Eventually, the group's relaxing morning had to end when the afternoon smells from the various restaurants and bakeries began to reach everyone's noses and started to make them hungry for lunch. They made their way back to the shore and tied the boats to a post so that the boatman could come and collect them later. They then went back through the woods and up to the Jade Palace where they found Viper making lunch. Everyone ate and made small talk before the masters left to resume training, leaving Po and the girls alone for the afternoon. Madame Zhou decided to make some tea for everyone and the group wound up just making some small talk and hanging out in the kitchen for the rest of the day. Everyone was still a bit traumatized by Song's accident, especially the people who physically witnessed the outcome, but as a week moved into two, they slowly began to feel better and began to move back to their normal activity. One particular morning after Po hung out in his room for a bit, he finally looked back at his list which he hadn't touched in some time and came up with a fun idea: 60 questions.

"Oh! We played that when I first got here!" Destiny pointed out excitedly.

"Yeah," Po concurred. "I thought maybe we could have some tea and snacks in my room and then just go around and answer some ice breaker questions. That might help us get to know each other better. Not that we don't know anything after a month or so, but it'd be something to do."

"I'm down for that," Jai-Rong told him. "I'll make some tea."

"How personal are the questions?" Tai Lin asked cautiously. "I'm not really into overly personal details."

"I just thought about general questions about our life or something. If you guys knew kung fu masters, favorite places as kids, things that are annoying...stuff like that."

Tai Lin frowned in thought, was quiet for a moment while everyone else agreed, and then finally agreed to the game.

"If I accidentally ask a too personal question though you can skip it," Po promised, which made Tai Lin look relieve. "I tried to pick questions that weren't embarrassing, but I can't vouch for everyone on that."

A half hour later, two pots of tea had been brewed for the giant group and they had settled into Po's room with some almond cookies ready to start the game.

"What questions do you have?" Destiny asked. "I know I asked some weird ones...."

"Your questions seemed fine to me," Po promised. He grabbed a second list which he had made beforehand and sat down on the floor to read it out loud while some of the girls settled on the floor as well or sat down on Po's bed. Po looked at this list and proceeded to ask the first question which was indeed pretty generic: what month were they born?

"I honestly don't know my real birthdate," Po admitted, starting off the questions himself. "But dad said that he thinks I was around six months old when he found me, so he just made it November."

"That's cute," Ordai gushed. "I was born in March."

"Oh cool! Me too!" Lam said.

"I was born in October!" Destiny exclaimed excitedly. "That's pretty close to Po!"

"What about you, Lu-Shi?" Xiao-Niao asked.

"January," Lu-Shi said proudly. "I was born at midnight of the new year!"

"That's so cool!" Destiny shrieked excitedly.

"I was born in April," Xiao-Niao offered.

"June," Jai-Rong said.

"I was born in September," Madame Zhou said. "How about you, Kay dear?"

Kay jumped upon being suddenly addressed, but quietly said, "May."

"When in May?" Tai Lin asked.

A pause. "Um...the 14th?"

"Nice. Mine's the very last day of May."

"And I was born in August," Leopard told the group.

Po made note of some of the answers just as Destiny had done when they had their sixty questions. He then turned to the next question and asked: "What was your favorite toy as a kid?"

Everyone thought for a moment before giving their answer. Madame Zhou was the first to speak up and tell about how when she was little, she had a little top she loved to spin on any surface she could put it down on. "It was cute too," she said. "It was green with little blue zig zags all around it."

"I had a wind-up frog as a child," Leopard offered. "I remember showing it off at show and tell at school."

"I had a stuffed panther plushie," Ordai said. "What about you Po?"

"Actually, I had a stuffed panda plushie," Po admitted. "That's so cool!"

"Aw, I should have brought it!" Ordai said forlornly. "We could have swapped childhood adventure stories!"

"I had a plush too," Tai-Lin interjected with a smile. "Except it was a duck and it squeaked."

"What, no snow leopard plushie?" Madame Zhou asked.

"I liked loud noises, so the only way to get me to calm down was to rattle something or sneeze or make some kind of sudden noise. My squeaky duck was apparently my favorite, but I got really sick when I was 12 and infected it, so my mom wound up having to toss it."

"Aw, that's too bad," Destiny said with a look of disappointment."

"What about you Destiny?" Lu-Shi asked.

