Hey there! It's been a while hasn't it? To tell you the truth, I've had some one-shots in the works until I've ultimately fell victim to the cursed writer's block. But fear not! I'm back with a multi chapter story, with the help of Starless echoes if I may add. The title of this story has been taking from Shinedown's song of the same name with a message entailing that we all need someone to help us through our darkest times. Without further ado, I proudly present:

RobsterTheLobster00 and Starless echoes's - Daylight

Disclaimer: I do not own Kung Fu Panda

The rising Sun. A symbol of new life, a new beginning. The promise of a better day than the one before. The promise that obstacles would be overcome and dreams would be achieved.

A promise that two people, in particular, found dashed every day.

"Hmm… Ohhh… Ssss-"

THUMP!

A thunderous crack rang throughout the young panda's bedroom, waking him from his sleep. Po shot up from the sound, turning his head about back and forth, still trying to distinguish dream from reality.

THUMP!

The impact from beneath Po's floorboards caused the room to shake a little bit.

"Po! Get up!" he heard his father's voice coming from downstairs. "It's time to get to making noodles!"

The panda rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes and stood, removing the small blanket from his chest and stomach and placing it back on his bed. He paid no mind to the fact that he had just risen from the floor: it was a rather common way for him to wake up. His brain didn't seem to stop running motor functions while he was asleep. It never had, and probably never would. Plus, he was a pretty heavy sleeper. Something light such as falling out of bed wasn't a cause for much concern for the twelve-year-old.

Po walked over to the window and opened the shutters, letting the cool morning air blow into his room. His gaze turned downward onto his window seal. It was empty: only a home for the gathering dust. Glancing up again, he could see the window of the lady that lived in the next building. She must have already woken, for her shutters had already been pushed open. He could see potted plants, green and healthy, littering her window seal.

The panda looked down at his own window seal once more with a hint of jealousy. His window seal had never really bothered him before, but he had never really taken the time to notice just out outclassed it was compared to his neighbor's. But what should he put on it? Looking around, he realized there was nothing in the room that might serve as comparable decoration.

Perhaps he should venture outside of the edges of the Valley one of these days and see if he couldn't dig up some nice-looking plants.

"POOOOOO!"

Po flinched from the screeching sound.

"Coming, Dad!" he shouted back.

Before he left, the young panda turned back to the potted plants across the gap in between the two buildings. He squinted his eyes, as if the plants were foes of great distinction, and he pointed two of his fingers at his eyes, then at the plants, just to let them know that their days of superiority over his window seal were numbered.

Now eager to defeat his new enemy, he turned and faced the doorway that led to the stairwell.

The panda approached it, but, just as he placed his paw on the knob, he rested his forehead against the hard bamboo. Taking a deep breath, he readied himself for the day that lay ahead. A mundane morning filled with stirring pots and washing dishes. After the morning rush, his dad would allow him to run along. He always looked forward to this, but there was a danger underneath this pleasantry. And it was not exactly something that the panda looked forward to very much.

He tried to avoid it, but some things were simply unavoidable.

"You can do this, Po. You can do this."

Clenching his eyes ever-tighter, he tried to pump himself up, slightly hopping up and down.

"Whoo! I'm ready! I'm ready!" he screamed in his head. With these encouraging words in his mind, Po swung open his door and charged down the stairwell and into the kitchen.

Already, his father was hard at work, his apron already on as he watched overheating water which would soon come to a boil and would later be used to cook the noodles for lunchtime. The morning noodles had already been prepared the night before. The goose, being rather vertically challenged, especially when compared to his panda son, had a stool on which he stood so that he might see over his own stove.

Mr. Ping glanced over at Po as he came down the stairs.

"Ah! There you are! What have you been doing up there!? You- Ah, never mind. Just put on your apron and get over to the dishes!"

The panda obediently did as his father wished, walking over to the sink and tying the apron around his back.

"So, how was last night?" Mr. Ping asked: a light question to generate some small talk.

"Last night was… uh, good. It was good. What about you?"

Mr. Ping laughed. "Oh, you know those people who think they know what dreams mean?"

"Umm…" Po hummed as he began scrubbing. "...I guess so?"

"Well then, tell me what this dream means. I dreamed that I was with a group of people. Now, none of us knew each other, but we all seemed comfortable with that. Anyway, we were all walking down the street together as a group, but we stopped at this vendor who said he was selling water for us to drink. We all took a cup of his water after we each paid him, but when we took a sip, we all spat it out because it was spicy! Then, he laughed and told us he had put radishes in the water! Now, please tell me what hidden meaning is in that dream?"

