Days later, Korra walked back to Kuvira's cell with a key in hand. "I'm letting you out of here early," she said, "we're starting to feel bad for you having to be down here by yourself." She unlocked the cell.

"Really?" Kuvira asked, standing up out of bed.

Korra explained, "Yeah, and we know no one is going to take you seriously in prison get-up, so I got you something to wear for when we arrive. We're still a few hours from landing so you can come up and get dressed." She gestured for Kuvira to leave the cell.

Upstairs, Kuvira was ushered into a bathroom to get ready. A green deel and dark green pants waited for her, along with a wooden comb with paper flowers for a hair decoration. After putting on the new clothes, she tried to put her hair up. Having almost always used metalbending to put pins in, she struggled, and her hair went loose after a moment. She tried again and succeeded after the fourth attempt at her signature braid into low bun style.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, she walked out to the main cabin with the sofas and a table where everyone else was and asked, "Can I have some regular hair pins?"

"I'm not giving you any metal," Korra answered quickly.

Kuvira snarked, "You know I'm an earthbender and we're going to have to walk across the earth to get to this town in Shan, don't you?" She crossed her arms in disapproval.

"I don't care, I'm still not giving you metal," Korra repeated.

"Suit yourself," Kuvira said, shrugging and walking over to the sofas where Wu and Mako were sitting.

"Welcome to our humble couch," Wu said dramatically, "hot former empress Kuvira."

Ignoring him, Kuvira asked, "Can I have some paper and ink?"

As Korra left, Mako said, "Now that you're out of your cell, don't bother trying to pull anything over on me. You should know I'm smarter than Bolin." He pointed a thumb at himself.

Kuvira raised an eyebrow and replied, "You just insulted your own brother."

"I know you don't have any siblings, so you don't know this," he said, "but he's my brother so only I'm allowed to insult him."

Ignoring the fact that what he said didn't make any sense to her, she asked, "Korra didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?" he asked, suspicious.

She looked away from him, "Nothing. Forget I said anything."

After an awkward silence, Mako said, "Maybe if everything goes well in this region, others will quickly follow and this'll be over before we know it."

Kuvira smiled and let out a giggle.

"What's so funny?" Mako asked.

"Oh," she said, "I said the same thing to Baatar three years ago back in Ba Sing Se." She paused. "I guess it isn't funny."

Korra came back with the paper and ink. They all watched as Kuvira readied the paper for some calligraphy. She put the brush in ink and held it over the paper, but hesitated. She was supposed to be taking notes on a speech, but she didn't know how to formulate it. The people of this town were going to want her back as their leader, and she had to admit defeat, again. She stopped herself from writing anything. She closed her eyes and put the brush down.

"Why do you look so heartbroken?" Wu asked.

"I'm mourning the life I thought I would have," she answered, "and for the future I wanted. It looks like I might never get it."

"Why?" he snarked, "Feeling like maybe you should be ruling an empire right about now?"

She turned to him and snapped back, "I was supposed to be getting married!" A pang hit her heart as she remembered what she did to Baatar in the battle of Republic City. For the first time ever, she had started think of her own personal future and how she wanted to live out the rest of her life, being with Baatar, building a family, living in a peaceful town, and now it was all taken from her.

Wu said, "Oh yeah, being the king of the earth kingdom and everything, I was allowed to look through all of the confiscated paperwork we got out of The Iron Maiden after you surrendered, and the wedding dresses you were looking at were really pretty."

Kuvira put her head in her hands.

"Wu," Mako said, "that's enough." Even he didn't think she deserved to hear that.

Kuvira turned back to the paper to try and continue. She wrote, I'm sorry. Then stopped. Korra said, "You can take your time. It's still going to be a while until we get there."

"I have to relive my greatest failure and humiliate myself all over again," she said sadly, "it's painful, alright? And you," she turned to Wu, "what are you preparing to say?"

He replied, "I was just going to wing it."

"I've seen you 'wing it' before and I'm not convinced," Mako said, "how about writing down some talking points like she's doing?"

