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If she was being perfectly honest, Kyoshi had known this day was coming well before Yangchen had told her it needed to happen for the sake of her spiritual progression. She was already steeling herself for it when Rangi suggested that it might be time for the sake of Koko. When Kirima said, “You know what might help,” and described exactly what was about to happen, that was the final straw. Kyoshi knew when she was beaten.
Kanji had walked along the trail with her until they reached the same pond where they had first met. Kyoshi walked to the center of the large, circular stone slab in the middle of the clearing and sat down, her legs crossed, hands resting gently on her knees. The fox paced back and forth before her, clearly picking up on her nervous energy. He wined in a way that was more concerned than annoyed and pawed lightly at the hem of her robes.
Kyoshi sighed, gesturing for him to come to her, and she took a few precious moments to scratch his head. She was terrible at accepting gestures of concern from her friends and loved ones, but somehow, she received Kanji’s affectionate worries for her with unfailing compassion. After ruffling the soft fur behind his ears, she lifted his head so their eyes could meet.
“I know you would love to stay with me, buddy, but this is one of those things I need to do on my own.” She smiled, wistfully, with an air of resignation, and stroked the side of his face. For his part, the fox seemed to understand, but it was clear that he still wished to relieve his master’s burden. He reached a paw up, and she took it in her hand, attempting to be reassuring.
“I’ll be home soon. I promise. Can you run to the mansion and take care of Rangi and Koko for me until I get back?” At this, her dutiful companion’s ears pricked up, his concern relegated to a far corner of his mind now that he was tasked with work to do on her behalf. He gave her one final parting gesture, nuzzling the side of his face against her hand, and then he bounded off in the direction of their home.
A deep, grounded breath entered her lungs, almost unbidden, and Kyoshi closed her eyes. Nyahitha had not been exaggerating when he told Kyoshi that she had the potential for great spiritual discipline, and in the eight years since her visit to North Chung-Ling, she had become exceptionally adept at journeying into the spirit world and at summoning spirits to her. Rangi had once joked that the discipline truly kicked into high gear once Kyoshi realized that this was her ticket to reuniting with Kelsang, her beloved father figure. As much as Kyoshi wished she could claim her increased efforts were born of a desire to be a more effective Avatar, she could not deny that being able to commune with Kelsang had offered a perfect incentive.
But this was something different altogether. Even now, knowing that this was the right thing, the only thing, she was nervous. Would she even be able to summon this spirit? Yangchen and Kelsang insisted that she could if she was open to it. Rangi was nothing but encouraging and understanding. Hell, even Hei-ran had chastised her for doubting her abilities.
Kyoshi knew her wife was waiting at home, putting Koko to bed early so that she could be there for whatever breakdown Kyoshi might need to have when she returned. The shape of her life was so far beyond anything she could have imagined ten years ago. And yet, a decade later, here she sat.
Whether she liked it or not, this was the next step.
Kyoshi had intentionally worn her hair loose and her face free of makeup for this encounter. She was dressed simply, looking entirely like herself. This evening, she was not the fearsome Avatar renowned, loved, and reviled across the four nations. She was simply Kyoshi, the orphaned girl from Yokoya with sunkissed skin and too many freckles to count.
As twilight fell across the pond, Kyoshi inhaled deeply once again and felt the sudden tug of a presence across from her. The spirit across from her felt remarkably solid, tangible even. It wanted to be here. That made one of them, at least.
“Hello, Kyoshi” the spirit said cautiously, in the same warm tone Kyoshi heard in her dreams to this day. With a final breath, she steeled herself and opened her eyes.
Her first thought was that their hair was exactly the same. Long, dark brown, but with hints of red in it that became more pronounced the longer she was in the sun. The skin, too, was hers. Freckles crested across their noses like constellations. Some of the patterns were identical. She was tall, just a few inches shorter than Kyoshi, with the exact same strong but softly feminine build. They even positioned their hands the same way, facing downward, their wrists resting against the tops of their knees. Kyoshi had been reprimanded for the unorthodox posture by a number of spiritual teachers, but she found that it suited her. Apparently, this was another small inheritance.
But for all the similarities, the one thing she did not share with the figure seated across from her was the winding serpent tattoos that ran the length of her limbs and down across her forehead. She appeared to Kyoshi as she would have in her Flying Opera Company days. Kyoshi knew that spirits appeared in the way they preferred to remember themselves. Apparently, this was her preference.
Finally, after many long moments, Kyoshi replied.
“Hello, mother.”
Jesa, Nun of the Eastern Air Temple, leader of the Flying Opera Company, and Kyoshi’s mother sat before her.
