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DISCLAIMER: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or anything associated with it.
#35 – Fever
She might have figured it out, is almost certain her grandmother did, in her fifth winter when she fell desperately ill and spent a week dreaming about face-stealing spirits and people who could mold volcanoes like clay.
#03 – Memory
They say they knew who she was when, in her first writing lesson, she drew a water tribe symbol on her parchment, but all she can remember is the stuffy, musky air of the small classroom and trying to hold the brush so it wouldn’t slip.
#29 – Dance
Kyoshi has always made bending look easy, her movements as steady as the tide, effortless as a breeze, fierce as a raging bonfire, and strong and decisive as a child of the earth.
#05 – Run
Only once in her entire life does Kyoshi want to run from something: on her sixteenth birthday when the men in green and gold march into her village and kneel in front of her as the villagers gasp and mutter to each other in shock.
#40 – Whisper
The night before Kyoshi leaves for her training, her eleven-year-old brother tiptoes into her room, slips a village heirloom – a single paper fan – under her pillow and whispers, “Don’t forget us.”
#47 – Highway
For several days, the Guardians of the Earth Temple lead her along a road through farmland and market towns; at a trading port on the west coast, Kyoshi takes her first look at a world map and is stunned to discover that, as far as they’ve come, they’ve only traveled a tiny portion of it.
#09 – Red
Fire Nation clothing feels unnatural, too fierce, too intense; she can’t help but feel that if her family saw her wearing it, they would fall down laughing.
#19 – Candle
The first task for every firebending student is to hold a candle for a day without letting the wick shorten; her teacher soon discovers that to an earthbender, this lesson comes as easily as the part about breathing.
#04 – Box
Contrary to popular belief, the duties of the Avatar are suffocating, binding, like someone has caught her in a trap and taken away her ability to make choices.
#10 – Drink
She has her first taste of alcohol at a party in the Fire Nation capital, hates the way it burns her throat, and is shocked to learn that it came from her own people, who are apparently notorious for it.
#32 – Farewells
One day while meditating, Kyoshi learns that her grandmother has passed; without consulting anyone she takes her first journey into the spirit world to apologize for not being there, only to have her grandmother wave her words away and tell her how proud she is.
#14 – Music
At the Eastern Air Temple, Kyoshi learns from an elder that no Avatar in recorded history has ever been musically talented; as expected, she is no exception.
#30 – Body
To call her self-conscious would be stretching the truth, but it’s no lie that Kyoshi is excruciatingly aware of her size, both when it comes to her advantage and when it does not.
#36 – Laugh
Her first weeks of airbending are rough and discouraging, but watching the younger students play tricks and steal pies always makes her feel a little bit better.
#50 – Breathe
Several weeks into her training at the Temple, Kyoshi hasn’t bent more than a wisp of air (it slips like an newt-eel through her fingertips no matter how fiercely she pushes) until one day while she rests and fans herself, inspiration washes over her like a gust of wind; as she uses the fan to open the curtains on the other side of the hall, revealing her teacher and some elders grinning broadly, she for the first time truly embraces her destiny.
#28 – Forgotten
Like all avatars, she spends the winter and summer solstices deep in meditation, as the legacies and latent knowledge of her former lives flash in front of her.
#43 – Search
“You can travel through all four nations trying to find your destiny,” says Avatar Kuruk (the solution, to Kyoshi, seems obvious), “only to find that what you’re searching for is home where you left it, and has been all along.”
#07 – Wings
Whether by bison, fan, glider or dragon, Kyoshi never learns to enjoy flying; even as an airbending master she avoids leaving the ground whenever she can.
#08 – Cold
She is the first woman to learn waterbending since Avatar Yangchen, and sometimes she feels the resentment, both from the men who must break their traditions and the women who can’t, in forced smiles masking icy glares.
#17 – Promise
She has known for a long time about Avatar Kuruk’s mistakes – he told her himself when they first met – but hearing stories from the Water Tribe elders, Kyoshi makes a solemn vow not to make them again.
#11 – Midnight
She officially becomes a waterbending master in the middle of a frigid, cloudless night, with the light of the full moon spilling over her like a blessing.
#31 – Sacred
In her early days, Kyoshi finds the Avatar temples intimidating, but as she grows into her role, their sanctity feels more and more commonplace, until her later years when she seeks them out for comfort and solitude.
#22 – Journey
After more than a decade, the fully realized Avatar Kyoshi finally sets foot in her home village, feeling as though she has walked one thousand miles, yet only been gone for a day.
#38 – Forever
She is the only person alive who fully grasps the concept of infinity, seeing the statues in the Southern Air temple, understanding that they are her and she is them and it will always be this way.
#01 – Ring
The raiders have her surrounded in a perfect circle, and she allows herself a small smile, because they don’t know who she is and so they assume they’ve already won.
