#40 - History

            In school they are taught lies about the genocide of the air nomads, but Ichiro knows the truth of it; soon after both his siblings know, and to them it is simply one more reason they cannot trust their motherland.

#01 - Motion

            It seems to be physically impossible for Ichiro to stop moving; even when receiving a talking-to from his father, his fingers continuously drum on the table.

#07 - One

            General Torao is at the port colony of New Sozin in order to check on their defences when he hears a rumour that the Avatar may be in the area; on investigation, he is surprised to find not the Avatar, but two children of New Sozin, one a firebender — and the other an earthbender.

#12 - Wait

            Kouji gives his brother a confused look as Ichiro stills his hands; rather than answer, the older boy rises to his feet and starts watching the woods surrounding them.

#24 - Now

            Torao gives the order and his men break cover; instantly the two boys are standing back to back in combative stances while the little girl scrambles quickly up the tree she'd been leaning against.

#32 - Eye

            "We're always on the lookout for… unusual benders," says the daimyo, staring straight at the younger boy.

#27 - Hide

            Torao's men have the trio surrounded; the firebender is hostile, the girl wary, and the earthbender huddles between his brother and sister, trying to pretend that he doesn't exist.

#05 - Wrong

            Ichiro had believed that his younger brother would be imprisoned or killed if his earthbending was discovered; when General Torao finds out, however, the young man learns just how mistaken he is.

#26 - Goodbye

            Torao is very surprised when all three of the children refuse to bid their parents farewell; in fact, the eldest even declares he'd be happiest if he never saw them again.

#25 - Shadow

            For nearly a month after Torao essentially buys them from their parents, the twins are inseparable; Kouji trails after his sister, his hand in hers, and speaks so little that he is often easy to overlook.

#06 - Gentle

            Of the three colony children, it is Kouji who has the softest touch, the quietest voice; presumably it was his earthbending that drove him to be as shy and unobtrusive as possible lest he be discovered.

#10 - Learn

            Living under General Torao's roof is quite an experience for the colony children; their etiquette, good for the younger two and quite poor for the older boy, must be polished and brought up to the standards of the nobility; the type of education they receive has changed, and most importantly, Ichiro is no longer the oldest child.

#41 - Power

            The strength of Ichiro's firebending is a pleasant surprise; given proper training, the boy would be able to confront the Fire princess evenly.

#13 - Change

            Before their discovery, Kouji could only practise his earthbending in secret for fear that his xenophobic father would learn of it; after he and his siblings are adopted by the general he continues this out of habit until Torao tells him practising his bending openly is permissible.

#19 - Soul

            "He's got Earth in his bones, Fire in his blood, Water in his movements, and Air in his spirit," Ichiro says of his little brother.

#08 - Thousand

            The younger boy has trouble with regular earthbending; he can't seem to get the stances and moving a boulder exhausts him, but give him sand and suddenly he becomes a whirlwind of strikes and artful dodging; perhaps it is the fact that he was initially trained by a firebender that enables him to move so many small particles of his element at once.

#49 - Hunger

            Kouji eats like a bird — that is to say, seemingly twice his weight in food daily.

#20 - Picture

            When the time comes for the portrait to be painted, Ichiro is nowhere to be found.

#18 - Attention

            She cares not a whit for school; social lines have never concerned her; manners are there to be used to get what she wants; but when Captain Zhao arrives, she heeds him like almost nothing else.

#50 - Believe

            Ichiro is not one to worship the spirits, claiming that it only encourages them; knowledge that they do exist is enough for him.

#43 - God

           Agni is the old deity of fire, and it is his name invoked by most of the nobility when they have a need to blaspheme; Ichiro, in the habit of the working class, prefers invectives that refer to the reproductive capabilities of Firelord Sozin.

#38 - Wash

            It is around the Lady Ran that Ichiro first begins to control his tongue, not for fear of offending her with his choice of invectives but for fear of discovering what soap tastes like.

#34 - Sing

            Ichiro hates him and Kouji fears him but Yui is fascinated by him; perhaps that's why, when Commander Li Zhao is having a particularly grumpy day, she dares to treat him to a rendition of Hotaru Koi.

#22 - Mad

            "She's like a forest fire," Ichiro replies when asked of his encounter with the Fire Princess, "heat and flame and death all uncontrollable until someone douses it."

#09 - King

            Unsurprisingly, it is Kouji who balks the hardest upon learning that he and his siblings will have to be presented to their monarch; amazingly, it is Torako who is able to convince him that it's all for the good.

