"I'm going with you," Bolin says, crossing his arms in determination, and Opal sighs. They have been through over an hour of this. Opal had just been hoping for a quiet dinner with her boyfriend, and instead, they have been fighting.

"You should stay here," she urges. "Republic City needs you, Bolin."

"You and your mom and Mako need me too," he insists. He sounds so sure of himself, and Opal hates that she does not want him to come, but she really feels like this is something that her family needs.

"You're a powerful earthbender," she argues. "You can help rebuild. With Korra and my mom gone, you and Aunt Lin are all the city's has left."

Bolin narrows his eyes. "Why do I feel like you're trying to get rid of me?"

Opal drops her head into her hands. "Because I am," she groans. "Not… not like that," she adds quickly. "I just… really want this to be something I do with my mom." She shrugs and examines a scratch in the table to avoid his eyes. They will be wide and sad, like they belong to a baby animal. Bolin's eyes are just like that and it makes it very difficult to say no to him sometimes. "It's sort of my family's fault things got so out of control with Kuvira in the first place. I just feel this is something we need to fix. By ourselves."

"But I messed up too," Bolin protests. He pauses to thank the waiter when a bowl of noodles is pushed in front of him. The steam from Opal's own bowl warms her face and makes her stomach growl in impatience, but she ignore it. "I worked for her for three years when it turned out she was throwing everyone who disagreed with her in reeducation camps, and I didn't even know about it."

The airbender reaches across the table and lays her hand on top of his. "And you can make up for it by helping my aunt get Republic City back on its feet. You're needed more here. My mom and your brother and I can handle Kuvira. I promise."

He sighs, long and heavy, and stares down into his bowl of noodles. "When do you have to leave?"

Her mouth curls into a sad smile. "Sunset," she tells him. His lip juts out like a toddler and he will not meet her eyes. "I don't like that I have to leave when we just got back together either," she adds. "But it's only for a couple days. That's like nothing after three years apart. We'll still be closer than we ever were before."

"Pabu and I already miss you," he mutters despondently, twirling a noodle around his chopsticks.

"I miss you already too." She leans across the table to lay a kiss on his cheek. "Don't worry. This time next week, you won't even remember I was gone."

He nods, though Opal does not believe he is convinced. "So… did you actually see Kuvira?" he asks after a moment, and Opal nods. "How did she look?"

He is still upset, but Opal can see that he cares about the answer, even though he is trying to mask it. She does not blame him. He did spend three years working closely with the erstwhile dictator. Kuvira is in some of Opal's earliest memories. Kuvira took her down to the stream to skip rocks when her parents needed time alone after the twins were born. She gave Opal amateur dance lessons when Wing and Wei started bending and she still hadn't, just so that she would have a talent that made her special too. Kuvira was there when she wanted someone other than her mother to talk with about boys, and she was there again when Opal discovered she was an airbender. If Kuvira and Baatar Jr. had started dating before they left Zaofu, Opal would have been ecstatic. She may hate Kuvira now, but she still cares what happens to her.

"She looked…" She bites her lip and searches for the right word. One word to describe the woman who was once an older sister to her, and then an arch enemy, and who now just seems sad. "Tired," she decides. "Defeated."

"Oh," Bolin replies. He is still playing with his noodles. Opal wonders if they will ever get eaten at this point. "I guess that's… I guess she deserves that."

"She does." The airbender nods determinedly. "The world leaders trusted her, and she betrayed them. My mother trusted her."

"You trusted her," Bolin points out, and she grimaces. He is usually so clueless, but he can be very perceptive when he wants to. Usually when it is least convenient for her.

"She betrayed all of us," she answers finally, her voice cold and hollow, as she realizes that she has not touched her noodles either.


"This mountain isn't as tall as I remember," Korra comments as she pulls herself onto the ledge and reaches her hand down for Asami to take. "I guess I was in the body of a five year old last time I tried to climb it."

"You were… what?" Asami narrows her eyes in obvious skepticism as she rolls her body onto the ledge beside the Avatar.

"In the body of a five year old. Literally," Korra repeats. "I got aged down somehow. I think it goes along with the whole your-emotions-become-your-reality thing. I felt helpless so I became helpless or something like that. Talk about inconvenient." She grimaces.

