Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi

by F. C. Yee

  “Hei-Ran thinks I’m a little too much like Kuruk,” Yun said.

  “You have to be more understanding with her,” Jianzhu said. “She resigned her commission in the Fire Army to teach Kuruk, and then she left the Royal Academy to teach you. She’s sacrificed more than any of us for the Avatar.”

  Hearing that he’d ruined two different promising careers for the same woman didn’t make him feel any better. “That’s more reason for her to hate my guts.”

  Jianzhu got up and motioned for Yun to do the same. “No, her problem is that she loves you,” he said.

  “If that’s true then she has a funny way of showing it.”

  Jianzhu shrugged. “Fire Nation mothers. She loves you almost as much as I do. Too much, perhaps.”

  Yun followed his mentor toward the center of the training floor. The transition from cool shade back to the outdoor heat was a harsh swipe.

  “You must know that you have the love of many people,” Jianzhu said. “Kelsang, the visiting sages, nearly everyone who’s ever met you. It’s my belief that the earth itself loves you. You feel connected to it at all times, like it’s speaking to you. Am I right?”

  He was, though Yun didn’t know where he was going with this. Feeling connected to the earth was the first, most basic requirement for earthbending. Hei-Ran joined them in the court.

  “On the other hand, firebending is unique among the four bending styles in that it typically does not draw from a mass of elements separate from one’s own body,” Jianzhu said. “You don’t form a bond with the element in your surroundings; instead you generate it from within. Am I explaining that correctly, Headmistress?”

  Hei-Ran nodded, equally confused as to why they were discussing the obvious.

  “Take off your shoes,” Jianzhu said to Yun.

  “Huh?” Like many Earthbenders, Yun never wore shoes if he could help it, but for firebending training they’d forced him into a pair of grippy slippers.

  “Tagaka’s conditions are that any new treaties must be signed on grounds of her choosing,” Jianzhu said. “I know I said that diplomacy was more important than bending for this mission, but it would be much more ideal if you had some mastery over fire. In case the pirates need a little show of force. Take off your shoes.”

  The sun beat down on Yun’s head. The buzz of insects grew louder in his ears, like an alarm. He’d never disobeyed Jianzhu before, so he yanked off the slippers, rolled down his socks, and threw them to the side.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s happening here?”

  Jianzhu surveyed the featureless training floor. “Like I said, the earth itself loves you, and you love it. That love, that bond, could be what’s holding you back, blocking off the different states of mind necessary to master the different elements. We should try severing that link so that you have nothing to rely on but your inner fire. No outside help.”

  For the first time in his life, Yun saw Hei-Ran hesitate. “Jianzhu,” she said, “are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “It’s an idea,” Jianzhu said. “Whether it’s good or not depends on the result.”

  An icy knot formed in Yun’s stomach as his mind made the connection. “You’re going to have her burn my feet?”

  Jianzhu shook his head. “Nothing so crude.”

  He put his hand out to the side, palm down, and then drew it upward. Around them, the marble floor sprouted little inch-high pyramids, each ending in a sharp point. The grounds were uniformly blanketed in them from wall to wall. It was as if someone had hammered nails into each space of a Pai Sho board and then flipped it over, spikes up.

  “Now, let’s see you run through the first Sun Gathering form,” Jianzhu said. The garden of caltrops surrounded them in a tight ring. “Get out there, right in the middle of it, and show us your stuff.”

  Yun blinked back tears. He looked at Hei-Ran pleadingly. She shook her head and turned away. “You can’t be serious,” he said.

  Jianzhu was as calm as a drifting cloud. “You may begin when ready, Avatar.”

  HONEST WORK

  Stepping through the gate of the mansion was like entering a portal to the Spirit World. Or so Kyoshi imagined, from hearing Kelsang’s stories. It was a complete transition from one set of rules to another, from a dull, mindless place where the only currencies you could spend were sweat and time, sowing your seeds and baiting your hooks in the hope of staving off hunger for another season, to a mystical universe where rituals and negotiations could make you supreme in a single day.

