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It had been two days since the fight. The fight where Kyoshi had let an innocent man die and wounded (and almost killed) her girlfriend, Rangi.
She stared down at her scarred hands, watching them uncontrollably shake.
two days ago
Kyoshi had been asked to help in a situation involving pirates who’d been ransacking villages in the night, along the Earth Kingdom’s southwest coast; and by the time she, Rangi, and Jinpa had managed to track them to a small fishing village there was a tense altercation going on.
The villagers had heard of the pirates and prepared to defend their property. But with their lack of proper training and the fact that the pirates got into fights basically daily the village men stood no chance. All those who had fought to defend their village got captured and held hostage by the pirates.
Kyoshi and Rangi took on the pirates, while Jinpa attempted to free the hostages. The fight went on for a while, with everyone involved sustaining pretty heavy injuries, until…
Kyoshi lifted a piece of earth and landed a hit right on the woman she’d been fighting’s head, knocking her out. She was about to check if the woman was conscious when she heard a cry.
She swivelled around to see Rangi, weakened and bleeding from multiple horribly deep looking cuts, gripped tightly in the arms of a man who looked around half a foot taller than her with a knife pressed against her throat.
“You give up this fight and leave us alone for good or your friend here gets to feel how my knife fits nicely in her throat!” He yelled at Kyoshi in a gravelly voice.
“Don’t listen!” Rangi shouted. “Kyoshi, you need to agh~” He dug the knife deeper into her neck.
“Last chance!”
Fuck. Kyoshi looked around, desperate for a way out of this, when she noticed a bucket filled with water by a well and mentally formed a plan.
She lifted the water out of the bucket and turned it into icicles sharp enough to pierce metal before chucking them at the man’s head.
Unfortunately she wasn’t fast enough. The man had saw her waterbend and had enough time to lift Rangi’s body in front of his face, using her as a human shield.
The icicles would’ve impaled her if it wasn’t for the fact that Jinpa, who wasn’t too far away, had noticed what was going on in time and lunged over to help, pulling the man’s arm and letting Rangi move to the side as the ice shards pierced his skull, killing him instantly.
In that split second between Rangi being in her line of fire and her being saved Kyoshi’s stomach had dropped so far than when her girlfriend was no longer in mortal danger she was so relieved that it took her a moment to notice two things.
One, Rangi hadn’t moved fast enough, and with a cry a shard of ice had stabbed deeply her just below the shoulder. And two Jinpa hadn’t finished freeing the hostages, one young man who couldn’t have been older than twenty was still tied up and being defended by one of the pirates, and as Jinpa was distracted the pirate had slit his throat.
She was too late to heal him.
When they’d arrived back home they all immediately had their wounds tended to by Atuat, but after getting some healing water splashed around her wounds and some bandages wrapped around the ones that hadn’t finished healing she’d ran up to her room and locked the door, not wanting to speak to anyone out of pure guilt and shame.
After a few hours of breaking down alone in her room she opened her door and went to look for Rangi, but quickly found out through Hei-Ran that she still needed healing, considering she’d gotten pretty injured having taken on most of the pirates and having that stab wound in her shoulder.
This had made Kyoshi feel even worse, not only had she accidentally injured her lover but to the point that she still needed intensive healing hours after her and Jinpa had been told they were fine.
After that she hadn’t left her room at all.
present
Kyoshi looked up from her hands as she finished mentally recounting the memory.
She noticed a knife lying on her floor, and went to pick it up.
As she stood she felt so lightheaded she almost fell back down again, realising she hasn’t eaten anything since the meal Atuat had forced her to eat while being healed. She didn’t deserve food after what she did.
She managed to grab the knife and sit back on her bed without passing out from hunger or anything and twisted the knife between her hands.
She thought to herself how she should use the blade on herself. Not to kill herself or anything, but she got off way too easy for what she did, she deserved to feel at least as much pain as Rangi felt.
Those thoughts clouded her mind, similar to the way the thoughts telling her she shouldn’t eat did. Weirdly they both sounded the same, exactly like her inner voice yet slightly more sinister.
She rolled up her sleeves and with a shaking hand drew the knife across her forearm.
Pain sprouted from the place the silver blade drew across her skin, along with a jagged red line.
She didn’t exactly feel relieved. More like she was getting a well-deserved punishment, and in a way she guessed she was. Though it wasn’t enough.
