Work Text:
There must be lead in Kyoshi’s makeup. She wears it far too often, anyway, and the metal in the paint must be leeching into her skin and causing some kind of reaction. There’s just no other explanation for it, Rangi decides. Kyoshi has officially gone off the deep end.
“Hello,” Kyoshi singsongs, waving her hands dramatically in front of Rangi’s face to get her attention. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Of course I am,” Rangi snaps back. “But you’re not making any sense. My mother is not—”
“That’s a little close-minded of you, isn’t it?” Kyoshi’s smirking now, and ugh, Rangi desperately wants to wipe that smug little grin off her annoyingly adorable face.
“Oh, stop,” she says, irritated. She knows she’s told Kyoshi that she needs to work on her confidence, but not like this. “She’s my mother. Don’t you think she’d have told me—”
“Just like you immediately told your mother about us, right—”
“That’s not fair! I told her as soon as I could!” Rangi protests.
“If by ‘as soon as you could’, you mean after she nearly caught us making out behind Yingyong, sure,” Kyoshi says, amused. “Anyway, you’re missing my point. All I’m saying is, think about it. Wouldn’t it make sense? I mean, haven’t they been spending a whole lot of time together? And who brings their doctor to a garden party?”
Rangi pauses. Is it possible that Kyoshi might be on to something?
She shakes her head. No. No way. The idea is too preposterous. “Kyoshi, has training with Jinpa and that glider of yours caused your brain to rattle around too much in the wind? That proves nothing. She was badly injured and still recovering. She needed her doctor there to support her.”
“Why, so she can stand around and make eyes at your mother while single-handedly decimating the party’s entire supply of kebabs?” Kyoshi eyes the Firebender skeptically. “She was bringing your mother drinks. She was definitely not invited as a positive influence.”
Rangi’s losing her patience by now, dark eyes flashing and face flushing as red as her daofei colors. “Why do you want this to be true so badly, Kyoshi? Why are you so invested?”
Kyoshi just laughs, which only serves to frustrate Rangi more. “I’m not!” she swears, still chuckling lightly. “I just felt like you should finally be let in on the worst-kept secret in town.” Kyoshi gently lays her hands on either shoulder, turning Rangi around to face the figure of Hei-Ran gradually appearing from the distance. “Here, you can ask her yourself.”
“What—”
“Avatar. Lieutenant.”
“Mother,” Rangi and Kyoshi reply simultaneously. Hei-Ran’s mouth crooks slightly, warmly.
“Rangi has something to ask you,” Kyoshi volunteers, pushing her forwards and proffering the smaller girl as sacrifice. “Don’t you?”
If Rangi could firebend with her eyes alone, Kyoshi surely would have been toast.
“Oh?” Hei-Ran questions. “What is it?”
Fine. When Kyoshi got like this and insisted on being needlessly tiresome and exasperating, only one thing shut her down — being proven wrong.
“Mother,” she begins again, voice dripping with faux-saccharine sweetness. “My dearest Kyoshi here insists that you’re — you’re having — that is to say, you and Sifu Atuat are…”
This whole situation is exceedingly embarrassing, to say the least, and Rangi can barely bring herself to voice the words. She looks to Kyoshi for backup, but the other girl is looking pointedly at her feet, suddenly seeming to find her custom-made sandals extremely fascinating.
“Spit it out, Lieutenant,” her mother commands, and the words come rushing out all at once.
“Can you please just tell Kyoshi once and for all that she’s reading into things that don’t exist?”
A pregnant pause. Hei-Ran is utterly silent for a moment, the shocked expression on her face belied by her growing smile.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
“Well, it started as nothing really,” Hei-Ran states slowly, and Rangi can absolutely not believe her ears. Her mother and Sifu Atuat? Her mother and Sifu Atuat? She’s happy for her mother of course, but her mother and Sifu Atuat? How had she missed this? More importantly, how had Kyoshi, easily the densest woman in the Four Nations, figured it out before her?
She almost deserves to lop off her own topknot for this one.
“Rangi? Rangi, are you listening to me?” Rangi recovers with a start. Hei-Ran, the strict military commander and even stricter teacher of Fire Nation royalty, is blushing. Her mother is actually, spirits-be-damned, blushing.
“I don’t understand. How did this even happen? What — what does this mean?”
“You see Rangi,” Hei-Ran says expressionlessly, delivery deadpan. “When a woman and her doctor love each other very much—”
“Stop!” Rangi squawks, rushing to cover her ears and nearly falling backwards. Kyoshi catches her with one hand, and Rangi feels rather than sees her trying very hard (and failing) to conceal her rapidly mounting laughter.
“Pay up,” Kyoshi outstretches her free hand towards Hei-Ran, beckoning with her fingers. The older woman frowns, then reaches into her robes to retrieve a small, well-worn beaded purse.
“Rangi,” she says, her tone disappointed for some reason. “I really thought your skills of perception and detection were better than this. Did they teach you nothing at the Academy?” Kyoshi, having successfully extracted the bills from Hei-Ran, is pocketing the change.
Rangi glares from Kyoshi to her mother, wholly and completely betrayed. “What— how— you knew,” she sputters, whirling around to face Kyoshi. “You knew, you knew I didn’t know, and you made a bet about it. With my mother.”
“It’s not her fault she overestimates your ability to decipher normal courtship behavior,” Kyoshi shrugs. “After all, she hasn’t been on the receiving end of it.”
“I can tell when someone is flirting just fine, thank you very much—”
“And how long did it take you to figure out that I liked you back?”
“That’s different,” Rangi huffs, outraged. But when Kyoshi just laughs again, that open, happy sound, Rangi finds she can’t muster it in herself to be too angry.
“Sure it is.” Kyoshi settles on Rangi’s shoulder, her weight a comfortable, grounding presence. She leans into her ear as if about to divulge a particularly juicy secret. “But you know, this isn’t even the really big news. Did you know, Jinpa and Kirima—”
“What? Jinpa? Kirima?” Rangi’s eyebrows rocket skywards. “Are you being serious right now?” Kyoshi nods, mouth set in a firm line.
It’s only when Hei-Ran’s composure breaks, the teacher doubling over and covering her mouth as she lets out what can only be considered an outright giggle, does Rangi realize she’s being had.
“Avatar Kyoshi, come here, you little—”
Any neighbors and passers-by quizzed about this scene at a later date would say they saw their venerable Avatar running for safety while being chased by the love of her life, her adoptive mother watching from a safe distance. But precious few will ask, and fewer still will commit it to history, because what use is there in recording that which is merely the normal course of events in Yokoya?