10 months ago…

Kuvira was starving. And tired. And freezing. It was winter and she came upon a farming village looking for somewhere to warm her miserable bones. She had walked for days on end, enduring the frigid cold and a new heaviness that seemed to tug at every bit of her body.

The reality of the loss of her bending would slip in and out of her consciousness a painful reminder of her decision. Regret on pivotal matters was perhaps her true weakness. And now she had to deal once more with the aching restlessness that hummed within her, and as a nonbender.

What plagued her was the thought that perhaps all of this could have been avoided if she was a nonbender to begin with. Maybe her mother would have loved her more; maybe she would have been wanted - and not in the way her face was plastered to posters all around the Earth Territories with bounty hunters itching to reap their generous reward.

The plains surrounding the village frosted over with wintry weather, the ponds frozen beneath the bridge leading into town. On the verge of collapsing, Kuvira huddled into a soup restaurant, the smell of dumplings and warmth of the hearth wafting into the air, painfully seducing her senses.

"Hey you, what'll be?" A wideset, matronly lady said.

"Uh, I- I don't have any money. Please," Kuvira said. "I'll like a warm cup of water."

"Get out of here!" The lady retorted. "I can't have any more of you vagabonds running amok. Don't you know these are tough times? And what with everybody flocking to the cities. Now, scat!"

The lady chased Kuvira back out into the cold. The former Great Uniter was humiliated but too weak to fight back, too weak to care. She found a building with a slanted roof to lean against and ponder the end of her days. Maybe this was it – she would go to sleep and die in this very spot and then be reborn and have another shot at life.

She closed her eyes and let the cold consume her. But her apathy soon-to-be despair was interrupted by survival instinct, when she felt a big burly hand squeeze around her neck and lift her high in the air.

Kuvira bulged her teary eyes as she was being choked alive. A large man with bouldering muscles smiled at her and she swung her legs wildly, her hands gripping and scratching at his hand about her neck.

"Well well well, what have we here," the man snarled. He had a tattoo of a prickle snake on his face. "You look an awful lot like the lady on that poster right behind you: The Great Uniter. And I wouldn't have to worry about meals for a long time if I bring her in – dead or alive."

Kuvira was desperately clinging to life, to whatever was left of her, but in a brief cowardly moment, she gave up and hung flaccid in his hand. So this was how it ends after all, she thought.

Just as she was losing consciousness, the bounty hunter dropped her and the ground smacked her. He towered over her as she gasped for air on her hands and knees.

"You look like her, but the Great Uniter was a powerful metalbender, and you're just… nothing." The bounty hunter howled a guttural laugh and kicked Kuvira in the gut.

Kuvira got the wind knocked out of her and fell lower to the ground. The man turned his back toward her, not even giving her the dignity of closure from their encounter.

She dug her hang in the dirty snow, no longer caring how it froze her fingers to near numbness. Rage filled her entire being and she slowly reached for a dagger hidden in its hilt at her waist. How easy it would be to slip the blade into his jugular. His own fatal mistake would be the hubris of turning his back on someone who was 'nothing.'

With the dagger concealed, she braced herself for her own savagery. But then it struck her – what would be the point of all of this if she stooped so low? What would be the point of taking her own bending?

This large, immensely ugly man was a pest to say the least. But was a personal vendetta worth killing him? What was his true crime aside from being an asshole? Kuvira realized desperation bred monstrosity the same extreme way absolute power corrupted absolutely.

No, she would not kill this man. She would live to her last breath a human after all.

Kuvira released her dagger and closed her eyes. She had overcome her pride, but what of her hunger. In that moment, the smell of something hot and sweet and savory emanated inches from her nose. She could feel the steam traveling toward her nostrils to once again seize her senses.

She opened eyes and saw a bun bao inches in front and a little hand of a little girl holding it next to her.

