A blink of the eyes, a turn of the head, and it all could have been different.

Just a blink, just a turn, such a small, chance thing, who could be blamed for doing that, or for not doing it? Not a grieving child of four, surely.

And that was what the Earth Tribe soldiers found when they went to investigate reports of a mysterious village hidden among the green hills — a grieving child, with a dragon in his eyes.

None of them could tear themselves from that burning gaze, even as they fell before it one after another. A certain soldier saw all his comrades beside him succumb to it; surely he would be next, but he couldn't break the link between those golden eyes and his own —

And then, just by chance, the child blinked, turned his head.

The soldier threw himself to the ground, burying his face among his fallen comrades. He managed to hide his eyes until the screams and the sounds of bodies falling into the mud went silent. Only then did he dare to look.

In the center of the carnage, the child lay on the ground, still but breathing. Even when the soldier advanced toward him, he didn't move.

With a quick prayer for forgiveness, the soldier tore off his fallen captain's cape. He wound it around the child's head to hide their eyes, tied them hand and foot, and carried them away, back toward Chi-Shin.

Two years later, when the tribe leaders attended the crowning of the new king, General Geun-Tae of the Earth Tribe brought his adopted son with him. There wasn't much resemblance, other than the high ponytail tied behind the fluffy blue forelocks and the boy's precocious skill at broadsword forms; he certainly wasn't loud or nonchalant like the general, but still his father was fiercely possessive and proud of him.

His name was Shin-Ah, because some things are fate, but it had been chosen to mean 'faithful light,' because he never showed a falsely sunny face, and, secretly, because the light of vision never left his eyes; even under clouded stars, he could see perfectly and far. His father claimed his sight was so sensitive that even the moon could dazzle him, as an excuse for the cloth that hid his eyes.

But it was when Shin-Ah was presented to the newly-crowned queen and princess that he was actually dazzled. He cried out and fell to his knees, clutching his face.

And the little princess, only four years old, pulled her hand from her mother's and dashed toward him, silken skirts flying, red curls bouncing.

"Your eyes are hurting?" she said. "I'll make it better." And without a second thought, she lifted the cloth from his eyes and anointed each one with a sweet, childish kiss.

Two more years passed. The princess — whose name was Yona — and Shin-Ah, as well as Hak from the Wind Tribe and the princess's cousin Suwon became inseparable friends.

General Geun-Tae groused about how much time he and his son spent in the capital — because Shin-Ah could scarcely bear to be separated either from his father or from the princess — but much of the time they did stay, and the other generals followed suit lest the Earth Tribe gain an advantage. Bringing the country's leaders together this way helped forge a path for the new king, Il, although his brother, General Yuhon, was frustrated by his soft touch.

If things had gone differently, perhaps Yuhon might have taken matters into his own hands in a way that even his kindly, patient brother wouldn't tolerate, but as things were, the Wind and Earth tribes were likely to oppose any such move, and the Water Tribe would do no better than remain neutral. The general knew a losing strategy when he saw one.

Once, assassins did target the queen, but Shin-Ah saw them in time to alert the royal guard. The four children rushed to her room to defend her themselves. At first she thought surely they were playing a game, but Yona held her hand so tightly, told her "It's going to be all right, Mother" so seriously that she wasn't surprised when Guard Captain Joo-Dou came to announce that the attackers had been safely chased away.

No one ever knew who had sent them.

But everyone knew who had raised the alarm.

There had always been whispers, but after that they grew louder. Wasn't it so much like the old story? Wasn't Shin-Ah's sight just like the Seiryuu, the warrior with the blood of the blue dragon?

The whispers stopped two years after Shin-Ah's arrival, when a mysterious delegation appeared at the castle gates, all dressed in white and bearing a white-curtained palanquin. The revelation that these people had planted spies in the castle spread a wave of consternation through the court, but they swore they had no intention of harming anyone or interfering in politics; it was only that after protecting the white dragon's blood for so many generations, they must be absolutely certain. And so they had sent people in secret, guided by the rumors of the Seiryuu, and at last all their doubts had been satisfied.

The curtains of the palanquin parted, and a ten-year-old boy was ushered forth to be presented like a bride, with just that much blushing excitement and a vow that from that day forward he would serve the princess with his life.

