Chapter 2: Strange Kid
"For the last damn time your kid is not the Avatar!" It was one of the long line of unreasonable parents who believed their sons and daughters were meant for greatness.
"My little Xiao Mei is the Avatar! I saw her earthbending and air bending at the same time!" An angry parents shouted at Jianzhu who was at his patience' ends.
"You just saw her earthbending on a windy day!" He retorted with a crunch brow.
In anger the parents stomped her foot to the ground and mumbled curses at him as she grabbed her daughter out.
"It's your loss!" She said while raising her fist.
"Ugghhh" The old earthbender groaned.
"Looks like another failure," Kelsang said.
"My friend Kuruk, we have failed you from time to time, you must be fuming in the afterlife looking at our failure," Kelsang said solemnly.
Another parent came in, and Jianzhu greeted him just in case it was truly the avatar.
But it seems like it was another dud.
"For the last time I am not negotiating a salary! The Avatar is not a paying job!" Jianzhu shouted annoyedly at the unreasonable parents.
"Just another waste of time then. I'll just take my daughter and go," The parents said.
"Jianzhu look!" Kelsang excitedly patted his shoulder and pointed at the kid who managed to pick two of the Avatar's relics.
But when she was picking the third relic she guessed the wrong one.
"So close!" Kelsang said disappointedly.
But two relics are still better than none, so Jianzhu, who was lost in hope and just grabbing any rope said to the parents.
"Okay, I'll give you fifty silvers a year if she turns out to be the avatar."
The parents haggled.
"Sixty-five silvers if she IS the avatar, ten silvers if she's not." This pissed off Jianzhu who shouted.
"WHY WOULD I PAY YOU IF SHE'S NOT THE AVATAR!!"
"Ten silvers."
"GET OUT OF HERE!" Jianzhu said and pushed the two out.
But another child was left.
"Hey! You left your other daughter!"
The father turned around and said,
"That one ain't mine. That ain't anyone's" He said and left.
An orphan then? Jianzhu hadn't spotted the unchaperoned girl around town in the days before, but maybe he'd glossed over her, thinking she was too old to be a candidate.
She was much, much taller than any of the other children who'd been brought in by their parents.
As Jianzhu walked over to examine what he'd missed, the girl quavered, threatening to flee, but her curiosity won over her fright.
She remained where she was.
Underfed, Jianzhu thought with a frown as he looked over the girl's hollow cheeks and cracked lips. And definitely an orphan.
He'd seen hundreds of children like her in the inner provinces where outlaw daofei ran unchecked, their parents slain by whatever bandit group was ascendant in the territory. She must have wandered far into the relatively peaceful area of Yokoya.
Upon hearing about the Avatar test, the families of the village had dressed their eligible children in their finest garments as if it were a festival day. But this child was wearing a threadbare coat with her elbows poking through the holes in the sleeves.
Her oversized feet threatened to burst the straps of her too-small sandals. None of the local farmers were feeding or clothing her.
Kelsang, who despite his fearsome appearance was always better with children, joined them and stooped down.
With a smile he transformed from an intimidating orange mountain into a giant-sized version of the stuffed toys behind him.
"Why, hello there," he said, putting an extra layer of friendliness into his booming rumble. "What's your name?"
The girl took a long, guarded moment, sizing them up.
"Kyoshi," she whispered. Her eyebrows knotted as if revealing her name was a painful concession.
Kelsang took in her tattered state and avoided the subject of her parents for now. "Kyoshi, would you like a toy?"
"Are you sure she isn't too old?" Jianzhu said. "She's bigger than some of the teenagers."
"Hush, you," Kelsang said. He made a sweeping gesture at the hall festooned with relics, for Kyoshi's benefit.
The unveiling of so many playthings at once had an entrancing effect on most of the children. But Kyoshi didn't gasp, or smile, or move a muscle. Instead she maintained eye contact with Kelsang until he blinked.
As quick as a whip, she scampered by him, snagged an object off the floor, and ran back to where she was standing on the porch. She gauged Kelsang and Jianzhu for their response as intently as they watched her.
Kelsang glanced at Jianzhu and tilted his head at the clay turtle Kyoshi clutched to her chest. One of the four true relics. Not a single candidate had come anywhere near it today.
They should have been as excited for her as they'd been for evil little Suzu, but Jianzhu's heart was clouded with doubt. It was hard to believe they'd be so lucky after that previous head-fake.
"Good choice," Kelsang said. "But I've got a surprise for you. You can have three more! Four whole toys, to yourself! Wouldn't you like that?"
Jianzhu sensed a shift in the girl's stance, a tremor in her foundation that was obvious through the wooden floorboards.
Yes, she would like three more toys very much. What child wouldn't? But in her mind, the promise of more was dangerous.
A lie designed to hurt her. If she loosened her grip on the single prize she held right now, she would end up with nothing. Punished for believing in the kindness of this stranger.
Kyoshi shook her head. Her knuckles whitened around the clay turtle.
"It's okay," Kelsang said. "You don't have to put that down. That's the whole point; you can choose different . . . Hey!"
The girl took a step back, and then another, and then, before they could react, she was sprinting down the hill with the one-of-a-kind, centuries-old Avatar relic in her hands.
Halfway along the street, she took a sharp turn like an experienced fugitive throwing off a pursuer and disappeared in the space between two houses.
Jianzhu looked at the running figure with devastated and tired eyes. His wrinkles evidently showed as he just aged in an instant.
"Come on," Kelsang said.
"With the way you look, people would think you just lost your nation's most important cultural artifact."
The Airbender's good humor and ability to take setbacks in stride was normally a great comfort to Jianzhu, but right now he wanted to punch his friend in his stupid bearded face. He composed his own features.
"We need to go after her," he said.
Kelsang pursed his lips. "Eh, it would feel bad to take the relic away from a child who has so little. She can hang on to it. I'll go back to the temple and face Dorje's wrath alone. There's no need for you to implicate yourself."
Jianzhu didn't know what counted for wrath among Airbenders, but that wasn't the issue here. "You'd ruin the Air Nomad test to make a child happy?" he said incredulously.
"It'll find its way back to where it belongs." Kelsang looked around and paused.
Then his smile faded, as if this little blot of a town were a harsh dose of reality that was only now taking effect.
"Eventually." He sighed. "Maybe."
As they were about to pack up and leave, one last child appeared. He was different from the rest of the children who exuded an air of immaturity.
His eyes were sharp and quite frankly dangerous looking. He was looking at the two benders, his red hair and strangely brilliant golden eyes that resembled that of a lion boring at the two bending masters.
The child didn't look at the toys. He wasn't even interested in them.
He was just interested in the two masters as if he found a treasure.
"Fight me." The child said.
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