Sitting up, the former Great Uniter looked at the little peasant farm girl with giant trusting eyes. She could have been five or six or seven. Kuvira realized she didn't spend time with kids and couldn't tell their ages by the looks of them.

Next to the girl stood a youngish man with a top not and olive skin. He was smiling and looking from the little girl to Kuvira.

"It's OK," he said.

Kuvira was too desperate and hungry to care anymore and took a heaping bite into the bun bao; the sweet rice bun and barbecued meaty center danced in her mouth, and she felt at once a warmth surge through her. Sitting in silence as if on display at a zoo, she ate while the pair hung around and watched.

"Daddy she's pretty," the little girl said, now clinging to her father's leg.

At that comment, Kuvira suddenly became aware of her disheveled and gaunt appearance and made every effort to slow down.

The man knelt down and smiled at Kuvira.

"My daughter and I have a homestead not far from here. Come and enjoy a warm bed and meal for the night. It would be my honor. Actually, it's our honor," he said, looking at his daughter. "Right Ji?"

"Yes!" The little girl lisped excitedly, doing a twirl.

The man chuckled. "You see? What's your name? I'm Gui and this is my daughter Genji, or Ji for short."

Kuvira studied the man then. Something about his demeanor carried a quiet dignity that she liked.

"I'm… Pang."

"Come, Pang. Please. You'll get hypothermia or pneumonia or both out here."

Without saying another word, Kuvira used all of her strength to get up and follow them to their abode.

The homestead was a plot of farming land with several acreage of now fallow vegetable crops. Gui's house was a simple Earth Kingdom abode from what felt to Kuvira like a time passed or at the very least decaying. The door opened to reveal the genkan and a long room divided into three by sliding white walls; the common room in the center featured a low set earthen table with floor cushions.

Kuvira removed her shoes at the genkan and entered. Gui offered her to take a seat at the table so he could serve them tea and dinner, and the three of them sat that way, sipping jasmine tea and eating a rice and vegetable dish with a side of salted dried fish.

They chatted politely of idle matters, Gui avoiding personal questions and Ji smiling and staring at Kuvira unabashedly as if awe struck by the presence of another being besides her father.

The conversation turned deep, and Ji seemed to be half following along, half drifting off into the vast and wondrous imagination of a child's mind.
"Things have been scarce around here. Peasants and homesteaders are a dying lot, so sometimes folks forget a little what being human is all about. It's alienating," Gui said, before taking a bite of salted fish.

He was a finely formed man from what Kuvira could make out in the soft lighting of the andon. And from the way he spoke, she found herself admiring his articulation of thoughts.

"Used to be everyone had a place in the world no matter where, but now with the cities popping up left and right and setting a new pace of life, we're seeing more hobo wanderers, a lost generation struggling to find somewhere to belong. Anyway, that's how I see it," Gui continued.

Kuvira figured Gui was referring to people like her, but she knew it to be a growing phenomenon alongside the squeezing out of small homesteaders like this in lieu of mass produce.

"Though when everyone had a place, the distribution of wealth and power was vastly unequal; what's worse, many couldn't rise above their circumstance; they were privy to the whims of a tyrant like the Earth Queen. And so we have a roundabout problem," Kuvira added.

"A wanderer versed in the nuances of politics who thinks philosophically. What a treat to have someone here to talk with about these things."

It was then Kuvira noticed a shelf filled with scrolls toward the back of the room. Adorning the walls were beautifully passionate calligraphy paintings.

"Fancy yourself a scholar?" Kuvira was curious.

"Only for fun. We have a lot of time to spare around here, so I like to keep a sharp mind. I'm a farm boy born and raised, though. And now it's just me and my little girl here." He reached over to squeeze Ji's ruddy cheeks.

Kuvira's heart ached for the type of fatherly love she sensed before her, but more than anything it endeared her to witness something so pure. But still, Kuvira had wondered where the mother was, and she debated internally whether she should ask.

