At the start of all things, there is the Way in an ocean of nonbeing. It encompasses all that exists, both creation and destruction. Everything humans would call good and evil is within it, and the ocean itself is perfectly balanced in all things.
As the essence of Being began to understand itself, it conceived of the first words, and in so doing, gave birth to the opposites within it. These are the first principles, what are sometimes called called yin and yang. Everything we can touch and describe and understand comes from the first principles.
Here on this world, the first principles took the form of the dragon and the firebird, and it is through them that we understand balance.
Firebird
When the world was new-made, xie and I wandered across it, seeking to learn what we could from what grew. We took whatever forms suited us then, and had not yet taken the forms of dragon and firebird as they're known.
Sometimes I was the sun and xie the moon, shining down on dew-flecked fields of wildflowers. Sometimes we took the shapes of the plants and trees, and sometimes the animals. We both liked the forms of the clever, feathered lizards that seemed to be everywhere and learning new things all the time, and then they became less common and there were mammals everywhere, curious and crawling.
I still favored feathers, though, and xie favored claws and scales, and so we found the forms the mammals would know us by later. We were not the only powers that were taking shapes, and the mammals were just learning to call us by name when everything changed.
Dragon
When the outsiders first arrived, the other powers came to us.
"Dragon," they implored me. "We do not trust these strangers. Some have gone into their places and not returned."
"Firebird," they begged her. "We would know what they are about, and what has happened to our brothers and sisters."
Unsure what was necessary, but knowing something had to be done, we took to the air and approached the land mass they had built around the vessel they arrived in. We were greeted warmly and ushered inside.
Only the fact that we did not trust them protected us when we were betrayed.
Firebird
I needed to rest, to rebuild myself from the damage Oc Ha had done. My other half carried me away from what remained of Mu, swimming through the waters and flying over the land, until we came to the mountain that held up the sky.
My body was dissipating, but I didn't want to return to the void beyond the Way. I loved this world - and my Dragon - too much for that.
Instead I focused my energy and shaped it, the way I'd seen the outsiders do it. I let my consciousness melt into the stone, and then I was able to rest.
Dragon
I watched the humans make war, but it was never just the humans. The outsiders, or their children, always seemed to get involved on one side or the other.
I met a human boy, a chief's son, during one of these wars. His father was fighting a sorcerer who let Chenek use his body and in return used Chenek's magic. The boy was earnest, and desperate, and afraid.
Reaching out to comfort him, I could tell he carried some of the outsiders' blood in him. I saw a way to help.
"Let me in," I told him, "and I will help you defeat your enemy."
Eventually, curious and lonely, I lead his sister to where my Firebird rested. I had found a way for us to be together again, even if it was only for a short time.
Dragon
Ying was hard at work with her hammer and chisel when I found her.
I had been alone for some hundred years or more after my human's death. Her lover had found me in the ocean, quite by accident, but I was lonely and the bond had been easier this time.
I brought the stone to Ying, presented it as a lover's gift, and was rewarded with my firebird behind her eyes.
They touched each other with ease as we rode with them, a sense of joining we hadn't had since... too long.
Firebird
I took Juemiao first. The boy burned so brightly and so desperately that I could not ignore him.
We were seated along the stream near his workshop when Feiyu approached. Juemiao could tell something was different, but he wasn't sure what. He reached for me.
The recognition hit me hard enough that the lungs lost their breath.
"Hello, my pretty bird," he said, not in Feiyu's voice at all, and I answered.
Firebird
I did not want to come for Xiu He when she called, but she corrupted the words. I came before her against my will. The ice in my cave had melted, and she was ankle-deep in freezing cold water.
She didn't care.
I fought her. It was harder than it should have been, and it took me too long to figure out why.
Jiang
There was still an echo of the Dragon in my mind. It didn't surprise me; I'd lived with him long enough that I could tell you what he would say most of the time. I missed the weight of his presence, but he had left too heavy an imprint on my mind to be totally gone.
Robin carried a breath of the Firebird about him as well. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but those marks seemed somehow stronger than the burn scars from Xiu He. When we curled together in bed, I felt a sense of... completion that convinced me of it. Even just an echo was enough.
Zhenya
It could have come crashing down and drowned me a hundred different ways. I'm still not sure why it didn't, except that I apologized.
It doesn't matter why it worked. I held my Lin, my Dragon, close against my chest. I breathed deeply of her, and I promised never to let her go, and I meant it.