Chapter 1: Different place
The sky was dark blue. That was the first thing Kuvira noticed when she opened her eyes. She could feel the hard earth in her back and the cold winter touched her sore skin. The metalbender felt so pained that wondering why she was outside in a forest and not in a wooden cell inside a mountain never crossed her mind. It was cold and dark, and with every muscle of her being aching the last thing before her conscience faded away was that the trees looked bigger.
The sun hit Kuvira face without caring that she needed this rest. Finish unifying the Earth Empire and losing it in the span of two weeks and later being jailed for another two was incredibly tiring even if she wasn't on a cell anylonger.
Kuvira eyes opened fastly and sited up. Now, with a sun brightening fully the sky, the metalbender finally noticed that something was wrong.
She raised her fingers to her eyes, looking at her hand, without scars of battles that signaled her victory track as a hardened 23 years old woman. It wasn't only her hands, the rest of her body had decreased its size. She patted her chest with her left hand, the other busy caressing her face. Controlling her limbs was more harder of what she believed at first, not accustomed to the length of her arms she miscalculated a little and almost hitted herself. She was flatter in her chest and had a rounder face. That was so wrong.
Getting up, in her feet, was harder to do than to think, but Kuvira didn't want to spend more time in a dangerous environment with her body being foreigner to herself. She took deep breaths to calm down and regain her self control.
Once she had cooled down a little, the ex-dictator noticed that she was still wearing her clothes of prisoner, but they were bigger, letting her shoulders exposed. She had to grab the pants for them to not drop to her ankles.
Even with so many inconveniences she walked to the west, failing to the ground almost at every step. She keep walking straight forward until she heard the sound of a river to the north. The forest was pretty calm and didn't had rough paths so it would be an easier task even with her current predicament.
Kuvira walked a few meters when she thought trying to create a tower to see above the trees and see how much she needed to walk. She planted her feet on the ground and tried to raise herself with the earth below her. Normally those sets of movements would have make the ground raise without inconvenience. Instead of that, Kuvira felt an electric charge in her chi paths, it was painful.
Earthbending felt painful. She tried to ignore that with closed eyes, she keep raising her hands up even against the increase of pain. Something liquid touched the back of her hands and Kuvira had to stop to check what was it.
All the skin of her face felt hot and her mouth went dry but even then she didn't scream when she noticed that her hands were bleeding. For trying to earthbend.
She sighed but tried to keep her composure. A few seconds later Kuvira jumped off the platform keep walking to the river.
There were a couple of women washing clothes in there. They ran to help the girl about 11 with oversized clothes and bleeding hands without thinking about it. The poor child fainted and one of the women catched her before she felt.
Kuvira woke up at midnight, a kind old woman offered her soup and the metalbender tried with all her will to act as if she knew how to control her limbs. After finishing eating she felt ready to ask, and what it entrailed, being questioned.
"Where am I?" her voice sounded off, but the old woman just smiled.
"Little girl, you are in Zou. Who are you darling?" the voice of the older woman was warm and her face was welcoming, in the way grandmothers were.
"I'm Kuvira" she answered honestly, too charmed by the kindness of the old lady to think about lying.
"How did you arrive here?"
"I don't know" Kuvira didn't knew even where Zou was on the map.
The green eyes of the woman were earth kingdom, and so were the ones of the women in the river, so Kuvira concluded she was in there. Free and away of Republic City.
"Have...have you seen other kids?" the old woman asked with shaking voice, Kuvira negated with the head. "I see. Don't worry, darling. All will be alright"
The rough hand of the woman patted her head a few times before she leaved the room. Kuvira waited a little and followed. She got outside the wooden house and saw a gathering of people near a fire. She ducked behind a bush and listened.
"What did she said, Gran Tak"
"The poor girl hasn't see any of our childs" the old woman answered. "She looks too troubled to answer us. Let her rest, and tomorrow will we see."
The people began talking one after each other and Kuvira learned all what she needed. There had been a children kidnapping going out in this village and the near ones about two days ago. Five children lost. They had heard of the Avatar and a father of another village had gone in "his" search.
Kuvira didn't knew if the Avatar would arrive or when. But she wasn't willing to going back to the cell. Something was off with her, but freedom tasted great. Almost as great as victory.
Gran Tak didn't scold Kuvira when she noticed the young girl packing things on her oversized ragged clothes. Instead lend a backpack and gave her food and clothes for the following morning.
"I'm thankful...but" Kuvira began.
"Why am I helping you? My darling, I see a great destiny awaiting you" she said as she cupped Kuvira face "Be safe...now you are running for the Avatar, but you will meet him"
Kuvira raised an eyebrow but didn't bother to correct the sex of the Avatar.
The path to Omashu was at least seven hours away at feet. To the east.
Kuvira walked three hours with firm steps even if her body felt wrong when she heard ostrich horse walking near, but she couldn't see any.
Kuvira climbed up a tree to try to find them.
Not far away, two people were riding the beasts, one of them was carrying a little girl dressed in dirty brown clothes and without any kind of resemblance to either men.
They were going far away for Omashu, but Kuvira wasn't one to let a defenseless person alone. Specially children. She tracked the men without trouble, finally at noon she found their hiding place.
