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When Ty Lee was late for morning practice the fifth day in a row, Suki’s veneer of patience, already frayed, finally ripped apart. Still in her pajamas, she marched to the small hut that once housed equipment and uniforms, and now, temporarily, served as the newest Kyoshi Warrior’s sleeping quarters. Each slippered footstep hit the ground with intense precision. Suki opened the door.
“Get up,” she said. It was the voice she reserved for when the many annoyances of being in charge of so many girls who sometimes felt so much younger than her bore down on her shoulders.
“There’s no more excuses, Ty Lee! If you really want to be a part of our…oh.”
“Hi, Suki,” Ty Lee said hastily. Something beside her rumbled around under the blankets. Suki’s eyes narrowed.
What happened next happened very fast. Suki saw: the head of her best childhood friend appear from under the sheets. She met Suki’s eyes, shrugged, quickly pulled a robe over her naked body and ran with well-taught stealth out the door, hair flying out like a banner behind her.
“Masako and I were just having a sleepover.” Ty Lee pulled the blankets up to her chin. Her face was tinted blue-gold in the morning light.
“I see,” Suki said. The corners of her mouth twitched a little.
“I’m really, really sorry, Suki! She likes to let me sleep.”
“So I’ve noticed.” Suki sighed, feeling the fight drain out of her. She sat down facing Ty Lee.
Ty Lee was quiet for a minute, an unusual occurrence. Suki raised and eyebrow and waited.
“That’s it?” she asked. Her eyes were even bigger than usual, and looked close to tears. It was only then Suki noticed she was shaking. “You looked so angry before.”
“I am angry,” said Suki, matter-of-factly. “You’ve missed practices with the other Warriors, and your training will be off because of it. The rest of us will have to accommodate that, and as the leader it’s my job to make sure everyone keeps up.”
Ty Lee’s sheet tumbled down from her breasts. She tugged it back up. Suki rolled her eyes.
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“What isn’t?” Ty Lee said, suddenly frantic. “Oh, Suki, I’m so sorry, I know it’s not the kind of thing your supposed to let slip, and I never, ever have before, Azula always made sure that nobody in the palace ever found out, because of what happened to Wei at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls.” She paused to take a breath, which Suki took as her chance to interrupt.
“Wait,” she said, slowly, “what?”
“You think what Masako and I did is gross,” Ty Lee said.
“What?” Suki said again, wrinkling her forehead in annoyance. “I could care less what you two do in your spare time. I only care that you get to practice when everyone else does and don’t make me look stupid.”
“So you’re not kicking me out?”
Ty Lee’s eyes were teary now with gratitude. She leaped out of bed and threw her arms around Suki, who startled, then patted her on the back.
“Put on some clothes. Let’s go get breakfast.”
Ty Lee hurried away, grinning, into the only other room. Suki could hear her hum through the thin paper screen.
--
“I want to tell you a story,” Suki said, “And it’s not about the time Masako told her parents to stop trying to find her a husband, although that’s one worth telling too.” She took a long, slow sip of her soup.
“Is it about Kyoshi?” Ty Lee asked, eager and mischievous again.
“How did you ever guess?”
“Almost every story you tell is about Kyoshi. When it isn’t about Sokka.”
Suki ignored her. “Do you want to hear it or not?”
“Definitely,” Ty Lee said, quickly cleaning the rest of her plate and pushing the remains of the meal to the side. She rested her head in her crossed arms. “Tell me.”
So Suki cleared her throat, and in another voice she saved for special times, did.
--
Kyoshi is young, and beautiful in a way that the tallest trees are beautiful, bright and strong. All of the boys in the village, and most of the girls, are afraid of her harshness and her loud laugh and her determination. But they grow up, as boys and girls do, and soon they are in love with her. Kyoshi watches their eyes burn into her heady grace.
She loves them, too, but not in the way they wish for.
When Kyoshi separates the Island, her people finally safe, her powers finally fully realized, she breathes a long sigh of relief. She is beautiful and bright and strong, powerful, and alone. But she isn’t lonely. At night she dreams about a skylark singing a high, sweet song as it rests in the treetops.