She drew the blade along her arm a few more times, managing to cut deeper than before, with the cuts opening to a white layer of skin before slowly filling with blood. When that happened panic shot through her for a second before she remembered why she was doing this. She hurt Rangi and indirectly killed that man, if she hurt herself badly it was still better than she deserved.
She continued to cut her arms for a while and at this point was starting to feel even more lightheaded, combining her lack of food with even this small amount of blood loss in hindsight was not a good idea.
Kyoshi had just about decided to stop for now when her door was pushed open. She mentally swore as she realized she’d forgotten to relock the door.
“I swear to fuck Kyoshi, I’m finally done healing after two days only to find you haven’t had anything to eat in almost that long?! Seriously I-” Rangi stopped, taking in the scene in front of her.
Her eyes widened as she realised what Kyoshi was doing with a knife in her hand and two bleeding arms.
She put the food she was bringing to her girlfriend down on a shelf and grabbed her lover’s hand and (sort of roughly) pulled her to the nearest bathroom.
She started cleaning the cuts (now more gently), all the while glaring at her girlfriend, who refused to meet her eyes. She wrapped her arms in bandages and led her back to her room.
They sat down on Kyoshi’s bed and Rangi handed her the (now cold) food she’d prepared and ordered, “Eat.”
Kyoshi stared at the bowl. She felt physically sick. Partially from the hunger and the blood loss but mostly at the thought of eating right now, after not just the stuff she’d done before but having Rangi walk in on her doing that and having her clean up her mess. She couldn’t eat after all that.
She shook her head, tears that’d been threatening to spill the whole time Rangi was helping her starting to well up.
“Kyoshi I’m serious you have to eat something.” Rangi said to her, the concern presenting itself as anger seeping through her voice.
“I can’t.” Kyoshi said in a small voice, raw with emotion. “I just can’t eat right now, I’m sorry.”
“It’s been days Kyoshi!” Rangi borderline shouted, softening her voice a little when she saw her flinch. “You can’t just starve for this long, please just eat this.”
Kyoshi relented and started slowly eating, the rice noodles tasting like sand, but she managed to continue, not wanting to hurt Rangi anymore than she already had.
It took her a while but she managed to finish the bowl, setting it down on a shelf near her.
Rangi took her hand and squeezed it before looking up at her, the shorter girl’s face mixed with angry concern.
“Why were you doing that just then?” She asked, her tone mixed with cracks of emotion.
Kyoshi looked away.
Rangi squeezed her hand again. “Kyoshi. Why?”
“Because I hurt you.” She said in a small voice.
“What?” Rangi said, somewhat shocked.
“I hurt you! When we were fighting I hurt you and almost killed you if Jinpa wasn’t there-” Tears now rolled down Kyoshi’s face.
“It took you two days to recover from that and its partially my fault.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
Rangi pulled her into a hug and just held her there for a minute.
“We were fighting pirates, Kyoshi, seriously I was bound to get hurt.”
“But I-”
“No buts! You were saving me from that guy and better a shard of ice in my shoulder than a knife in my neck.”
Kyoshi couldn’t think of anything to say back, instead she just hugged her harder, hoping that served as an alright okay.
Rangi eventually pulled away.
“We’re going to have to tell someone about what happened today, probably Sifu Atuat and my mom.” She warned.
Kyoshi tensed at the words.
“I- can’t we just keep this to ourselves?” She tried to negotiate, panic seeping into her voice.
Rangi looked at her.
“No! This is serious stuff, Kyoshi. What if you do it again and you’re too scared to go to a healer? Or I’m not there to find you before you go too far? We need to tell them.”
“Please! I promise I won’t do it again or anything I just-” She hesitated and looked down. “-don’t really wanna talk about it with them.”
“You better not do it again!” Rangi’s scowl softened. “But we don’t have to tell them now or anything. Just… at some point, ok?”
Kyoshi gave in. “Okay..”
Rangi squeezed her hand again and smiled. Kyoshi took her other hand.
“Would it be ok if we could just… lie here together, for a while?” Kyoshi asked tentatively, incredibly drained from everything that just happened.
Rangi gave her a small smile. “Of course.”
They climbed into her bed and curled up next to each other, cuddling and enjoying each other’s presence. Occasionally pressing a kiss on the other.
A few hours later they’d be found asleep together. And a few hours later they’d talk about the events of that day.
But for now, they’re curled up together in Kyoshi’s bed, just enjoying eachother’s presence and the quiet.