ping dared to continue the dialog.
"You had a bad row, hadn't you?"
A shocked silent scream cut the air when a feather knife missed the gander by a hair's breadth. With wide eyes, Mr. Ping stared at it which stuck in the wood wall of the kitchen.
Slowly, he looked at the lord and winced. The white peacock stood there like an attacking leopard. Then he moved back on his pillow very slowly. With a deep sigh, the white bird folded his wings together and fell calm again, but his posture kept tensed.
"You have no idea," it came over the lord's lips, his eyes directed at the table.
Meanwhile Mr. Ping screwed up his courage and pulled the feather knife out of the wall. With the sharp instrument in his wing, he walked to the table and put it gently on it. Shen eyed it a few seconds, then he took it and put it away somewhere in his feathers.
Mr. Ping put his finger feathertips together and watched him.
"That's not a shame," he tried. "In every family can be a dispute."
He froze when Shen's eyes met him icily.
"You can talk," the peacock said fretfully. "For you, it's always easy."
Mr. Ping winced, then he chuckled ruefully. "Well, Po and I weren't of one mind always. I still remember how we had an awful row."
The peacock moved his eyes slowly to the right and back to him.
"Can't imagine," Shen muttered more to himself.
The gander smiled. "Oh yes, it's so long time ago. Po had already learned to speak and it was a warm summer day..."