Hours after Kuvira's testimony, Korra found herself once again in a chair in the courthouse. Noriko had ordered dozens of people to be thrown out of the courtroom, which managed to restore some semblance of calm. The judges had withdrawn to deliberate on Kuvira's testimony, returning after an hour. Korra watched as the judges filed into their seats in silence and felt the tension emanating out from them. The polite collegiality they seemed to have had just a few hours earlier was gone and the four associate judges eyed each other warily.
Only Noriko seemed immune to the change as she stood at the centre of the judges' table. "The court has heard testimony from Kuvira about her actions over these past years. However, to understand the consequences of her choices, we will hear testimony from those affected. First, this court calls Bolin of Republic City to testify."
Korra looked around in surprise. She hadn't heard that Bolin would take part in the trial and hadn't noticed him when she arrived that morning. Yet there he was: standing uncomfortably at the back of the room, pulling at his collar and glancing at the officer standing beside him. As the officer led him to the front of the room, Korra caught his eye and got a weak smile in response, but he moved on before Korra could say a word of encouragement.
"Bolin of Republic City, will you testify honestly, in the eyes of the spirits and the citizens of this city, about what you observed when working with Kuvira?"
Bolin didn't respond for a moment, then seemed to notice that everyone's eyes were on him. He hurriedly agreed to testify. "I can testify, but I was only a corporal in Kuvira's army, I don't know if anything I have to add will be useful."
Noriko managed an amused smile. "The court will decide whether what you say is useful. Please just share what you know."
Her words seemed to help him relax slightly and he returned her smile. "I can do that!" he said, raising a confident fist.
"Thank you. Bolin, can you testify to the court how you came to be involved in Kuvira's work in the Earth Kingdom?"
"Sure! I think it all started…" He paused for a second, scratching his chin. "Right! It all started a few months after Korra left to heal at the South Pole." Korra winced at the memory of that dark point in her life. "Kuvira had stopped in Republic City on her way to Ba Sing Se to find people who wanted to help her save the city."
"And what specifically did Kuvira tell you about her goals when she recruited you?"
Bolin looked a little pensive, but answered, "I didn't actually get recruited by Kuvira myself. Varrick found me when they arrived in the city and told me about her plans. He said Kuvira left Zaofu because Suyin didn't want to get involved in Ba Sing Se's problems and she was going to help save the Earth Kingdom."
"This is Sir Iknik Blackstone Varrick of Varrick Industries, a man who was wanted for crimes against Republic City at the time?"
"Yeah, I thought it was a little weird he wanted us to meet at midnight in a deserted warehouse by the docks, but that's the kind of thing you get used to when you know Varrick."
Noriko raised a hand to cover the lower half of her face and Korra thought she saw her body shake from a muffled laugh. After the moment passed, she lowered her hand and asked Bolin to continue.
"There was something weird though. I asked Varrick if my brother Mako could come with us and he said Kuvira only wanted earthbenders to join her. Now I know what you're thinking, 'But Bolin, Varrick's not an earthbender, he's from the Southern Water Tribe and can't bend at all!' but Varrick told me that Kuvira let him join her because he was designing the trains that she wanted to use to link the Earth Kingdom together!"
"Noted." Noriko said with a wry smile. "Now please tell the court about your work while traveling in the Earth Kingdom."
"Oh, sure!" Bolin stroked his chin, making a great show of gathering his thoughts. "The tale of Bolin starts in Ba Sing Se. Like I said, Kuvira came to Republic City to gather earthbenders to take back the city. When we got there, everything was in chaos; people were looting stores and half of the outer ring was on fire! Kuvira had us spread out and help protect civilians while her soldiers restored the peace."
"And what did you specifically see and do during this time?"
"Kuvira wanted me to stay with her, Bataar, and Varrick the entire time, so I didn't actually see that much."
"You did not see what her soldiers did to restore the peace?"
Bolin's face clouded with worry. "No, not really. It's bad, isn't it?"
Noriko's face turned gentle briefly, "I didn't mean to imply that. I merely want to know what you saw with your own eyes."
He sighed with relief. "All I saw were a bunch of meetings. Kuvira met with all sorts of guys with funny hats. I thought something exciting would happen when she met with the Dai Li, but even there they just sat and talked and drank tea. It's when we got outside of Ba Sing Se that things started to get more interesting." His voice dropped low, and Korra could feel the crowd leaning forward in their chairs to listen. He hadn't lost his flair for the dramatic. "Bringing the Earth Kingdom back together was hard work. Almost every day we would set out for a new town that hadn't yet joined us."
