Minato of Kyoshi Island
Kyoshi Island, 94 AG
Kyoshi Island has long been considered odd, and to tell the truth, I can see why. I've only ever heard of one place like it before, and the people of the Foggy Swamp are considered even odder than we are. People don't understand us. If I told anyone from outside the island that I'm a waterbender, they'd ask which of my parents were from the Water Tribes, and which tribe it was.
That's not . . . how it works. It's about who you are, not just where you're from. I am a waterbender, but none of my parents or grandparents or any relatives as far back as we can recall have been Water Tribe. But I'm a waterbender. My sister's an earthbender.
Of course, I could just be shifting the blame. Most places also think Kyoshi Island is weird because it seems like we've only got female warriors. While that's not entirely true, it's certainly a rumor we've worked to maintain.
"Minato, break's over." I glance up to see Etsuka grinning down at me. I quickly finish off the bowl of rice I've been neglecting and get to my feet. I set my dishes down on the counter so that they're off the floor.
"So, what were you thinking about this time?" Kushala asks as I drop into the stretches with the rest of the group, and I grin back at her.
"Oh, you know, the usual," I reply. "We're a weird island with weird people."
A laugh sweeps over those near us at my answer, and we switch positions. When we're done stretching, we spar. Several of the others, mostly the parents, have to leave early to make dinner, but the rest of us stay for another clunk of the water clock in the corner of the room. In the end, I turn away as we all change out of our sweaty clothes to give the illusion of privacy.
Then we're saying our goodbyes, and I start the hike up the mountain with a couple of the others. They split off one by one to their own homes, waving, and eventually I'm alone on the path up.
"Minato! Minato!" Yumiko screeches as she comes careening down the path, giving me enough warning to kneel down and catch her up in a hug. I let out a little grunt as she hits me, and she tolerates my arms around her for a moment before she wiggles impatiently in my grip so that she can turn around and point at the boy following her. "Tell Taro that you're the bestest big brother ever!"
"He is not!" Taro yells as I swing Yumiko up and settle her on my hip as I stand. "Susumu's the bestest brother in the world!"
He glances up as me and hesitates for a moment. "Sorry, Minato. You're the best, but Susumu's the bestest, and Yumiko," Taro pauses to glare, "won't admit it!"
"It's fine Taro," I reassure him. "Besides, I'm not your brother and Susumu isn't Yumiko's brother so it's a little hard for you to compare. Now, why don't you run back home? I'm sure your mom's going to have dinner ready soon."
"Right!" Taro says, his eyes lighting up, and he turns and runs back to his home, calling out a goodbye as he leaps onto the porch.
"Susumu's not really the best, is he?" Yumiko asks as I step up onto the porch, and I glance down to see she has her nose scrunched up.
"Of course he isn't." I tap her nose with my free hand, making her laugh as I pull open the door. "But we don't want Taro to cry, so we'll just keep who the real best brother is to ourselves, alright?"
"Alright!" Yumiko says brightly as I set her down and adjust the bag.
"Minato!" Mom calls as I pass the kitchen. "Set the table!"
"I will," I call back. "I'm just putting my bag away first!"
The bag goes under the table in the corner of my room, before I head back out to set the table for dinner. It's another normal day, and while it might be boring, at least it's safe.
()
I slide a hand to the left in front of me, just in time to deflect the falling water into the pond.
"Really, Kiran? This is a dream, dumping water on me won't make me wake up."
The girl laughs as she settles down next to me. "I'll get you someday. Or, something will happen, and you'll be glad I did this because you won't have to think."
"Ah, yes, the mysterious someday, this far off future that has yet to come."
"I'm not joking," Kiran says seriously, sitting down next to me, and I feel a pang of guilt as I remember,
"Sorry, I forgot-"
"-that I actually have to fight, while you get to laze around and practice, and etcetera, I know," Kiran interrupts, her eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. "I don't really blame you. Besides, it's not like I'm personally fighting yet."
She shakes out her hair, and runs her fingers through it. "So, anything new in your ponderings today?"
I give her a slight smile and tell her my musings on how and why exactly Kyoshi Island is so odd. Just as I'm wrapping my explanation up, Hikari appears from the forest. Her face is as pale as death, sending both Kiran and me to our feet.
"What is it?" I ask, jumping the pond to grab her shoulders.
"Fire Lord Azulon is dead. Ozai is to take his place." She trembles under my hands, eyes wide with fear. "Long live Fire Lord Ozai. Long may he reign."
Oh. Oh. Oh, Face Stealer.
"And Prince Iroh?" I ask a little desperately. Neither of the brothers are the best people, but for almost any choice between them I would choose the Iroh of Hikari's stories. At least he seemed to care about his people. But Hikari is already shaking her head.
"He's gone. I - I think that's why Fire Lord Azulon is dead."
"Ashes," I mutter, letting Kiran push me to the side and grab Hikari. I run the royal family through my head, trying to figure out the line of succession, who the three of us would rather have next, like we have any real influence on the Fire Nation. If Iroh got passed up for whatever reason, him and his are out, and next in line is-
"What about Prince Zuko?" Kiran asks. "How is he?"
"I think-" Hikari pauses to breathe, gulping air like she'd forgotten how to. "I think that he;s either going to break, withdraw or run. His mother, uncle, and cousin are all gone. Even Vasuman - his servant - left. Azula and Ozai . . . aren't exactly close to him."
"Face Stealer take it," I mutter, bringing a hand up to rub at my eyes as I take a few steps forwards and turn to lean against a tree. Kiran lets go of Hikari to pace the edge of the small pond.
