History of Kyoshi (296 BG)

The year 296 BG marked a drastic change in Kyoshi's life. A simple servant up to this point, her identity as Avatar was revealed, resulting in great tribulations and the loss of friends. However, she also found new companionship with the members of the Flying Opera Company, while starting her romantic relationship with Rangi.
== Suspicions ==
One day in 296 BG, when Kyoshi and Kelsang were helping out in the kitchens, staff head Mui urged those present to recite some poetry as she often did. Jokingly, Kelsang got the rest of the workers reciting improvised poetry to the tune of a sailor's song. Kyoshi decided to take a turn and just started saying whatever first came to her mind, but unknowingly repeated a love poem Avatar Kuruk had written years ago. After she finished, Kelsang demanded to know where she had learned the song, but she insisted that she just made it up. Kelsang took her out of the kitchen to an empty study and explained his suspicions, telling her that the traditional method to find the Earth Avatar after Kuruk had failed, and about the unconventional way Yun had been discovered. After relocating out of the dusty study to the servant's room so that no one would hear them, he revealed to Kyoshi the truth about the song. It was meant to be a confession to Hei-Ran, future mother of Rangi, two months after her marriage to Junsik. Only Kelsang knew it had ever existed, as Kuruk had asked him to read it over for him, and the Air Nomad had consequently forced him to destroy it in front of him.
The poem caused Kelsang to question whether or not Yun actually was the Avatar, as he still was not able to bend any elements other than his native element of earth. While Kyoshi had not shown any such indication herself, Kelsang also knew that she had chosen one of the Avatar relics from among the toys when she was younger, even if she had forgotten its origin. As he had seen with his own eyes, she still had it in her possession on a shelf in her room. Kelsang agreed with Kyoshi's request to keep this revelation to themselves for the time being as they did not want to invalidate Yun as the Avatar right when a treaty was about to be signed with the ruthless band of pirates known as the Fifth Nation. Later on, when Yun was leaving to sign the treaty with the Fifth Nation, he asked Kyoshi to join him and she agreed.
== Going about her chores with Rangi and Yun ==
Kyoshi thus tried to continue with her life as if nothing had happened, going about her chores and having some fun with Rangi and Yun. When the latter two organized a mock duel to assess his training progress, Yun roped Kyoshi into supporting the Fire National. Their sparring was interrupted by Mui, however, who ordered Kyoshi to pick up some ingredients. Yun saw this as a wonderful opportunity to temporarily escape the restrictions of the Avatar mansion by assisting his friend. Despite Rangi's protests, Yun could not be swayed and expressed excitment at witnessing "a day in the life of Kyoshi". The servant girl responded that he would be disappointed, as her life was "pretty unremarkable compared to yours".
The trio subsequently made their way to the nearby port to buy some elephant koi fillet. There, they encountered some suspicious figures trying to intimidate the fishers into selling their wares under market prices. Yun promptly intervened, and the group were forced to fight off the "traders" who turned out to be pirates. After the locals celebrated Yun, Kyoshi urged the trio to wrap up their business, as she did not want to be late with her deliveries. However, Yun revealed that he had already promised the fishers to further investigate the pirates' activities. To the frustration of both Kyoshi and Rangi, the group began to look for clues. After getting increasingly fed up with the situation, Kyoshi forcefully proposed that they should seek out what appeared to be the pirates' leader at the central port area and just confront him. The pirate leader, Taliriktug, proved eager to test his mettle against "Avatar" Yun, but was defeated and driven off with his followers. A local fisher promptly gifted his elephant koi fillet to Yun in gratitude, allowing Kyoshi to deliver the fish to the kitchen to be prepared for Elephant-Koi Shui Zhu Yu.