Destiny thought for a moment but then finally admitted she didn't really remember playing with toys as a kid. "We had toys, but I sort of preferred playing with the pillow cases," she admitted with a little laugh. "I don't know why. They just felt more fun. I used to pretend I was a superhero with a eye-less mask."

Kay smiled.

"I had a ball," Lu-Shi offered. "Next to that I liked playing with bowls."

"I was a pots and pans kid too," Xiao Niao said. "I had a couple of toys, but I preferred banging on the bowls in the kitchen." She laughed. "I'm shocked my parents didn't go crazy!"

Jai-Rong smirked. "I had a rattle I loved playing with and hitting people with," she said. "My dad literally left me outside in a baby chair with it because I was so loud I used to rattle his brain every time I shook it and he couldn't stand it after a while."

Destiny laughed.

"I played with a bubble wand," Lam offered. "My mom used to blow on it because I tried to eat the stick and then I did it by myself when I got older."

Everyone then looked at Kay who quietly said that she liked to cocoon herself in her blanket. She still had it, but she kept it snug in a box stored somewhere in the house. The third question Po had was how many siblings did anyone in the group had. Po naturally didn't have any siblings so he couldn't give a number. Most of the other girls in the group had siblings except for Kay, Xiao Niao, and Tai Lin. Leopard had one sister and one brother, Lam brought up the seven siblings she had mentioned to Po some weeks earlier while Ordai talked about her six siblings and how twins ran in the family. Destiny told everyone that she had five other siblings which were an even split between girls and boys. Lu-Shi and Jai-Rong both just had a brother, though Jai-Rong's was younger rather than older. Madame Zhou had a younger sister who only had one child, unlike she who had two. Question four was then asked which was what was everyone's first experience with kung fu masters. Growing up in the valley of peace, Po was able to watch Master Shifu and his students so he became very interested in kung fu early on. But everyone might have had different experiences. (Which was definitely true). Leopard had a similar experience to Po as she had kung fu master schools in her village, but the other girls didn't have that same opportunity and so met or saw them in different ways. Destiny heard about kung fu masters through the different traveling fairs she visited as a kid (and once even met one, though he was very old at that time), Lam met a kung fu master when he stopped to eat at her family's restaurant and Lu-Shi crossed one while traveling with her dad to visit her grandparents when she was 13. (In fact, the man's stories inspired both Lu-Shi and her dad to take up kung fu while her brother took a while to get on board with the idea). The only experience Kay and Jai-Rong had was meeting Po and the masters at the Jade Palace while Xiao-Niao's experience came during a winter festival when a master decided to attend it at the last second due to a change in directions. (He decided to take a more scenic route on his way to visit an old friend). Ordai's village came under local inspection from masters when she was young and Madame Zhou left to do some training at a kung fu temple when she was 22. There had been try outs for a vacancy and she had decided to do it just for laughs and wound up being a natural and getting in.

"Of course I left a few years later, but that's a whole other story," she told everyone, and leaned against the wall to rub her temples. When she had nothing else to say, Tai Lin talked about the first master she had met. Or that is to say, former master.

"A few years back I was in the middle of moving to a new area," she explained. "And while I was doing some last minute looking around, Tai Lung showed up."

"Wait WHAT?!" Po exclaimed in shock. "Were you okay?!"

"Thankfully. He didn't really bother me that much. He knocked down a few walls and interrogated a few shop keepers, but other than that he just grabbed a random drink or something to eat, made some snide remark on the Jade Palace masters, said something about a sister...though I couldn't tell what exactly was up with their relationship from the brief two second comment he made...and then he just left." Tai Lin leaned back against Po's bed in thought. "It was a very surreal interaction," she admitted. "It was a pretty dangerous situation thinking back on it, but it happened so fast that I hardly had time to process that idea. Plus, to be fair, he didn't really seem that interested in doing awful stuff to us. He just sort of passed by with some mild destruction."

"Well that's good to hear," Leopard admitted. "From what I've heard about his destruction of the Valley of Peace, it sounds like you got off pretty easy."

"Considering he was coming back for the Dragon Scroll, he probably wasn't interested in destroying random villages on the way over here to look for it," Po figured. He glanced at the list and added, "Actually, speaking of which...the next question asks if any kung fu masters scare you."

