"We're finally back to where it all began," Baatar said, sitting next to the window and examining the view of the stark snow-covered mountains against the lush green valleys, "Zaofu, our old home. Soon it'll be ours."
"Your mother won't give it up so easily," Kuvira replied, looking down at the couch in the office cabin, not out the window, "and it's not running into the ground like most of the other regions we've dealt with. We have almost nothing to negotiate on. This is going to be much tougher than usual."
He shrugged and said, "I think you can take her in a fight."
Kuvira looked him in the eyes and confessed, "I'd rather not have to fight your mother."
This took him by surprise. He knew she was someone who didn't back down from a fight. "What?" he asked, "Why?"
"She did save my life," she said solemnly.
"Yeah, years ago," Baatar replied, "that was then, this is now."
"If there was no 'then,'" Kuvira said quickly, "there would be no 'now.' What she did for me back then still matters today."
Bolin walked in awkwardly and asked, "Uh, am I walking in on a grammar lesson?"
Startled by his sudden presence, Kuvira said, "No, actually we were just discussing the negotiations for Zaofu to join the empire." She quickly jumped back on track, "We would like for you to come with us to the meeting with Suyin and the rest of her family, Bolin."
"Do you think Opal is going to be there?" he asked excitedly.
Baatar said, "I guarantee she will be, and unfortunately she's not going to be happy to see us."
"That's why we need you there with us, Bolin," Kuvira said, standing up and putting her hand on his shoulder, "you'll be there to help remind them of all the good we've done across the nation."
Bolin replied, "Oh I can do that! That's one of my favorite parts of this whole operation!"
Together the three of them walked across the old gardens Baatar and Kuvira played on as children. They entered Suyin's mansion, not meeting any resistance. Not even her guards were out patrolling. Kuvira thought it was off as they walked down the grand hallway of the estate. As they stepped, Baatar stopped her and motioned for her legs. Without thinking she had gone back to her she walked whenever she was in her guard uniform, in perfect marching steps. She motioned silently for him to walk ahead of her.
She tried to stop herself from marching, but it was so ingrained in her. She couldn't help but remember first becoming a guard as a teenager, under Su's direction of course. Because of that, none of the established guards took her seriously at first. In order to avoid ridicule, she operated under the letter of the rulebook Su had for guards, and that included marching whenever in Su's mansion. Three years gone and she still couldn't stop herself.
They turned Suyin's office doors, and saw the entire family waiting for them, completely unamused. Bolin, completely oblivious of the tense situation, readied himself to get a hug from Opal. "Opal!" he said, "It's so good to see you again!"
"No," she said, crossing her arms and turning away from him, "this isn't a happy visit."
He replied, "Sure it is."
"It is not," Suyin assured him, "I'm not giving you Zaofu no matter what you say, Kuvira."
"Would you relax?" Kuvira asked sincerely, "I came here to talk, not bicker. I thought you'd be happy to see your son home again after three long years of being away." She gestured to him.
Baatar said, "It is nice to see everyone together again in Mom's office."
"See," Bolin said, "this can be a happy family get together."
Baatar's father said, "Junior, you can't honestly expect us to be happy to see you after everything you've done."
"It's Baatar!" he said hastily, "I have a name!"
Suyin stepped forward and said, "Kuvira, I can't believe what you've become. I never thought you would turn into a power-hungry dictator after everything you've been through as a child and what I tried to teach you."
Kuvira insisted, "I'm helping people, Suyin. What have you done in the last three years to help your nation and fellow citizens? I've seen your tax files in Ba Sing Se. You haven't donated to a single charity since the queen died." Behind her back, she moved one of the pieces of metal in her uniform down towards the floor and used metal bending to bring it over to Huan.
"What?" Huan asked, "Mom, you said you were going to donate to the arts' society to help recover stolen artifacts."
"Huan," she assured him, "I was going to, but I found out every copper piece goes straight to Kuvira's pockets." She turned back to Kuvira and narrowed her eyes at her.
