We are Xing-Xing & Ye.
We were born in an un-named village at the edge of the colonies. We were raised as part of a troupe of performers. We were the middle of six children in our family; our parents ran the troupe. Our family traveled from the heart of the Fire Nation to the uttermost borders of the colonies. We performed for dignitaries, in palaces, and also at street fairs and carnivals when times were hard.
At the age of four we performed together in front of Fire Lord Azulon. We would shoot arrows into four different wooden pillars at a pace so rapid it was like a blur. Our older twin sisters would then climb, jump, and fly from pillar to pillar while our parents shot jets of flame mere inches behind them. We would then put our bows on our backs and leap over, under and around the flames while our younger brother and sister sat entranced in the arms of our fellow performers. It was wonderful fun. We were happy, we were free, and we were proud to be in so auspicious a place. The royal family was pleased, especially the royal children of Prince Ozai. We wanted to play with them but our mother explained that royal children do not play with performers, no matter how close in age they were.
Since before we can remember we've all loved fire, both our sisters and us. We used to beg mother to make us a flame to play with but none of us four inherited our parents' bending. The girls could practically fly and we are the perfect archers but not one of us can make flame. It used to make us sad but not for long. For when our younger siblings were only two-and-a-half we discovered that they both had the gift of fire bending. As long as one unit of our clan had it we didn't begrudge them their gift, just as they didn't begrudge us ours.
Father used to talk about the Fire Nation, every night before we went to sleep he would make us each a small flame to hold on a candle and tell us about our beautiful nation. He told us about the beautiful prairies on the northern islands and the boiling hot volcanoes to the south. He told us stories of different people he had met in different villages around the world, when the political situation was not so hostile as it is now, from the Northern Water Tribe, to the Earth King's Palace, but the ones both we all enjoyed most were the ones of the Fire Nation. We didn't care for conquest, especially not the girls, but we loved tales of fire and the amazing things people have learned to do with it.
Before every meal and before every show, we would recite the Fire Nation Oath. It was a lovely thing; our mother turned it into a song for us. We used to sing it to our little siblings as they drifted off to sleep. Then, in turn, our older sisters would sing it to us. We always liked to believe that our parents sang it to our sisters as well but we don't know because we were sleeping.
We are one.
We first met Shinu after a performance in the house of our esteemed friend Admiral Park. Déshèng and Katsue, our youngest siblings, were of an age to perform with us and to this day we believe that the performance we gave that night showed the very best our family had to display. Shinu was impressed with our display not only of archery but also of agility and strength. He requested an audience with our parents that very night. We waited up for them as we always did whenever important dignitaries spoke with them, waiting anxiously for whatever news they would bring back to us. We each took up our customary seats around the fire in the center of our tent, telling stories to keep each other awake.
The sun went down over the horizon and the moon began to make its journey across the sky and still we waited. When the moon was high overhead Déshèng and Katsue fell asleep. We sang to them as they drifted off and then continued waiting. Sometime in the darkest part of the night, just before the dawn, our parents returned to our tent. Our mother was crying silently into our father's shoulder. They sat in the open spot before the fire and our sisters poured them tea and again we waited to hear whatever news they had. Our father opened his mouth as if to speak but closed it again before any sound had left it, seemingly collecting his thoughts.
Finally he spoke. He told us that Shinu had requested that we join his army contingent of elite archers. Our mother began to sob and our father continued on, silently comforting her. He said that they had explained to Shinu that we did not separate our family but he had protested that our Nation's need for us was greater than the bonds of family loyalty. The girls began to cry as well, quietly drawing closer to our mother we alone still sat on the other side of the fire. Our father continued saying that our mother had protested the taking of children into the army but Shinu had threatened that if they did not comply all of our family would face exile.
At that moment we understood what they now asked of us. Never in our lives had we been separated from our family for any great length of time, and now we faced the prospect of the rest of our lives alone. In that instant we knew why our sister's in their understanding and grief had moved away from us. We knew that our parents had left us the choice of saying no but we also knew that if we chose that path our entire family would be convicted of treason and exiled, perhaps executed. We understood that if that was our decision we would have the complete support of our family, just as we would have supported them if our roles had been reversed.
