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.