Po, who had been scrubbing hard while listening to his father's pointless little rant, turned his head.

"I don't know, Dad. Sounds really… interesting, though."

Mr. Ping, still rather lost in his own thoughts, didn't quite catch the sarcasm of his son's words.

"Hmm… well, anyway, do you want to hear something funny?"

"Sure, Dad," Po replied rather robotically.

"I went down to Yuan's stall the other day to buy the weekly vegetables, and do you know what he told me? He said the prices had gone up! Ha! Trying to swindle me for money! So, I told him, 'You know what, Yuan? I'll pay you the same amount that I've always paid you, or else I'll just find somewhere else to buy my vegetables!' And guess what? He let me buy them for the original price! Ha!"

Po sighed. "Yep, that's uh… pretty funny, Dad." Personally, he wondered when his Dad would stop talking to him and start talking with him.

"Steal from me, will you? Hmm…" Mr. Ping hummed, still not really paying too much attention to his son's words.

The next few minutes carried on in silence. Po glanced over, and saw his dad now chopping all the vegetables that he had so shrewdly negotiated for the exact same price that they were worth. Mr. Ping caught sight of this glance, and reached for a rag and tossed it to his son.

"Go and make the tables look really clean before the morning crowd arrives, if you don't mind."

"Guess it doesn't matter if I do mind," Po cynically thought to himself. But still, he walked outside of the kitchen and into the eating area to complete his assigned task.

Stepping out into the fresh morning air, the panda took in a deep breath and sighed. There were only a few clouds in the sky, and the temperature was quite fair. Looking outside of the doorway that led to the street, Po could see a few people already out and about. He envied them and their freedom: able to walk about the Valley anywhere they pleased. He was stuck within the confines of the restaurant, always having to be present during the rush hours.

"Soon," he thought to himself. The breakfast crowd would soon be over, and then he would be free to go until the lunch hour summoned him back once again. Other than that, his only respite from the endless repetition was the occasional trips his dad sent him on to buy supplies such as more vegetables or more cooking utensils to replace broken ones.

With a robotic motion, Po began to make sure that all the tables were clean from any dust, dirt, or leaves that might have fallen on them during the night, as the eating area was exposed to open air. He methodically cleaned each table one by one, with a certain familiarity that suggested he had done this task a million times, and a certain solemnity that suggested he would do it a million more.

After a short while, he finished the task. He glanced over to his dad and saw that he was busy in the kitchen. Po used the opportunity to catch his breath and take a not-frequently-given break. He strolled over to the doorway of the restaurant and stood directly inside the doorway, not quite inside the restaurant, but not quite on the street.

He leaned his back against one of the arches of the doorway and tilted his head just a little to the side so he could peer down the length of the street. Po slung the rag he had used to wipe the tables over his shoulder and he looked up, past the street, past the homes, past the shops, and past the Valley, and at the Jade Palace that rested far above, its majesty shaming all that lay in its view.

Po tried to imagine what must be happening there. A place of such wealth and glory. He had heard tales of some strange thing called… kung-fu?

Some spoke of it as an art.

He supposed that the small red panda, the old tortoise, and the young tigress there must have painted, drew, and sculpted. That would explain why the palace itself was so nice. Their works of art must have sold for hefty prices.

"Imagine the sheer freedom they must be feeling," he thought. Nothing to chain them to such a small space. No meaningless duties to hinder their sacred art. Nothing to stop them from becoming the people they were meant to be.

The panda was so in awe of this freedom that he never really stopped to think what evil deed he might have committed for the gods to deny him that same freedom: to keep him a slave of his circumstances.

"Po!" his father called out. Po's head snapped over to the direction of the call, and hurried over.

"Yeah, Dad?"

Mr. Ping walked up to the counter to better speak with his son. Or rather, to better issue orders.

"Come on and help me stretch the batch of noodles for lunch. The breakfast crowd will arrive soon!"

"Sure, Dad." Po shuffled around to the door and entered the kitchen, ready to do what his father asked. He took his end of the dough which would soon become noodles and began helping Mr. Ping stretch them out to his desired length and thickness, a job which Po, like all his other jobs, had performed millions of times, and he could do it without very much thinking, letting his muscle memory take care of it.

As Mr. Ping happily hummed to himself, Po silently watched him.

