Through the Looking Glass: Penance: Chapter 4-B
The sun was high over the Jade Palace that afternoon. Cream had not been approached by the elder kung fu master at all that morning, so she had taken the time to explore the palace itself.
She had thus wondered to the Sacred Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom. The rabbit was awed by the view below. She had never truly had the time to admire the sheer beauty of the land she was in until right then. She looked down at the valley below her, admiring nature at its most beautiful. As she stood by the tree, she thought about how much her friends must have been missing her presence and how much Amy would have loved to set her eyes on the view that was beneath the rabbit at the time.
She heard a light series of footsteps behind her, and turning she found Shifu walking along, smiling at the young rabbit.
"I see you've found something... else to do here..." said the kung fu master as he moved so he stood next to the rabbit.
"I'm just thinking, is all," she said, gesturing out into the valley. "This is a beautiful."
The red panda nodded as he looked out into the valley. "And yet, you'd never notice such beauty unless you stopped to take a look at it," replied Shifu insightfully. "Is there anything else going through your mind?"
Cream laughed good naturedly, caramel eyes lighting up. "Lots of things..." she said. "The view is so completely different from what I've got at home that it's making me think about everything."
"Really?" Shifu asked, raising an eyebrow as one of his ears twitched. "How is it different?"
The rabbit waved her hand, gesturing towards the valley. "We don't have stuff like this where I'm from," she said plainly. "Instead, what we have for where I live, is tall building, tall building, and another tall building." She pointed at three distinct spots within the valley in their view. "And all around that, smaller buildings. And at the foot of that, we've got grey roads and people always moving around, always too busy doing stuff. It doesn't help that there's no vegetation either."
Shifu's glance cast a light of curiosity on the rabbit. "Is your home a city?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said.
"Beijing is quite similar," replied Shifu. "It also has most of the things you described. The buildings, the roads... but it has the emperor's palace. And that is a sight to behold how it seems to go to the heavens."
Cream shrugged. "I dunno," she said. "You'd have to see one of these cities for yourself... The buildings were really tall. Like, they went higher to the sky than even the Jade Palace!"
"Is that so?" asked Shifu.
"Yeah," Cream replied. "The city is... a pretty wild place to live. But it had its strong points too..."
"Like your friends?" asked the red panda.
The rabbit beamed at Shifu, the smile on her face wider than he had ever seen it. "Especially my friends," she said. "All of them are really good people... I was especially thinking of this one friend of mine..."
Shifu's eyebrow rose again. "Who might you be talking about," he asked.
"Well, her name was Amy Rose," began Cream. "She... she was a rather crazy one. She had a bad temper and always got on someone's nerves, but she always backed up those she cared about all the way through. She was... a really devoted friend. And also hopelessly in love." Cream shook her head, chuckling softly as she thought about Amy's incessant crush on Sonic. "She was madly in love with Sonic before he died. I remember she'd often get into saving the world looking for him, and always supporting him before asking him to marry her. And he would always say no and get as far away as he could from her."
"Sounds like an obsession to me," replied Shifu, the tone of his voice showing slight concern.
"It wasn't obsession, trust me," the rabbit said, waving her arms in front of her. "Sonic opened up to her after a really, really long time. And in the last few days of his life... it had to have been love. Amy was there for him through everything he went through..." Here, the rabbit paused lightly. "She was devastated when he died. She truly, truly was. I hope she's gotten over it by now."
"I am sure she has," said Shifu in an attempt to bring Cream back to happier thoughts. "Two years is an awfully long time to mourn the same person..."
Cream nodded. "I just hope she's doing okay is all," she said. "But I've got faith in her. She was always a good friend. She was one of the people who strongly supported my decision to find Tails..."
Shifu nodded at this. "I do wonder how Po and the Five are doing in that respect..."
"Well, don't they have to stop by Beijing first?" asked Cream innocently. "I mean, to, well, drop off Tai Lung?"
The red panda's jolly mood dropped instantly just by the mentioning of the name of his former student/son. Instantly, the rabbit covered her mouth, knowing she had said too much.
"Damn it, I shouldn't have said that!" said the rabbit quickly. "I'm sorry!"
Shifu said barely a word, looking out into the valley as the mood was completely spoiled. Slowly he nodded, shaking his head.
