༉˚*ೃ ᵒ⁴. 𝐀 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐊𝐘𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈!

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 Kyoshi was more beautiful than Luli had anticipated. It was cut off from the outside world and the war, and had never been an advantage point that the Fire Nation wanted to capture, so what she'd learned about the place had been few and far in between. She knew it was the home and creation of Avatar Kyoshi, and she'd read in brief about the warriors who protected the island, but information tended to be scarce. So Luli was surprised, walking around, how different it was from the mainland Earth Kingdom.

          The flora was lusher, more acclimated to an island, and dense ferns covered the damp earth, reaching up towards the open sky. There were fruit trees and red flowers deep within the forest, critters that chirped and ran past her feet, and strange scents that wafted through the woods. Luli wandered between each wonder, through the forest, (after having fled in adamant panic from a few angry swanhawks), and had ended up peering at an old tree trunk. She'd been trying to figure out what type of tree the ones littering the island were when a girl spoke.

          "Wandering around?" The voice startled Luli out of her thoughts and she found herself jumping, defences immediately kicking in as her hands raised in front of her. But when the firebender raised her eyes, all she saw was the leader of the fan-wielding girls—Luli had heard them referred to Kyoshi Warriors since arriving here—standing by one of the trees on the hill ahead of her. The girl's stance was calm, her hand resting on the trunk. Yet Luli couldn't help but feel that the girl was purposefully keeping an eye on her.

          Relaxing, Luli smiled lightly and glanced up and around. "Yeah, this island's so different from the mainland Earth Kingdom. I thought I'd explore a little." It was the truth. The only proper islands she'd ever been on were the volcanic ones surrounding the mainland Fire Nation, vacations with her family or childhood friends, and it was fair to say that Kyoshi was much, much different. There wasn't nearly so much volcanic rock, nor Fire Nation children running amuck and laughing. She missed the colour red, just a little.

          "Mind if I join you?" The short-haired girl walked down towards her, clothed in green, with the golden tessen fans and a katana at her hip. But the smile behind her painted face was not menacing.

          Luli nodded as she let her arms drop back by her side. Her hair was still a bit messed up from where the swanhawk had dive-bombed her—Luli had shouted so loud she was sure the whole island heard it—and now the firebender hurriedly smoothed it down, trying to pile her braids atop her head again. They were a hassle to manage, but she didn't think she'd be entirely herself without them as part of her identity. "Oh, of course. I'm sure you can show me all of the great spots."

          When they were side-by-side and continued walking, the girl with the short hair glanced over at her. "I'm Suki, by the way." Her eyes were a shade of grey, appearing almost purple when contrasted with the white, red and green of her traditional outfit, and now looking at her, Luli realised Suki couldn't have been much younger than herself. Perhaps a year or so. Suki, however, was significantly shorter.

          "Luli," replied Luli courteously, though she was sure the girl already knew that. "It's nice to meet you." She offered her pretty smile, arms tucked beside her side. Their boots crunched over dirt and small twigs—two girls dressed in green clothing—though the distinctions in their physical appearance couldn't be more obvious. Where Luli's features were sharp and pointed, Suki's were softer.

          "Sorry about the Unagi," apologised Suki. "It's good at keeping out any Fire Nation soldiers or pirates, but it can backfire sometimes." She lifted some ferns out of the way of her face, so they could continue walking. The both of them stepped between trees—dodging the reaching branches—, Suki's gold accents of armour glinting in the sunlight.

          Luli gave her a sideways smile. "Eh, that's alright. I didn't really need my boat anyway." Still, Luli mourned for all the coin she'd lost at the expense of the pricy boat being reduced to little more than wood and cloth. "I mean, if I'm heading off with the Avatar, that is. Otherwise I suppose I'll have to hitch a ride from here." Luli, eyebrow cocked, sighed, before her face fell into a conflicted frown. "So hopefully it's the former." She hopped nimbly over a log. Suki followed close behind.

          "Well, Katara and that oaf Sokka seem to have taken to you, so I'm sure you'll be riding off on Appa in no time." Suki crossed her arms at the mention of Sokka, looking rather disgruntled, but glanced over at Luli with kinder eyes anyway.

          Luli wasn't so sure. There was that worry, curling up in the pit of her stomach. Fire Nation, it told her, you are Fire Nation and there's no other place in the world for you. But that was just what the Fire Nation had hammered into her, to try to convince her that she belonged there. Sometimes, she was still trying to shake off their lies. "I hope so." Her fingers fiddled with the sides of her green uniform. "I don't know what I'll do if I can't go with them. My whole life for the past three years has been just searching for the Avatar." The idea of her crawling back to the Fire Nation with her tail between her legs made Luli feel sick.

          "That's a long time," Suki considered. Her painted face was twisted in a bit of confusion. "You were...?"

          Luli pulled one of her braids back in place. "I was thirteen, when I left. My home, that is." Even calling it her home felt wrong. She avoided eye contact. Instead, Luli watched the forest ahead of her. How glad she was that this island was still untouched. It hadn't yet been scarred, in the way the Fire Nation was so good at.

