-o-Hello World! I know you're excited to hear back from me, so you'll enjoy this news: I will be updating at least twice more before Friday!! Why you ask? Good question! My two darling friends Dizappearingirl and Andante and I are co-writing a most excellent/amazing sci-fi story/series over at Fictionpress. Our name is Cak Jmaack and I'd be forever grateful it if you'd check out our profile for more info!!

Anyway, Andante "Alisanne" has been procrastinating her next chapter, so we cut a deal that I'd update three fanfiction thingies, Dizgirl would update her Danny Phantom story, and she would finally churn out the amazingness! This is number 1 of my promised submissions!

Okay, my shameless plugging is over now. On to the fic!-o-

-o-

Culture Clash

At nineteen, Avatar Kyoshi was well accustomed to the stares and whispers that accompanied her arrival in any new town, and the Northern Water Tribe was no exception. She was taller than most of the women and many of the men, and with her stark white costume makeup and bright green Earth Kingdom colors, she stood out like a sore thumb among the blue-and-white coats of the natives. Nevertheless, she possessed a grace that was certainly beyond her (physical) years and the attention didn't faze her too much these days. She was grateful to be hiding behind the mask of her "Avatar face," which obscured whatever external signs of the gnawing discomfort she was certainly feeling inside. With a deep breath she forced calmness upon herself. She hadn't yet faced a sticky situation she hadn't been able to work through, and despite the blossoming nervousness she had no doubts that learning this last element, water, would not prove too difficult. After all, she had done it before.

"Ah! Avatar! Did you sleep well?" A portly man pushed his way out of the crowd that seemed to be procrastinating their duties to catch a glimpse of her. She recognized him as the chief of this settlement. He was not a Waterbender himself, but Kyoshi understood that he was an effective, just leader, and the people themselves seemed happy and content under his rule.

"Very well, Chief Setu. I assume I am to begin my training today?"

"Of course!" he bowed and indicated the pathway to his left. "If you will follow me..."

The crowd parted. and as she was led through the streets Kyoshi found herself momentarily confused. Earlier, she had seen a few young men practice their Waterbending in a large icy field nearer to the docks--the opposite direction from where they were now heading. Still, despite her paranoia, she could detect no doubt in the cheerful leader's footsteps as they progressed through the frozen streets, and had seen no conflict in his expression as he directed her along this route. For an uncertain reason there had been some reluctance in Kyoshi's mind about her decision to come to the Northern Water Tribe for her training, but she hadn't wanted to exclude them from contact with the Avatar--her previous incarnation had been from the South. Kyoshi was still arguing against the illogical uncertainty she was feeling when Chief Setu's footsteps halted suddenly in front of a small, cozy-looking hut. An elderly woman bowed from the doorway.

"Avatar Kyoshi...it is truly humbling to have this opportunity. The Northern Water Tribe hasn't trained an Avatar in many, many generations. My name is Yasmin." The Waterbender spoke in a warm, gravelly voice, gracing her new pupil with a smile as righted herself from her bow.

"Spare me the formalities, Sifu Yasmin," Kyoshi responded graciously. "It is you who will be teaching me."

Chief Setu looked vaguely uncomfortable as the two women entered the hut, as if he were unwilling to follow them inside. Kyoshi assumed that it was his uneasiness as a non-bender, and wasn't at all surprised when he backed out with a slightly strained but pleasant smile.

"Good luck then!" he wished before turning away. Kyoshi looked around the hut, observing the clay human-likeness on the table. The room obviously was a classroom of sorts, and though there were only two mats set out currently she could see how a larger group of students would fit in here for lessons. Despite the normality of the settings, peace of mind did not settle in. Something about the way the room looked, how it smelled...it just wasn't what she had expected at all.

"Nervous?" Sifu Yasmin asked, kneeling on one of the mats in front of the dummy. Kyoshi smiled almost guiltily, and nodded quickly. Now was not the time for silly doubts and stray thoughts. She was supposed to be learning the art of Waterbending.

She eased herself onto the mat opposing her new teacher, schooling her face into a mask of concentration. "I'm ready to begin any time."

-o-

Several hours later, Kyoshi had managed to memorize the key points of the body that were most useful for healing with waterbending. Sifu Yasmin had declared that her training was over for the day, and Kyoshi had returned to her hut with her mind in a blur. It wasn't as if she had been confused by any of the topics covered in the day's lesson, all of which seemed fairly self-explanatory. Rather, she was confused by the curious omission of what she had expected to learn.