Kyoshi, Yun, and Rangi then walked into the peninsula's interior to aquire wild crab-urchins and dried soybeans. At the river, the servant girl showcased a way to catch crab-urchins to the "Avatar" and his bodyguard until they heard crying. The group investigated and discovered a child who had become trapped on an islet in the river due to the high tide. Yun saw this as an opportunity to strengthen Kyoshi's self-confidence and earthbending, instructing her to create an ad hoc bridge to save the child. With some support by Rangi and Yun, Kyoshi succeeded, though the child only thanked the "Avatar" before going home. Kyoshi claimed that she was fine with Yun getting credit as long as the child was safe, and then continued to catch crab-urchins. The group subsequently delivered their catch to the mansion for Crab-Urchin Stir-Fry.
Finally, the trio went to the local farmer whose dried soy beans were the best in all of Yokoya. However, Kyoshi warned her friends that the farmer could be difficult. Upon their arrival, the old man promptly informed them that he could not sell them more soy beans as the Yokoyans had already bought up his supply and he would always put his own people before the outsiders of the Avatar mansion. Considering the farmer's poor mood, Kyoshi expressed her readiness to give up, but Yun then proposed that he could make more room for the farmer to store his soy beans. After skillfully using earthbending to create a new cave, the cranky farmer agreed to accept the group's help in planting more soy beans in return for sharing some of his remaining supply. This allowed Kyoshi to deliver dried soy beans for Tofu Curry to Mui.
== Confrontation with Tagaka and identification as Avatar ==
When the time for Yun's trip to the south arrived, the young man insisted that Kyoshi accompany his party. At his disciple's urgings, Jianzhu allowed Kyoshi join the diplomatic mission. He provided her with an impressive green, armored kimono. Jianzhu hoped that this outfit, as well as Kyoshi's impressive height, would allow her to become an intimidating presence so that Kyoshi would be at least a bit useful during their meeting with the pirates. Although Kyoshi was not used to such high-quality clothing and wondered where the sage had obtained it, the kimono fit her perfectly. It would later become part of her iconic look as the Avatar.
Unlike most of Yun's large party (which used ships), Kyoshi made the trip to the South Pole on Kelsang's flying bison Pengpeng. The young servant fell asleep during the trip, but woke due to a nightmare. Afterward, Yun, Rangi, Kyoshi, and Kelsang began to talk about their mission, eventually leading to the Air Nomad sharing his regrets over his own failings regarding Kuruk. Kyoshi expressed her view that the faults had seemingly lain with Kuruk instead of his companions, causing Rangi to silence her. As a firm believer in the Avatars, the firebender was upset over Kyoshi criticising Kuruk.
At the South Pole, their group was received by the leader of the Fifth Nation, a pirate queen and slaver, Tagaka, whose large fleet had ravaged the Earth Kingdom's coastline and had recently taken some citizens hostage. During the dinner shared by the two parties, Tagaka defamed Yun's bending masters, listing the many deaths on Jianzhu, Hei-Ran, and Kelsang's hands, much to Kyoshi's shock. As Yun confronted Jianzhu alone, Kyoshi followed Kelsang, comforting her guardian as he broke down while listing his failure as an Air Nomad for destroying an entire fleet of pirates, assuring him he could never fail her. Hearing Yun and Jianzhu's escalating argument, Kyoshi found herself alone again as Kelsang went to check on the two of them. While Kyoshi headed back to her tent, she was sexually harassed by a drunken pirate, who noted her similarities to a daofei woman he had met in the past. Impulsively, Kyoshi physically overpowered the man, forcing him to recant his statements about her. Exhausted after her encounter, Kyoshi collapsed outside her tent after the adrenaline of the situation wore off, with Rangi finding and then dragging her inside while helping remove her armor. Settling down for the night, though Kyoshi attempted to justify Tagaka's revelations about Jianzhu and Hei-Ran, Rangi refuted her, affirming that Hei-Ran had killed her own cousin during an Agni Kai to achieve her rank as Headmistress of the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, with rumors dogging Rangi as a student that her own mother was an assassin. Realizing how careless she had been in her rationalizations, Kyoshi silently comforted Rangi, holding the firebender throughout the night as she fell asleep in Kyoshi's embrace.