"I could try to get closer to him," Hikari offers, stepping towards me. I open my arms and she takes the invitation to hug, wrapping her arms around me tightly. Her voice muffled by my shirt, she says, "I don't think that'll work though. Azula-"
"It's fine, Hikari," I say.
"Why do we even bother!" Kiran exclaims. "None of us can really do anything."
"We bother because we all live in this world," I say, trying to put feeling into the words even though I don't really believe them. "We bother because if we do nothing, we're only hurting ourselves."
It's a well worn argument, but it's one I know Kiran needs to hear. She's always so insistent that we need to be better, that our actions affect the world. Hikari huffs out a laugh as she hastily wipes away her tears.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Kiran grumbles, but her weary smile betrays her feelings. "I swear, even though you always use the same words, you manage to make that speech sound more inspirational every time."
"Say that all you want, you're the one who gave me the idea. And you're the one who falls for it every single time." I quickly move Hikari to the side as Kiran yells out in mock offence, and Kiran lunges for me, pulling me hard enough that I fall into the pond. I come up sputtering to hear Hikari laughing, and after I've pushed my wet hair out of my face, I eye her speculatively.
"Hey!" she yelps as she falls. She glares at me as she bobs up to the surface of the water next to me. "Unfair use of bending!"
We spend the rest of the night's dream splashing at each other in the pond. I try to distract the others from the idea of fighting.
Sometimes I feel like a spy, and not in a good way. I love my mother and my family, and the rest of the warriors in the village are nice, but I don't really have any close friendships here. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I left the island. If I left Mom. If I left Yumiko. I'm fourteen, two years older than Hikari. If I wanted to, at this point I could leave my mother's house and set up my own household.
I know exactly where I'd build the house. There's this old clearing out on the edge of town that would be perfect. Sometimes I go there, and I sit on the dirt to stare at the grass between the last house and the forest. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if Hikari and Kiran had been born on the island.
I try to imagine it, but I can't. I can't see Kiran without the odd quirks crossdressing for so long to get into the army has given her. I can't see Hikari without the odd grace she always moves with, so utterly different from everyone I know.
I try to imagine myself with them, but I can't. I can't imagine being in the Earth Kingdom, and not applying makeup before a fight. I know that's what Kiran does everyday. I can't imagine being disgusted by the fact that Kiran, a girl, is fighting. I can't imagine myself in the Fire Nation. Kyoshi had traded with the Air Nomads when they flew out, if they didn't wreak havoc. When the Fire Nation marched on the temples, some of the monks and nuns fled to us, and I can't imagine hating Taro or Susumu. I can't imagine Shouhei fighting for anything but to protect others.
Koshi is one of the Earth Kingdoms, everyone says.
This is Earth Kingdom land, so its children should bend earth, they say. Which parent was a waterbender? Why are you a waterbender? Why can't you be normal, and follow the rules like everyone else?
What is normal? What is normal, when to my people, I am normal? What is normal, when standards differ so widely even within places lumped so clumsily together?
I think about this sometimes, when I have time alone, when I'm working on the fields. I guess that sometimes I think too much.
Sometimes I think I'm not normal.
()
I wake up to the sound of the front door closing and stare at the ceiling for a moment before I propel myself out of bed. I put my futon away and open Yumiko's door.
"Hey, sleepy." I smile down at my little sister as I gently shake her awake.
"Minato?" Yumiko yawns, rubbing her eyes. "I'm up."
"Alright. I'm going to get breakfast ready," I say gently as I stand.
I pause in my room to quickly change into the work clothes I'd folded and put onto the shelf in my closet last night, then make my way downstairs. I start on breakfast, checking the rice and soup Mom had left, and pulling the fish out of our coldbox.
The fish are cooking well, and I set the tea kettle back over the fire to heat the water up again as I get to work on making rice balls for lunch.
The fish are ready by the time Yumiko comes stumbling down, yawning as she sits down. I glance up when I hear people running by outside, calling something about an outsider, but I'm off duty, so I return my attention to serving Yumiko. I'll learn about what happened at noon.
"Hey, do you think Mom will tell us about the outsider at dinner?" Yumiko asks excitedly, absently shoveling more rice into her mouth as I glance back at the open window.
"She might if you're good," I reply, glancing back down at her. "Are you all done?"
Yumiko hurriedly slurps down the rest of the soup, then nods at me. I give her a smile as I take her dishes over to the sink to be washed. It's easy enough to bend the water and the cleaning sand over the surface of the dishes to get all of the food off, and soon the both of us are putting our shoes on to go out.
I glance back down at the village when we're high enough and see the gathering around the pole with Avatar Kyoshi's statue.
Eventually we get to our fields, and I carefully check the depth of the water and the spacing of our rice as Yumiko skips alongside me. A couple times, I have to go to the canal to bend more water into a paddy to bring the water back up to the proper levels. Most of the rice paddies are wet enough though, so we finish early enough to head back to the village for lunch.
I eat quickly as Yumiko delights over the shapes I'd made the rice balls, then head upstairs to change into my uniform and paint on my makeup. Mom comes in as I rush down the stairs, and the odd look on her face makes me come up short as I wonder if I shouldn't have reported for duty earlier.
"We're fairly sure that he's not a spy for the Fire Nation, but we're going to hold him for a while longer," she murmurs to me as I pause next to her.
"Thanks," I reply softly. That's better than nothing.
