Through the Looking Glass: Penance: Chapter 2-A
Miles: Chapter 2
Streaks of wood from targets breaking off and fluttering into the air accompanied by a series of percussive noises.
Then, cries of incredible pain, and the sick feeling of something surrounding him. He pushed forward again and again and again without pausing once. The owner of the cries began to whimper eventually.
Flashes of blood, glass, and bits of bone flying right by. A weapon in his hand, ready to strike its next target.
And then, the shocked emerald eyes of Sonic as they peered into him.
Afterwards, the blood on his gloves as he cried out in anguish.
As always, Miles batted his eyes open.
Any normal person would have been absolutely frightened, but Miles had had the same recurring dream almost every night for two years. He had gotten so used to it he no longer sat up in fright every time he woke up. Partly, it was a relief.
Something within the kitsune told him that it was horrible that he had gotten so used to a dream he had become desensitized.
Miles shook his head as he sat up, groaning. Part of him felt he deserved that fate as he looked out into the barren earth ahead of him. After all, it was his fault that Sonic was dead; he deserved every hardball life threw at him.
"Ah, you're awake I see!"
The fox was startled out of his pensive state, finding Tai Lung standing with his hands on his hips. He looked like he had just been out looking for food as the fox stood up. Suddenly seeing a dead creature in the leopard's paws, the kitsune nodded.
"Yeah, I'm an early riser..." he said.
"I never would've guessed," replied Tai Lung simply as he set the dead animal in his hands down on the ground. "Still, all the better for me, I suppose. That means you won't be holding me down..."
Shaking his head grimly as thoughts of the blue hedgehog that used to be his best friend crossed his mind, Miles looked up. "Yeah, I guess that's a good thing, isn't it?" he asked.
Tai Lung's eyes narrowed imperceptibly as he took in the meaning of Miles' tone. However, he dropped it as he sat down. "It is," he said. "I just hope you can defend yourself too. I could fight for both of us, but that's something I really don't want to have to do."
"Eh, I know enough," replied the fox as he took the dead animal in his hand. "I'm not a fighter, though. I'm more of a... well... I make stuff. Or made, seeing as how I haven't made anything for a few years..."
Tai Lung's eyes showed quite a large amount of surprise at this revelation. "Huh," he said. "I never would have guessed you made weapons, either. It's too bad you don't have anything to make a weapon out of. Life is full of surprises."
"It sure is, Tai Lung..." commented Miles wryly as he fished through his pack for a carving knife. "It sure is..."
The predatory cat looked in surprise at his young companion. "Why do you say that?" he asked.
"You wouldn't care," said the kitsune morosely as he began carving the dead creature open. "And again, it's related to what happened..."
Tai Lung found himself getting more and more curious, but again he decided to deny himself the pleasure of knowing as he noticed the morose tone in Miles' voice. "Right," he said as he kitsune listlessly gutted the creature that would serve as their breakfast. "I hope you don't mind--"
"Trust me, I could care less what we're having right now," Miles interrupted as he skinned the creature as well. "I haven't really had anything much to eat since I got here... I'll take anything."
"So you almost died like I did," pointed out Tai Lung.
Miles glanced at the snow leopard briefly before shaking his head. "Hunger and thirst work very differently," he replied. "You can survive for up to a month without food. Water, you can only survive for a matter of days without that. I'd say you were luckier on food in Chohr Gom than you were on water. You were treated like a king compared to what I had to do for food..."
And the conversation ended there as Tails finished skinning the creature and began cutting the chunks of meat off of the bone.
Later, Tai Lung was bounding through the landscape of China. Chohr Gom was quite a distance away from the Valley of Peace, and the snow leopard knew it would take at least two weeks to get there, even by leaps and bounds. Miles held on to Tai Lung's shoulders with all that he could as he moved across the landscape.
"Wow..." commented Miles. "You move quite fast..."
"Quite fast?" asked Tai Lung skeptically. "Why only that?"
"Eh..." replied the kitsune. "I had a friend who could run faster than this..."
Tai Lung raced ahead as he heard this. "Ah," he said. "That would make quite a bit of sense."
Miles nodded as he held on to the predatory cat. "You know, you never told me why you're so angry at this 'Dragon Warrior' or whatever!" exclaimed the fox. "You mind telling me sometime?"
Tai Lung was silent for a few seconds before he replied. "Of course," he said. "But only when we camp for the night!"
This answer seemed to satisfy the kitsune, so he simply held on to the snow leopard as they moved across the landscape quickly.
Miles poked at a small fire uncertainly under the cover of the tree that they had camped under for the night. Looking at Tai Lung as he stood leaning against the tree, the kitsune spok up.
"So, about the 'Dragon Warrior'," he began uncertainly. "What makes you so mad about him?"
Tai Lung shook his head, his tail wagging slightly behind him. "Everything," he said. "The fact that he understood the Dragon Scroll and I didn't. The fact that I wasn't proclaimed the Dragon Warrior. And to top it all off, he's a big fat panda! Everything about him angers me to no end..."