  Their passage was marked by the cool blip of shade underneath the rammed-earth wall. Rangi nodded at the two watchmen, grizzled veterans of the Earth King’s army who stiffened their necks and bowed back to her in deference. Lured by better pay into Jianzhu’s service, they’d kept their dished, wide-brimmed helmets but painted them over with the sage’s personal shades of green. Kyoshi always wondered whether that was against the law or not.

  Inside, the vast garden hummed with conversation. Sages and dignitaries from far-off lands constantly flowed in and out of the estate, and many of them enjoyed conducting their business among the flowers and sweet-smelling fruit trees. An overdressed merchant from Omashu haggled with a Fire Nation procurement officer over cabbage futures, ignoring the cherry blossom petals falling into their tea. Two elegant Northern Water Tribe women, arm in arm, meditatively walked a maze pattern raked into a field of pure-white sand. In the corner, a morose young man with carefully disheveled hair bit the end of his brush, struggling with a poem.

  Any of them could have been—and probably were—benders of the highest order. It always gave Kyoshi a thrill to see so many masters of the elements gathered in one place. When the estate was full of visitors, like today, the air felt alive with power. Sometimes literally so when Kelsang was around and in a playful mood.

  Auntie Mui, head of the kitchen staff, appeared from one of the side hallways and bounced over to them, looking like a plum rolling down a bumpy hill. She used her momentum to deliver a hard swat to the small of Kyoshi’s back. Kyoshi yelped and gripped the jar tighter.

  “Don’t carry food around where the guests can see it!” Auntie Mui hissed. “Use the service entrance!”

  She hustled Kyoshi down the steps of a tunnel, oblivious to the hard bump Kyoshi’s forehead took against the top support beam. They shuffled down the corridor that still smelled of sawdust and wet loam through the plaster. It was more obvious down here how new and hastily constructed the complex really was.

  The roughness of the hallway was another of the many little details that poked holes in the common illusion those under Jianzhu’s roof tried to uphold, from his most exalted guest down to his lowliest employee. The Avatar’s presence was an uncomfortably recent blessing. Everyone was going through the motions at an accelerated pace.

  “You were out in the sun too much, weren’t you?” Auntie Mui said. “Your freckles got darker again. Why don’t you ever wear that concealer I gave you? It has real crushed nacre in it.”

  Kyoshi’s skull throbbed. “What, and look like a bloodless ghost?”

  “Better than looking like someone sprinkled starpoppy seeds over your cheeks!”

  About the only things Kyoshi hated more than gunk on her skin were the warped, infuriating values that older folks like Auntie Mui held around complexion. It was yet another contradiction of the village, that you should make an honest living toiling under the sun but never in the slightest look like it. In the game of rural Yokoyan beauty standards, Kyoshi had lost that particular round. Among others.

  They climbed another set of stairs, Kyoshi remembering to duck this time, and passed through a hall for drying and splitting the immense amount of firewood needed to fuel the stoves. Auntie Mui tsk’ed at the splitting maul that had been buried in the chopping block by the last person to use it instead of being hung up properly on the wall, but she wasn’t strong enough to pull it out, and Kyoshi’s hands were full.

  They entered the steamy, c
avernous kitchen. The clash of metal pans and roaring flames could have been mistaken for a siege operation. Kyoshi set the pickling jar down on the nearest clear table and took a needed stretch, her arms wobbling with unfamiliar freedom. The jar had been attached to her for so long it felt like saying goodbye to a needy child.

  “Don’t forget, you have gift duties tonight.”

  She was startled to hear Rangi’s voice. She didn’t think the Firebender would have followed her this deep into the bowels of the house.

  Rangi glanced around. “Don’t waste too much time here. You’re not a scullery maid.”

  The nearby kitchen staff, some of whom were scullery maids, looked at them and scowled. Kyoshi winced. The villagers thought she was stuck up for living in the mansion; the other servants thought she was stuck up for her closeness to Yun; and Rangi, with her elite attitude, only made it worse.

  There was no pleasing anyone, she thought as Rangi departed for the barracks.