"Little Ji is nothing like me," Gui said, scruffing his daughter's hair. "Can't sit still. Rather run around in the mud than read books. So I just tell her stories while she runs circles around me."

The tomboyish girl grinned to reveal a gaping hole where her baby front tooth once dwelled.

Kuvira smirked. "Sounds like a win-win."

"Well," Gui began. "It's been tough, what with her mom passing a little over three years ago."

Father and daughter fell silent and Kuvira awkwardly followed suit.

"I'm sorry." Kuvira didn't know what else to say.

"No matter," Gui said. He let out a heavy sigh.

Kuvira got up to collect the dishes and Gui stopped her. Realizing it was perhaps rude to impose in another's home, she sat there waiting for the next opportunity to move toward bedtime to rest before her next adventure in purgatory.

Gui motioned for his daughter to collect the dishes and she sat there pouting with her little arms crossed.

"No," Ji said.

Kuvira could sense the stubborn little girl digging her heels in with every patient reproach from her father.

Finally, Gui said with conviction: "Genji, I need you to pick up the dishes and then it's off to bed. Now."

"I don't want to!" Ji screamed and pounded her fists on the table. The table broke in half and the dishes crashed to the ground.

Kuvira braced herself as the table split, looking back and forth from the damage to the little girl, trying her best not to react.

Gui's face turned red out of embarrassment of this display in front of a guest, and he sent Ji to bed immediately. She went without much of a fight this time, as the guilt of what she did washed over her face.

Hours later, when Ji was fast asleep and Kuvira had found herself surveying the scrolls of the main room with Gui there to tell her about his favorites, the conversation inevitably turned back to Ji.

"Ji doesn't remember her – her mom," Gui said seemingly out of nowhere, though his thoughts were long held sway. "She doesn't remember her own mother anymore. And anyway, I should be more considerate when I mention her in front my little girl."

"If you want your little girl to forget her mother even more, then sure, never mention her," Kuvira said.

"I just don't know what to do with her. Sometimes I wonder if I'm good enough to –"

"She's an earthbender." Kuvira couldn't help but smile. "A powerful one."

"Yes, my little earthbending destroyer of things," Gui replied.

"She should be taught." But Kuvira controlled herself from saying anything more as an imposition.

"I don't know anything about earthbending, except for a couple of scrolls over there, and spirits know we can't afford it. Her mother – she was something special. We used to tend the land together too."

It was then Kuvira noticed this healthy-looking man appeared tired, darkened bags nestled under his pale green eyes.

"Again, I'm sorry for the loss of your wife," Kuvira said sincerely.

"Died of consumption." Gui sighed. He paused a moment and surveyed Kuvira once again as if sizing her up before continuing slowly: "She was my best friend. More like a sister to me, really. What I mean to say is – she was, we were, I mean, I'm not usually attracted to… your type. Women. But we grew up together and marriage was the safest option for us. And it was also the happiest after we had Ji… for a time anyway."

Kuvira was touched by his decision to share something vulnerable.

"I had a fiancé once," Kuvira began, "but he's really more like a brother to me."

Though she and Bataar Jr. had loved each other, one type of love was romantic, the other brotherly; ultimately this dynamic had hurt one person more.

Kuvira turned her thoughts to the child and her raw power and how it perhaps frightened both the girl and the people around her. She recalled her own temperamental childhood as a powerful bender without a rock in the form of unconditional support from her parents to fall back on.

She had broken many a furniture piece, put holes in walls, and even accidentally almost killed her mother. They were right to send her somewhere where she could get better guidance, Kuvira realized. There are limits to any person, and she had been born in this lifetime with fewer than most. But it still hurt.

"I'm very tired," Kuvira said finally. "I don't mean to be rude, would it be trouble if I went to bed now?"

"Oh, of course not! I'm so sorry to keep you up rambling like this," Gui said.

"Not at all. I enjoyed our conversation," Kuvira said and meant it.