Po loved his father. There could be no doubt about that. Mr. Ping had raised Po with love for as long as he could remember. Even though Po may have felt that he didn't always understand him, he could tell that the old goose was always trying to become a better father. He always was on watch for Po, a good bit more than he often showed. Even when he was talking with a customer or preparing one of the billions of dishes he made every day, Po knew that he was watching him from the corner of his eye. And not with an eye that was watching for mistakes, but a much more loving eye that was watching out for his safety.

But, on the other hand, Po couldn't help but feel that Mr. Ping still had no idea of what his son actually wanted. Perhaps it was his own fault: he had never had the heart to tell the old goose that making batches after batches after batches of noodles every day was not exactly his dream. But, he had hoped that at some point, his father might notice his discontent with his daily work.

Po had really never enjoyed noodle-making, so either Mr. Ping still hadn't noticed, or he simply hadn't addressed it. Po had a strong feeling it was the former, as not addressing things wasn't part of his dad's style.

That being said, he had never hated his job. He had done it without much emotion in general, perfectly satisfied with doing it until he learned what it was that he actually wanted to do. But, until that day, he had no huge problem with his life.

Together, Mr. Ping and Po took the stretched-out noodles and slowly wound them within the huge pot. As they did so, Po glanced over as a sound made his ear twitch. He could see a young bunny step through the doorway: the first of the breakfast crowd.

The panda could do nothing more but sigh.

"Here we go…"

"Alright, have a nice day!" the old goose shouted out across the counter as the last of the crowd happily took his to-go bag of noodles with him. He then turned his head around to Po, who was already by the door, his paw reaching out for the handle.

He froze when the goose's gaze rested upon him. Po's eyes met his father's, and he gave a little smile.

Mr. Ping chuckled and rolled his eyes. Then, he waved his wing.

"Alright, go on, now."

Moving much faster than the expected speed of his species, Po bolted out of the door and shot through the dining area, the old goose calling out as he went -

"Don't forget to come back for the lunch crowd!"

No one could be certain if Po had heard him or if he simply didn't acknowledge him. Either way, it was an unnecessary command. Po knew exactly when he needed to come back. After all, it was a cycle that was repeated every day.

The panda's youth gave him an unnatural energy that his panda elders might have found uncanny. The prospect of freedom attracted him to what was ahead and the prospect of the lunch crowd repelled him from what was behind.

Fleeing through the streets with no other purpose than running for the fun of it, Po cut and bumped his way through people on the road, savoring every moment of total freedom that life bestowed upon him.

Because the gods knew not all of them were very good…

"Again!"

Now, here was a word that one had seared into their minds. This strange combination of vibrations that emanated from the red panda's vocal cords, then traveled through the air and into a young tigress' ears, was a part of daily life for the said tigress.

It was truly interesting how these small vibrations in the air could have the immediate effect of making Tigress feel like a failure.

Around them, the Sun was somewhere in between the horizon and its highest point within the sky. A few clouds stirred in the sky, riding the gentle breeze that blew through the land and skies.

"Again!"

Currently standing in the small courtyard right in front of the Training Hall - in which the girl was not allowed - was Tigress. Her feet firmly planted on the ground, her chin up and back straight, her fists balled up and her arms poised to strike, she thought she was mimicking Master Shifu to perfection.

Master Shifu was evidently not of the same opinion.

"Again!"

Tigress attempted to swing at the red panda, who was already a good bit smaller than her - and she was only fourteen. Her blow was easily blocked by Shifu, who looked as if his patience was wearing thin.

It was a rather accurate assumption.

"More ferocity, Tigress! You must move faster, strike harder!"

Racking her young mind for how Shifu had shown her, she this time tried a series of blows aimed at her master / adoptive father (particularly in that order), swinging her paws and feet with as much speed as she could muster without losing balance.

But once again, the red panda effortlessly blocked all of the blows. He made no attempt to dodge, no attempts to strike back: only to block every blow with his paws.

At the moment, he was trying to teach her how to land a blow on an opponent. They had begun about an hour-and-a-half ago. She still had yet to land one.

"Tigress!" he shouted in frustration.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" the girl squeaked back, her voice filled with terror. Not the terror of her master himself, but rather of his disappointment.

"Don't be sorry!" he shouted. "Do it! Land just one blow!"

The non-helpful advice made something stir within the tiger cub. She had been trying so hard for the past hour-and-a-half. She knew that the reason they were still standing there was because she lacked the focus to actually land a single blow, but Shifu's harsh command provoked her. Was he even aware of how hard she was trying, she wondered? How could he say something like that?

