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The Avatar’s estate, in all of its shabbiness.
Facing the results of her own neglect was difficult. It made her wonder if she could ever call herself a tidy person again. The once-vibrant colors of the walls badly needed a fresh coat of paint. The south-facing gatehouse was empty, and some of the iron studs of its heavy doors were beginning to rust. The lawn was overgrown and patchy with weeds.
It was a testament to how much effort was needed to maintain a large manor in good order, to fight the ravages of time and decay. It took so much energy to remain frozen in an eternal state, never changing. Once you gave up, turned your attention away for the slightest second, collapse progressed further than you expected.
Kyoshi shoved the gates open, the metal groan announcing her presence. The garden had thrived and died in equal measure, certain shrubs coming to dominate the others. Balance had been lost, or perhaps it had been restored to a form displeasing to humans. Thin tendrils of vines curled over the outdoor sculptures and had taken root in the sands of the meditation maze. Hardy weeds had taken the place of precious, ephemeral flowers.
There was a message for her, written in pebbles over the ground.
I’m inside.
Even with the house in its current condition, there should have been someone to greet her. The halls looked completely abandoned. Kyoshi’s footsteps echoed and creaked over the wooden floors as she checked each section of the mansion in turn. She found what she was looking for in the dining room.
Yun sat at the head of the long table with a small place setting in front of him. He was calmly eating a plate of dumplings. Auntie Mui stood at attention behind him, tears in her eyes.
It was the garden party all over again. Kyoshi’s first thought was to separate hostage and captor, to free Mui from whatever bonds Yun had her in and get her to safety. But before she could, Mui let out a sob and bounded over to her.
She collided with Kyoshi and wrapped her short arms around the small of her back, the highest she could reach. “My girl, my girl!” she said, weeping with joy. “At last, my girl and my boy are both finally home!”
Kyoshi stared hard at Yun over the top of Auntie Mui’s head. He met her gaze and sipped his tea.
“This house will be a home again,” Mui sobbed, her tears forming a damp spot on Kyoshi’s robes. “We’ll clean up the rooms. We’ll have the guests coming back. The two of you, you were the heart of this place. And now you’re together again. Everything will go back to the way it was.”
“Yes, Auntie,” Kyoshi said, never dropping her eyes from Yun’s. She gave the older woman a gentle squeeze and patted her on the back. “Everything will be all right from now on. I promise.”
Yun smirked. Lying to our elders now, are we? How low.
“Auntie,” he said. “We should have a big dinner tonight to welcome Kyoshi home.”
“Yes!” Mui’s eyes shone with happiness. “Of course! I’ll need to do some shopping in town. What would you like to eat, my dear?”
“Stalknose mushrooms,” Kyoshi said firmly. Mui would search Yokoya end-to-end before realizing she couldn’t find them. The futile quest would buy Kyoshi more time.
Mui nodded, undaunted. She hurried out of the dining room, paused by the doorway to give her children one last beaming look, and then disappeared down the hall.
Yun gave it enough time for Auntie Mui to leave the mansion before speaking. “She’ll be gone for a while,” he said. “And she gave the remaining staff the day off. The house should be empty.” He popped the last dumpling into his mouth and laid down his chopsticks, chewing in contemplation. “If there’s anything I’ve missed about this place, it’s Auntie’s cooking.
“So what have you been doing for the past few weeks?” Yun said once he was done. “Mastering the Avatar State? Or some other secret fighting technique you wanted to use against me?”
“I was learning healing. My teacher says I’m the fastest study she’s ever seen.”
“Are you here to look at my arm then?” He rolled the shoulder Hei-Ran had injured. It was probably the reason he’d laid low until now, and it had recovered enough not to bother him. “Are you going to try and make me all better?”
Now, it seemed, they were both ready. “No, Yun,” Kyoshi said. “I’m here to put you away.”
Yun leaned onto the table, chin in one hand, interested in this new development.
“You can’t be allowed to show your face in public again,” Kyoshi said. “Zoryu’s managed to contain the damage you’ve done in the Fire Nation, but if you resurfaced now, the country would fall apart.”
“So? I don’t care about that anymore. And the beautiful thing is I don’t have to. I used to have to negotiate, accommodate, bend over backward to make people happy, but those days are over. You know what I spent the last few weeks doing while I recovered from my injury? I thought about all the liars and backstabbers I’ve met across the Four Nations who kissed my feet when I was the Avatar.”
A blissful thought crossed his mind and he smiled. “And I realized that I could kill them all,” he said. “Not an exaggeration. With enough time I truly think I could actually kill them all. I know their names. I know how they’re connected. Most important, I know why they would deserve it.”
Kyoshi had hoped she could talk some sense into Yun. She’d hoped his rage had been sated upon leaving the Fire Nation and that he might come along with her quietly. But it was clear now. Yun’s rampage was never going to end with Jianzhu and Hei-Ran and Lu. In his eyes, the whole world had wronged him. He wasn’t trying to balance the scales with his killings. He was trying to smash the device into bits.
“Yun,” Kyoshi said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Oh? What are you going to do? Send me to the prisons at Laogai? Lock me up below the house in a cage, like Jianzhu did to Xu Ping An?”
