Author's Note:

Final day of Kuvira Week! Woo! Incredibly sad that it's over but it was so fun to participate in! GAH! Day Seven was either fierce or an AU, and I suppose I could have just used Headstrong for it but nah. I don't roll that way. Anyway, enjoy!

The mountains surrounding Zaofu was the last place Kuvira wanted to set up camp, but the conditions didn't allow her many other options. What had once been the city of metal was now just large scraps on the earth. Buildings that once stood tall were crumbling to the ground and plants were beginning to grow over it everything. She had salvaged what she could from the city before setting up a camp on the mountains. She would have stayed in the city itself, but during her salvage quest, she had found several human remains and it though she did not fear the dead, there were so many of them that she decided it was for the best if she paid her respects to them and did not set up a temporary camp over their final resting place.

It had been a long time since she visited Zaofu, the last time she had visited, she was fifteen and the world was still balanced. Now, just a mere eight years later, the world was thrown into chaos. The final death of the Avatar caused rifts between the nations, and it was not long until extremist who called themselves the Red Lotus slaughtered all of the world leaders and the heirs, thus making the world spiral into a never ending circle of chaos.

Kuvira had been attending university in Gaoling at the time in question. She had been studying in the library for an exam when the doors were thrown open. Everyone stared at the messenger, who was sweating and breathing heavy. She had managed to spill the news when she collapsed on the spot from exhaustion. The library had been completely silent, and then pandemonium broke out. Kuvira would have thought that since they were in a university, they would have been smarter and better protected, but that idea was quickly proven false. In the next month, half of the student population had either run away to join riots or had been brutally murdered. It was then that Kuvira knew that nothing was ever going to go right. She had returned home, traveling only at night to hide from the rioters and looters that threatened everyone. When she stood in front of her house, it was practically destroyed. The walls were down and pieces of furniture were ripped and broken. When she earthbent some of the rubble away, she found the dead bodies of her parents and sister. It was then that Kuvira woke up from the dream and entered a nightmare. She grabbed whatever necessities the looters had left and she ran.

The past five years had been some of the hardest. There were multiple passing days where she wouldn't have anything to eat, and there were many times where she had thought about giving up. But a small part of her, the part that always prevailed, wanted her to see the new era come to an end and see the new one arise. The thought that the world may someday be fixed was the only thing that kept Kuvira going some days.

As she cooked some of the canned food she had found in the metal city, Kuvira heard the snapping of twigs. Her mind immediately clicked into defense mode, and she slowly got up from the stump she was sitting on. Her hand wrapped around the strap on her backpack and she glared at the place where the sound had come from. If it was a looter or bandit, she was fully prepared to nail him with some earth and then break out into a sprint. She could feel her hear beating faster as each second went by, her hand growing clammy on the backpack's strap.

"Don't hurt me."

Kuvira narrowed her eyes at the sound of the voice. Out of the thicket, a man stepped out with his hands raised in surrender. His hair was hung below his eyes and was uneven and choppy, and he had a pair of thick framed glasses. He donned a typical Earth Kingdom style, though his clothes were torn on the edges and strapped to his belt was what Kuvira assumed was a sword.

"What are you doing here?" Kuvira asked, her grip on the backpack loosening.

The man glanced down at the remains of Zaofu before he looked back into her eyes. "That place—down there—is my hometown. Or, it used to be. And I was out of town when the events happened, and by the time I returned, the city was completely abandoned. I come back every day in hopes that I can find my family, but so far, there's been nothing."

Kuvira let go of her backpack and gnawed on her lip. The man appeared to be only one or two years older than her, and the calming sound of his voice made Kuvira feel as if she could trust him.

When it was evident that Kuvira was not going to hurt him, the man extended out a hand. "My name's Baatar."

"Kuvira." She shook his hand and sat back on her stump. Baatar glanced at the space next to her and raised an eyebrow. "You can sit, if you want."

Baatar nodded gratefully and sat beside her. "So what brought you here? If we had met five years ago, I might have said it was for the city, but—" He gazed sadly down at the ruins and then flashed her a wan smile. "—it's sort of under construction."

"I can see that," Kuvira said, raising her eyebrows.

Baatar groaned and gave Kuvira a pointed look. "Come on, that was funny. At least laugh."

"I haven't laughed in a while," Kuvira said. "You'll find I'm not a very humorous person."

"I don't believe that for a second," Baatar said. His face lit up immediately and he turned so his body faced hers. "Let's play a game."

"I don't play games."
Baatar clicked his tongue and shook his head. "It's not even a strenuous game. I'll tell you what I think your story is, and you tell me what you think my story is, and then we share the real story."

"I don't—"

"Listen, after tonight—I hope I'm not wrongly assuming in the fact that you will allow me to stay the night here—we won't ever see each other again. Everything you tell me, I'll keep it a secret." Kuvira pursed her lips, and Baatar arched his brow. "What do you say?"

There was a long silence, and then slowly, Kuvira nodded. Baatar's smile widened and he ran a hand through his hair. "So do you want to start, or shall I?"

Kuvira waved her hand to signal for him to talk, and Baatar studied her for a second before taking a deep breath. "You're like some of the loners that I've met, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your family's either missing or dead. You have no defense source, so I'm going to assume that you are able to bend. And—and I'm going out on another limb, and saying you are a very fun person, but you hide it under all this steeliness."

