Author's Note: This is a revision to my fic of the same name that I posted to Ao3 years ago, where I will be going back through it and using what I've learned about writing since then to make the story mechanically flow better. The story picks up immediately after Book 4 ends, and follows the characters throughout the following years. Though a large portion focuses on Kuvira's redemption and recovery, including the entirety of the first plot arc, in later chapters the story does shift focus to other characters in order to progress the plot. The themes of redemption, recovery, and healing, however, remain constant throughout. This was also originally written before the Turf Wars or Ruins of the Empire comics came out, and as such does not include any of those events.
Please note that the main pairing in this story is Kuvira/Korra, which obviously means that Korra/Asami do not remain together. It may be a long, slow burn, but it does happen eventually. If you don't want to read a Korra/Asami breakup, then this is probably not the fic for you. Also, know that this fic is not what I believe should happen in actual canon after Book 4 ended (I certainly don't want Korrasami to ever break up, I happen to actually like that ship). This is just my own take that I've created for fun, and while it follows canon events, it should at best be considered a diverging alternate universe. This fic isn't meant to be a statement or drive any kind of hate towards any character or ships, and was only something I ever started writing because I was motivated and thought that maybe some people would enjoy it.
"Welcome to your new home. At least while we decide what to do with you."
Kuvira shuffled forward. The words sounded a thousand miles away, as though filtered through a thick wall of molasses. Her steps were small, more waddling than walking, with the short amount of slack chained between the shackles on her ankles. Cuffs bound her wrists, made of the same shiny metal as her shackles. With her head held downward, her half-blurred vision noted a similar sheen across the entire floor. Platinum, of course. The one metal unyielding to even the most powerful metalbenders.
The cell was, after all, built specifically to hold metalbenders. The floor, the walls, the bars on the window, even the bed and the toilet—all platinum. The heavy platinum door slammed shut behind her, and the sound of sturdy tumblers rolling into place indicated the guard on the other side had locked it. Even as powerless as she was right now, they were taking no chances, it seemed. Not even with the Chief of Republic City Police escorting her. Not that Kuvira could blame them; she'd take every precaution if she were the one locking her away, too.
"Sit." Lin Beifong, dressed down in a standard police uniform rather than her usual metal armor, pointed to a chair next to the bed. Her normally well-groomed hair was frazzled in places, with loose gray strands sticking out in wild disarray. The chaos of the past few days had clearly taken a toll on the older woman, reinforced by the dark bags drooping beneath her eyes.
Kuvira obeyed the command without resistance, dropping into the chair on command. At this point, she'd be foolish in being defiant. Lin narrowed a skeptical glare before dropping to one knee in order to unlock the cuffs and shackles. Funny, even the key was made of platinum. Still, Kuvira made no effort in resisting. She remained still in the chair, until her hands and legs were free.
"Will I be staying here?" she asked, with a meager glance towards the window. Through the bars, she had a clear view of the sun dipping below the horizon. "Permanently, I mean."
Returning to her feet, Lin crossed her arms across her chest and gave a deep frown. "I don't need to tell you the world of trouble you brought on yourself. You'll be held here at least until your trial, and the United Republic determines your sentence. After that, we may move you to a different location. Su wanted you extradited to Zaofu, but President Raiko refused—you're a criminal of the entire United Republic, not just Zaofu."
She gave a slow nod, still staring out at the sunset. "I see."
Turning her head, the old police chief let out a disgruntled huff. "Some people are calling for an execution, as if we're a bunch of savages. Count yourself lucky we've ruled that out."
As the sun further disappeared, Kuvira looked back at the police chief. An awkward beat of silence followed, before she worked up the nerve to speak again. "Lin, I know it doesn't mean much, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry."
The look she received in response sent her gut into twisted spirals. Lin had never been what people would consider the 'nice' sister, between herself and Su. Her dark gaze radiated an unflinching, seething contempt. What a far cry it was, compared to the quiet respect they'd once shared.
During the past few years, Lin had made frequent visits to Zaofu to spend time with her sister. Inevitably, she and Kuvira had crossed paths on numerous occasions. Usually, those encounters ended in Lin giving her advice on how to better command the city guard, and while Kuvira had always been confident in her ability to lead, ignoring the tutelage of the far more experienced police chief would have been foolish. She'd even come to look forward to those sessions
That all seemed a lifetime ago now.
"Tell it to someone who gives a damn," Lin spat. "After everything you did, all the lives you destroyed—no amount of apologizing is going to fix that."