Unknowingly, her lips curled back a bit and her fangs were bared. Her emotions - her anger, to be more specific - had taken control of her mind, shoving her more logical reasoning aside. She lashed out with her clenched fist once more, putting as much force as possible into the blow, so even if he met his arms with hers, he would not have the strength to be able to redirect the force.

However, Shifu saw that Tigress was about to punch the crap out of him, so he broke his own rule and sidestepped the blow just as it brushed by his face. The momentum of the missed swing made Tigress lose her balance, and she soon found herself flailing about for a brief second before her bottom hit the ground.

Her eyes were wide as she realized she had just tried to hurt Shifu, and she froze. Her lips seemed to be glued together, and her eyes moved up to him, expectant of punishment for losing control once more.

"Oh, no…" was all she could say within her mind. What would he say? Would he get angry like he usually did whenever this happened?

But, today, he only clicked his tongue. "Hmm. That's enough for today. You have a lot to work on. I suggest you practice for the rest of today, and we'll repeat this lesson again tomorrow."

Without another word, Shifu turned his back and was on his way to the Palace.

He didn't know it, but Tigress' eyes bore holes in his back as she followed his movements until he was lost from view.

"Stupid," she berated herself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid…"

The words home and house have the same meaning. They're both the places in which one lives. However, they're also quite different.

Po's house was Mr. Ping's Noodle shop. It was where he ate, where he slept, and where he told people he lived. But his home? That was not located in the same place.

No, the place where Po rested, where he dreamed, where he knew sanctuary: that was his home.

The young panda cub's home was in an older section of the Valley of Peace. The shops here were farther and more spaced out, and some of them were vacant, as some of the shop owners moved buildings when the main population of the Valley shifted as the community continued to grow.

These vacant buildings continued to stay that way until someone purchased them from the Valley treasury, who took possession of them and "maintained" them while they weren't in use. However, the Valley treasury was not exactly overflowing with gold, so the maintenance consisted of sending someone once a month to glance at the front and back of the buildings just to make sure they were still standing.

This was a very fortunate system for Po. For one of these old shops was his true home.

Ironically, it looked very similar to Mr. Ping's shop. He supposed it made sense: most of the shops in the Valley were constructed with a similar layout. There was a large square space after passing under the doorway. It now stood empty, and Po used to frequently wonder what could have been sold there.

It might have been another restaurant like his father's, or there might have been racks of clothes lining the walls, or jewelry, or anything, really. Then, towards the back, there was a counter where the owner would have overseen the customers and kept track of the earnings. Next to the counter was a door where one could enter.

As Po passed underneath the archway, he happily sighed as he took in the place he could truly call his own.

He didn't notice, but, across the street, a group of boys, each a few years older than him, caught sight of him. They had been in the alley across the street, waiting for him to arrive. They made no sound, nor any motion. The boys only watched as he entered the old shop.

The panda strutted across the empty space in front of the counter, and entered the door. Much like the outside of the shop, the counter was also devoid of decoration. He passed to the stairs and climbed up them, each of them creaking with every step. Po always knew that one day, one of the steps would simply break underneath his weight, so he was rather cautious whenever he traversed them.

Now, the top of the shop? It was not quite so empty.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Po looked around and smiled. On the floor, there was a strange red tarp. In the center and on four edges of the tarp were hooks that each had a rope tied around them. These ropes merged into one and went up to the ceiling, where another hook let the rope travel through it and towards a final hook right by the door. Reaching out with his paw, Po took the rope next to him, untied its knot, and pulled it, the hook on the roof acting as a simple pulley, drawing the tarp up and into the air.

As it rose, one could see a small sort of planetary model. In the center was the Earth, with the Sun and other planets orbiting it. The models were made of small, rounded stones that had been painted by Po himself. Small pieces of twine kept them attached to the tarp above them, and when Po spun the tarp around, it appeared as if thought the Sun and planets were traveling in circles around the Earth.

It was a proud creation of Po's that had taken him several attempts to get right. His first action every time he entered this place was to pull it upwards and tie the remaining rope to the hook next to the door.

He did this once again on this day, and he admired the rising of his model planets just as he did the first time he made them. After taking a few seconds to look at his creation, Po walked over to the window and threw open the shutters, allowing him to see down into the dining area below and the street beyond.

Leaning over the window seal, he was briefly reminded of Mrs. Cheng's superior decoration.

"I've gotta go and get some plants or something," he thought to himself. But not today. He was already here, in his home.

Looking up at the sky, Po could see the Sun getting ever closer to its highest point in the sky.