Yona was not supposed to be present for the scene, but with her clamoring to see the mysterious visitors and Suwon leading the way, she and her friends had snuck into a side chamber and were watching through the crack of a door.

Yona pressed forward to look more closely, so hard that the hinges rattled and the wood creaked. The boy glanced toward the sound, their eyes met —

And just as the room was heaving with suspicion — to place a stranger near the princess, from people who admitted to spying already — the boy cried out. His hand transformed into a massive, white-scaled claw, bursting through the wrappings that had concealed it and tearing open his embroidered sleeve.

Yona unlatched the door, sending herself and the boys spilling forth into a pile. When she picked herself up, she found the new arrival bowing to her, his face to the floor, his silver hair in front of her nose.

After that, it would have been foolish to whisper.

In the days that followed, the young Hakuryuu's claw and his temperament both resisted secrecy; he even insisted on being addressed by that title and would give no other name. Still the king decided against making the matter public — it would be too presumptuous to lord such a thing over the people, he said — but in the castles of Kouka, the whispers gave way to an open secret, and even in the towns and villages rumors began to spread:

The four dragons were gathering around the red-haired princess.

'Hakuryuu' had been in the castle for a month when his determined enthusiasm began to turn brittle. Shin-Ah wondered if he was homesick, Hak nodded knowingly, and Yona and the others finally cornered him over tea.

When the princess asked about his parents, he began to cry — his father had passed away before he could see this; he missed his mother and his granny — and the tears only flowed more freely as he shook his head and insisted that a Hakuryuu shouldn't behave this way.

"But you're not just Hakuryuu, right?" Yona asked — then remembered what she'd heard about Shin-Ah's earliest years. "That's so sad, if they didn't even give you a name. Don't worry," she assured him, "I'll think of a good one."

He shook his head. He did have a name.

From that day on, the other children all called him Kija.

Kija soon announced that he could feel the green dragon's blood in the west; Shin-Ah could, too, but had never mentioned it in case the Ryokuryuu didn't want to be found. They were able to pinpoint the presence in Earth Tribe territory, in the port city of Awa, but investigators sent there found only rumors, and the King was hesitant to risk letting Yona make the journey. After a year of no results, however, he finally let her go with her friends, heavily chaperoned by Yuhon, Joo-Dou, Geun-Tae, and General Mundok from the Wind Tribe.

As they traveled, Suwon gathered the other children close in the carriage and told them — somehow it was always Suwon who knew these things — why the adults were so worried and why they'd allowed the trip despite it. The rumors coming out of Awa had mentioned a person who could fly, but had also mentioned women and children disappearing and pirates raiding ships. The king didn't want to put Yona in such a dangerous place, but he also didn't want to leave the Ryokuryuu there, and if the third dragon were in danger, it seemed that only Yona and the other dragons might be able to find them in time.

When they arrived, however, Kija and Shin-Ah chased the Ryokuryuu's presence this way and that, only to feel it flit away every time they came close. At last, exhausted, they went with the adults to present themselves as guests of the city's governor, Yan Kum-ji.

The children and Joo-Dou were taken to a guest room while the other men talked with the governor. Hiding from Joo-Dou's gaze, Hak and Suwon reasoned that the Ryokuryuu must be avoiding the other dragons' presence and perhaps even Yona's, so the two of them could search best on their own. Yona sputtered and flushed with frustration, but she grudgingly stayed quiet as they slipped away, and they had at least a small head start before Joo-Dou noticed them gone and gave chase.

Being pushed aside first by the Ryokuryuu and then by Hak and Suwon left Yona in such a huff that she refused to even drink the tea the governor's servants brought — but Shin-Ah and Kija did drink it, and minutes later Yona saw them waver and collapse. When she heard footsteps approaching the room, she pretended to sleep and let herself be carried away along with them.

Meanwhile, Hak and Suwon looked to the pirates as a possible clue. From the way they targeted this one port and from how quickly they could strike, Suwon deduced that the pirates must be locals, and as the two boys watched the bustle at the docks for likely suspects, Hak noticed some unloaded cargo that seemed to shift and weigh just a subtle shade differently than it should.

They tailed it to a warehouse deep in the backstreets of the city, and they had just found a good spot to peek in on what happened inside when a heavy footfall sounded behind them out of nowhere and a hand came down on each of their shoulders.

