weave of her
Summary: Being a Kyoshi Warrior means being the smooth duality of steel alongside silk, manifested in their weapons of choice. /Truthfully, Suki made up the symbolic meaning of the Kyoshi Warrior uniform on the spot to impress Sokka./ (a Non-Bender!fic)
Notes: Oneshot;
Non-BenderPower!/Weaponry!fic;
Suki-centric; some Sukka.
Italics may be taken to be in Suki's POV. There's also lots of speculation on the Kyoshi Warriors (see extended notes), but since so little of them is shown in canon, who's to say this is AU?
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender, am not sure why I have to put this, and am dealing with the wait for the next book/season of LoK by revisiting ATLA story drafts. (Don't feel secure enough in LoK to try fanfiction for it yet)
The war fan could be considered a stealth weapon, as it can be made to resemble a common folding fan. The fan is portable and easily concealed.
It is a simple fact that a Kyoshi Warrior is never found without her fans, on-duty, at leisure or even doing household chores. At the end of the War, but before another, this habit proves pretty useful for stealth and 'diplomatic' missions.
However, as their fame spread, Kyoshi Warriors would be requested to remove their war fans before entering sensitive areas. They would in turn appeal to keep a common fan made of lace or paper (we don't feel dressed without our fans, the women warriors would say, blushing becomingly). This wasn't considered a weapon, and was grudgingly allowed.
Less stringent guards would miss the secret tanto blade (just a sheet of sharpened metal without cross-guards) concealed in their headdress. One kata had the user spin towards the opponent with an opened fan for distraction, whilst at the same time slashing across his face with the hidden blade. This startles and impresses that, even when all but disarmed, a Warrior is not to be discounted.
Better-trained guards or more relaxed social settings meant that a Warrior really would go forth with only a paper fan with wooden ribs. It is still enough.
Suki smiled.
In another lifetime, the situation unfolding in front of her would be compared to the scene of Caesar's murder – a powerful politician on the floor of the forum while the rest of the gathering prepares to stab him. The speaker had already ducked into the podium (which resembled a cylinder and was tall as possible without actually obscuring the speaker's head, so as to provide maximum coverage against airborne vegetables – Sokka's design).
See, peace treaty meetings don't usually go very well, and while physical lacerations were uncommon, they were not unheard of. To further reduce the risk, weapons and bending (enforced by other Kyoshi Warriors trained by Ty Lee) were banned too. Suki usually attended these meetings dolled up and silk fan tucked out of sight. (For stealth missions, fans made of tightly woven silk and hollow wooden ribs with steel rods within were available.)
Right now, there's a council of dagger-armed nobles converging on the podium, all to be subdued without casualties. No problem.
Suki stepped forward, still smiling, fans unsheathed. The nobles didn't stop, some grim-faced, some sneering, and their daggers also glinting.
Use the spaces between the ribs to catch the small blades, and immediately twist to prevent the blade following through. Then snap the fan shut, and he loses a weapon. Finish by flicking knife away and clubbing the closed fan over head to incapacitate opponent before further damage could be done to self.
No problem.
The Kyoshi Warrior uniform consisted of green kimonos with thick armour padding and individualised stylised headdresses.
"The silk threads symbolise the brave blood that flows through our veins. The gold insignia represents the honour of the warrior's heart."
Truthfully, she made up the symbolic meaning of the Kyoshi Warrior uniform on the spot to impress Sokka. Their green kimonos were made of cotton, not silk, although they were admittedly of a higher quality than normal clothing. The headdresses were made of burnished brass, polished daily so that they shone like gold.
Practica lity and diligence, alongside honour and bravery, make for a potent combination.
People of the Earth Kingdom have long ago realised that no armour that isn't a brick wall will be strong enough to save you from a direct hit from a rock spike. The force of the impact wreaks havoc on internal organs, and no field medic who's not a waterbender would even have a chance of healing the damage in time. As such, the armoured kimonos of the Kyoshi Warriors weren't so much designed for defense against earth benders as they were for preventing sundry cuts and scrapes. (Out on the battlefield, infections could kill you faster than the actual clashes.)