I glance back at Yumiko for a second, waving goodbye, then I head out and down the mountain to the square to relieve one of the warriors on duty. I frown a little as I draw closer to the square. While it's not something I particularly take pleasure in, it is admittedly a little difficult to get entertainment sometimes on such a small island. A lot of the islanders, if they don't have anything better to do, and sometimes even if they do, tend to treat interrogations of outsiders as a public spectacle. That said, the square looks rather empty beyond the Kyoshi Warriors hanging around.
I catch Etsuka's gace across the square as I slip into the crowd, and she nods in acknowledgement.
"I don't see why I need to have a guard," an unfamiliar voice says calmly, pulling my attention to the center of the square, where there's . . . a wet fox?
"Look, kitsune-sama," Kushala says, sounding like she's at the edge of her patience.
"You can just call me by my name. Va-su-man, Vasuman, it's not that hard," the fox says.
"I'm on duty kitsune-sama," Kushala says. "We're the Kyoshi Warriors, and if you turn out to not actually be here on business from Inari, or whatever, we need someone there to prevent any damage."
Vasuman, I think to myself, turning the name over in my mind. I've heard that name before. It was -
Right. Prince Zuko's servant. Hikari talks about him sometimes, usually when she gets stuck standing with him and Prince Lu Ten's servant - Nuan? - in a corner of some room, just in case they're needed. Hikari usually talked more about Nuan, apparently Vasuman tended to be quieter.
I take a few steps forward before I remember myself and stop, but it's enough to draw the fox's eyes to me. His eyes narrow in an oddly human gesture as they look me up and down, then he turns back to Kushala.
"Alright, fine. I'll take a guard," he says.
"Good," Kushala says. "Now that we've spent all morning arguing about it . . . Etsuka?"
Etsuka steps forwards out of the crowd. I can tell by the way her eyes sweep over my section of the crowd that she'd caught Vasuman's reaction, but not my own. Still, I know exactly what's going to happen. Maybe if Vasuman wasn't a spirit, they would have put someone else on guard, but for a single spirit, the youngest Kyoshi Warrior should do. No one ever wants guard duty.
"Minato," she says, her eyes settling on me. "You'll be the guard."
Several of the others around me sigh in relief. Guarding spirits while we assess their good intentions isn't very strenuous, but it's also not very interesting. Perhaps if Vasuman had been of Agni we would have set a round the clock watch just in case someone had managed to find the rare fire spirit the Fire royal family hadn't pissed off with their declaration that spirits were just a superstitious and nonsense remainder of the Fire Nation's less developed past. For a spirit of Inari however, just a general guard will do.
"Got it," I say, moving forward to stand next to Kushala as Etsuka disperses the crowd. "Kushala, anything I should know?"
"You could just ask me," the fox says petulantly as he trots over to sit next to me.
"He says Inari sent him here to guard someone, but he won't tell us who," Kushala says, and I find myself looking down at the fox.
"Alright," I say, eyeing the fox and contemplating the odds of someone named Vasuman showing up so soon after Vasuman-who-is-Zuko's-servant left Honoiro. Normally it would take a good while to get here, but for a spirit . . . who knows. "Anything special to keep in mind?"
You should be alright," Kushala says. "You're excused from your regular duties until we've vetted him of course, but you don't need to keep too close of an eye on him."
"Got it." I glance down at the fox curled up at my feet. "Alright, you. Come on."
I head for the guest house first. Normally, we'd settle our guests there, let them pick a room and put down their things and refresh themselves after travel. By the lack of objects in the square, Vasuman doesn't have things, so I'll be grabbing him extras from communal storage, but he will likely want the bath. I've never been bad enough for blessed salt to affect me, but I've seen other spirits under the effects, and I honestly doubt that Vasuman chose to take such a small form before us when he could have easily just shifted his other form to convince us.
"Are you not going to ask why I'm here?"
I glance down at the fox trotting by my side. "You're here on orders from Inari."
"Aren't you going to ask why me?"
"Sure. Why you? Is it your name? It's Old Fire right? Or South East Earth, the Xiu peoples, right?"
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
I stop right there, in the middle of the road. Vasuman continues a few paces before he notices and turns. I stare at him for a long moment. "Fine," I say finally. "Why were you, Vasuman, chosen? If you were always a kitsune, why are you no longer with Zuko?"
Vasuman grins at me. It looks wrong on a fox's face, more threat display than happiness. "Great questions. I'd love to know the answers too."
I stare at him for another moment, then sigh and start walking again.
We're not that far from the guest house now, set apart from the main village, and as we draw closer, I eye the threshold meant to keep certain kinds of spirits from entering. I have no idea how it would react to a kitsune, but I decide not to take chances and just bring Vasuman around to the back door, where the kitchen has a gentler threshold.
"You can choose any of the rooms here as your own," I tell Vasuman as we step into the kitchen. "We don't have any other guests right now, so feel free to any of them."
As Vasuman nudges his nose into every room, I climb the stairs to the second floor, which mostly gets used for communal storage, and start digging in the chests for things Vasuman will need. Clothes and a futon, yes, but also a hygiene kit. I hesitate over underthings for a long moment, debating with myself. Most kitsune in stories take the form of a woman. I don't know how much of that is their shapeshifting and how much of that is just what legends survived, but while I didn't join the Kyoshi warriors to explore what it would be like to be viewed as a woman . . .
I grab what a woman would need too.
Back on the ground floor, I find Vasuman sitting on the windowsill of the open window, looking out into the forest. Someone must have come by earlier to air the guest house out so it wouldn't be musty after the period of disuse. I leave the futon in the room, but take the clothes and hygiene kit with me as I leave the room and make my way to the bathroom.
