Baatar teaches Kuvira how to operate the colossus. For the flower prompt challenge "pray for me."

Kuvira tilted her head back, her eyes widening. "Incredible."

"I still might have to make a few minor adjustments," Baatar said, folding his arms over his chest, his tone unabashedly smug. "But yes, it is. And you've only seen the outside."

She glanced around. Dusk had settled, and without the constant sounds of metal on metal that had split the air into a thousand shards of cacophony the grounds were eerily quiet. "Zhu Li knew nothing about this?"

"Positive. Whatever work she did, she was made to believe it was for the weapon itself."

"Let's do a test run now," she said suddenly. "How many people in the cockpit?"

"Three," he replied, frowning, "and more in the engine room. Are you sure you want to try it now? I want metalbending engineers at the power core for safety, if there are any major errors there's no way I'll be able to help you."

She looked at him over her shoulder, her arms folded behind her back. "Major malfunctions meaning fatal accidents?"

"Issues with the power core," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The spirit vine capsules getting backed up... the automatic load mechanism jamming... there's a lot that could go wrong, Kuvira. I was going to demo it with Xi before putting you in the cockpit."

"Zhu Li had nothing to do with its construction?" Her voice was strained, tight with controlled anger and suppressed worry.

"No."

"Then I'm sure it's fine," she said, her features relaxing into a trace of a smile. "Show me how it works."

Baatar swallowed, looking at the platinum structure towering over them both. In the past month alone, three separate attempts had been made on her life, and the thought of losing her to one of his own creations chilled him more than the cool night air. "If something goes wrong?"

Kuvira surprised him by taking his arm, tugging off her gloves and interlacing their fingers. "I trust you. Nothing will go wrong."

o0o

The cockpit had never struck him as a marvel of the modern aesthetic. While his father had always taken extra pains to appease Su's sense of style in designing the new additions of Zaofu, Kuvira had always agreed that function came before form. Sometimes he missed the stage makeup and the loose hair and the elaborate costumes; her very appearance had become the epitome of utilitarian. The mag train was designed for speed and stamina, the armor upgrades for higher precision and resilience... per her suggestion, he had even stripped the embellishment from the mecha-suits, going for a minimalist design that gave an impression of might rather than sleek modernity. Seeing her eyes light up as she took in the sight of his creation, however, Baatar briefly saw the interior of the colossus as Kuvira did- as something more than a weapon. "It's beautiful," she said, running her hand along the polished base of the viewing pane and walking around the circumference of the cockpit. "Even more beautiful on the inside than the outside."

"Stand on the platform," he said, guiding her to it by her elbow. "These are from Mother's meteorite collection-"

"I thought we were using those for my full-body armor," Kuvira said, slowly pivoting on the deck. "You were going to make an alloy...?"

"I had a better idea," he said. "You learned to bend with these, right?" She nodded. "You can command them from a distance with minimal focus."

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "All bending takes focus. Physics is easy for you, but you can't determine-"

"I said minimal." He stood behind her, taking her hands in his and extending her arms. "I've constructed this to act like a brain to the rest of the body. You supply the instructions, and the colossus does what you do. All of the gears are metal so you don't have to leave the platform, and the stage is mounted on a half-sphere so any unexpected shifts won't through you off-balance."

"You've really thought of everything," she murmured, shifting her weight and observing the counterbalancing mechanism of the stage. "So this lever for forward movement, this lever to lock the legs... how do I move the rest?"

"Mother's meteorites are your trackpads," he said. "I need you to feel the metal enough to send a signal, but without actually bending it from the mount."

Kuvira frowned, letting her arms fall to her sides as she concentrated. She swung her right arm up with her hand contorted into a clawed gesture, and Baatar jumped forward to crush her fingers in his own. "Was that- what?" she asked, her voice in the familiar perplexed cadence he loved, reminding him of the countless engineering questions and countless minutes spent explaining his breakthroughs. "What did I do wrong?"

"Don't bend the meteorites," he said, "just contact them. If you bend the metal you'll disrupt the entire mechanism."

"They track my movements?"

"They make the torso follow your motions," he explained. "And if the forward movement is locked, the legs do the same."

"Incredible," she breathed, walking over to the nearest meteorite mount and hovering her fingers over the surface, sending a tremor through the metal. "I can feel through the arm," she said excitedly, turning to him with wide eyes. "There's a connection straight through to the trigger."

Baatar smiled, bemused. "Yes, that's not accidental." He crossed to control desk. "Send a signal down the other arm." She obliged, and he jumped to his feet when the mechanized fingers twitched. "See? Perfect."

"You're perfect," she said, returning to the center of the platform and exhaling slowly. "Just contact the trackballs, no actual bending required?"

"Yes."

He watched as she emptied her mind of distractions, her face taking on the distanced, emotionless appearance he associated with her Great Uniter persona. She swung her arm up, locking her fingers into a loose fist, her brow furrowing as she relaxed her contact with the meteorites and they molded back to their position. "To fire, I unlock, bring the other arm over, and then engage?"

