Kuvira had learned years ago that the fastest way to move between the city pods was to launch cables at the domes and then swing. Back when she was twelve or thirteen, she had asked Baatar to time her runs against the tram—for science's sake, of course—and she always managed to beat it by at least a few minutes. The only downside was that it was illegal—thanks to the botched landings of some less coordinated copycats—and since becoming a captain of the security force, Kuvira tried to avoid breaking the law whenever she could help it. Being perceived as a hypocrite was bad for morale and even worse for public relations. But today the law was of no consequence; she had been summoned.
Still gliding above the Beifong estate, she flicked her wrist to turn the metal latch on the window in Su's study and bend it open, somersaulting inside just as the matriarch took a seat on one of the sleek green couches.
Suyin regarded her with half a grin and a small shake of the head. "Right on time, Kuvira," she said, pouring herself a cup of kombucha from a glass jug. "And Aiwei told me you'd never make it."
Kuvira pulled a face at the mention of the truth seer. No sooner than she had put the key in the door to her apartment after rehearsal, Su's advisor radioed, telling her to drop everything and rush back to the matriarch's residence. It happened often enough that she was honestly beginning to question the utility of moving out.
"Not if I had waited for the tram," she replied with a smirk, reeling the cables back into the spool attached to her belt.
"No, I suppose not." Su laughed a little and gestured for Kuvira to sit beside her. "Kombucha?"
"I'm fine." Kuvira tried not to wrinkle her nose at it. If the weird pit floating at the bottom of the bottle wasn't enough of a deterrent, the muddy color of it did her in.
Su merely shrugged. "Your loss."
"I thought you were having lunch with Opal today," Kuvira said, knowing the little tyrant would find some way to blame her for the canceled plans. Whatever it was that had compelled her mentor to abandon the company of her favorite child must have been serious. "What happened?"
"There's been some troubling news." Suyin crossed one leg over the other. "You're aware that the Earth Queen has tried to levy new taxes on Zaofu in the past year?"
It was hardly a question. Kuvira had been the audience for the bulk of her anti-monarchist tirades for years. The matriarch never discussed matters of state with her children, lest the weight of politics 'disrupt the flow of their creative energies.'
"And you refused." She had helped Su and her advisors go over the ledgers the month before, and they hadn't sent even a copper piece more than usual up to the capital.
"Of course I did. Why should the metal clan pay because her people can't control the bandits in the north?"
The point was valid enough, but a distant part of Kuvira also wondered why the metal clan should walk on streets of gold while people starved a day's drive from Zaofu.
"There wouldn't be bandits in the first place if she would use the tax money she already receives to see to the welfare of the poorer states." Kuvira said this in place of what she was really thinking; she had learned over the years that it was more pragmatic to commiserate with Suyin than to challenge her. "What kind of leader builds new palaces while her people die in slums?"
"An Earth Kingdom ruler, I'm afraid." Su sighed and leaned back against the couch cushions. "Ba Sing Se has been corrupt since before my grandparents were born. That actually brings me to why I called you here. My informants at court have reported that the queen sent soldiers to appropriate a shipment of raw platinum from our mines."
"We can afford the loss," Kuvira stated, pulling the figures from her working memory. "But you're selling the platinum to Varrick Industries so they can build more mechs for the Southern Water Tribe."
Suyin glanced at her then, her mouth curving up into a genuine smile. "Do I really tell you everything the moment it happens, or are you just exceedingly clever?"
Kuvira filtered out the praise, waiting for the true nature of the task to reveal itself. Compliments always preceded ugly work. "So you want me and the guards to intercept them and protect the platinum?"
"It has to be a stealth mission, executed by a small team," Su told her. "You have full access to the metal armory, but there can be no uniforms or anything else that might be tied back to Zaofu, in case there are any passers-by. Let the queen think her men were set upon by more bandits."
"And in reality?" she asked, though it was hardly necessary at this point.
"I think it would be best if they were lost in the Si Wong Desert." The matriarch took a measured sip of her kombucha. "Don't you?"
The first time she had asked for such a thing—in a similarly roundabout way—Su hadn't been able to look at her. Even now, she avoided her eyes, fixing her gaze instead on the model of Zaofu that her husband had so carefully constructed so she could bask in the sunny glow of her wealth and accomplishments. But regardless of whatever guilt she felt or feigned, come nightfall Kuvira would be dispatched to secure the interests, dirty the hands, do all the things she'd never ask of the people she loved more.
"I'll leave tonight." She rose quickly, turning her back to the matriarch, lest her face reveal more than it should. She already had fingertips on the door before her mentor spoke again.
"One more thing. Do you think you can be back before Thursday's rehearsal? The set should be done by then, and I'd love to see you and Luli emerging from the petals. I just know it's going to be a great finale."
She closed her eyes, breathed, and schooled her expression into cool neutrality before turning back around. "Of course, Suyin. I'll make it quick."
It must have said something horrible about her, the way the proud, adoring gaze her mentor fixed on her was almost worth the blood.
"That's such a relief. I'm so glad I can always rely on you, Kuvira."