Chapter 47

“So I guess this is goodbye for now” Kysohi said as she smiled down at the flying opera company.

Wong flashes a smile in return, “I’m surprised you didn’t want help with the remaining towns.”

But Kyoshi shook her head. “I’ll have to deal with them later. So there’s no need to keep you. Plus I’m not sure I’m ready to get out there yet.” She explained, causing Rangi to elbow her in the side. “I know I’m not ready yet” She corrected.

“Damn the Avatar got benched.” Kirima laughed.

“I did not, if you remember correctly I was practically dead about a week ago.” Kyoshi defended, crossing her arms.

“Topknot definitely said something”

“It doesn’t matter, I’m just tired- and I don’t have to explain myself. So what are you guys going to do?” Kyoshi prompted, trying to change the subject.

Kirima snickered as she shrugged. “Probably head home first, then figure things out from there.”

“Make sure she doesn’t go get herself killed Topknot” Kirima jokes as they begin to head out.

“That’s always the plan.” Rangi almost smiled. The two watched the flying opera company leave the estate.

“So what now?”

They had been meeting with Jinpa for nearly two weeks now to create a proposal for the Fire lord about the groups that would need to be assembled to take back the town all while Kyoshi recovered.

Rangi had been explaining the different levels of the army and the men that would be needed. “I know you’re a one man army but this is what a normal one would look like without the wielder of the four elements.” Rangi continued to explain as she pointed to her drawn diagram of different fleet levels. Noting down which ratios of each would be best. As Kyoshi explained the ways at which memeber’s powers can be heightened if they were spirit bound.

Finally the two entered the palace grounds after what felt like a lifetime of preparation. As soon as they had stepped foot across the gates Rangi moved back two or three paces behind Kyoshi.

Kyoshi had looked back at Rangi, who just nodded at her to continue forward. Right. Kyoshi thought to herself as they crossed the courtyard. We left our little bubble.

They were eventually greeted by a guard as they were then led into a large council room. As Kyoshi sat down, Rangi had stayed stationed standing behind her. Internally Kyoshi sighed wanting to have Rangi sit beside her. But today didn’t feel like the day to fight it.

As the meeting began someone had read off the recent events, and the locations of the overrun towns. When one name had caught Kyoshi’s attention. It was in the earth kingdom.

“That last one is new” She commented as she placed her fans down on the table.

“Yes I heard news of it just today.”

Kyoshi nodded “I wasn’t aware they had crossed nation lines yet” That just means I’ll have to deal with that one myself.

And so the meeting continued on, there was a deeper discussion of who they could actually charge with criminal offenses. Plus it seemed like a waste of time to chase down all of them even if they weren’t involved with the towns being overrun.

In the end the Fire Lord Zoryu had decided that they could take anyone who showed resistance to giving back the towns or was involved with the direct offense. Other than that there would be no other proof other than the witness from Kyoshi’s perspective which could be difficult to prove.

She had gone on to tell the council that the leader along with the other higher ups were all dealt with. So it was sure that this problem would crumble once the rest of the towns were taken back. They could finally put it behind them.

Kyoshi begins to share the idea that she and Rangi had discussed earlier about the small special armies to help take back the nation. But Fire Lord Zoryu was suddenly hesitant to grant the avatar’s wishes. So he proposed a deal of sorts, Kyoshi had to do something in return to get her support groups.

“There are these two towns out to the east of mine that have been a headache for some time now. Nothing violent yet, just consistent arguing that could go wrong if it’s not settled soon.” He started rolling out a map to point to the town’s locations.

“Is there a reason for it?” Kyoshi asked as she leaned over the map.

But he shook his head. “Not that I am abundantly clear of, maybe a resource debate.”

“Wouldn’t that be in your control?” Kyoshi asked under her breath.

The Fire narrowed his gaze, clearly not humored by Kyoshi’s questions. “Those are my conditions, fix the issue out east and you’ll get your select armies”

Kyoshi sighed as she looked over to the map, it was off course from any town that was still under the influence of the balanced nation’s control. It almost didn’t feel worth it.

But she knew there were too many overrun towns, and with her own recovery timeline she wouldn’t be able to deal with not half as fast as they should be. It would be selfish and stupid to try and do it all myself.

“Fine, I agree to your terms. I’ll head out east tomorrow.” Kyoshi stuck her hand out to shake the fire lords before leaving the room, Rangi’s at her heels. 

“His mistake for sending me to be a diplomat.” Kyoshi mumbled to herself as they left the palace grounds.