"Yes, but don't try that now," he said. "The troops don't know we're out here."

"How do I pivot the head?"

"That's for the engineers to handle," he said. "I included wipers and a windshield cleaner in case your vision is obscured."

"Incredible," she said again, bringing the arms of the colossus back down and unlocking the forward movement. "Does it speed up?" she asked as the mech took its first shuddering steps.

"No, but we hopefully won't have to use it," he said as she locked the legs and experimentally changed the machine's stance. "You.." Baatar joined her on the platform, watching at close range as she slowly manipulated the machine with a confidence that only grew with ever gesture. "You mastered that so quickly."

"You built it so quickly," she reminded him, stopping her connection to the trackballs and freezing the limbs in position before she turned to face him. "I just operate it because I happen to be the bender. I wish you could lead it in rather than me, you created it."

He squeezed her fingers. "I don't think anyone besides you could lead it in. Building the models and the prototypes was hard enough. I can't think of anyone with your connection to the element... I'm not entirely sure even my grandmother could do it, or at least not with shoes on."

The slats of metal holding the glass panels melted into the night sky, and she kept her hands in his as she turned back to the windshield, stars reflected in her eyes. Clouds passing over the moon cast shadows on her upturned face, and he felt her grip on his fingers tighten as she regarded the military encampment before them, a sea of green and silver over the barren cracked red earth. "You've always had so much confidence in me," she said at last, an odd emotion flickering over her face. "But I never could have done any of what we've accomplished without you."

"I'm content to have been a part of it," he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back against his chest. "And I'm immeasurably blessed to be a part of your life, even more so than our military campaign."

"Immeasurably blessed," she repeated, her voice quiet. Locked in the cockpit, they were isolated from the rest of the scene, enclosed in an impermeable bubble of platinum and shatterproof glass and comfortable silence. "We'll be planning our wedding a week from today."

"Yes, after you claim victory," he said, closing his eyes to the walls of metal and focusing on her scent, her breath, and her voice.

"Baatar?"

"Yes?"

"I've wanted this for a long time," Kuvira said, her tone carefully measured. "I'm not spiritual by any means, but the night I asked you to leave Zaofu with me, I don't think I've prayed harder for anything in my life."

"You didn't need to," Baatar heard himself saying, the words coming as automatically as the forward movement of the colossus. "You should have known that no matter what you said or needed to do, I'd be there for you."

She brought her hands to her chest, interlacing her fingers with his and moving their hands to her heart. "That's unrealistic," she said.

"Maybe," he conceded, "but it's true." He noticed that the trackballs were engaged and smiled, imagining the platinum hands of the colossus mirroring their own.

o0o

The smell of charred vines and scorched metal and the tangy scent of her own blood overwhelmed her senses and threatened to make her vomit. "You're going to answer for everything you've done," Suyin had said, the words ringing in her ears louder than the explosion that had brought the colossus and her entire empire to their knees. Her hands were cuffed in unyielding platinum, a surgeon was called to ensure her wound wasn't life-threatening, and she was packed off to the high-security prison. Suyin's eyes drilling into her hurt far more than her physical injuries, and as the reality of her defeat slowly sank in she went through the list of survivors from the blast. The avatar and her team were clearly unscathed, as was Suyin. She hadn't seen the twins and Opal, but somehow she doubted their mother would be sitting quietly if her children had been murdered. That left...

She couldn't bring herself to think about the possibility of his death, but she needed to know. She sent up a silent prayer to whatever entity held jurisdiction over life and death. There were no conditions, no negations or formal, stilted entreaties. Let him have lived, she silently begged, repeating it endlessly until the words all sounded wrong and the phrase felt meaningless. Let him be whole, and unharmed...

That would be enough. She couldn't ask for him to forgive her; that would just be unrealistic.

"Suyin?" she asked at last. "Did... is Baatar-"

Suyin turned away in silence, her face stony and unyielding. Kuvira half expected the tears to start, but her eyes remained dry, the weight of her actions surpassing even the burden of her exhaustion. Her knees buckled when she reached her prison, and she felt Lin dragging her back up and depositing her in the wooden cell. The door thudded shut, but not before Lin spoke. "He's in one piece. He's fine."

Lin's footsteps had long since faded away into the night, leaving her completely alone in a suffocating silence before she found her voice. "Thank you for telling me."

"You should have known that no matter what you said or needed to do, I'd be there for you."

Somehow, she doubted Baatar would be visiting her, not after what she did. But she had never needed to see him more than she did now.

"It wasn't what I wanted to happen," she said, her voice shaking. "Our strategy was perfect. My only mistake was to separate us when the stakes were so high."

"If there are any major errors there's no way I'll be able to help you."

Somehow she doubted he had meant errors of this magnitude, but his words echoed in her ears all the same. And despite the futility of it all, she prayed that he would find it within himself to visit, despite her error that had proved fatal to their promise of a life together.