Wu replied, "I thought the whole point of bringing Kuvira along was so she could talk me up for the people who insist she's still their empress."

"The only thing I'm doing is announcing your presence," she said hastily, "you have to talk yourself up."

Korra said, "I actually agree with Kuvira on that one, Wu. This is supposed to be your moment to step up to the plate and prove you're their king. No one else can do that for you." Wu scrunched his face in annoyance.


Korra landed the airship outside of the town in the forest on a trail, mostly out of sight. She had sent a message to the governor explaining when she was going to arrive and to prepare to have a conference for the public to attend. They had a make-shift stage ready for their arrival. Before she opened the doors, she turned to Kuvira and said, "Remember, any wrong moves and I shirshu spit dart you." She gestured to the three darts on her hip.

"I heard you the first time," Kuvira said, unamused.

Together the four of them walked into town peacefully. A decent sized crowd of at least 300 people had formed around the make-shift wooden stage. Kuvira, Wu, and Mako waited behind it while Korra started the event off.

As soon as she got on stage, the crowd booed loudly.

"Okay!" Korra said, "I get it! You don't like me! I know! Can you at least let me talk?" More boos, this time quieter. "I have some things to say and you're definitely going to want to hear it." They quieted down.

"Thank you," she continued, "I know you don't want to see me today and I know you wish things were different. I'm here to tell you this is how it is now. The earth empire is dismantled and is back as the earth kingdom under the leadership of King Wu." The booing continued.

"We don't believe you!"

"You killed The Iron Maiden!"

"All hail Empress Kuvira!"

Behind the scenes, Kuvira forced herself to keep a neutral expression. Deep down, there was a small part of her that was glad she really did make a difference in these people's lives. She didn't want Mako and Wu to know and she certainly didn't want them to tell Korra. Instead, she kept her eyes down. She couldn't bare to look at the sky.

Korra said, "I thought you would feel that way. I know you don't believe me, but maybe you'll believe my special guest."

As Kuvira came out from behind the wall and walked up the steps, the crowd went wild. The ground shook. They were so loud she couldn't hear herself think. They threw their fists into the air, screamed and shouted, and jumped up and down is excitement.

"Please," Kuvira said, "settle down. I have so much to explain."

The crowd instantly went silent.

"Thank you," she continued, "the avatar tells me you would like the earth empire to carry on, but I must apologize to you. I can't make that happen. The earth empire is no more. I can't be your leader."

Aws and sighs of sadness spread throughout the crowd.

Kuvira explained, "Because I helped so many people and solved so many problems so quickly, I thought I knew what was best for everyone, but I made grave mistakes. I harvested vines from the swamp and turned it's spiritual energy into the most powerful weapon the world has ever seen."

Gasps.

"Although there are no laws against that," she continued, "when I forced President Raiko of the United Republic to surrender, I ended up taking the lives of 7 people and injuring 64 more. In my own ranks, 4 people died and 138 were injured because I insisted on putting them on the front lines. Their families will never be the same, and nothing I do now can ever make up for it. I'm standing here before you to tell you that the earth empire is over. The avatar did not kill me. After I nearly destroyed all of Republic City and everyone in it, I surrendered to her willingly. You are earth kingdom citizens as of now, and today, your leader is King Wu." She bowed her head and took a step backwards.

The crowd booed.

"The Iron Maiden never backs down!"

"Are you the real Kuvira?"

She stood upright. "What?" she said, "Of course I'm real."

"You abandoned us!" a woman in the front row shouted. The pain on her face etched itself into Kuvira's soul.

She wanted to say no, she didn't abandon them, but she did. She said, "I'm sorry! I never should have given you false hope! I'm not your rightful leader and I never should have pretended to be."

"Kuvira promised to never abandon us!"

Kuvira explained, "Did you hear what I said? I've made too many mistakes to be your leader." Her voice shook as she added, "King Wu is your rightful leader. He'll guide you into the future." She couldn't even convince herself, but at least she said the right thing, what Korra wanted to hear.