Kimonos used in daily wear had weighted padding for training purposes. The training weights increased the Warriors' strength and stamina, which was critical for their fighting style.
It also provided the option of hiding or supplementing curves, as needed. (Unlike some unenlightened females, the Kyoshi Warriors viewed their femininity as an additional edge. Kyoshi Warriors were also trained to be graceful and agile, traits essential to handle benders. [Beyond the advantage it affords their fighting style, the majority of benders were also male**.]
Oh, Suki still disliked it when people viewed her Warriors as little girls even with the shiny weapons and paint to clue them in, and so she has little qualms about pressing the advantage when an opponent underestimates them.)
When open, the war fan was a slicing weapon, but in a closed position could occasionally be used for stabbing motions or a club.
Avatar Kyoshi used the fans in addition to, and as a conduit for her bending. Her non-bending followers* had to be slightly more diversified.
As the fans did not add much range to attacks, Kyoshi Warriors were trained to engage in close-quarters combat. Short-range combat worked to the advantage when facing against waterbenders and earthbenders because both elements derived the power behind their attacks from force upon impact, the transfer of "mass over distance" and "torque" and other terms Sokka spouts when explaining the subject, complete with squiggly stick figures to illustrate the motions. Their fighting style gets them close to the opponent – weave and bob and move until you're within an arm's length – so close that water and earth benders don't have the space to maneuverer globs of water or chunks of earth. Then you strike.
Fans were easy to control and allowed easier exploitation of openings in the opponent's stance. A closed fan is used to make solid jabs and stabs. It can be used to club your opponent over the head if the purpose is to subdue. Naked metal edges were good for intimidation, true, but there is something about seeing a 'girly' fan smash through solid wood that spooks out drunken brawlers. An open fan is a great slashing weapon, when the ribs are kept properly sharpened and essentially knives.
After Zuko's first visit, the Kyoshi Warriors had to diversify even further. Their fighting style was designed against water and earth benders – to be fair, the Kyoshi Warriors' encounters with firebenders were fairly rare as citizens of the Fire Nation tend not to settle in coastal areas. But reliance on hand fans designed for close-range combat was not an option when fire blasts were most dangerous at point blank range. Katanas and shields became mandatory weapons every Warrior had to become proficient with. Slender long blades that allowed a little more range whilst still maintaining the precision a hand fan affords.
They were of the Earth Kingdom, stubbornness set in their blood, but a good warrior must adapt to continue protecting their loved ones. Sokka taught them that.
In any case, duality is not a foreign concept to the Kyoshi Warriors.
The Kyoshi Warriors are well known for their iconic face paint design: cerise eyelids extending to angled maroon eyebrows, and full vermillion lips, all against a base of shocking white.
Nobody really ponders about the face paint; they just understand it as one of the most distinctive symbols of the Kyoshi Warriors and it is traditional (which, according to Toph, always irreverent, is an excuse for not having to think.) It doesn't mean Suki doesn't have a few theories about it.
At its core, the Kyoshi face paint served the same purpose as the Southern Water Tribe's war paint that she's seen Sokka wear a time or two (or five – five outbreaks since the War.) It dehumanised the wearer.
Without the paint, people saw young girls in green robes and golden accessories. (After the War, Suki discovered an unfortunate coincidence: Fire Nation, ahem, courtesans apparently wear such gaudily-coloured, thickly-applied face paint too. The designs were different, colours more harmonious, and it was high-class geisha that wore the paint, but courtesans nonetheless. That probably helped explain why firebenders tended not to take them seriously.)People see girls – of the fairer sex; weaker; less clever (no matter how many times they prove their cunning, people forget, counter that it only applies on a small scale); less tough, less.
With the face paint though, all you saw were glowing white with blood red streaks and the glint of metal in the dark. ("Say that again," Suki purred in a voice that left nothing to Sokka's imagination – it said quite clearly that it was going to gut him, leave him to bleed out in the cold and then throw the pieces to the wolves.)
