Elegant, Graceful, and Clumsy

Disclaimer: Do I look like I own Kung Fu Panda? Seriously...

--

Quickie One

The Dinner Table

--

It was early in the evening.. The blue sky was slowly giving way to a brilliant warm color palate of oranges and reds. Too bad at the Jade Palace nobody had time to enjoy the majestic scenery, since Master Shifu had them training nonstop following Tai Lung’s rampage, should a new threat emerge.

If there was one thing the Five looked forward to at the end of a hard day of endless training, it was dinnertime.. And since Po had now been in their presence for a little more than a week, they had gotten much more enthusiastic about it, even from his most harsh critic: Tigress.

Po had spent most of the late afternoon hours preparing dinner for his comrades, since today was a particularly special day: It had been officially one week since Po had rid the Valley of Peace of its snow leopard tormentor.

The invigorating aroma of his cooking wafted through the Training Hall for over two hours, tormenting the Kung-Fu warriors with its intoxicating bouquet.

“If I don’t get something to eat soon, I’m gonna starve to death…” Monkey groaned as he sloppily made his way through the training course, almost collapsing from exhaustion. Viper and Crane both rolled their eyes at the Golden Languor as they sat perched at the edge of the course, taking a breather.

Tigress scoffed as she dodged one of the Seven Swinging Clubs of Oblivion. “Quit complaining Monkey, we’re hungry too.”

“Hey you guys, dinner’s ready!” Po shouted ardently into the hallway, almost instantaneously being greeted by the stampeding army that was the Furious Five.

Mantis hopped up onto the wooden table, his eyes darting back and forth at the steaming pots and woks sitting atop the stove. “FOOD!!”

Po returned a heart warming laugh. “Relax Mantis; just have a seat with the others, would ‘ya?”

Everyone took their respective seats as Po brought the spread to the table, watching on with a small bit of amusement as the five warriors practically attacked the food he had laid out in front of them. After about all of five minutes, everything was gone; the steamed rice, the egg rolls, vegetable stir-fry, noodle soup… Everything.

Which just left dessert.. And what had Po been spending most of the time actually making; cookies.

“I hope you guys left room for dessert, because me and my dad had an awesome idea for a new cookie…” The panda smiled, pulling the tray of curious looking delicacies off the countertop. “You fold the dough over while it’s still wiggly and put a small piece of paper with a message inside it, and then bake them until they’re all nice and crispy!”

Crane tipped his head up to take a look for himself. “That’s an interesting concept; so what do you call them?”

“Well I don’t have a name, but my dad calls them ‘fortune cookies’.” He laughed, walking back over to the table.

Tigress chuckled, folding her arms. “Another secret family recipe?”

Po glanced over at her, their eyes connecting briefly. “You could say that…”

As soon as Monkey got his, he analyzed the cookie with an inquisitive eye. “So how do you get to the paper inside?”

“You just break it apart at the middle, and then you just separate the two halves.” Po answered the perplexed primate as he dropped one onto Viper’s plate. Once he got to Tigress’ seat, he stopped for a moment; taking the cookie off of the platter, and with a smooth nonchalant movement let his arm run across her own, gently placing the small item into her plate.

She shot a glance over at Po, who was taking a seat next to her at the head of the table. He looked at her with an innocent stare. “…What?”

Tigress quickly shook her head and cracked open the fortune cookie, as the others followed suit. Po watched her movements as she pulled the neatly tucked slip of paper from its shell, reading it over once. And while the others were laughing and comparing their fortunes, her eyes grew wide at the simple three word sentence printed on the small paper.

The female tiger picked up her chopsticks and dropped them onto the floor. “Clumsy me, I dropped my chopsticks.. Po, could you help me get them please?” The giant panda nodded as he bent over to get the eating implements, meeting her face-to-face under the table.

“So, did you like it?” He asked her with teasing eyes.

Tigress gave him a soft smile. “More than you’ll ever know…” She purred, pressing their lips together.