          She was pointedly stared at by Suki. Now the warrior was looking at her with more concern, her red lips parted, like maybe she knew a little about what Luli was talking about with so much responsibility at such a young age. "Thirteen? All alone by yourself? Even with the war going on?" She paused her steps for a moment, mouth pulled tight together and brows lowered. "That must have been hard."

          The firebender turned towards her, nodding slowly. "The hardest part was doing it alone. But I'm still around, so I suppose I did something right." She had been lucky, truly. There were a lot of people who would have wanted to hurt a young Fire Nation girl.

          And part of Luli wondered who she would have become if she'd stayed in the Fire Nation. A soldier? A guard? Sitting at her father's right hand? Would she have grown up wearing red and with fire in her eyes? How close she'd come to that happening was frightening.

          "I'm sure Avatar Aang would love to have you as a guide," Suki encouraged, sliding a little down the stony hillside they were stepping on. Avatar Aang. He was a kid, just like her. Like Suki. This was a children's war, with children soldiers, and they were all playing their part.

          They were back at the woods that bordered the village now—Luli could see the wooden statue of Avatar Kyoshi from between the trees, standing tall and powerful. She could even hear the children playing down on the dirt streets below. "So... you're a Kyoshi Warrior?" They wandered back down through a stone archway and into the town, pausing to let two kids run past.

          "Yeah," replied Suki with a grin.

          "That's so cool. I love your outfit and makeup!" It did look incredible. Luli had always admired Avatar Kyoshi from the history tomes she'd read in Gaoling and other Earth Kingdom cities across the continent, not just for her ass-kicking fashion but also her tendency for calculated ruthlessness. "Do you think you could teach me how to fight with those fans?" Tessenjutsu was a form of martial arts they'd never taught in the Fire Nation, but Luli was always an eager learner. And, anything that could help her when she finally came face to face with Firelord Ozai and her own father once again.

          Suki seemed to analyse her quickly, grey eyes gentle and a little narrowed. Then, a smile spread across her face, "Sure, if you'd like. But we follow tradition, meaning you'd have to wear the uniform." Her gloved hands planted themselves on her own hips, a smile lifting her mouth.

          Luli glanced from Suki's green skirted uniform to the armour on her shoulders to the fans at her hip to the makeup on her face. "Alright," Luli agreed, and grinned. "Let's do it."

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"𝐓𝐔𝐈 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐀, these warrior outfits are comfy." Luli grinned down at the dark green skirts, swishing them around with her white teeth shining against her parted lips. The makeup had been a bit of a hassle to apply—Luli had incredible respect for the Kyoshi warriors being able to wear it each and every day—but between herself and Suki they managed to get it on just right. She did look amazing if she said so herself. "The skirts allow so much movement!" She practised a few kicks and traditional Fire Nation attacks without the fire, manoeuvring her body and finding the fabric twisted with her. "Much more comfortable than any of my clothes." She'd thought Suki and the other Kyoshi Warriors were impressive for fighting in skirts, but now she was jealous. How comfortable.

          They'd returned to the dojo where the Kyoshi Warriors trained, the rest of Suki's girls filing out to allow for some one-on-one time with their leader and the new arrival to their island. Briefly, Luli had dropped her Earth Kingdom clothes and her pack on Appa's saddle, where Katara assured her they'd be safe, and now in the training dojo she stood in deep green.

          Luli adjusted the thin gold headpiece tucked on her head, band ducking into her hair. "I look so great!" In the midst of her gleeful posing, Suki handed her two golden-painted iron fans, heavy and neat at the same time in each of Luli's hands. Luli just raised her eyebrows.

          In turn, Suki took out her own from where they were permanently tucked at her hip. "Tessenjutsu—the iron fan technique—is all about the art of movement, using your opponent's weight and actions to your advantage." The way Suki held the fan made it look about as deadly as a sword, flared and open calculatedly between her fingers. She gently circled around Luli, as Luli wondered how she was supposed to be holding her own. "Fans are unassuming. We use them in the heat, or to cover our faces. They let you get into places that would usually have your sword or weapons stripped away."

          Luli dropped into a traditional firebending defense stance, which she was sure was similar enough to a defense stance of elsewhere in the world. Figuring out how to hold the fans—mimicking Suki—she tried to adopt a position of defense with those as well.

          "But fans are also precise and powerful. They can take down enemies with just a few strikes at certain pressure points." Suki stopped in front of her, a lopsided, smug smile on her face. "A well-calculated strike can break bones or kill someone with a single hit." Suki lightly struck the tessen against her left palm, gripping it like a baton.

         Luli offered her a wonky grin. "Please don't kill me."

         Losing her composure for a moment, Suki huffed out something not unlike a snort, then straightened her brows. "A tessen can also be used as a tool of defense—their fans can knock away knives, arrows, darts, fire, and can be used to parry." The warrior demonstrated a few traditional defense motions, flipping the fans around in her fingertips like she'd been born doing it. "Tessenjutsu was traditionally fought with only closed fans." Suki flipped the fan shut, so swiftly and smoothly that Luli could have mistaken it for an extension of her arms. "However, Kyoshi and her warriors developed a way to fight with the open-fan, offering us twice the move pool, and twice the advantages." Avatar Kyoshi sounded like somebody Luli would like to meet. Well, wasn't Aang technically Avatar Kyoshi anyway?

