Qura

Qura is Grandmaster Oogway's long-deceased mother. She was a kind-hearted, gentle and compassionate female Galápagos tortoise who loved her son with all her heart. 
== Biography ==
Qura was born and raised in the Galápagos Islands (not sure which one) as her parents' only child. Growing up she was filial and hard-working.
At the age of seventeen, she met a particularly handsome young male tortoise named Sanqo. The two young tortoises became good friends instantly. Over the next few years, their friendship blossomed into love. Then one fateful day when Qura was nineteen, Sanqo did something that would change both their lives forever-he offered her his hand in marriage. Ecstatic, Qura accepted his proposal, and with the blessings of their parents, they were married.
==== Marriage and motherhood ====
Their marriage was a happy one, and their happiness was multiplied when Qura became pregnant with their first fertilized egg. One day during winter (in the Southern Hemisphere), she laid the egg in great pain (though nowhere near as painful as human childbirth), with a healer delivering the egg and Sanqo holding her hand to comfort and support her.
==== Early widowhood ====
Later in the season, to the young couple's great joy, a male hatchling with Sanqo's aquamarine eyes was born. But the happiness didn't last. The very day that their son was born, Sanqo began showing signs of illness and while enjoying their new son, he abruptly collapsed, unconscious, to the ground. 
In a panic, Qura called her parents-in-law, and they carried Sanqo to the village healer's hut, where Sanqo awoke. He was very weak, and had trouble just staying awake. The healer diagnosed Sanqo with an incurable (back then, at least) and guaranteed fatal illness (known today as cancer). The happiness of their son's birth was vanquished, replaced by sorrow, and the family was forced to wait for the inevitable in great agony. 
During the final days of his life, Sanqo bonded with his newborn son and, since the native Galápagos islanders had no written language, he gave an oral will stating what he wanted done with his estate. His belongings would go to his wife and son. 
The young father held on for three days, then finally succumbed to his illness. 
Qura was devastated by her beloved husband's tragic, early death beyond anything she'd ever felt in her life. It was a sad scene as she held her husband's body in her arms, wailing. Her own parents, as well as Sanqo's, were also present, equally devastated over the loss of a young life. What had been a joyous time had concluded with tragedy and grief. 
Facing the bitter reality of being a single widowed mother, Qura became determined to give her fatherless baby son the best childhood possible. She knew that her husband still lived on in their son. Furthermore, the baby just so happened to be Sanqo's very spitting image, with the same aquamarine eyes (note, however, that Galápagos tortoises are colorblind and can't see the colors themselves. To them, the color aquamarine appears as a shade of gray or silver). Hence, she gave him the name Uguei, meaning "reflection" in the indigenous Galápagos language, because that was what he was-his late father's image and reflection. She swore not to let anything bad ever happen to him.
Sanqo was laid to rest, and his grief-stricken family was forced to do what bereaved loved ones do-move on. They did, and never forgot about Sanqo's kind spirit.
==== Single motherhood ====
Qura raised her son with the help of her extended family, and the boy grew up happy and healthy despite the absence of his father. He never ceased to remind his mother of her late husband, and grew to resemble him more with age.
But despite a healthy and loving upbringing, Uguei wasn't exactly a well-behaved child. He was constantly getting into trouble, and his elders scolded him for it, but that didn't stop him from pursuing mischief. It was all his overbearing mother could do not to snap at him, for he was the most important and beloved person in her life.
This lifestyle continued until Uguei became curious about the world outside his island home. His family and neighbors tried to convince him that the world beyond was unimportant and there was no need to leave his home, since they had everything they needed. That didn't stop the young tortoise, though. As he became an adolescent, he began to feel a longing for purpose in life, and his purpose, he felt, could never be realized in his homeland.
==== Farewell to son ====
When Uguei was fourteen years old, his longing for adventure and self-discovery was stronger than ever. He kept having dreams pointing to a world beyond the one he knew, and was almost going mad with longing. Finally, he couldn't resist the calling any longer. He took a canoe and told his mother everything that he'd been feeling over the past few years and how it was his destiny to leave his island home, possibly never to return, and explore the world beyond for purpose and discovery. Qura was disturbed by the prospect of never seeing her son again, but understood his longing. She helped him pack for the journey and in secrecy, she bid him an emotional farewell at the edge of the water. Then Uguei got into the canoe and sailed away until he was no longer visible on the horizon. When the rest of the family and village asked what had happened to Uguei, Qura claimed that her son had disappeared from their hut in the middle of the night without a trace.