The next day, Kyoshi accompanied Yun as he held further negotiations with Tagaka over the treaty. The entire summit turned out to be a trap orchestrated by the Fifth Nation, however, as Yun was captured and his group scattered in an ambush at sea, leaving Kyoshi to confront Tagaka. The situation seemed hopeless as Kyoshi had no apparent access to earth to battle the pirate queen and her followers. Tagaka offered Kyoshi to join her, but she angrily refused. With the past Avatars leading her actions, Kyoshi used a combination of raw power and the Avatar State to lift parts of the seafloor with earthbending, a surprising feat that even a master earthbender could not perform. Kyoshi destroyed much of Tagaka's fleet while Yun's other companions rallied and launched a counterattack against the remaining pirate forces. Many were left injured after this incident, including Kelsang and Kyoshi herself. Despite having saved her allies and friends, Kyoshi's impressive display of bending cast doubts on her identity as a regular earthbender, and Yun's identity as the Avatar.
With the identity of the Avatar being called into question, Jianzhu relieved Kyoshi of her duties as a servant in order to evaluate her bending abilities. After an unsuccessful attempt to get her to firebend with Hei-Ran, the firebending master in charge of training Yun, he took Kyoshi and Yun to a remote and unoccupied village. Initially, Kyoshi and Yun thought he intended to trigger the Avatar State, but he told them he merely wanted them to meditate and commune with a suffering spirit. However, when they meditated in preparation to meet the spirit, Jianzhu lit some incense that rendered Kyoshi and Yun mostly immobile, but Kyoshi was able to open her eyes and see what was happening. She saw Jianzhu speaking with a spirit he called "Father Glowworm," asking which of the teenagers was the Avatar. The spirit requested blood from each of them to tell, but when it reached for Kyoshi, Yun regained control of his body and pushed her away. Despite their efforts, the spirit took blood from them and declared Kyoshi the Avatar, prompting Jianzhu to sever the spirit's hold on Kyoshi and drag her away, leaving Yun behind due to Jianzhu feeling that he was no longer of use. Angered, the spirit dragged Yun into a cave as payment for the attack, and Jianzhu sealed the cave with his bending, trapping both the spirit and Yun. Kyoshi screamed in anguish over losing her friend, and fire came out of her mouth; the first time she had bent any element besides earth.
Kyoshi tried to fight Jianzhu, but he overpowered her and forced her into submission, earthbending a gag that nearly caused her to suffocate before he removed it, while trying to justify his actions as necessary for the good of the world. At that moment, Kelsang appeared, as he had flown there despite his injuries sustained during the encounter with Tagaka after becoming suspicious of Jianzhu, Kyoshi, and Yun's unexplained absences. Kyoshi instantly brought him up to speed, causing him to declare that Jianzhu was no longer fit to serve the Avatar and that he would take Kyoshi away from him. This angered Jianzhu, who countered that there was nowhere Kelsang could hide Kyoshi from him. Kyoshi was urged by Kelsang to run before he attacked Jianzhu to buy her time. However, Jianzhu easily got the upper hand and killed the injured Kelsang, which prompted Kyoshi to enter the Avatar State and destroy the small village, but not before Jianzhu hid beneath the ground. Before he could reemerge, Kyoshi fled back to the Avatar mansion.
After arriving at the estate, Kyoshi found Rangi waiting for her at the door, wondering where she had been. Kyoshi told her what happened and that she had to leave, before hastily packing her few things, including the chest and journal her parents left with her when they left her in Yokoya, and the clay turtle she picked from the toys used to determine the Avatar years ago. She broke the chest open to retrieve the metal war fans, a matching headdress, and a set of makeup which, along with her armor, would later attribute to her iconic look as the Avatar. She then went to make her escape on Pengpeng, where she found Rangi packing the bison with supplies she had not thought to pack such as food and blankets. Rangi left with her, telling Kyoshi that she "will not last an hour without help."
