1 Year Later
Kuvira felt surprisingly energized after her day of work. She wanted to pin the blame on the beautiful spring day and the fact that parliament passed a stimulus package that would provide jobs for an estimated several hundred thousand people, but the humble truth was because it was a Friday, and Korra had just returned from a weeklong Avatar mission in the Fire Nation.
There was audible bustling coming from within Korra and Kuvira's home, but it wasn't that unusual. Korra had taken on a pretty distinct "fun uncle" means of parenting, and Kuvira didn't reject it. It kept the kids grinning.
When she opened the door, all three kids and Korra were standing around the front entrance, Anaya on Korra's shoulders, Korra and Takeo in particular seemingly placed where they were standing. Kuvira opened her mouth to question it, but Park came running from behind Korra and full force into her arms, crying out, "They're crazy!"
Kuvira chuckled a bit and picked up her now three-year-old, kissing his forehead before looking into his wide eyes.
"I'll find you a chi blocking trainer when you're older so your siblings can't mess with you anymore, promise," she crooned.
The child still clung to her.
"You seem better," Korra commented, her face brightened considerably.
Kuvira hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, the demons of the Great Uniter and solitary confinement still occasional guests in her nightmares.
"Caffeine, honestly. I'm probably going to crash, so if you want to do anything, aim for the earlier side," Kuvira answered, setting Park down to properly rub the back of her neck. "Hey, Naya, Tak, how was school today?"
"Really good," Anaya answered immediately.
"Ms. Kwan taught us about the distributive property of multiplication today. We're gonna have a pop quiz about it on Monday," Takeo said, moving to the other side of the room, as if he were going to grab something.
"What kind of pop quiz is announced three days in advance?" Kuvira asked, eying his body language. He had his hands shoved into his pockets, his own eyes flitting around the room.
"A dumb one, I guess."
Kuvira shot a look to Korra. "I expect good results, then."
"For sure."
Why was Anaya still on Korra's shoulders? It was almost as if they had placed themselves directly in front of her…
"Is there something in the backyard?" Kuvira asked.
Not-so-surprisingly, Takeo kept a straight face and Korra's flashed brief panic.
Not even bothering to comment on her apparent four children, Kuvira shifted the stone flooring under Korra's feet to the left.
Apparently, Korra and the kids were trying to hide the fact that the back door was completely gone. For a moment, all Kuvira could do was stare, fingers touching her parted, silent lips.
"Okay, it's not the kids' fault," Korra intervened, putting Anaya on the floor. "We were playing earth soccer—"
"Where's the door?" Kuvira asked.
"—So I figured since Park isn't a bender, I'd put him on my team for fairness' sake, and…one of the older kids kicked the ball and it would've hit Park, so I had to push him out of the way—"
"No, you're making it sound like you threw Park through the door!" Takeo protested.
Korra glared at Takeo. "So I knocked the ball out of the way, and it shattered through the door, the front window."
Kuvira walked out through the doorway, conveniently devoid of glass and turned to look back through what must've been the ball's trajectory. A bit of seismic sense and she could tell it was lying on the neighbor across the way's living room floor. Thank the spirits, but his window must've been opened when the ball flew in.
"I don't suppose any of you have a plan to get the ball back?" Kuvira asked.
Takeo and Korra shook their heads.
"That's the neighbor who crushes heads," Takeo answered.
Kuvira was going to kill Arnav; for someone who was hired to protect her kids, scaring the shit out of them with urban legends about the neighbors wasn't part of the job description. "Yeah, I'm sure. Give me two minutes. Kids, if Korra was just protecting Park, then no one's in trouble, but your lying under pressure skills need work. If you really wanted me to not see the door, someone could've at least bent up a replacement."
Kuvira then proceeded to fetch a spool of metal cable off the entryway table, before heading out into the front yard. Korra and the kids followed her out, as she bent the metal cable into a claw at the end. With one shot of her arm forward and clenching of her hand, she had the ball. Resisting an eye roll or a smile of satisfaction, she yanked the ball and the metal back, tossing it to Takeo before the five of them returned inside.
"And, surprisingly, my head is not crushed," Kuvira exulted, then approached Korra off to the side. "Why did I do that?" she muttered.
Korra smirked. "You always tell me that you want to be the hero."
To spare the kids, Kuvira mouthed "you're the worst" before her hand found the small of Korra's back and planted a kiss on her lips.
Somehow, the moment she'd told Korra that hero comment was so clear in her mind: a year earlier when she had just gotten the stitches in her hand removed, and half-jokingly told Korra she could stop being Kuvira's hero. Everything in between still felt a little dream-like: walking into the newly-unveiled parliament building for the first time as prime minister; adopting Takeo, signing papers with the boy giving her a tiny smile that collapsed into him sobbing into her arms the moment they left his group home; going to the Southern Water Tribe and getting nods, smiles, and kind words from Korra's parents; the scattered nightmares—mostly hers, but sometimes Korra's; gulping down tears as she stripped Anaya down for a bath her first night home only to discover jutting ribs underneath her clothes; teaching Takeo and Anaya earthbending basics, watching them light up as they worked; picking up Park from that decrepit Lijiang orphanage and knowing that the nearly helpless child in her arms was hers; watching bills pass through parliament; being paranoid to the point of sickness for the safety of her children and hiring Arnav as a result; sneaking into the Spirit World at night with Korra, challenging each other to finally make it to that flower patch to make love before sunrise; and coming home to what should have been a fantasy.
Kuvira knew part of it was a brain weighed down by a lack of sleep, but that kiss was perfect.
A/N: Okay, NOW that's all she wrote. Pretty crazy, huh? I gotta tell you guys, I never expected this project to get as big as it did - word count wise or following-wise. I know writing this was kind of therapeutic for me after Kuv got the short end of the stick in the finale, and I hope this fic has given some of you guys that too. Or just something entertaining; that works too. Also, I'm genuinely curious how many of you developed into Korvira shippers by the end of this thing, because funnily enough I'm one of them. (not in a narcissistic way - I owe many thanks to the reviewers who convinced me to take this the Korvira route)
Obviously, thank you to all my readers, reviewers, followers, and favoriters. Thank you Ginkotoothed for nudging the last arc in the right direction (and by nudge I mean work tirelessly with me, sifting through the crap some of those first drafts were XD). I gotta say, I NEVER expected this fic to get so popular, and it's definitely been an experience I've never had, and I've been writing novels for a while. So, thank you all for that.
I'll be releasing a few one shots within The Dictator's universe over the next few weeks, and I'll also be figuring out what my big project will be this summer. Most likely, I will be writing an Earth Empire/Dictator prequel, but it's a matter of how long it will be. I'm genuinely going to aim for a novella/short novel length. And uh, working on some original novel in the meantime. I'll put a heads up here.
I'll apologize in advance if I forget to do it within the next week, but I'll have those deleted scenes for this fic up as well.
Seriously, thanks you guys. :)
