Volume I
A Retrospect
Chapter I
My Life Before Zaofu
I was born in the fifth month of the year, 151 AG, in the Earth Kingdom city-state of Ji Qiang. My island was not far from the state of Gaoling and the enclave where Zaofu was built. In comparison to the rest of the kingdom at the time of my birth, it could be said that Ji Qiang fared well. But it was still far behind the rest of the world, and it still suffered the Earth Kingdom's inadequate leadership.
I was born and raised in Ji Qiang's capital for the first seven years of my life. The capital was known for its adept craftsmen and trade, given that it was an island with several ports and that intercepted many things from many different regions of the kingdom. Now that I look back on it, Ji Qiang sort of resembled the United Republic of Nations. Though they differed in the high diversity of origin in the Republic and the almost completely Earth Nation origin of those who lived in Ji Qiang, they had a common diversity among the types of people that inhabited the land. The community was comprised of many happy, fortunate people looking for something new and exciting in life, and many unhappy, unfortunate people looking for a new start. There were some who had been all over the kingdom, and others all over the world; and some who had never known anything outside of Ji Qiang's waters. Very accomplished visitors sometimes came to see a precious bounty of unique, ancient things that my people had held onto since the beginnings of their families.
This was due to the traditional aspect of Ji Qiang which characterized the whole of the Earth Kingdom. In great contrast with the Republic's modernist and revolutionary ideals, my homeland was plagued with a steadfast and almost ignorant prioritization of tradition. I truly believe that out of all the nations (even the Air Nomads who isolated themselves from the rest of the planet before the genocide), the Earth Kingdom has changed the least since its establishment.
I was not poor when I lived on Ji Qiang island; I didn't have a childhood full of struggle and strife. My parents were well off and controlled much of the island's economic activity, making me something of an heiress where I lived. However, I could never view things that way; my parents certainly never did.
My parents were arguably good to me. They fed me, clothed me, housed me, made sure I went to school, and taught me right from wrong. From what I can remember, I wore nicer clothes and had nicer things too. Yes, I had a good livelihood as a child. The problem was that-- of which I am now fairly certain-- my parents saw me as more of a mistake than a precious addition to the family; something they had to take care of now that they had gone and created it. I don't believe they ever truly planned on having a child, and certainly not one so unruly. I will admit that I often refused to abide by my parents' restricting rules. I will admit that I was a stubborn child, and that I resisted because the logic and reasoning of my elders, as most children, did not make sense to me. But I never acted out simply for the sake; I knew-- in a way that one knows to breathe or to blink-- that my parents didn't care about me, and that I was not truly living.
My father was a retired soldier who had withdrawn from the force and come into his own father's inheritance after another of many civil wars within the Earth Kingdom claimed my grandfather's life (and I must emphasize, for a moment, what a shame it is that I'd lost a family member to the Earth Kingdom's chaos before I was even born). He had been strict and unforgiving in the way that military are, and he did not care that I was merely a child because he hardly cared at all. It was clear in the way that he disciplined me that he felt an obligation to keep me alive and educated and that was all. I won't be detailed about it, but my punishments from him were often brutal and severe or otherwise completely unreasonable, a physical communication of how little I meant to him. I can remember growing to resent his being home because it usually meant that I was going to suffer some pointless chore or be beaten for not doing as I was told.
He often said to me, when I complained, that the hard work and the beatings built character. I suppose they did, because they certainly built my character, but I don't think that I am the woman he wanted me to be. Then again, I don't think he wanted me to be anything more or anything less than self-sufficient, if for nothing other than so he could be rid of me.
My mother, both from what I was told and from what I gathered, was born with nothing particularly wonderful to inherit but her own mother's beauty. Some way or another, she caught my father's attention and married her way into a decent fortune. Her control was markedly different from my father's in that she did not physically abuse me, but rather attempted to mentally condition me into thinking just like her or not at all-- I imagine that she supposed I might as well serve as an extension of herself for when she was gone. I was too young to really understand what it was that my mother wanted, and to this day, I'm still uncertain, but it conflicted too greatly with my passions and my personal wants-- which, though young, I did indeed know. She denounced my ideas too often and kept me from pursuing anything outside of the life she'd planned for me indefinitely.