          "I hold them like this?" questioned Luli, trying to mimic Suki's grip but looking more as if she was holding a noble fan, rather than a tool of war.

          "More like this," Suki corrected, turning her own hands around so Luli could see the positioning of her fingers better. "Think of them more a bit like knives." Her grip was more at an angle, index finger uncurled so she had better control of the weapon, and her stance was lowered, right hand pushed straight out in front of her and other arm holding the fan tucked down, adopting a pose of simultaneously defense and offense. It was easy to see that Suki would be able to quickly shift in any direction and use the tessen as shields. Luli had never been much of a knives girl, but she'd had her fair share of dabbles with them throughout her childhood. She could do that. "And when closed, hold them in a tight fist, like a single-handed sword."

          "Like a dao?" asked Luli curiously, copying the grip.

          Suki seemed surprised. "Yes, like a dao."

          Hmm. It was a different style of weapon than Luli was used to—felt awkward, in her hands that were used to primarily firebending—but if she loosened her fingers enough, she was sure she'd get the hang of it. There. Luli shot Suki a small grin, which was returned. "Your stance is good already," said the Kyoshi Warrior, "but try to shift your legs a little lower. It has to be a little more solid than hand-to-hand combat," which she assumed Luli must be used to. Luli copied her instructions, fan in her dominant left hand held outwards, and other levelled back slightly. Suki, right-handed, mirrored her.

          It was a bit like a dance. Just like firebending was. In fact, Luli fell into the motion easily—the stepping around and falling back, turning to get the best advantage with the tessen, and learning how to switch hand positions to take control of the situation.

          "Strike. Parry. Bring an opponent down. Don't forget to block." Suki ran through the basic steps, with Luli following. The firebender's movements were less perfectly executed, even a bit clumsy, but it was shocking to Luli just how similar these earthbending forms were to some traditional firebending forms. At least the ones Luli had been taught. She fell into the type of dance easily, managing to actually keep up with Suki, more-or-less. The only thing she had to worry about was accidentally shooting fire from the wings of the fans.

          Suki was grinning. "Good. You're really good." She lowered an eyebrow, smile still present on her face as she and Luli spun around each other. "Are you sure you've never fought with tessenjutsu before?" Luli didn't know how to explain that the firebending her mother taught her had contained many of the same motions. Firebending wasn't exactly considered an elegant bending form.

          "Mmm, I've travelled around the Earth Kingdom enough to have picked up a few tricks." She grinned smugly, eyes narrowed in faux confidence. Suki moved towards her with one tessen, and Luli used her own, closed, to twist the warrior's arm away, getting appropriate leverage. What ended up happening was Suki gripped Luli's own shoulder, forced it awkwardly downwards and twisted the arm that Luli was attempting to unarm Suki with towards her. It disarmed Luli of her tessen in the process and then Suki's foot brought Luli's legs out from beneath her. Luli crashed straight into the ground, pinned sideways at the shoulder and waist by Suki's hand and foot, with her arms trapped beneath her ribs. "Ouch." Luli blinked dully, the side of her body beginning to ache. She tried to shift out of Suki's grip, but was held pretty solidly at an odd angle. Shit, it had been a while since anyone had been able to use her bodyweight against her like that. She grinned from where her cheek was pressed into the thin matt.

          "See?" asked Suki demonstratively, grip still on Luli's shoulder and holding her down painfully. "All about using your weight." She relented in letting go—allowing Luli to clamber back onto her feet.

          "Yeah, I think I can work with that." Luli, when fighting using her bodyweight, was used to having her hands free—could knock punches away with her arms and grab opponents when needed—, not to holding weighted items. So trying to fight with weapons in her hands was a struggle. She rolled her shoulders experimentally and then got back into the stance. "Lucky you barely weigh a thing."

          Suki snidely turned up her nose, "You can talk about how light I am when you manage to get me on the matt once." She grinned crookedly and Luli's face scrunched in challenge. Accepted.

༉*ೃ༄

THIS CHAPTER WAS SO FUN TO WRITE! i researched tessenjutsu really thoroughly and watched a lot of videos about tessenjutsu techniques, the whole thing was really interesting! i recommend watching kaze no ryu's video "ogawa ryu tessenjutsu - nihon me to sanbon me" if you're interested in watching the badassery of a woman beating up a guy with a wooden sword, using only an iron fan, it was really cool! i can't stop imagining suki and the other kyoshi warriors using their tessens in that way in the future, and i'll definitely be incorporating those moves into this story!

sorry that it's a bit short, the next chapter and this one were originally just a single chapter, but it turned out to be 7,000 words so i had to cut it in half! i just love suki and luli's dynamic too much :)

dedicated to kingschteve bc it's her birthday today !! wish her happy birthday 🥰🥺

word count: 3,072

12.10.2020.