He showed her to her sleeping quarters which had a tatami matt for a bed and she slid the paper-thin door closed and within minutes was fast asleep.

In the morning, she walked out to discover the table still broken but Gui and Ji still eating breakfast at it, holding a bowl of rice close to their faces and eating with chopsticks in a focused and rehearsed manner. She thought it cute how father and daughter mimicked each other's movements as if in sort of a rhythm.

Gui noticed Kuvira and offered her tea and breakfast, and she pulled up a cushion to join them at the broken table.

Kuvira did not want to overstay her welcome by continuing to be an unnecessary burden to this household.

"Well, I better get going. Thank you for your hospitality," Kuvira said, bowing.

"We need another hand around here, at least for the time being."

"I'm not – what are you? I know nothing about farms. And besides, it's not Spring."

"I have a lot of paperwork and business affairs to attend to. And I'll need help fixing and cleaning the equipment, tending to the farm animals, and preparing the land and seeds for Spring, weather permitting of course," Gui continued.

Kuvira seemingly denied him at first, unsure whether he was being polite.

"Didn't you say money and resources are tight?"

"I can offer you the room you slept in last night, modest but hearty meals, friendly company, and a small stipend though not much. It's a big job for one person. And it's too cold in winter to work so hard. That way we'd have more time to invest in our minds – maybe my little Ji will go to college and not be a farmer after all. And I occasionally sell my calligraphy," Gui said, motioning to the hanging fixtures. "We're going to have options in this new age, you know, when time inevitably catches up to this little town."

Ji was nodding along, Kuvira had noticed, and she wondered what went on in that complex little mind. Looking back at Gui, she saw a bit of the little girl in his face. She did not understand why this man chose to flex his kindness so generously but was not in a position to turn him down. She needed somewhere to last out the winter and knew she would die if continuing on the way she had been. Even after a full night's sleep, she still felt tired. And weak. And ordinary.

The offer was a blessing, and Kuvira needed a lesson in grace in accepting hospitality. She knew they didn't really need her, but perhaps their loneliness had brought them together. The pleasure of company, especially in winter, provided a special kind of warmth.

Finally, Kuvira said "I'll stay."

Meanwhile on the outskirts of Republic City…

Korra and Asami were freshly shacked up in Asami's country home. It had been two months since they reunited and it seemed they made up for their month apart by hardly parting. It was a long time coming and they kept each other coming a long time.

Asami lived to bury her head in Korra's bush, eating her out slowly, methodically, for ages until orgasm crept up gradually but powerfully, consuming her entire being - one long orgasm lasting minutes until the Avatar was so thusly fucked she became undone, a limp noodle with a sensitive, numb wreck of a pussy. Likewise, Asami loved to watch Korra's face contort with pleasure as she pushed her tender buttons, loved to feel her Avatar's hips buck at her mouth, pussy juices flowing in warm rivulets down her chin.

On the evening of the dinner party to celebrate Asami's new business partnership and racing team, the two women only had time for a quick fuck, so Korra made her powerful fingers known to Asami's pussy. The CEO had a lot of nerves to work out ahead of the event, so Korra rubbed her clit and then pounded her pussy until Asami needed a second shower. OK, all better. Now she could show up at this function calm and clearheaded like a boss.

Korra had the effect of making Asami feel both like a soft pile of pudding and a strong confident woman. She had learned these things herself but it was nice to have a partner support and lift her up along the way.

Little did Asami know that night would bring about her second big fight with Korra. It happened like this:

Korra had been reluctant to attend the party. As they agreed, Korra did not have to involve herself in Asami's business affairs as she did not particularly like talking about money all the damn time. But this was a special event, so Korra relented, especially when she heard Chai Son, whom the papers had called a "playboy racer" and incidentally the man who had fucked Asami, would be there.

Who even was this guy anyway? Korra had never heard of him before recently. It was as if he appeared out of nowhere.