How long they sat there looking over one another, Kyoshi couldn’t say. She knew, roughly, the outlines and features of her mother’s face, remembered hugging her skirts as a small child, remembered the tickle of her mother’s hair against her cheeks. But seeing her in this much detail, and hearing her voice, was overwhelming.
They sat in silence, each unsure of what to say to the other, Finally, Kyoshi broke the tension with a hastily uttered sentence.
“Yangchen said you would be here if I reached out for you.”
Jesa nodded but remained silent.
“She said she would fill you in on necessary details of….my life, so this would be... easier. ” As if this could possibly be easy , Kyoshi thought to herself.
Jesa smiled, somewhat sadly, and nodded. “Yes. She told me a number of details about your life, your childhood, especially.” Kyoshi could tell that the words stung in Jesa’s mouth and found that the woman’s pain pleased her. Jesa opened her mouth to speak further, but thought better of it, and fell into silence.
Kyoshi, who was both desperate to run and determined to stay, urged her mother along. “Go on.”
Jesa was visibly self-conscious, her voice halting and quiet, but still clear.
“I--” she paused, ducking her head slightly and taking a deep, steadying breath. “I had hoped that you would reach me one day,” she said, lifting her gray eyes to meet the emerald green of her daughter’s own.
Kyoshi wasn’t sure how to respond to this. She stifled the anger that was rising in her like bile. What right did her mother have to hope Kyoshi would do anything for her? How could she possibly wish for Kyoshi to put herself through the torture and indignity of asking the woman who had abandoned her for anything at all? It was almost too much to bear. If it hadn’t been for Koko, Kyoshi would have said to hell with it all, broken the connection, and stormed off.
Jesa’s eyes grew sad and somehow began to shimmer and grow dull at the exact same time. The color reminded Kyoshi of the color of the water in Yakoya’s harbor after a long rain. Finally, in a way that was oddly maternal considering their history, Jesa offered Kyoshi an olive branch.
“Kyoshi, I’m certain that you do not want to be here with me, and I cannot blame you for that in the slightest.”
At Jesa’s words, Kyoshi’s eyes moved slowly up to take in her face. She was...puzzled. She had imagined this conversation thousands of times, hundreds of them since she knew it was possible to actually have this conversation. But never in all the assorted scenarios had she considered that the conversation might go like this.
“You’re right,” Kyoshi finally replied, her voice flat and deep. “I don’t want to be here.”
Jesa absorbed the emotional blow with a degree of grace that continued to surprise Kyoshi. There was so little in her affect to suggest that she had ever been an organized crime boss. She was behaving more like Yangchen than a doafei. It was...odd. Jesa’s gentle nod of recognition lasted several long moments.
“In that case,” the airbender asked, “why are you here?” The question could have come off as annoyed or aggressive, but Jesa’s tone was something different. She was genuinely curious. Kyoshi realized that, in a way, Jesa was establishing terms. If they both knew the purpose of this meeting, they could get to the point faster. Typical daofei politicking. As much as Kyoshi loathed having to disclose any further details of her life to Jesa, who deserved exactly nothing of her, she forced herself to disclose what was necessary information.
“Three months ago, my wife and I found a six-year-old girl who had been abandoned near the Taihua mountains. We took her home and adopted her. Her name is Koko,” she said flatly.
There was more to be said. So much more. But Kyoshi’s mouth suddenly felt dry. She knew so damn well what she wanted to ask Jesa, but she couldn’t get the words out, no matter how hard she tried. She cast her gaze down in anger, disgusted with herself for how exceptionally poorly this was going. She absentmindedly picked at a stray thread on her plain robe until she heard the faintest sigh fall from Jesa’s lips. It was followed by words that Kyoshi could not have anticipated.
“You want to know why we abandoned you. You want to avoid making the same mistakes that I did for your own daughter. You don’t want to fail her the way I failed you.”
Kyoshi’s head snapped up, and her eyes met Jesa’s. She expected to find her mother defensive, annoyed, angry, even, to have been summoned here purely so Kyoshi could interrogate her about her deepest and most profound failings. And yet, the overwhelming emotion that dominated Jesa’s face was one Kyoshi recognized immediately.
To Kyoshi’s complete disbelief, Jesa’s face radiated love. Pure and unconditional. She knew this expression intimately. It was the same one that swept across her face when she lifted that ragged, scraggly child wrapped in scraps of cloth into her arms right before the blizzard swept through the mountains. The same one she saw on Rangi’s face as they tucked Koko into bed every night. The same one Kelsang directed at her every single chance he had.
In her wildest dreams, Kyoshi had never imagined her mother would direct it at her .
With exceptional grace, Jesa rolled her shoulders and sat up tall, steeling herself. Again, Kyoshi recognized the habit as one of her own and waited to see what would come next.