"And why were you climbing a mountain as a five-year-old?" Asami smirks and raises a sculpted eyebrow at her. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I had to return a baby dragon bird spirit to its nest," Korra explains with a casual shrug, as if that is the sort of thing she does every day. Though, she realizes, it is actually one of the more mundane tasks she has performed during her short tenure as Avatar. "Come on." She gets to her feet. "I'll show you the nest."

"Is that a good idea?" Asami asks as they start to walk up a gradual incline. "In my experience, it's not usually smart to get close to an animal's young. I don't know if the same rule applies to spirits…"

"I don't either," Korra answers, biting back a snicker as Asami's eyes widen in concern. "But it doesn't matter. It… fused… with its brothers and sisters or something and became a fully grown dragon bird spirit."

The look on Asami's face is nothing short of comedy gold. Korra almost wishes that the press was here to capture this moment. "When was this?" she asks when she finally regains the ability to speak. "Where was I when all this was happening?"

"It was after I had that huge fight with Mako and we broke up, and then I left for the Fire Nation, but I got attacked by my cousins and that dark spirit and washed up on an island with no memories, but then I got them back and went to find Tenzin to warn him about Raava, and I meditated into the spirit world with Jinora." She says it all in one breath and then gasps for air.

"Oh," Asami replies after a moment. "So it was when I was in Republic City getting back together with Mako."

"Oh yeah," Korra answers with a nervous laugh. "I guess so."

"It's so strange thinking about all those things now," Asami comments, leaving Korra grateful that she did not linger on that painfully awkward situation. "It feels like a lifetime ago. I can't believe it's been only a few years."

"Tell me about it," Korra agrees. "Fighting Amon, leaving Tenzin to train with Unalaq, all that stuff seems so distant. Sometimes I feel like I've lived two different lives," she admits, chancing a glance at Asami to find her listening intently. "Life before I got poisoned and life after."

"I'm sorry, Korra," the engineer answers quietly. "I wish I could have been there for you the last three years."

"I told you not to come," Korra waves off the apology. "Some things you just have to do alone, you know?"

"But you were in so much pain," Asami argues. "You should have had someone."

The Avatar lays a hand on her shoulder. "I had your letters," she answers. "Yours and Bolin's and Mako's. I think they kept me afloat when I was in the South Pole. I don't know what I would do without all of you."

Asami laughs. "Do you remember when we first met?"

"Of course," Korra answers, falling into a fit of laughter as well. "At that party that Tarrlok threw in my honor." She groans and rolls her eyes. "I did not like you at first."

"Really?" Asami asks, clearly surprised, and Korra feels a pang of guilt. "For how long?"

"Only until I spent some time with you." She waves off her friend's concern. "Don't worry. You're pretty hard to hate. It was just the whole Mako thing. It brought out the worst in me."

"At least we got past it," Asami replies, and Korra silently agrees. Mako is one of her best friends, but their romance was a mess, doomed to fail from the moment Korra kissed him fresh off of a date with his brother while he was dating someone else. Their actual relationship had been nothing but heated arguments punctuated by heated periods of making out. Korra thinks that Mako's relationship with Asami seemed a little healthier, but she is not positive. She and Asami were not exactly best friends back then, and she did, Korra realizes as guilt continues to wash over her, break them up before it got too serious.

"You weren't what I imagined the first time I met you," Asami admits, jerking Korra out of her thoughts.

"What were you expecting?" She jabs the engineer in the ribs with her index finger and then wonders if maybe she shouldn't have, but her friend smiles back at her.

"You were smaller than I imagined," Asami tells her slowly. "And younger. I mean, I knew how old you were, but I guess I expected you to look more mature somehow." She hesitates and her cheeks redden. "And I didn't expect you to be so beautiful."

"Stop," Korra mutters, smiling and dropping her eyes.

"You asked me what I thought," Asami points out.

"Yeah," Korra agrees absently as a hand finds hers and a set of fingers lace themselves through her own. She honestly does not know how she got so lucky, because Asami Sato could have anyone she wanted. Asami Sato, she has been informed by Ikki, was named the United Republic's Most Eligible Bachelorette by the Republic City Gazette two years running while she was gone. Asami waited for her. Korra did not even realize she had developed romantic feelings for her best friend until after she left, but Asami waited for her.

"Umm, we're almost to the nest," she says as they approach the mountain's peak. "I can see it up ahead."

"Wow," Asami gasps. "It's… not as big as I expected it to be."