"How did you convince these towns to join you?"
"Well that's depends. Usually, once we'd cleared out the bandits that'd been looting their city, the governors were happy to join." Bolin's face broke into an open smile. "Then came the best part, we got to help these cities so much! We distributed food and fuel, and helped families patch up their houses, and let kids play with the mecha suits, and–"
"And what happened when someone was unwilling to join Kuvira's nascent empire?"
The happy spiel died in Bolin's mouth and Korra watched the colour drain from his face. Even months after his friends and family forgave him, shame still ate at Bolin. "We'd leave," he said quietly. "Sometimes the governors would come running out to agree before we left, but once or twice we left and took everything we had brought with us."
Noriko's face was solemn, but not harsh as she questioned him. "Did Kuvira tell you why you couldn't help the towns that refused to join?"
Bolin shook his head. "She said we could only help towns that were willing to help themselves and if they thought that they could manage on their own, we should respect their wishes. They looked like they really needed our help, but I trusted she knew what was best."
The United Republic judge spoke up with a harsh tone, "So you were just going to let them starve to force them to join your little empire?" Korra felt a flash of anger at his words: Kuvira was on trial, not Bolin. Yet Noriko didn't react, watching Bolin with unreadable eyes. Korra forced herself to take a breath. She respected the calm way the Chief Justice had managed Kuvira's testimony earlier, so if she thought the question was acceptable, Korra was willing to trust her for now.
"We never forced anybody to join anything!" Bolin's voice turned plaintive, then fell quiet as he looked down. "I joined Kuvira because I wanted to help people and when we came to these towns, it felt like we were making such a big difference. I know it was wrong to abandon them just because they didn't agree to join us, but at the time, Kuvira convinced me we were just being tough negotiators to get them to see our side of the argument. I never thought we'd actually leave anyone to starve."
"What happened to towns after they joined Kuvira?" Noriko asked.
"I don't know. I never saw it with my own eyes. Shipments from towns we left would catch up to our train and replenish our supplies. I thought that was a sign we were doing the right thing. If towns could recover so fast that they had stuff to spare after we helped them, then we really were making things better. But that's not what happened, right?"
Noriko laced her fingers in front of her face. "The court thanks you for your testimony. Kuvira, do you have anything to say in contradiction to the testimony given?"
Kuvira remained seated. "No, that is an accurate assessment of what he observed. Bolin remained with me on the front lines until we reached Zaofu. There, he attempted to escape with Varrick but was recaptured by Bataar. Later, he successfully escaped when Varrick faked their deaths in a spirit weapon explosion."
"Very well. The court calls its next witness."
Korra stood in the hallway with a comforting hand on Bolin's shoulder. "Bolin, don't be so hard on yourself. We don't blame you for what Kuvira did and we know your heart was in the right place. Just think about Opal, Kuvira betrayed her mother and she found room in her heart to forgive you."
"Thanks, Korra," Bolin said, sniffing back a shaky breath, then enveloping her in a tight hug.
The court had been thorough with its investigation. Over hours of testimony, nearly every group that interacted with Kuvira had a representative speak to the court. Prisoners from Kuvira's re-education camps spoke of local military commanders taking people of Fire Nation and Water Tribe descent and moving them to holding facilities, then on to the re-education centres far from their homes and society. One Earth Kingdom farmer faced relentless questioning about ordinary people's role in the internment. He had initially claimed that as a good neighbour, he and those like him stood up against the forced removal of innocent people. But slowly a more nuanced truth emerged. People did try to protect their neighbours – the farmer spoke movingly about his friend Hayashi, spiritfather to his youngest son – but fewer people were willing to trust migrants they didn't know personally, and the Earth Kingdom trusted the military far more than any other institution. When someone wearing a uniform came bearing orders, the instinct was to support the troops, not question them.
But the court also heard about the good Kuvira's army did. A young woman testified how soldiers had not only arrested the bandits threatening her home, but helped deliver her baby, a girl now named Kuvira in her namesake's honour. Even Varrick had testified, speaking at length about the brilliance of his trains until Noriko gently coaxed him into talking about the spirit weapons. Throughout the testimony, Kuvira never contradicted a single speaker, only speaking up a few times to add more facts where they were sparse. When the judges adjourned for the night, only two speakers were left to testify the next day: President Raiko and Suyin Beifong.