The water that comes from the pump is cool, but after I've filled the soaking tub and several buckets to wash with, it's not hard to heat the water up.
Careful, careful, my teacher's voice reminds me as I swish a hand through the water. Unlike with ice, I can't just bring the temperature up all at once. Too fast and the water will flash into steam and I'll burn myself. Still, it's much faster than using a fire, and soon the water's hot enough.
"Vasuman. The bath's ready," I say from the entrance of the room he's chosen.
It takes a moment before he turns away from the scenery. "Right. Right. It'll be good to get this salt out of my fur."
I wait for him outside the bathroom, listening to the sounds of water moving.
"Thanks," Vasuman says when he comes out, a bundle of clothing under one arm. "For the clothes."
I nod. Watch him go to his room to put the clothes away. Come back out to sit next to me in the common area.
He'd changed back into a human form, but . . . I don't think he put much work into it. There's nothing I can pinpoint about the way he walks, but it's not normal. I'm not sure what I saw out of the corner of my eye when he first came out, but it wasn't human. There's nothing blatant about it, but still.
"So," Vasuman says, folding his hands in his lap. "You're on guard duty. What does that mean?"
"For now, I follow you wherever you want to go."
"Anything off limits?"
"Homes you aren't invited into."
"So I can do anything?"
"Almost."
"Hmm." Vasuman turns slightly to look at me. "Alright then. What do you know about spirits?"
()
Life goes on. For the time being, I'm taken off of the active duty roster entirely, and left to practice with whichever group is off duty when I can make time.
Zuko disappears, and no one is surprised.
Vasuman never takes the form of a fox again. Still, even without the added attraction of a furry animal, when I finally take him home with me, Yumiko takes a liking to Vasuman. She starts dragging him out into the yard to show him whatever new earthbending move she learned from Mom not long after they meet. My mother is more reserved, but her attitude softens as time passes and she watches Vasuman take care of Yumiko.
(Vasuman is bewildered by my sister's attention.
"She's acting like I'm really her sibling," he says one night, staring up at the stars. "No one - I'm always just a friend, always distant. No one acts like I'm family. Hey, stop laughing!")
Time passes, and we grow into what I supposed could be called friends. I know about spirits, you can't exactly fight them if you know nothing about them, but learning about them from one is a different experience.
Vasuman tells me about spirits we haven't encountered on Kyoshi Island, about the spirit world. More, he tells me about the different logic their minds run on, about the way their emotions work. Slowly, the actions of spirits in stories that hadn't made sense to me before, the actions I assumed were made up to fit the story, resolve themselves, following the logic of the world he reveals to me.
I pass on what I learn to Hikari and Kiran in my dreams, though I don't quite think they understand. They tell me their own stories anyways, each fitting into the framework.
("The spirits don't just have one whole different culture, they have as infinitely many as you humans do," Vasuman says. "And to make communication problems worse, it's like they speak a different language.")
I only once ask him about hoshi no tama - the star balls that are said to be a part of a kitsune's power. Vasuman had readily explained so much about spirits and kitsune to me. Like how kitsune are outsiders even among spirits, with a spirit's power but the life and death of a human. He'd even explained that they were much like the avatar, charged by Inari to uphold the order. (Or at least he'd explained it after a calm, controlled rant about why exactly Inari was an idiot. It was a familiar rant. Any mention of where he came from or Inari set him off.)
(I got sidetracked at the mention of upholding order, and asked him what had happened a hundred years ago, when the Fire Nation killed the Air Nomads. He'd wrinkled his norse. "Air spirits were all getting in a huff. Some didn't want to live in the temples, and they started a war. Humans didn't really get involved, but every kitsune I knew, and several I didn't were there, trying to negotiate. We . . . we didn't realize what Sozin was doing until it was too late.")
Surely hoshi no tama were nothing in comparison to admitting a huge failure to do their job.
By the way Vasuman went pale and unresponsive . . .
I never ask again.
(I tell Kiran. I tell her about it, and about how it reminds me of the war sickness some of the older Kyoshi Warriors have. She looks thoughtful.
"There are legends," she says, "that the hoshi no tama are a kitsune's soul. You thought it was only power, but . . . imagine what someone could do to you if they got their hands on your soul. Imagine what they could make you do.")
When we were alone with nothing else to do, which happened often with me off duty and Vasuman still under watch, sometimes we would spar. Vasuman took on different human shapes, and taught me how to fight and win. Then he taught me how to fight against firebenders.
Two months after his arrival, I'm slowly put back on active duty. It starts once a week, then twice, increasing again and again until I'm back to a full four out of every seven days. The build up is annoying, reminding me of when I was even newer, but at least I'm not the only one building up to full time as several other teenagers join. Given the way I catch them watching me as I meet Vasuman and giggling, I'm fairly sure they were influenced by his arrival.
Vasuman isn't that excited by my return however. Apparently, my armour, and even my makeup can make him itchy when he gets near which is . . . it's nice to get confirmation that it has some effect on spirits, but it does make spending time together harder.
()
It starts like a storm, with black clouds in the distance on the southern horizon. People are warned, and everyone prepares for it as best they can. Firewood is taken inside, windows closed and bolted securely shut, roofs checked for leaks with the help of waterbenders and fixed promptly.
Then, someone notices the sound. It fades into the wind so neatly that until it's pointed out, I don't notice the screaming and moaning that the cloudbank brings with it. Once I do hear it, I can't stop.
I stare at the cloud, feeling cold and sick. Now that I'm actually looking instead of just dismissing it, I can see things in the cloud. I can see spirits fading in and out, driving the cloud forwards, giving it power it wouldn't have had naturally.
