As the afternoon began to turn to dusk, Crane and Tigress decided to head down to the festival to see if anyone needed any help with anything.

"You don't want to wear anything nice to the festival?" Viper asked Tigress, heading back to the barracks to change her hair lotuses.

"I'm good," Tigress assured her, getting ready to head of the gate.

"What about that cute shirt you have in your chest?"

"That doesn't fit me," Tigress answered flatly, quickly walking out with Crane.

The two walked down the stairs and to the village where they saw lanterns being steamed across the village, heard musicians setting up their instruments, and smelled delicious aromas drifting around.

"I'm gonna' go see if they need help with the lanterns," Crane said, walking over to a group.

"Why?" Tigress asked jokingly. "Too many lanterns in one spot?"

"Don't try my decorating skills, Tigress. You know I'm excellent with it."

Tigress rolled her eyes and walked through so as to see if there was something that she could do as well. Sometime after meeting Yijiro, Po had almost gotten married to a young goat named Lu-Shi who was tricked into the marriage by means of Junjie. He held her brother hostage, meaning that Lu-Shi had to go through with marrying Po or else. Crane, who was assigned the task of decorating the village for the wedding, was a little bit obsessive over how the flowers on the lattice were arranged as there were "too many flowers in one spot". While Tigress was relieved that Po had not actually married Lu-Shi, the main reason for that was because their friendship had grown stronger since Tai Lung's defeat two years prior to the incident and she wasn't about to watch someone throw away two years of hard work that Po had put in just for some marriage to someone he barely knew. (Although she didn't quite appreciate Po's insinuation that she was jealous, especially now that Mr. Ping seemed to have that idea following the bandit incident a few months earlier).

Tigress' feet took her to Mr. Ping's noodle shop where she saw Po and his dad cooking up a storm. Po was helping to drag certain foods up from the basement so as to restock the shelves as well as a decorations box to decorate the noodle shop.

"Po, do you mind replacing the lanterns for the festival?" Mr. Ping asked, adding vegetables to the soup pot.

"No problem, dad," Po said, going outside with the box so as to take all of the lanterns down from the noodle shop. Because of the box he was carrying, he didn't see Tigress standing just outside of the noodle shop and as he turned his back towards the door, he didn't see her walk over behind him.

"Hey, Po," Tigress said as she stood behind him.

Po jumped in startledness, losing his balance and toppling off of the ladder. He tried to grab onto the line that held the lanterns to keep himself upright, but wound up dragging the entire thing down with him.

"Po!" Mr. Ping cried in alarm, rushing out to make sure his son was alright.

Tigress rushed over as well as the goose took the box of festival lanterns off of Po's head.

"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly, helping to untangle to rope Po had around him from grabbing it.

Po nodded. "I'm fine," he assured her, sitting up with a moan. "Just lost my balance; that's all."

Mr. Ping raced into the kitchen, calling over, "I'll go and grab something from the ice room for your head, son!"

Tigress gathered the rope together along with the remaining lanterns that were on it. "Are you sure you're okay, Po?" she asked. "I hope I didn't scare you."

"Well, maybe a little bit, but I was a little unstable up there, so that was mostly my fault."

Tigress chuckled and sat next to him. She grabbed the empty box next to the one with the festive lanterns and began to thread the old lanterns off of the rope.

"Thanks, Tigress," Po said, taking the end of the lantern and stringing the most festive lanterns onto it. "I hope you don't mind my asking, but what are you doing down here? The festival doesn't start for another hour."

"Crane and I wanted to see if there was anything we could do to help," Tigress explained. "Crane went to help the villagers outside, so I decided to help out in here."

"Oh," Po said. He smiled and said, "Well, we could always use help with changing the lanterns. We have to change them before the festival and then dad wants to change them back for regular restaurant hours tomorrow."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Tigress told him.

Mr. Ping soon returned with some ice wrapped up in a small cloth and put it on Po's head.

"I'm okay, dad," Po assured him as Mr. Ping pressed the cold ice to where he had hit his head.

"You have a nasty bump on your head," Mr. Ping answered. "You need to put ice on it. Unless of course you want Tigress to do it."