The party in the private reception room at Kwong's cuisine heralded the dynamic duo with a cheers and a toast to the future of fast cars with Asami the hot face and brains of the outfit and Chai Son the smoldering bad boy racer with a mysterious past, though it was beyond Korra what exactly was bad about him. She needed to size him up herself.

Business folks with drinks and cigars encircled Asami and Korra, barraging them with fake flattery and making Korra dizzy with secondhand smoke. Might as well start drinking, Korra thought.

She excused herself and thankfully found tolerable company in the form of Daisuke who stood at the bar eating hors d'oeuvres. Korra joined and cheers'd a couple of rounds of champagne until out of nowhere she found herself spilling some verbal tea.

"Look at em. At him. He's a brute I tell ya. A brute," Korra mumbled into her drink.

"I assume you mean Mr. Chai Son and his Business partnership with Ms. Sato, your girlfriend," Daisuke said, pausing before biting into her food.

Korra had to admit the little servings of food were cute and tasty.

"My Love. My souulllll mate," Korra swooned before leaning toward Daisuke and with hot boozy breath adding, "Can I uh, taste that?"

Before Daisuke could answer, Korra swiped the food from her plate and in the next moment it was halfway down Korra's throat. She shrugged and said thank you with a full mouth before continuing with the chewing and swallowing.

"Ugh, his stupid broad shoulders and symmetrical face give me the heebie jeebies. Pfft, I can take him," Korra said, before noticing Chai Son place his hand on the small of Asami's back while talking to investors.

In the next moment, she found herself across the room and, having swept Asami away, one-inch stiff armed Chai Son across the room. He went flying and crashed into a table.

The entire room stopped and gaped at the bawdy Water Tribe girl running amok of everything once again.

As Chai Son gathered himself and reached for his cane, he thought he saw Korra's eyes flash red as she stared at him menacingly. And Korra thought she saw a slight smirk on the corner of Chai Son's mouth as if beckoning her to further give into her own brutish impulses.

Korra calmed herself and tried her best to sober up. What helped was turning around and seeing Asami fumingly upset with Korra, and despite her face not betraying her emotions, Korra knew her lover's eyes best of all, which in this moment seethed at her.

Korrasami had their second major fight that evening resulting in Korra sleeping in the guest room for several days. They had nearly called it quits a second time, and Korra felt something dark stir inside of her and needed to cool it to process what if anything was truly happening to her.

Fortunately for the Avatar, Asami could not stay mad at Korra, especially considering how cute she looked from afar, goofy and definitely not sober – that is, until she had flung Asami's business partner across the room in a dramatic display of bravado.

At any rate, suffice it to say the makeup sex was amazing.

Kuvira was up every cold morning in the predawn hours training, beginning again. No longer a bender, he had to relearn how to navigate the nuances of her body. Though she was a dancer and still relatively fit, she realized her bending was a crutch, and to make up for it, she would have to train hard to fill in the gaps.

She started in the mornings with horse stance, followed by balancing postures, followed by seated meditation. Afterward she worked around the homestead, doing this odd chore or that. It seemed she was always finding something to do or waiting around for Gui to ask her to do something.

Eventually, she took it upon herself to learn how to fix things, and so she located broken or squeaky objects and patched them up or de-squeaked them. And during breaks and for hours here and there a day, she would practice throwing her daggers and needles, practice the forms for chi blocking, training her muscles to match the precision of her mind.

One bitingly cold morning, Kuvira was doing horse stance in the barnyard with her eyes closed; her hot breath emanated from her nostrils creating steam.

"What you doing?" A little voice called from near the entrance of the door.

Kuvira opened her eyes to see Ji standing there, playing with the latch at the door.

"I'm doing horse stance," Kuvira answered without getting up.

"What's horse stance?"

"It's what I'm doing," Kuvira husked.

"And what you doing?"

"Horse stance!" Kuvira steadied her voice. "If you're so curious, come over here and find out."

