The Rise of Kyoshi (Avatar, The Last Airbender)

Rangi and Kirima, the two opposite voices in her ear, united to share a worried look with each other.

They loitered in the air, a physical stamp of Kyoshi’s indecision on the blue-and-white cloth of the sky. Pengpeng floated inside a cloud that Kirima had pulled around them. The Waterbender stood upright in the saddle, swirling her arms to prevent the tufts of vapor from parting and revealing their position.

Lek took them slowly over the Yellow Necks so they could monitor the movements of Xu’s force. Kyoshi was keenly aware that they occupied a literal halfway point between fleeing and staying, perhaps ruining their chances for either option. She shook the nagging doubt out of her head and peered down below.

The column of men drifted slowly away from Te’s palace like ants on the march. They formed a solid mass, Xu no doubt at the front, with the occasional scout sprinting ahead and returning back to report. A colony sending out feelers.

“I hope they’re heading toward a militia outpost,” Lek said, still clinging to some ember of hate for the law. “Then we could see a good dustup from here.”

“They’ve stopped by a rice field,” Rangi said. “Maybe they’re trying to pick it? The second harvest wouldn’t be ready though.” The farming knowledge of Yokoya had rubbed off on her.

Kyoshi watched as the crops provoked some kind of response in the daofei. Years ago, when she was still living without a roof over her head, she would sometimes watch her fellow insects crawl through the dirt in search of food. The motions of the bugs always started slow, indistinguishable from randomness, full of hesitant backpedaling, until within the span of a fingersnap they turned into a focused swarm. The army lingered next to the green, burgeoning grain as if the collective had sniffed a target of interest.

Dark lines began to grow across the field. She puzzled over their meaning until she realized it was Xu’s scouts infiltrating through the high stalks of rice, parting and trampling the plants. Her eyes darted to the opposite end of the field where a small house and barn stood. Smoke from the morning’s water boil puffed gently out the chimney.

Kyoshi had been so preoccupied with the safety of the household staff of the palace that she’d forgotten about the people outside the moat. Large estates often had tenant farmers managing their private lands. In that little house was a family. A target for eight years of Xu’s pent-up wrath.

Trying to split the difference with neutral jing had been the wrong choice. “I made a mistake,” Kyoshi said. “We have to get down there. Now.”

Kirima made a choking, indignant noise. “What, exactly, are we going to do?”

The lines had nearly crossed the rice field. “I don’t know!” Kyoshi said. “But I can’t stay up here and watch anymore! Drop me off and fly away if you have to!”

A scream came from the house. The occupants had spotted the daofei closing in on them. The memory of swordsmen wearing yellow around their necks likely still haunted this region of the Earth Kingdom.

Kirima swore and mashed her fist against the saddle floor. “No,” she said. “If you go, we go.” She flicked the cap of her water skin open and pulled the cloud vapor inside, condensing it into ammunition.

“Once we hit the ground, we’ll follow your lead,” Wong said to Kyoshi.

Lek groaned but brought Pengpeng around in a tight turn, descending as fast as it was safe to. The others gripped the edges of the saddle and hung on for dear life.

“Thank you,” Rangi said to Kirima, the wind whipping her words, forcing her to shout. It was the nicest she’d ever been to the Waterbender. “You’re true companions of the Avatar.”

“What good is that if we’re dead?” Kirima yelled back. Though she blushed, just a bit.

Please don’t let us be too late, Kyoshi prayed as they sprinted toward the barn. She’d chosen that building over the house, remembering the setup in Hujiang. The tiny hut wouldn’t have fit a big enough audience for Xu and Mok’s grandstanding tastes.

The contingent of daofei stuck outside the doors sprang to their feet in alarm, but relaxed as they drew closer. The paint still caked on their faces made the Flying Opera Company instantly recognizable. The ghosts in red and white were honored guests of their boss. Kyoshi pushed deeper inside. She could see over the heads of the crowd to an empty space in the back where Xu probably was and shoved her way through until she found him.

The leader of the Yellow Necks sat on a bench, calmly reading a book. He must have missed literature in prison and taken it from the house. Against the wall behind him, Mok and Wai stood guard over a woman and her son, who couldn’t have been older than seven or eight, cowering and sobbing to themselves, dressed in simple farmers’ garb.

They’d been beaten, their faces bruised and bloody. Her anger at Xu laying hands on a child paled before the sight of what he’d done to the boy’s father.

The daofei had tied the tenant farmer up and hung him by the wrists over the rafters with a long rope, several men holding on to the other end so they could raise and lower him at Xu’s command. Underneath, they’d set up a fire and a rendering cauldron full of boiling water. It was big enough that if they dropped him, he’d be fully submerged in the vessel. The farmer’s big toes dangled in the liquid, and he screamed through his gag.

Kyoshi ran up and kicked the heavy cauldron over, spilling water in the direction of the daofei holding the rope. They let go, and she caught the farmer in her arms. She heard the hiss of blades being drawn as she laid the man on dry ground, twitching in pain but still alive.

Xu didn’t look up from his book. “You spilled my tea,” he said. He licked his finger and turned another page.

She’d come to the conclusion that Mok’s affected nonchalance was a pale imitation of his elder brother’s. Xu had probably learned it from someone else. Like Te, they were all copying their predecessors, in a cycle that went on and on. Kyoshi drew strength from the fact that her own links went back further, among the most righteous in history.

“Xu!” she shouted. “Stop this! Let them go!” She heard shuffling behind her and a familiar, reassuring warmth. Rangi and the Flying Opera Company stood at her side.

Xu clapped his book shut and stared at Kyoshi. He’d combed his long hair and cropped his beard as best he could.

“First off, it’s Uncle Xu to you,” he said. “And second, this man is an abider. He worked for those who imprisoned me. He grew their grain and took their coin, which makes him another weight on the scales I must balance. If you can’t handle this, you’re not going to like what I do to the town of Zigan.”

Kyoshi’s fists tightened. If they were playing roles, then she would imitate the strongest, the bravest, the best. “You don’t get Zigan,” she snarled. “You don’t get any town in the Earth Kingdom, nor this farmhouse for that matter. You get the free air you can fit in your lungs, and nothing else.”