#11 - Blur

            Nobody is sure what the fight started over, but now it's Ichiro against three other boys and they're beginning to wear him down; Kouji and Yui exchange glances as Ichiro gets enough space to undo the bands around his arms and legs, then take several steps back as their brother suddenly starts moving faster.

#02 - Cool

            Between his talent for firebending and his uncaring attitude towards the ranking system among noble teens, Ichiro finds that he's somehow become rather popular.

#16 - Need

            "How is it you always know when we're in trouble?" Yui asks Ichiro; he tweaks her nose and tells her it's a big brother's prerogative.

#31 - Book

            Ichiro has no use for them and Yui is only interested in the ones that have music (and the occasional novella involving a dashing brigand) but in two years Kouji has read every scroll in Torao's library and wants more.

#30 - Ghost

            She makes no sound when she moves and despite her beauty is skilled at passing unnoticed; it is no wonder that she knows more than she ought.

#14 - Command

            Kouji will willingly obey an order, Yui may grumble and only obey those that make sense, but Ichiro prefers to give orders rather than take them.

#28 - Fortune

            None of the three have ever lacked anything that they needed, but now they no longer lack for anything that they want — if only because their wants, unlike those of their noble peers, consist of each other, knowledge, and places to practise.

#03 - Young

            She has only just turned ten when her breasts begin to grow and eight months later she gets her monthlies; Kouji's voice begins to crack soon after.

#45 - Naked

            "Damn it, Yui!" yelps Kouji, turning away from his twin as she admires her budding figure in the mirror, "We're not little kids anymore!"

#48 - Precious

            Zhao has never really had a chance to interact with the youngest of Torao's adopted sons because the boy fears him so; it isn't until he catches Kouji happily working out some math problems a recently-turned ten-year-old boy has no business doing that he realises that Kouji's greatest use is not his earthbending.

#33 - Never

            "I want him," says Li Zhao of Kouji; Torao gives his friend a Look.

#21 - Fool

            People are starting to notice him like Zhao notices him, and so Kouji endeavours to play the idiot until their interest moves on to other things.

#15 - Hold

            Kouji is gone, off to seek out the Avatar for their new father of his own volition, and Yui clings desperately to their new mother as she sobs out her fear for her twin as well as her anger for him not bringing her with him.

#23 - Child

            Kouji watches the Avatar from high above the ground, and marvels at how young the airbender is; he doesn't seem in truth to be much older than the earthbender.

#17 - Vision

            He comes out of the swamp trembling and shaken, and puts his hunt for the Avatar aside until he no longer wakes screaming.

#04 - Last

            Kouji huddles over the small fire he managed to get started; he lost most of his supplies in the swamp and it will take careful management to make what he has left stretch.

#46 - Drive

            Kouji goes on for love of his lord father, Ichiro follows for love of his siblings, and Yui continues on because she knows they're all right.

#42 - Bother

            The blushing, stammering earthbender certainly seems all right, but there's something off about the child that Sokka just can't put his finger on.

#39 - Torn

            Kouji isn't entirely certain what is wrong with him; on the one hand he wants to bring the Avatar to his lord father so that Torao may have closure, but on the other he knows that the Avatar is only a boy not much older than he is.

#36 - Stop

            He's leading the Avatar away when the blind girl asks with seeming innocence, "Why do you move like a firebender, Jiro?"

#29 - Safe

            "He isn't even your real father," argues the Water Tribe boy from where Kouji sank him in the ground, "so why are you so eager to catch Aang for him?"; Kouji barely manages to avoid a three-way assault from the waterbender, earthbender, and Avatar before snarling back, "Because Torao took me away from the man who would have killed me for what I am!"

#35 - Sudden

            The game is up thanks to the freakishly perceptive blind girl; Kouji is fighting a losing battle on four fronts and it's all he can do to block the constant assault of earth, water, air, and boomerang when blue fire flares high in front of him, forming a protective barrier in a half-circle; it is with relief that he cries his brother's name.

#47 - Harm

            Ichiro isn't certain if he'll help or hinder in Kouji's quest to retrieve the Avatar for their lord father; unlike his innocent brother, he's certain of Torao's intentions towards the last airbender.

#44 - Wall

            The brothers stare up at the imposing barrier that keeps Ba Sing Se protected from the Fire Nation; "Kouji?" Ichiro says, taking a step back, and his little brother makes an entrance for them both.

#37 - Time

            When he was five, he was sure his own skill would get him deported to a place he no longer cared to go; when he was eleven, he was sure his brother's unexpected skill would get them all killed; when he was thirteen, he was sure that they were doomed; and when he was sixteen, he finally understood that the world was a much more tolerant place than he had ever been given to believe, and that the future depended on a victory… for the Avatar.

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Tags: 50 sentences, could have been