Korra wasn't just standing in the hallway to comfort Bolin. She was waiting for an opportunity to speak with Kuvira before she was transferred back to her holding cell for the night. When the trial adjourned, Kuvira disappeared into a private room to speak with her lawyers about the progress of the case. That conversation had not lasted for very long, but just before Korra could reach the room, Baatar had arrived and asked to speak with Kuvira alone.
To Korra's surprise, the officers guarding the room granted his request, albeit with a thorough search to ensure he wasn't trying to smuggle any metal to Kuvira. Thus, Korra stood waiting outside as Kuvira spoke with her estranged fiancée inside.
After being forced to strip down to his underclothes to prove he was not hiding any metal, Baatar was going to speak with Kuvira for the first time since the invasion. He had tried to see her twice before. Once, days after the attack, when he wanted to throw all his anger and hurt in her face from tossing him aside to try and kill Korra. Once, weeks later, when he wanted to forgive her and reaffirm his love. She refused to see him both times, having the guards at her cell send him away. He didn't know what had changed, but she agreed to see him today.
He walked into the room. With the trained eye of an architect's son, he noted that the sparse interior hid reinforced ceilings and walls. The courthouse's builders had expected powerful benders to be tried in this building and designed the holding rooms to match. Yet Baatar knew Kuvira's bending prowess. Nothing short of a wooden cage, miles from the shore, had a chance of holding her. Kuvira was imprisoned in this room because she chose to be.
His once fiancée sat at a simple wooden table, hands clasped in front of her. At first, Baatar thought she looked tired, bruised, and thin, a product of harsh treatment for Republic City's most notorious prisoner. But then their eyes met and see saw the same steel that built the Earth Empire, held it together through force of will, and won his heart along the way. She didn't smile, but her face seemed like it softened by the tiniest amount, and she gestured at the empty chair on Baatar's side of the table.
He sat as Kuvira watched him silently across the table. There was no point hoping that she'd break the silence; he had come to talk to her, so she'd say only as many words as needed. "Kuvira, I've wanted to come and see you since the attack," he stammered, "I wanted to talk about what happened."
"What's there to say? We fought, we lost, and I'm in prison. I'm glad to see you were able to avoid the same." Her voice was flat, but not harsh or angry.
Baatar still flinched at her words. This wasn't how he'd hoped the conversation would go but getting Kuvira to talk about her feelings and personal matters was harder than clipping badger mole claws. "Kuvira, I know what happened with the attack. I wanted to talk about what happened with us." He saw her brow furrow, but she remained silent and he continued, "We could've had our empire together. I know it wouldn't have been what we dreamed about without the United Republic, but now we have nothing."
He saw her hands clench tighter together and she closed her eyes before replying in the same flat tone, "I am sorry you feel that way. Perhaps it would be best if you stayed away from me."
"Kuvira! You tried to kill me, your fiancée! Am I supposed to believe that everything you told me was a lie? Every time you said you loved me and couldn't wait until we were married was just empty words?" He felt heat rising at the back of his neck. He and Kuvira had rarely fought during their relationship, too often their work left them without any time for each other. Yet the few fights they'd had were for this exact reason: Baatar wanted to talk about something on his mind and Kuvira blocked him out.
"If you think my words were lies, why would you believe anything I have to say now? I've made my choices and I accept the consequences." Her eyes opened and met his. He searched them for some sign of the answers he wanted. But the woman looking back at him was not Kuvira, his fiancée. It was Kuvira, the Great Uniter, harder than the platinum of the Colossus. There were no answers for him today.
"I guess, that's it then," he said, defeat creeping into his voice. He placed his hands on the table and pushed himself out of his chair, not trusting his legs to hold him.
Slowly, he walked towards the door and had put a hand on the handle when a quieter voice stopped him. "It was nice to see you Baatar. Take care of yourself."
He turned in surprise. Kuvira hadn't moved from her chair, but something had changed ever so slightly in her face. The Great Uniter was still there, but there was a tiny crack in her wall. His mother's words from the aftermath of her attack came unbidden to mind: Kuvira was indeed a complicated person. He gave her a shy smile, feeling as self-conscious as a teen on his first date. "You take care of yourself too Kuvira," he paused, then added, "would you mind if I came to see you again?"
She closed her eyes and her lips curled into a slight smile, head bowed. "I can't imagine I'm going anywhere soon."
"Then I guess I'll see you later," Baatar said as he opened the door. Kuvira merely nodded in response as he left. As he left, he saw Korra waiting outside, possibly the only person who made him feel even more uncomfortable after the attack than Kuvira. "I don't know what you expect to get from Kuvira, Avatar, but don't think she's broken just because she's in prison."