"Well considering I hardly know any masters aside from your friends, no," Tai Lin admitted. "And I won't lie...Tai Lung didn't actually scare me that much. I know I should have been scared, but I really wasn't." She shrugged. "I guess it probably was because he didn't try to injure or maim people, but there wasn't anything about him that made me fearful or even anxious."

"Too bad he's dead," Ordai started to joke. "You could have married him!"

Tai Lin frowned. "I'm not sure what that has to do with the price of coconuts in Hawaii," she countered simply. "But those kind of guys aren't my type anyway, so no thanks."

"Yeah, don't joke about that," Po told Ordai. "Tai Lung really isn't somebody to mess with. He kicked my butt pretty bad and he almost killed Shifu when he was here. He's real dangerous!"

"I'm just saying that at Tai Lin's expense," Ordai said with a laugh. "Considering how easily she gets caught up in whimsical romantic fancies."

Tai Lin rolled her eyes but said nothing.

"I hate to say it," Jai-Rong told Po. "But since we're being honest...your friend Tigress kind of scares me. I think it's just because the woman is a total powerhouse and gives off real crazy scary looks sometimes, but....yeah....sorry."

"Oh thank goodness! I thought it was just me!" Ordai admitted.

"I like Tigress," Kay spoke up immediately, though she turned bright red when everyone turned to look at her. "I...Grandmaster Shifu scares me....or...just makes me nervous....he never smiles...I can't tell if he's irritated or mad...or fine?"

"Oh, yeah, that's understandable," Po assured her. "Honestly, that's probably where Tigress gets some of her deadpan expressions from too."

Leopard laughed. "I noticed that," she commented. "Shifu mentioned in passing the other day she's been training with him since she was 8, so it makes sense she'd pick up on some of his behavior and habits."

"Eight seems a bit young to be sending your kid to train at a kung fu temple," Destiny pointed out.

"Uh...Tigress lives here," Po said. "I mean...we all live here...but Shifu took her in from the orphanage when she was eight. That's what I mean."

"Ohhhhh!" Xiao-Niao said immediately reflecting on something that had clearly just come to mind. "Now it all makes sense! She talked to me about not having a family but I didn't realize she was orphaned that early in life!"

"I suppose that explains her aggressive behavior too," Ordai noted. "Having a kung fu master as a parent, I mean."

Tai Lin sighed. "Well, at least Shifu treated her with love and respect," she said. "She could have gotten a real vindictive kung fu master to raise her."

Kay got up and walked over to Madame Zhou to check on her since she hadn't really stirred from her pained position along the wall. "I'm fine, dear," she said simply, getting to her feet. "I just developed a pretty bad headache. That's all." The gazelle slowly got to her feet and excused herself from the game so she could get some medicine and rest her head, which Po and the others didn't mind. The rest of the girls answered Po's question and then the group of nine continued on with the question and answers. Po's next question was to ask which parent people thought his group took after. He then asked What trait or skill seems uniquely yours in the family? Po told everyone that he could touch his nose to his tongue, but considering the fact that he didn't actually know his birth parents, it was hard to tell whether or not that trait was unique.

"I can dead lift a tea kettle," Lam offered. "Though that's probably not so impressive for the rest of you big guys."

"That's still kind of cool to be able to deadlift something," Tai-Lin offered. "I can't deadlift anything. Just sneeze with my eyes open."

"And your eyes haven't fallen out?!" Destiny screeched in shock.

"That's an old wives tale."

"I can whistle through the grass," Leopard offered.

"I can only whistle," Jai-Rong told her. "But only my grandfather can do that. It sort of skips a generation."

"That's cool!" Lu-Shi said excitedly. She thought for a moment before saying that she wasn't ticklish. She wasn't sure who in the family did whistle since they didn't have a lot of contact with their extended family, but it was nice to be invincible during tickle fights.

"I wish," Po laughed, eyeing her just in case she tried anything.

"How about you, Kay?" Ordai asked the young rabbit. "Any unique talents?"

Kay looked at her before quietly thinking on the floor for a while. When she didn't say anything, Ordai decided to add to the dead air by saying that she could breathe fire.

"What?!" Po exclaimed in surprise. "Really?!"

"Yep," Ordai said proudly as everyone looked at her in equal surprise and amazement. "Elder Vahn taught me when I was little and now I do it every summer for the color festival."