I eventually learned to ignore her, and to be viciously hurt every time I did. I grew used to it. And I gathered at a very young age that my parents held no love for me. A responsibility to at least ensure the survival of the life they had created, sure, but no sense of emotional obligation or genuine concern for their progeny.
By the time I was six, I had been molded into a model student, moderately skilled fighter, exemplary-mannered outside the home, and ultimately the image of a perfect child. The children that I kept company with during school were approved by my parents and their own parents had approved of me, artificial relations not of my design. I kept to myself when I could, which was most of the time, as a result; my natural temperament isn't too social, but I had also a desire to foil any plans my parents might have had by making me friends with admittedly unimpressive strangers. Consequently, I developed a rather cold outward persona-- or so I am told.
While I was in school, I was afforded a better elementary education than many of my peers and given the opportunity to learn about the early history of the Earth Kingdom and the basic laws of the Earth. I excelled in all of my studies, but I was particularly gifted in the sciences, both social and biological, and eventually discovered that these were my favorite subjects to learn about. My unending curiosity about these sciences gradually manifested into an interest in the health of my home land, and I invested what little time I could steal away from my mother's watchful eye and my father's brutal work in reading simple books detailing the history of my nation.
I'm sure most people today, born of the Earth Kingdom or not, are privy to the Earth Kingdom's humiliating penchant for corruption. Even when I was just a young girl reading elementary books, it was clear to me that my people were guilty of a special kind of fragmentation, and that it must seem to the world that within the earth lands, nothing can ever be resolved correctly. The reigns of the 53 monarchs before me each speak for themselves. The War of Chin the Conqueror under the reign of the 46th Earth King, the resulting civil unrest of said war, the peasant uprising in Ba Sing Se the same year, the mistake of creating the Dai Li to quell it, the incompetence of the Council of Five from its establishment to now, the raging criminal activity following Earth Queen Huo-Ting's coronation, and the anarchy following her assassination are only a few examples of the Earth Kingdom's shortcomings and failures.
I can say with certainty that the cause was, of course, Human's Greed, but it was ultimately disunity. It was apparent to me that the divisions between the people of the Earth Kingdom, because of their cultural differences and social standings, were the greatest flaw of the nation. By the spirits, the greatest city of the Earth Kingdom is known-- heralded-- for its physical embodiment of a cruel hierarchy. The "great walls of Ba Sing Se," the "impervious rings of Ba Sing Se"-- they're glorified for being exactly what they are: barriers. Obstacles to unity and enemies of commonality, of leveling. They are more than just robust walls, they are every-day reminders of the difference between "you" and "me," and once history was ready to follow its pattern-- once the oppressed were ready to be free-- these walls begetted the downfall of Queen Huo-Ting.
Do not misunderstand; I recognize the importance of Ba Sing Se's insurmountable defense. If not for them, the One Hundred Year War would have surely taken half the time. But the walls are there for defense, and they are being used to offend the very people they are defending. This is an intentional irony, and it is the motif of too many of the Earth Kingdom's traditions.
Division has always been the bane of the Earth Kingdom. Division and a (at this point) pointless desperation to cling to the past, which bears the sigil of the motif I mentioned. It is evident. The people of the greatest land mass of the world are notorious for their internal disputes and unnecessarily complicated political system (which is a direct result of the disputes and always favors the greater will, not the greater way, another massive flaw in its governing). With such a vast nation, it was only natural that a multitude of different cultures had arisen, and when each and every culture wanted to remain dominant and pure, fighting began to determine which would be the one to govern the region. Each culture stood its ground, and a point eventually came when we became known for our stubbornness and lack of willingness to change or compromise, our strong wills and unshakeable pride. It came to the point where many city-states-- before even Huo-Ting-- did not bend to the will of the Earth Monarch, who is supposed to be the ultimate central authority, and remained allegiant to themselves, which I often criticize with their contradictory pride in the kingdom as a whole.
I did not live in Ba Sing Se-- in fact, I was far from it-- but I knew enough of it from my books. I could see no friends in the great city, only disagreeable neighbors and ignorant leaders.