Kuvira pursed her lips and Baatar gestured for her to go. She gnawed her lower lip and studied his face. "You grew up in Zaofu. You have a weapon so you're a nonbender. And I think you're about twenty-three years old."

Baatar nodded slowly and leaned forward. "So, do you want me to tell you my story first, or would you like to do the honors?"

Kuvira waved her hand and Baatar leaned back. He moistened his lips and stared into the woods before turning to face her. "I used to be an engineer. I started when I was like, nine. And I absolutely loved it. I used to work with my dad all the time. We built the domes around Zaofu, we made the trains that transported between them. It was awesome." Baatar tilted his head. "Then when I was sixteen, I became unhappy working for him. I had four other siblings, all younger than me. And all of them were benders, except for one, but she was the only girl, so she got some special treatment. I didn't tell anyone until I was eighteen, and then I told my parents I was asked to participate in some engineer convention for a couple of years."

"Was that a lie?" Kuvira asked.

Baatar nodded slowly, and he stared off in the distance. "It was. I needed an out, and I came up with one. They didn't question it, and I went away." Baatar bit his lip and looked back at her. "When I left, it was the last time I saw them. I wrote them and we called a few times, but I never saw them physically." He sucked in a breath and Kuvira could see his eyes were brimmed with tears. "It's been killing me. If they're dead—it just kills me to think of that."

"They could have made it out," Kuvira said. "You said most of them were benders."

"That's what I've been telling myself too," Baatar said. "But I thought they would have come back here by now. They would have known that I'd come back to find them." He sucked in his cheeks and then smiled at her. "So, enough of me. Tell me about yourself."

Kuvira ran a hand through her hair and took the noodles she had scoured off of the fire. She poured it into two separate containers and handed one to Baatar. He nodded thankfully and Kuvira took a bite of her noodles. She chewed it thoughtfully and angled her body so she faced him.

"Is there anything in particular you want to know?" Kuvira asked.

"Just share, whatever the hell you want."

Kuvira pursed her lips and resituated herself before placing her noodles beside her. "I grew up Omashu. When I was eighteen, I got into the University of Gaoling. I was there for about three months when the Avatar died, and then the world leaders were assassinated. I returned home and found my house in pieces and the dead bodies of my family. I had a little sister and she was ten when she died." Kuvira tilted her head at him, her mouth dry. "I went on the run and I've completely embraced the role of survival, though there are days where I want to give up. But I think that would be unfair to my family's memories, so I push through. And I just hope that someday, the world will become balanced again."

Baatar was silent for a little, and then he smiled. "I don't know about you, but I'm glad that we shared our lives. It's nice to know that I won't be staying the night with a complete stranger."

Kuvira cracked a smile, and Baatar's smile brightened. "Hey—see, look. I'm breaking through to you."

Kuvira rolled her eyes and earthbent two tents. Baatar raised an eyebrow at them and Kuvira crossed her arms. "You didn't expect to share a tent did you?"

"No, I didn't expect to have one at all. I usually just sleep on the ground in the bushes, you know, to shield myself from anyone who'd try and hurt me."

"You have a sword," Kuvira said, tilting her head at the weapon.

"Oh, sure." Baatar unsheathed the weapon and turned it over in his hands. "But it's not much use to me. I don't know how to use it. I have it to simply ward off attackers."

Kuvira rolled her eyes and ate the rest of her noodles. She threw the cup into the thicket and stretched. "Since there's two of us, do you want to take turns keeping watch?"

Kuvira nodded, and Baatar gestured at the tent. "You sleep first. I can take the first watch."

"You're not just going to steal my stuff and leave?" Kuvira asked.

Baatar raised his hands in surrender and smiled. "I promise I won't. I'll wake you up in four hours."

XxXxX

When Kuvira awoke, it was not four hours later, but instead it was the next morning. She earthbent the tents down and found Baatar's empty. Immediately, she began to curse and looked around for her stuff. Instead, she found Baatar staring at her with an amused expression.

"I promised I wouldn't take your stuff," he said.

"Did you sleep at all?" Kuvira asked.

"I thought you needed it more than me," Baatar said. "Besides, it allowed me to think of an ingenious plan."

Kuvira raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Oh really? What was that?"

"Why not travel together? Safety in numbers, and maybe you can actually teach me how to use my sword," Baatar said.

"Baatar—"

"And I was also thinking, if we managed it, why not gather a bunch of people who want the world to come out of the chaos as well?" Baatar tilted his head. "There has to be a number out there. And we're both alone in this world, so why not?"

Kuvira stared at Baatar, searching for traces of him just telling a joke, but when she found none, she nodded slowly. "You won't kill me, will you?"

Baatar laughed and ran a hand through his hair. "I promise I won't kill you."

"Then we have a deal," Kuvira said. She reached out and ran a hand through his hair, frowning. "Although, I'll only come with you if you promise to let me cut your hair."

"Don't you like it? I've cut it with the sword over the past few years, it's the only thing I can manage to do with it," Baatar said.

"It's not terrible," Kuvira said. "But I think I could do it better."

"I don't doubt that." He picked up Kuvira's backpack and gestured into the woods. "Ready to fix the world?"

"It's going to take a long time."

Baatar shrugged and arched an eyebrow. "I've got all the time in the world, I don't know about you."

"What if it's just the two of us? We're the only two that try and fix the world?"

Baatar pursed his lips and stared at the sky. "Well, then I'm fine with that." He nodded towards the woods and smiled. "Ready to go?"

Kuvira hesitated before nodding, and she followed Baatar into the woods.