"I want to see that!" Lu-Shi exclaimed giddily.

"I know me too!" Destiny agreed. "All I can do is balance things on my head."

"Hey, that's still cool," Po told her. "How about you Kay?"

Kay was still thinking, but soon turned a light shade of red and quietly said, "I can change clothes in public."

Seeing the confused looks, the rabbit elaborated on the trick by explaining that she could switch dresses without needed to expose herself in public view and without drawing too much attention to herself.

"Can I see?!" Destiny screeched, scooting close to Kay in excited anticipation of the trick.

Kay turned red and seemed to debate about whether or not she wanted to actually agree to this, but seeing the intrigued faces of the group, she conceded, though on the condition that everyone kept right on with the questions since she needed a second to collect herself. Everyone conceded and Kay left the room to grab a second dress while Xiao-Niao told Po that she was good at avoiding squeaking floorboards.

"My dad's a light sleeper," she explained. "So I like to try to avoid waking him up."

"You'll have to teach me that," Po told her. "I'm real bad at that."

Leopard laughed. "I'm sure your friends don't mind too much," she said.

Kay soon came back with a pink kimono and sat down among the group again as Po asked what everyone had a fear of. Po personally had a vendetta against being startled or any sudden loud noises. (Which meant he wasn't too big a fan of balloons. Fireworks were okay. He usually knew when the loud bangs would erupt). Lam had a fear of poison ivy, though since she was also allergic to it, this wasn't much of a surprise. Lu-Shi had an extreme phobia of clowns (which Po made note of since he knew he loved them), and Kay had a fear of big crowds. (Which honestly wasn't much of a surprise). Tai Lin admitted to having a fear of the dark and thus always had a small lantern lit in her room while Destiny admitted to having a fear of ninjas.

"They could be watching us right now and we'd never know because they're so sneaky!" she told the group, glancing here and there as if expecting one might just randomly drop from the ceiling.

"Ninjas don't even live in China," Ordai pointed out with a weird and slightly condescending expression crossing her face. "Why is that even a fear for you?"

"I have a fear of curtains," Jai-Rong offered in Destiny's defense. "I don't think it's that out-there of a fear."

"Curtains?" Xioa-Niao repeated in surprise. "But they're so pretty! And they wave nicely in the breeze-"

"Uh...heh....no. No thanks," Jai-Rong interrupted quickly. "Too creepy. Don't even give me a visual."

Ordai just gave her a weird look and said, "I don't even know how to respond to that...."

Hoping to keep the conversation going without any more awkward pauses, Leopard said that she had a fear of twisters. A rare occurrence to be sure, but one unfortunately that Leopard had lived through and never wanted to experience again. Xiao-Niao simply had a fear of heights and Ordai told everyone that she had a fear of dying, but it wasn't one that kept her wide awake at night or even paranoid, so it wasn't a bad one. Po then asked what teachers they had who were the absolute worst, to which there were a variety of responses. Po had a teacher who made fun of him for being bigger than everyone else and took every opportunity to humiliate him in front of the class which Lu-Shi sympathized with since she had an art teacher who clearly picked favorites and humiliated anyone whom he didn't like very much. Leopard and Destiny both had very incompetent middle school teachers who just didn't feel like actually putting forth effort to teach the class and left the students to their own devices while Jai-Rong's preschool teacher literally left the class to do whatever they wished, vanishing daily to have an extended lunch out while the kids fended for themselves. (Fortunately nobody did anything dumb or got hurt). Ordai had a picky math teacher who preferred to chat with his favorite student than teach while Kay had a kindergarten teacher to bluntly told her she'd grow up old and alone if she didn't force herself to talk to the other kids in the class, even if Kay didn't like them. (Which of course backfired as Kay began to cry in the corner of the classroom every time she couldn't work up the nerve to chat with someone and often had her mother called in to take her home). Xiao-Niao had a first grade teacher who constantly tried to get her into trouble and even falsely accused her of cheating on a spelling test and Tai-Lin had a high school teacher who called her names for wearing her dead mother's necklace in class.

"Oh, that's right!" Po noted with a look of remembrance and sympathy. "You sort of mentioned that a while ago. I mean, not directly, but I kind of read between the lines on that one."

"She mentioned it too when we were doing that baking competition," Lam told the master.

