Several weeks later, Aang and Fēng got back to the capital.  The boy stared over the side of the saddle, wide-eyed.  “It’s just like Daddy said it was,” he whispered.

Yep,” the Avatar replied. “And the first thing we’re gonna do is go meet Aiko and Yuki and Pan. They’re all about your age. Pan’s the oldest, by almost a year and Aiko and Yuki are a couple months younger than you.”

Fēng nodded.  “Right.  Aiko, Yuki, and Pan,” he said, fixing the names in his memory.

About ten minutes later, the two of them got to the nursery, where Aang was pounced on by a pair of identical brunette blurs. “Uncle Aang!”

“Hey, girls,” he said, laughing.

A third brunette hung back with a semi-superior look on her face.  “Avatar Aang,” she said politely, bowing.

Aang bowed back. “Aiko, Yuki, Pan, this is Fēng. Fēng, these are Aiko, Yuki — sorry, that’s Aiko, and that’s Yuki, and Pan.”

The twins were giggling, looking very smug.

“…I got it right the first time, didn’t I.”

“Yep!”

“But it’s okay.”

“Only Daddy can always tell us apart.”

Fēng bowed on his own.  “N-nice to meet you,” he said shyly.

The twins bowed back, graceful and exactly the right depth. “And you,” they said, in unison.  Pan was no more than a second behind them.  Uncertain, Fēng looked up at Aang.  “Why don’t you hang out with the girls for a while? I’ve got some boring stuff I have to take care of,” the Avatar suggested.

“O-okay,” Fēng replied.

Aang grinned, tousled his hair, and left him with Pan and the princesses.

The twins took Feng by the hand, and pulled him in to show him around their playroom.

The startled boy yelped, but allowed himself to be pulled; Pan followed behind at a more sedate pace, sometimes on her hands.

After about twenty minutes, the four children had settled themselves in a circle with a simple card game. A few minutes after that, one twin looked at her sister. “…hey, Aiko…”

“Oh, right, my turn,” she said, then stood up and snuck out of the room.

Fēng blinked.  “Wait, what?”

“It’s a secret,” the twin left behind — Yuki — said.

“I hate secrets,” he pouted.

“I love secrets,” Pan chirped.

“Everyone keeps secrets,” Yuki told Fēng importantly. “Like me an’ Aiko sneaking off, and that box under Pan’s bed.”

“The box is not a secret!” Pan protested.

“So you told your mommy and daddy about it?” the princess asked, rolling her eyes.

“…no… but that doesn’t make it a secret.  You know about it.”

“Me an’ Aiko both know where we sneak off to. That makes it not a secret, then,” Yuki said, triumphantly.

“It’s different ‘cause you’re twins,” Pan insisted.

“What’s different ‘cause we’re twins?” Aiko asked, sneaking back.

“Secrets,” Fēng explained.

“Ooooh.” She frowned, and exchanged a long look with her twin. “…Let’s make a deal.”

“What kinda deal?” Pan asked, leaning forward to rest her elbows against the floor.

“You show us what’s inside that box—”

“And where you got it from—”

“And we’ll tell you where we keep sneaking off to.”

Pan grinned and held out a hand to shake.

First one twin, and then the other, shook.

“Right!”  The older girl bounced to her feet and shook out her long hair.  “C’mon then!”

The twins stood up, and led the way sneakily out of the playroom. “Lead the way,” one of them said.

Pan nodded and started leading them towards the more-unused portions of the palace, until they came to a place that had been sealed off by a wall of rock.  Fēng’s eyes widened as he looked up at it.

“…I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” one of the twins said.

“Awesome,” the other whispered.

“Shhh!” Pan hissed.  She then moved into a bending stance, feet shoulder-width apart, and opened a hole just big enough for the children to crawl through.  The princesses led the way through the hole, sneezing in the dust their footsteps kicked up.  Fēng frowned, then concentrated and moved his hands.

A breeze sprang up, blowing the dust away from them.

“…You’re an airbender?” one of the twins asked, excitedly.

Fēng gave them a small smile.  “Well, as long as we were sharing secrets…”

“…That means we have all four elements,” the other twin said excitedly.

“Yeah! I’m a firebender, and Yuki’s water, and Pan’s earth, and now you’re air!”

“…wow!” Fēng cried softly.

“That’s really cool,” Pan agreed.

That excitement being dispensed with, the twins started exploring the room.

