Master Tigress learns her toughest lesson yet:

“Good work today Masters.” Master Shifu said, leading his tired students back to the Jade Palace.
“You could say that again.” Monkey said, looking weary.
Shifu stopped at the front door to the Jade Palace and smirked. “Alright then, ‘good work today Masters.’” Only Tigress and Po chuckled; the rest had weary looks on their faces.
“Hey, I know what will make everyone feel better.” Po said, perky as always, “I’ll get some soup on the stove.”
“Yeah, well,” Mantis said, hopping off of Monkey’s back, “could you serve it to me in my room? I’m beat.”
“Me too.” Viper said, gliding along a little slower than usual.
Crane yawned, stretching his wings. “Might as well practice my calligraphy.”
Po was cutting up vegetables for his soup when he turned around, “Hey Crane, what are you doing with all that calligraphy stuff anyway?”
“None of your business.” Crane said, holding a steady glare despite the fact that he too was tired. “I’ve just,” Crane continued, ruffling his feathers, “been writing some things, that’s all. Like poems and stuff.” The last sentence was in more of a mutter as he walked off to his dorm room.
“A poem, hmm?” Tigress said, smiling evilly. “How romantic.”
Po coughed on the soup he was testing from his ladle upon hearing that last sentence, and turned to Tigress. “WHAT would YOU know about romance anyway?!”
Tigress turned and raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s for you to know.” Then Tigress walked off to her dorm room as well.
“I’ll call you when dinners ready.” Po replied.
As Po made dinner, the rest of the Masters all resting, he started to think. Wow, Tigress is having a good day. She’s been smiling a lot more, yeah, (I’m pretty sure that means she’s over me being the Dragon Warrior instead of her) but what on earth could she be talking about with romance?
None of it made sense to him, but in a few minutes it didn’t matter, because he had already started to doze. The ladle fell from his hand, bounced off the stove and landed on the floor. That awoke Po just enough for him to open his eyes, being vaguely aware of the fact that he had dropped his ladle. He quickly bent down to retrieve it, noticing that his soup was boiling over, and forgot to take a step back and smacked his forehead on the stove. He winced, falling backwards with his hands windmilling.
He smacked some over-hanging pots and pans, one of which conked Po in the head. With a muffled grunt Po topped and fell, lying still. The noise alerted Tigress, who was in a small cat-nap at the time and mistook it for the morning bell. Quickly she leapt up, bowed outside her room and said “Goodmorning Master.” She cocked her head to hear only more falling pots and pans in the kitchen, then felt insanely foolish for her mistake.
She took a quick look at the other dorms, and, seeing no one respond, was convinced that she had made her mistake undetected. Perhaps Po needs some help. Tigress figured. She walked into the kitchen and was shocked to see Po lying there unconscious, almost covered in pots and pans. Tigress immediately noticed after that that the soup was boiling over, and blew out the fire first.
Tigress knelt down after that and helped Po up, who moaned. “Po. PO. Are you alright? What happened?”
Po sat up, leaning against the stove. “Oooh, I can’t really tell yuh. Just felt something hit me then went black.”
Tigress noted all the pans lying on the floor and concluded they must have been the culprits. She started to place them back on their hooks when Po uttered a question. “How’s the soup coming?”
Tigress turned, shrugging. “It was boiling over so I blew the fire out.”
Po started to rise, looking discontented. “Oh man, I gotta’ make that soup for the guys….” He started to rise, but Tigress had him sit again.
“Just sit there Po, your hurt. Just tell me what to do and I’ll-” Tigress flinched. What was she saying? She’d never cooked anything in her life. However, to at least save face, she continued with, “and I’ll do it.”
Po nodded, rubbing his head, which was growing a large ostridg egg. “Just grab the noodles on the counter and put them in the pot.”
Tigress nodded, located the noodles, which lay in a large bamboo bowl, then dumped it into the bowl. “Now what?” She asked, sounding almost focused, as though being given a combat objective.
“Um,” Po said, rubbing his head again, “there’s, like, four containers to the right of the pot. There’s garlic that needs to be minced-”
“Ok,” Tigress said, reaching for the rest jar-
“the rosemary needs mincing too-”
Tigress’ paw stopped, and indecisively moved between the first container and the second. “Wait-” Tigress said.
“and you have to mix the tomatoes, only chop those-”
“Po!” Tigress said, stopping the panda.
“What?” Po said, sounding irritated.
Tigress sighed. “I can’t understand all that. Please could you run that by me-”
She turned to see Po had passed out on the floor.
Tigress winced internally, looking back at the stove. She paused, frowning. What was she so worried about? The answer came quickly. She’d NEVER worked in a kitchen before! Master Shifu never taught her the ways of the cooking pot!

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