Tai Lin held the necklace tightly and added, "My mom died when I was fourteen, and she left me this to remember her and dad by. But my teacher decided it was too "punk or "goth"...whatever on earth that even means, and so she kept calling me really mean things every time I came into the class. It was a really bad year."

"Why not just leave the necklace at home then?" Ordai suggested.

"Would you?" Tai Lin asked flatly.

"I mean, I'm sure your dad would have understood."

"My dad was dead too! And that necklace was all I had from them! And quite frankly, I didn't trust it with the people who took me in! There! Happy?!"

Silence.

"Sorry," Ordai apologized after a second. "I'm not very helpful with this kind of stuff, I suppose."

Destiny just scooted over to Tai Lin and gave her a big hug, which Tai Lin accepted, but then took in a quick breath and asked Lam about her teachers.

"I actually didn't have that many bad teachers," Lam admitted. "My dad though...nice guy, but boy is he not helpful with homework! He kept asking me how I did it in class...which defeats the whole purpose of asking for help...and then he kept saying how the equation reminded him of how he bought something at the store for the day."

Xiao-Niao laughed. "Well, at least he sounds like fun," she told the young mantis.

"Yeah, he is."

The next question Po asked was which teachers were everyone's favorite, which was certainly more pleasant to discuss. Afterwards, Po asked everyone question 12, What age are kids more irritating? which most of the group answered to be between ages 1-7, except for Leopard, Po and Lam who agreed that mid-teens was where all the worst kids were at. Xiao-Niao was the only one who didn't give an age, stating it wasn't a fair question since everyone is different. Question 13 and 14 both dealt with dreams. Po first asked about the craziest dream everyone had, (which for him was chasing after his flying pants in the middle of the village), which ranged from very simple dreams to very complicated dreams. Lam once dreamt about singing asparagus while Xiao-Niao dreamed once of falling but not going anywhere. Leopard had a dream about dancing flowers which uprooted themselves and chased down a cactus, Ordai once dreamt of being a baby and going through all the baby motions, and Lu-Shi had a dream that she kissed a classmate that she really hated. Jai-Rong told everyone that she once in a dream fell down a shaft which turned into a shower which turned into a lane which was made of fake scrolls. Tai Lin once was stuck in a whirlpool that kept giving her a massage that she'd leave every so often to join in on a mini-restaurant just outside the funnel. Destiny's crazy dream involved her needing to use the bathroom and going in the bathtub since there were no toilets anywhere, only for the tub to turn into the men's locker room with a shower. (Upon which she asked Po what the men locker rooms looked like at school and was slightly disappointed to hear that they sounded exactly like the girls' locker room). Kay then said she once dreamed about riding on a pig through the streets while being chased by a running flower, only to start floating on lily pads and hunker down in a cave with a mattress. It was such a nice dream, that Kay often went looking for it in her sleep, but never did find the cozy cave again.

The other dream question asked if anyone had a consistent sick dream. Po's was someone throwing shurikens in his stomach. Leopard's sick dream involved her chair tilting back and forth at the table while Lam's involved her trying to eat but not being able to bite anything off. Tai Lin often climbed up a steep mountain while sick and Destiny's sick dreams involved her getting stuck in the desert with no water. Ordai often had dreams where people whispered right in her ear while Xiao-Niao could just feel a pressure noise building and shrinking in her ears. Kay's sick dream involved her being tied to a chair and someone constantly binding and unbinding her, Jai-Rong usually just floated downstream on a mattress, and Lu-Shi usually had a dream where people kept trying to assassinate her because apparently in the dream she was the empress or something like that.

Po then continued on with more questions, asking the girls about their most epic dream and their scariest dream, about what rules or activities they hated as a kid but were totally okay with now or better understood as an adult. He asked about their first impression of the Jade Palace, what past time they preferred, did they like magicians, their best and worst vacation, pros and cons about having siblings or being an only child (the latter which he had no problem with offering his own input), early childhood memories, and so forth. They soon got to a section of questions inspired by Po having a keen interest in learning about favorite childhood games and items, one of which was if anyone had a nickname or was given a nickname growing up.

"I actually just let people call me by my nickname," Po admitted.

The girls looked at him in surprise. "Your name isn't Po?!" Destiny screeched. "What on earth is it short for?! Wait, let me try and guess....Pong?"