“I have no right to ask anything of you,” Jesa said, her tone sad and low, filled with a heartache that was hollow. “I know that you owe me nothing at all.” She paused and searched Kyoshi’s face. Finding what she needed, she continued, “But if you will permit me, I want to tell you how I became a daofei and why your father and I left you in Yokoya. I would show you, but--.” Jesa trailed off and shrugged sadly. “That level of spiritual connection is no longer available to me. But I think the story will answer most of your questions. And I will stay with you after and answer any others you have of me until you are satisfied.” She took another steadying breath and fixed Kyoshi with a gaze that was almost desperate.
“I---,” Kyoshi shook her head to free herself from her shock. “Yes. I would appreciate that,” she concluded, somewhat surprised at herself for allowing this.
Jesa nodded and began to speak. Her tone was devoid of emotion, but not cold. Kyoshi thought, perhaps, that Jesa was giving her space to decide how she felt about the events, rather than attempting to sway her one way or another. She was oddly grateful for the gesture.
“Perhaps it would be best to begin by explaining my own origins,” Jesa said. She raised an eyebrow at Kyoshi before asking, “Do you know much about the air nation?”
Kyoshi shrugged, thought it over, and then shook her head. “I lived with them for about six months, and a--mentor--of mine was an air national, so I am familiar with some customs. But beyond that, no,” she concluded.
Jesa took in the information, nodding slightly, though more for herself than for Kyoshi. It seemed as though she was piecing together her story, not in a way that was deceptive, but as though she was attempting to put together all the details in a simple, linear fashion.
“I assume you know that not all airbenders live at the air temples?” Jesa asked.
Kyoshi nodded. “Yes. Kel---.” She caught herself before she finished Kelsang’s name, swallowed, and began again. “The airbenders I know told me many of their people are nomads who traveled the earth and helped people in need.”
Jesa nodded, and smiled slightly. “Your grandmother was one of them, so I was told.”
Now it was Kyoshi’s turn to be puzzled. She thought for a moment, her eyebrows furrowing together while she read Jesa’s expression.
“So you were told?” she inquired slowly, with special emphasis on each word.
Jesa nodded and smiled in a way that was nostalgic and oddly lonely.
“My mother was a nomad who was sent to the fire nation to assist with a humanitarian crisis. Her journals say she loved her work. While she was there, she met a young officer in the fire nation army and fell in love with him. They spent a beautiful summer together, and I was born about six months after she returned to the Eastern Air Temple.” Jesa hung her head slightly, and Kyoshi realized there was some implication she wasn’t getting.
“Okay,” she said with clear confusion in her voice. “So your father was a fire national? Why does that matter?”
Jesa shrugged slightly and continued. “To my mind, it shouldn’t. But the air nomads are--very traditional. We--they,” she corrected, “are often considered pacifistic and non-judgemental, but they have standards that cannot be violated while maintaining status within their culture. Things have changed since, but at that time, one of them was falling in love, and especially bearing children, with members of other nations. It was believed that it made them, and their children, spiritually tainted.”
Kyoshi’s eyebrows knit closer together and she eyed Jesa suspiciously.
“I know,” Jesa said, “that this likely sounds odd, and the air nation has evolved since. Please, confirm it with the air nomads you know. They might not be proud of it, but they will know it to be true, and they will not lie to you.”
Kyoshi considered it for a moment, looked over her mother’s face, and nodded.
“When I was born,” she continued, “the nuns told my mother that she was spiritually unfit to raise me and urged her to leave me with them in the Eastern Air Temple so that I could have a chance at cleansing the spiritual defects she had passed on to me. They told her they could make me a proper airbender, and--” Jessa trailed off, ducking her head slightly as she brought a long, graceful finger to wipe along the edge of her eye.
Kyoshi had never seen a spirit cry before.
“She did what she thought was best,” Jesa said in a tone that was resigned but lacking malice. “She might have been right. I simply don’t know.” She dabbed at her eyes once more, rolled her shoulders again, and continued.
“Regardless, I had a wonderful childhood, and I adored the nuns who raised me. I was a bit of a prodigy” she said. Here, a smile crept across her face, and Kyoshi sensed a small bit of pride welling within her mother. “I earned my arrows by the time I was nine. Youngest female master in two generations,” she finished.
Kyoshi wasn’t entirely sure how all of this detail related to her, but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t impressed by Jesa’s achievements.
“You must have been highly regarded,” Kyoshi replied. Jesa nodded, but then shook her head.