Po turned a dark shade of red as Tigress glanced over from putting the lanterns in the box. "No, no, I'm good," Po said quickly, taking the cloth and putting it on his own head. Mr. Ping went back into the noodle shop so as to keep cooking as Po looked over at Tigress who was casting him a funny look.

Po chuckled nervously. "Dads," he quickly stuttered. "Always trying to do help."

Tigress smiled at him and went back to the task of removing the lanterns from the rope. Po sighed inwardly with relief and went back to placing them on the rope. When the two were done with the strand, they put it back up where Mr. Ping had originally had it.

"Okay," Po said, "Now to the other lanterns."

"I'll start in the back and work my way up," Tigress told him.

"Awesome! We'll get done even faster than dad thought we'd get done!"

The two proceeded to work on removing the original lanterns to place the more festive ones on the ropes above the restaurant.

"Aren't these the decorations that your dad uses for the winter festival?" Tigress asked Po, trying to make small talk.

"Yep," Po answered. "He saves them for all occasions, minus the lantern we made one winter festival. That one is only for special occasions."

Tigress smiled at him and resumed the task of putting the lanterns back up.

"Have you ever gone to a festival before?" Po asked her. "You know, any time before I showed up?"

"A few times," Tigress admitted. "But I was more focused on kung fu than the festival, so it was a lot harder to convince me to go."

"Well I'm glad you're more eager to go to them," Po replied. "It makes the festivals more fun when we all go together."

"Why, they're not as much fun if I don't go?"

Po felt himself begin to blush and quickly turned back to the task of putting the lanterns up so that Tigress couldn't see. "I'm not saying that," he stammered. "I'm just saying that normally you don't go to the festival with us, so the group isn't as complete."

He noticed Tigress still eyeing him and realized what he just said. "Not that I don't enjoy the festival when you aren't there; I do enjoy it a lot! It's fun...but we're all in a group...and when someone's not enjoying the fun along with the rest of the group, it's not as fun than when everyone's there...."

He cleared his throat so that he could clear his voice up and went back to the lanterns. After about three minutes, all of the lanterns were finally in place and all of the original lanterns were safely boxed up.

"Dad!" Po called over, picking up the boxes. "Where do you want me to put these boxes?"

"Keep them in your room until after the festival," Mr. Ping called over. "Then we can put them back in the basement."

"How do you manage to place all of this stuff in such a small restaurant?" Tigress commented as her and Po made their way into the restaurant and up the small narrow stairs.

"That's where stacking and clever organization comes into play," Po answered, heading up the stairs and entering his room on the top floor. "If you know how and where to stack the right stuff, you don't have that many problems with storage."

"I suppose that explains why you always stack everything in the corners in your room."

"You could say that."

The two carefully placed the boxes by the side of Po's bed after which Tigress decided to look around the room. "You sure do have a lot of stuff on us around this room," she noted.

"Of course I do," Po exclaimed in slight surprise. "You guys are my biggest idols! I don't know why I wouldn't have all of your action figures and posters!"

"Po!" came Mr. Ping's voice from down in the kitchen. "Can you give me a hand with the soup?!"

"Coming!" Po answered, quickly going down the stairs and being careful to not trip over one of the steps. (Mr. Ping hasn't bothered fixing it at the moment).

Tigress followed closely behind so as to see if there was anything else that she could do to help, minding the step on the way down as well. She was intending to go outside and see if any of the other shopkeepers needed help setting up, but Mr. Ping spotted her sneaking out and exclaimed, "Oh, Master Tigress, I need to go grab some extra flour down in the cellar. Do you mind mixing the tofu into the cake batter while I'm gone?"

"Dad, we have plenty of flour up here," Po told him, mixing some ingredients into the soup pot.

"Not to my satisfaction," Mr. Ping answered him, disappearing into the cellar.

Tigress hesitantly entered the kitchen and walked over to the bowl with the cake mix inside. Besides the bowl were some cut-up tofu on the chopping board.

"Do I just put these inside the bowl here?" Tigress asked Po.

"Yep," the Dragon Warrior assured her. "And then just keep mixing until they're nice and scattered in the bowl."

Tigress hesitated for a second, asking again, "With my hands?"

"Well, wash your hands first, and then yes."