Just a warrior, no female or male implied in it.
(The hapless Fire Nation noble who clearly didn't possess Sokka's imagination or cultural experience, sniffed and repeated a snide comment about gaudily made-up harlots and their silly affectations at being ladylike by carrying a fan around. The man gained a swift acquaintance with said fan blade. )
As a thrown weapon, fans could be quite effective and had good range. Also, their round shape meant that the bladed end had a better chance of hitting a target.
It amused Suki to no end that women in the Fire Nation actually used fans as just that. A simple tool against the heat, a cover to appear delicate, or an indicator of one's refinement. Even the men did it!
At the pavilions, she saw young men spread their fans in front of their chests (akin to a display stand, she couldn't help thinking, but indeed the purpose is to show off the calligraphy on the paper fans) and recite terrible poetry to their lady loves, who in turn fluttered small lacy fans in front of their faces. Good grief.
Yet when Sokka presented her with another awful drawing, she couldn't help but smile. At least it wasn't poetry.
Suki was far less amused when Sokka replaced her war fans with a pale replica made of wooden ribs and thin cloth. ("What? You can't be armed when visiting Zuko now he's the Fire Lord. That's like an act of aggression! And could lead to another war! Then Aang would have to – ") Irritated, Suki threw her new fan at him and was pleasantly surprised that it managed to transverse their cavern of a room and hit the wall beside him with a solid thunk. Huh, good range there.
(Nevermind that it didn't hit him, her aim with projectile weapons were hardly up to Mai's standards.)
On a hunch, she snapped open the second fan and threw it at him again. Much more surface area this time, much greater chance of hitting the target. Oh yes. ("Hey, that hurt!")
A few years later, one of her warriors had gone undercover as a geisha, and at the end of a dance****, hurled the opened fan at the leader of the conspiracy. Unlike Suki's wood-and-cloth fan, this was a proper Kyoshi Warrior's weapon and the pretty metal plates were sharp enough to slice through skin. The fan flew clear across the table in the small room, embedded within his skull and lodged itself in brain matter.
Immediately, the girl hitched up her robes and ran, used to doing so with the Kyoshi uniform. Immediately too, the leader's bodyguards – who were to their credit, quick on the uptake – gave chase. And of course, a Kyoshi Warrior is quite at home with fighting blades and benders armed with only a couple of hand fans.
The mission was a great success.
The war fan can be used as a weapon of last resort in a fight after the sword was knocked away.
The war fan was not a weapon exclusively utilised by the Kyoshi Warriors. Many other warrior groups use the war fan, mostly as a weapon of last resort, as an alternative to the wakizashi or tanto. The Kyoshi Warriors are the only group who predominately use it as their weapon of choice though.
This is not to say that they do not make use of other weapons, as many have found to their chagrin. To rely exclusively on a single weapon, however exotic and less-known, allows an enemy to easily target weaknesses, and would be foolish to say the least.
At the end of the day, Suki still favoured the war fan. Metaphors for steel and silk aside, it represents the spirit of the Kyoshi Warriors well: an aesthetically delicate weapon nonetheless capable of deadliness.
Plus, it's far easier to catch the light with a fan blade than a katana blade – never discount the usefulness of intimidation.
The Kyoshi Warriors
Like other military units, the Kyoshi Warriors were armed, uniformed, well-trained yada yada. Unlike many military units, the Kyoshi Warriors were an exclusive troop of females (Many of the women manage to degenerate into girls when exchanging gossip). Being their leader sometimes made Suki despair.
Take the squabbles and cat fights.
Take the reaction when she first kissed Sokka. (And that was during the fighting – how did they see that?)
Take Ty Lee's seemingly unconscious flirting with every guy on the island that drove all the other girls crazy.
Take the gossip when Sokka taught her the boomerang. (Almost the whole island gathered around to watch their lessons. Every. Day. For an entire freaking month! It became the island's evening entertainment. Sokka offered once to teach the onlookers too, and was enthusiastically waved off. "You just focus on Suki now! We'll just watch from the side!" And hell yes, every touch, look, compliment was scrutinised. It made her progress achingly slow, which didn't aid the 'knowing' whispers.)