  Kyoshi spotted an odd figure among the legions of white-clad cooks pounding away at their stations. An Airbender, with his orange robes rolled up to his blocky shoulders. His massive paws were covered in flour, and he’d tucked his forest of a beard into his tunic to keep it from shedding. It was like the kitchen had been invaded by a mountain ogre.

  Kelsang should have been aboveground, watching the Avatar. Or at least greeting a visiting sage. Not cutting out dumpling wrappers among the cooks.

  He looked up and grinned when he saw Kyoshi. “I’ve been banished,” he said, preempting her question. “Jianzhu thinks my presence is causing Yun to prematurely dream about airbending, so we’re trying to keep him focused on one element at a time. I needed to feel useful, so here I am.”

  Kyoshi sidled her way over to him through the crowded space and gave the monk a kiss on the cheek. “Let me help.” She washed her hands in a nearby sink, grabbed a ball of dough to knead, and fell into work beside him.

  For the past decade, Kelsang had essentially raised her. He’d used what leeway he had with the Southern Air Temple to reside in Yokoya as much as he could, in order to look after Kyoshi. When he had to leave, he foisted her upon different families, begged alms to keep her fed. After Jianzhu brought the Avatar to Yokoya for safekeeping, Kelsang twisted his old friend’s arm to hire Kyoshi on.

  He’d done all this, saved the life of a child stranger, for no reason other than that she needed someone. In a part of the Earth Kingdom where love was reserved solely for blood relations, the monk from a foreign land was the dearest person in the world to Kyoshi.

  Which was why she knew his good cheer right now was completely fake.

  Rumors flew around the house that the once-legendary friendship between Avatar Kuruk’s companions had deteriorated. Especially so between Jianzhu and Kelsang. In the years since Kuruk’s death, if the gossip was to be believed, Jianzhu had amassed wealth and influence unbecoming of a sage who was supposed to be dedicated solely to guiding Kuruk’s reincarnation. Bending masters came to the house to pay obeisance to him, not the Avatar, and decrees that were normally made by the Earth Kings instead bore Jianzhu’s seal. Kelsang disapproved of such power-hungry actions and was at risk of being completely shunted to the side.

  Kyoshi didn’t have context around the politics, but she did worry about the growing rift between the two master benders. It couldn’t be good for the Avatar. Yun adored Kelsang almost as much as she did, but ultimately was loyal to the earth sage who’d found him.

  Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t notice the little puff of flour fly up from the table and hit her in the forehead. White dust clouded her vision. She squinted at Kelsang, who wasn’t trying to hide the second shot that spun around above his palm, chambered in a pocket-sized whirlwind he’d summoned.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said. “It was a different Airbender.”

  Kyoshi snickered and grabbed the flour bead out of the air. It burst between her fingers. “Quit it before Auntie Mui throws us out of here.”

  “Then quit looking troubled on my behalf,” he said, having read her mind. “It’s not so bad if I take a break from Avatar business. I’ll get to spend more time with you. We should go on a vacation, the two of us, perhaps to see the Air Nomad sacred sites.”

  She would have liked that very much. Chances to share Kelsang’s company had gotten rarer as the Avatar and his teachers sank deeper into the mesh of world affairs. But as lowly as her own job was in comparison, she still had the same responsibility to show up every day.

  “I can’t,” Kyoshi said. “I have work.” There’d be time enough in the future for traveling with Kelsang.

  He rolled his eyes. “Bah. I’ve never seen someone so averse to fun since old Abbot ‘No-Fruit Pies’ Dorje.” He flicked another blob of flour at her, and she failed to flinch out of the way.

  “I know how to have fun!” Kyoshi whispered indignantly as she wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.

  From the head of the cutting board tables, Auntie Mui gave a tongue-curled whistle, interrupting their debate. “Poetry time!” she said.

  Everyone groaned. She was always trying to enforce high culture on her workers, or at least her idea of it. “Lee!” she said, singling out an unfortunate wok handler. “You start us off.”

  The poor line cook stumbled as he tried to compose on the spot while keeping count of his syllables. “Uh . . . the-weath-er-is-nice / sun-shin-ing-down-from-the-sky / birds-are-sing-ing . . . good?”