The master walked over to the sink to wash her hands and then walked back over to the counter to put the tofu into the cake mixture. She then picked up the spoon and began to slowly mix the batter. Po would pop over every once in a while to grab some more vegetables or condiments to mix into the soup pot for the villagers to eat. After a few minutes passed by, Po peeped over Tigress' shoulder and said, "I think that's good."

Tigress put the bowl down and looked over at the panda. "How's the soup?" she asked.

"Almost done," Po said. "It just needs to boil together for a few minutes."

The two stood there watching the pot for a moment, Po glancing over towards the cellar, muttering, "What's taking dad so long?"

"Do you think he needs help?" Tigress asked.

"I don't know," Po admitted. "Lets go look just to make sure."

The two headed into the cellar so as to look for Mr. Ping, unaware that as they were sneaking down to look for him, he was sneaking back upstairs in order to give them some "quality time".

"Dad?!" Po called out. "Dad, are you down here?!"

No answer.

"He was just down here, wasn't he?!" Po exclaimed.

"Maybe he we-" Tigress began, but was cut off when the cellar door slammed shut above them.

"Oh no," Po grumbled, running towards the stairs. "DAAAAD!!!!"

"MR. PING!!!!" Tigress called up, hoping the goose would open the door and let them out.

Po dashed up the stairs and tried to push the cellar door open. "It won't budge!" he exclaimed. He then proceeded to pound against the door and yell, "Dad! Dad, let us out!"

"Mr. Ping, are you up there?!" cried Tigress. "Mr. Ping!"

"DAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!" Po screamed at the top of his lungs, slamming himself against the door so as to make as much noise as he possibly could.

"Stand back," Tigress said, walking up behind Po. "I'm going to kick the door off."

"You can't kick the door off!" Po exclaimed. "You know how my dad gets when something around here breaks!"

Tigress sighed. "True," she admitted. "So what do you propose that we do exactly?"

"Make as much noise as we can?" Po suggested.

"I was thinking more along the lines of seeing if we can get the lock off of the door so that we can get out," Tigress replied. "If we have anything thin to stick through the crack, we may be able to force the lock off."

"There is no lock," Po told her. "If we can't open the door, that means something's on top of it."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. But if that's the case, we just need something big enough to push whatever is on the door off. "

"Well, what's big enough down here to knock it off?" Tigress asked. "Whatever is on top must be pretty heavy if we can't get it off ourselves."

"We have a ton of heavy bags down here," Po answered. "We should be able to find something."

The two then set off so as to find something heavy enough to knock the door free. However, despite using various sacks and trying with all of their might to pry the door open, nothing worked. After about twenty minutes, the two finally decided to take a break and rested by the stairs, Tigress resting at the foot of the steps with Po a step or two above her.

"I can't believe we're gonna' miss the festival," Po groaned.

"We won't if your dad opens the door," Tigress reminded him. "I don't think it starts for another twenty minutes."

Po sighed in slight relief. "Well that's good to hear.," he said.

The two sat in silence for a moment before Po said, "So...ever had a back massage?"

Tigress did a double-take. "What?" she asked.

"A massage. Or something to do in order to relax after training? Viper says that sometimes she gets Shifu's permission to get away from the Jade Palace so that she could get a massage to relax her training muscles. And then Mantis likes to go and cool off by the lake whenever he needs to relax, I like to go to the hot springs sometimes if Shifu will ever let me..."

"That was only once," Tigress told him.

"Well I've been there before that," Po told her. "Sometimes if my dad and I had a good work month, we'd go over there for a nice break. They have really nice soups for lunch. Dad said it isn't as good as his soup, but I kind of expected him to say that."

"I don't remember them having any food there," Tigress admitted. "Although that was because we weren't there long the one time we did go to the Jujong Hot Springs."

"How did you guys get kicked out?" Po asked. "Mantis said you mistook a towel for a weapon but that was about it."

"We went into the spa area," Tigress explained. "And it was empty minus for us and anyone else who was in there." She leaned against the wall, adding reluctantly, "I wasn't really comfortable going into the spa waters since we had to undress to go in, so I stood on the sidelines and tried to meditate. One of the people who ran the spa came in to hand everyone their towels and...he kind of...startled me."

