Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist but I own the plot and most of the characters in this story.
Stories from Yuèyá Quán
Prologue
There were once four mighty warrior clans in the village next to the crescent moon sea. There was the Wei-clan, loved and feared for the strength and the deadly precision with the weapons the members of this clan wielded with pride. There was the Cho-clan which was less popular but still powerful and influential. They were famous for their loyalty and their tracking abilities. There was the Fan-family, renowned for their kind personalities that covered lethal abilities. They were masters of poisons and their antidotes and rumour had it that they had a solution for every poison which had ever been used in Xing and would be used in the future. And there was the Bo-clan. The members of this clan were excellent in techniques to paralyse their opponents temporarily which gave them a huge advantage.
Of course there were minor families as well, many of them mostly civilians with a few warriors who brought a little bit of reputation to their respective families.
But no matter how important the four important clans were for Yuèyá Quán, the most important family was the Yao-clan because they were of noble blood and therefore the highest ranking members of the community. The village was extremely proud of their emperor, Jun Yao, who was guarding Xing with all his might and they were also proud of the sons and daughters of the village who had chosen to protect the emperor with their lives even if it meant that they would never have a normal life because the job description implied a probability of ninety-seven percent to be killed or at least crippled while serving the emperor.
One of the warriors who had chosen to guard the emperor at any risk was Jun Li, the currently most famous member of the Wei-clan. She had been nine when she had vowed absolute loyalty to her emperor and while her clan had been proud of her, there were still disagreeing voices.
Estate of the Bo-family
1894
The Bo-family was celebrating the birth of their heiress, Zhi Bo. The girl was a precious little thing with rosy cheeks, a mob of indigo black hair which she had inherited from her grandfather and greenish black eyes. She was a fragile little thing that had been born a few weeks early but no one in the family wanted to hear anything about this so-called weakness.
The proud grandfather carried his granddaughter through the house, pausing every once in a while to show her something while telling her over and over that all of this would be hers one day. Chen Bo was a former bodyguard of the emperor, Jun Yao, and as a such, he had still quite some reputation. He wasn't the youngest anymore yet he held his granddaughter with great pride and wondered how she would do once she would be old enough to fight.
There was never another option for an heir of this clan. Just like each male member of the Wei-clan would become a warrior while the female ones had the permission to choose, every heir of the Bo-family was trained to be a fighter. They weren't as huge as the Weis and so they hadn't much of a choice. (Furthermore, they had made the experience that former warrior women were less prone to die in childbirth and no one wanted the heiress to die while giving birth to the next heir.) Still, Chen tried not to think about Zhi as a grownup woman even though he wished for her to be beautiful because this would make it easier for her to find a decent husband one day. Right now, he thought about the future ahead of them. It was a future of playing, training and teaching – and he looked forward to this. Unlike others, he had teaching never seen as a burden but as an honour and he was quite happy that he was blessed another time.
"She is perfect," the proud father smiled as he tickled his baby daughter.
"More than that," Chen smiled as he spotted his old friend's grandchildren, Jun Li and Chao, sitting on the stairs. "Looking at this new generation, I have to say that our village is heading towards even better times," he stated amused as he watched how Fu picked up both children at once to carry them over to their grandmother who had looked for them.
Estate of the Wei-family
1897
"Father!" the member of the Council of Eldest walked down the hallway to catch up with his father Fu who happened to be head of the clan. "I still disagree with your decision to let her go."
The old man turned around. "I cannot remember that anyone tried to hold you and your brother back when you decided to take the mask," he said smoothly.
"Yes – but we were old enough to know what we were doing. Jun Li is just nine years old. She cannot serve the former emperor the way Cai and I did. She will be killed in a few months and this would leave us without a sufficient heir."
"You have a son, Zan. He would be there to fill the gap her death would leave behind…"
"Father, Chao adores Jun Li more than anything else. Should she find her death this early in her life, I cannot guarantee for his reaction. He is loyal to her in first place, not to the family. And just like Jun Li went to fulfil her father's duty, he might leave to fill in for her … and this would leave us without a proper heir. Lan Fan is just a baby. We could all be dead until she is old enough to be a good leader," the black-haired man said harshly. "We cannot afford such a risk."
"You sound like a fool, Zan," his father said. "Jun Li is fast and talented. I see no risk that she might be killed anytime soon. You should worry about more important things, son, like the question who besides me is going to guard the Yao-prince after you stepped back…"
"Well, seeing that you should be able to protect him for the next six years on your own, I believe it to be fitting if Lan Fan supports you once she is old enough to wield a kunai without killing herself," the former heir smirked. He had taken his brother's death too hard to accept Cai's former position and so Cai's daughter had been made heiress. Jun Li, however, hadn't been able to take this and had applied for a position as Imperial Bodyguard.
"You got better at the game of politics, Zan," Fu stated calmly. "Very well, I accept this decision."
"It looks like you finally live by your own rules, Fu," another member of the Council of Elders said with a faint smile that was barely existent. "The mission is the most important thing and the life of a single warrior means nothing for it is honourable to die for the Yao-clan. The Wei-clan is superior to any other clan but the Yao-clan."