For many long years, Qura waited for her son to return, with no guarantee that he would. Everyone else had assumed he was dead, and she alone knew what had really happened.
==== Reunion with son ====
Countless years later, when Qura had grown old and her parents and elders had all passed away, she was being taken care of by two tortoise children who brought a stranger to her hut. She couldn't believe the children when they told her that the stranger had arrived to the island in a very unusual boat unlike any they had in the archipelago. 
After the two children left the hut for what they claimed would have to be a private meeting, Qura got a look at the visitor. He was very old. but not as old as she was, and remarkably still very fit and in good health. He could walk without a cane, though he did carry an unusual-looking staff. Stranger still was the mantle he wore on his carapace. It was made of a material unlike anything the Galápagos islanders had.
Those things became trivial and unimportant as she got an even better look at the stranger. Then it hit her how familiar he looked. In fact, apart from the fact that he was elderly, he looked just like her late husband, his eyes being the same shade of gray. 
She already knew. It went without saying, Even so, she asked.
"...Uguei? My son?"
With tears welling up in his eyes, the familiar stranger chocked out, "Mother" in a nurturing tone and took Qura into a hug. 
The hug went on for at least a minute, with both tortoises crying their eyes out from a combination of joy and sadness over their long separation. When they finally pulled apart, they mutually remarked to each other how much they'd changed. Then Uguei asked his mother if she would like a meal, and she said yes. 
He prepared cactus fruit and guava for her and during the meal, Qura listened in awe while Uguei told her everything that had happened. She couldn't have been more surprised when he told her that he had found a giant land, also known as a continent, to the west of their islands across the vast ocean, where he had settled down in a country known as China, and finally created a martial art known as kung fu. Kung fu was about excellence of self, about honor and protecting the weak. He had also learned countless new languages spoken elsewhere in the world beyond their own, and gained a new perspective on the world.
Qura was proud of her son, to say the least. He had changed from a troublemaking child into a wise and benevolent sage and warrior combined into one. If his other relatives were still alive, they would've been proud of him, she assumed.
The mother and son stayed together for several days until it was time for Uguei to return to China. He bid his mother an emotional farewell, aware that this might be the last time they saw each other alive, then boarded his boat and set sail for the western waters, but not before giving his mother a gift-an amulet made of jade-a precious stone found in China but not in the Galápagos Islands. 
==== Later life and death ====
Qura lived out the rest of her life quietly on the island, remembering everything Uguei had told her about all his accomplishments and never ceasing to be amazed by what he had done.
When she was 248, her health began to fail. The healers tried everything, but couldn't help her and told her solemnly that her time was about to come. Qura took in the news with a combination of sadness and joy. Her time in this world was coming to an end, but at least she would reunite with predeceased loved ones, including her dear husband Sanqo, in the afterlife.
She gave an oral will, stating that she wished for her house to be given to someone in need, and all her possessions given to her son, assuming he could ever come to the Islands again.
Then one night, she breathed her last breath and her life flashed in front of her eyes. She saw all the important events in her eyes-her earliest memory, her first meeting with Sanqo, her wedding, her son's birth, her husband's death, her son's departure from the Galápagos Islands, his subsequent return, and finally her last delicious meal. So it was the Qura passed away.
==== Legacy ====
In the wake of Qura's death, the islanders sent bird messengers to Uguei in China. The latter was devastated over his mother's death and hastily returned to his homeland in time to attend her funeral. He inherited all her possessions, as per stated in her will, except the jade amulet, which he instead placed on her grave. He then left the Islands, never to return again, bringing with him his inheritance. 
== Personality ==
Qura was kind-hearted, gentle, benevolent and compassionate, traits that she passed on to her son Oogway. She was also very emotionally sensitive, and her sensitivity was due in no small part to the tragic early death of her beloved husband Sanqo. She loved her son with all her heart, but was exasperated as anyone by his mischief and disobedience. Still, she kept her patience and dealt with him justly with gentle scoldings.
Category:Characters