== Fleeing from Jianzhu and Avatar training ==
The two traveled into the chaotic and lawless inner provinces of the Earth Kingdom. Unable to trust anyone who might be an ally of Jianzhu's, the pair used Kyoshi's journal to find allies in the Flying Opera Company, which was now reduced to a handful of members in Port Chameleon Bay; the waterbender Kirima, and the earthbenders Lao Ge, Flitting Sparrowkeet Wong, and Bullet Lek. Tensions quickly brewed between Kyoshi and Lek, who had been taken in by Hark and Jesa after they left Kyoshi behind; Lek was angry at Kyoshi's loathing of Hark and Jesa, while Kyoshi resented Lek for being raised by her parents in her place.
Kyoshi took an oath to the group to secure their trust, swearing to remain loyal to them and to live by their code and against the law. Having realized that she was the Avatar, Kyoshi attempted to train in secret while Jianzhu searched for her to bring her back. She also wished to train so that she could bring Jianzhu to justice by exacting revenge on him for killing Kelsang and Yun, whom she felt guilty about for taking away his Avatar identity, due to believing that he would have done a better job than her. To achieve this, she asked a member of the group Lao Ge, whom she had figured out was an infamous assassin, to train her how to kill someone.
Rangi openly disapproved of Kyoshi's decision to associate with criminals. When the group visited Hujiang, Rangi surprised Kyoshi and the others by participating in a lei tai, a fight that often ended in death or near-death. While managing to do well against the champion, Rangi took a blow that knocked her out after looking into Kyoshi's eyes, leaving Kyoshi feeling helpless as she watched her friend nearly get killed. However, Rangi woke up in time and broke the man's leg, establishing herself as the new champion. Later on, the Flying Opera Company was called in on a job by the Autumn Bloom, another daofei group that rose to power after the fall of the Yellow Necks, to whom the Flying Opera Company were indebted after they saved Lek's life. The job was to free a prisoner from the house of an Earth Kingdom governor named Te Sihung. Mok, the leader of the Autumn Bloom, told the Flying Opera Company they would be free of their debt to his group once the job was complete.
Later in the night, Kyoshi confronted Rangi about taking such a risk and making her feel helpless in the lei tai. Rangi got angry at her and told Kyoshi that she had been doing the same thing to her ever since they ran away from Yokoya, revealing that she had only entered the lei tai so that Kyoshi would feel that same helplessness. They acknowledged that they would not be able to stop taking risks now that they were on the run. Kyoshi also revealed that she wanted to kill Jianzhu not only to bring him to justice but because she was scared of him and did not know what else to do. Rangi told Kyoshi that although the Avatar can be reborn, Kyoshi could not and that she deserved happiness; that she deserved to feel loved, not afraid. Kyoshi told her she did feel loved before kissing her. Kyoshi was afraid when Rangi pushed her away, only to feel relieved when Rangi told her to kiss somewhere else because that part of her face had been injured in the fight earlier in the night. With that, the two of them became a couple.
Kyoshi and Rangi had agreed to keep her Avatar identity a secret from the bandit group, but when a shirshu sent by Jianzhu tracked them down, the group deduced she must be important, so she revealed her identity. When the group assumed she would leave them, as they believed the Avatar should not associate with criminals like them, Kyoshi surprised them by deciding to stay with them. The members then took it upon themselves to train her to bend the four elements; Wong and Lek training her in earthbending, Kirima training her in waterbending, and Rangi training her in firebending. Lao Ge taught her what it took to kill someone, but Kyoshi battled with herself over whether she should resort to such methods. Lacking an airbending teacher, Rangi taught her some airbender techniques in the hope that she would be able to airbend on her own.