"And we've been using that money to help people," Kuvira said. With her metalbending, she brought the metal piece up to Huan's long hair and styled it into a quick bun. Surprised, he held it and secured it into place for her.
Bolin explained, "Yeah, actually I just got the most recent official numbers back from the arts' society this morning. We've saved 3,021 pieces of art so far, and we even helped the fire nation find some of their old collections. Some of the things we found were thought to have been lost during the 100-year war."
"Wow," Baatar said, "the last time I heard that number it was 2,850."
Kuvira said, "Good job, Bolin." He beamed.
"I'm not funding your regime, Kuvira," Suyin said, narrowing her eyes.
Huan said, "Mom, you could have started your own charity outside of Kuvira's influence."
Opal said, "Huan we're not talking about Mom right now, we're talking about Kuvira and Junior-I mean, Baatar." She motioned to the two of them without looking.
Suyin turned back to Huan to see his hair now tied up with metal from Kuvira's uniform. "Get that out of her your hair!" she demanded, ripping out the metal. He held his head in pain as Suyin threw the metal at Kuvira. She caught it mid-air, left handed, stopping it from reaching her face.
"Su," she said, "you should be more careful. That could have hurt someone." Suyin glared at her.
"Son," Baatar's father said, "I'm so disappointed in you for going down this path. You've betrayed your entire family and gone against everything we've taught you."
Baatar retorted, "The day I was born you were disappointed in me. You're only upset now because I'm no longer under your thumb."
"That's not true!" his father said quickly, clearly hurt.
Kuvira explained, narrowing her eyes at him, "Your adult son moving out and gaining independence from you is not a real betrayal. I thought after what Aiwei did to us you knew exactly what being betrayed felt like. I was wrong. I apologize for my naivety."
Opal snapped, "That's not a real apology!"
"But we're not here to discuss each other's faults," Kuvira continued without skipping a beat, bringing out a stack of papers, "this is a generous contract we wrote up for Zaofu. Sign it and Zaofu will officially be a part of the earth empire."
Bolin said, "Oo, I love this part!"
"No!" Suyin said, "I refuse!"
"You didn't even read it yet, Mother," Baatar said, "can you at least pretend to be the fair and impartial matriarch you parade yourself as?"
"Get out of my city!" Suyin shouted, pointing at the door, "Out! Take your papers with you!"
Kuvira left the contract behind on the table anyway and said, "We'll be waiting on the border. If we don't hear back from you in 24 hours, we'll be taking Zaofu by force." She motioned for Bolin to follow them out the door.
Inside a makeshift office outside of Zaofu's city limits, Miski asked, "So, how'd it go?"
"Just has terribly as I expected," Kuvira answered, sitting at her desk.
Bolin asked, "Are you really going to try and take Zaofu by force? I thought I heard you say you didn't want to fight Suyin."
She answered, "I don't want to, and I won't have to. Trust me, Su has something up her sleeve and I have a trap laid out for her already, which reminds me. Miski, I'm going to need your help with this one."
Miski jumped up and down and replied, "Okay."
"A trap?" Bolin asked.
"Sorry, Bolin," Kuvira said, "but in order for this to stay secret only those who are involved can know. You'll see what I mean after it's all said and done."
Kuvira walked across the makeshift campgrounds outside of Zaofu, only to have Baatar walk up from behind her. "We have an unexpected guest; the avatar is here."
Surprised, she turned around to face her. "Korra? I didn't know you were here. I thought you were still in the south pole."
"Well, I'm back and finally fully recovered," she said. Instead of appearing in her traditional water tribe clothing and ponytails, her hair was cut short, and she had some sort of earth kingdom/empire fight gear on.