#13 – View
The way Kyoshi sees it, she can slip into and out of each culture, with its ideas, strengths and legacies, a thousand times, but she will never stop being that little girl on her peninsula wanting nothing more than the simplicity of village life.
#49 – Lock
She keeps herself closed off, thinking there isn’t a man alive she won’t intimidate, but this one – a nonbender, funny enough – with his quiet unassumption and his unflinching loyalty, makes her feel more human than anyone has since she turned sixteen.
#42 – Talk
Kyoshi is not a sharer – never has been – but there are exactly three people in the world to whom she could tell everything: her grandmother, her husband, and the badgermole who lives in the cave by her village.
#15 – Silk
Even after living in all four corners of the world, Kyoshi never learns to understand high society, its fatuous superficiality; her own people are the worst, with their flowing gowns and painted faces and willful ignorance of the suffering of others.
#16 – Cover
And yet, earth citizen at her core, she finds herself relying on the same materialism: white face paint, gold fans, a headpiece, to set herself apart and remind opponents who they are facing.
#27 – Fall
Chin the Conquerer destroyed himself, this everyone knows, but most people don’t realize that he did so long before he reached the Avatar’s home, when people began whispering discontent and she began to wait for the right moment to strike.
#21 – Silence
Most warriors agree that the calm just before battle is worse than the actual fighting, but Kyoshi practically thrives in it, drawing her energies and listening to the sounds of the earth.
#20 – Talent
Of course it has to be about talent sometimes – she created an island, after all – but mostly people admire the way even her stoicism can strike fear into the heart of an army.
#46 – Gravity
The fact that Chin the Conqueror technically caused his own death means nothing, because she as the Avatar is nature in all its aspects, and like nature she is unwilling to forgive a man for crucial mistakes.
#41 – Wait
The Earth Kingdom born avatar practically embodies neutral Jin, but even for Kyoshi there are exceptions, as the villagers discover the night she nearly creates an archipelago while in labor.
#39 – Overwhelmed
Kyoshi wonders what it must be like to be the Avatar’s child, but Koko proves to be her mother’s daughter by not allowing the world to be bigger than she is.
#37 – Lies
The most dangerous kind of corruption is never open and violent, Kyoshi realizes when confronting the old Earth King, but silent and cunning, hiding behind sweet silky tales and well-crafted justifications.
#12 – Temptation
“Oh come now,” says the old earth King, frustrated, incredulous, amused and frightened at the same time, as Kyoshi remembers her past life and keeps her face impassive, “you mean to tell me that with all your power, you’ve never once thought to do something only for yourself?”
#06 – Hurricane
In the Avatar state she is a one-woman whirlwind: terrifying, destructive, merciless, inimitable and cold.
#02 – Hero
Kyoshi has never wanted the fame and glory on which her predecessor thrived, but she has to admit that from time to time it’s nice to see appreciation in people’s faces, just to feel the satisfaction of doing her job right.
#18 – Dream
It’s an unattainable desire, a fantasy of the hopelessly optimistic: one person maintaining peace among thousands, yet she dedicates herself to it, and somehow the world continues to move forward without destroying itself.
#26 – Ice
She trains the Dai Li to be swift, sharp and precise, without worry, sympathy or warmth; only centuries later does she realize how foolish this is.
#24 – Strength
She has the kind of power that is silent and booming at the same time, the kind that can overhaul a government overnight and literally change landscapes without batting an eye.
#25 – Mask
Yet her closest relatives wonder sometimes if she chooses to wear make up because, with all the extra concerns of the Avatar, Kyoshi has become unable to conceal her emotions on her own.
#44 – Hope
“Having the Avatar,” says an Air Temple monk one day in Kyoshi’s 57th year, “is more about hope than anything else,” as Kyoshi smiles politely, not inclined to correct an elder.
#33 – World
The world never seems so big as when she’s mediating negotiations between an irascible Fire Lord and an uncompromising Earth King, never so small as when she’s helping her grandson weed the garden at the edge of her village.
#45 – Eclipse
Every once in a while, the full moon turns brown and Kyoshi feels itchy and off-balance, like she’s put on too many layers of clothing; three times in her life it happens with the sun and, for almost ten minutes each time, she feels listless and oddly chilled.
#34 – Formal
Kyoshi has never cared for grand parties with long tables and fancy music, hates performing like a panda-monkey for chittering crowds, all the while thinking you know so very little.
#23 – Fire
In her final years, one of her favorite pastimes is entertaining her seven-times great grandchildren by lighting all the candles in her house without leaving her seat.
#48 – Unknown
In the summer of her 230th year, Kyoshi has a vision of a Fire Nation noblewoman, vastly pregnant, and as she closes her eyes that night, listening to her family sleep, she smiles at the prospect of a threshold she has not yet crossed.