Once they were a good ways off of the palace grounds Rangi increased her pace until she was in stride with Kyoshi.

” I think that went fairly well, considering your track record,” Rangi commented as they walked.

“I believe you mean our track record. You were there too, you know.” Kyoshi joked back, bumping her hip into Rangi’s.

“I will not have you taint my record” Rangi shot back.

Kyoshi only laughed, knowing that she had been dragging Rangi down to her level slowly over the years. “Come on, let’s go update Jinpa. We have business in the east now.”

Jinpa looked about as happy as Kyoshi did when they told them. He looked back to the huge map that they had set up with all the overran towns circled.

“I guess this is now our first stop” He said as he put a star next to the two towns out east.

The meeting had come and gone in the early afternoon, and Kyoshi had already packed for the event out east so she roamed the halls until she found a large bookcase and started sifting through them all.

When Rangi had found her she had nearly reorganized the whole shelf, just the bottom row remained. “I organized that shelf originally, you know” Rangi said as she walked up behind Kyosh.

“In what order?” Kyoshi asked as she switched two book spots.

“Whatever book was first”

Kyoshi turned around to look at Rangi then back at the shelf to admire her work as Rangi stepped forward so she could rest her head against Kyoshi’s shoulder.

“Do you want to train a bit before we leave”

Kyoshi had moved so fast to respond that Rangi had nearly fallen over. “Are you serious? Yes, I’m starting to run out of spots to organize.”

“Alright then” Rangi waved her hand guestering for Kyoshi to follow her.

They walked through the halls only stopping briefly by a closet where Rangi picked up a box then proceeded out to the courtyard.

Kyoshi sat down in front of Rangi once she had put the box down, trying to peer into the box the firebender had set beside them.

“Precision has always been the thing you most lack” Rangi paused to set an unfired vase in front of Kyoshi.

“I may not be able to help you with the other elements but I can continue to help you with my native one” She continued explaining.

“So you want me to bake the vase I gather?” Kyoshi asked.

“Yes, but this should be different than just expelling a flame.  You must monitor the heat of the flames.”

Kyoshi just sat and stared, she had never even considered the heat of the flames.

“You could do what I’d assume you’d try first is to just cast a hot flame and cause the clay to shatter. Or decide to cast cooler flames, but that would take too long, and could cause the clay to crumble as well.”

She reached into the box and pulled out another smaller vase and balanced it on her palm. Before casting a flame down on it. Kyoshi watched the fire engulf the vase, and how she swore the flames changed colors.

Before she could watch the flames any longer Rangi had set the fired vase down in front of her. “This will help you learn to monitor your flame’s temperatures, and overall control. It’s the little things that will add to make you the greatest.”

“You think I could be the greatest?” Kyoshi asked as she looked over.

“Yes I do, but you have to be able to move pebbles and mountains alike. Not one or the other” Rangi explained as she stood, nodding for Kyoshi to go ahead and give it a try.

As Rangi had expected the first flames Kyoshi had set forth on the vase to be so hot it caused it to shatter into pieces upon the flames’ retreat.

“Before you saw anything, yes you did say this would happen. Congratulations, you can predict the future.”

“Predicting the future no” Rangi replied as she took out another vase. “Predicting you, yes”

“Try again, we can have as many of these unfired vases as I please. I called in a favor to the academy,” Rangi said as she scooted back.

“Are you telling me this is an exercise at the academy?” Kyoshi asked, slightly annoyed.

“Yes, for those in their final years before graduation” Rangi replied.

“That’s not helping, I’m not a child”

Rangi just laughed. “You tend to learn the extremes first, there’s no harm in going back to the basics a bit”

“You do realize you were my first fire bending teacher so this should have been on you”

Rangi’s face flushed, “Okay I admit I may have not done the best job, but in my defense we were on the run to chase after a herd of criminals at the time.”

“Of course because you do no wrong.”

She smirked, “Exactly one us has to, the other is technically a criminal. You need an alibi”

Rangi’ hand made its way to Kyoshi’s face resting it on her cheek as she leaned in as if she were about to kiss Kyoshi. Before she then pulled back, telling Kyoshi to try again. “You’re such a tease,” Kyoshi fumed.

This chapter is especially for the people commenting that they are rereading the story because I’m  so bad at posting. Thanks to everyone for sticking around. School is officially on sadly, but I was thinking about maybe posting some smaller chapters so that I can update more frequently or do you guys still want longer ones? Either way hope you have a great day/night <3