"No," Po told her, trying to hold back a smile.

"Pok-too!"

"That's not even a name!" Ordai told her.

"Yeah, it is! Is it Po-po?!"

"Brushes down, Destiny," Jai-Rong told her with a gentle pat to the teenage rhino's arm.

"Po is my middle name," Po corrected. "Xiao Po Ping."

"Oh!" Leopard said with interest. "That's a very nice name."

"What's wrong with the name Xiao?" Tai-Lin asked curiously.

"Nothing," Po said. "Dad just got used to calling me Po growing up, Little Po. And Po wound up just being the name that stuck."

"That's cute," Kay admitted. "I like cute nicknames. My dad likes to call me Bushbaby."

"Bushbaby?" Jai-Rong repeated with a weird look.

"My fur gets very puffy whenever I dry off from a shower or bath...since it's curly...so he kept calling my bushbaby. And it just sort of stuck, I guess."

Destiny giggled. "Bushbaby," she said. "I like that. It matches. I don't really have a nickname. At least not yet anyway."

"We'll come up with one for you at the end of the contest. How about that?"Ordai offered.

Destiny screeched giddily and resumed sitting on her spot on the floor as the other girls mentioned their nicknames.

"My full name is Lam-Tye, after my great-great-great grandmother," Lam offered. "But we just shortened it to Lam."

"Well, Snow Leopard is a bit of a mouthful, so people tend to shorten it," Leopard said in thought. "Though when I was still part of the Furious Five, there was a time when Rooster loved to call me Lee-oh-pard since I was a little slow at mastering some of the equipment and moves. That irritated the life out of me, so I started calling him Roo-Roo to get back at him, and he never did that again." The master laughed at the memory before settling against the wall to stretch her back out.

"My mom calls me calla lily," Ordai said with a smile and a little chuckle. "My sister hated that because she thought it meant that my parents liked me more, but they use flower names for all my siblings, so I don't know why she complained so much."

"What did they call your sister?" Kay asked, raising her voice ever-so-slightly in interest.

"Freesia."

Kay thought that over. "I like that," she said. "Beauty and energy. Your parents know their plants. Is your sister still energetic?"

Ordai laughed. "I don't think she's ever not been," she responded.

"My brother gave me a nickname growing up," Jai-Rong offered. "He used to call me a pasty sponged-meanie." When everyone gave her a confused and concerned look, she laughed and explained, "Oh don't worry about that. I used to call him a braindead dummy, so we're even."

"Oh," Ordai said knowingly and started laughing along with her.

"My dad used to call me a dingbat," Xiao-Niao said. "But in a good way. I used to do stuff weirdly as a kid, so that's why."

"I don't have a nickname. Surprisingly," Lu-Shi admitted.

"How about you, Tai Lin?" Lam asked, looking at the snow leopard.

Tai Lin didn't say anything for a moment, nor really looked like she really wanted to, but after a moment, she finally said, "Um...I think...my parents used to call me their ball of sunshine when I was growing up....not sure why. Maybe I was really energetic or something like that."

"You can't remember?" Jai-Rong asked in surprise. "But your mom's only been gone for a few years."

"You'd be surprised how fast stuff fades," Tai Lin told her. She then let out a sigh and asked Po for the next question. The next question was what was everyone's favorite color, which was followed by what was their least favorite color. What vegetables did they like and not like, where were they born and what plays or puppet shows had they seen? Po continued on with the questions, reaching question 45: Was there someone you wanted to be like as a kid? which had answers ranging from parents to kung fu masters to teachers and to famous legends in history. Po went last since he wanted to talk all about how much he admired his dad and wanted to mix kung fu with noodles growing up and how he was so excited to try and do that as a kung fu master.

"I haven't mastered the noodle part," he said sheepishly. "But hey, cooking and kung fu isn't a bad combo to have under the belt! Especially when you work with only the best people!"

"Speaking of childhood idols," came Mantis' voice suddenly from behind the door, startling everybody into jumping or screaming. "I have a question for you Po."

"Mantis, you really need to stop eavesdropping on all my private conversations!" Po scolded. "We're trying to get to know each other better. We don't need interruptions!"

"I thought you were helping the other masters with Superintendent Woo's missing centerpiece," Leopard added as Mantis opened the door.