Healing is a useful art, but I'm sure that as the Avatar I'll need to use Waterbending for different reasons...I've never used these techniques in the Avatar Spirit before…in fact, I'm not sure if what I learned today can even be USED for fighting...These thoughts raced through her mind as she made her way back towards the house the village had set aside for her stay. Her heavy boots crunched through the snow and the chill wind whipped her hair in every direction. Kyoshi found refuge from the cold in her temporary home, where a fire was burning brightly and a warm meal was already prepared. Her headache, however, proved that it would take more than material comforts to ease the conflict in her mind.

Ignoring the food waiting for her on the table, Kyoshi sank into the meditative stance that she had adopted from the Airbenders, intent on receiving counsel from her past lives. She reasoned that surely her precedents knew whether this was all part of the normal Waterbending process or if (as she suspected) she was victim of some sort of misunderstanding. Kyoshi inhaled peace and exhaled confusion, letting tranquility fill her. When she felt her soul quiet enough to gain access to her previous selves, she let her doubts about this new training leak into her consciousness. In response, thousands of voices began to whisper inside of her, waking and each making known their opinion on the matter, slowly gaining focus and force. One voice floated into her ears above all others, cutting through the soft mess of the other voices with a prejudiced clarity.

"They're all chauvinistic pigs."

Kyoshi opened her eyes and found herself in the Eastern Air temple chamber filled with statues of past Avatars. Of course, this was the Spirit World version of the same place, so the stone statues were able to move and identify who was speaking. The owner of the previous explanation was an Airbender woman from several hundred generations back. Her stone likeness revealed animated, opinionated features.

"That's not true," protested the Avatar next to her, a large man whom evidently originated from the Water Tribe in question. "It's just a--"

"A way of keeping the women subservient!" exclaimed an Earthbender further down the line.

"I'm not sure if that is what the rule is intended to do," a male Firebending Avatar put in. "But I've always thought it was unfair."

"Yeah! Gender doesn't determine bending capabilities!"

"It's not about capabilities, it's about a woman's place-"

Shouts of disagreement echoed throughout the cavern and Kyoshi was whisked from face to face as each tried to tell her the truth behind the Northern Water Tribe's sexist rules about waterbending.

"Men and women are different and have different roles-"

"-women should not be defined by their bodies-"

"-it's a man's responsibility to protect women, and-"

"-being Avatar is a special circumstance in the way-"

Kyoshi brought her hands up to her ears, trying to drown out the cacophony of voices. No wonder she had been conflicted about coming here, if even her past lives had such widely dispersed opinions about the situation. If women were only taught the healing aspect of Waterbending, of course many of her previous incarnations would go to the Southern Tribe for their training. It was far better to avoid conflict, if you knew about it...if only Kyoshi had been smart enough to consult her selves before traveling all the way here. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed the chaos to stop.

Cool hands covered her own, and the teenage Avatar found herself looking into the startlingly blue eyes of one of her past lives. Long, jet-black hair flowed in the air despite the lack of wind to keep it there. This woman was petite, dainty, and very feminine--a sharp contrast to her current Earthbending reincarnation. With a graceful gesture she indicated the ground below, and Kyoshi realized that once again her location had changed. They were on the tallest ice towers in the Northern Water Tribe's lookout station, sunlight gleaming brilliantly all around them in the fading light of the sunset. From this vantage point she could see the entire village sprawling below her, the tiny dots of people manuvering in between the maze-like walls of the buildings as they went about their business, oblivious to their presence.

"It's different, isn't it?" she asked, her voice a soft soprano. "Different from the village you grew up with, that is. And it's different from the monasteries of the Airbenders or the Fire Nation towns, too."

"It is," Kyoshi, agreed, unsure if she was supposed to be speaking at all, or just observing. Snowflakes trickled through the air around them towards the gleaming ice structures below. It was beautiful and completely unlike anything she had ever seen before. Memories came to her unbidden of the Earth Kingdom bazaars she'd visited as a child and the smiles of the young female monks she'd befriended in her frequent trips to the Western Air Temple. She remembered stepping off the boat onto the wooden planks of the Fire Nation dock, and countless recollections of her adventures and training across the globe. She remembered Kiran's laugh as he led her through the bright maze of a Fire Nation New Years festival, and from there once again all the complicated feelings that came when she thought of that handsome Firebender.