Kuvira clenched her teeth, a hollow tang spreading through her throat. She said nothing, instead turning back to the window. In the waning sunlight, she noticed the looming figure of Aang Memorial Statue gleaming in the distance.
Lin gathered together the platinum shackles and headed towards the door. "Enjoy your stay, and try to make yourself comfortable. If I had to guess, I'd say you're going to be here for a long time." The guard on the other side of the cell door opened it on command. Once Lin had stepped through, he closed and locked it behind her.
Just like that, Kuvira was alone.
Kuvira sat motionless on the lone chair in the middle of the room, staring out the window. A cloud shaped like a platypus bear rolled across the glowing sky, followed by a second that looked almost like a satomobile. She squinted, straining her eyes in attempt to glimpse the stars beyond the clouds, but even when the gray wisps thinned, any view of the stars was drowned by that incessant green-yellow glow. Even on this side of the city, the spirit portal made its presence known, lighting the night like a neon beacon.
The spirit portal. The site of her defeat. The site of her fall. Kuvira frowned, her gaze sinking to the floor. Was it still there solely to mock her now? To remind her, every time she looked out at the night sky, of her utter and miserable failure? Maybe. But then, it was deserved, wasn't it?
The sound of explosions drew her attention back out the window. A new light sparked across the night sky. Squinting, she arose from her seat and walked towards the window. When she pressed her face close to the bars and peered to the left, she saw it: fireworks bursting across the bay, right over Air Temple Island. A celebration of some sort? Perhaps even a celebration of her defeat?
With a sigh, Kuvira hung her head and shuffled towards the bed in the far corner of the cell. She sat on the edge of the mattress, staring blankly forward at the far wall. Her gaze found a small mirror above the sink at the opposite end of the cell. The reflection staring back at her was one of a tired, beaten woman, her long dark hair knotted and in great need of a good brushing. She didn't recognize herself in the tan, dull prison outfit, such a stark difference between the distinguished uniform she'd become so accustomed to. Her gut sank, and she lowered her attention to the floor.
Where had she gone so wrong? When had everything fallen to pieces? Her thoughts wavered into flashes of various memories over the past few months. What had been her point of no return?
The answer bludgeoned through her mind with enough force to blur her vision. Oh, Baatar… His voice echoed through her head, as crystal clear as the day she'd heard it over the radio to tell her the enemy had him in their custody. She could have stood down. She could have ended her campaign. She could have walked away and left with him, together, just like he asked. Like he begged. Oh, how she'd wanted to…
But she couldn't. She had come too far, done too much, and had too many people looking up to her. That had been her point of no return. When she had turned her spirit canon on the man she loved. On his family. On people she knew, had grown up with—people who had loved her.
People who would never forgive her.
Kuvira raised a hand and pressed it to her face. She breathed deep, steady, and then fell backwards onto the mattress. She needed sleep.
How long had she been here now? Two weeks? Three? The first few of many, undoubtedly. While her official sentence had yet to be handed down, there were only so many ways it could go go; she would be in this cell for a long, long time. Would it be the last place she ever lived? Most likely. She'd been prepared for it, anyway, when she had surrendered to the Avatar. "Whatever punishment the world sees fit." Lin was right, in any case—she should be thankful she wasn't getting a death sentence.
"You have a visitor."
Kuvira blinked out of her thoughts, slowly raising her head off the mattress to look at the door. The guard's face peered at her through the slot, the same unflinching contempt in his eyes as she'd seen in Lin's. The same contempt that anyone would have towards her. Hardly surprising. What was surprising was his statement. A visitor? Who in the world would possibly…?
When the door opened, Kuvira's insides churned. She shot upright in bed, a metallic numbness creeping into her throat at the sight of the older woman with graying hair and sleek robes of Zaofu green walking into the cell. "Su?"
Suyin Beifong. If anyone should look at her with unwavering hate and contempt, it would be the woman who had raised Kuvira as part of her own family, and whose trust and respect Kuvira had summarily destroyed over the past few months by betraying her and her family at every turn. And yet, for all the anger and disappointment Suyin had expressed at her previously, the look she gave now was not as harsh. Calm, even. Her eyes shifted, but not with hate. More with uncertainty, and caution.
As the cell door closed behind her, Su sucked in a deep breath. "Hello, Kuvira."