  Auntie Mui made a face like she’d swigged pure lemon juice. “That was awful! Where’s your sense of balance? Symmetry? Contrast?”

  Lee threw his hands in the air. He was paid to fry things, not perform in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se.

  “Can’t someone give us a decent verse?” Auntie Mui complained. There were no volunteers.

  “I’ve got cheeks like ripe round fruit,” Kelsang suddenly pitched forth. “They shake like boughs in the storm / I blush bright red when I see a bed / and leap at the sound of the horn.”

  The room exploded in laughter. He’d picked a well-known shanty popular with sailors and field hands, where you improvised raunchy words from the perspective of your object of unrequited affection. It was a game for others to guess who you were singing about, and the simple rhythm made manual labor more pleasant.

  “Brother Kelsang!” Auntie Mui said, scandalized. “Set an example!”

  He had. The entire staff was already chopping, kneading, and scrubbing to the raucous tune. It was okay to misbehave if a monk did it first.

  “I’ve got a nose like a dove-tailed deer / I run like a leaf on the wind,” Lee sang, evidently better at this than haiku. “My arms are slight and my waist is tight / and I don’t have a thought for my kin.”

  “Mirai!” a dishwasher yelled out. “He’s got it bad for the greengrocer’s daughter!” The staff whooped over Lee’s protests, thinking it a good match. Sometimes it didn’t matter to the audience if they guessed right or not.

  “Kyoshi next!” someone said. “She’s never here, so let’s make the most of it!”

  Kyoshi was caught off guard. Normally she wasn’t included in household antics. She caught Kelsang’s eye and saw the challenge twinkling there. Fun, eh? Prove it.

  Before she could stop herself, the rhythm launched her into song.

  “I’ve got two knives that are cast in bronze / they pierce all the way to the soul / they draw you in with the promise of sin / like the moth to the flame to the coal.”

  The kitchen howled. Auntie Mui clucked in disapproval. “Keep going, you naughty girl!” Lee shouted, glad that the attention was off him.

  She’d even managed to throw off Kelsang, who looked at her curiously, as if he had a spark of recognition for whom she was describing. Kyoshi knew that wasn’t possible when she was simply tossing out the first words that came to her head. She thumped a length of dough onto the table in front of her, creating her own percussion.

  “I’ve got hair like the starless night / it sticks t
o my lips when I smile / I’ll wind it with yours and we’ll drift off course / in a ship touching hearts all the while.”

  Somehow the improvisation was easy, though she’d never considered herself a poet. Or a bawdy mind, for that matter. It was as if another person, someone much more at ease with their own desires, was feeding her the right lines to express herself. And to her surprise, she liked how the inelegant lines made her feel. Truthful and silly and raw.

  “For the way I walk is a lantern lit / that leads you into the night / I’ll hold you close and love you the most / until our end is in sight.”

  Kyoshi didn’t have time to ponder the darker turn her verse took before a sudden pain shot through her wrist.

  Kelsang had grabbed her arm and was staring at her, eyes wild and white. His grip squeezed tighter and tighter, crushing her flesh, his nails drawing blood from both her skin and his.

  “You’re hurting me!” she cried out.

  The room was silent. Disbelieving. Kelsang let go, and she caught herself on the edge of the table. A map of purple was stamped on her wrist.

  “Kyoshi,” Kelsang said, his voice constricted and airless. “Kyoshi, where did you learn THAT SONG?”

  REVELATIONS

  After Kelsang took her aside into an empty study and spent half an hour tearfully apologizing for hurting her, he told her why he’d lost control.

  “Oh,” Kyoshi said in response to the worst news she’d ever heard in her life.

  She ran her fingers through her hair and threw her head back. The library where they were hiding was taller than it was long, a mineshaft cramped with scrolls, yanked off the shelves and put back without care. Beams of sunlight revealed how much dust was floating around the room. She needed to clean this place up.

  “You’re mistaken,” she said to Kelsang. “Yun is the Avatar. Jianzhu identified him nearly two years ago. Everyone knows this.”