"Hello, Sun!" the panda openly shouted out. At first, he had been rather timid speaking out loud in this place, but he soon became more and more comfortable with it, and made it a regular habit. He now had full conversations with himself or with inanimate objects such as the sky, Sun, or clouds.

"How are you today?" he continued, his voice inquisitive. "Say, do you ever get tired? I mean, like, tired of what you do every day? Moving 'round and 'round and 'round the Earth? The thing is, we need you, I guess. Without you, we'd all be pretty dead. But… isn't it boring to play second fiddle to the Earth all the time? Y'know, I know how that feels. Of course, I don't give life to anybody like you do, but I do help make food for people. And I can't help but feeling like I'm playing second fiddle to them. It's like they're all more important, y'know? I hear bits and pieces of what they say while they eat. I've heard the doctor talk about him saving some patient or other, or maybe the merchant talking about the places he's seen."

Po paused, and took in a deep breath. Then, he continued.

"I just… I don't want to do this forever. To always feel like everyone else is important except for me. I don't know how Dad takes it, but he seems perfectly happy with his life like it is. Ahh… but I've been talking way too much. What do you think?"

"I don't know," a voice suddenly said, startling Po. "What do you think the Sun says, Zhao?" He quickly searched his field of view, and could see a group of boys entering the doorway of the dining area. From the way they were all entering from the side, it was evident that they had been eavesdropping on his little soliloquy. As his face began to uncontrollably blush, he instinctively stumbled back towards the stairs.

He may or may not have played a prank on these neighborhood bullies the last time he had seen him. It seemed that, in return, one of them followed him back to his sanctuary.

Po dashed for the stairs, but halfway through, the biggest kid, a rhino a few years older than him, appeared at the bottom of the steps. The panda immediately turned around and fled back up the stairs, desperately looking around for a means of escape. Other than jumping out of the window, there was nowhere to escape and nothing to defend himself with. His breath shuddering, Po turned around and backed up until his back was to the wall.

One by one, the boys thudded their way up the steps until they formed a half-circle around the frightened panda.

As the last pair of footsteps reached the head of the stair, the face of a young pig appeared. He was the leader of the little gang.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here!" he told his cronies. "He's not so brave without his little bucket of ice water, is he?"

His question was met with some nods or grunts of approval from his followers.

As he slowly walked forward, savoring every second of the panda's terror, he looked upward at the planetary model. He chuckled.

"Aww. Isn't this adorable?" With his hoof, he reached up, grabbed a hoof's worth of tarp, and snatched it down as hard as he could. The ropes attaching it to the ceiling snapped, and the model came crashing to the floor.

"No!" Po shouted, attempting to run forward to defend his creation, but the semicircle of boys in front of him held him back and forced him to watch as the pig stomped and destroyed what he was so proud of. Po struggled to get free, but the older boys were just too strong, and all he could do was watch.

After the pig was all finished, he kicked the mangled mess over to Po's feet.

"There," he said. "I think we're even."

The young panda collapsed to his knees, his eyes wide and mouth agape.

"You… you…" his voice trailed off. Suddenly, his breath turned into heavy pants and his nostrils flared. Po rarely ever got angry, and he almost never tried to start a fight, but the boys had just crossed a line. "I'm gonna-!"

The bigger boys grabbed both of his arms to hold him back as he struggled toward the pig.

"Oh!" he said, a smile forming on his face. "I think we need to cool you off a bit. Come on, guys!"

On cue, his followers began dragging Po towards the window. He fought and squirmed as hard as he could, but it was all to no avail. When they got to the window seal, the boys snatched his feet out from under him and began dangling him from the open window. He was now upside down, his arms thrown up over his head, and he saw the world outside of the dining area upside down.

"Ahhhh! Put me down, put me down!"

The boys elected to ignore that suggestion, and instead, they whooped and cheered as they began swinging him from side to side, Po screaming his head off all the while.

After a few minutes, the leader cut in over the noise with -

"Hey, I think he's right guys! Why don't we do what he says!?"

Immediately, the boys conformed to Po's wishes, and promptly let him go.

"Ahhh - Ooph!" Po shouted out as he fell and crashed into the ground. Fortunately, it was only one story high, so he wasn't terribly injured. The fear and shock of what had just happened were much more damaging to him than the physical harm.

The gang peered their heads out of the window, still laughing.

"A nice place you got here!" one of them shouted out. "I think we'll keep it from now on!"

At this point, all Po could do was burst into tears and run away. He ran and ran down the street until he vanished from view.