"That's wonderful to hear," Kuvira replied, "it's nice to see you again but what are you doing here?" She was careful to keep up the front that nothing had changed. She glanced around to see everyone working and on their posts. Baatar walked away with the guards he was with. She wanted to be sure anyone who could overhear simply thought of them as two people who hadn't seen each other in three years, not new sisters who had been writing each other in that time. Although Kuvira realized in that moment, she hadn't gotten a letter back from Korra in over six months.
Korra said, "I wish I could say it's good to see you too, Kuvira, but I came all this way to ask you to back down. Please take your army and leave Zaofu."
She said, "And why should I?"
"You know Su doesn't want you here," Korra answered solemnly, "it would be better for everyone involved if you walk away now."
"We all know I was tasked with reuniting this nation," she explained, "Zaofu is the last hold out, and I still don't know why. Suyin has never given me a real reason as to why she doesn't want to join the empire. Did she give you one?"
Korra hesitated. "Well..." she said, looking around, trying to come up with a real reason,"...you're taking over everything...and she doesn't like that. I've read the newspapers; I know what you did in Ba Sing Se the other day, and no one wants anything like that to happen here."
"Did you read the contract I gave her to sign?" she asked, stepping forward to close the gap between them.
Korra froze. "You gave her a contract?"
Kuvira said, "It has everything I plan to do to Zaofu in there, and if she has a problem with something, we can always re-negotiate."
"To save me going back and forth," Korra said, pointed back to the city and to the ground where she stood, "what are some of the things you have in there? Do you remember off of the top of your head?"
"Of course," she answered, "for one thing, she won't micro-manage her security team anymore. Did you know 'captain of the guard' was simply a fancy title she gave me in a cheap attempt to make me feel special? I had no real power to make any decisions, she was still in control of everything. She also insists on rotating shifts, which is a nightmare for sleep schedules. I'm bringing that to an end."
Korra gave her a sheepish look, realizing what she said wasn't as terrible as Suyin had painted it as. She asked, "Did you ever manage to tell her any of that years ago?"
Kuvira asked, "Do I look like someone who stays silent when I don't like how something is going?"
"I'll have to go back and talk to Suyin about this," Korra said, "maybe joining the earth empire isn't such a bad thing."
"I'll make you a promise," Kuvira said, putting her hand on Korra's shoulder, "I won't make any moves toward Zaofu until you come back and tell me Su's decision. Until then I'll stay right here."
Korra took a step back and nodded in agreement. She added, "Before I leave, I'd love to see Bolin again."
Kuvira didn't return the sentiment. Stone-faced as always, she said, "I don't know if that's a good idea."
Korra's face fell. Then she narrowed her eyes at her. "Why?" she asked, "You're not going to let me see him?"
"You never wrote him back," Kuvira said as-matter-of-factly, "for nearly two years I had the privilege of having a front row seat to witness Bolin's heart being torn apart until he finally stopped writing you altogether. It broke him when his letters were eventually returned unopened." She frowned at her.
"But I told you how overwhelmed I felt with everything going on," Korra said, "I explained what I was going through!"
"And I told you what to do and you still never wrote him," she replied. Korra frowned and bowed her head in shame. Kuvira continued, "I'll ask him if he wants to see you, but if it's a no, I won't force him." She motioned for her to follow her.
They walked over to the train together and when they got to the doors, Kuvira stopped her from entering. "You're waiting out here," she commanded, putting her hand up. She used metal bending to open the door and shut it behind her. She walked down the next car where Bolin was doing paperwork in a desk with others doing other work behind other desks. "Bolin," she said, motioning for him to stand up, "come here."
"Actually Kuvira," he said, not even bothering to look up from the stack of scrolls in front of him, "I'm really busy at the moment. Can it wait?"
"It's important," she insisted.
He stood up and followed her out of the car back to the entrance. He asked, "What's going on?"
She answered, putting her hands against the door and leaning to the side. "The avatar is here to see you."
Bolin's eyes lit up, and then his face fell. "Korra's here?" he asked.
"Do you want to see her?" she asked.
He hung his head and hesitated to answer, "If you were in my shoes, would you want to see her?"
