Author's Note: Well, this is my first completely self-written piece in... heck, I don't know how long. I shall consider it a victory in the war against writer's block!
In any case, the finale blew me away. And Kuvira... Kuvira started the season as one of my favorites, and she sure as heck ended as one. A truly magnificent example of tragic villain. I had the idea for this fic hit me yesterday. I finished it up today. Depending on how well I work out what happens next, I might actually end up continuing it, too. Either way, read and review, please! Feedback is always important!
The bandit charges her with a snarl on his lips, arm cocked in a crude, clumsy imitation of the Omashu style. She could easily dodge or block the small boulder he's preparing to lob, but such theatrics aren't worth the time or effort. Thwip, thwip, go her steel bands, and the unshaven man is toppled off his feet with a shout, suddenly bound hand and foot. A pouchful of gleaming coins, pilfered from her people, spills out onto the dusty tan earth as the boulder crashes off to the side.
Kuvira ignores the bandit, just as she ignores the money. Her troops can take care of the cleaning up. She is needed at the fight.
Sure enough, a new wave of outlaws already approaches. Having seen their accomplice so easily defeated, they are on the alert, fanning out and attempting to surround her. It does not matter. These are common crooks, nothing more: poorly organized rabble, with tactics and fighting styles as unrefined as the earth they bend. Kuvira is a sharpened sickle, and like stalks of rice, they are all felled.
As the last one of them, a scarred teenaged girl wearing a sloppy ponytail, tumbles to the ground, Kuvira becomes aware of the her forces' presence behind her. She hears their congratulations, their satisfaction with this victory, but she is not satisfied. She hears Bataar ask her to withdraw to the to the train and rest now, but she is not tired. And even if she were, she would not stop. She cannot stop. The Empire must be united, and she must be the one to do it.
The opponents she encounters next are more uniform and organized. The forces of some greater warlord, perhaps, or a militia raised by a rebellious governor. She does not remember, exactly, and she does not care. All who oppose the unification of the Empire, all who would selfishly deny her people the peace and prosperity and justice she can bring them, must be stopped.
Their numbers are greater, but she is strong now, stronger than she has ever been. Hard steel covers her arms and legs and back now, yet she can barely feel it. It is her armor, protecting her from the few rocks and flames she cannot avoid, and it is the weapon with which she clears the field. Soon, she and her troops are the only ones left standing, and she can feel the click of another piece of her iron map sliding into place.
No sooner have her forces consolidated their hold, however, or the next battle is already commencing. Kuvira finds herself wondering why they don't just surrender, why they continue to oppose the order and freedom of the Earth Empire. Whatever the cause, though, they refuse to stop, and as such, neither can she.
The fighting blends nearly seamlessly together. Kuvira no longer knows where she is. One moment, she stands beneath the walls of Ba Sing Se, the next, she's in a barbarian village or a foggy, vine-filled swamp. Her foes come in greater numbers than ever before, but they have no hope of success against her. Bound by steel, struck by stone or simply smashed to the ground, they all fall before her. She towers over them all now, and combat has become as easy to her as breathing.
She is no longer the frightened little girl who was rejected and cast away. She is no longer the metalbending protege who became Captain of the Guard. She is not even the woman who abandoned her one-time home and family to save her people. She is a titan now, a machine whose purpose is to fight and win, and as she brings the cannon on her arm to bear on the enemy's fortifications, she dimly realizes that she is being consumed just as surely as the vines that grant her her power.
Violet, roaring death erupts from her weapon with only a gesture. The forces of the Republic vanish amidst screams and flames and flying rubble. Yet again, she is winning. This time, though, her opponents are not faceless, nameless foes.
Varrick, Zhu Li and Bolin die when she obliterates their assault mechs. They were traitors. Treason must be crushed.
Suyin and the Beifongs of the Metal Clan are next to attack in vain, and Kuvira sees her mentor's anguished face an instant before the explosion consumes her. They were enemies. Enemies must be neutralized.
Kuvira sees Bataar held hostage, sees the tears running down his cheeks, but opens fire nonetheless. He was a liability. She cannot afford to be weak.
Then, amidst the death and destruction, something stirs. White light shines through the clouds of choking dust, and a storm wind pushes them back. The Avatar stands before her, defiant and alone, a force of nature made flesh.
A force of nature that opposes her. Kuvira's arm extends into the firing position, but she is not the one moving it. Avatar Korra remains motionless.
The cannon's sleek barrel aligns with the young woman's lonely form, but Kuvira is not the one aiming it. "Why don't you attack?" she wants to scream, but a war machine has no voice.
The white light fades from Korra's eyes. Kuvira's fingers clench and trigger the mechanism, and there is nothing she can do to stop it.
Everything slows to a crawl as the cannon spits forth its incandescent beam. The world is bathed in a violet glow, highlighting each and every detail with eerie clarity. The ruined, gutted husks of buildings, a broken landscape stretching as far as the eye can see. Her armor, the unstoppable, unyielding shell of platinum and steel that no longer protects her body but forms it entirely. And finally, the Avatar herself, defenseless and alone, gazing up at her death with mournful serenity.
But the young woman standing there is not Korra. Korra is not fair-skinned. Korra does not wear a braid. Korra does not have sad and lonely eyes of green.
For a single, dreadful moment that stretches into all eternity, Kuvira looks herself in the eye. Then, the beam strikes home, and there is nothing left but a smoldering crater.
Kuvira lurches from her cot with a choked gasp, crashing to the unforgiving floor in a tangle of sheet and limbs. Pain flares in her shoulder and in her knees, but it is nothing compared to the horrible, jagged emptiness inside her.
Clutching her hands to her heart, she leans against the wooden wall, still struggling for air. Years of instinct and habit struggle to regain control. The Captain of the Guard could not afford to let emotions take over. The Great Uniter could not allow herself to become weak.
But she is neither of those things now. And so, Kuvira cries with great, heaving sobs, mourning all that she has lost and all that she has become.
The next morning, in a subdued and wavering voice, Kuvira tells the White Lotus guard who brings her her food that she'd like to write a letter.
"Is that so?" the blue-robed waterbender asks, not unkindly. "And whom might this letter be addressed to?"
Kuvira looks down at her bamboo cup of water. For just a moment, her wavering reflection seems to have bronze skin and bright blue eyes.
"Avatar Korra."