Nine Years Later
To Kyoshi, it was very clear—this was a hostage situation.
Silence was the key to making it through to the other side. Waiting with complete and total passivity. Neutral jing.
Kyoshi walked calmly down the path through the fallow field, ignoring the covergrass that leaned over and tickled her ankles, the sweat beading on her forehead that stung her eyes. She kept quiet and pretended that the three people who’d fallen in beside her like muggers in an alley weren’t a threat.
“So like I was telling the others, my mom and dad think we’ll have to dredge the peakside canals earlier this year,” Aoma said, drawing out the mom and dad intentionally, dangling what Kyoshi lacked in front of her. She crooked her hands into the Crowding Bridge position while slamming her feet into the ground with solid whumps. “One of the terraces collapsed in the last storm.”
Above them, floating high out of reach, was the last, precious jar of pickled spicy kelp that the entire village would see this year. The one that Kyoshi had been charged with delivering to Jianzhu’s mansion. The one that Aoma had earthbent out of Kyoshi’s hands and was now promising to drop at any second. The large clay vessel bobbed up and down, sloshing the brine against the waxed paper seal.
Kyoshi had to stifle a yelp every time the jar lurched against the limits of Aoma’s control. No noise. Wait it out. Don’t give them anything to latch on to. Talking will only make it worse.
“She doesn’t care,” Suzu said. “Precious servant girl doesn’t give a lick about farming matters. She’s got her cushy job in the fancy house. She’s too good to get her hands dirty.”
“Won’t step in a boat, neither,” Jae said. In lieu of elaborating further, he spat on the ground, nearly missing Kyoshi’s heels.
Aoma never needed a reason to torment Kyoshi, but as for the others, genuine resentment worked just fine. It was true that Kyoshi spent her days under the roof of a powerful sage instead of breaking her nails against fieldstones. She’d certainly never risked the choppy waters of the Strait in pursuit of a catch.
But what Jae and Suzu conveniently neglected was that every plot of arable land near the village and every seaworthy boat down at the docks belonged to a family. Mothers and fathers, as Aoma was so fond of saying, passed along their trade to daughters and sons in an unbroken line, which meant there was no room for an outsider to inherit any means to survive. If it hadn’t been for Kelsang and Jianzhu, Kyoshi would have starved in the streets, right in front of everyone’s noses.
Hypocrites.
Kyoshi pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth as hard as she could. Today was not going to be the day. Someday, maybe, but not today.
“Lay off her,” Aoma said, shifting her stance into Dividing Bridge. “I hear that being a serving girl is hard work. That’s why we’re helping with the deliveries. Isn’t that right Kyoshi?”
For emphasis, she threaded the jar through a narrow gap in the branches of an overhanging tree. A reminder of who was in control here.
Kyoshi shuddered as the vessel dove toward the ground like a hawk before swooping back up to safety. Just a little farther, she thought as the path took a sharp turn around the hillside. A few more silent, wordless steps until—
There. They’d arrived at last. The Avatar’s estate, in all its glory.
The mansion that Master Jianzhu built to house the savior of the world was designed in the image of a miniature city. A high wall ran in a perfect square around the grounds, with a division in the middle to separate the austere training grounds from the vibrant living quarters. Each section had its own imposing, south-facing gatehouse that was larger than the Yokoya meeting hall. The massive iron-studded doors of the residential gate were flung open, offering a small windowed glimpse of the elaborate topiary inside. A herd of placid goat dogs grazed over the lawn, cropping the grass to an even length.
Foreign elements had been carefully integrated into the design of the complex, which meant that gilded dragons chased carved polar orcas around the edges of the walls. The placement of the Earth Kingdom–style roof tiles cleverly matched Air Nomad numerology principles. Authentic dyes and paints had been imported from around the world, ensuring that the colors of all four nations were on full, equitable display.
When Jianzhu had bought the land, he’d explained to the village elders that Yokoya was an ideal spot to settle down and educate the Avatar, a quiet, safe place far away from the outlaw-ravaged lands deeper in the Earth Kingdom and close enough to both the Southern Air Temple and Southern Water Tribe. The villagers had been happy enough to take his gold back then. But after the manor went up, they grumbled that it was an eyesore, an alien creature that had sprouted overnight from the native soil.
To Kyoshi it was the most beautiful sight she could ever imagine. It was a home.
Behind her, Suzu sniffed in disdain. “I don’t know what our parents were thinking, selling these fields to a Ganjinese.”