They'd been caught by a lanky youth of sixteen, much taller than them, but Hak didn't hesitate to take on a larger opponent. The older boy was surprised by his skill but was able to fend off his blows with a smile. He blocked with one leg; it stopped one of Hak's kicks as though it were made of iron —

And then a woman's voice called a halt to the fight.

She was an older woman; the boy called her 'captain.' She sighed that it wasn't as if they were going to hurt a couple of kids, and she invited Hak and Suwon inside, saying that if they'd seen this much they might as well see the rest.

The cargo did indeed contain secret compartments, and there were indeed people hidden inside — people who came out laughing and trembling with relief. A few of them were escaped slaves from across the sea whom the pirates had helped smuggle to freedom, but most of them were disappeared people from Awa. It wasn't the pirates who had abducted them and meant to sell them across the sea; the pirates' raids were actually rescues.

As for who the real kidnappers were, the victims didn't know, but the pirates did. The governor himself, Yan Kum-ji, was the one behind it. The lanky boy — the captain called him Jae-Ha — had seen that Hak and Suwon's party were the governor's guests and thus was still suspicious of them, but when the captain asked if they planned to turn the pirates in, the two boys agreed on a shrug. Their job wasn't to catch the pirates, anyway.

Their job was to find the Ryokuryuu: someone whose dragon leg, Suwon supposed, could block any blow, would allow them to drop down behind people with no warning footsteps or to see the town from above and the details of who was a guest where…

Jae-Ha laughed at their pointed looks and insisted that it was no use asking him about it — until he felt the other dragons being taken to the harbor and out to sea.

Joo-Dou arrived just in time to join them in setting off to the rescue.

By that time, the other chaperones had also found the children missing. At first, the governor acted shocked and insisted that the pirates must be to blame, but when he thought that only Yuhon could hear him, he revealed his own plot. Getting rid of the princess and the dragons who created such talk around her would clear the way for Yuhon to seize the throne — and the fact that Suwon and Hak had snuck safely away beforehand only made it more convenient.

Yuhon would have cut the man to pieces on the spot if the other two generals hadn't been listening and hadn't chosen that moment to burst in. Mundok insisted on bringing the governor back to the capital for a proper trial, and Geun-Tae lost no time in demanding to know where the children were.

Yona, for her part, continued to feign sleep even as she and Shin-Ah and Kija were bound, blindfolded, and carried onto a ship. She knew she couldn't fight so many people alone, and she refused to run and leave her friends. When things finally went quiet and it seemed as if no one was watching, she felt her way over to Kija in the dark. She felt a mass of chains where it seemed his arms should be, but at last she found his fingers and used his claws to cut the rope at her wrists.

When she took off the blindfold, she found that they weren't alone. A dozen other women and children were bound in the ship's hold along with them. Yona rushed to free everyone, and the women looked at her and the dragons in confusion and doubt. Could their captors be so powerful that even royalty and the legendary dragons couldn't escape? Or could it be… It was one of the children among them who said it — this meant they were going to be saved, right?

"That's right!" Yona insisted. She couldn't read people like Suwon, but she at least knew she couldn't let everyone lose hope. "We're here to save you, but I need all of your help!"

What she needed their help to do, she didn't know, but just in time, while she still had command of the room, she heard Shin-Ah moan behind her. She picked him up, pulled the blindfold from his eyes and shook him. "Shin-Ah, wake up! I need you to look and see where the guards are!"

Blinking, he looked. There were no guards; there was no one on the ship but the prisoners. But in another part of the hold there was a candle, placed so that when it burned down it would light the fuse on a roomful of gunpowder.

A gasp went around the room. Someone realized aloud — it was all to kill the princess —

Kija sprang up. His claw burst through all the chains that had bound him. Shin-Ah pointed him toward the threat, and he smashed through the intervening walls, not even realizing what was happening until Yona darted through after him and snatched the candle away from the fuse.

With that, the ship was theirs — and so was the gunpowder.

A few of the women knew how to handle a ship. Others sighted some escort vessels following them, and they began bundling the gunpowder into makeshift bombs to ward them off. They put all the children in the cabin to guard them, including Yona and the dragons. Shin-Ah and Kija were still struggling to shake off the drug and unusually tired from using their powers because of it, and Yona after all was a seven-year-old girl who didn't know how to fight. She huffed again — and vowed to herself that her father would never hear the end of it until he gave in and let her study some sort of martial art — but she'd done what she had to do. The women's resolve was set, and they didn't need any more inspiring speeches.

