Title: Five Things That Never Happened To Viper
Characters: Viper
Summary: "My father used to tell me at night when I was little," she murmurs, "that rain would make the flowers grow."

i.

The full rush of patrol duty kicks in a couple of weeks after her father has shown her the ropes – navigating the caliginous streets at night, picking vagrants out of the concealed alcoves and crevices scattered across the village, all the while doing this with poison-laden fangs glinting evilly in the moonlight, and the finesse and poise only attributable to the village chief's daughter.

Lately it has become a running joke around town in recent years how it would be a lot less safe if her parents had borne a son instead of her. She would corkscrew him into the ground and then some, they would say, laughing because they know it's true. Viper the Death, Viper the Mortiferous, Viper the Valiant, Viper of the Nethertoxin; the names accumulate with every triumph until she has one for every day of the week. Even considering how Grand Master Viper had turned out, it's difficult for anyone to imagine a male snake matching up to her, though sometimes they have their wild speculations involving hundred-foot serpents that spit fire and acid. Then she pretends not to hear if she is within earshot, part of her thinking it all hyperbole and the other part senselessly proud for herself and her father.

But there is no denying that they are indeed strong together. Save for that one gorilla marauder with anti-venom armour and a couple of mithridate-guzzling knuckleheads, their fights usually conclude within ten minutes, fifteen tops and only when they're outnumbered five-to-one or more. Their little village becomes off-limits, skewered on bandit maps by a pair of snakes and an adjoining skull. No one is foolhardy enough to attempt encroaching on the territory any further, and those who do are allowed to return in time to jabber out a warning before collapsing dead, and always, always sporting twin puncture marks somewhere on their person.

It doesn't come as much of a surprise when a messenger goose arrives one day from the Valley of Peace, extending an invitation for her to join what Master Shifu of the Jade Palace dubbed 'The Furious Five', potentially the strongest Kung Fu warrior squad in recorded history. Viper turns down the offer politely after a day of consideration, sending the messenger back with her well-wishes for the team to be a successful one. The call of duty to protect China is a strong one, but eventually she decides that the call of duty to her father and her home comes first and foremost. Viper certainly can't imagine living any other life besides that, or any life far away from the people she has sworn to protect on her life, and her fangs.

ii.

If it were a sick joke, she would know – years of living next door to Mantis does that to a person.

There's no joke about it. It's just sick. Nightmarishly so.

The odds hadn't been stacked in her favour a couple of mornings ago when Grand Master Oogway had assembled them to select the Dragon Warrior. Close to everyone in town had shown up for the landmark event, and there was even a diplomat representing the Emperor all the way from Peking to relay the news once the ceremony had concluded. Aside from one anomalous moment during their demonstrations where a panda had catapulted into the crowd as if launched by a trebuchet from behind the gates and floored a pig, everything went according to schedule. And it wasn't even a certainty that Tai Lung would've come back; Oogway had his visions and they had their scepticisms, plus Master Shifu arranged for precautionary measures to be taken just for that.

Oogway chose her. He chose Viper, and she had bowed her head to the celebratory roar of spectators. It wasn't unexpected and yet she hadn't been entirely hopeful; her peers had equally fair chances, perhaps a little bit more for Tigress and Crane, but otherwise it was a decent decision. Everyone respected the results, knowing unequivocally that she had the potential to be worthy of the title and power.

Grand Master Oogway's gone a day and night later, and then came Zeng.

They hadn't wasted any time dallying about or debating if she was ready or not. Master Shifu rallied them up and called down the Dragon Scroll. Viper stood before him, accepting the artifact with a shaking tail.

A shell of an artifact that now lies in the corner of her room, void of any power or meaning. Useless. Empty and useless.

Useless, useless, useless, just like her.

With or without the Dragon Scroll, her destiny is absolute and hers solely to face. As soon as the alarm sounds from the village gates, she stands at the peak of the valley and looks ahead to the oncoming storm with the moribund calm of one about to be executed, steeling herself in preparation as the wind howls and wallops her face.

He appears on the far end of the horizon, and bares his teeth in a dreadful snarl.

iii.

During the first year anniversary, she refuses to attend, as is the case with the second and the third. Every time she reappears from absence the following day it means another lecture from her mother, another round of force-fed guilt that sours her insides and brings timeless tears to the surface like monsters through a closet. Viper gives up trying to evade talking about it with her mother despite the fact that whenever she looks into her mother's eyes, sees her pained expression, the rupture within her blows wide open, and all the guilt and sorrow of years past come back in a massive deluge, threatening to drown her until she turns tail and flees.

She never heals, but she tries her best to forget the unforgettable.

"You can't keep running away, Viper," her mother says one night.

She takes it as a direct challenge. "Seems like the only thing I can do right. Watch me," Viper mutters.

"You were ten, Viper. We've all let it go, except for you. He'd want you to be there. You know that."

"I don't know anything. And neither do you."

Her mother flinches at the retort and the conversation ends there and then, like it always does the night after, year on year.

.

On the fifth anniversary, Viper stops running.