Kuvira swallowed, clenched her jaw. Words escaped her for a solid minute, suffocating the prison cell with a deafening silence. When at last the dryness in her throat threatened to send her into a coughing fit, she managed to utter a scratchy, "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you," was Su's gentle reply. She'd always had that uncanny way of making her voice sound so nurturing, even when there was something deeper buried behind her tone.
"But why? After everything I did..."
"I know what you did. And I know why you did it." Suyin let out her breath in a long, uneasy sigh. Her eyes twitched a moment before she turned away, so Kuvira couldn't see them. She wasn't fast enough to hide their pain—pain Kuvira knew she had caused. "It's not easy to swallow, or move past. I don't need to tell you that." When she turned back to meet Kuvira's gaze once again, the pain in her eyes was gone, and her lips had even curled with the faintest hint of a smile. "But there's no reason we can't try."
An odd amalgam of confusion and shock took root in the back of Kuvira' mind. She looked away, avoiding the other woman's gaze. Spirits knew she didn't deserve to look this woman in the eyes. "Su, I tried to kill you. Your entire family. You only ever showed me kindness, and I betrayed you." She wrung her hands together in her lap. "You're the one who said I'd pay for everything I'd done."
"I was angry when I said that," Su replied, taking a step forward. She pulled up the chair from the table and turned it towards the bed, then took a seat in front of Kuvira.
Kuvira chanced a look back at the woman. "You aren't still?"
"Oh, I am, make no mistake." Suyin breathed out a long sigh and rubbed her forehead. "A part of me blames myself. Perhaps if I'd stepped up and taken the responsibility when I could have, none of this would have happened. "
"Su..."
"I always thought of you as a daughter, Kuvira, ever since we took you in as a child." Suyin linked her fingers together, crossed her hands firmly in her lap, and looked Kuvira square in the eyes. "But I don't think I ever showed it enough. You were always so strong-willed. You never needed me doting on you like Opal, or Wing and Wei. That was my mistake. If I'd just loved you more, then maybe—."
"Su, stop." The conviction in her own voice brought Kuvira to a sudden pause. She took a breath to steady herself, holding her own hands together to keep them from jittering. "None of this is your fault. The only person to blame here is me. I'm the one who took over the Earth Kingdom, I'm the one whose negligence led to my followers creating prison camps, I'm the one who killed countless people in a war I started."
Silence returned to the cell. Suyin gazed back at her, unflinching, unwavering. The more she stared, the more Kuvira's heart fluttered. When the fluttering threatened to burst free of her chest, Kuvira tore her gaze away.
"I was so sure I was doing the right thing," Kuvira said, with a biting ire in her tone. "But deep down I knew it was wrong. It felt wrong. But I thought I had no choice. I thought I was the leader my people needed, that I had to do everything I could for them, no matter the cost. What a lie that was. I always had a choice. I could have stopped—I should have stopped—but I didn't. I kept going until I was too far gone, until I'd betrayed everything you ever taught me, and all the kindness and love you ever showed me. That's all on me. No one else."
Su reached forward, placing a hand over one of Kuvira's. For a brief moment, that was how she left it, but when Kuvira didn't pull away, she gave a gentle squeeze. "Yes, you did terrible things. I know that. The world knows that. But please, let me acknowledge my own mistakes, too. I made so many with you, more than anyone. I might have thought of you as a daughter, and loved you like one, but I never expressed it how I should have. I pushed you away in the first place, and that's on me."
Kuvira's jaw quivered, but she kept still, silent. What was she supposed to say? Su was right, in that regard. Even though she'd had a family after Su had taken her in, she'd never quite felt like one of them—somehow still an outsider, even when surrounded by family. She'd always known she shouldn't feel that way, but it had always been there, raw and inescapable, gnawing away at her self-worth.
"I'm sorry, Kuvira. I want you to know that."
"Su, I..." Finally, Kuvira brought herself to look at the other woman. Her eyes were met with a pair of brilliant green, wet and clouded with the subtlest onset of tears. The quivering in her jaw threatened to spill over, but she swallowed it down. "I am so sorry. For everything I did. To you, to your family, to everyone. I..." Her mind flickered with a thought, and her stomach lurched again, nauseous. "Bataar! How is he? He's not—I mean, did I...?"
Su breathed outward, offering a stern nod. "Junior's okay. Heartbroken, as you can imagine, but alive. He still has to face the consequences of his actions, same as you, but President Raiko offered him a deal to reduce his sentence. He'll be working with Future Industries to help rebuild the city, and with any luck he'll be a free man in a few years."