"It's not your fault," replied the red panda slowly. "I only wish I had the strength to face what must happen..."
Thinking of something, the rabbit looked to Shifu. "Well, maybe it's not in his destiny to get himself killed..." the rabbit pointed out. "Maybe there's something else in mind..."
The red panda shook his head. "That is not what I mean," he said.
Cream was apprehensive about Shifu's tone. She figured she had really hit a nerve, but curiousity tell her to keep asking. "What do you mean?" she said finally.
"I have seen visions in my dreams," replied the elderly red panda as his soft ocean blue eyes looked down to Cream. "They foretell a death to come in four days. And it is a death that will change everything."
Cream was shocked by this. "You... you get visions?" she asked candidly.
"I am the keeper of the Jade Palace," he replied. "I get them from time to time."
"So, the death... Tai Lung's death is going to change everything?" asked Cream, being careful not to sound overly ecstatic lest she seem insensitive to her counterpart.
"It is not Tai Lung's death," replied Shifu. "That is the problem. It is somebody else's death."
The rabbit's eyes suddenly widened. "So, it's not Tai Lung that's gonna die?" she asked.
"No," he replied.
"So then who is?" asked the rabbit quickly.
"I should not tell you," replied Shifu. "The visions implied that there will be nothing anybody can do to save that person. It would only be more painful for you to know..."
Cream nodded, understanding why the red panda was distraught. There were still a few questions hovering around her head when she did so, but she decided to leave them be at the moment.
"Okay," she said. "I won't ask anything else... But I expect you to tell me everything when the fourth day rolls around."
A hint of regret seemed to shine in Shifu's eyes for barely a milisecond as he nodded. "I thank you for understanding," he said. "Come. Let us go have something to eat."
The red panda walked away from the peach tree slowly, Cream standing behind for a few seconds wondering what the look in his eyes that had barely flashed by could have meant. Shrugging and deciding it was not important, she followed the kung fu master as he walked down the mountain.
When Cream and Shifu returned to the Jade Palace, the rabbit paused in the large room where the Dragon Scroll was kept. Thinking a little, the rabbit skipped over to Shifu.
"You know..." she said, pointing at the candles that were lit to the side of the room. "You always seem to have those candles everywhere. Why?"
Shifu looked at the candles that Cream was talking about. "Tradition," he replied. "We light one whenever we meditate."
"Oh..." she said softly. "Inner peace, huh?"
"Inner peace," replied Shifu, a small smile on his face as he looked at the candles. "I remember the days when Master Oogway was still alive..."
"Really?" asked Cream. "How many candles did he have?"
Shifu's eyes lit up as he talked about his old master. "He had thousands of candles," he said. "And whenever he would meditate, he would always blow them out one by one, until they all were blown out."
The rabbit's eyes widened in awe at this, looking at the prayer candles silently. "And what happened to him?" asked Cream.
"He... ascended into heaven," he said carefully. "And I am not flowering it up, either; he literally ascended into heaven..."
When Shifu clarified his position, the rabbit rose one of her eyebrows in confusion. "Ascended into heaven?" she asked perplexedly. "How did he do that?"
"That is one thing that will forever remain a mystery to all of us," replied Shifu as he began to move further into the building. "I sometimes wonder how he's doing up in heaven..."
Cream smiled, following Shifu. "I'm sure he's doing just fine," replied the rabbit. "If what you said is true, he should be doing very well up there... He must also enjoy it a lot, especially since he... well, you know, founded all of this?"
"That is true," said Shifu as they moved along. "I hope he has an inner peace that can last forever now..."
The rabbit nodded as they moved along in the giant room. "I actually wonder if he's met Sonic yet," she mused. "That would be a handful for him, I can tell you."
A laugh came out from the kung fu master, shaking his head as he did. "I doubt it," he replied gleefully. "Oogway was a very patient man; I am sure he would understand Sonic better than any of you did."
"Well, that's out there, don't you think?" she asked. "We all know he loved to be free!"
"Then freedom is what he is getting, I am certain," replied Shifu, still thinking about a blue hedgehog socializing with his old master and finding the thought quite amusing.
Cream simply shrugged at this, and the two of them continued talking about Oogway all the way over to the dormitories.