"It looked a lot bigger when I was five," Korra admits. "Like I said, when I returned the baby to its nest, it sort of… merged… with the other babies and they became a fully grown dragon bird spirit, and it let me ride it to the Tree of Time, and then when I was fighting
Unalaq and loosing, it saved me."

"Oh… that sounds… exciting," Asami answers awkwardly, like she is not sure how she is supposed to respond to that. Her hand tenses around Korra's, and Korra thinks she hasn't quite gotten the hang of the spirit world yet.

"See, it's probably a good thing you weren't here for that," the Avatar adds. "Everyone who was almost died a couple times." She hears Asami sigh beside her and decides it is time to move the subject off of death for a while. They have both seen enough of it. "That must be the forest Iroh was talking about," she comments, pointing to a mass of trees in the distance. "And I know there's no night and day here, but I think we should get some sleep at some point."

Asami squeezes her hand. "That sounds good."


The first night on the airship is relatively calm, given the present company. Kuvira is confined to her room. Mako sits with Opal and Su in the lounge across the hall. Wu found a Pai Sho board under a couch during the first hour of the trip and loudly challenged each of them individually to "the game of his ancestors," but Opal and Su had been much too preoccupied with the prisoner across the hall to pay any attention, and Wu would not accept the street rules that Mako had been taught by Shady Shin, so all three games ended rather quickly. Wu then bid them all goodnight with the words, "A Prince needs his beauty sleep," and retired to bed, and now the remaining inhabitants are all staring aimlessly around the room and at each other from three different couches. Mako almost wishes the Prince was still around. At least they would not be bored.

"What time are we supposed to get to Gaoling tomorrow?" Opal asks, the first one to speak in an hour.

"Early afternoon," Su answers. "We need to catch people on their way home from work."

"The Prince is speaking first?" Mako looks up from the stain on the carpet that he has spent the past ten minutes staring at. It looks like wine. Or blood. Probably wine, but making up stories in his head about how blood was spilled on a carpet in the lounge of a United Republic airship is more fun.

"If he doesn't, no one will know what Kuvira is talking about," Su points out. "We can't have her supporting a plan no one has even heard yet."

"I was just thinking that it might be easier to get people's attention with Kuvira," Mako explains. "I mean, if everyone in Gaoling wants her to be in charge, they might not care what the Prince has to say."

"That's… actually a decent point," Su replies, looking baffled, much to the firebender's annoyance.

"I do have good ideas occasionally, you know." He scowls and crosses his arms.

Opal reaches over the coffee table and pats his knee reassuringly. "Don't worry, Mako. We know you're not just decoration for Prince Wu." In an instant, her benign smile transforms into a smirk. "Even if you are really good at just standing there and looking pretty."

Mako slouches unhappily as Su stands up and begins to pace. "Maybe we should have Kuvira introduce the Prince. It will show additional support for our cause if people know she's cooperating with us."

Opal furrows her brow. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Maybe we shouldn't have her on stage any longer than we need to. All she'd have to do is say the word and Wu could be assassinated right then and there."

"That is why I'm here, you know," Mako growls.

"I just mean we shouldn't take any more chances with her than we need to," Opals looks to her mother for support.

"I'm confident that Kuvira won't try anything," Su states. Her daughter groans and drops her head into her hands. "She has too much at stake. If she insights a full-on civil war, she'll never see the outside of a prison cell. She knows that." The metalbender's eyes flit through the doorway to the door on the other side of the hall. "I believe that her remorse is genuine."

"Mom, I know you want to trust her," Opal protests. "You raised her. She was like part of the family, but I think you're letting your emotions get in the way of what's the smart thing to do here."

"Opal…" Su sits down beside her daughter. "You're angry at Kuvira, and I don't blame you. Your brother is in prison because he joined her. I'm angry at her too. I never wanted to see her again, but that doesn't mean I can't see that she isn't lying. Do you think maybe you're the one who's feelings are getting in the way of knowing what we need to do?"

"Your feelings are both getting in the way," Mako cuts in. "Su, maybe you are placing a little too much trust in the person who just tried to destroy all of Republic City. Opal, maybe you aren't willing to see that she's still capable of doing the right thing. Kuvira has to introduce the Prince. We can't take the chance that no one will listen to him. But we also need to keep our eyes on her. If she shows any signs to doing or saying anything we haven't agreed on, we get her off that stage."

