Wishing Only Wounds the Heart
Last night, she had a dream where someone loved her. She relives the feeling, over and over again – to have someone pluck at the strings of her soul, to take flight on a wing of crystalline song, to have the core of her heart pierced by a brilliant nerve of sound, rhymes and rhythms both absolute and eternal.
.
The first time she feels it is when he falls out of the sky, a monochromatic body plunging right before them, kicking dust clouds into the air. She really should be more affronted than she is, but when he looks up Viper can't help but forgive him immediately for his impudence, what with his boyish face filled with wonder and the naïve disorientation; a hint of empathy, a smile ghosting his cheeks, eyebrows raised in innocent curiosity.
When Master Shifu tells her to show him no mercy, Viper follows his instructions halfheartedly. She taps him gently in places where she knows it won't hurt as much, holding back the torsional power coiled tightly in her muscles. When Po hits the dirt again and his enthusiasm doesn't falter, she makes a silent promise to go much easier on him during the next spar.
.
Viper doesn't tell anyone, but she thinks that Mantis may know – she volunteered to help him with Po's acupuncture session with surprising alacrity and he had caught her gazing at him half a second too long, acupuncture needles long forgotten. Mantis doesn't mention anything and she doesn't expect him to, because she learnt a year back that her rattle has a thing for keeping insects quiet; she glares at him and the threat rides a hideous, traitorous undercurrent, causing Mantis to stick a needle a hair too far to the right.
.
He smiles at her with the effervescence she's come to know and love, gives that laugh she never knew she could care about so deeply – she reacts the only way she knows how; look away shyly, feeling the zither music soaring in her veins. For all her cold-bloodedness, Viper finds that she's not too proud to admit she's never felt so warm before.
.
If necessary, she would carve her own heart out and offer it to him, her pound of flesh to purchase his love. If that wasn't good enough, she'd wear it on her sleeve (if she had sleeves) as a badge of rejection, an epaulet bearing the rank which no one wants; a poor second best.
.
Po's visibly frustrated – he ploughs his way through five whole helpings of cookie dough, stopping only after four and a half to inhale deeply from the bucket of water on the table. She giggles and raises an eyebrow when he tries to hiccup and burp at the same time; Po starts to choke and she reaches over to bang him on the back.
("You should tell her, you know," Viper says softly, and she rages inwardly for not being selfish enough to be talking about herself.)
.
The confession happens the week after. Tigress is elated; she had been feeling the same way for months, Po tells Viper excitedly. He hugs her the best way he can a snake, and she averts her gaze before congratulating him heartily because she knows that her expression will inevitably betray the well-wishes.
By night, tears prick at her eyes, and Viper tells herself this is natural, this is normal; it's only the first step of healing, to become whole again. Take it one step at a time, anticipate the next stages, praying that the pain will subside with each passing day – the long trek back is stamped with a multitude of footprints and she tries to follow her own distinct snake trail to a time when he didn't matter as much, ignoring the fact that she can't remember when that was or if it even existed. Live the remainder of life with its simple plea for absolution: hope, hope, hope. Beneath the light of a waxing moon, she coaxes herself to sleep with the consoling thought that the two of them harbour within them the estranged halves of a sad, mournful song, their clandestine duet.
(If she could, she would sing a dream for them to share equally; vocals and melodies saturated with broken chords and tempo rubato; capturing in concert that plaintive melancholy, that persuasive yearning, that sorrowful forlornness.)