La is crueler than his distant wife, and the people to the south are his people. La has never taken kindly to their deaths and defeat, but something major must have happened for him to make his displeasure known in this way.
"It's finally coming," Vasuman says grimly, absently itching his arm where he'd brushed against my armour, his eyes fixed on the clouds.
"You knew?"
Vasuman turns to meet my eyes, his own the inhuman orange that shows when his emotions are running high. "The Fire Nation sent troops south on the rumour of a waterbender a couple of months ago. I figured it wouldn't end well, like every other raid they've made."
". . . That would explain it." I glance back up at the storm. "I don't think I've ever seen La this bitter."
I turn on my heel. "Vasuman, go tell everyone to stay inside. Tell them it's a spirit storm."
"What? Minato? Where are you going?"
"I need to tell the warriors how bad it's going to get. I don't know if they've noticed yet," I say, not looking back. "Go!"
()
Etsuka is out of uniform when I find her, but she listens to me, glances up at the cloud and goes pale. She tells me to get back home, and to send my mother out.
"You don't need me?" I ask and she shakes her head.
"It's not that we don't need you, Minato. I'm not letting anyone but adults fight."
"Why?" I ask, though I have the dreadful feeling that I already know.
Her expression is grim, even as she answers me. "If this goes the way I think it will, anyone who fights will die."
I nod, salute her, and head home. Vasuman is already there, pacing, and he tells me Mom left already. Yumiko is curled up in a ball in the linen closet. It's the safest place in the house right now: on the first floor and without any outside walls. Vasuman and I join her, and not minutes after that, the wind hits the house with enough force to make it shudder, and the old timbers creak.
I close my eyes and pray.
To La. I don't ask him to stop because I can't disagree with anger, but I try to remind him that I'm still here, that there are waterbenders here on Kyoshi Island, that we're his people too.
To Tui. I ask her to calm down her husband.
To Lady Kun of the Earth, for Yumiko and my mother. I ask for protection, for the stability of the house.
To Inari, much as Vasuman hates him. I ask if this is truly balance.
To the Avatar, wherever they are that prevents them from interfering. I ask for power.
I ask the Avatar for power because when Kyoshi removed us from the mainland, she didn't just cut the land, but many of the spiritual ties we held as well. We no longer fall under the authority of the Earth Kings, and no priest who has come since has stayed for long because they find that we are outside of their jurisdiction. We had to learn to hold our own, spiritually, and a large part of that is the Kyoshi Warriors, who petitioned Avatar Kyoshi for the authority needed to banish and control spirits in a domain.
So I ask the Avatar for power because the Avatar is where we get our power from.
All of this means it is my mother out there right now, fighting to keep us safe. It means that Etsuka, and Kushala, and anyone they allowed are chanting and dancing and doing everything they can to keep up a barrier to protect our village so that the storm spirits are too weak to cross our thresholds and get into our homes. It means that in the other villages on Kyoshi Island, Kyoshi Warriors are standing against the spirits La has brought to bear.
Before this many angry spirits normal humans, even those endowed with the authority that allows them to fight, will dissolve like paper in a fire dissolves to ashes. Many of the Kyoshi Warriors will die.
And sitting in the linen closet, one arm wrapped around Yumiko as she huddles into me and cries, that's all I can think about. I turn my thoughts over and over in my mind until I can't stand them anymore.
And when I can't stand them anymore, I gently press Yumiko into turning to cling to Vasuman instead, and I leave the linen closet. I close the door behind me and draw water from the humid air around me to freeze it shut.
"Minato!" Vasuman calls, pounding on the door, seconds too late. "Minato what are you doing?!"
"I have to go out there," I say, leaning forward to rest my forehead on the door. "I have to help."
"Minato, you're going to get yourself killed!"
"Maybe," I say. "But I can't just sit there. Keep Yumiko safe for me."
I open the front door and stare out into the storm as rain whips my cheeks. Then I step out of the shelter of the house.
I don't . . . really know what happens next. It goes something like this:
()
-pain pain pain, I gasp. I try to stand again, to run, but my leg only gives out. A hand wrenches me around to look at a white metal skull and a sword flashes in the bright sunlight above me -
-running down the familiar streets, mud clinging to my shoes-
-I try to swallow, but my throat is still painfully dry. I can hear moans from those around me, but I pay them no attention. I can hear the soldiers arguing about how they are going to give us water, and I let my head roll listlessly back. I will likely be dead before they decide-
-sliding to a stop in the mud of the square to spare a bow for the statue of Avatar Kyoshi-
-Not my children! I throw myself in front of them, and the fireball impacts my back. I only just manage not to scream, but I can't help dropping to my knees. Ulva rushes to me with the familiar concern in her eyes-
-running up to Etsuka, "Minato what are you -"
-I throw my weight into the movements, pushing desperately at the ship, bringing it out of the water. Others join in, lightening the load, and I manage to freeze the water before it crashes out of our control, leaving it ice bound and useless to the great Fire -
"-need to help, I know you won't let me help with the barrier, but there has to be something-"
-I feel sick to my stomach as I watch my child push and pull at the water in her cup. She was my last hope. Now, she is the last of my children who will be delivered to the waves-
"-a memorial fire because we can't appease the spirits directly and it's not like we could bury their to their standards at this distance-"
-I clench my fingers at the black snow falling, then quickly, bitterly bring the net in. Another day of not food-
"-needed a waterbender, we hoped that someone of their element would somehow make it work-"
-Ama! But I can't move, I have to hold myself still, and I stare at the soldier on the other side of the thin wall with hatred,even as I do not dare to breathe-
"-I can do it-"
-I stare at the black snow falling into my hand in confusion. Are the spirits mad? I've never seen anything like this-
"-La, my lord, Of Oceans Deep-"
-Water is also ice, and so we follow its patterns to stand firm against the Fire Nation, sharp formations work better for battles like these-
-there's a screaming as a spirit from the storm comes rushing at me and then through me as the clouds draw away-
()
"Minato. Minato!"