As the group prepared for their raid on Te's estate, Lao Ge told Kyoshi that she should help him kill Governor Te as practice for when she killed Jianzhu, justifying this on the basis that Te was a corrupt leader. At the same time, Kyoshi worried that Mok would take more lives than necessary during the raid, and devised a plan with Kirima and Rangi that would minimize deaths while also achieving their goals, but would revolve around her bending water as well as earth. As the raid began and the others went to save the prisoner, Lao Ge and Kyoshi broke off to find Governor Te, who turned out to be a 15-year-old who had been imitating his father's leadership style because he did not know any better. Instead of killing him, Kyoshi blasted Lao Ge with airbending and fled with Governor Te, sending him away to save his life despite the fact that he saw her bend two elements, while also warning him to be a better ruler.
Afterward, Kyoshi and Lao Ge returned to the rest of the group to find that they had successfully freed the prisoner. They returned him to Mok and the Autumn Blooms, only to find out that the prisoner was Xu Ping An, the thought-dead leader of the Yellow Necks. The Autumn Blooms promptly revealed that they had been the remnants of the Yellow Necks the entire time, functioning under a false name to avoid detection. With their leader free, the group declared themselves restored.
== Duel with Xu Ping An ==
Kyoshi and her comrades were shocked about this revelation as Xu and his Yellow Neck rebels were infamous because of their fanaticism and the atrocities they had committed during their past rebellion. Though Kyoshi and the other Flying Opera Company members were treated cordially by Xu, who appeared thankful for their help, the Avatar immediately recognized that Xu's friendly demeanor thinly veiled an underlying madness. Having absolved themselves of their debt to the Autumn Bloom Society, the friends thus excused themselves and retreated from the Yellow Necks' camp. Afterward, however, discussions erupted about what to do next; on the one side, they did not want an insane mass murderer like Xu to go free, but at the same time they could not defeat him and the rest of his small army in an open battle. Eventually, Kyoshi decided that they should monitor the Yellow Necks before intervening. Just as they had feared, however, Xu immediately ordered his followers to resume their rampage, attacking a nearby civilian family. Fearing for the family's safety, Kyoshi decided on a whim to challenge Xu to a duel per the daofei code of conduct, to halt his reign of terror before it could truly begin anew.
Though unsure about the strength of Xu, Kyoshi believed that she could beat him in a duel, assuming that he was a regular earthbender due to the Yellow Necks being an Earth Kingdom group. To her shock, Xu - in reality, a firebender - struck her with lightning at the start of their fight, incapacitating her in seconds. The young Avatar fell unconscious for a short moment, and Xu continued to fire several more blasts of lightning at her seemingly lifeless body while accusing her of ungratefulness. In truth, Kyoshi awoke, and though in immense pain, was grounding the lightning thanks to the armor under her clothing. After waiting for a few moments, Kyoshi entered the Avatar State, but this time with full control of her powers. Her glowing eyes and the bending of multiple elements terrified both Xu Ping An and his followers, who started to flee the scene. Meanwhile, Kyoshi lifted Xu high into the air, and for a short moment thought about what to do with him. When she realized that his shock had changed into hateful dismay without regret, she realized that he would never change his ways. In response, Kyoshi let him fall to his death, and then returned to the ground. She greeted her anxious friends, assuring them that she was still the same before addressing the remaining Yellow Necks. Unlike those who had fled, these bandits regarded her with reverence and only left when she ordered them to. Having done so, her grievous injuries finally resulted in her falling unconscious for three days.
== Confrontation with Jianzhu ==
The Avatar was brought by her comrades to a nearby village where an Earth Kingdom healer and Kirima attended to her; nevertheless, horrible scars remained on her hands due to the burns she had received from Xu's lightning attacks. When Kyoshi eventually awakened, Lek was in her room, and the two talked about their pasts and Kyoshi's parents, Lek suggesting that they had left her in Yokoya to spare their daughter the dangers of the daofei lifestyle and that they had taken him in because he could be replaced far more easily than their own flesh and blood. Kyoshi told Lek that she was glad he was the one raised by her parents if it could not have been her. Having fully overcome their past differences, the Avatar was very happy when Lek addressed her as "sister" for the first time.
