Title: waken to peace in the paradise of sleep
Characters: Tigress, Shifu
Summary: "So," he whispers sadly, and the familiarity of it all doesn't scare him like it used to. "We are two."
Written for: Starlight River of Dreams
Prompts: Family, Father/Daughter
Word count: 752

as it falls from its dream to the deep
to harrow heart's prison so heart may waken
to peace in the paradise of sleep.

- Triste, Triste, Gwen Harwood

.

Evening rolls around much quicker than they have come to expect. By the time they've finished in the Training Hall the sun is already simmering mildly, a smouldering conglobate of embers lying half buried beneath the tangent of the horizon. Most of the visible sky has been thoroughly boiled into an alizarin red; streaks of liquid light vein the boundless expanse, lancing whole clouds drifting in their path. Even though it isn't night yet, servants scuttle to light the lanterns that litter the walls of the Jade Palace, wary of the occasional misguided visitor, even though all who walk these hallways know every corner by heart.

She's nearly as tall as him, but Shifu (barely) cradles Tigress in his arms. The exhausted feline breathes evenly and deeply; breaths only taken by those in the late stages of sleep. He walks slowly, making sure to support the back of her head at all times because a cramped neck is not something anyone would want to wake up to in the morning. Particularly if the previous night was spent training: twenty sets of push-ups for starters, a hundred per set.

When he reaches her room he slides the door open with his foot and stumbles in, almost losing his balance. Shifu carefully lowers the sleeping child onto the tatami mat and starts to unfold a blanket.

Tigress stirs, and then one bleary, sleep-ridden eye flutters open. "Father?" she mumbles.

It makes him pause; he forgets the square cotton cut-out clutched in his hands. "Tigress, we've already talked about –"

When he's turned around, Tigress has fallen back to sleep. The rest of his rebuke caught in his throat, Shifu swallows hard and returns to straightening out the tangled length of cloth. It all started like this; have you forgotten already? Don't go down that path again. There will be no turning back…

She's my daughter.

Yes, she is. He was your son, too. You want her to remain your daughter, do you not?

I…

A sudden sensation of warmth around his ankles interrupts his thoughts. As he turns around again, he's surprised to find that she has deserted the mat; instead, Tigress is sleeping comfortably at his feet, a chromatic ball of orange and black and white. Shifu reaches down to prod her awake, but his hand stops inches away from her heaving back.

This is the only way to keep your family together.

When had he begun to think so clinically? As if mending a family is as simple as following a recipe: stick to a prescribed methodology and do what's stipulated and then cross your fingers and hope for the best. Keep his family together? This isn't a family, Shifu thinks bitterly – even after him, he knows this much. Squatting, he can see her smile, and wonders what she's dreaming of.

"So," he whispers sadly, and the familiarity of it all doesn't scare him like it used to. "We are two."

Shifu sits down gingerly, tenderly, and covers Tigress with the blanket. Smoothening over the fur on her forehead, he leans back, allows himself the tiniest of grins, and closes his eyes.

.

Shifu dreams that night: cinereous fur tickling his fingers; enumerating dark spots out of the corner of his eye in a smoky sea of grey (one hundred and twenty-nine, at last count); a lonely ink scrawling sepulchred deep within a scroll of children's stories once owned, initials 'T.L.' carefully engraved into the wood of the document. A normal scroll, free of the aureate burden he has come to detest.

By morning, tiny splinters of sunlight seep through pinholes that stipple the opaque fabric stretched tightly between window frames. Inside the room the coldness of night has yet to dissipate, still-endothermic wood sucking up heat beneath their feet. When he awakens to her furry form curled up beside him, warm and quiet, Shifu doesn't get up until she does, and all the while he smiles a wholesome smile, cries with eyelids held shut.

Outside, a rising sun pours life back into a valley that has temporarily renounced daylight – an unconditional barter to reunite the heavens and the earth, caressing the phosphorescent stars as lovingly as a father would his daughter.

A/N: I just can't resist making references to previous fics I've written. Especially the one that really started it all. Also, because I'm a poetry freak, the title of this drabble collection shares the same name as a poem by Edward Thomas. And yes, I have a certain weakness for purple prose. So sue me.

This is the first instalment for the LJ Drabble Meme. If you wish to submit your own request, the full details are up on my profile.