After finally sorting through the various colors and styles known to the proprietress, (As well as giving Tigress time to regain her composure) they had finally settled on a pastel blue Ming-style shirt, with a deeper blue embroidered skirt, complete with patterns of golden vines, much like her normal top. In between the two was a contrasting red belt.

Tigress stared at the mirror for a moment. She moved her arms and shoulders, examining both herself and the shirt. It was a strange feeling, observing herself. The clothes didn't seem like they should fit. Tigress was half expecting them to either be so tight as to constrict her breathing or too lose to wear in decent company. She was waiting for something to prove fundamentally incompatible with her. Instead, however. . . 

"I look . . . good," she found herself saying. It wasn't until the words were out of her mouth that she realized that it was the truth. 

Madame Ying nodded from beside her. "Yes. Yes, you realize this now, don't you?"

Tigress felt herself smiling. "I think we've found our opera wear."

Madame Ying chuckled. "Very well then. Come, let us see how your friends fare finding their fit."

Tigress lifted the skirt slightly. "Shouldn't I change back?"

Madame Ying spared her a critical glance. "If you intend for it to be yours, then you must feel it to be yours. The sooner you get used to it, the better you wear it. Now come."

The two stepped out of the changing area and into the shop proper. 

Crane and Viper were the first of the five that they ran into. Crane, as per Madame Ying's suggestion, opted for something more traditionally Manchurian: a smartly fitted shirt and pants the color of faded purple. It formed a nice contrast with his white plumage. Viper, meanwhile, had slunk her way into a red and black flower-patterned qipao, complete with a new parasol.

Viper was currently examining herself in the mirror, shifting her curls back and forth to view the dress in full. "Who is that dangerous, enticing snake in the mirror?" She asked herself dramatically. "I don't know, but she's going to find and lure in her catch!"

Crane tilted his head. "Should I be concerned for whatever pour soul that ends up being?"

Viper shot a smile over her back at him. 'Oh don't you worry, Crane. I don't go after committed people."

Crane let out a sigh. "I keep telling you, it's not like that. Mei Ling is just a good friend."

Crane was spared further defenses as Viper finally caught sight of Tigress and the madame. "Tigress!" Viper gasped. "You look perfect!"

Tigress found her eyes shifting to the side and a heat rising into her cheeks. "Oh please," she said. "It's nice, but. . ."

"No buts!" Madame Ying interrupted. "Do not qualify that statement; else you insult both yourself and Madame Ying! And Madame Ying does not suffer insults!"

Viper nodded her agreement. "She's right, sweetie. You're beautiful! There's no shame in owning up that every once in a while."

Crane gave a sympathetic grimace. "As the residential nervous wreck, it's a lot easier to just say thanks and take the compliment."

Tigress felt her objections die in her throat. ". . . Thank you," she said at least. "You look nice as well."

Viper grinned, and tried to stick a pose in her new wear. "Don't I?" she asked rhetorically. 

Tigress muffled her laugh, but didn't try to hide the smile.

Monkey, having heard the conversation, popped up beside Crane. "Hey guys. Nice suits."

Tigress was about to nod her thanks when she saw what Monkey was wearing. For once in her life, she regretted her sharpness of eyesight. 

Bright. So very bright. Excessively bright. And saturated. And large. And. . .

Viper put name to the most glaring flaw of Monkey's ensemble. "That's. . . a lot of yellow."

Monkey grinned. "I know. I look like an overgrown banana." He spread his arms and moved slightly to demonstrate.

Viper grimaced as the shifting mass of bright colors assaulted her eyes. Among other things, look like an overgrown banana he did. It wasn't quite accurate to say that the robes he chose were big on him. Rather, one should say that he was near-drowning in them. Yellow and brown folds cascaded down his form loosely, to where it pooled at his feet. Atop Monkey's head, as if to top off whatever act he was trying to pull, was an undersized hat that hung more than it sat.

Madame Ying looked him up and down impassively. "Hmmm. Hmmm. It does not fit. Inside nor out. But I can see that you have some use in mind for my creation, so Madame Ying will bear this with dignity."

Monkey grinned at her.

"Madame Ying will, however, be charging extra for the excess."

Monkey's grin fell as he hung his head in defeat.

"Haha," Mantis' voice called. "Serves you right for almost sweeping me away in that thing!"

Mantis' outfit, in all honesty, wasn't too different from Monkey's. The key difference being that his was a more greenish-yellow, and actually fit his size.

Tigress gave the group assembled a glance over. Seeing that they all seemed satisfied with their finery, (if not necessarily Monkey's,) she turned back to Madame Ying. "I believe that's everyone. Would you show us to the check-out?"

"Come" the little fox replied simply.

Sitting on a comically high stool, Madame Ying worked on an abacus until she had the full price of all five outfits.

The price, as it turned out, was both less than expected, and more. The rest of the Five side-eyed Monkey, who could only sweat and grimace as the surcharge for unfitted clothing was added onto the final price.

Coins were counted, and a receipt was written for the sum total of the purchase.

"If you so choose, you may return them to Madame Ying's possession," the fox said levelly. "Bear in mind that you will be disgraced forever and exiled from the premises if you do."