"The real Kuvira would never say that!"

"The avatar must have brainwashed her, so we'll follow the monarchy!"

"We'll never bow to Wu!"

Kuvira nearly fell off of the stage out of shock from hearing that. She shouted, "I would never allow myself to be brainwashed!"

Korra leaped forward and said, "Wait! Wait! No one is brainwashed! You have to believe me!"

They booed her.

"All hail empress Kuvira!"

"We need to save her!"

"We'll save you from the avatar, Kuvira!"

Rocks filled the air and were thrown at both of them. Korra used wind to toss them to the side.

"Quiet down!" Kuvira commanded, "You're wrong!" People began storming the stage. They weren't listening to her anymore. She had enough and jumped into the crowd. A spot clearing for her to land.

Korra yelled, "Kuvira, wait!" She jumped after her.

With earthbending, Kuvira divided the rowdy crowd around her, pushing everyone back. She said, "This isn't solving anything! I'm not your leader anymore!"

"Save her from the avatar!" someone in the crowd demanded.

Boulders flew in her direction. She blocked and dodged them. Just as she was about to fight back, Korra pinched several points in each of her arms. "Did you just...?" she asked.

"Chi-block you?" Korra asked, "Yeah, this is getting out of control! We're getting out of here." She forced up walls around them and pushed her way through the crowd. As they forced the walls down Korra used firebending to hold everyone back.

"What are you doing?" Kuvira asked, "You're going to hurt someone! Wait!"

"Move!" Korra demanded, "Out of the way!" She pulled Kuvira along in the crowd.

They pushed through and saw Mako hurrying Wu through the forest and back to the airship. Korra and Kuvira right behind them.

Out of breath, at the mouth of the airship, Wu said, "That was terrible!" He huffed and puffed. "Wu down!"

"Get on the airship!" Mako demanded, "Now!"

"Korra we can't leave," Kuvira said, finally pulling away from her.

She asked, "Why should we stay? So we can get stoned by people who hate me? I don't think so! This was a bad idea. We need to think of something else."

Kuvira asked, "You're giving up after facing one obstacle?"

"We don't have time to talk about this," Korra said, "they're headed this way! You're getting into this!" She ran inside and pulled out a contraction to keep Kuvira locked up in. An upright wooden bed with leather straps and fabric to tie her up and keep her still.

"Why?" she asked, "I didn't do anything!"

Korra said, "You started a war out there!"

"I was trying to stop the fighting," she insisted.

Mako said, "We really don't have time for this. Get in!" He pushed her towards the contraption.

She said, "I don't need to be restrained."

"If you keep resisting, I'll use the shirshu-" Korra looked down at her hip and saw that the darts were gone. She gasped. "The darts! Where are they?!" She glared at her.

"I don't know!" Kuvira said, getting into the contraption, "You must have lost them in the fight."

Mako and Korra strapped her in tight. "You're staying in there from now on," Mako said, locking her in.

"You know what the problem is?" Kuvira explained, "Those people down there are scared. They were failed by the monarchy before, and they know it's going to happen again. They're clinging onto my leadership because I gave them hope. I actually helped them! Now that's being taken away. Wu needs to go down there and tell them his plans."

Wu said, "That angry mob isn't going to listen to me. Besides, I don't have any plans!"

"That's the problem!" Kuvira said.

"You're going back to jail-" Korra started, then flopped to the ground in front of them. The three shirshu darts she had in her possession before were now in her lower thigh. "I can't move."

They looked up to see the angry mob from the town found them, and they marched straight to the airship.

"We have to go!" Mako said, pulling up the doors and closing them tight.

"What should I do?" Wu asked.

Kuvira commanded, "Start the engine! Get us in the air if you're so sure we should leave!"

Wu ran off towards the bridge while Mako closed the door. It was too late, the angry mob found them and used earthbending to try and break their way in.

"Get me out of here, Mako!" Kuvira shouted, "I can help you!"

"I don't trust you!" he said.