But we would not choose that path. "We will go." we told them. "We will go and fight for our Nation." That night our mother, our father, our three sisters, and our little brother sang us to sleep. We left with Shinu the next morning and arrived at our destination only two days later. We were given a set of bunks in a room with our new squad mates: Wei and Xi-Wang. That night we waited sitting on our bunks until the others were asleep, then we climbed into the lowest bunk and cried ourselves to sleep.
We will endure.
The next day we began training. It was a new experience for us to be training to do more than perform but it wasn't so big a difference that we didn't catch on quickly. Learning to make the bow into an extension of our own bodies was not something we had ever incorporated into a performance, it wasn't necessary. But we soon learned that in a combat situation it became a matter of life and death. Day after day Wei woke us up at the crack of dawn to move us through our drills. Again the moment the sun went down we were standing, marching, or even running with our longbows in our hands shooting arrow after arrow into targets stationed around the field outside the fortress.
On the day we had caught up to our squad mates in all that we had lacked before, we began to teach them how to run up pillars of stone and wood. We taught them the art of jumping quickly from place to place. It was a move that our father had once said came from studying the ancient and long dead techniques of the Air Nomads. One squad mate would shoot and the others would practice dodging the tip less blunted arrows. We borrowed from our sisters when we taught them to almost fly from rooftop to rooftop. The night we all completed every exercise perfectly we stayed up late sharing stories. We were proud to tell our tales of our nation, from the beauty of the capital to the magnificence of the Fire Navy itself. We learned of the advances made in science and literature by our great nation and were once again reminded the pride we have in our nation.
When Sheng arrived we proposed another change to our routine. Despite our prowess with the longbow the regular soldiers constantly mocked us for our youth and flighty techniques that were more than uncommon in fighters. Our father had a tattoo across his face; he used to say that it was the symbol of his pride in his nation. He once joked that where ever we went everyone knew that he was Fire Nation and proud of it and so would not dare to mock him. We suggested that everyone of our squad either tattoo or paint that symbol on our faces. It would be like the war paint of the Water Tribes. At first the others were skeptical but in time we came to the decision that it was worth it. Our father's tattoo became the symbol of our unit and the fear of every enemy of the Fire Nation. He will be proud when he hears of it, whether from our own lips when we have won this accursed war or from the lips of those who come to fear the sight of it.
Sheng presented a new difficulty for our new family. Of all of us he was both the youngest and the smallest, but as Xi-Wang said, he was also the oldest and most battle-hardened. At first we didn't know what to make of him. He was not a little brother but neither was he a big brother and never in a thousand years was he a part of us but he was still family. For four months we trained with him, ate with him, and shared a room with him but still we could not understand him. Until one night we woke in the middle of the night with him standing in front of our bunk staring at us with the terror of a lingering nightmare still in his eyes. We scooted closer to the wall and he climbed into our bunk with us. We all three lay there, unmoving, just breathing for hours, and then in the dark before dawn we sang him to sleep.
Exactly two years from the day we first arrived we completed our first mission. We don't remember what it was, only that it was one battle closer to the end of the war. We completed many more assignments and the years flowed on. Five years after our first assignment we put on a display of our talents for the Fire Lord himself and his daughter Princess Azula and her friends. We remembered the prince we had wanted to play with when we were young and asked about him to the Captain of the watch. Apparently he became a traitor and was exiled. We know to this day that that could have been us exiled, never to return to our beautiful country. We are grateful it was not. We learned to get on without our family until we found a new one but we believe with all that is in us in the Fire Nation. We will never find another nation as great as this and we are both sad and proud to be needed in its service.
We are Yu-Yan.
A/N: Sorry for the wait, I was unsucessfully attempting to procure a betareader. Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews, they make me happy and guilt me into updating. =) As of now one more chapter is planned, possibly more depending on RL and my fickle muse. Thanks for reading.