"Longshot," she said slowly. "This isn't an Earth Nation arrow."

Longshot shook his head but wouldn't look at her. He was on his knees in front of her, slumped over as though unable to bear the weight of his own body, or his grief.

Everyone the world over had heard of them. They were a mysterious group, seemingly never seen or heard, but their weapons were known and feared.

The Yuu Yan Archers never missed their target.

"Why… why did the Yuu Yan Archers shoot you, Longshot?"

He looked up at her, helplessly, shaking his head. He took the arrow from her hand and held it up over the place where he'd been shot.

"How did they miss you?" Smellerbee asked, breathlessly. She reached out and ran her fingers over the scar, tracing the lines that seemed to reach out from it, across his pale skin. A single, fatal shot was what the Yuu Yan Archers were known and feared for the world over. It was said they could pin a fly to a tree from a hundred yards away, without killing it. But when they did want to go for the kill, it was always an arrow through the head. Always.

Longshot shook his head, pulling away from her. They didn't.

"I don't understand," Smellerbee said, hopelessly. "Why would they…" she trailed off. She thought of Longshot, this quiet boy and a brilliant archer, thought of the Fire Nation taking his town over. Thought of what might have happened, what someone might have seen – Longshot could hit targets no one else could. No one, except maybe –

"They asked you to join them, didn't they?" Longshot nodded, not looking at Smellerbee. His hand reached up and clutched his throat as he shook his head. "You told them no?" A nod. "Of course you did, Longshot, no one can blame you for that –" He shook his head furiously. There were tears streaming down his face now and he was almost rocking back and forth, so trapped in his own head and body.

"You… you told them no," Smellerbee said, trying to put the pieces together, trying to spare him the need to speak the words that were clearly destroying him. "You told them no and then… they attacked you?"

Longshot shook his head again, and looked up at her. Not me. Not me.

Smellerbee thought of Chang, about how he'd pit the family against each other, harming one to control the others. She thought of Chang making her father and brother watch as he threatened her and hit her, knowing, as Smellerbee now knew all too well, that there is no worse pain than watching a loved one's torment. No worse pain than loss and helplessness.

"They killed your family, didn't they?"

Longshot nodded and threw himself into Smellerbee's arms. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that she could hardly react. Before she could so much as put her arms around him, he was sitting up, staring at her, and she felt the soft pressure of one of his fingers against her temple.

"Is that… did you find them like that, Longshot?" she asked, her voice so soft, as if speaking the words too loud might make them more horribly true. As if anything could be worse than what he had gone through. But it seemed like he needed her to know all of it.

Longshot nodded again, and moved his hand to Smellerbee's neck, the very place where he had a scar.

"Twice?" she asked, and she felt tears welling up in her own eyes now. She could not imagine what it must have been like for Longshot to come home and see his family like that. An arrow through the head to kill them, and an arrow to the throat, a punishment for his refusal. A message. His refusal, whether through words or silence, was the reason for the slaughter. And they'd leave him with a mark to match.

"All of them, Longshot?" He nodded.

"Your mother, your father… who else?" she asked softly. "A brother?" he shook his head. No brothers. "A sister?" he nodded. "Was she… was she older than you?" Smellerbee asked. She didn't know why, but it became important to her that she know this girl. Know who she had been and what she had meant to Longshot. He nodded again. "All three? All at once?" Longshot shook his head and held up four fingers. "Four? But who else?"

Longshot was staring blankly ahead, lost to her, as if reliving the memory. She watched as he reached out and seemed to pick something up and hold it in his arms. Smellerbee's heart sank.

"Your sister… she had a baby, didn't she?"

Longshot nodded once more, still holding the long-lost child, then a single hand reached up and touched his scar.

"And that's when they shot you?"

Longshot nodded. Then he shook his head and collapsed into Smellerbee's arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

Smellerbee held him. She clung to him tightly as though she was afraid someone would tear him from her arms. As if by holding him, she could stop him from coming apart. As though she could undo the damage that had been done to his mind, his, heart, and his body. But she knew better. Nothing could undo what had been done to him. Nothing could bring back his family. Nothing could bring that child back to life. Nothing could make this broken boy whole again. The damage was too deep.

Smellerbee did cry, though. She cried because she could picture Longshot, young and lost and wracked with guilt, clutching his sister's child, letting that arrow strike him, and waiting for death to claim him. She knew how it felt. She knew it deep in her soul.

Maybe it was a neighbor who found him and dragged him, senseless, out of the house. Maybe it was a family friend who patched him up and revived him against his will. Or maybe one of the archers themselves, determined that he should live with his guilt, for if they'd wanted him dead he'd be dead. Either way, she knew, he would have woken up, made to face the nightmare that was his reality, and realize he was alone in the world and, in his eyes, he was to blame for all of it.

So Smellerbee held him as he cried through that night.

She didn't say anything.

There was nothing to say.