Wu ran back and said, "You guys-"

"Not now we're being attacked!" Mako said, "Get down!"

It was too late. The people of the town broke in and surrounded the group. Wu said, "Mako, use your fire!"

"We're on a wooden airship," he said, "one wrong move and this whole thing goes up in flames!" He tried to fight them off in hand-to-hand combat but there was too many of them. They overpowered him quickly.

Korra, down for the count with the paralyzing shirshu spit flowing through her body, was dragged out of the airship first. Mako and Wu, were quickly tied together with ordinary ropes. The people dragged them out next, and then, Kuvira was wheeled down the ramp in the contraction. She knew there was no way she was convincing these people she wasn't brainwashed. She had to do something. She waited for just the right moment. A little closer. There.

They set her down for a moment, ready to reclose the airship doors. Instead of giving them the chance, she threw her head back and forced the earth around her to attack her restraints and force them open. She was free.

She jumped down, squatted, and forced the ground upwards in a half circle around them. When she stood up with momentum, she kicked her legs around and forced the walls back hundreds of feet, pushing all of everyone back and away from them.

"What?" Wu asked.

"Get up," she commanded, bringing them to their feet. With earthbending, she broke their bonds with ease. "Back on the airship, hurry! Before they can regroup!"

Korra said, "But I chi-blocked you, you shouldn't be able to bend!"

"You forgot my legs," she said.

Kuvira grabbed Korra by the shoulders and dragged her back onto the airship. Mako quickly closed the doors and ran to the engine. She headed for the bridge, straight for the wheel for lift off. Wu right behind her.

"Do you know how to fly?" he asked.

"No," she confessed, "and everything is made out of wood or glass or something else non-metal. I can't feel how it all works together. I can't feel anything!" She tried throwing different levers and switches before they finally lifted into the air.

She tried pulling back on the steering wheel, but it barely moved. "Wu, pull!" she demanded.

It took all the strength they both had to pull it back and lift upwards. Just when they finally thought they were in the sky, a huge building from the city loomed ahead of them.

"Hey, can you hear me?" Mako asked through the communication tubing, "There's no windows down here, I can't tell if we're okay."

"Stoke the engine!" Kuvira demanded, "We're about to crash!"

"We're all going to die!" Wu whined.

They lifted above the buildings and high into the sky and clouds, full steam ahead.

Korra asked, "Did we make it? I can't really tell from down here."

"We made it," Kuvira said, sighing relief, "We're back in the air." She helped propped Korra up, now paralyzed from the shirshut toxins, into an upright position against the wall.

Mako came back and met them in the bridge.

Wu exclaimed to Kuvira, "You could have freed yourself at any time!?" He pulled on his own hair in shock and horror. "I feel woozy." He wilted into the ground slowly.

"I'm not looking to run away," she said.

Mako snarked, "It's almost like we shouldn't taunt her even when she's restrained." He turned to her, "But seriously, Kuvira, that was impressive, and thank you for saving us back there."

"That was awesome!" Korra said, "I didn't know someone could free themselves while bound! Did you know you could do that?"

Kuvira remembered how her parents would chain her up at night when she was little. When she had to use the bathroom, she knew it was either humiliate herself and wet the bed or figure out how to free herself and use an actual bathroom. That's when she learned how to metalbend, something she didn't know was supposed to be rare and at one point considered impossible.

Instead of explaining all of that, she said, "I read Avatar Aang's story on how King Bumi of Omashu freed himself from his metal prison with just his face and took back his entire city from the fire nation. I taught myself to do the same, in case I was ever in the same position."

It wasn't a complete lie. She had read the story, was impressed by it, and thought of a way to do that herself. She smiled at the group.

"He did that for real?" Wu asked.

"That sounds impossible," Mako said.

"Guys," Korra said, "I don't want to be a downer or anything but back to the grim reality of our situation. We need a new plan. Obviously, this didn't work." She tried to move but nothing happened.