Miles' sapphire eyes glanced to the side. "Uh... I'm not sure what you mean," he said. "Dragon Scroll? Is that something related to your fighting style?"
The snow leopard nodded, closing his cold yellow eyes as he seemed deep in thought. "Yeah," he said. "The Dragon Scroll is supposed to give you immeasurable power. But it's blank! That scroll is worthless, I tell you! I had waited twenty years to look on nothing!"
The fox nodded, thinking there was more that Tai Lung was not seeing but not voicing this thought. "And the Dragon Warrior is supposed to be the most powerful warrior in China?"
"Yes," he said. "Only, that panda gets it because he stole it from me." The tinge of bitterness in Tai Lung's voice perturbed Miles only slightly as he continued. "I was meant to be the Dragon Warrior! That old fool Oogway was crazy in proclaiming that big fat panda to be the dragon warrior! I mastered all one thousand scrolls of kung fu! That panda only learned kung fu in a few days! He deserves nothing!"
The fox's ear flickered slightly before he continued. "So... you're mad at the Dragon Warrior because you're jealous," he pointed out.
"Oh, believe me, there is a fine line between jealousy and justified rage," replied Tai Lung. "I was meant to be the Dragon Warrior. And yet, nobody wants to admit it! This is not jealousy, Miles; this is justified. And everybody else be damned if they don't believe otherwise!"
Miles was silent, simply looking at the snow leopard as he ranted. "Including your father?" he pointed out, hoping to instill some sense of regret in Tai Lung.
Instead, this seemed to make the cat angrier, as he turned on the kitsune. "My father stood there and did nothing!" he half-shouted, advancing on the fox and pointing his finger threateningly as he did so. "He knew I was the dragon warrior, and yet when Oogway said otherwise, he stood there and did nothing! He trained me for that day, Miles! You know how horrible it felt to feel that even my own father didn't agree with me?"
At the end of the rant, Tai Lung was uncomfortably close to Miles, who felt the glare of Tai Lung's amber eyes penetrate his very soul. The kitsune was silent, his own blue eyes shining in fear as the stars twinkled above. Realizing that the cat could really not be bothered with reasoning with Tai Lung, as his reasoning seemed logical enough. However, there were more questions that filled Miles' mind, and as he backed away to sit back up, he nodded.
"I..." he began uncertainly. "I'll be honest; I never even knew who my parents were, and the one person that was there for me... well, he always was on my side. So no, I don't know how bad it is. But I'll bet it must be the worst feeling in the world."
"It is the worst feeling in the world!" replied the cat, standing up. "He slapped me in the face with that! My father... he taught me everything! He made me into the finest kung fu warrior that anyone could have asked for! But no, I get rejected because I have 'darkness in my heart' or some shit like that! I got rejected by everybody!"
Miles nodded, realizing that in a way, Tai Lung was right. "But it's not the 'darkness' in your heart that's the problem, it's whether you can control it or not..." he said. "Were you able to control it back then?"
"I would think so!" Tai Lung exclaimed, throwing his ams up in the air. "My father brought me up with love! All I did, I did to make him proud! I mastered all the scrolls to make him proud! I became one of kung fu's greatest warriors, all to make him proud!"
"Hm..." Miles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "With so much power comes a lot of responsibility. And yet, the Dragon Scroll was blank..."
"Yes," replied the leopard as he glared at the kitsune. "I hope you're not trying to analyze what I did because I never would've done it if I had just been proclaimed the Dragon Warrior like I should have."
The fox paused on this note, looking at Tai Lung. He had been thinking a little about why Tai Lung might not have been proclaimed that the snow leopard was not thinking about. However, by this point, the cat was getting quite angry, Miles shook his head. Deciding that some things were better left unsaid, he decided to drop the subject entirely as quickly as he could.
"I'm not..." he said. "But still. I'll think about it a little more and tell you what I think when I'm ready to."
Tai Lung nodded, closing his eyes as he crossed his arms in front of him. He seemed satisfied with this answer. He looked up at the stars above them, Miles wondering why he would do so.
"In the meantime, you might want to be telling me what happened to you to get you this far," replied the cat.
Glancing down at the ground, the kitsune shook his head morosely. "I... I still don't think I'm ready," he said softly. "But... I can tell you that the only reason I'm here right now is because my best friend died two years ago..."
The snow leopard raised one of his eyebrows, genuinely surprised at this turn of events. "This is quite a long time of mourning a simple friend, yes?"
Miles looked up at him, eyes filled with sadness. "He was like a brother to me, though..." he replied. "And you wouldn't understand what happened..."
The cat nodded as he sat down on the ground. "I see..." he said. "But you will want to tell me one of these days, for I have already told you as much as I dare to tell, and you are the only one that has something left to talk about."
The fox nodded dumbly as he moved close to the fire again. Stretching out and yawning, he laid down.
"Tired already?" asked the snow leopard with a slight grunt.
"Yeah," Miles replied as he put his head on his hands. "It's one reason why I can get up so early every morning. Good night."
"Good night," replied the snow leopard as he looked out onto the landscape, keeping watch over Miles as he drifted off to sleep.