Just as the five made to leave, the door opened again, revealing a familiar green figure ambling in. "Ah, good afternoon, students," Master Oogway greeted. "I see your preparations for the opera are going well."

Tigress smiled. "Good afternoon, Master. We were just about to head back."

Tigress was about to extend her farewells to the kindly, if eccentric fox that ran the store, but stopped as she looked at Madame Ying.

While her eyes were obscured by sudden lens flare, the small, thin frown was unmistakable, as was the clenched and shaking fists just resting on the countertop. "What," she said acidly cool, "is this disgraceful nudist doing in my shop?" 

Master Oogway merely waved politely, seemingly unaware of the aura of menace surrounding her. "Afternoon, Madame Ying. I trust my students' shopping went well under your care."

Madame Ying apparently did not take it as a compliment. She stood on her stool, pointing out the door. "Begone from here, you verdant eyesore!" she all but screeched. "Out of my shop, you overgrown viridescent slug! You. . . you silly silly man!"

Oogway ducked as the abacus sailed over his head. He chuckled, waved goodbye to the amassed students/very angry store manager, and backed out of the door.

As soon as Oogway's shell was no longer visible, Madame Ying sat back down in her stool and opened a fashion scroll. "I believe you should be headed back now as well," she said to her customers, anger completely evaporated.

"Yes," Tigress agreed automatically, still bewildered by the sudden change. "Yes, I think we should. Thank you for your help today, Madame."

"Yes, yes," she said waving. "Madame Ying is a worker of miracles, she is well aware." Tigress was pushing the door open as Madame Ying's voice called again. "And come back again sometime, darlings. Madame Ying enjoys working with talented individuals."

Her normal clothes under one arm, Tigress waved goodbye to the fox and made her way out onto the street. The rest of the Five weren't too far away.

"So," Crane said. "That was certainly. . ." his beak struggled to find words for the sum total of the experience but could find none.

"It certainly was," Monkey laughed. "I don't know what it was, but it was."

"Let's call it a learning experience and leave it at that, shall we?" Viper offered.

Tigress felt herself nodding. 

"What do you guys think the deal between Ying and Oogway is," Mantis asked. "I mean, chefs don't get that angry when you tell them you're not hungry."

A memory of Tigress' popped up unbidden, wherein she had witnessed a group of unruly customers be forcefully ejected from Mr. Ping's noodle shop by way of broom. "Maybe you just haven't met the right chefs," she said mildly. 

The thought of Po seeing her in her current dress then struck her, and for once she was glad that there only contact was by mail. It was a nice dress, she fully admitted that, but being seen wearing it was starting to make Tigress feel. . . prickly. (Had she been taught the harmlessness of being nervous, she might have had a different description.) 

"We should be headed back soon," she said to the others. The sooner she got back home, the sooner she could forget being the Tigress that liked wearing nice things and get back to being the Tigress that liked being practical.

*** 

Po was mopping up after the lunch crowd when, humming to himself. After briefly getting stuck between tables five and six, he was able to resume his cleaning. After ensuring that the floors were as spotless as they could be (baring that one stubborn stain that had been caked onto the floor for years now,) Po let the mop stand in the corner as he turned his attention to the streets.

Mr. and Mrs. Chao had once again repainted their front door so that it was now a bright, eye catching, orange. It was spared from being overbearing by the more subdued vine patterns painted on their store's columns.

Mostly people were milling about their day. A group of pigs walked by, discussing the pros and cons of teas. A family of rabbits struggled to keep an eye on their little ones as they rushed ahead to see everything. A boar was pushing what looked like a cart full of scrap metals as a smaller boar walked behind him, clearly bored.

Then Po saw them. 

First, a bright, ugly shade of yellow swamping a familiar monkey. Followed by more smartly dressed figures in purple, green, and red. 

Blue was, in fact, not Po's favorite color. His favorite color changed from green to red to white to that oddly specific shade of purple that one gets from putting in too much red, and all in the span of a week. Blue had made its way into the honored yet quickly changing position of Po's favorite color a few times before, but not quite as often as something more eye-catching like red.

Yet, as Po observed the final figure in the group, blue was a fine color. Blue was especially fine in silk cloth that laid gently against orange and white and black. Po retreated back to the safety of the restaurant's interior courtyard as he felt his face heat.

He wondered if he could get a second look, if only to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

His eyes crept around the doorway and again spotted Tigress in her new dress. A small, bemused smile played on her lips as she listened to Viper tell a story about her ribbon-dancing instructor.

Po intended to take his second look and leave it at that. He would not stare, he reminded himself. Because staring was ungentlemanly, and Po was a gentleman, and gentlemen do not stare at very, very pretty tiger ladies in fine silk Ming dresses.

He stared anyways. Despite his internal mantra of 'Bad Po! Bad!' he stared until his heart was beating so fast he could swear it was going to burst. With a supreme amount of self-discipline, he tores his gaze away and back out into the street.

He closed his eyes and gave a long slow sigh, willing his heart to calm down and the image to leave his mind. His dad's call to prepare the dinner-crowd's broth came as a welcome distraction.

Blue, however, would be his favorite color for several weeks after.