One day, a girl arrives from a village on the other side of the Island. She is plain and travel-worn, her hair prematurely streaked with silver that makes her look older than her years. But her eyes are large and warm and the blue of the South Sea, and her voice is high and sweet.
“Train me,” the girl says. “I’ve walked here from my village to meet you and to learn from you. I want to be a Warrior.” And she bows at Kyoshi’s feet. In her years as the Avatar Kyoshi has had many people ask her things, many selfish people and greedy people and sad people and some honest ones.
“Why do you want to be a Warrior?” Kyoshi asks.
The girl says, “Sometimes I think I can hear the Island’s heart beating in mine, when I walk through the forest or swim in the ocean. When I dream I am a bird, singing at the top of a tall tree, seeing every roof, every field.”
And Kyoshi understands. Her heart rises in her chest, ebbing and flowing, the waves of the South Sea.
She trains the girl. Her name is Sima. She’s an apt pupil, soon nearly surpassing the skill and grace of the Avatar herself.
In the hills beyond the fields, Kyoshi is unsure which heat is that of the light and which is that from inside of her, rising up even in the dark slickness her mouth finds. Beneath her, Sima is small and tightly muscled, tangling her hands in Kyoshi’s hair tighter with each breath.
Later, they lay still until the sun sweats them clean and new, feeling like giddy children as their whole world greets them, swinging in the afternoon wind.
And so their days are spent, and their years. But the Island is Kyoshi’s now and always, and things that would be frowned upon on the mainland are not so there, once Kyoshi gives them a smile. In the marketplace, their fingers entwined, they examine ripe plums. Sima kisses the Avatar with laughing lips.
Soon, everyone holds the hand they want in the marketplace.
At night, as Kyoshi's branches swing in the moonlight, Sima sings a mournful song. They spend more and more time with her mother and cousins, and in the clamor of small voices Kyoshi is aware, suddenly, of something new in herself.
Months later, Sima takes a walk in the woods when she finds the girl, so filthy she’s hardly a girl at all anymore, gnashing and wailing for anyone. She is not old enough to speak. Sima wraps her in the soft folds of her shirt. Her crying quiets.
The next day, two bodies are found off the trail. Rabid foxwolves, an unforeseen threat. Kyoshi briefly retreats as she always does at this realization: nowhere is truly safe. No one is truly safe from the smallest dangers of the world.
But the little girl makes soft noises, unafraid, in Sima’s arms. Weeks pass, then months, then years. Koko has nightmares almost every night, well into her childhood.
In the dark as in the light, she can always hide in the branches of a tree, and be soothed by the sound of a skylark.
Her hair is the rich brown-red of the ginger maples. Though she looks like neither of her mothers, she is their blood all the same.
In her heart beats the Island’s heart.
--
“So after Kyoshi died, Koko governed the Island for almost as many years as her mother had,” Suki finished.
“She’s my distant ancestor, although we’ve never figured out exactly how. A lot of our genealogical records have been lost, but my family still has her things. And some of Lady Sima’s things too.”
“Wow,” said Ty Lee. Her face was pink, and she was staring very intently at the table.
“There’s no reason to ever be afraid,” Suki said gently. “That’s not what Kyoshi ever wanted, that’s not what Sima ever wanted, and that’s not what I want.” She paused. “I know it was what Azula wanted, but she’s not here right now, is she?”
Ty Lee was silent.
“I’m sorry,” Suki said. “I didn’t mean...”
“No,” said Ty Lee, and there was a steeliness in her face Suki had never seen before. “You’re right. Azula’s not here right now.”
“Okay, then.” Suki rose from the table in one graceful step. “Let’s get to practice.”
--
Ty Lee dreams she is all pink blossoms and wispy trunk. The red hawk circles over her branches, painfully beautiful but ready at any moment to pluck each flower from her skin.
When she awakes, it is to the ghost of laughter in the distant hills.