“Ow!” one of them said exclaimed, pulling her hand away from something pointy she’d found in an armoire.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, watch out,” Pan warned.  “There’s almost as many sharp things in here as Aunt Mai has.”

The other twin shivered a little. “I don’t like this place. It’s creepy.”

“Is not,” Pan retorted, ignoring that she had been about to say that very thing.  Fēng just shuddered slightly.

The creeped-out twin was now staring at something on the wall — a picture. “…Mito… ?”

Fēng joined her, but couldn’t see what she was recognising.  Now Pan was there, and her eyes widened.  “No, I don’t think that’s him,” she said.  “Look at the girl.”

The other twin had joined them as well. “…Daddy,” she agreed.

The first twin reached out and touched the old painting, first the boy’s face, then the girl’s. She shuddered again. “Sh-she’s just a girl. Just a picture of a girl. Just a picture.”

“…didn’t your Daddy have a sister?” Pan asked.

“He doesn’t talk about her,” the second twin said, taking her own sister’s hand and squeezing it lightly.

“She’s scary,” Fēng whispered, standing a few feet away from the girls.  He was staring at the portrait and shaking.  “The man is scary too…”

“I think we should leave,” the second twin said, firmly.

“Yeah,” the first twin whispered. “S’time for you to check, anyway, Yuki.”

Pan shrugged.  “If you want to.”  She’d turned away from the picture and was digging through a jewellery box.

“Can we go now?” the first twin — Aiko — asked, a little plaintively, still clinging to her sister’s hand. “I don’t like that picture. The girl’s scary, the man’s scary, and the lady’s sad, and Daddy’s trapped in that paper with them.”

“Please?” Fēng added.

“Okay, okay,” muttered Pan, taking a bracelet from the box.  “We’ll leave.”

“Thank you,” Aiko said, relieved, and was the first out of the room, promising herself she’d come back later to prove to that picture that she wasn’t scared not scared NOT.

Once they were out, Yuki slipped off in a slightly different direction of the others.  Fēng hesitated, then followed her.  Yuki led the way, slipping from shadow to shadow, around the labyrinthine palace to a door, which she carefully, quietly, pushed open.

Behind the door was a cluttered study, with a thin, white-haired man asleep in the chair behind the desk.  The boy hovered just outside the door, watching Yuki and the white-haired man warily.

The little princess sighed silently, and closed the door, just as carefully and quietly as she’d opened it. “Come on, we should go back,” she whispered.

“Okay,” he whispered in reply.  “Yuki, who was that?”

“Daddy,” she replied, leading the way back to the playroom.

Fēng’s eyes went wide.  That couldn’t be right… when his father spoke of Firelord Zuko, he spoke of a proud, strong man with hair like coal and eyes like fire.

“Mommy’s not going to be happy. She always gets this sad, tight look when she finds out Daddy’s sleeping in his study. She thinks me an’ Aiko don’t notice.”

“…I’m sorry…,” Fēng said awkwardly.

The princess shrugged one shoulder. “We should get back before Aunt Yui notices we’re gone.”

“Okay.”  He trailed after her.

She snuck back into the playroom and gave her sister, who was sitting in a corner, still looking shaken, a quick hug, whispering something in her ear.  Pan was in the middle of the room, standing on one hand with a determined expression on her face; Fēng settled himself down in another corner to watch her.  The twins, still holding one another, watched as well.

She wobbled, steadied, then fell over.  “Ouch!”

“Are you okay?” Yuki asked, disentangling herself from her sister and running over.

“Yeah…,” Pan muttered, sitting up and rubbing her head.  “The floor moved.”

“Here, maybe I can help…” She frowned in concentration, pulling water out of a special pouch she carried in imitation of her mother and Leilani, and making it glow faintly.

Pan immediately froze.  “Thanks,” she said quietly.

Yuki, practically glaring at her water, so fierce was her concentration, did what she could to fix Pan’s bruises.

“That’s pretty cool,” said Fēng from his corner.

“It’s hard,” the princess admitted, panting and putting her water away and wandering back to her sister.

“Special bending usually is,” said Pan.  “Unless you’re Aunt Toph or Uncle Iroh.”

She nodded and lay down with her head in Aiko’s lap.  Pan joined them seconds later, putting her arms around Aiko and resting her chin on the younger girl’s shoulder.  Aiko glanced over at Feng. “…You coming?”