I groan and wave a hand at Vasuman as he shakes my shoulders. "Lemme sleep."
There's a sob, which makes me pause, then I sit up - and knock heads with Vasuman.
"Ow," I say, blinking up at the clear blue sky above.
"You're alive," Vasuman says, scrambling back up. His hands trace up my shoulders to cup my face, then he leans forwards to set our foreheads together again - gently this time. He's not even trying to hide that he's a spirit - his eyes are the orangest I've seen them, and his teeth are wrong and the lines of his face have shifted sharper. "You're alive, you idiot. How do you feel?"
". . . Not good," I say. "Am I . . . I'm not dead?"
Vasuman lets out another sob as he shakes his head.
"Right . . ." Then I remember Vasuman's reaction to my armour, and I gently push him back and grab his hands. They're red, almost like a burn, and they look a little like they might get worse, but not too bad. "Are you alright? And Yumiko?"
"We're fine, idiot. Your ice took forever to melt and the storm was over by the time we got out."
"And the other Kyoshi Warriors?" I ask, not looking up.
". . . Most of them are dead. But not all of them."
()
The aftermath is bad. Like Vasuman said, most of the Kyoshi Warriors are dead. A few agreed to stay as teachers, but most of them had to resign from active duty. Suki, one of the Warriors my age and the headman's daughter, is nominated as leader of our village's Kyoshi Warriors. She's uncertain at first, but she makes a good leader, and she slowly grows into her position.
Kiran and Hikari yell at me in my dreams when I tell them about going out into the spirit storm, but then they cry and hug me.
Mom . . . never comes home. We have a small ceremony to burn her body and honor her memory. Yumiko is confused at first, but then I explain to her that it's like Dad, and Ama and Apa. Mom isn't coming back. I'm still not entirely sure what she thinks, but she seems to bounce back quickly.
()
Then one of the old Kyoshi Warriors dies without warning in the middle of a lesson.
It's not good. No one can find any sign that she was injured. She hadn't been sick according to her brother, just more tired than normal.
Vasuman comes with me to look at the body. While I'm talking with Suki and some of the other Kyoshi Warriors who survived the storm, he crouches down, puts his hand on her shoulder, and closes his eyes.
He hisses after a moment, bounding to his feet and grabbing at me to pull me away from the others.
"What-"
"It's a spiritual injury," he says, his eyes going slightly unfocused. "It must have been caused by the storm - I thought if you survived it then you survived it, you were fine, but they must have left non fatal wounds that you didn't know how to treat."
He lets go of me as his eyes refocus, stepping back. He looks . . . "You're hurt too, Minato."
I take a moment to process that, looking over at the woman on the floor still. I take a breath. "How long do I have?"
"You've got . . . you've got some time still." He steps back, rubbing at his hand. He hadn't quite healed from grabbing me after the storm, and some of his skin comes off with the motion like a peeling sunburn. "I need to go."
"Wait!" I call, starting off after him, but he disappears around the corner of a house and is gone when I get there.
"Minato, what do I do?" Suki asks, close enough behind me to make me startle. "We didn't cover spiritual wounds when we were training. It was mostly you succeed or you die."
"Well." I pause. "You're the leader, right? Who else needs to know?"
"The other Kyoshi Warriors who survived the storm," Suki says. She nods then turns to the Warriors we'd been talking to, the kids whose lesson had been interrupted. "Come here! Choko, go get Hua. Hifumi, get-"
I don't listen to her.
I turn on my heel and start up the mountain my house is on. I climb up, up, up, past my house, past the rice fields. And there, sitting at the top of the mountain, is Vasuman.
It's not the farthest you can go while still being on the island, but it is pretty isolated. There's a taboo around climbing to the top because it's said that the spirit world is closer to our world at the tops of mountains.
I've been up here often enough with Vasuman that I barely hesitate to step up. I strip off the armour as I walk across it, leaving only my loose pants and undershirt by the time I sit down next to Vasuman so that it doesn't hurt him when I wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him in close.
"I got my second tail last month," he says abruptly. "During the spirit storm. I didn't even notice until I found out you were alive. Your armour . . . grabbing it should have burned me more than it did, if I only had one tail."
". . . Your second tail?" I ask. "Does that mean you're only a century old?"
"Yes."
I squeeze him slightly. "Alright."
"There's a way for humans to treat spiritual injuries," Vasuman says. "There should be spirit healers on the mainland if you go asking."
"That's good," I say. "I won't have to ask you to take care of Yumiko then."
"You don't have enough time to find that cure."
". . . Oh."
"There's also a way I could treat your injury," Vasuman says.
Something about the way he says it makes me think . . . I shift, pushing at his shoulders until he's looking at me. "You know you don't need to, right?"
He closes his eyes. He almost seems to shrink until sitting in his place is a fox with two tails. "Remember this, okay. I actually managed a second tail."
"Vasuman," I say. "You're scaring me right now."
"I'm not going to die," he says. "I promise. . . . Will you let me heal you?"
"You won't be hurt?" I ask, searching his face.
"No."
