89 days and counting.....

Po and Li journeyed to the panda village for about five days. (It took a day longer than expected since Li liked to frequently stop for food. Not that Po minded much). Along the way, the two were able to talk and discuss various things, such as favorite foods, favorite colors, what Po's life was like growing up in a noodle shop, how the other pandas managed to escape and find a safe spot to hide, and what their hobbies were. The two traveled across miles of fields, bridges, and rugged mountains before finally reaching the top of a mountain where a barely noticeable arch was seen off in the far distance. 

"Is that it?" Po asked, squinting to see better.

"That's it, Le-Po," Li told him with a smile. "That's where we've been all these years."

Po glanced around at the multiple mountaintops that were together, some grass overlaying the rocks and trickling into an unseen valley while snow covered the tips. "You sure picked a good spot," he noted. "I don't think anyone would find you all the way up here."

"That's why we made our new home in this area," Li told him with a smile. "We haven't had any problems since we've arrived and it'll continue to stay like that for probably a whole other millennium."

He continued to walk forward, Po right behind him, getting closer and closer to the archway that lay ahead. After a long hour of hiking, the two finally reached it where Li slipped onto the ground to take a quick breath.

"Are you okay, dad?" Po asked worriedly.

"Ah, don't worry about me; I'm perfectly fine. I just haven't walked uphill on this mountain for almost thirty years."

Li finished taking a breath and stood up to continue. He led Po through the archway and gestured down to the valley within the mountainous region. "Welcome home, son," he announced.

Po stepped through the archway with him, letting his bag slip down to the ground in utter shock and amazement. Before him was a massive valley that was green, mystical, and had many different lakes that surrounded it. Bridges crossed across the waters and bamboo houses stood slightly scattered around the area while many pandas could be seen running around performing various activities. Some were flying kites, others were swimming in the lakes, some farmed a bit of the land, and a few pandas could be seen just laying on the grass soaking up the sun. Li glanced over at Po, seeing his amazed expression, and let out a light chuckle.

"What do you think?" he asked his son.

Po stood still with his mouth agape for a brief moment before finally saying, "Whoa."

Li grinned and gave him a pat on the back. "Just wait until you explore and meet everyone," he told him. The panda then proceeded to usher Po inside, pausing to let him grab his bag real quick before they went on. The two walked into the village where Po watched the other pandas in awe, hardly able to believe that there had been an entire village of his own species hidden the entire time. While approaching one of the bridges, the Dragon Warrior heard, "Li Shan! You're back!"

Several pandas came running up to Li, embracing him and talking to him excitedly about how his journey was and if he had any luck finding his son.

"I had a wonderful journey," Li informed them. "And I am so glad to be back." He glanced over at Po and pulled him over to the group of pandas gathered about. "Everyone, I want you to meet Lei-Feng! Um...I mean Po."

The pandas ignored the correction and went over to greet the Dragon Warrior.

"Um, hi," Po said with a small smile. "Nice to meet you too."

"You're actually alive!" a rather chubby panda exclaimed, tightly gripping Po's shoulders. "How did you manage to survive?! Where's your mother?"

"Mom died when I was little," Po explained sadly. "She sacrificed herself to keep me safe."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," another panda piped up. "But we are glad to see you survived, Lei-Feng."

"Actually, it's-" Po began, but Li quickly cut in to avoid Po getting squished by everyone coming over to say hello.

"Alright, alright, don't squish him," he said jokingly. "You'll all have plenty of time to get better acquainted. For now, I'd like to get him settled in."

Po was then ushered away from the group of pandas and escorted across the green scenery where he could admire more sights along the way. "Where are we going?" he asked Li.

"It's almost dinnertime," Li told him. "So I thought we'd head back to my house to let you unpack and eat dinner. Then tomorrow, after a good night of rest, you can have even more time to explore."

"Sounds good to me," Po replied excitedly.

The two walked for a long while as the sun slowly began to dip down over the horizon until Li approached a small bridge that led to a house overlooking the valley. (This didn't take Po by surprise too much though since his dad was in charge of the village). After being showed to his room, Po unpacked his things and joined Li for dinner where they continued to bond and catch up on the lost time. When dinner was done, the two played a few rounds of checkers before retiring to bed for the night. Po woke up early the next morning at the crack of dawn, around the time that the gong in the Valley of Peace was going off. Li was still asleep, so Po decided to go back to bed. When three hours passed by and Li still didn't wake up, the Dragon Warrior took to looking through his bag and thinking about how much fun he was going to have telling everyone about his journey to the panda village. He just hoped that Mr. Ping didn't get too upset with him talking highly of Li.

