Disclaimer: I do not own Kung Fu Panda. Don't sue me, DreamWorks.

Chapter One: Little Lin

The story of how my world came to exist is not a happy one, but I will tell it because it needs to be heard. My village, and my home, was built on death and blood, on rage and injustice. I was not alive to witness it, but I will reveal all that I know.

Long before I was born, my people—the pandas—suffered at the madness of a peacock named Lord Shen. From what I have heard, he has white feathers with red markings, like blood on fresh snow. Coincidently he massacred my people in the midst of winter, many years ago, and spilled much blood. Among the dead and fallen were members of my own family, all innocent and undeserving of their gruesome fates. The grieving for these lost souls has not yet ended in my village, even after more than two decades have passed since the great slaughter. I have learned that sometimes grief never ends.

My name is Kong Lin, which means "bright forest." I live a secret life among others like myself. My home is a place my Baba and his closest friends founded and named Nianzu Village, which means "thinking of our ancestors" or "thinking of those who have died." Here there are only pandas; the survivors and the children of the survivors. Baba, the leader of this community, is a survivor, and I am his daughter and only living child.

I do not have much to say about myself. I will be fourteen-years-old in less than two months. In the village I am known as Little Lin because I am very short for my age. My Baba and Mama got married long after the massacre. It was a second marriage for both of them, since they both lost their first mates to Lord Shen's bloodlust. I am bookish, which pleases Baba. He is a great supporter of learning, especially for girls. Everyone is always commenting on how I don't speak much, but this is because I am always lost in deep thought. A friend of my Baba's once said that I have the spirit of a poet, and that I could find treasures among my thoughts if I searched hard enough.

Life in Nianzu is very simple. We live peacefully among our own kind. We grow and harvest our own food. The mountain air is clean, and we are well hidden from the dangers of the outside world. When I say dangers, I mean Lord Shen and his followers. The demon peacock still lives. Because of this, we have one rule in the village that everyone must follow. No one is permitted to leave unless it is absolutely necessary, and they must first ask my father for permission. And when they leave, they must wear a disguise, and they must be careful who they talk to. If anyone were to discover our hideaway, Lord Shen would come for us, and we would be ended for good that time. This is how we live in Nianzu Village. We are happy here, yet we are living in constant fear.

As much as I yearn to travel outside my village, I understand the reasoning behind having to stay hidden away. It is for our own safety, to protect what is left of our panda blood. I am young and naive, but I am not unaware of the horrors that gripped my people before I came into this world. Although I have never suffered, I know what it is to watch others suffer. I have watched the adult pandas cry for the ones they lost to Lord Shen. Mama often cries for her first husband. She had married him when she was not much older than I am now, and she had loved him deeply. Baba cries for his first wife, who had been killed while trying to escape with their baby son. Her body had been found in pieces. The baby's body had not been found at all.

Mama and the first wife, whose name had been Lihua, had once been good friends. Mama often says that Lihua had one of the kindest hearts in all of China. I never knew Lihua, and I never knew the baby boy. I mentioned before that I am always in deep thought. That baby boy is constantly in my thoughts. Did Lord Shen kill him, or did he freeze to death in the snow? Was his little body found later, long after Baba and Mama's old village was abandoned and the spring melted the snow off of him? Was he buried, or did he eventually sink into the earth on his own? Baba speaks of him so often that I have come to think of him of as my ghost brother.

Baba says that my brother and I would've gotten along well. He had been a playful child, while I was always serious and quiet. We would have been like ying and yang together. Sometimes I close my eyes and try to picture what my ghost brother would've been like if he was alive and still with us. I imagine a younger version of Baba, with smiling eyes and an easygoing nature. He would tease me, as brothers often do to their sisters. He would be protective of me, and ward off any mischievous boy who tried to flirt with me. He'd probably be married to a plump, pretty wife and have many cubs, who would all call me Auntie Lin. I would play on the grass with my nieces and nephews and he would watch me, and tell me that soon enough I would have a family of my own. He'd love me very much, and I would love him back.

Lord Shen has taken so much from us. I do not pray for his death, as so many in the village do, but I pray that one day he will realize the damage he has done. The pandas will live on, but because of his actions our black and white fur will always be stained red with the blood of our friends and family. Hold your loved ones close. That's what Mama always tells me. Hold your loved ones close, because if you let go you will lose them to the edge of a blade.

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