At home, away from my studies, I worried more about my personal problems in typical juvenile fashion. In great contrast to my performance at school, I often argued with my parents-- I was born with a strong will like most everyone else in the nation. And though it was inevitable that I be molded by their parenting-- that is, caused to reflect their values in my actions without my conscious consent-- I rebelled hard against their harsh methods and expectations.
Most of my memories of my mother and father are not pleasant. I can recall most clearly the punishments I suffered when I expressed my childish interest in being an intellectual of some sort, a scientist of a nature that I can't quite recall. I had a dream of bringing new knowledge to the world and improving society through discovery. But the type of scientist didn't matter, neither did what for; what mattered was that I wanted to be something other than a wife or a soldier or whatever it was my parents were trying to make me into (I don't think even they truly knew). For my insurgence, I was forced to stand out in the rain until the storm ended, no matter if it took an hour or the day, and then I cleaned myself before facing my father in a spar without any rest. He'd effectively beaten the resistance out of me that day. For the simple purpose of lessening my premature stress, I never expressed my interest in science again. Though I never let go of it.
One would think that my obvious aversion to my militant and severe upbringing would discourage any future desire to be involved with anything military. But the reality is as I already mentioned: it was inevitable for me to not be affected by my parents' regime-- some things became habit, like my degree of care with my quarters and waking up at dawn every morning. I happened to find stability in the controlled and precise nature of military expectation rather than trauma, given that aside from my father's cruel parenting, order had always appealed to me anyway. I always had my personal things in an orderly fashion and always presented myself formally to others regardless of my parents' insistence. Order was a thing I was already set to seek, from the moment I was born. This is what would eventually draw me towards the Zaofu guard when I matured.
Over the course of my six years of life thus far, the Earth Kingdom economy had become stressed once more under the demands of civil war and shaky political movements. I didn't know it back then, but Earth Queen Huo-Ting had just taken the crown in Ba Sing Se, left unstable by the 52nd Earth King's dispute with Fire Lord Zuko and backlash from the lands stolen in the Northwest, and began a new, even more tumultuous, era for the Earth Kingdom. It had affected where I lived most dramatically. As tax payers, my mother and father were feeling the brunt of this change, even if they were better off than most. And as a former military officer and supporter of the crown, my father was called upon to lead the fight against civil outlash in my state. He was stressed and absent more than I can recall him ever being, and my mother had gradually become colder and more withdrawn than usual under the societal pressures of keeping house, husband, and child. This, in addition to having a supposedly useless child, is what I suspect caused them to finally cast me aside.
My parents began to neglect me in addition to requiring things of me as it suited them. I truly became their puppet during the sixth year of my life. Knowing that I was not loved, and needing freedom from my parents' tyranny, I ran away.
I was seven years old. I remember arguing with my father over something admittedly petty, fed up as I was with everything else. The argument escalated easily with his stress from fighting the war and my rather short fuse at the time. I had reached my limit. I struck my father in anger as he had struck me, and was immediately sent tumbling into my bedroom, a fresh red mark on my cheek, waiting to bruise. My father locked me in my bedroom for an indefinite amount of time, telling me that I had forced his hand. Trapped in my room for at least a couple of days, I was given nothing to drink or to eat, and I was not allowed to ask for anything. When I had finally had enough, I used what little earth bending I had been allowed to learn and made my escape through the very wall of the house, breaking the brick apart with untamed brute force.
As I ran away, I looked back and saw my parents standing by the hole I had created, looking out at me, watching me leave. They seemed worried, but I know that they never tried to get me back. Not a single guard or poster with my face on it greeted me in the following year I spent wandering the land. If I had to guess, I would say that they were disappointed that their little doll had been lost.
I decided within the moment between fleeing my home and reaching the outer city that what I had done was for the best. And not once, since then, have I ever changed my mind.
πππ
Kuvira yawns silently and small in her dim emerald chambers, eyelids heavy with tire. She decides to end her entry there.
Thick tendrils of her hair slip over her shoulders and descend around her face like a curtain as she gazes down at her pages, the tips brushing softly against the words she's written. Gently, Kuvira moves the hair away and groups it over one shoulder. She takes the pages and orders them appropriately before setting her pen atop the stack and setting the stack aside.