Li finally woke up when Po, tired of sitting around, roused him from his slumber, asking if it was okay to make breakfast and head out. Li, not used to getting up later than 9:30 in the morning, sleepily allowed Po to cook before falling back to sleep. After getting Li up and eating some breakfast, the two pandas finally set out to meet people. Li took Po to say hello to some of the local farmers who were close friends of his during the days before Shen's attack, showed him some of the lakes that the pandas enjoyed swimming in, and even introduced him to some of the villagers who were around his age and had also survived Shen's attack at such a young age. It was around this point that Li had to address a problem with the irrigation system, leaving Po to converse with the other young pandas. When he had gone off, Po turned to his new friends and let out a friendly, "Hey."

"Hi," a panda named Sakuru replied with a smile. "It's nice to finally get acquainted with you, Lei-Feng."

"Actually, I go by Po," Po corrected.

"Po?" another panda in the group repeated curiously. "That's a strange name. Who gave it to you?"

"My dad," the panda answered immediately. "Um...you know, the guy who adopted me...."

"Oh, okay."

"Well then," a third panda with extremely short legs piped up. "It's nice to meet you, Po. How has your day been?"

"Good. This village is pretty cool."

"And quiet," the last panda seconded, dusting off his orange and brown pants. "I'm just glad Shen hasn't found us yet."

"Lord Shen's actually dead," Po assured them.

"Is he?" the second panda asked in relief. "That's nice to know."

"How'd he die?" Sakuru asked.

"He got caught in an explosion," Po told them.

The group winced.

"That's a pretty painful way to go," the third one noted.

"You can say that again," the Dragon Warrior said.

A brief silence followed before Sakuru said, "So...getting away from Shen...what emblem did you get?"

Po looked at him funny. "Emblem?" he repeated.

"Yeah, an Unseen Emblem...what's yours?"

"I...don't know," Po admitted. "I never heard of that."

"What hand do you write with?" the second panda asked.

"The right..." Po answered.

The panda took his arm and brushed away some fur from near his shoulder. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "You don't have an emblem!"

"Am I supposed to?" Po asked.

"All young pandas get their emblems when they're a year old," Sakuru explained. "You're supposed to mark them then so that they're emblem is embedded into the skin and...well, not seen when they get older."

"Oh, so no one is born with it then?"

"Nope."

"And you're saying I'm too old to get one."

"Afraid so, Po."

Po eyed them. "Do you all have an Unseen Emblem?" he asked.

All four pandas brushed away some of their fur to reveal very faint marks hidden under their fur: a blossom, a bamboo tree, a leaf, and the moon.

"Oh," the panda said dejectedly.

The fourth one snickered. "You better not tell people around here about that," he warned. "Or else you might not get invited to a Moon Gathering."

"A what?"

The group started to snicker at Po's ignorance to everything going on in the village when Sakuru gave them a sharp look. "Alright, that's enough," he snapped. "Take it easy on the guy; he didn't grow up here."

"Yeah, I think everyone will be able to see that once they meet him," the third panda laughed.

Po felt heat rise to his face from pure embarrassment, although he tried to not let it show. He had to admit that he hadn't expected everyone to follow certain customs or rites of passage and he had wished that Li had informed him of such stuff prior to meeting everyone. As if he read his mind, Li popped on over to steal Po away for lunch.

"I'm making fresh bamboo salad and dumplings for lunch," he told Po as they began to walk back to the house. "Maybe we can go see some of the elder ones."

"I don't know, dad," Po said dejectedly. "I don't really feel like meeting more people right now."

Li eyed him. "Why, what happened?" he asked.

"Well, for starters, what's so important about an Unseen Emblem and how come I didn't get one?"

Li grimaced. "Oh, that's right," he murmured. "I forgot about that. Yes, most young pandas are supposed to get an emblem; it's to symbolize their coming of age so it's always given after they start walking. The reason you don't have one is because you weren't able to walk yet when you got separated from us."

"Oh," Po said. "Makes sense, I guess." He paused for a moment. "Okay, and then what's a Moon Gathering?"

Li smiled sadly. "Maybe we should spend the day going over some customs that we do," he offered. "I actually forgot that you don't know any of this stuff."

"Seriously?"

"Well, I got so excited to introduce you to everyone that I forgot you probably haven't the slightest clue as to what's going on."

"You could say that," Po told him.

"Well in that case, you've got a lot of catching up to do."

Hey guys! First of all, I wanted to apologize for updating so late! I got really busy on Friday with college stuff and doing stuff with my mom and yesterday, I forgot my mom and I were marathoning until 10. (And my dad and my sister were watching a horror movie downstairs, so I opted to wait to head down there to grab my laptop and I wound up falling asleep and...yeah, I think you get the idea. Excuses excuses. I do apologize for that though....) Second of all, we have about 14 weeks or so left of this story which means 14 chapters left to publish. I didn't realize just how short of time I have, so I wound up having to crunch some chapter ideas I had together so just a heads up, I may have a couple of chapters that may seem rushed or just squished together in perhaps not the best way. I'm going to apologize for that now before I update anything else. That includes this chapter. I'm trying to not rush my chapters, but if they seem just...too fast or choppy, (like this one), I am so sorry for that! It's not intentional!