Kuvira sat on her bed on The Iron Maiden, Baatar sitting beside her. She said, "I'm going to the spirit world. I think I'll find information on how to properly fight airbenders there and possibly history on the United Republic region."
Baatar asked, "What can I do?"
"Watch over my body," she commanded, "nothing should happen, but just in case." He nodded.
Instead of the lotus position, Kuvira brought her knees to her chest and put her head down. Her arms laid limp at her sides; palms up, relaxed by her feet. That was the way she accidentally went into the spirit world the first time as a 6-year-old.
In the spirit world, she appeared outside of the massive library she was looking for. The massive white building loomed over her. She wanted to knock first, but didn't know if the spirits were inside, so she opened it carefully. Inside she found no one was around. She walked through and admired the architecture. She knew from Baatar the arches were called buttresses. Everything was so well carved, and the details went on forever.
"What is a human doing in my library?!" Wan Shi Tong demanded, coming up from behind her.
"Hi," Kuvira replied, completely unfazed, "you must be Wan Shi Tong, he who knows 10,000 things."
He stared her down and said, "That's me. Now leave. Humans are no longer welcome here."
"I understand you don't like us," she explained, "there's humans I don't like either, but I'd love to get some knowledge from your amazing library. I also understand that the rules are I must bring knowledge with me in order to explore, but I can't bring material items into the spirit world, otherwise I would have brought you some of my favorite books."
He explained hastily, "Those are the old rules! The new rules are no humans allowed!"
Kuvira frowned at him and said, "What you're doing is wrong! You can't steal my people's written knowledge and then keep it from me when I need learn my own history."
"Steal?" he balked, "The foxes collect-"
"How?" she asked, crossing her arms, "By asking humans nicely if they can take a scroll or two as long as no one notices?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "From what I read; they don't even talk." She gestured to a fox creature off to the side who shook its head.
Wan Shi Tong threw his head back and flapped his wings as he laughed loudly. It echoed throughout the entire building. "Out of all the mortals who have demanded to enter my library over the millennia, you certainly have the strongest case I've ever heard."
Kuvira waited patiently for him to calm down.
"Very well then human," he said, "enter my library at your own risk. You should know the last human who insisted on staying is still here." He gestured to Professor Zai's long dead corpse.
"I understand," she said, then turned and wandered around the massive halls. The foxes left her alone as she walked passed, and found the old fire nation room. She gasped as the ashes. It was just as she read in Avatar Aang's stories. Nothing left of what was written of the fire nation before the 100-year war. She knew she didn't have time to stop and mourn, so she carried on.
The history of the earth kingdom had an entire floor to itself. She went down the stairs and walked through the halls of shelves. Because of the size of the nation, each region had its special section. Almost forgetting the reasons she was there, she found one about Yulin, apparently the region she was born in. She searched for a map old enough to show her the name of her town, and while it was marked on the maps she saw, it was too small to show the name. She would never know the name of the town she was born in.
Focusing on why she was there, she moved on to a different region. At first, she didn't find anything under the United Republic, then she remembered it must have had a different name before the 100-year war. On a 300-year-old map, she found it.
The Kongling Hu region. It encapsulated the same borders that were now the United Republic. Inside the library, for some reason it's section twice as large as the others in the same area. There seemed to be 10,000 books on the subject alone. "The ethereal lake region," Kuvira whispered to herself, puzzled.
A fox appeared behind a shelf and looked up at her. "Do you know about this part of the world?" she asked.
The foxed nodded and gave out a small whimper. It walked down the shelves, stopped and turned to face it. Getting into position, it jumped on a shelf taller than Kuvira. It pawed and dug at a large leather-bound book and let it fall into Kuvira's outstretched arms.
"Thank you," she said, then read the title, "how spirits live amongst humans." She raised an eyebrow at the fox. "This wasn't what I was looking for."
As she tried to put the book away, the fox nudged it further into her hands. She finally decided to open it and couldn't believe what she read. It was everything she wanted to know about the history of the region and then some.
Next, she moved on to the air nomad section. She found scrolls of their fight styles and wished she could take them back to the material world with her. Instead, she had to return to her body on The Iron Maiden empty handed.
She gasped as she opened her eyes and leaned over the edge of her bed.
"Are you okay?" Baatar asked, holding her shoulders.
"I'm more than okay!" she replied, "Baatar, it was beautiful over there." She gave him a dreamy look as she remembered.
He asked, "What did you find out?"
"Everything," she answered, standing up, unable to contain herself, "We have to do the right thing by invading the United Republic!"
Later, Kuvira stood in front of her entire army. It stretched out for what seemed to be miles. She couldn't believe that three years earlier she knew none of these people, and none of them knew of her, but there they were now, standing before her in perfect rows, in a uniform she helped design. Outside of Zaofu, she stood in front of a map of the entire earth empire, including the United Republic.
"How many of you have heard of Kongling Hu?" she asked.
Silence.
When Kuvira didn't elaborate, they behind turning to each other and murmuring. Even Baatar, Bolin, Miski, and Huan standing off to the side of the stage looked at each other in confusion.
"It was originally a region of the earth kingdom," she explained, "now called the United Republic. Its name means 'ethereal lake' because those mountains are the tallest in the world, and it was once believed it was the closest place to heaven. The lakes formed by glacial runoff were once protected by the great spirits. It was a place where our ancestors would pilgrimage from all over, to bathe amongst spirits. When the fire nation attacked, the people of Kongling Hu buried the lakes underground. The fire nation tied up the great dragon spirit who lived in and protected those mountains, forcing it to retreat to the spirit world. Now those mountains are completely devoid of any spirits, and we've forgotten our own history!"