“By some,” she replied. “Many of the nuns loved me, but there were those who could not look past the spiritual defect of my parentage,” she said sadly. “I did my best, and I assumed the time would come when I would be in a position to effect change in my people. I had been groomed to assume the role of Mother Superior. I was twenty when Mother Chenda passed, but the Council of Elders seemed certain to select me. My two closest mentors sat on the council, and they were certain it would be me, but---”
Kyoshi studied Jesa’s face as she collected herself again, and she managed to piece together the unstated information.
“Your father was a fire national,” Kyoshi concluded, somewhat solemnly. As much as it surprised her, she was finding it difficult to hate her mother in this moment. None of this information excused the way she had been treated, but she had never considered that her mother might have also experienced hardship.
“I must have had some of that fire nation pride in me because I was so wounded when Sister Gawa told me that one of the older members of the council had pushed them to select someone else because I wasn’t spiritually pure.”
Here, Jesa’s voice rose in intensity and volume. “I could bear any insult if it was warranted, but I truly was the most prepared among us to lead. And I so wanted to bring us closer to our true calling--non-judgment, detachment, a commitment to loving all things unconditionally. And then I was told that I wasn’t good enough, and for worldly reasons! It was like my entire life, the foundation of my beliefs about the world and my place in it, had been a lie. The hypocrisy of it all was unthinkable. Completely incongruous with my everything I thought I knew.” She shrugged, finding her steely backbone again.
“So I left,” she said, nonchalantly. “I asked to be assigned to humanitarian work, and I was sent to the Earth Kingdom.”
“Where you met my father,” Kyoshi concluded for her.
Jesa looked back at her daughter and nodded. A completely lovestruck smile crossed her face. For the hundredth or so time, Kyoshi saw her own expression on Jesa’s face. Her eyes crinkled the same way when she smiled and thought of Rangi.
“I was working in a makeshift infirmary in an area of the nation that was experiencing a drought. Hark showed up with Kirima in tow. She needed a healer. He was,” she grinned, shy, and a blush crept up her face. “He was remarkably easy to talk to. And he stayed even after I was done with Kirima. He asked me to dinner, and by the time we were finished eating, I had told him my entire life story, down to my parentage and everything.”
Jesa laughed and shook her head so that her hair fell around her face. “And for the first time in my life, when I mentioned my fire nation father and disgraced mother, this miraculous person didn’t even bat an eye! In fact, he found me more interesting!”
“He hung around the town for a week, introduced me to the whole gang, and I fell in love. They didn’t care about my parents or my vows or even what supposed blessings or good luck I could bestow upon them. They just liked me because Hark said I was his. And that was that.”
Jesa picked nervously at the edge of her robe, which somehow had a loose string. Kyoshi wondered if she preferred that for her appearance, too, since it gave her a way to hide her insecurity. She recognized the habit.
“At the end of the week, Hark visited me again. It was twilight, and he was so nervous, which was completely unlike him.” She giggled again, almost as though she had completely forgotten that Kyoshi was there. “And he told me that they had to leave, that he was a member of a crime gang, and that they had a job to do. That they would be in trouble if they didn’t get it done soon. And he looked me dead in the eye and said he wished he could stay longer with me, but the trip was long, and they had to leave that evening.”
“And--,” she trailed off and looked Kyoshi in the eye with complete earnestness. “Have you ever known, truly and completely known you simply could not live without another person?” The look on her face was so beatific, so overjoyed. So young.
Despite herself, Kyoshi nodded and smiled. “My wife, Rangi. She is everything to me.”
Jesa smiled, both ageless and wise at the same time. Despite the spiritual space between them, Kyoshi could feel, without question, that the love they felt for their partners was the same.
“Yes,” Jesa said. “Hark was my entire world. So I told him I had a sky bison. We left together and never looked back. And I was an excellent crime boss. I know, it shouldn’t bring me pride, but it must be my fire nation blood. Anything I did, I wanted to do to perfection. And after all the ways I had been told I wasn’t enough, here I was, finally, with a family who never doubted me and a career at which I was the very best.”
Suddenly, she became very still. Kyoshi watched it happen with fascination. It started in her hands, moved up her body, and settled into her face until her eyes bored into Kyoshi. She sat perfectly straight while Jesa took her in. She was--examining her, Kyoshi thought. And then it hit her: Jesa was seeing her, truly, for the first time in two decades.
“And then you came. And we were so, wildly, madly in love with you,” Jesa said. Her tone was reverent, full of meaning and memory. It wasn’t what Kyoshi had expected. It didn’t line up with their behavior at all.
“If you loved me so much, why on earth did you leave me?” Kyoshi realized only after the sound hit her ears that she had spoken her thoughts out loud. Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes, and she grew angry at the lack of emotional control she was exhibiting. Jesa lifted her hand ever so slightly as if to reach for her daughter, and Kyoshi threw an arm in front of her, the same way she would to block a blow. Jesa retreated and stilled just as quickly.