"So you hit him," Po finished.

"I wasn't trying to do it on purpose," Tigress protested. "I was just in a fighting frame of mind, so when I saw him there behind me all of a sudden, I came to the conclusion he had a weapon. I didn't even think twice about that."

Po chuckled. "So you didn't even get to relax?" he asked.

"Not really. Relaxing isn't really my thing. I need to be alert for anything that comes my way."

She sat up straight as a way to demonstrate what she was talking about, glancing upwards to see if Mr. Ping was opening the door. "At this rate, we won't be out of here until after the festival," she muttered, putting her head in her hands.

Po looked at her, hesitating for a second before reaching forward to massage her shoulders. Startled by Po's sudden touch, Tigress quickly grabbed his paw and said, "Wha-what are you doing?"

Po turned red when she touched his paw, thankful that the room was dark enough for her to be unable to see it. "You said you don't normally get the chance to relax," Po answered nervously. "So I thought I'd give you a massage."

"That's not necess-AHHH!" Tigress cried, feeling a pain roll through her back. "Po, your hurting me!"

"Sorry," Po said, continuing to massage along her shoulders. "This might hurt for a bit."

"I th-AHHHH!" Tigress screamed. "I thought massagEEEES were supp-AHHH...supposed t-AHHHHH- be relaxiIIIIIING!!!!!"

"They are after all of the knots are rolled out," Po informed her, trying to be a little more gentle. "See, the people at the massage table said that stress can make really bad knots in your muscles, so when the massage first starts, it kind of hurts. But after they relax the knotting, everything goes by much nicer."

Tigress felt her eyes water at the pain of the massage. "You'd think punching AHHHHHH....all of those iron wood trees would hEEEEEEEELP me not feel this pa-AHHHHHHHHH!" she cried.

"Man, you have a lot of knots back here," Po noted. "You really don't get to relax much, do you?"

"Not really. AHHHHHHH!"

Po continued to massage Tigress' back, the master struggling to not cry out in pain with every rub. But like Po had said, the knots eventually loosened and the pain finally subsided. Tigress felt Po knead her shoulders gently, relaxing her muscles and causing her to let out a small moan of happiness.

"Better?" Po asked her.

"Mmhmm," Tigress answered with a content smile, leaning forward and resting her head in her paws. "They do this at the Hot Springs?"

"Yep."

The two warriors sat on the stairs for a few minutes with Po gently massaging Tigress' shoulders and back. After a few more minutes, Po gently stopped, leaning back so as to stretch his arms out.

"Thanks, Po," Tigress murmured, stretching herself out as well. "I needed that."

"Hey, it's no problem," Po assured her. "I'm always happy to lend a hand."

At that moment, the cellar door opened up and the warriors glanced upwards with a start to see Mr. Ping looking down at them.

"Oh, there you two are!" he exclaimed. "I came upstairs to put the flour in the bin only to find you two missing! What are you doing down here anyway?"

"You were taking forever getting the flour, so we came down to see if you needed any help," Po answered.

"I was perfectly fine, Po," Mr. Ping answered. "I was just trying to get enough flour to bring back upstairs."

"Dad, the flour is all the way on the opposite wall over there and we didn't see you over there at all."

"We can discuss this later, son. In the mean time, the fesitval is starting and we have customers outside waiting to be served!"

"Right, coming," Po said, starting up the ladder and into the kitchen.

Tigress followed close behind, shutting the cellar door behind her. she then turned and began walking away, calling out, "See you later, Po."

Po waved her goodbye and then turned his attention to his dad who was getting bowls out and began to serve customers.

"How did you not know we were in the cellar?" he asked, helping to garnish some of the soup. "We were yelling at the top of our lungs and knocking against the door in order to open it!"

The answer that followed surprised Po:

"I knew you were down there."

Po did a double take. "You did?!" he exclaimed.

"Of course I did," Mr. Ping explained. "I trapped you two down there so that you could spend some more time getting to know each other."

"Daaaaaad...."

"What?"

They served a few more customers before they headed over to the oven to take the cake out. "Dad, what have I told you about me and Tigress?"

"That you want to take it slow so that she can warm-up to you?"

"I never said anything about warming up. I said we just got to the strong friendship zone and I don't want to try and ruin it by pushing it too fast.