Ji approached and copied Kuvira's movements, spreading her legs a little more than hip width, then squatting with balled fists at her side.

"Like this?" Ji asked.

"Wider!" Kuvira retorted.

The little girl obeyed and squatted lower. After a minute, she stood back up and said "Ouch this hurts!"

"It's not as easy as it looks kid." Kuvira had not moved her stance during this whole exchange.

Ji, witnessing Kuvira's steadfastness, repositioned herself and squatted once more. After a while, her face began to contort and Kuvira could tell she was trying to hold on with all her might. The little girl was competitive not only with Kuvira but herself, and Kuvira liked this about the child.

"Don't hold your breath; remember to breathe," Kuvira said. "Otherwise your muscles will tense up and you'll be sorry."

Ji started taking deep exaggerated breaths and in the process lost track of her form.

"Activate your core!" Kuvira said. "But keep breathing!"

"How do I do that?" Ji attempted this seemingly contradictory activity until she eventually caved in and fell to the ground.

"It's OK. Great job Kiddo." Kuvira meant it.

"How long do you do that every morning?"

"Oh, about two hours give or take. One hour if I don't have time," Kuvira said.

"Two hours!?" The little girl said incredulously, adding. "How long is two hours again?"

Kuvira laughed at the little girl's innocence of time. The rooster cawed and soon the sun was rising bringing forth a new day.

"But for you, not so long; you have to build up to it."

"And then I get strong and can move like you?"

Kuvira chuckled. "For the most part, yes."

The former Great Uniter, metalbending master, and dancer stopped her horse stance to demonstrate.

"Because of horse stance, I have a strong core that allows me to root down to the earth. More importantly, it burns away restlessness. And it gives me strong legs to jump very high, like this –"

Kuvira jumped and flipped around the barn, soaring high and gracefully.

"And hand-to-hand combat and dancing has taught me this –"

She shuffled her feet like a dancing boxer with her arms up and guarding her sides while she shadow-boxed.

"But lately, I've been practicing this –"

Then she walked over to her lasso-whip creation, which rested on a bale of hay. She got the idea to place a metal-plated tip on the end of the rope to get it to snap and crack and had practiced going back and forth between the two, spinning the rope in a circle above her head, then whipping the other side. One steady thing about Kuvira despite it all was she liked to show off, no matter how small – or petite – the audience.

"Wow! So cool!" Ji exclaimed.

"Where's your father, by the way?"

"He's sleeping."

"Here, actually," Gui said from the door.

Neither of them knew how long he had been watching but he was smiling all the same. Ji ran over to her father and hugged him.

"Your daughter. She's an earthbender. So… let me train her," Kuvira said much more forward this time.

Gui laughed. "But you're a nonbender. How are you going to train her?"

Kuvira looked down at the floor, painfully aware of this fact.

"I was a bender – a master. Once. But I lost my bending."

Gui looked at Kuvira again and suddenly thought she looked familiar.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Also, if you're a master, then you would know to teach only those who want to be taught, and my little girl, she –"

"I wanna learn earthbending from Miss Pang, Daddy," Ji said with finality.

Gui nodded his head at Ji and bowed at Kuvira to signify that he would allow it. It seemed then Kuvira had more purpose here and no longer felt as if she wasted anyone's time or resources.

Apparently, it was not the first time Gui had underestimated or misread his daughter. As Kuvira would later learn, Ji also remembered much of her mother and would occasionally bring her up.

Ji was a wild, feral child much like Kuvira, so a combination of the basics and dancing would suit her early training. She would squeeze in as much foundational work as she could during the winter months before ultimately moving on.

They spent the beginnings of their training sessions doing horse stance, the little girl asking "How long do I have to do this?"

"Didn't you already ask me this question?" Kuvira responded.

"No, I mean how looong? Until I'm old?"