Kyoshi’s lips went tight. Master Jianzhu was indeed from the Gan Jin tribe up in the north, but it was the way Suzu had said it.
“Maybe they knew the land was as worthless and unproductive as their children,” Kyoshi muttered under her breath.
The others stopped walking and stared at her.
Whoops. She’d said that a bit too loud, hadn’t she?
Jae and Suzu balled their fists. It dawned on them, what they could do while Aoma had Kyoshi helpless. It had been years since any of the village kids could get within arm’s reach of her, but today was a special occasion, wasn’t it? Maybe a few bruises, in remembrance of old times.
Kyoshi steeled herself for the first blow, rising on her toes in the hope that she could at least keep her face out of the fray, so Auntie Mui wouldn’t notice. A few punches and kicks and they’d leave her in peace. Really, it was her own fault for letting her mask slip.
“What do you think you’re doing?”a familiar voice snarled.
Kyoshi grimaced and opened her eyes.
Peace was no longer an option. Because now Rangi was here.
Rangi must have seen them from afar and stalked across the entire great lawn unnoticed. Or lain in ambush for them all night. Or dropped out of a tree like a webbed leopard. Kyoshi wouldn’t have put any of those feats past the military-trained Firebender.
Jae and Suzu backed away, trying to swallow their hostile intent like children stuffing stolen candy into their mouths. It occurred to Kyoshi that this might have been the first time they’d ever seen a member of the Fire Nation up close, let alone one as intimidating as Rangi. In her formfitting armor the color of onyx and dried blood, she could have been a vengeful spirit come to cleanse a battlefield of the living.
Aoma, rather impressively, held her ground. “The Avatar’s bodyguard,” she said with a faint smile. “I thought you weren’t supposed to leave his side. Aren’t you slacking off?”
She glanced to the left and right. “Or is he here somewhere?”
Rangi looked at Aoma like she was a wad of foulness the Firebender had stepped in during the walk over.
“You’re not authorized to be on these grounds,” she said in her charred rasp. She pointed upward at the jar of kelp. “Nor to lay your hands on the Avatar’s property. Or accost his household staff, for that matter.”
Kyoshi noticed she personally landed a distant third in that list of considerations.
Aoma tried to play it cool. “This container is enormous,” she said, shrugging to emphasize her still-ongoing feat of elemental control. “It would take two grown men to lift it without earthbending. Kyoshi asked us to help her bring it inside the house. Right?”
She gave Kyoshi a radiant smile. One that said Tell on me and I’ll kill you. Kyoshi had seen that expression before countless times when they were younger, whenever a hapless adult blundered into the two of them “playing” around town, Kyoshi badly scraped up and Aoma with a rock in her hand.
But today she was off her game. Her normally flawless acting had a plaintive, genuine tone to it. Kyoshi suddenly understood what was going on.
Aoma really did want to help her with her delivery. She wanted to be invited inside the mansion and to see the Avatar up close, like Kyoshi got to every day. She was jealous.
A feeling akin to pity settled in Kyoshi’s throat. It wasn’t strong enough to hold Rangi back from doing her thing, though.
The Firebender stepped forward. Her fine jawline hardened, and her dark bronze eyes danced with aggression. The air around her body rippled like a living mirage, making the strands of jet-black hair that escaped her topknot float upward in the heat.
“Put the jar down, walk away, and don’t come back,” she said. “Unless you want to know what the ashes of your eyebrows smell like.”
Aoma’s expression crumbled. She’d blundered into a predator with much larger fangs. And unlike the adults of the village, no amount of charm or misdirection would work on Rangi.
But that didn’t mean a parting shot was out of the question.
“Sure,” she said. “Thought you’d never ask.” With a fling of her hands, the jar rocketed straight up into the air, past the treetops.
“You’d better find someone who’s authorized to catch that.” She bolted down the path with Suzu and Jae close behind.
“You little—” Rangi made to go after them, fist reflexively cocked to serve a helping of flaming pain, but she checked herself. Fiery vengeance would have to wait.
She shook her hand out and peered up at the rapidly shrinking jar. Aoma had thrown it really, really hard. No one could claim the girl wasn’t talented.
Rangi elbowed Kyoshi sharply in the side. “Catch it,” she said. “Use earthbending and catch it.”
“I—I can’t,” Kyoshi said, quavering with dismay. Her poor doomed charge reached the apex of its flight. Auntie Mui was going to be furious. A disaster of this magnitude might get back to Master Jianzhu. Her pay would get cut. Or she’d be fired outright.