Kuvira asked, "You're really going to quit now? After going through everything you did to get me out of jail, commission this airship, and get all the way out here?" She looked out the windows of the airship and saw they were just starting to get into the desert.

Wu said, "I think this entire thing was a bad idea. We almost died out there!"

"What?" Kuvira said, raising an eyebrow at him in disbelief, "That wasn't anywhere near close to death."

"Never mind that now," Mako said, stepping in, "we still have to decide what to do next."

"We're going back to Republic City," Korra said, "Kuvira's going back to jail. We're going back to the drawing board on how to get these riots under control. Which way are we headed now?"

"Northwest," Kuvira answered, "towards Republic City."

Mako said, "I'll get our map and compass to make sure we stay on course." He left the bridge for the supplies.

Kuvira put her hands on her hips and looked out to the desert quickly expanding in every direction. Wu asked, "If you were still empress, what would you do, Kuvira?"

"Try the next region," she answered, turning back to him, "one where you actually have plans ready to put in place."

Mako came back into the bridge and said, half frantic, "The people of that village stole everything while we were down there! We have nothing! No maps, no food, nothing to sustain ourselves! The only water we have is in the water canteen I took with us into town." He gestured to the one wrapped around his hips. "This is it for the four of us. We'll never make it back to Republic City."

Kuvira said, "We just started flying over the desert. If we change directions now, we can still land and find a town to-"

"No!" Korra said, "We're not turning back. We'll get through the desert and then stop for supplies."

"With what money?" Mako asked, "All of that is gone too. We literally don't have anything on board."

"What?" Korra asked, "Does anyone have any money in their pockets?"

Mako shook his head.

Wu answered, "I left any money I had on me in here, thinking it was safer."

Korra groaned, "Great. When we land on the other side of this desert we'll send a messenger hawk to Tenzin, and he'll help us." He wiggled her fingers, "I think I'm starting to get the feeling back in my hands."

Kuvira said, "I think it's safer if we turn back now while we still have some semblance of where we are."

"It doesn't matter where or when we stop," Mako said, putting a hand to his face, "we don't have any money to buy a map or food or water or a messenger hawk or anything else."

"We have the avatar," Kuvira said, gesturing to her, "Avatar Aang got free stuff all the time whenever he traveled."

Korra said, "And if we turn around to get out of this desert first, we're way more likely to run into more of your supporters who are now ready to attack us because I supposedly brainwashed you. Keep heading to Republic City."

It was decent logic. Kuvira finally agreed and pushed and pulled different levers, forcing them ahead much faster than they were before. As the Si Wong Desert grew in every direction and dominated everything they saw, Kuvira was beginning to wonder just how massive it was. This was naturally one of the only places she didn't travel to while reuniting the earth kingdom, since there were no towns in the middle of it.

BOOM! The entire airship shook as the back engine exploded. Everyone was thrown to the floor.

"What was that?!" Korra asked.

"We lost an engine!" Kuvira said.

"Oh!" Wu exclaimed, "I forgot! So, when those villagers were about to attack, I was about to start up the engines, but I noticed something was off about them, like they were sabotaged. That's what I was going to tell you guys before I was so rudely interrupted."

They all glared at him.

Mako shouted, "You couldn't have said something when we were arguing about what to do next 20 minutes ago!?"

Wu shrugged awkwardly, "Uh, sorry. I forgot."

"Mako, you didn't notice anything when you started the engines earlier?" Kuvira asked.

"I've never been up-close with an airship engine before," he confessed, "I barely know how to start it. I don't know what I'm looking at."

Kuvira shouted, "Now we're about to crash in the biggest most inhospitable desert in the entire world!" She turned to look out the front windows and the sand dunes very quickly were coming up give them a proper greeting.

Mako said, "Everybody hold on!"

Kuvira ran out of the bridge and grabbed onto the wall for stability. Korra held onto the floor as best as she could. Mako covered Wu as best as he could. The front of the airship tilted downward, straight into a massive sand dune.

BAM! Shattering glass, splintering wood. The blackness overcame them as burning hot sand flew in every direction.