"It's ongoing. You'll only find more impressive ways to hold poses, and one day you'll come to enjoy it and find it calms you enough to think clearly."

"Oh, OK." Ji said.

They held their positions awhile longer, Kuvira occasionally saying "Wider!"

After some conditioning Ji was ready to practice some of the basic forms. Kuvira reminded the little earthbender that in order to fly one must first be grounded. Otherwise, the sky might as well be the sea.

They practiced the basic forms like dances, moving in tandem with one another. Gui occasionally watched his daughter and was moved by how she resembled her mother.

Ji began bending earth with her movements, and soon she was stopping and splitting boulders. And by the time Spring rolled around, she was tilling the land and not for any reason except to get her hands and feet dirty.

That little girl is a powerful bender. One day she will be a master, Kuvira thought.

Kuvira learned another thing about herself. The matter of what is ordinary had plagued her since she took her own bending. She realized her own inward prejudice, even with the exception of Opal and some of the people she knew. Funny how life is messy and full of contradiction.

But Kuvira was a prodigy who was also dead focused and obsessively hard working. Whether or not she could bend, she would never be ordinary. This realization that came only at the loss of her bending made her feel more whole.

Peculiarly, the home in which she lived that winter slowly emptied itself of belongings. One by one scrolls and some works of calligraphy were packaged and shipped off. The furniture and fixtures that made the house a home disappeared like 'boop' until one early spring day there was nothing left of the home at all, except a rucksack and containers holding Gui's calligraphy.

Gui had a rucksack slung over his back and was holding his little girl's hand. Kuvira found she also wore her bag and cloak and recently acquired wide-brimmed hat. They were all standing at the threshold of the abode. It was goodbye.

"Well, this is it. We've sold the property and are headed to Republic City. My little girl might have a chance to get into college there, and I can sell my calligraphy. Even in this new world, there are always spaces for artists," Gui said.

It was abrupt but Kuvira was no fool. She saw this coming a mile away and so was ready for it. At the very least she was grateful for shelter and food and for the privilege to return to a part of herself.

"Thank you, for everything," Kuvira said, shaking his hand.

"You're welcome Pang. Or should I say Kuvira?" Gui smiled.

Kuvira recoiled but could only yield.

"How did you know? When?"

"Shortly after you said you were an ex-earthbender. The way you talked, how much you knew about politics, not to mention you're dead-on for the wanted poster – short hair and all," Gui said.

"Well what should we do about this?"

"Do what you want. You're my friend, and your secret's safe with me."

Kuvira nodded though inside she beamed.

"One more thing. I saved this for you." Gui pulled out a scroll and handed it to Kuvira. "Might be something you find interesting. If not, pawn it."

Kuvira opened the scroll. It was of seemingly ancient material though still elastic and intact. It read 'Golden Heart Technique.'

"This is an earthbending scroll, but I'm not an earthbender," Kuvira protested.

"Take it, or else I'll pawn it myself," Gui said.

She accepted and steadied herself to say goodbye to Ji, the feral little earthbender. Kuvira bent down.

"Say, kid. You stay out of trouble in Republic City. Don't be a pain in your dad's rear, OK?"

Ji stood there silently pouting until finally caving in and hugging Kuvira. The former Great Uniter was awkward with the hugs but relented anyways with one hand then the other.

And with that the two parties parted ways indefinitely, one a solo wanderer, the other a father-daughter duo trying to find their place in the new world.

Kuvira walked for days, then weeks, then months in between hopping on trains and contemplating the natural splendor of the former Earth Kingdom with its vast and varied landscapes.

It pained her to read the Golden Heart Technique scroll but she couldn't help but study it deeply, memorizing and executing the forms in her mind's eye.

Mostly, Kuvira walked. It was custom to pay penance by walking great distances over hill and dale and vast terrain. Supposedly, it burned karma, but really it just gave Kuvira more time to think until she was struck with those occasional blissful moments when there was no thought at all, just the present.