Thereafter, Kyoshi, Lek, and Rangi went to buy gloves for the wounded Avatar. On the way to a local leather shop, Kyoshi was annoyed to learn that most locals were terrified of her because some of Xu's followers had spread rumors about her being some kind of demon, and also that she had become the de facto head of the remaining Yellow Necks by killing Xu. To her pleasant surprise, the leatherworker had understood that she was the Avatar and saved them from the resurgence of Xu; he thus gifted her a fine pair of military gloves for her burnt hands.
As they went back to the healer's house, the group was ambushed and shot with shirshu-spit darts that rendered them paralyzed. Rangi was dragged away, and to her horror, Kyoshi saw how Lek allergically reacted to the poison, slowly dying without her being able to do anything. After regaining control, the devastated Avatar took Lek's corpse to the healer's house, informing Wong, Kirima, and Lao Ge of what had happened. They also found a letter with Rangi's hair attached to it, telling Kyoshi to meet Jianzhu in Qinchao Village near Yokoya unless she wanted Rangi dead. Full of hatred, Kyoshi swore that she would finally kill the sage once and for all. The group proceeded to bury Lek, before hatching a plan according to which the Avatar would confront Jianzhu while her friends saved Rangi.
Kyoshi met Jianzhu in a stone teahouse in Qinchao, home to the Chin clan. There, the old master threatened to collapse the building on everyone inside if she refused to become his disciple. Disgusted at his methods, Kyoshi told him that he truly honored his nickname among daofei: the "Butcher of Zhulu Pass". Amused, Jianzhu finally told her the full story of what had happened at Zhulu Pass, all while relishing his act of mass murder, and affirming that his methods might be cruel, but that they also worked. Kyoshi once again rejected him as her teacher, whereupon the angered master began to earthbend the building down. Kyoshi responded by countering his bending with her own, and the two struggled on equal terms before noticing a new presence in the teahouse. To the horror of both, the presence was a believed-dead Yun. Though externally unchanged, Kyoshi sensed that something was horribly wrong about her old friend, and was shocked when he effortlessly killed Jianzhu before leaving without a word. Kyoshi continued to hold the building up until all civilians got out, and then left the village as the local law enforcement attempted to apprehend her. She made her way to the Avatar estate in Yokoya, meeting Kirima, Wong, and Lao Ge on the road with a rescued Rangi and her sick mother Hei-Ran, who had been poisoned as part of Jianzhu's schemes.
== Revealing herself to the world ==
Kyoshi told the Flying Opera Company what had happened and they subsequently decided to part ways, as the Avatar wanted her friends out of harm's way when she revealed her identity to the world. Kirima and Wong opted to lay low, while Rangi and her mother traveled to the Northern Water Tribe to seek out healers. Lao Ge went off on his own; before his departure the old man told Kyoshi that she was now among his potential targets. Kyoshi found that somewhat amusing. Soon after, the Avatar covertly joined a group of pilgrims who were journeying to the Southern Air Temple. There, she revealed herself as the Avatar to the Air Nomads through a displaying of her bending powers, though she nearly burned down a sacred tree in the process, which served as a reminder to rely on her fans for a bit longer. She consequently rested at the air temple, preparing herself for further training. Kyoshi also affirmed her decision to follow the code of the daofei for the rest of her life and pursue her own style of Avatarhood regardless of what posterity would think of her. The Air Nomads consequently began to convey the news from around the Earth Kingdom to her; in this way, she learned that Jianzhu had bequeathed all his wealth and lands to her in his testament. Amused, she noted how he continued to try to influence her and the world even after his death.
While meditating at the Southern Air Temple, Kuruk appeared to Kyoshi in a vision, pleading for her help. Kyoshi did not fully connect with him, however, leaving the content of his request vague. Over the course of the next months, Kyoshi began to assume her Avatar duties, while also working to determine Yun's whereabouts. Before she left the Southern Air Temple, Jinpa was assigned to the Avatar as her personal secretary by the Council of Elders.
== References ==
Category:A to Z
Category:Character histories
Category:Kyoshi