"No," Kuvira answered, "but you're not me."
He nodded. "Let her in. I'll hear what she has to say."
Kuvira used metal bending to open the door and gestured for Korra to come inside. She stood outside the entrance and left them alone. It didn't take long before Korra stepped back outside. "How did it go?"
Korra screamed and fell of the steps, flat on her back, onto the solid ground hard, bouncing once. Kuvira looked down at her, stunned. She expected Korra to have some sort of reaction time. Korra looked up at her in astonishment and asked, "What? You were standing there the whole time?"
"I take security very seriously," she said, "but I didn't mean to scare you. How did it go?"
Korra picked herself back up and answered, "He wasn't as happy to see me as I hoped he would be, even after I apologized for not writing to him. He seems...changed. What did you do to him?"
Offended, Kuvira asked, "Me? What makes you think I did something to him?"
"I've been traveling around the earth kingdom for the past six months or so in different disguises and I've heard rumors about you," Korra confessed, "having re-education camps, giving no mercy to those who break your rules, and now you just destroyed the palace in Ba Sing Se. I'm going back to Su, but I'm also keeping my eye on you, Kuvira."
She replied, staring her down, "I haven't done anything wrong, almighty avatar and dearest sister."
"As long as those camps really are being used for education," Korra explained, "and all those bandits you brutalized really were murders, and the palace really did need condemning-I'm still working on figuring that one out-you're in the clear for right now. If not..." she paused.
Kuvira said, "All of that is in the past, you can't change what's already been done even if I was in the wrong. What are you going to do about it?"
Korra squared up with her and said, "As your sister, I don't want to hurt you, Kuvira, but I will if I have to." She stepped away and said, "Don't do anything until I get back from talking with Su!"
Later, in the middle of the night, Miski got into position. She wasn't exactly sure why Kuvira was convinced Suyin was going to come into the night and attempt to kidnap her, but Miski knew she was going to do her part. She laid in a bed, with barrels filled with water strapped to the sides. Even if Suyin never came, it was still a comfy bed.
The moment had to be ruined though, when the ground shook inside the tent. Metal wires slowly wrapped around her body. She hit the barrels; water burst out. She spun around and froze Suyin in place, along with two other people. The walls of the tent came down. Lights shone on the intruders.
"Who are you?" Suyin asked.
"I don't matter enough for you to know," she replied, "you must be Suyin Beifong. But who are you two?"
Suyin asked, "Where's Kuvira?"
"Not here," Baatar said, walking through the armed crowd of guards with tasers, "Why? Is there a reason you wanted to see her tonight, Mom?" He paused. "Wing? Wei? What are you two doing here?"
Wei answered, "Mom wants us to free you from Kuvira's brainwashing."
"No one is brainwashed," Baatar said in disbelief, "what was your goal here tonight? Abduction? Murder?"
Suyin spat, "We were trying to set the world free of Kuvira for good."
He glared at her and said, "I can't believe you were about to kill your own future daughter-in-law. To make things worse, you recruited Wing and Wei to kill their future sister-in-law! You know some of Kuvira's past, Mom, how could you turn your back on her after everything she's been through?"
"I didn't want it to be this way, but she left me no choice," she insisted, "I have to stop her! I know none of these soldiers want to be enslaved into her personal army!"
"Are you kidding?" one guy said, "I'm getting paid double time right now. There's no other place I'd rather be."
"The Iron Maiden saved my entire family from bandits," a woman said, "joining her was the least I could do to pay her back and I get to travel to places I didn't even know existed."
Another man said, "Yeah, I'd rather be here than get forced to take on my family's hogsheep breeding business."
Suyin scowled at them and said, "This isn't over!"
"It is for you," Baatar replied, walking away, "tase them and lock them in a wooden cell. Great job, Miski."
"Thanks," she said, walking beside him, he dwarfed her in size, "it was so easy and actually kind of fun."