"I was," Mantis replied grumpily. "Then he and Ming demanded we change the decorations and we were trying to do that while also looking for the centerpiece, and I told Shifu I'd "check by the barracks" for a few minutes just to see and he was okay with that. But I got to hurry back so that he can switch out the others to "check" other places by the barracks."

"Ah, I see."

"What I can't figure out is why he's making such a big deal out of decorations when the royal family isn't going to be here for at least another week or so," Lu-Shi pointed out.

"Best to make a constant good first impression?" Ordai offered.

Mantis walked in and sat by the door with a long sigh before finally turning back to Po. "So...not to bring up embarrassing things your dad mentions-"

"This better not have anything to do with those photos dad tried to show of me," Po warned.

"I'm asking out of pure curiosity. And before you ask, no I didn't tell Tigress. I figured that wasn't something you wanted her to know."

Po turned bright red as the group of girls glanced over at Po in slight confusion.

"Is this the Tigress crush thing you mentioned when we did the 60 questions?" Destiny asked, which made Po turn a darker shade of red. "How'd you find out, Master Mantis?"

"Mr. Ping tried show some photos of Po when he first came back and one of them was him making out wi-"

"That was years ago!" Po interrupted quickly. "That kind of stuff doesn't matter anymore!"

"Wait, you had a crush on Master Tigress?!" Ordai exclaimed in surprise. "Why? When?"

"It was a long time ago, honest!" Po told her. "It was kind of like one of those idol kind of crushes you get as a teenager, and when I got older, I grew out of it."

"That's what I wanted to ask you," Mantis told him. "I was surprised when I overheard you and your dad talking about it."

"Well...I tried not to make it obvious," Po told him feel heat radiating off his cheeks in embarrassment. "Besides, again, I haven't liked her like that in years so I didn't see any point in bringing it up."

"So Tigress has no idea about this?" Ordai asked for confirmation.

Po laughed, though this was mostly to ward off his embarrassment. "Yeah, there's no way I'd tell her that, you kidding? Plus we're just besties now. Which is awesome! I mean, how many people can say that they're bffs with their childhood idols? I have five of them!"

"Yeah, it took us a second of warm up to him, but he was pretty cool once we got to know him better," Mantis confirmed. "He used to go on and on about how awesome we were and how much fun he was having working with us. Speaking of which-"

"If this has anything to do with Tigress, you're overdoing it Mantis," Po warned.

"I'm just curious as to what the heck caught your interest with her. That's honestly the last person I would have thought you'd have a teen crush on. My first guess would have been Viper."

"I just thought she was cool, that's all," Po said immediately. He had started to calm down from the awkward conversation, though he tried to keep the conversation neutral so as not to give his guests any wrong impressions. "I wasn't cool growing up, so...you know...that's probably how that started off."

"Ah. Gotcha."

Mantis looked around the group and added, "Well, I'd better head back so someone else can take a break from the overbearing windbags. Don't tell Woo or Ming I said that. Sorry to disturb your game."

"It's no problem," Ordai told him with a smile and a wave. "Have a nice afternoon."

Mantis laughed knowingly and left the barracks to relieve another master of their duties. Xiao Niao, still very curious about Po's love life, asked him when he really got over his crush on the Dragon Warrior.

"Maybe I didn't pick up on it because you didn't have it when we met, but I didn't think you had much interest in her when we met," she said.

"Well, Tigress is a big personal space person, so that had something to do with that," Po admitted sheepishly. "And I think honestly I was starting to lose interest anyway around then. I sort of got over that crush right before the big battle with Shen and that was...um...I think sometime after that? Because we had that winter festival and then we headed off around the beginning of summer for that confrontation."

"Four years ago," Leopard elaborated to her. "It was a huge deal in our village considering the metal raids."

Seeing Po turn red, Ordai gave him a reassuring smile and pat. "It's okay," she assured him. "I've had plenty of short-lived interests too. It doesn't mean there's anything bad about you. Some people just bounce back from disappointed crushes or relationships faster than others."

Po smiled in relief. "Thanks," he said. He then quickly coughed and resumed asking his group the remaining questions he had on his list, starting with asking them question 46, what was their favorite type of weather, only to be interrupted when Destiny suddenly noticed that Kay had changed into the pink kimono and was now holding her green one and started making a giant crazy fuss over how the heck she managed to do that and when?!