Hauntings

"Hauntings" is the thirty-second and final chapter of The Rise of Kyoshi.
== Overview ==
Kyoshi stays at the Southern Air Temple for a while to avoid the commotion caused by the world's revelation that she is the Avatar. As she sits down to meditate, she is contacted by Avatar Kuruk's spirit.
== Synopsis ==
Kyoshi is staying in a simple, open-spaced garden of the Southern Air Temple, feeling the breeze against her skin. The Avatar recalls how Kirima and Wong wanted to lie low for a while and how Lao Ge said he would rest, telling Kyoshi in private that, as the Avatar, she was on his watch list. Rangi took Hei-Ran to the North Pole so the best healers in the world could tend to her. She waited until her friends went their separate ways to join a group of travelers going to the air temple where, during the orientation, she bent a tornado of fire and air to prove her identity. She wanted to announce that she is the Avatar in an isolated place that offered protection from the bustle that would start once everyone realized it was not Yun. The monks took her account of events as the truth told by the Avatar.
Monk Jinpa, her assigned chamberlain, shouts her name and jumps from a balcony, slowing his landing with airbending. They begin to walk around the garden as he tells Kyoshi about how bad the poisoning at Jianzhu's mansion was, as some of the Earth Kingdom's elite and the household staff were murdered, and that the investigators think it was an act of revenge by daofei. Kyoshi thinks she does not know which of her former coworkers are alive and that she has to go back to Yokoya. She asks Jinpa what he heard from Qinchao and he replies that Jianzhu's body was found and that witnesses said a young man killed him, but that many people consider that she destroyed the teahouse.
Jinpa continues to say that some of Jianzhu's close associates, including the Earth King and the King of Omashu, have copies of his last will and testament that name Kyoshi as the inheritor of his estate and where he admitted to falsely identifying the Avatar, asking his colleagues to give her their full support. She thinks that she would expect him to assume the privilege of a sudden reveal course and to believe that correcting a mistake was the same thing as making amends. She says that now it is settled she is the Avatar, but that people must think she killed Jianzhu to inherit his wealth. Jinpa answers that it is unusual he was with her in Qinchao so soon after the poisoning. Kyoshi considers her friends would find this funny and that taking the mansion does not violate the daofei oaths she swore, as she intends to live by the code. She wants to protect the world, even if its people will despise her.
They reach her quarters, the room reserved for the Avatar's current incarnation, and Jinpa asks if there is anything else she needs. She tells him she noticed Kelsang's name in a lower place of honor in the temple's registers than it should be. The monk says that is because it is customary for the Air Nomads to maintain a level of separation between those who took a life and those that are spiritually pure. She thinks the airbenders consider him unclean for killing pirates to save coastal villages, wondering where her mother's name is in the records at the Eastern Air Temple, considering the story of her battle with Xu Ping An had not reached the temple yet. Kyoshi tells him she wants Kelsang's name restored to its regular esteemed status and he answers that the Council of Elders will not be pleased. She says that she would be and that a statue for her old friend would be nice. He apologizes that he and his compatriots have not come to her assistance for so long as they were kept in the dark like everyone else. She replies that it is not the Air Nomads' fault, and he tells her he is referring to other compatriots, asking if she plays Pai Sho. She says she does not have any taste for the game, and Jinpa leaves.
Kyoshi sits by the pool in her room in the pose Lao Ge taught her and closes her eyes halfway, thinking this is the only place where she can be at relative peace. She is unsettled by Yun's reappearance and his contempt for innocent life. She feels a chill as her skin prickles with goosebumps and she shivers. The Avatar hears a man calling her and she opens her eyes to see the changing outline of another person in the pool's reflection. He calls her name again as a gust of wind sends her hair flying and mist rises from the water. She sees the man sitting on top of the pool in the same pose as her. He is in his thirties and wearing the clothes of a great Water Tribe chieftain. His body is adorned with hunting trophies and sharp animal teeth laced around his neck and wrists. The man says he needs her help as she, surprised, realizes he is her predecessor in the Avatar Cycle, Avatar Kuruk.
== Production notes ==
=== Series continuity ===
* The description of the Southern Air Temple's wall, from its large wooden doors and metal tubing to its spiraling knots and wide, open end shaped like a tsungi horn, resembles the entrance to the air temple sanctuary, as seen in "The Southern Air Temple".
* By Kyoshi's time, the Air Nomads often let pilgrims from other nations stay at their monasteries and nunneries on a temporary basis. As revealed in Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game, the Air Nomads' policy in this regard changed substantially over time.Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game. Core Book, Version 1.0, 2022, p. 40.Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game. Core Book, Version 1.0, 2022, p. 50.
** By Kyoshi's time, there existed ways to access the Southern Air Temple on foot.
* Kyoshi tells Jinpa she doubts she will be bothering the members of the Chin clan again anytime soon, foreshadowing her confrontation with Chin the Conqueror in "Avatar Day".
* Though Kyoshi initially believes her era will be marred by uncertainty, fear, and death, as her spirit explains in "Sozin's Comet, Part 2: The Old Masters", she ultimately goes on to usher in a long era of peace.
=== Character revelations ===
* Jinpa is hinted to be a member of the Order of the White Lotus.
== References ==
Category:A to Z
Category:Kyoshi novels chapters
Category:Real world
Category:The Rise of Kyoshi chapters