"So you're taking it slow."

"Look, dad," Po said, pouring more soup into the bowls so that they could serve it to the people coming to the window. "Tigress and I aren't ever going to get together. We're good friends and there isn't anything that's going to change that."

"But you like her."

"That doesn't mean she likes me back. She's never shown any hints that she cares the same way."

"What about when she tried to talk you out of the mind control stone you mentioned? Or what about down in the cellar? You massaged her back down there; didn't she enjoy that?"

Po turned red. "Uh, how do you know that?" he asked.

"I came back into the kitchen right after I grabbed some apples from Mr. Milan, so I could hear the entire conversation."

"Dad, she isn't interested in me. End of the story."

"Alright, alright. If you insist on being like that, then I'll stop," Mr. Ping grumbled.

"Thank you."

Monkey, Viper, and Mantis headed down to the village where colorful lanterns lit up the entire valley. Viper had decided to wear blue lotus hair ribbons for the occasion which got her quite a couple of compliments from some of the villagers. The three wandered around, wondering where Tigress and Crane had gone.

"What do you think Crane will say when he sees Viper's new ribbons?" Mantis whispered to Monkey, whispering and walking behind Viper so that she didn't hear them.

"Ten yuan say he won't mention anything-at least not on first glance," Monkey answered with a grin.

"Ten says he will," Mantis responded.

The two quickly went to catch up with Viper who was slithering over towards one of the flower shops.

"Look at all of these flowers," Viper gushed, looking at the various bouquets. "I don't think some of them are directly from China."

"I know the jade flowers aren't," Monkey noted. "Mrs. Irin mentioned that they were from South America or something."

Viper bought a hibiscus flower and tucked it behind one of the blue lotuses she was wearing, slithering off to the ribbon shop which was a bit down the street. She passed by Crane, saying, "Hey, Crane," before she went over to the shop.

"Hey, Viper," Crane answered, pausing a second to look at the hibiscus she had on before walking back over to Monkey and Mantis.

"Ten yuan," Mantis said, holding out one of his pinchers. Monkey grumbled and handed the money over.

"I hope that hibiscus doesn't fall off," Crane noted when he reached his friends. "It seems kind of big to keep tucked behind one lotus hair pin." He eyed them. "Did she change them? They don't look pink."

"She put on the blue ones," Monkey said, trying to suppress a snicker. "I'm surprised you noticed."

"Why? Didn't you two notice?"

"Not until she pointed them out."

Musicians began to play festive melodies from across the village and some people began to go into a restaraunt while some began to sway to the music.

"Where's Tigress?" Mantis asked.

"She never actually mentioned going anywhere specific," Crane admitted.

"Maybe she's in the noodle shop," Monkey suggested. "We can look there while we eat dinner."

"I'll get Viper," Crane said, beginning to walk over to the ribbon shop.

Monkey and Mantis began to snicker, causing Crane to give them a look. "Unless you guys want to get her," he snapped.

"Nope. All yours, buddy!" Mantis exclaimed with a laugh as he and Monkey dashed over towards Ping's Noodle Shop.

Crane let out an exasperated sigh and walked over to grab Viper.

Monkey and Mantis were greeted by Po upon entering the restaurant and were seated by the window again so that they could talk.

"Where's Crane and Viper?" Po asked.

"They're coming," Monkey said. "Crane went to pull her away from the ribbon shop."

"Think we should let them sit next to each other?" Mantis suggested.

"If we could find Tigress, it would be a little easier," Monkey noted.

"You guys haven't seen her?" Po asked in surprise, pouring their soup into a bowl and walking over to the table.

"We haven't seen her since her and Crane came down here to help with the decorations," Monkey answered. "Why, did you see her?"

"She came in here a while ago to help with the lanterns," Mr. Ping piped up from the kitchen. "And then she helped a bit with the cake, and then her and Po got lo-"

"Daaaad...." Po warned.

"Fine," Mr. Ping said, not taking the hint. "I locked them in the cellar. And then when they got out, she just left."

Monkey and Mantis snickered, trying to not laugh. "You locked them in the cellar?" Mantis asked.

