The Rise of Kyoshi (Avatar, The Last Airbender)

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.

THE BOY FROM MAKAPU

Yun couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was possible to read their body language at this distance. Judging from the way she gestured wildly in the air, Rangi was ticked off at Kyoshi. Again.

He smiled. The two of them were adorable together. He could have watched them all day, but alas. He rolled over onto his back and slid down the roof of the outer wall, using the edge of the gutter to arrest his fall. He let the impact turn his motion into a vault, front-flipped into the air, and landed on the balls of his feet in the marble courtyard.