“The Avatar couldn’t be raised by a group of thieves and thugs,” Jesa finally said, her voice thick with tears and heartache.
The realization hit Kyoshi like a blast of flame.
“What did you just say?” Kyoshi whispered softly. Her eyes were wide, red rimmed, tears threatening to pour out of her like rain. Jesa’s face was exactly the same.
“We knew,” Jesa whispered as small, silent sobs began to rack her body. Kyoshi watched as she tried, desperately, to draw breath. To speak. To pull the words out of her throat. Try as she might, Jesa couldn’t claw them out of her mouth.
The sight broke Kyoshi’s heart. She knew this feeling, too. Complete and utter self-loathing. She, too, had been racked by sobs at night as she had laid in alleys and hid under buildings wondering why she hadn’t been enough. And yet, here she sat as the realization dawned on her that, perhaps, her mother had believed it was she who wasn’t enough.
With purpose and intention, Kyoshi reached her hand into the space between herself and Jesa and turned her hand over, palm up.
“Let me help,” she said gently, inclining her head slightly, urging Jesa to take her hand. The fallen nun stared into the space between them as though she was being offered a gift that she couldn’t possibly take. Like the day Kyoshi took that small, clay turtle from Kelsang. Somehow, she knew exactly what to say.
“Momma,” she said, peering her green eyes down to catch Jesa’s gray ones. “Please.” She remembered so little from her life before Yokoya, but she remembered that. Momma. Momma with her grey eyes and soft hair. Momma who snuggled her close as they flew through the sky. Momma who made leaves dance in the air and tickle her nose on long, autumn days.
Jesa’s hand fell into hers like a gentle weight that somehow made her whole. Kyoshi reached out, her spirit mingling with Jesa’s, and her mother’s memories washed over her. They were fragmented, disjointed, but clear.
At first, Kyoshi found herself seated on her mother’s lap on a warm spring day. They were in a grassy field, surrounded by trees, and Longyan munched happily on the grass, pulling the stalks between his flat teeth. Jesa twirled a fan between her fingers, trails of air dancing through Kyoshi’s hair. She was large for her age but couldn’t have been more than three.
“Momma, let me try,” the small girl said, grabbing for the fan. Jesa indulged, certain it would be no harm. The fans were too large for her small hands, and nothing came of it, but Jesa’s heart swelled with joy watching her daughter delight in the game.
Suddenly, Kyoshi was high off the ground, seated on Longyan’s saddle as her parents hastily packed their possessions onto his back. Something was wrong. Jesa and Hark were scared. There were hasty shouts between the two of them. They tried to keep it down, to prevent Kyoshi from hearing them. They didn’t want to frighten her. But now she heard them. The Gravedigger of Zhulu Pass and his companions were here. In the same town as them. For the seventh time in six months. Somehow, wherever they went, he was never far behind. He didn’t appear to be searching for them, but they weren’t going to wait to find out why he was here.
It was dark outside, and Jesa drew the curtains of the rented room, making sure no one would be able to see inside. She and Hark spoke in hushed tones while Kyoshi slept in the corner. There was no other explanation, Jesa insisted. The group was traveling to find the new Avatar. The Avatar who was born the same year Kyoshi was born. The earth Avatar who was supposed to be found using directional geomancy. So far, the world was without a new Avatar. And somehow, this group kept ending up in any town they reached on their sky bison. Hark rejected the idea outright. Kyoshi had shown absolutely no promise as a bender of any kind. He had tried so many times to help her bend earth. He wasn’t a bender like his father, but he knew the forms. Nothing had come of it, no matter how dutifully she had tried to imitate her father. Once, when he had tried to teach her, a large boulder had slid off a nearby cliff, but it must have been a coincidence. Earth benders never started off moving rocks the size of small houses.
But what if the boulder wasn’t a coincidence? What if it was her? Jesa insisted on trying another way. There were plenty of Avatars who struggled with their native element. But for the earth Avatar, fire would come next in the cycle of elements. That test was easy. She had picked it up from another daofei years ago, another young woman who was getting out of the game, preparing to take on the infinitely more terrifying job of motherhood.
Jesa lit a fire in the stove at the corner of the room. She fed it constantly, heating the room to the point where it was sweltering, completely dry. Her lips stuck together as she slowly poured the oils she had acquired over the ball of tinder in her hand.
