The Final Blow (TigressXPo)

Everything is over. Everything is done for. The end. I lost.

I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. All I know is the pain. It’s overcoming me. Seeping into my mind, into my very soul. It digs itself into me, into every cell of my aching body, until it’s all I know. The pain is what I’m made of now. Because he’s gone. He’s gone, and it’s all my fault.

I feel his name form at the tip of my tongue. It dances in my mouth, taunting me with all its beauty. My lips curve to let it go, but it never makes it past my teeth. Not even a whisper escapes me. But his name is still there, in my breath. In my body. In my soul. Po. He’s gone. He’s gone.

The chains appear to tighten around me. They squeeze my chest, my lungs. My breath is hitched and painful. But I don’t care. I don’t even try to struggle. I let them tighten, let them burn. I welcome the physical pain because I’ve spent my entire childhood preparing myself for it. It distracts me, if only slightly, from the emotional stab in my heart. Something so foreign to me, so new, that with only one single, deadly blow I was brought to me knees. Po. He’s gone.

I only vaguely realize that I’m not alone here. My friends, my fellow fighters, hang next to me. They all have expression of hopelessness and gloom daunting on their drooping faces. But they don’t understand. They didn’t love Po the way I loved him. They don’t feel the same pain. They can’t. They never will.

Monkey turns to me from where he hangs by my side. “We have to stay strong… for Po. Hardcore, right Tigress?” I don’t answer. I can’t. My mouth is dry and empty, my voice is cracked and broken. I hang my head low. The message is clear. Without Po, I can never be strong again.

The panda. He was my ambition. When I was with him, I always had something to fight for. To strive for. To care for. My friend. My only true friend. Gone. Slipped right through my grasp into the waiting arms of a fiery death. Take care of him, I whisper to the creature of death that took my friend, protect him the way I should have while he was still living. The way I failed to do. I am a failure. I let him die.

I can’t help it. A single, wet tear drips down my cheek through my closed eyelids. It’s warm and moist and even if I could wipe it away, I wouldn’t. I let it drip. The first tear I’ve shed since I was a little, lonely girl in an unfriendly orphanage. Po was the friend I never had as a child. And I let him slip away. I just let him slip away.

I want to wail, to howl, to scream at the sky above me. And that bird. That horrible, despicable monster. The murderer who sent my friend a crashing blow to the body, and an even bigger one to the heart. How dare he. HOW DARE HE! He’s a coward. A fool. A monster. I hate him with every once of my being, every piece of my burning soul. But I’m in too much pain to be angry. Too much pain to be anything. I am nothing without him. Without Po. My only friend.

“The hardcore can’t understand.”

I can hear his voice now, whispering in my ear as soft as the wind. Soft, sad, defeated.

In my eyes, I can see it all. I watch myself lung for him in the dank prison cell. “Tigress, no!” Vapor shouts. But she doesn’t understand. She can’t, because what I do is completely and utterly unpredictable.

I wrap my arms around his neck, resting my tired head on the curve of his shoulder. I can feel the stiffen of his muscles, the hitch in his breathing. He’s surprised. So am I. My eyes gently close. For a moment, all I do is feel. The soft, gentle warmth as the heat radiates from his skin. His fuzzy, bristly fur connecting with mine. I feel warm in his arms. Safe. Wanted. At home. And that scares me. But I don’t let go. I can’t let go, because I love it. He’s my friend. My only friend.

Eyes still closed, I whisper in his ear, “The hardcore do understand.” I begrudgingly release my grip on him and pull away, staring him in the eyes with a paw still resting gently on his soldier. “…but I can’t watch my friend be killed.”

And with that hug, with those words, I told him that I cared about him. And I meant it, more than I’ve ever meant anything in my entire life. I told him to stay. And yet, he came. He came, and just as I had feared in my darkest of nightmares, he died. He could not make it. I tried to protect him, to keep him safe, but it did no good. He still died. I failed.

I watch as my mind replays the moment of impact before my eyes. The single most painful moment in my entire life. I hear myself. The single, hopeless word, “NO” escaping from my lips, echoing around and around in the large, sickly-lighted room. I reach out to him, calling out to him. This can’t be happening, I have to save him! But it happens. I watch in horror as the cannonball fires. It hits his stomach and before my eyes I watch as it takes him from me. Pushing him into death. And I’m broken. Since then, I’ve been broken. Ripped to pieces to the point of no recover.

Po. Please, come back. I love you.

But no, he can't. He's gone, and I just need to accept that. But no matter how hard I try, his presence still lingers in my soul. Forever within me. Love doesn't leave you that easily. Friendship doesn't just go away. It stays.

And now I sit here, bound by the life he left behind.