Hsien

Hsien was a villager from the Natsuo Island chain who was recruited for combat training that made up an early experiment in the Unanimity project. Through intense practice at unarmed combat, Hsien was able to learn a basic form of chi-blocking.^[1]

History

Training as a chi-blocker

Hsien was born in a village on the Natsuo Island chain. With work hard to come by on the island, she answered the call of an unmarked ship recruiting men and women across the archipelago. Age or fitness did not matter for the recruiters, and she joined others in a voyage to an unknown island, which was made entirely belowdecks. This recruitment was part of the early phase of the Unanimity project, as Zongdu Chaisee tried to create human weapons of mass destruction under her mental conditioning to give her unlimited leverage against the four nations.

Once Hsien arrived at the island, she was separated from the benders. She was aware that another group had been selected to practice herbalism on the leeward side of the island, and that earthbenders were made to march deeper into the volcanic interior of the island for an unknown purpose. Hsien joined a nonbender group that was forced to train until their bodies broke, practicing striking on one another. The type of combat they learned allowed for a basic type of chi-blocking to be learned by a large group of people. Those who could not physically keep up at training were taken away, one by one. The group learned they could not afford to admit that they were injured, but they could induce that mistake in others, and ended up hitting each other harder and harder to avoid ranking last, since they were told the washouts got sent home with less pay.

Around the time of the Unanimity project's demonstration in Bin-Er, the camp runners suddenly left. New recruits and supply boats no longer arrived at the island, and it became clear to the two dozen people left on the island that they were now on their own. Hsien joined up with Raitei, a boy who had been involved in a project for firebenders to develop combustionbending. The adults scavenged some rotting longboats and tried to flee, but they told the two children that there was not enough space for them. However, a storm struck that very night, and the pair believed they were the only survivors of the island left. Hsien and Raitei survived in a grotto for the next few months, surviving on breadnut and fresh water that trickled down into grooves from rocks above.^[1]

Encountering Avatar Yangchen

On a day when their campfire had turned to ashes and there was no water in the grotto, the pair approached a disguised Avatar Yangchen on the island. The Avatar had come to investigate evidence of Unanimity with her companions, Kavik and Jujinta. Kavik heard the sound of their footsteps, and drew a blade of water from the skin at his side. Upon seeing the haggard appearance of the children, he re-formed the water into a less threatening sphere instead, stating that he was not going to hurt them. The pair licked their lips in thirst upon seeing fresh water, and Kavik offered them some. However, Hsien lunged toward him and punched him with a single knuckle in his palm, grabbing his pouch and fleeing along the beach. Her attack left Kavik's bending overwhelmingly weakened for a period of time.

Hsien and Raitei were making their way up a scarp by their grotto by the time Yangchen and her companions caught up to them. With the children now sticking out on the cliff surface and being potentially vulnerable to the Avatar's group, they slowly clambered down the sand when Yangchen asked them to do so. Both the Avatar and Kavik offered them fresh water and more food, asking what had happened. Just as the airbender prepared to reveal her identity as the Avatar, Jujinta approached them instead, offering to speak to Hsien and Raitei in a "language they [understood]". He demonstrated his abilities to bounce a knife into a peach-sized chunk of driftwood twenty places away. The second knife struck home before it landed, and Jujinta also demonstrated with a third knife for show. The block of wood landed neatly on a new tripod, and the children were astonished that he had been able to juggle an object with just the points of his blades. He explained that he could perform the feat because he had grown up on an island like theirs, and knew that the extent of his own abilities represented dozens who could not make the cut. He stated that the group could choose to behave like those that ran the camp, and only take the child that proved most useful to them. Jujinta then immediately stated that he would rescue both of them, and that neither child would have to answer for the horrible deeds he knew they must have committed to survive. In spite of this apparent kindness, he ended added that all would be forgiven only once they answered Yangchen and Kavik's questions. Both Hsien and Raitei broke down sobbing as a result of this cruel manipulation.

The children recounted their time on the island to the Avatar and her companions. When Raitei explained what the firebenders had done in his group, Yangchen ran toward the water and had it explode within, allowing her to reveal a chain and cuff that prospective combustionbenders had been held in underwater. Hsien wondered if all waterbending were as powerful as Yangchen as the event unfolded. Once Yangchen confirmed with Raitei that Thapa, Yingsu, and Xiaoyun had been the only combustionbenders to survive the experiments, she led Hsien and Raitei away as the Avatar's party prepared to depart from the island.^[1] Hsien was immediately entranced by Nujian, and started petting the soft fur on top of his nose. After the group took off, Hsien fell asleep on the back of the flying bison.^[2]

When the group descended on the outskirts of Taku, Yangchen affirmed to Hsien that they were going to help both of the children, and that they were going to make things right. She promised they were going to make things right for them, and stated that she was on their side. However, Raitei approached asking if they were truly going to take down Chaisee, having listened in to the group's conversation while feigning sleep. He had not asked Yangchen about the zongdu out of wanting to see his torturer punished, but rather hoping that he could become an incredibly valuable asset to her. As he attempted a combustionbending attack, Kavik tried to tackle her and Hsien to the ground, but the Avatar was slow to react if it meant battling a child she had just saved. Nujian rammed into Raitei, with only a muffled sound coming from the firebender in lieu of an explosion. Kavik collided with Yangchen, and they dragged Hsien with them as they fell into the grass. The flying bison was killed by the pressurized air, while Raitei died from the failure of performing his own attempted technique.^[2] After the incident, Hsien was given the chance to leave her life behind and stay at the Western Air Temple for a period of time. Kavik thought that she may have to stay at the air temple indefinitely. He did not report to the Order of the White Lotus about Hsien and her new life, as he wanted to give her a rest from being treated like an asset. The waterbender considered it safe for her to roam free without the knowledge of the White Lotus, as he believed her hand-to-hand combat would not ever sway the balance of the four nations.^[3]

Physical description

By the time Yangchen and her companions found Hsien, she was suffering from the effects of being alone on the island with Raitei for months. She was wearing tattered and salt-eaten clothes. Her cheeks were sunken with hunger, and her lips scabbed from thirst.^[1]

Personality

In spite of the cruel events that had taken place on the island, Hsien was a rather kind individual, and instantly showed affection to Nujian upon meeting him. She showed considerable remorse and guilt at her actions during her training days, and recounting the story to the Avatar and her companions brought Hsien to tears. However, she was still deeply suspicious and prone to fighting when she first encountered Yangchen's group, as she was not initially aware if they were friend or foe.^[1]

Abilities

Hsien showed considerable skill and fitness, as she had been able to keep up with adults as her group of fighters was whittled down. She was able to successfully learn at least the basics of chi-blocking, and was able to temporarily disable Kavik's waterbending abilities after lunging toward him with considerable speed. However, she believed she could only do this because Kavik had held his hand out while standing still, and did not believe she would have been able to block his chi if he had been moving. Hsien's chi-blocking also did not fully disable Kavik's bending abilities like skilled chi-blockers of later eras, and she was only able to considerably reduce his bending abilities.^[1]

Appearances

Chronicles of the Avatar

The Legacy of Yangchen

• 224. "Primary Sources"
• 225. "The Price"

Trivia

• By the era of Roku, Sister Rioshon of the Western Air Temple was a master chi-blocker who was sought the world over.^[4] It is therefore likely that Hsien and a lineage of students at the Western Air Temple are responsible for the spread of chi-blocking across the other nations in later eras. This inference is reinforced by the considerable irony of Kavik's belief that Hsien's hand-to-hand combat would never change the balance of the four nations, given chi-blocking's relevance to the victories of Azula's team and the Equalists.^[3]

References