Zan Wei had served as a bodyguard for many years and so he was able to read his father's facial expression while the older man failed to do the same. Zan knew that Fu had raged for hours after a member of the Cho-clan had brought back the dead body of Cai, the younger and more talented son, and the council member knew his own father good enough to know that no matter how often Fu claimed to believe in the family philosophy, this belief had gotten heavy cracks when Cai had died and Jun Li had joined the Dragon Warriors.
"Walk with me, Zan," Fu ordered instead of replying to the other member of the council before he headed for the garden. "Do you believe that Jun Li is going to die? Be honest, please."
The man was silent for a moment as he stared into the distance. "I don't hope so," he said, "but there is always a chance that she is tricked. She is young and lacks the experience Cai had. Still, she is talented and I pray that the gift she has keeps her out of the worst. We don't know."
"She reminded me of Cai when he said that he was going to join," a soft voice said as Lan Li strolled over to them. She was a beautiful woman with her dark gray hair and her cold blue eyes which her son had inherited. She opened her fan as she reached her husband and her son and smiled faintly. "There is a fire inside of her … and we can only pray that she will keep it."
"I should have known better than to let her leave for the capital," Fu said darkly. "She is just a kid and she has no clue what she will see when she continues to serve the emperor."
"My half-brother is a strong leader. He won't be foolish enough to allow my granddaughter to die. He values his life a little bit too much than to make me mad at him," Lan Li said amused. She had been a princess from the Ming-clan who had fallen hard for the charismatic young leader of the Wei-clan multiple decades ago and had abandoned her duty and her own clan to be with him. Still, as favourite sister of Jun Yao, she was still well accepted in most royal families.
Estate of the Cho-family
1905
Meimei Cho was born on a beautiful summer day and by chance, Jun Li had returned from an exhausting mission for the former emperor and so she was there to be made godmother. She was a young yet skilled warrior and it was normal in Xing to make one promising heiress godmother of another heir to ensure a good relationship between the clans in the future.
During the celebration of the birth of another heiress, a few of the Wei-elders cornered their heiress as she was strolling through the gardens of the Cho-estate and looked down at her with serious facial expressions. "Say, Jun Li, when are you going to marry?" one of them asked. "And you should consider retiring as well. You are not getting any younger and you should focus on producing an heir for the family. You are risking your life and our future right now…"
She glared at him in spite of knowing that he was probably right. "I take care of this issue once I feel that it is time for me to settle down," she said smoothly. "I am only seventeen."
"Well, the elders already searched for a possible husband," another elder said friendly. "In your childhood, you were very close to your cousin Chao and he isn't in a relationship either…"
Her face became a perfect mask of utter disgust. "I hardly think that it would be a smart idea to marry me off to him," she hissed. "Our fathers were brothers after all…"
"It is allowed to marry your cousin, Jun Li," the man said with a shrug.
"I don't care if it is legal. I just say that I won't marry him because we are closer than siblings and I just don't do incest, sorry," she spat. "I don't say that Chao is a bad guy and I am sure that we would produce the greatest offspring ever but … did you notice that he looks like a male version of me? In my eyes, this is a huge turnoff."
She was an heiress after her grandfather's taste. She was beautiful with her black hair and her bright blue eyes and lethal with the blades she hid on her body. She wore a black shirt with black pants made of a finer material than her usual clothes but even without her mask, she was easily recognisable as a bodyguard and not only as a fighter. She would have to work on her diplomatic skill though because in her eyes, most problems could be used with a kunai.
"Ah, the Wei-elders and my father's most trusted bodyguard," Prince Lei Yao smirked as he strolled down the path and smiled at them. He wore jacket made of green silk and dragged his nephew Ling behind him while he grinned widely. "Great to see you without your mask for once, Jun Li," he added before he let go of Ling. "Well, I need to talk with you for a second without your trustworthy elders around you. I hope that you are alright with this, Jun Li."
The smirk on her face was legendary. "Say, the great prince needs my help?" she chuckled.
"Jun Li…" he hissed. "Just come with me and let go of this for once, alright?"
He grabbed her wrist and dragged her away while Meimei still slept in her arms.
"Well," Zan drawled. "This is getting interesting. First I would like to know when we decided to offer her my son's hand in marriage. I cannot remember that I agreed on this."
"Zan, if we don't do this, we might lose them both in a petty argument. The longer she is gone, busy with her mission in the capital, the more the gap between them grows. And one day, he might stop to accept her as his clan head … and this will be when we get in serious trouble. If she had agreed, we might have prevented an unnecessary spilling of Wei-blood."
To his death, Zan would always deny that he had seen the truth in this statement and that he had still acted against it because he had noticed something else as well.
"When exactly did Prince Lei stop calling her Captain Wei?" he muttered as he walked away with a faint smirk on his lips, passing Lady Yao and her escorts. Zan Wei had always been quick to pick up who was crushing on whom.
AN:
I need more characters, especially:
-members of the Fan- and Cho-clan
-Wei-elders
-children of Meimei's generation
-villagers