She follows her mother out of the village and over the verdant hills. They come to stop in a large sun-blasted glade, and right in the middle is a large stone surrounded by nodding azaleas. The base of the stone is green with a fine lamina of crenulated lichen, but the monument is otherwise onyx black and perfectly plain, carved sufficiently large enough to cover a snake's body. Grand Master Viper's body.

Sedge tickles her scales as they approach it. Her mother is wearing the widow's veil she'd spun out of white silk, blood and tears woven right into the fabric. Viper starts to wish that she'd dressed up as well, even though there'd be no one at the end of it all to sweep her up on the end of his tail and smile and kiss her on the forehead and tell her how gorgeous she looked.

Looking up at the wordless memorial, a terrible feeling grips her. "I'm sorry," she whispers, growing frantic, tears burning her eyes. She needs to get far away, as far as possible. Her reaction turns visceral, carnal, even. "I can't do this. I can't."

She turns and runs and never looks back.

The next few days are quieter than usual. In the coming weeks, she's rarely home.

The next year, she leaves the village and becomes another person someplace else. Her mother grieves for the loss of two.

iv.

It is spring, and the day is beautiful outside, but she doesn't get to see much of it in bed.

(Every day outside is beautiful, when she's inside.)

She's now in the village infirmary after a bout of coughing fits that had left her breathless and nearly catatonic a week prior. The foot of her bed is a mound of discarded cloths, on each one a fine mist of blood where she had held them against her mouth whenever an episode had seized her. At the very least, she's not contagious as far as the doctors are concerned, and her friends come down from the Jade Palace often to visit. The word is that her parents are also on the way, but it's a month's journey, and no one knows if she will last that long.

Everyone plays their role. Mantis and Monkey both make her laugh with their little quibbles and choreographed banter while Crane recites whatever poetry he's written, and Tigress keeps by her bedside whenever she can to talk about the days they've had following Viper's admission and indulge in their private girl-to-girl moments that only they can have. Master Shifu appears sporadically, but she understands the duties of a Grand Master and appreciates the gesture nonetheless.

Po is, well, Po. He brings piping hot congee with a smiley face sauced onto it and get-well soups that have turnip chunks arranged into Chinese characters, elucidating the message in a manner she finds adorable. Viper sees him the most and at times she wonders if he sneaks out to make unauthorised calls on her. In fact, she becomes certain of that hypothesis after one time when his entrance involves squeezing through the window, and Master Shifu asks rather candidly the next day if she'd seen him around their training brackets, eyes stern as if to ferret out a falsehood.

She doesn't say anything, though, and holds back a grin.

"Honestly, guys; I'm alright," she murmurs every time they come down, speaking as normally as she can with her throat wracked raw, shredding her voice into something ragged and almost unrecognisable. "There really isn't any need – I feel fine." The lie usually gets them to leave, albeit sceptically, but sometimes she forces herself to complete the farce with a mock display of wellness when they insist on staying behind.

One day, it's raining lightly in the late afternoon. Po's with her again on yet another unsanctioned visit, urgently telling her about the new sizzling vegetable place that's opened in town. "Once you're better, we'll take you there, 'kay?" he offers hastily; the visit is planned to be succinct so as to skirt detection, and his eyes flicker towards the exit. "I gotta go. I'll be back to see you again as soon as possible."

Viper's eyelids flutter and she gives a tristful smile. "Po," she whispers beseechingly. "Stay with me? Please?"

He pauses. "I'm cutting it a little fine –"

"Just until the rain ends."

Po looks down at her, feeling her tail snake weakly around his trembling wrist. Sweet, sweet Viper. "All right then," he replies softly, taking his place by her side.

The room goes still, and for a while the only sound is the thin patter of rain outside. Viper shuts her eyes tiredly and leans back in a faint, her breaths growing thready. "My father used to tell me at night when I was little," she murmurs, "that rain would make the flowers grow." Po squeezes her tail gently and nods for her, even though she's already asleep and can't see.

Soon after she stops speaking, all is quiet; the rain ceases at nearly the exact moment when Viper's tiny reptilian heart gives out and her last breath billows past her lips, untempered and sacrosanct as a prayer uttered at a tabernacle.

v.

"What do you think," Grand Master Viper asks, "about lotus flowers?"

Madam Viper, heavily pregnant and cantankerous from the stuffy aftermath of morning sickness, snorts disagreeably. "What makes you think it's a girl? Anyway, too watery. Can't you choose something more unisex and less –" she wavers for a couple of seconds, struggling to find the exact word. "– flowery?" She did try her best.

Immediately, he nixes the suggestion for a nice combination of nasturtiums and rhododendrons. "I'll see what I can do tomorrow," he says, leaning over to snuggle against her swollen abdomen. For this, both can smile in eager anticipation of their firstborn, the village's future hope.

.

There's much rejoicing about the people a day later when the village chief announces the auspicious arrival of his child: A healthy, fanged baby boy named Viper.

A/N: Feedback? It would be lovely.

Not starting a new series; this is probably the last time I'll do this. I blame cofax. "The rain will make the flowers grow" is more Les Misérables sneaking in. And yes, most members of the taxonomic family Viperidae give birth to their offspring.