"Nothing happened," Po answered quickly before his dad could intervene. "We were just trying to open the door with a couple of the sacks down there."

"I hope you didn't rip any of them," Mr. Ping called over.

"No, they're fine!"

As Po went back into the kitchen, happy commotion came over by the door and the masters looked over to see Tigress enter the restaurant along with Viper and Crane.

"Hey, over here!" Monkey called over, waving his hand high in the air.

The three warriors walked over towards the corner table and sat down, Monkey pulling Tigress into the seat next to him so that Viper and Crane didn't get a chance to be separated.

"There you are," Po said, walking over with three more bowls of soup. "Where were you guys?"

"Trying to grab Viper," Crane answered immediately. "She wouldn't stop window-shopping."

"I couldn't help it," Viper protested. "There were so many pretty pots in that one market."

"I went to help Mr. Milan set up his cart," Tigress answered. "And the musician cart lost a wheel, so I helped move it towards a shop to get it fixed."

"I hope they're okay," Po said, going back inside and grabbing some bean buns.

"They'll be fine," Tigress assured him.

As the masters continued to eat and talk, Viper, who was sitting right next to Tigress, commented, "You look relaxed."

Tigress looked at her funny. "Come again?" she asked.

"Your shoulders aren't tense like they normally are. Did you do something to them?"

"Like use them to open the cellar door?" Monkey teased.

Tigress gave him a look. "Who told you that?!" she demanded.

"Dad," Po called over from the counter. "He's the one who locked us down there."

Tigress groaned irritably. "Mr. Ping..." she grumbled.

"Why are you two acting like I did such a bad thing?" Mr. Ping asked. "Maybe I wanted you two to relax before the festival." He walked out with some more bowls and added, "And from what I heard with Po giving you that massage, I think you've relaxed quite a bit."

"DAD!" Po yelled from the kitchen.

"What?"

"Mr. Ping," Tigress said, trying to not get anxious while reasoning with him. "Not every conversation is for public ears."

"I don't see what's so private about you getting a massage from my son," Mr. Ping said. "But I suppose we can keep it between us for now."

Tigress brought a paw to her face in slight embarrassment as Monkey and Mantis began to snicker.

"A back massage?" Viper whispered to her friend.

"Later Viper."

The masters continued to eat their dinner and converse, Tigress and Po grateful when Mr. Ping withheld talking about anything else that might embarrass either one of both of them. After finishing their soup and their cake, they said goodbye to Po so as to go into the center of the village and dance. (Mostly for Viper as the dancing was the main reason she went to the festival). The music was lively and happy and prompted most of the valley to dance along to the beat. Tigress, who wasn't much for dancing, merely stood against the wall of the noodle shop and watched her friends have a good time. Mantis danced on the outskirts of the dancing villagers so as to avoid getting stepped on by any of the villagers, and Viper danced around to her heart's content with Crane and Monkey bopping to the beat just a few feet away.

Po, who was helping his dad to clean up the bowls in the restaurant, noticed Tigress standing by herself and wondered if he should go over there and ask her if something was wrong. Mr. Ping noticed the look and said, "Po, why don't you go over there and have some fun. We're pretty much done in here minus the occasional customer."

"Are you sure, dad?" Po asked, putting the bowls in the sink and beginning to wash them.

"Of course I'm sure," Mr. Ping assured him, gently nudging him out of the kitchen. "Now go have some fun with your friends. I'll call you if I need help with anything."

"O...kay," Po said, reluctantly leaving the kitchen. He walked out of the restaurant where he glanced over at Tigress who was still watching the dancers.

"Not dancing?" he asked her.

Tigress jumped in surprise but then smiled weakly and shook her head. "I'm not much of a dancer," she answered him.

"Oh yeah? Says who?"

"Says me. I've never actually danced before minus that one time Temutai made me dance. And you saw how bad I was."

"That's because you were put on the spot," Po told her. "And even if you are bad at dancing, I could always show you a move or two."

"And what? Bounce up and down like a spring with no idea on what I'm doing?"

"Hey!" Po said with a playful smile. "I take that as an insult, Master Tigress."

"That's because I'm afraid you'll find me to be a hopeless case for dancing, Dragon Warrior," Tigress answered with a grin.