Or when he brought her to the South Pole for a visit, or passed her a set of solid gold Earth Kingdom insignia (courtesy of the Earth King really), or replicated his Suki seaweed-sand sculpture on her birthday, and so on.
Regardless, the girls were close. (Objectively, gossiping probably helps.) Tightly-knit, just like the silk in their fans. They held each other together.
Being a Kyoshi Warrior did not exclude her from being a girl herself. ("I am a warrior. But I'm a girl too.")
"Sokka?" Suki fluttered her fan, covering the lower half of her face, and gave him a coquettish wink.
* It should be noted that the Kyoshi Warriors was not intended to start out as an exclusively non-bending female unit, but much of the men had been called off to war (the Earth Kingdom being less progressive than the Fire Nation in that aspect)** at the time Avatar Kyoshi founded the Warriors. As time went on, the tradition became set in place that the Kyoshi Warriors only accepted girls. Until an outsider arrived and humbly challenged the notion. ***
** It is also worth noting that the Earth Kingdom's gender bias isn't completely unjustified, because for some strange reason, earthbenders tend to be predominately male. And waterbenders encountered in battle were all male, due to the Northern Water Tribe's blatant gender bias. This may or may not have contributed to Suki's dislike of male (benders) putting down her Warriors.
*** This was a sentimentalised way of viewing the story. Suki privately thought that the fighting style developed by the original female non-benders was simply not designed for males (who had to be broken of their preconception to stand and use their own strength against the opponent, rather than moving to twist the opponent's strength against them), and the pre-existing predisposition propagated.
****Kyoshi Warriors are first trained to handle their fans by dancing with them. If you couldn't even do a simple fan dance, you had no business with any of the katas. (Luckily for Sokka, Suki had little intention of really letting him into the Kyoshi Warriors so easily, and had only put him through the kimono and makeup.)
End.
Extended notes:
I found that this became more like a backstory for the Kyoshi Warriors and Suki, especially as I did more research and wanted to incorporate the info. The way I see it, the Kyoshi Warriors are a specialised force. I imagine they mainly keep the peace on their home island against pirates and rowdy sailors, but to do that with a small force, and being non-benders in the ALTA universe – where almost every other character is a bender – they must have some skills with their weapons. So...Non-BenderPower! fic it is.
I tried to do research for this fic, especially as it became more weapon-oriented/ war fan-focused, but all of my info came from the Internet (with all the connotations of reliability that word conjures up). I crossed-checked the information, but the war fan is quite an uncommon weapon, so there weren't a lot of sources. I used only what made sense or seemed possible to me. Plus this is set in a fanon with elemental benders, so a bit of liberty was taken with embellishing RL info. (Upon rewatching "The Warriors of Kyoshi" episode, there was totally this moment where one of them was preparing to throw a closed fan.)
Having disclaimed a lot, feel free to point out any errors anyway; I am in no way an expert in weaponry.
On another note, I'm working on some other character-centric oneshots, with the themes already thought out in brackets; If there's one you'd be particularly interested in, please include it in your review. (Yes, I'm not so subtly giving more motivation to review!)
- Being an Avatar (bridge between this world and ours), Aang
- Being a woman (who can raise hell and look damn good doing it too), Mai.
- Being a lady (smile that smile and even death is your friend), Katara.
- Being a friend (she's the one you want on your side), Ty Lee.
- Being a warrior (a true warrior hates war, and needs it, all at the same time), Sokka.
- Being a conqueror (conquerors don't make good rulers), Azula.
- Being a Fire Lord (my flame burns for thee), Zuko.
- Being Toph (because there are no other quite like her, and quite likely never will be again)
- Being a princess (we will all die for our blood someday), Azula Yue Ursa.
- Being a guardian (irony of having wisdom enough to kill to save), Iroh
- Being a Kyoshi Warrior (on the smooth duality of steel and/alongside silk), Suki.