They were already fighting their way back toward port when Hak, Suwon, Joo-Dou, and the pirates arrived and decisively fought off their pursuers.

When they arrived back at Awa, Geun-Tae hugged Shin-Ah in a rapture of relief before declaring him the indomitable hero of the hour. Mundok embraced Yona with tears of joy that she was safe, then turned to berate Hak for abandoning her. Suwon got a more balanced performance appraisal from his father; he'd done well at seeing clues and taking charge, but forgoing support from the adults had been an unjustifiable risk, even if it had turned out well in the end.

And even if they had found the Ryokuryuu.

Jae-Ha had guarded the children's cabin all the way back, but now he refused to so much as look at Yona, although he trembled with the strain. He swore that he'd come too far to end up a slave to some spoiled brat—

—And Yona burst into tears. "I don't want you to be a slave!" she sobbed. "When we heard people were disappearing in this town we were all so worried about you, that something was going to happen to you and they were going to take you away! You don't have to be so mean!"

Between his captain's glare and the princess's wails, Jae-Ha fell to his knees in defeat. Before he knew it, he was even letting Yona hug him. He still wouldn't go back to the capital with her no matter how she pleaded, but finally, grudgingly, he allowed that he might come visit now and then…

…Which turned out to mean roughly every week.

On a certain day some months later, Jae-Ha dropped from the sky into the castle park as he usually did. Yona and the others were there waiting for him, as they usually were; Kija and Shin-Ah could feel it when he was coming.

"Jae-Ha!" Yona greeted, running to him and hugging him; that first meeting in the port had set a precedent.

Hak crossed his arms. "So what have you been up to?"

"Oh, this and that," Jae-Ha replied with a mysterious smile. He lifted a cloth-wrapped box he'd brought and waved it gently through the air. "I brought these with me today."

Yona and Shin-Ah sniffed the aroma. "Mm, dumplings," Yona sighed.

"I'm not sure I should give them to you, though. After all, they aren't palace food…"

"Are we going to do this again?" Hak questioned. With Jae-Ha's quick feet and greater height, he had the advantage in games of keep-away.

"He always gives them to us in the end, though," Suwon noted, smiling patiently.

"Don't tease the princess! You're being disrespectful to our master!" Kija argued.

"If you're so protective, aren't you the least bit worried?" Jae-Ha asked him. "After all, I just brought these in from the street somewhere. There's no telling what might be in them."

"I'm not scared!" Yona declared.

"But if I were to get in trouble with your parents, it would take something special to be worth a risk like that…"

"I won't tell!"

She wouldn't have had to. The king was watching them from a shaded balcony, together with his wife and brother.

Yuhon frowned. "Are you certain about that boy? A known pirate flitting in and out of the castle as he pleases — now boasting that he could poison them all — that's trusting old legends a bit far."

"Oh, I've talked to him," the queen said. "He's really a nice boy, he's just at that age where they want to look like they're above it all. You were suspicious of Kija at first, too, remember?"

Yuhon still was somewhat suspicious about it, so easily accepting someone groomed from birth by mysterious people, simply taking them at their word on the ends to which they'd trained him. Even Geun-Tae's son — the Earth General wasn't the underhanded sort, but who knew where he'd found the child, and who knew what he could see with those eyes…

And perhaps worse than what he didn't know about the dragons was what he did know about them. If Il kept seeing evidence for those old legends, before long he'd be looking for a priest to set up in the castle again, after Yuhon had gone to such lengths to solve that problem. Whether the legends were true or not, it couldn't be right to hand the kingdom's fate over to some sort of heaven…

But it wasn't so easy to accuse Il of doing that, either. He'd never asked any of the dragons for advice, never asked them to use their power for an advantage in conflict or even for propaganda, never asked them to take any role in politics at all. As far as Yuhon could see, he wasn't even grooming Yona — the seeming reincarnation of Hiryuu with the soul of the Red Dragon — to rule in her own right. With all the tribe generals in the capital so often, Il had even learned when to step in on their wrangling and how to show the odd flash of gravitas when it was needed.

For now, though, the king just nodded along, smiling. "Looking at Yona, it's certainly been good for her, having them all with her."