The headquarter of the kidnappers was and old and well conserved mansion inside white walls of earth, that even with her chi problem with earthbending she knew that it was hard to bend, but every place has a weak spot and Kuvira would have failed as the Great Uniter is she were unable to find it.
Kuvira found an entrance in the wall: in the plumber. Metal bars for which the dirty water flowed and that were easily bendable. The metalbender thanked her highs boats and her small size, she calculated that she just needed to bend a iron bar to pass. She grabbed the bar, and even when she could felt her fingertips getting bloody she kept going until she let a big space that even a small teen could pass.
Kuvira cleaned her red hands on her green shirt and went inside. It was dark and cold. Too many nights like that, but she was free, and Kuvira was one to look at the bright side when work had to be done.
She put off her dirty right boot and planted a bare foot on the ground. The same electric feeling of pain traveled her body, coming from her foot to her nose, along the sensation came a low visualization of a dungeon with small people inside.
Once she had put her boot again, Kuvira walked silently and wary of every sound to the dungeon. There was a guard outside the door. Sleeping.
Even then, for measurement she hit him on the head, awakening him and putting him asleep at the same time. She searched the man clothes until she found a pair of keys.
Fastly Kuvira opened the wooden door and got inside the dungeon, her steps on the stairs caused noise and she could heard children's voices that sounded scared muttering among themselves.
She arrived in front of a big cell, at least 10 kids in there, oddly, all looked clean and were wearing fancy robes. They were behind bars but all were sitted on a white beds.
She opened the cell with the other key and the kids looked at her with curiosity or apprehension.
"I have come to rescue you! Follow me and everything will be alright"
The first person to stand up was a tall girl with dark brown eyes. The rest followed suit and got up.
They were silent in the way out, and no one of them cared that their neat clothing and bare feet got muddy in the sewers.
Suddenly Kuvira felt her hands burning. Without adrenaline her brain had catched up the cuts of her hands, even if they had stop bleeding about an hour ago they ached. The children were still following her, so Kuvira swallowed the pain and kept walking.
"They are following us, miss!" a young girl said out of nowhere "I just heard them...we have to run!"
Before the Great Uniter asked how, there was a wall of earth in front of her, she looked behind with a scowl to the earthbenders at fault. Two men with purple uniforms and smug faces were her adversaries. She planted a foot in front of her and raised a chunk of earth, next gave a fast kick to it and send it to the earthbenders. Smalls injuries began opening in her arm but she gave them no care.
The two men evaded the rock with easiness, one of them jumped near to Kuvira, ready to punch her but the metalbender duked as a purple light illuminated the place, followed by the scream of a grow up man.
The guy that had previously tried to kick Kuvira forgot about her and launched himself to the ground, raising the earth in the contrary direction of the metalbender.
She couldn't see who he was aiming with that attack, but the mysterious person send three fast shots of powerful fire blinding her with their lights. Two of the blast hit the man on the chest and he was blasted near his companion, falling to the ground with a loud grunt.
Kuvira raised herself up, trying to see the person that had helped her and discern if he was a friend or a foe.
The kids looked concerned at each other and then at Kuvira.
The metalbender heard another set of feets, at least four people, and decided that the priority was to run away. Without words and with just a hand she signaled the kids to run behind her.
They found a search party after ten minutes of running. The group of people were near them before their battle, and were following the trail already, so they were already on halfway to find them.
Just one of the 3 man was a father of a lost child but the scene that followed was a perfect one for the tastes of Kuvira: He hugged his little boy with joy and almost crying.
The other two men scouted the place for a while before deciding to retreat to their camp.
The search party led the kids to a campfire where other two kids got reunited with their fathers and this time there were tears and even claps.
Kuvira expected gratitude, but all the adults were overjoyed and were bowing to her. In that moment the pain on her skin didn't matter.
"He is a firebender!"
The feeling of happiness of Kuvira washed cold when a girl with green eyes pointed to one with golden ones. Even if it was dark and it was hard to discern Kuvira had noticed it back on the dungeon.
The little boy, about a half head shorter that Kuvira looked at her, uncertain. She felt the same way. It was true that Fire Nation people were dangerous to the Earth Empire, but the adults raising their elements as a warning was out of scale. He was just a skinny little kid (that had defeated two adults before)
"Go away!" the father that they had meet before barked "We don't want your people on our nation!"
"What?! I helped to rescue us!" the kid countered.
"GO AWAY!"
The little boy raised one of his sharky eyebrows and frowned "Ok. I'm going" he said and walked away without saying more.
Kuvira didn't knew what to made out of this. He might not be one of her citizens, but was still an abandoned child, so she half bowed to the search party and began following the kid.
"Why are you following me?" he asked after noticing her.
"I'm not going to let a lost child alone" she answered in an almost patronizing way.
He looked at Kuvira, his face, illuminated softly by the moon, was hard to read.
"What? You are like ten!" he whined and stopped walking"I'm older than you!"
Kuvira knew for certain it wasn't true, she had noticed at the camp a losing tooth on the left side of his mouth. He was obviously not older than ten.
She sighed. Kids.
"Fine, little boy" she smiled smugly and his eyebrows raised.
"I have a name. It's Mako"
"I prefer little boy"