Your prey love to give themselves names. The Moon-Slayer. The Phoenix King. The Great Uniter.
Kuvira thinks herself grand, thinks all her dreams possible if only she acted perfectly, and that blind, tireless faith means she's halfway in your embrace already.
But dreams are brittle. They shatter like shale, and her day turns cursed. She marches into Republic City, thinking the world in the palm of her hand. But the Avatar outwits her. Cheap tactics and guerrilla forces make fractures in her plans, which turn quickly to broken shards. She sacrifices her fiancé in vain, an attempt at a quick victory. Her metal colossus falls. She throws her blind faith in a broken spirit cannon, which fails her. The Avatar bends the energy from the ensuing blast away, throws herself and your prey into the Spirit World, and almost snatches Kuvira from your grasp in the process. But you cloud her eyes, just in time.
And she will be yours.
The blinding light of the spirit cannon turns to soft gray fog.
Three years of work. A lifetime of suffering. All of it wasted, because of one day. A voice wafts into Kuvira's ear. Can I help you?
"I won't fail," she says, to herself, to her troops, to you. "Not again."
It is sunrise. The colossus marches.
Across the mountain range, a bison flies into view, and a shot of the spirit cannon cleaves the sky. It's a fleeting miss, and Kuvira is even less amused with it than the first time around. She takes a breath to ease herself. It is a minor error, and if victory slips from her fingers again, it is something easily fixed.
On she marches, to the fringe of Republic City, where rows of United Forces soldiers stand like ants at her feet. Their looks of awe are no less gratifying the second time around. She spares no time to give them a show of power, blasting a purple ray into the harbour, and Raiko's surrender plays like music in her ears.
She expects a fight, she can't stop that, but she has the knowledge of the past on her side. There would be paint on her windows, airbenders on the rooftops, a building collapsing, metalbenders tying her feet, hummingbirds buzzing around that she quickly swats out of the sky. She has all the knowledge she needs to win. Or, so she thinks.
There's a crash, a bang, and an engineer telling her the mech has been compromised. They'd slipped into her colossus again, despite her efforts. They'd taken a plasma cutter from the hummingbird wreck and drilled inside while Kuvira had thought herself victor. It's mere minutes after when the Avatar burst into the cockpit, all confidence and blind faith, demanding a fight.
There's nowhere to go from there, so you cloud her mind and let the sun rise again. And then once more. And then another. And another...
Kuvira has a checklist in her mind, one she fiddles and changes with each attempt: Shoot the bison, send soldiers to the factory, destroy the Future Industries tower to stop the electromagnetic pulse, swat those damned airbenders out of the sky. There is a specific order of events, she knows, that will end in her victory, but Kuvira is learning that it is not as clear cut as it seems. Her enemies change tactic right along with her: juke her spirit cannon, find another tower to create a pulse, ice her colossus and sink it ankle deep in lava, crash through its windows. Finding and executing the right path is like trying to get the stars in the sky to align; just as one moves into place, a thousand others slip away.
All she can do is ball her fists and steel her will, every time the Avatar bursts into the cockpit with that familiar blind faith and demands a fight. The difference between them, though, is that the Avatar's faith pays off, and Kuvira's never will.
"What am I doing wrong?"
It doesn't matter. You can try again.
It is sunrise. The colossus marches.
Kuvira's methods have been stretched to their limits. She's come to realize that victory had not slipped from her fingers that day; it had been set on top of a mountain, a hundred miles from her hand, and it was a torturous climb to reach it.
How many times she's seen this sunrise, Kuvira does not know, but she wishes she would never have to see it again. She must though, for her people and for her Empire, she must bend this day to her will.
Time chips away at all resolve, like a river slowly cutting into stone, and Kuvira's attempts grow hectic. The moment things stray off the twisted track she has in her mind, Kuvira stands silent, and simply waits for the day to begin again. Victory is as unfathomable to her now as defeat was to her the first time around.
Once, she had the arrogance to feel hopeful. The shot at the sky bison, the explosion at the factory, the spirit cannon slicing mercilessly through the city; one of those must have been the Avatar's end.
(And truly, it should have. But in this mist prison, there is no guiding destiny, there is no victory day. This day is cursed and always will be, and any triumph is as substantial as fog.)
The Avatar bursts into the chamber, and Kuvira snaps.
"How are you doing this?! What sort of power do you have to be able to best me every time I live this day? Are there signs I ignored? I've taken everything— everything— into account, yet you're here every time!"
Korra does not have answers for her; in fact, she finds your prey quite deranged, especially when Kuvira turns away, refuses to fight, and simply waits for the day to end. You let the world turn to mist around her.
Kuvira has no clue how to guide destiny, and there is no one there to tell her how. She grasps at every string of chance, no matter how illogical or crazed, in the hopes that one will take her where she wants.
But reining destiny is like grasping at sand: it will slip between your fingers, no matter how tight you hold it. Though, grasping sand would be a mercy; in this world, Kuvira grabs at smoke.
Don't lose faith. I'm sure you'll get it this time.
It is sunrise. The colossus rises.
Kuvira has discovered a bitter truth: the world is not hers to control. Her faith in herself has been ground up day after cursed day, until it is nothing but dust. She does nothing, and when she does nothing the day plays as it did the first time. Kuvira watches herself as if detached from her body, and she fails over and over and over...
The bison over the mountain range. The armies at the harbour. The fall of her colossus.
When she runs into the Spirit Wilds, she fires off the spirit cannon, and though she knows the attempt is futile, she can do nothing else but repeat this day. The silhouette of the Avatar burns into her eyelids, and as always, soft gray fog comes to embrace her.
Kuvira sits despondent in the mist. Dreams and faith lay like a dead fire under her eyes. She is almost yours.
You waft towards your prey through the open path she leaves you. Then, a spark jolts in her eyes, and she lets you get no closer.
"The Avatar saved me."
A wisp floats by her face as you try to reach her. Again, Kuvira? You will destroy her this time, I'm sure.
"She saved me." Her eyes hold a wonder, a hope, that you haven't seen in a hundred sunrises. "Why did she save me?"
Once more now. Come to me.
"No. I need to find out why."
Kuvira stands, and walks towards the mauve light. Every step she takes, you retreat from her path, for you can only go as far as she will let you. Light filters through the mist, and Kuvira wakes to the Spirit World and the Avatar, and never looks back at you.
Your prey slips from your embrace.