Kyoshis’s cheeks were red from the sweltering heat as Jesa rolled her over onto her back. The sleeping little girl looked so peaceful. Jesa was terrified of what might happen next. She held the ball of tinder under her daughter’s nose, and whispered, imploring her barely conscious daughter to take a deep breath and then blow it out through her nose. Yes, Momma, the little girl replied sleepily. Her eyes didn’t open in the slightest, but she complied with her mother’s request.
The sparks grew so slowly, but they were there. A small, undeniable flame glowed in the middle of the ball of tinder. Kyoshi muttered something and rolled to her side. Jesa was unmovable, allowing the flame to grow until it threatened to consume the ball of tinder and burn her hand. Just before it could, Hark grabbed the ball from her and threw it into the stove, slapping the blistered skin of his hand against his thigh. They stared at their daughter in awe and shock, and Jesa sobbed openly.
Snow fell outside of the cave in the small earth kingdom village high in the mountains. Hark had taken Kyoshi out to the market to gather supplies before they left. Jesa packed their bedrolls and possessions onto Longyan’s saddle. They had stayed in this town long enough. Two weeks was a stretch at best, but Jesa wanted to enjoy the last of their time together. Hark was entirely opposed to the plan, but Jesa knew what needed to be done. If it was ever discovered that the Avatar was born to a criminal and a fallen air nun, her entire reign would have been marred by chaos. She would be viewed as entirely unfit, a break in the cycle. Kyoshi’s entire life would be defined by sacrifice and service to the world no matter what they did. But for Jesa to keep her any longer would only make her life’s work more difficult. Besides, who was she to raise the savior of the world?
It was spring in Yokoya. Cherry blossoms rained down in the air. Kyoshi played happily in the corner of a local farmer’s home with his son. Jessa, Hark, the man, and his wife were seated at a table nearby. They spoke in hushed tones. A family member endangered. Kidnapped by a dangerous gang. Jesa felt terribly for lying, but it was necessary. Their journey would be long, and they might not return. They couldn’t risk their daughter. Of course, they would pay handsomely, more than enough to house and feed their daughter until she was grown, just in case. No, goodbyes would only make things more difficult. They left Kyoshi playing with her companion, climbed on their bison, and flew away.
And then, there was nothing. A void. Dark. Empty. Punctuated only by occasional glimpses of suffering. Hark holding Jesa while she cried. Jesa looking longingly at a girl about Kyoshi’s age as she strolled through a random town in a far off corner of the earth kingdom. Lek sleeping on Lingyon’s saddle while they looked on, pondering how old Kyoshi would be by now, what she would look like. Hark refusing to look in mirrors anymore so he wouldn’t see the eyes he shared with his daughter.
And, lastly, a rundown room in a no name town as sickness ravaged the countryside. Hark went first, consumed by the fever faster than Jesa. They had been beyond the help of healers for days, and it was too dangerous for her friends to sit at her bedside. She drifted in and out of consciousness for a day or so after Hark died. The entire time, her thoughts were of one thing: her daughter. She would be thirteen now. Her birthday was coming up. Early September, when the first crisp air of fall came down from the mountains. It had been nearly seven years since she had seen her. And she remembered every detail about her girl.
Jesa was afraid to die. When she had been a nun, she had certainty, the promise of something better waiting in the spirit world. She had no idea what waited for her now. But she hoped that wherever she ended up, she would one day be united with her daughter. With her last breath, Jessa thought of the sweet, bell-like giggle that came from Kyoshi’s lips as she blew air through her hair with the tip of her fan. It was her favorite sound in the entire world.
Kyoshi came back to her body slowly and found that, somewhere in the midst of these memories, she and Jesa had fallen into an embrace, their arms wrapped tightly around one another. She remembered the feeling so perfectly, and she smiled at the familiar feeling of her mother’s hair tickling her cheeks. Kyoshi’s hair was damp from the tears that had been running continuously down Jesa’s cheeks.
“Momma,” Kyoshi finally whispered into her hair. “You did the very best you could.” And as she spoke the words, she knew they were true.
They stayed that way for who knows how long, neither one knowing who benefited more from the closeness they had been denied for so long. The moon was full overhead and bathed the clearing in white light. When they finally separated, Kyoshi wiped her eyes and smiled, shy again, but infinitely more comfortable than when her mother first appeared.
“Yangchen said this would be good for both of us,” she said, as she patted her face dry with the hem of her dress. “She is right practically all the time, and it is starting to get annoying.” She laughed, and Jesa joined in before they settled into companionable silence.
“I’m glad she was right this time,” Kyoshi offered, taking her mother’s hand in her own again. Jesa squeezed back, clearly still unsure of how she had earned her current good fortune. A question crossed her face, and Kyoshi noticed it, but Jesa said nothing.
“What is it?” she asked.