Rangi hadn’t given up on her. “What do you mean you can’t? The staff ledgers have you listed as an Earthbender! Catch it!”
“It’s not that simple!” Yes, Kyoshi was technically a bender, but Rangi didn’t know about her little problem.
“Do the thing with your hands like she did!” Rangi formed the dual claws of Crowding Bridge as if the only missing component were a crude visual reminder by a bender who wielded a different element entirely.
“Look out!”Kyoshi screamed. She threw herself over Rangi, shielding the smaller girl with her body from the plummeting missile. They fell to the ground, entwined.
No impact came. No deadly shards of ceramic, or explosion of pickling liquid.
“Get off of me, you oaf,” Rangi muttered. She hammered her fists against Kyoshi’s protective embrace, a bird beating its wings against a cage. Kyoshi got to her knees and saw that her face and ears were nearly as red as her armor.
She helped Rangi to her feet. The jar floated next to them, waist-high above the ground. Under Aoma’s control it had wavered and trembled, following her natural patterns of breathing and involuntary motions. But now it was completely still in the air, as if it had been placed on a sturdy iron pedestal.
The pebbles in the dusty path trembled. They began to move and bounce in front of Kyoshi’s feet, directed by unseen power from below like they’d been scattered across the surface of a beating drum. They marched in seemingly random directions, little drunken soldiers, until they came to rest in a formation that spelled a message.
You’re welcome.
Kyoshi’s head jerked up and she squinted at the distant mansion. There was only one person she knew who could have managed this feat. The pebbles began their dance again, settling into words much faster this time.
This is Yun, by the way. You know, Avatar Yun.
As if it could have been anyone else. Kyoshi couldn’t spot where Yun was watching them, but she could imagine the playful, teasing smirk on his handsome face as he performed yet another astounding act of bending like it was no big deal, charming the rocks into complete submission.
She’d never heard of anyone using earth to communicate legibly at a distance. Yun was lucky he wasn’t an Air Nomad, or else the stunt would have gotten him tattooed in celebration for inventing a new technique.
What are my three favorite ladles doing today?
Kyoshi giggled. Okay, so not perfectly legible.
Sounds like fun. Wish I could join you.
“He knows we can’t reply, right?” Rangi said.
Dumplings, please. Any kind but leek.
“Enough!” Rangi shouted. “We’re distracting him from his training! And you’re late for work!” She swept away the pebbles with her foot, less concerned with blazing new trails in the world of earthbending and more with maintaining the daily schedule.
Kyoshi plucked the jar off the invisible platform and followed Rangi back to the mansion, stepping slowly through the grass so as not to outpace her. If household duties were all that mattered to the Firebender, then that would be the end of it, and nothing more would need to be said. Instead she could feel Rangi’s silence compacting into a denser form inside her slender frame.
They were halfway to the gate once it became too much to bear.
“It’s pathetic!” Rangi said without turning around. The only way she could manage her disgust with Kyoshi was by not looking at her. “The way they step on you. You serve the Avatar! Have some dignity!”
Kyoshi smiled. “I was trying to de-escalate the situation,” she murmured.
“You were going to let them hit you! I saw it! And don’t you dare try and claim you were doing neutral jing or whatever earthbending hooey!”
Right on cue, Rangi had transformed from professional Guardian of the Avatar, ready to scorch the bones of interlopers without flinching, into the teenaged girl no older than Kyoshi who easily lost her temper at her friends and was kind of a raging mother hen to boot.
“And speaking of your earthbending! You were shown up by a peasant! How have you not mastered the basics by now? I’ve seen children in Yu Dao bend rocks bigger than that jar!”
She and Rangi were friends, despite what it looked like. Back when the mansion was under construction—while Kyoshi was learning her duties inside the skeleton of the unfinished house—it had taken her weeks to figure out that the imperious girl who acted like she was still in the junior corps of the Fire Army only yelled at the people she let inside her shell. Everyone else was scum who didn’t warrant the effort.
“... So the most efficient course of action would be to surprise the leader—Aoma, was it?—alone somewhere and then destroy her so messily that it sends a message to the others not to bother you anymore. Are you listening to me?”
Kyoshi had missed the greater part of the battle plan. She’d been distracted by the collar of Rangi’s armor, which had been mussed in the fall and needed to be straightened so it covered the delicate skin of her nape once more. But her answer was the same regardless.
“Why resort to violence?” she said. She gently nudged the Firebender in the small of the back with the jar. “I have strong heroes like you to protect me.”
Rangi made a noise like she wanted to vomit.