Another silence followed, this one heavier than before. Kuvira sucked in rapid breaths, an attempt to keep herself composed, but the trembling returned to her jaw. It slipped further, spreading to her lips. Her breathing grew faster.
"I—I loved him. I still..." The world spiraled. Kuvira grabbed the pant leg of her prison outfit, holding on for dear life, as though it might help steady herself. She only fell faster. "How I could ever turn on him like that... I thought I was making some kind of noble sacrifice for a greater cause, but there was nothingnoble about it. I was blinded by my ambitions, so much that I betrayed the man I loved. I almost killed him, and I—I ruined everything."
She forced her eyes shut, but it didn't help. Another tremble, and this time she hiccuped a gross, rasping sob. Stupid. She had to stop, had to compose herself. She was the Great Uniter. She'd led a nation. She couldn't go breaking down now, not in front of Su, not after everything she'd been through to get here.
"It's alright, K." Suyin's grip tightened, squeezing a reassuring grasp against Kuvira's hand. "Let it out."
She broke. The sound of her old nickname washed away any remaining semblance of Kuvira the Great Uniter, esteemed military commander, tyrant of the Earth Empire. Memories flooded her mind. Memories of dancing with Suyin, of learning from her how to metalbend, of happy family dinners, and tying braids in Opal's hair. Roughhousing with the twins, picnics with Junior, metal sculpting with Huan—her entire life growing up in Zaofu. Tears followed.
Kuvira, the orphaned girl who'd been taken in by the Matriarch of Zaofu and given the best chances in life only to throw it all away and lose everything, collapsed off the bed, fully expecting to hit the floor and drown in misery. She never made it that far, as a pair of arms caught and embraced her as they had so many times before when she'd been much younger, always when she needed it most. Suyin, who'd been the mother she'd never had. The mother she didn't deserve.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there cradled in Suyin's arms. Minutes? Hours? Felt more like days. By the time she found the strength to pull herself back to the bed, she had no more tears left to cry. Slowly, arduously, she gathered her composure once more. Her breathing steadied, and the knotted apple gradually dissipated from her throat.
Another silence.
Kuvira breathed deep and wiped her eyes—they were sticky, probably bloodshot. She avoided looking towards the mirror. "You shouldn't even be here, Su. I don't deserve your forgiveness. For all the pain I've caused your family..."
"Our family." Su rested a hand on her shoulder, never taking her eyes away. "You were always a part of it, and you still are."
She stammered, shaking her head. "H-How can you even say that?"
"It may take time—a lot of time—to work through this, but if there's anything I've learned during my life it's that nothing is impossible, and everyone deserves a second chance. I know I don't have it in me to hold a grudge against someone who truly wants to change." She glanced away briefly, sighing. "The others I can't speak for. They may forgive you, they may not. I haven't, either. Not completely, not yet. But I hope to, one day. There's still a lot of healing to be done."
"And what about all the otherpeople I've hurt? All the families I've destroyed?" The rampant fluttering returned to her chest, now so bad she physically reached up to clutch at her heart. This shouldn't be happening. She didn't deserve this kind of compassion, not even from Su. Especially not from Su. "What if I had killed Baatar? Or Opal? Or Lin? Would we even be having this conversation now? Would you be trying to forgive me then?"
Su didn't say anything, at first. She looked back at Kuvira and parted her lips as if to reply, but stopped short. A thoughtful breath escaped her mouth, and then she turned away again. The silence spoke plenty.
Kuvira sniffled, shaking her head. "Yeah, I wouldn't forgive me either."
"Maybe, but fortunately that didn't happen." Su looked back again at Kuvira, with a renewed tenderness in her eyes. "There's no use dwelling on what-ifs. It's true, there are a lot of people who probably won't ever forgive you for the things you've done, and that's something that your own conscience will have to deal with. But we're not talking about them right now. We're talking about us." She reached forward once more, and this time took both of Kuvira's hands in her own. She didn't pause like before, instead immediately giving a firm squeeze. "Kuvira, I love you. I always will, same as any of my children. No matter what's happened, you're still a part of this family. You're still a daughter to me. It'll be hard, and it'll take a lot of time, but I'm here for you."
The quivering returned to Kuvira's jaw, but this time she caught herself. No use breaking down again. Still, there was no sense of conviction or strength in her own voice. What left did she have to give, in any case? "Su, I don't know what to say."
"You don't need to say anything," Su replied. Her smile grew larger, and this time it carried with it a warmth Kuvira hadn't ever expected to see again. "Just think. And maybe try to find some peace."