"Lets test that, shall we?" Po asked. "If I can pin you to the wall, you have to dance the next dance."

Tigress smirked. "Unless I pin you first," she responded.

The two got into a fighting stance and Po began to lunge at Tigress. Tigress went to grab him, but Po feinted a lunge to the right, throwing her off balancing and giving Po enough time to grab her by the arm and pin her to the restaurant wall.

"You cheated," Tigress said playfully, trying to keep a serious tone.

"You fell for it," Po told her with a grin. "That's your own fault."

"I suppose."

Po released her from the pin, allowing her to move again. The lively music began to slow down and the villagers clapped at the end. The music began to start again, this time slower, prompting couples to move to the dance floor. Tigress and Po looked at each other in slight awkwardness.

"Um, we don't have to do the slow dance," Po told her.

The two could hear a slight up-beat to it, leaving room for some jumping around for joy, but for the most part, the music was very gentle and slow.

"No, it...it's fine," Tigress assured him nervously. "We did say the next dance."

Po swallowed nervously as he hadn't anticipated the next dance to be very close to Tigress. "Well, if you don't mind..." he replied.

"Ever slow danced before?"

"Nope."

"Then I guess it'll be a lesson for us both."

"Yeah, I guess."

The two slowly and awkwardly moved towards the dancing couples, keeping towards the outskirts so that they wouldn't be noticed too much. The two looked at each other for a moment before they took a hold of each other's paws, Po slowly wrapping an arm around Tigress' waist so that he could see whether or not she wanted to dance in a similar manner to everyone else around them. The two danced slowly in a circle, Tigress stepping on Po's foot every once in a while as she wasn't used to that kind of dancing.

"Sorry," she said, accidentally stepping on his toe.

"No, no, it's fine," Po assured her with a wince. "You'll get better."

The two continued to dance, awkwardly at first since Tigress wasn't good at dancing and Po was getting hot flashes being really close to her. After about two minutes of dancing however, Tigress improved and her and Po fell into a smooth dancing rhythm. The two would then started twirling, spinning, and even went far enough where Po could spin her over his head without her landing on his foot. The music sped up to another lively beat for a moment, giving the two the chance to really dance to the beat, but then it slowed down again to a gently sway. A bit startled by the sudden change in beat, Tigress tripped over Po's foot and fell against him, Po freezing up when she landed against his chest and grabbed a hold of him so as to prevent herself from falling. Tigress glanced at her friend so as to apologize, but the words got caught up in her throat when her and Po locked eyes. The master felt her head grow slightly fuzzy as she felt Po's jade eyes peer into her own, suddenly becoming well aware of how physically close they were at the moment.

On the flip-side, Po was becoming lost in Tigress' eyes, her paws sending a numb tingle throughout his upper body. He felt his heart beat faster, unable to speak as he felt drawn by her gentle, fiery eyes.

"Uh..." he stammered, trying to find words to apologize for the awkward position they were in. "I...I...um...."

"S-sorry," Tigress apologized, pulling away from Po and standing a bit away from him.

"N-no, i-i-it was my fault. I probably shifted dance speeds too rapidly."

"Well...accidents happen...right?"

"Y-y-yeah...."

The dance ended with the couples clapping for the musicians. Tigress cleared her throat awkwardly and said, "Well, I'd...better go see what's going on down there in the shops."

"Cool," Po answered, watching her quickly walk away. He wrung his paws together before heading back to his dad's noodle shop.

"Back so soon?" Mr. Ping asked in surprise, serving some more soup.

"Yeah, I just needed to catch my breath," Po told him, walking into the kitchen to clean the slightly towering stack of dishes.

"After one da-" Mr. Ping began, but then added, "Oh that's right. You were dancing with Tigress. That explains it."

"Wait, how did you know that?" Po asked, pouring some of the soup into the water so as to wash the dishes.

"I was serving cake outside to some of the villagers when I noticed you two slow dancing," Mr. Ping replied. "You two were so cute what with you having your hands on her waist, she was holding your paw, and you were dancing very intimately...."

"I wouldn't call it intimate," Po said. "She's not much of a dancer; I was just teaching her some moves."

