You sure took your sweet time," Suyin said as soon as Kuvira entered her study. The matriarch was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed in front of her and wearing a vaguely troubled expression. "I was beginning to think we'd have to leave the dome down all night."
Annoyance surged through Kuvira's body like a shirshu's toxin; there was never any pleasing her. "You said a few guards. If you had mentioned that the queen was sending a legion of Dai Li agents I could have—"
"Dai Li?" Su's impassive stance broke then, eyes going wide and arms falling to her sides. "Are you sure? She would never send them this far south of the capital."
"Well, apparently she would." Kuvira responded to her mentor's disbelief with a shrug that sent white hot pain flaring through her left shoulder. She let out a short cry as her hand flew up to grip the arm at the bicep.
"You're hurt?" Su crossed the distance between them within seconds and rested a hand on Kuvira's cheek. The gesture was gentle, motherly, so unlike the Suyin of recent years that Kuvira nearly shrugged away. "What happened?"
Kuvira glanced away from her mentor, unsure of how she should respond. "It got dislocated, but I popped it back in. It's fine."
"'It's fine,' she says." Su rolled her eyes and guided Kuvira to the nearest couch, then slid down the sleeve of her black shirt to look more closely at the injury. "I can already tell there's swelling at the joint. Wait here while I send for a healer."
"Su, really—"
The matriarch pinned her under the weight of a stern gaze, preempting any further protests.
Kuvira was made to sip her mentor's top shelf plum wine on the couch—Suyin's ultimate conciliatory gesture—while a water healer diluted the pulsing pain in her shoulder down to a muted ache.
"To think she'd send Dai Li to rob us," Suyin said, once the healer was out of earshot. By this point, the matriarch had already finished a glass of her own. "You were able to handle them, though?"
And there it was—the raised eyebrow, the expectant gaze. Back to business, already.
Kuvira almost flinched at the mention of the grizzly errand, but she managed to reign it in and keep her posture steady, back straight, face blank—professional. "Lost to the desert, like you asked."
"And the platinum?"
"On its way to Varrick Industries. Your associate should have it within the week."
"Good." Suyin refilled her own glass of plum wine and topped Kuvira's off. "The kingdom's coffers must truly be close to empty for her to have pulled a stunt like that. This conference with King Yudai and his advisors can't come soon enough."
Kuvira held back a sigh; she had almost forgotten that was happening. "Do you really think Omashu is serious about breaking ties with Ba Sing Se?"
"Before the Hundred Year War, Omashu and the other wealthy southern states were virtually independent for centuries," Su explained, recalling the stories of her ancestors and the times in which the Beifongs made their great fortune. "It was only the military aggression from the Fire Nation that forced the entire kingdom to come together, but that threat is long gone."
"That's true," Kuvira said, the wine loosening her tongue a bit. "But the Earth Kingdom's economy never completely recovered from the war because Avatar Aang didn't want to make his best friend pay reparations."
"Aang was a good man." Suyin said firmly. "He was like an uncle to me." She smirked behind the rim of her glass all the while. "And haven't I taught you that there are things we shouldn't say out loud?"
"Not saying it doesn't make it less true," Kuvira countered. "We never got the trading hubs on the northwest coast back. We never saw a single coin for all the resources that were taken from our land."
"All the more reason for us to stop sending our money to be squandered on the Earth Queen's new landscaping projects," Su said.
Kuvira sighed again, the beginnings of a headache blooming at her temples. It was like her body was only beginning to register that she had barely slept in days. "But won't the people suffer if two of the wealthiest states pull out of the kingdom?"
Two at minimum. If she were being completely honest, wherever Zaofu and Omashu went, Gaoling and Shuijing would surely follow.
Suyin waved the comment off. "Likely little more than they are already, and if things become dire enough, our states will welcome them with open arms." The matriarch put her feet up on the couch, swirling her wine. "The universe has a way of putting people where they belong. It sent you here to us, after all."
Kuvira took a deep breath, staring down into her plum wine and focusing all her attention on not shattering the glass in her hands. The universe had only 'sent her' to Zaofu because her father's friend was the only person in the town who owned an ostrich-horse. If any other person decided to throw their child away, the universe would have sent them to a ditch or the side of the road.
The thought brought back flashes of Dai Li hats sticking up in the sand dunes like mushroom caps before they got sucked down into the abyss. Kuvira's stomach lurched and the plum wine in her glass transformed into a goblet of blood.
She set the glass down on the table in front of her and rested her forehead on her knees, eyes screwing shut as she commanded her body not to be sick in front of her mentor.
"Kuvira?" Su asked, resting a hand on her back. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." It took her a moment to raise her head and force her words to return. "I'm just tired."
"You must be exhausted," the matriarch said. "I had the household staff prepare a guest room. Get some rest. We'll talk more tomorrow."
The guest room was larger than the one she'd been given as a child. With the innumerable cushions scented with jasmine and marble bath wide enough to swim in, she supposed it was one of the ones she reserved for the important visitors—the poets and philosophers, the world leaders and arms dealers. No doubt Kuvira was worth far more to her now as an instrument of war than she'd been back then.
She soaked in the bath until the water turned cool and her skin shriveled, then dressed for bed and hoped sleep would claim her quickly. It didn't, even though she lacked the energy to do anything but stare up at the ceiling and wonder whether the men who'd been lost to the desert had families, whether they'd loved their daughters, and whether said daughters would be lost to a ditch or the side of the road or a life in which they were only cared for to whatever extent they were useful.