Below, Yona's attempts to wheedle the dumplings out of Jae-Ha had given way to pouting, but it seemed uncharacteristically calculated. When she stamped her foot, it was clearly just a bit too calculated —

And the other four boys pounced at Jae-Ha just an instant too late.

"You need to be subtler with your cues, Hime-chan," he taunted from his new perch on a bough of a nearby tree.

"Well you're always teasing — we had to try something!"

Jae-Ha opened the box and surveyed a few skewers of dumplings for a moment as if he meant to eat them all himself, but then he admitted, "Well, the effort deserves something. Come here, Seiryuu; I saw how you were holding back…"

He called the other boys over and dropped the treats down to them — Shin-Ah, Hak, Kija, Suwon…

"Wait, what about the princess?" Kija asked, when nothing more was forthcoming.

"I don't have anything for a little brat who makes other people do all the work."

Hak sniggered.

"I helped! I was the distraction!" Yona argued.

"And you did a great job," Hak needled.

"If you want some, come up here and get it," Jae-Ha told her.

Now Yona was fuming in earnest. Kija, Shin-Ah, and Suwon all offered her their dumplings — Hak was already eating his — but she shook her head, pushed back her sleeves, and braced a foot on the tree trunk.

"Princess, allow me to—" Kija started.

But Jae-Ha cut him off. "No, no, she has to do it herself."

Judging by Yona's determined face, he might not have needed to say it.

From the balcony, the queen watched the fruitless scrabbling that ensued. "It's certainly been hard on her clothes having them all with her," she sighed.

As if on cue, Yona fell the two feet she'd managed to gain, with a landing that pounded grass into her pale pink skirt. Despite the younger dragons' fussing, she picked herself up and tried to survey the damage, finally untying the skirt and unwrapping its layers.

"Princess!" Kija blushed at the immodesty, but Yona was already eyeing a bough just above her head. He was left trying to tie his own cape around her as she threw her skirt at the tree.

The queen sighed again, giving the skirt up as lost.

Yuhon's face pinched; he had some firm opinions about how ladies should behave. "If she wants dumplings that badly, she can ask for them."

"She knows that," her father said. "But she wants the Ryokuryuu to acknowledge her, and she knows she'll have to work at it." He chuckled; "…Whereas the Hakyruu showers her with so much acknowledgment she'd be embarrassed if she didn't try to live up to it."

"And the Seiryuu," the queen added, "—don't tell General Geun-Tae, but he's so quiet and sensitive, she really wants to look after him as much as he wants to look after her. She's grown a lot, since they all came."

"I can't help wondering what the Ouryuu will be like," the king said.

"And Hak and Suwon, well…" His wife smiled knowingly. "With them, I wonder…"

Down in the park, Suwon was cheering Yona on, and Hak was still sniggering; it was hard to say which steeled her determination more. She'd gotten her skirt over the bough but struggled to manage both of its trailing ends.

"Oh, oh, if you—!" Suwon clapped his hands over his mouth, remembering just in time that he wasn't allowed to help.

The others had all turned to him, even Jae-Ha showing more interest than reproach. Yuhon was still frowning as he watched, but it wasn't the first time he'd noticed how the others all listened when Suwon spoke; that gave him at least a little hope for this nonsense.

It took a few more minutes of struggle and fuss before Yona caught the silenced hint and knotted fistfuls of cloth into a makeshift ladder. It still wasn't an easy thing to climb, but it let her reach the first bough, and from there the next and the next were within reach. She even refused Jae-Ha's offered hand as she at last clambered up next to him.

Clinging to the trunk, panting and shaking, she stood up and looked out at the world below her, beaming so at her achievement and the view from above that she didn't notice at first when Jae-Ha offered her two skewers of dumplings.

From the balcony, her father smiled, too, but he was paying more careful attention than he might have gotten credit for. He saw the others clustered below and Jae-Ha's hand ready to keep Yona safe if she should fall. She really had grown so much, with them all here to support her and challenge her. Il had always been convinced that his daughter was special — well, what father wasn't? — but the way things had come together around her…

It was even more of a blessing because, whatever the legend might say, this didn't feel like fate. Somehow, in his heart, the king was certain that any little thing could so easily have been changed — one moment of courage, one slip of timing, one whisper in the right ear…

A blink of the eyes, a turn of a head…

And it all could have been different.

The End