". . . Alright."
"Close your eyes and hold out your hands."
I do as he tells me. On one of my hands, he puts what feels like a pearl, warm from body heat. He uses my other hand to cover it, then lets out a shaky breath.
"Alright," he says. "Alright."
And then the world goes weird.
The sound of the wind around us is no longer white noise but a sea of voices.
The mountain beneath us is grumbling about being removed from its brothers and moved, telling me sternly that it is sedimentary rock, that its whole deal is that it sits unmoving under pressure for a good while, and that introducing all that lava was quite rude.
There's the ocean around us, La's great slow humming under the brighter sounds of the elephant koi and the rivers and all of the tides and the sea and ripples and eddies.
There's the sun high above us, asking the moon what she thought of her people's decision to sail off and fight and the sound of footsteps. There's all of the little fires in the village whispering in excitement as they are stoked or in dread as they are banked.
There's Vasuman before me whispering spirit to heal spirit and he wouldn't do it you don't have to worry and damn Inari to the chaos that troubles him so and can't lose another friend, not if I can help it.
Then suddenly I snap back to my body and the world is as it was before.
I don't open my eyes. I can't feel Vasuman's hands anymore. "Vasuman?"
There's a sharp high bark, then I yelp and drop the ball when something bites me. I scramble to grab it, but I can't feel anything as I feel around on the ground.
"Vasuman!"
There's another sharp bark, then something furry buts up against my hand. I pause.
"Vasuman?"
The bark comes again.
"Can I open my eyes?"
Vasuman barks again.
I open my eyes, and blink down as the small fox.
"Oh. Is this why you wanted me to know about your second tail?"
Vasuman nods, the human gesture odd on his fox form.
I hesitate for a long moment.
"Can I pick you up?" I ask.
Vasuman nods again.
We make our way down the mountain, and I tell Suki about what Vasuman told me. All around me, eyes are on Vasuman, but no one says anything.
I let Vasuman down as I walk home. It's past dark by now, and Yumiko's sitting outside on Susumu and Taro's porch, with Susumu sitting silently beside her, doing some trick with his bending to keep a nut floating between his two palms as they wait.
Yumiko lights up when she sees me but then she looks around and well, her reaction is telling of both the way she's handled Mom's death and just how much time Vasuman and I spend together.
"Minato!" she wails as she comes running down the path to thump into me hard enough to make me stumble back and drop the bundle of my armour. "Minato," she sobs, looking up at me, the full moon overhead providing ample light to see the big tears welling up in her eyes, "I don't want Vasuman to go like Mom did, Minato I know you said Mom was too far gone to the spirit world to get her back, but Vasuman was just here for lunch with us, he can't be that far yet, can't you get him back still?"
For a long moment, I don't quite understand what she said. Then I look up to see Susumu, frozen on the path behind her, staring at me, and for another long moment I'm caught up in the world where Vasuman had lied to me and died healing me, my breath catching in my throat.
Then there's a short, almost snapping "Ah, ah!" from around my ankles as fur brushes against them, and I breath out in relief as I - well I don't drop to my knees because Yumiko's got a pretty good grip on me, but I manage to lift her up so that I'm carrying her and I rock her as I say, "Oh, Yumiko, darling, no, Vasuman's alright. I promise you he's not going anywhere any soon."
"What?" Yumiko asks, pulling back slightly. "He's not? But, if Vasuman's not gone like Mom is, then why isn't he here?" She pauses, then scowls. "Are your sisters being silly about him because he's from off island again? Minato let me down! Lemme go, I gotta go yell at them, that's our brother they're talking shit about-"
"Woah!" I say, leaning back from her flailing arms and frowning at Yumiko. "Yumiko! Who taught you that language!"
"Oops," Susumu says as he comes to a stop next to us and leans down to pick up my armour. "Sorry, Minato."
"I'm not sorry at all," Yumiko says stubbornly, crossing her arms. "Any bad words they say about my brother deserve to be called-"
"Oookay," Susumu says ,clapping his free hand over her mouth. "Maybe forget I said that word for now. You can say it when you won't get me in trouble with your big brother."
Yumiko pries off Susumu's hand, then slumps sulkily in my hold. "It's true."
"If he's not dead, then where is he?" Susumu asks, scanning the path behind me. "When I heard what happened-"
"I'm fine," I say quickly. "As for Vasuman . . ." I shift Yumiko to the side slightly so I can see the orange shape at my feet, brushing against my ankles. "Yumiko, you remember what I said about how Vasuman is a kitsune?"
"Yeah?" Yumiko asks, wrinkling her nose. "He wasn't a very good fox though. He was always shaped like a human."
Her proclamation makes me sigh a little as I kneel so I can set her down carefully. "Well, something happened, and he's a little stuck as a fox right now."
"What- Oh!" Yumiko gasps in delight as Vasuman pushes his way between us. She barely looks at me for permission before she's petting him, and I have to grab her hand before she gets too far.
"How do we pet animals again?" I ask her gently, setting her hand on my own arm.
"Oh," she says, making sure she's gentle as she briefly pats my arm, making sure her strokes are gentle and smooth. Then she glances down at Vasuman. "I'm sorry. Can I try again?"
Vasuman nods, making her gasp in delight, and Yumiko starts petting him again, carefully this time.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Susumu asks quietly as I stand back up.
"Yeah. I'll be fine. It's why Vasuman's stuck like that - I think he had to use a lot of power to make sure of it, but we should be fine." I pause to watch as Yumiko and Vasuman start heading back up the path towards Susumu and Taro's house. "As for the others who survived the storm . . . he said there was another way to heal them - there are spirit healers on the mainland who can do it. Apparently I didn't have enough time for us to go find one so . . . I don't think everyone's going to make it."