The boy blinked, but hesitantly joined them, looking somewhat uncertain.

Yuki smiled up at him. “You don’t have to wait for us to ask, y’know. You came with Uncle Aang. That’s enough.”

“Plus, we like you. And you make us all four,” Aiko pointed out.

“R-really?”  His eyes were wide.

“Really really.”  Pan tugged on his shirt, pulling him down beside Yuki.

“Definitely,” the princesses said, in unison.

Fēng smiled and curled up next to Yuki.  “Okay.”

 

Kouji groaned as he made his way towards the Firelord’s study.  It had been a long day for him — Ichiro had written to tell him of issues with bandits on their land, and Kouji was trying to think of the best way to make them go away without asking Zuko for help.

When he got there, much to his surprise, he saw one of the twins and a boy he didn’t recognize, sneaking towards the study.  He took a guess.  “Yuki.”

She jumped. “Uncle Kouji!”

Ah, good.  Right twin.  He hoped.  “What are you doing out here?”  As the boy ducked behind, he added, “And who’s your friend?”

“This is Fēng. And I was… um… I was introducing him to people.” She nodded, satisfied with her brilliant excuse.

Kouji arched an eyebrow.  The kid was shyer than he’d been at that age.  “Really.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not supposed to be out here on your own.”

“I’m not on my own, I’m with Fēng,” she pointed out.

“You know what I mean, Waterspout,” Kouji replied.  “Come on, we’re going back to the playroom.”

She sighed. “Fine, Uncle Kouji…”

“You’re lucky it was me who caught you and not your mother,” Kouji pointed out, steering Yuki down the hall.  Fēng was right beside the younger girl, clinging to her hand.

“I know.”

A few turns, and they’d reached the playroom.  “In you go.  I have to talk to your father.”

“What about? Did something happen?”

“No,” Kouji half-lied.  The bandits were his problem, not Zuko’s.  “He’s got a meeting in fifteen minutes, though.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The nobleman tugged gently on one of her ponytails.  “Your entire family is paranoid, I swear,” he teased gently, then turned and was gone.  She stuck her tongue out at him, then pulled Fēng back into the playroom.

Kouji returned to Zuko’s office and slipped inside, shaking his head.  Shang was going crazy trying to find a guard who could at least keep up with any one of the twins when they snuck off.

Zuko looked up — he was actually awake, though it looked like he hadn’t been for very long. “Hey.”

“Hey.  You might want to talk to your girls about slipping their leashes.”

“Are they all right?”

“Perfectly fine.  I just caught Yuki out here with a new friend.”

“Teo’s kid? The Avatar told me he brought him. And why.” Zuko cracked a smile.

“Oh, that’s why he seemed familiar.  And Aang brought him in?  Why?”

“He’s an airbender.”

Kouji’s jaw dropped. “No way.”

“Yes, way.” The Firelord was definitely smiling now.

“That’s great!” Kouji declared.

“It really is.”

“Aang must be over the freakin’ moon.”

Zuko nodded. “Yeah.”

Kouji smoothed down his hair — since returning home, he’d taken to wearing his hair in the Court fashions — and then said, “I’d love to chat some more, but your next meeting’s in ten minutes.”

“Right.” The older man levered himself up out of his chair.

“Good luck.  It’s a budget meeting.”

Zuko groaned. “Numbers. Perfect.”

“Sorry.”  Kouji managed a small grin.  “But hey, Aang’ll probably introduce you officially to Fēng after, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

The other noble clapped him on the shoulder.  “Just picture a world without numbers when the going gets tough.”

“Foreign trade would collapse. You’re going to give me more nightmares,” he replied wryly. “I’ll see you later, all right?”

“Yep.”  Kouji watched him go and kept the smile on his face until Zuko was out of sight.

 

Aiko gave her sister a questioning look when she and Feng came back in.

“Didn’t see, Uncle Kouji caught us,” the waterbender said, flopping down next to her sister.

Pan grinned.  “Did he get it right this time?”

“Yep,” she said, grinning back. “On the first try.”

“He must’ve guessed,” she declared.

“Definitely,” Aiko said, then flopped down. “I’m bored.”

“Yeah, me too,” Fēng said quietly.

“We should do something,” Yuki declared.

“Yeah, but what?” Pan wanted to know.

“…We could practice. Together,” Aiko suggested, bolting up in excitement. “All four of us. Bending, I mean.”

“…Yeah!” Yuki chimed in.