It's been about four months since her arrest; four months since the fall of the Earth Empire; four months since losing everything that really mattered. Kuvira hasn't made anything harder for anyone, hasn't been difficult. She's peacefully accepted the Avatar's mercy and pleaded innocent in court. She's taken her unjust punishment with a grain of salt, but otherwise respected the court's decision. The first months of her imprisonment, she's been nothing if not the ideal prisoner.
So it hadn't killed them to give her some paper and a pen.
Though it's proven difficult for them to give her anything else. Having the honor of being a high security prisoner means that she can't have decent things, apparently. Just chains and a hard floor, and some measly meals every afternoon and night. Kuvira sits on the jaded floor of the prison designed just for her, green and elegant and monumental (she thinks it's a pity something so beautiful is wasted on her unjust, pathetic imprisonment, wasting resources on an overglorified cage. she can see that the worst part of it won't come until she's dead, though; they'll herald this prison as the great tomb of Kuvira the Great Uniter, keeping it polished and prim and perfect for tours so Republic City brats could be fed false truths and learn absolutely nothing about history), because they couldn't be bothered to give her a futon, let alone a cot. She's made to suffer the eventual numbing of her legs on a daily basis. Not that she can really tell the difference between night and day; there aren't any windows. She counts her meals and establishes a system for determining which day it most likely is. But for all she knows, it's been a full year.
"Don't be dramatic, Kuvira," he tells her after the thought, always the voice of reason these days, as Kuvira gives up on being decent and lays flat on her back against the floor, "it ill suits you."
Kuvira's sprawled out form deflates as she sighs and her tired eyes stare aimlessly at the high ceiling of her prison. She gazes up at it with the terrible pinch of desperation building in her throat, her body robbed of the ability to sense and manipulate the Earth. It's a numb, maddening feeling; she's trapped within herself now too.
"Leave me alone," she says to him, her mind weary. Her eyes close so that she can try to fall asleep. "You're not helping."
Honestly, telling her what suits her and what doesn't; who does he think he is, to presume to know her at this point?
"I know you well enough," he reasons for her, because why wouldn't he know what she's thinking?
Kuvira senses him moving closer and turns her head towards the far wall, in the direction opposite of where she feels him drawing nearer. She huffs irritably and tries to ignore him. She needs to sleep.
"I've been at your side long enough to." he continues, a ghost of a touch reaching Kuvira's shoulder.
Kuvira's eyebrows pinch together in discomfort at his words. A rush of anxiety threatens to upheave her weak composure as the truth edges nearer to the front of her mind, and to alleviate a fraction of her unease she mumbles, "Just go. . ."
His response is a light huff of disappointment right next to her ear. She doesn't wonder why she can't feel his breath or smell his scent, or why she's so damn adamant about not looking at him. Maybe because it's all too painful to remember.
"I'll help you get through this, Kuvira," she hears him say. His voice is gentle and patient, parts of him that she's never deserved. Kuvira knows that by now, he's taken ahold of her hand and is moving in even closer-- or maybe she's moving. "You're not alone," he tells her.
A very real pain hits her heart at the sensation of his phantom embrace, and Kuvira begins to quiver.
"You'll never be alone as long as I'm with you."
Kuvira shrinks away from him after that. She runs from the memory of him that's somehow resurfaced and made itself real. She curls into herself for warmth and wills herself to ward him off, to stop fabricating feverish dreams in her moment of weakness. It hurts more than she thought to brush his caring fingers away. She focuses on the cold embrace of her chains instead, when she feels that pain, and the unforgiving hardness of the emerald floor. They come to replace the weight of his arms.
Kuvira pulls long and hard against her chains bitterly, making them taut with her simmering emotions, gritting her teeth against more than just the pain in her wrists from the cuffs.
Because she is alone.
Baatar is dead and she's utterly alone.
Not for the first time-- and certainly not for the last-- Kuvira falls into a rocky sleep to thoughts of her meaningless sacrifice. She tries to remember why she had felt so strongly about the Empire that it's complete unity was worth more than her fiancé's life. She tries to remember why the United Republic mattered at all.
If the answers ever come, she'll save them for the book.
But for now, Kuvira sleeps.