"Right," Susumu says. "Right." After a moment he throws his free arm over my shoulders and knocks his head gently against mine. "I'm glad you're alright. Now take your stupid heavy armour."
()
That night, the dreamscape has changed when I open my eyes. Or, well. It changes from dream to dream anyways, but I'm not talking about the geography of the dream. I'm talking about sitting up in Hikari's favorite garden and turning to see Vasuman waking up next to me, more human than I've ever seen him before.
He blinks at me for a long lazy moment before he bolts upright to stare back at me.
"So, Ice Cube, what did you get yourself into this time?" Kiran asks from behind me, making me whip around.
"The palace?" I hear Vasuman mutter behind me as I reach out to him, instinct honed by the more normal spirits we'd fought off together in the months before the spirit storm. I can feel him turn, then still. ". . . and you must be Kiran of Baoshan. The last of the trio."
"At your service," Kiran says, bringing one fist up to thump her chest in the manner of a Baoshan city guard, not taking her eyes off of Vasuman. "And you are?"
"Vasuman of Inari."
Kiran eyes him for a moment, then she snorts. "Good to meet you. It'll be nice to see how true the stories are."
"Stories?" Vasuman asks, raising an eyebrow as he turns to me.
"Both Hikari and I know you, and you're my best friend," I say archly. "What did you expect?"
"Mhm. Now, Minato. What did you do this time?"
She's not pleased, and neither is Hikari when she hears how close I came to death.
He had . . . days, Vasuman said, his fingers tightening on mine. Hikari was as still as death, arms tight around me, and Kiran had settled into the mindset I'd only seen last time Gopan got seriously injured and she wasn't sure he was going to make it through the night.
()
Suki spreads word to the other villages on Kyoshi Island, and together we send an expedition to the mainland. More of the older generation die while they are gone, but a majority are saved by the arrival of the healer.
When the healer has gone over everyone else and started healing (though it seems that their method is slower, as they warned that they had not finished healing any of them), Suki drags me to see them.
"I'm fine," I hiss at Suki as she pulls me into the familiar main hall of the guest house.
"Yeah, well, I want a second opinion. I don't need you keeling over because Vasuman's not a healer and didn't pick up on the problem," Suki hisses right back as she sits me down in front of the healer and parks herself behind me. In a more normal voice, she says, "Healer Kanti, this is Minato, the last person out in the storm. He had some assistance already, but I would like to be sure of his health."
The healer nods, then turns to me, pausing halfway through the motion of reaching out. "May I?"
I eye them for a moment, then sigh and uncross my arms. "Go ahead."
Healer Kanti has barely touched me (memories that are not my memories tell me - that felt like healing, like water glowing, like flesh knitting back together) before they draw their hands back and smile.
"A wuxi! My, I haven't seen one of you in years," the healer says.
A wuxi. That's what I am now. Half spirit - enough spirit that even rooted to the ordered physical world as I am, I can heal from the wounds I gained. Enough spirit that Vasuman lost a whole tail, a century's worth of power. Enough of Vasuman's spiritual power that I smell like Inari to other spirits, enough of Vasuman's spiritual power that I can see spirits where they're half between the physical world and the spiritual world. And with my waterbending to compare against, enough of Vasuman's spiritual power that if he'd been an elemental spirit, I might have been able to bend another element.
A wuxi, which Vasuman warned me, had become rather rare almost a century ago, when spirits were too busy trying to survive the upheaval of Sozin's attempt to eliminate every human aligned with Air that he could find.
I narrow my eyes.
"But you have seen one."
My reply seems to catch them off guard.
"Ah, yes." Kanti watches me for a long moment, brows furrowed. "If I may ask, who-"
"Vasuman!" I call, half turning. He comes in from where he'd been lurking outside the door, reaching back at me so that our hands are tangled together by the time he's taken his seat next to me.
"Oh," Kanti says. Then again, "Oh", softly as they frown. "Vasuman, I thought your assignment was on Honoiro, with the prince?"
Vasuman's made his opinion on his assignment here clear before, and though I don't think he truly regrets it any longer . . . sometimes I'll find him on the summit of the mountain, looking north with a blank expression on his face.
My gaze catches on Suki as I look away. She almost looks like she regrets bringing me here. Then her eyes meet mine, and her expression goes firm.
"Are you at least happy?" Healer Kanti asks into the silence that had fallen between all of us as I look back.
"Maybe someday," Vasuman says, lifting our hands.
It hurts sometimes, in a way it hadn't when he first came here. I want Vasuman to be happy here.
But then, I think about how I would feel if I had to leave Yumiko and . . .
I can't go yet. Vasuman's assignment right now is me, and I can't go yet. But once we've built up the Kyoshi Warriors again, once Yumiko's a little older . . .
It wouldn't be too hard to get a ride to the mainland. I might have to work to pay our passage there. And when we get there, we can go find Zuko.
I just hope he's alright in the meantime.
So I'm on to the next part of this. Credit to the lovely DoctorSmithAndJones, for bouncing ideas and encouraging me. Thank you! Credit to Musings of an Ujiko, for the prayer.
Edit: This is the revised version on the chapter. The original was published March 17, 2017, this version was uploaded June 11th, 2020. I've been unstatisfied with the original for a while so I finally got together with DoctorSmithAndJones once again to give it an overhaul. I hope you like this new version. If not, the original can be found in Dribbles 2.