Jesa smiled nervously and withdrew her hand. She crumpled the fabric of her robes into her fists as she finally asked, “Are you--happy?”
Kyoshi smiled broadly, small wrinkles forming at the corner of her eyes, and she nodded proudly. “Very,” she replied. Jesa looked relieved and elated in equal measure.
“I won’t lie,” Kyoshi continued. “I had a miserable childhood after you left, but--I love where I ended up.” She smiled, thinking of Rangi, who must have been wearing a hole in the floor by now, and of Koko, who was certainly sound asleep with heavy furs thrown across her small but growing frame. “I don’t know what my life would be like if you hadn’t made the choices you did. And I love the life I have now.”
Jesa smiled and nodded. “I just wish I could have taught you more in the time we had,” she said sadly.
Kyoshi nodded and replied, “In a roundabout way, you taught me everything. Thank the Spirits for Wong and Kirima and Lao Ge.” She laughed and shook her head in a way that said she found the trajectory of her life just as bizarre as anyone.
Jesa laughed for real this time, and replied, “So much for my efforts to keep you from a life of organized crime.” Then, she smirked conspiratorially and said, “But I would be lying if part of me wasn’t proud that my own daughter is technically the leader of the Yellow Necks.”
Kyoshi laughed in reply and took in her mother’s face, which was so very much like her own. Jesa suddenly turned shy, biting at her lip slightly as she thought over what she planned to say next. Kyoshi cocked her head slightly to the side as she waited for what came next.
“For what it's worth,” Jesa began, “I think Koko is tremendously lucky to have a mother like you.”
Kyoshi was utterly shocked by how easy it was to talk to her mother now. Only a few hours before, she could never have imagined saying these words to anyone, Rangi included, and yet, here she sat saying them to the woman she had despised for so very long.
“I’m just so terrified of making a mistake with her,” she sighed, her voice quavering as she finally admitted it out loud.
Jesa smiled and replied, almost casually. “You’re going to make thousands of mistakes over her life, Kyoshi. And it isn’t any indication of your love for her.”
Finally, Kyoshi opened her mouth to ask the question she must have truly come here for. Jesa had answered it in the context of their story, but she needed to hear it directly.
“You really did love me, didn’t you?”
Once again, Jesa’s face radiated the pure love that the desperate little girl in Yokoya always yearned for.
“Oh my girl,” she sighed. “I never stopped. I still do. As much as ever.”
For the first time in her entire life, Kyoshi knew that it was true. Her mother loved her, always.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As a child at the fire nation academy for girls, Rangi had been savagely broken of her habit of nervously biting her nails in moments of anxiety. Even being the Avatar’s bodyguard hadn’t been enough to shake her hard earned self control. And yet, it had only taken a month of motherhood to send her careening over the edge back into her bad habit.
She paced back and forth in the foyer of the mansion. Kanji, who was seated by the door, carefully kept watch over the nervous woman. The pins had been removed from her hair hours ago, and she had run her hands through it no less than a thousand times since.
Finally, at nearly midnight, Kanji lept to attention and wagged his tail excitedly, whining at the door. Rangi threw it wide open to see her beloved oaf of a wife striding across the lawn a mere three hundred feet away. It was everything she could do to keep herself from running toward her and tackling her into the grass. To her surprise, Kyoshi looked---happy. She had not expected this.
“Oh, thank the Spirits,” she cried, practically jumping into Kyoshi’s arms as she made her way through the door. “You’ve been gone for hours!” she continued rambling on as she helped Kyoshi remove her light coat and shoes.
“I almost came to find you an hour ago,” she babbled, “ but someone, ” she said, throwing a pointed look at Kanji, “bit the leg of my pants and wouldn’t let go until I promised to stay here.”
Kyoshi laughed, pulling the anxious firebender into her arms, and kissing the top of her head. She mouthed a quick thank you to Kanji over Rangi’s shoulder, and the fox beamed with pride, always happy to be right in any situation.
Rangi pulled back and stood on her tiptoes to reach Kyoshi’s mouth with hers. Nothing in the world was so grounding for either of them as the warm way their mouths slotted together. Kyoshi would have been content to stay there until the sun rose, kissing the woman she loved, her hands tangling in her ink-black hair, but Rangi would never settle until she had answers. She pulled away despite Kyoshi’s groans of protest and dragged her back to their quarters.
“So,” she finally asked as though the very question might explode in her hands, “did you----see her?”
Kyoshi tried to stifle the laugh that was building in her throat and failed miserably , much to Rangi’s chagrin.
“No, Rangi,” she said as they cleared the door to their bedroom. “I just decided to sit in the woods for close to six hours on a night when you were putting Koko to bed early, a night when I could have been doing any number of unspeakable things with you because I enjoy driving you crazy.”