“You mean where nobody can watch?” Pan asked, sitting up straight.

Aiko nodded. “Yeah.”

“When we get in trouble for sneaking off, by then we’ll be really, really good together and they won’t be as mad!”

“Awesome!” decreed the earthbender, bouncing to her feet.  “We should totally find a place!”

“Yeah,” Yuki said, grabbing Fēng’s hand and pulling him up.

“…Why don’t we split up? We’ll get more done. Me an’ Pan can go this way, and you and Feng can go this way?” Aiko suggested.

“Sounds great!” Pan agreed.

“O-okay,” said Fēng.

“We’ll meet back here,” Aiko said, then pulled Pan along. It probably didn’t escape the young earthbender’s notice that Aiko wasn’t heading for anything approaching a good place to practice.

She was heading back for the creepy room Pan had shown them earlier. “Dare you to come in with me,” she whispered.

“I’m not the one who was scared,” Pan shot back.

“You so were. Just ‘cause you didn’t have the guts to admit it doesn’t change it.”

“I was not!”

“Were so!”

“Nuh-ah!”

“Yah-huh.”

They continued on in this vein as they approached the room.  “Open the wall again,” the princess interrupted herself, mid-comeback.  Pan braced herself and did so.

Aiko slipped through first — notscarednotscaredNOT — and started exploring again, ignoring the slow, cold, creeping, terrible feeling that the girl in the picture was watching her. “Just a picture,” she whispered.

Pan snorted and turned the picture over.  “See?  Can’t hurt us.”

Aiko shivered a little, then glared at the older girl and slid under the bed to see if there was anything interesting. She sneezed repeatedly. Most of what was down there was dust.

But there was also a box, full of what looked like scrolls.

“What’d you find?” Pan asked.

“Box,” she said, and sneezed again.

“Here, lemme get it.”

“I got—” another sneeze “—it,” Aiko insisted, dragging the box out.

“Sounds like you got allergies, too.”

“Shut up.” She sneezed again.

Pan pulled the box away from her and opened it.  “Hey, scrolls!”

“Neat!” The princess joined her to see what the scrolls were.

Without hesitating, Pan opened the first one she could reach.

It was filled with somewhat spiky, spidery handwriting — a journal. Aiko peeked over her shoulder, then turned away to sneeze again. “We should find the earliest one. Daddy says always start at the beginning.”

“Okay.”  Pan put her scroll aside and began digging through the box, looking for the bottom-most one.

She eventually found one. Judging by the handwriting and quality of the sentence structure in general, this journal had been started when the writer was around the girls’ age.  “Ready?” Pan asked.

Aiko sneezed again, then nodded.

The young earthbender opened the scroll and began to read.  The princess read over her shoulder, whispering aloud unconsciously as she went along — she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of reading silently.  Several hours passed as the two girls read through the scroll; they didn’t even realise how much time had passed until the sunset made reading impossible.

“Oh no! Mommy’s gonna kill me!” Aiko yelped, hastily stuffing the scroll back into the box — they’d gotten through two or three years of the writer’s life, and were up to her ninth birthday.

“I’ll close it behind us,” Pan said quickly, shoving the box under the bed.  Aiko nodded, and scrambled out through the hole, waiting impatiently for her friend, shifting from foot to foot.

Pan was seconds behind her, not even bothering to be quiet as she closed off the hole in the wall.  “Come on,” the princess said, grabbing her hand and fleeing back to the playroom, not even bothering to be particularly quiet or sneaky.

The two girls tumbled in quickly; Yui was waiting for them with an arched eyebrow.  “Aiko.  Pan.”

“Hi, Aunt Yui,” Aiko replied, a little nervously and still slightly stuffed up from all the dust-induced sneezing.

“And where have you two been?”

“Ummm…” Aiko turned to Pan. “Tell Aunt Yui where we were.”

“We were ‘sploring,” Pan replied, all innocence.

“Uh-huh.”

“Yes! Yes. That’s where we were.” Aiko nodded emphatically.

“Yeah.  Not buying it.”

“Buying what? We’re not sellin’ anything.”

“Your parents are looking for you.”

Aiko brightened at the prospect of Daddy-time, even if most of it would be spent getting yelled at for wandering off.

Pan, however, cringed.  “Get going,” Yui told her.  “Your mother wants you.  And you, Miss Aiko, we’re going to see your parents too.”

“Okay!"