Gasps throughout the crowd. Bolin asked, "Is all of that true? What about the spirit vines Korra and her uncle made all over the city? Spirits live in them now."
"She said they don't live in the mountains anymore" Baatar said, "I guess the city is fair game to them now."
Kuvira continued, "To make it even worse, the first firebending councilmember of Republic City burned every last piece of evidence of that history. I've been scouring any and all libraries throughout the nation to try and figure out exactly what the United Republic used to be. I've learned that the colonizers burned all evidence of their wrongdoing!"
"What?" Miski asked, "Did they really?"
"This doesn't mean their descendants today are terrible people or that we should blame them for what their ancestors did," she assured them, "it means we use this opportunity to take back our stolen land!"
The crowd cheered.
"Republic City will be ours!"
As everyone else cheered, Bolin held back his applause. Did they really need to take over the city? He was still having reservations on how they took over Zaofu.
In Kuvira's office cabin back on The Iron Maiden, Bolin stepped inside to see Miski and Kuvira writing things down at her desk. He asked, "Can I talk to you, Kuvira?"
"Sure, what is it, Bolin?" she asked as Miski continued to write.
"Did we really have to take over Zaofu?" he asked, "We've been helping people everywhere, and I'm really glad we have, but it doesn't look like anyone in Zaofu needs our help."
Kuvira said, "You're right, Zaofu didn't fall into a hot mess like most other regions in the empire. The only thing we're doing is policing their funds. The people can live how they please." She looked up at him to see how anxious he was. "What's the matter?"
He confessed, "I'm just not sure what we're about to do to Republic City is right. I've lived there my whole life before I got on this train and while some people talk about originally being part of the earth kingdom, I don't actually think anyone really wants to rejoin." He stared at her anxiously.
Miski said, "But we can do so much to help them."
"Miski's right," Kuvira added, "and you heard my speech earlier. It wasn't the entire fire nation who burned Kongling Hu's history, it was one man, one of the first council members 65 years ago who insisted they burn every remanent of what that region used to be. By the time Avatar Aang and Sokka found out about it, it was too late. We have to share the truth with the citizens."
Bolin asked, still anxious, "Is that all we're doing? Sharing the truth with them?"
She answered, "We'll also be lowering taxes, and creating homes for the orphans so they don't have to join gangs to survive, and helping the spirits reclaim their old mountainside homes. Don't you see all of that as a good thing?"
Miski piped in, "I know I do."
"But what about the spirit weapon thing you're making Baatar build?" he asked, "What exactly is that for?"
"So Raiko takes us seriously," she answered, "why are you so worried all of sudden, Bolin?"
"Yeah," Miski said, "what's wrong?"
He said, "I'm just worried because Mako lives in Republic City and almost everyone else I know lives there. I don't want them to get hurt, and I know Mako's going to be on Korra's side, and I really don't want to fight him. He always won our fights when we were little, and those were just pretend! This is going to be real!"
Miski said, "But you're a lavabender now."
"I don't want to melt my own brother!" he exclaimed.
"It's okay," Kuvira said, "I won't make you fight him. I don't want anyone in Republic City to get hurt either. I already have a plan set in place for that." She stood up and watched Bolin backed down.
Although he felt none of his questions were answered with the complete truth, he still trusted Kuvira. After all, they had been fighting to reunify, bring order, and help people throughout the earth kingdom, now the earth empire. Kuvira always seemed to know what was best and things usually worked out in the end for them. She had to be right about this too.
Meanwhile, Kuvira stepped into the dining cabin. She saw Huan struggling to pour some tea into a cup before setting the pitcher down and chucking the porcelain cup across the cabin, breaking it. He turned to see someone standing in the doorway.
"Sorry," he said.
Kuvira replied, "I'm not mad, it's not like I've never broken anything out of anger before. How are you feeling?"
"Like this sucks," he confessed, "I don't want to focus on how awful this is but most of the time I can't help it. My near-sided vision is really beginning to fade too." He finally turned to her. "I can barely make-out who you are from this distance." They stood no more than 10 feet apart.
Kuvira cleaned up the broken porcelain and said, "I'm surprised you left your parents. I thought you liked living in Zaofu."
"My mother's narcissism has only gotten worse since you and Baatar left," he explained, walking around the cabin to avoid eye-contact, "First Aiwei's betrayal, and then you and her oldest left. She wanted Opal to move back in, but she defied our parents by insisted on continuing her airbending training. And I think my parents are both in bigger denial about my vision loss than I am. I just needed to get away from it all, that and you've actually helped people. I thought we were at least donating to charity." He stopped at a wall on the cabin and examined a picture he could still see.
"Baatar and I wrote letters," she said, "I was hoping she would at least read them, but I guess not."
He said, "I read them. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on while I still have some vision left." He paused. "Congratulations on your engagement."
She blushed. "Oh, thanks."
"I remember when we took this picture," he said, still examining the photograph on the wall. It was a picture of four people standing in a line. Huan the closest to the camera, Baatar next to him, Kuvira next to him, and Sarita on the end, the furthest away. It was actually two photographs taken consecutively. The one on top had the four of them making serious expressions while the one on the bottom had them half blurry and laughing.
Kuvira replied, "I remember taking them too."
"Yeah, Aiwei fell down the stairs," he said, laughing as he remembered the middle-aged man taking a tumble right in front of them.
She laughed too and said, "You know, Huan, I think you'll be okay."
"Thanks."