Rangi glowered and swatted at Kyoshi’s arm, but there wasn’t a hint of malice in it.
“Thank you, your Royal Spirit Bridge-ness for reminding me that I haven’t had my fun with you in days , but I will be unable to sleep until I know what happened with your mother!” Her voice had risen to an unreasonable volume in her desperation to hear about Kyoshi’s ordeal.
“Shhh!” Kyoshi admonished her, and Rangi quickly remembered that Koko was asleep just down the hall. She dragged her hands over her face, grinding her palms into her eyes and cursing the day she first had her breath stolen from her chest by the clumsy servant girl.
“Will you just tell me what happened already?” she whispered aggressively. Then, she stilled and pulled Kyoshi onto their bed where she pushed the taller woman against the headboard. Rangi straddled her hips and sat above her before asking, like a nervous child, “Was she---nice?”
Koshi smiled and her eyes went soft, looking nowhere in particular before she replied, “Rangi, she was so wonderful.”
Rangi’s eyes went wide with delight and genuine joy on behalf of her beloved wife. “She was? What did she say? Did she tell you about your childhood? About your father? What happened to them after they left? Did she apologize to you?”
Kyoshi silenced Rangi by pulling the smaller woman down to meet her lips. They both moaned at the contact, and when Kyoshi was satisfied, she leaned back and pulled Rangi against her chest so that she could stroke her hair while she spoke.
“We talked about everything,” she said simply. Rangi’s breathing stilled as the steady beat of Kyoshi’s heart thrummed under her ears. Kyoshi yawned slightly and continued. “I’m tired, and I will tell you everything in the morning, but the most important part is that they knew I was the Avatar, and they loved me, and they did the best they could.”
Rangi sat up again with a start. “They knew?” she asked in disbelief.
Kyoshi nodded. “I mean it. They did the best they could,” she said with a sweetness to her voice that Rangi was delighted to hear.
“Well,” she said, taking one of Kyoshi’s hands in her own, and kissing it in between words, “ you have consistently been earning the award for best mother in the entire four nations for the past three months.”
Kyoshi blushed and leaned up to kiss her, moaning at the contact. Rangi’s hips moved against hers involuntarily, and she sank her hands fully into the firebender's hair, twisting the end of it around her hand to expose her throat. Rangi was just about to tug Kyoshi’s robe open when the sound of tiny footsteps from down the hall reached their ears.
Rangi rolled off her wife only a breath before a sleepy six-year-old girl with hair that stuck out in every direction trudged sleepily into their room.
“Momma,” she muttered sleepily, “Mommy was being mommy and woke me up with her loudness.”
Kyoshi couldn’t help but giggle as Rangi looked on incredulously. She had been called out by a child, and the worst part was that her daughter was completely correct. Kyoshi quickly moved across the room to scoop Koko into her arms. The small child curled herself up in her Momma’s arms and tucked her head against her neck.
“Mommy is sorry for her loudness,” Rangi said, genuinely. She flashed a smile so full of love at the small girl wrapped in Kyoshi’s arms. “I’ll try to keep it down.”
“It’s okay, Mommy,” Koko replied, still halfway between sleeping and waking. “Grandma said you were the loudest child she’s ever seen. Even louder than me. I know you can’t help it.”
Kyoshi and Rangi locked eyes and, despite themselves, they laughed silently, smiling at their good fortune. They had no idea what they had done to deserve this precocious girl who was the perfect mix of them both, but they weren’t about to question it.
“Tell you what,” Kyoshi said sweetly into Koko’s ears, “how about to apologize for waking you up, we have fire flakes for breakfast tomorrow morning?”
Koko’s eyes snapped open and shined at the offer. She nodded vigorously and looked between both her mothers, smiling widely.
“Will you tuck me in again?” she said sweetly, beaming up at Kyoshi, who was helpless to deny the girl anything she desired. She nodded and looked over at Rangi, who shrugged and smiled, knowing she would have done exactly the same thing.
“Go on,” she said to them both in a playful and loving tone. Kyoshi smiled back and blew her a kiss.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said, before leaving the room to take Koko to bed. The small girl was out mere moments after she was returned to her bed.
Kyoshi hurried back to her room, eager to continue removing Rangi’s robes, but when she opened the door, she found the gorgeous, dark-haired woman, unceremoniously passed out in the middle of the bed, her hair askew, legs contorted at odd angles. She must have run herself ragged worrying about her. But Kyoshi didn’t mind. She climbed into bed, pulled Rangi close to her chest, and closed her eyes. They had tomorrow. And the day after. She and Rangi and Koko were a family now. And so long as they were together, everything was right in the world.