"Well you were dancing very close together. I call that intimate dancing. Especially whenever she would trip and fall against you...." Mr. Ping sighed happily. "You two make such a cute couple," he murmured.

"You make this kind of stuff sound easy," Po noted with an unhappy sigh.

"Maybe if you would talk to her..."

"Daaaad...."

"I know, I know. You're trying to take this slowly."

The night passed on until everyone became tired and began to retreat to bed. The musicians began to pack up their instruments and the villagers began to take down their festive decorations. Po, having finished washing all of the dishes, was now beginning to put them away, wiping his hands on his pants from the water and from the sweat that came from whenever he thought about how close together he and Tigress were during the dance. Mr. Ping went to take the towel Po had in order to put it away when he noticed the sweaty palms.

"Po, are you alright?" he asked. "Your palms are sweating like crazy."

"I'm fine," Po assured him. "It is kind of hot down here."

"Not that hot."

Po began to pick up the dishes so as to put them away when he heard a familiar, "Po?"

Startled, Po jumped in alarm, his sweaty palms allowing the dishes he had to tumble to the floor where most of them broke upon hitting the wooden floor.

"Son, are you sure you're alright?" Mr. Ping asked, putting his rag down and heading over to grab a broom. "Maybe you should take a break."

"No, no, I'm fine!" Po protested.

"Well I don't want you dropping any more of my dishes all over the floor, so why don't you go outside and put the lanterns back where they were?"

Mr. Ping gently pushed Po out towards the dining area, adding, "Maybe you can get Tigress to help you. I'll clean up the broken dishes."

"I dropped them," Po told him. "I can clean them up."

"I got it under control. Please go get the lanterns down."

Po sighed and took the ladder from the side of the noodle shop and propped it under the festive lanterns. He then walked upstairs in order to grab the lanterns and the empty boxes and bring them back down. Tigress followed him into the restaurant and called out, "Need help?"

"Of course you can help!" Mr. Ping exclaimed, putting the broken dishware in the garbage and then walking over. "Why don't you start by taking down some of the lanterns and put them in the small, empty barrel by the door? That way when Po comes down stairs, we can just put them into the box."

Tigress was then pushed outside where she began to slowly climb up the ladder and take the lanterns down one by one. A minute later, Po came down the stairs carrying the boxes for the lanterns, struggling to move forward as they blocked his view of the floor.

"Just keep going straight," Tigress called over, climbing down from the ladder and walking over to put the lanterns into the barrel.

Po obeyed the command and walked straight, looking up so that he didn't knock the boxes down against the ceiling. Just as he was about to come out of the door, Mr. Ping quickly slid the barrel over, resulting with him falling down on top of Tigress who was about to dump the lanterns into the barrel.

"Sorry, Po!" the goose exclaimed. "I was trying to move it back since you already came down with the boxes!"

"Uh, it's okay," Po assured him, getting off of Tigress and helping her to her feet. "Stuff like that happens....apparently...."

The two silently set to the task of rearranging the lanterns and putting the festive ones back into the box. When they had finished, Tigress helped Po put them into the basement where she then began to walk out with a quick goodbye.

"See you again soon!" Mr. Ping called out.

"I'll be along in a moment!" Po added. "I need to...wipe the counters."

"Po, I just wiped the counters," Mr. Ping told him, but one look at the Dragon Warrior told him that his mind was already pre-occupied.

"Po?" Mr. Ping said again.

Po was leaning against the wall of the kitchen with a happy sigh, a lovestruck smile plastered across his face.

Mr. Ping smiled. "I take it you had fun tonight?" he asked Po.

"Minus the part where you talked about me and Tigress' conversation in the cellar," Po admitted.

"Well, I guess I'll have to work on that, won't I?" Mr. Ping said, putting the rag away.

Po sighed and stood up straight. "I need to work on getting control of myself," he muttered. "When we were dancing and all...it was like my brain went all fuzzy...I almost had no idea on what I was doing."

"Maybe it's because you two don't normally get that physically close unless you're trying to fight someone?" Mr. Ping suggested.

"I guess."

Po sighed and hugged his dad. "Goodnight, dad," he said.

"Goodnight, son. I'll see you soon."

With that, Po walked out of the restaurant so that he could get back to the Jade Palace barracks and get some sleep.