"Our lives are complicated by the very nature of being who we are," the words drew her from her memories, and Kyoshi looked again into the deep blue eyes that once had been hers. "We are born and raised in one nation, but we must belong to all four nations equally. It's hard, sometimes, to be the Avatar. It's hard not letting our own experience affect how we deal with what is foreign and yet not-so-foreign to us. It is hard, sometimes, to know when to break tradition...and when to protect it." This time a weighty silence alerted her that a response was expected.

"You're..You're from the Northern Water Tribe," Kyoshi whispered and was rewarded with a serene nod. "How did you live like this? Don't you think that it is unfair that women are unjustly excluded?"

"The tradition that the Northern Water Tribe has about bending differs from most of the rest of the world. What outsiders don't seem to realize is that this is a cultural belief."

"Does that make it right?" Kyoshi demanded. Her incarnation's response was just as swift.

"What makes it wrong?"

"The women--"

"Are perfectly content in their roles as the healers and the mothers. Occasionally one or two will break out, reject the customs...but for the most part, this way of life has survived because it is a very effective system. The people are happy this way."

"Are they content because they are truly happy, or because they don't know any better way?"

"Does it matter? This isn't a matter of corruption and deceit. Women aren't forced into doing anything, and in no way do they feel subservient to the men. They are content because they have a different way of viewing things."

Kyoshi opened her mouth, ready to decry this argument, but nothing came out. Her feminist logic warred with her desire to maintain peace. A part of her--perhaps even the part of her that was this pale, dark haired Watertribe woman--understood the appeal of such a social structure. Just because she, Kyoshi, didn't happen to agree with it, didn't mean that she couldn't accept and even respect the difference.

"That doesn't change the fact that a misogynistic system is outdated in today's society," she argued finally. "Someday, someone will step forward and overthrow it."

"Perhaps," the dark-haired Avatar admitted with a shrug. "But is that a role that the Avatar should fill?"

Even Kyoshi had to admit that no, it was not. It would have been an entirely different matter if this struggle had been voiced by the Northern Watertribe's female benders themselves, not her 'outsider' opinion of their culture. Could she honestly say that her way was better, when she knew so very little about this people? It would not be fitting, as an Avatar, to demand a complete change in their way of life, when all she brought was her own biased opinion. Such a demand would call into question her authority and motive, and would likely cause contention between families in the Northern Water Tribe. She could see now why there had been no change made already, despite many of her previous selves' strong opinions on the matter. She did not have to agree or even like those cultural traditions...but it was her duty as Avatar to at least respect it.

"Then what should I do?" she asked, looking to the gray wisps of clouds above them, still sprinkling snow. "I'm not sure that if I only master the healing uses of Waterbending it will be all I need to fulfill my role as Avatar. What did you do?" Kyoshi turned to her petite incarnation, who answered thoughtfully.

"I respected my culture's tradition spent many years mastering the art of Healing right here in the Northern Water Tribe. When I was sixteen, I left to master the other three elements." Unexpectedly, her grave features split into a wicked grin as she looked into the distance, remembering. "And after thatI traveled to the South Pole and learned how to really Waterbend."

Kyoshi was still smiling when she rejoined her body in the physical plane, and in complete agreement with her predecessor's course of action.

-o-

-o-This is just something I've been kicking around in my head for a while. It's influenced a lot by the great Isaia's fan art, especially "Revolutionary Girl Katara" and "Tui and La." I'm not sure I got the right feel I wanted for this, but I guess I just really feel strongly on this subject. Cultures are different, and a practice that may be discriminatory to one person may be the way of life for another--and no one can prove that either side is "right" or "wrong." They're just different. Western minds have this nasty habit of forcing their opinions down everone's throat--like the obvious anti-arranged-marriage message of Mulan II--and completely making a mess of things. Mulan was such a sucess because it respected Chinese culture while still sending a strong messageof Girl Power. The sequel completely threw out that cultural respect and Americanized everything, mocking the depth and tradition of the original. Grr...When are people gonna start realizing that you can't judge someone by your standards if theirs are completely different?! The only one who can do that is God!

On a side note, I have come to have a deeper appreciation for Avatar Kyoshi...I'll definitely be writing about her again! And my smexy firebending OC Kiran, too! I'd love you forever if you reviewed!! And don't forget to check out Cak Jmaack on fictionpress!!!