Su and Opal stare at him, their eyes wide.

"I told you," he cries in exasperation. "I do occasionally have an intelligent thought."

Su speaks again after a moment. "We have to be careful about it. It can't look like we're trying to silence her."

"If anything happens, I'll light something on fire and we'll pretend we're putting her back on the airship for her own safety," Mako decides. Su gives him a sharp nod, though Opal still looks extremely wary, and Mako wishes he was as confident in his plan as he sounds.


They set up camp just outside the tree line because Korra is extremely reluctant to let her guard down in the forest.

"I've never been camping before," Asami admits as they drop their backpacks on the ground, both groaning in relief. "Should we, I don't know, build a fire or something?"

"I don't think we really need one," Korra answers, rubbing the back of her neck. "Since it doesn't get dark here or anything."

"Oh. Right," Asami replies. She drops to the ground, leaning heavily against her supplies. The view from the nest was beautiful, but climbing up and back down even a small mountain in one day is exhausting. It is hard to know what time it is because it does not get dark, but Asami thinks they should have gone to sleep hours ago.

"Are you hungry?" Korra asks, sounding hopeful. "I brought some food from the wedding?"

"I think I'll hold off until tomorrow morning. I mean," she amends. "Whenever we wake up."

"Good thinking," Korra sighs, but her expression falls in disappointment. She sits down across from the engineer and rests her chin on her knuckles. "I don't know what to do," she admits. "Usually when you camp, you make a fire and cook food over it and tell stories until you get so tired you pass out. It seems wrong to just lay down and go to sleep right away. Besides," she tries to smile, but it wavers on her face. "I want your first camping experience to be done right."

"Okay, then." Asami sits up and shuffles over so that she is sitting next to her friend. "Let's tell stories."

"Okay," Korra agrees. "Umm, you want to go first?"

"Sure," Asami answers. She taps her finger on her chin for a moment in thought. "How about the first time I drove a satomobile?" Korra nods eagerly, and she begins. "I was ten—"

"You were ten years old?" the Avatar repeats in surprise.

"Yes," Asami shrugs. "I grew up around them. We had our own track. Why not?"

"I have a feeling I'm about to learn why not," Korra mutters, rolling her eyes. Asami smirk and continues.

"I was at the track with my father. He was test driving his new models. It was our favorite way to spend a Saturday. We used to spend hours down there." She feels sadness beginning to loom over her body and suddenly realizes that maybe she should not have chosen story in which her father features so prominently. She shakes her head to clear her mind. "So we were at the track, and suddenly he turned to me and asked me if I wanted a turn. I said yes. I thought he was joking."

"He wasn't?" Korra asks, leaning toward her interest. "Who just asks a ten-year-old if they want to drive a satomobile?"

"My father, apparently," the engineer answers. "Anyway, he sat me in the driver's seat, told me what all the buttons and levers did and how to shift gears, and then he let me go."

"What happened?" Korra gasps.

"Well, I was doing pretty well while I was going straight," Asami explains. "But then I had to turn."

"Uh oh."

"Uh oh is right. So I turned the wheel, but it wasn't enough because I was going kind of fast by that point," she tells Korra. "Think my father might have been running after me, calling for me to slow down, but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, the second time, I turned it too hard, and the satomobile—the new model that my father had just finished—spun around backwards on two wheels and then fell over on its side." Korra hisses. "Yeah." Asami nods. "My father was not happy, but he wasn't really mad at me, because what was I going to do? I was a little kid, and he was the one who put me in the car."

"So did he not let you drive again after that?" Korra asks.

"Not for another year," she replies. "I tried again when I was eleven and I did fine, and then I learned how to fly an airship two years after that."

Korra leans back and shakes her head slowly from side to side. "What was he thinking?"

"I think he forgot I wasn't my mother sometimes," Asami explains. "I mean, he knew of course, but I think he forgot he couldn't do all the same things with me that he did with her." She crosses her arms over her knees and rests her chin on top of them.

"What was she like?" Korra asks softly. "I mean, we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I just thought—"

"Korra." Asami stops her. "It's okay." She sighs. "She died when I was six, so I don't really remember her that well. My father says—said that she was a genius. She was one of the only people he considered his intellectual equal. He used to tell me it was a good thing he married her, because if he hadn't, she would have started her own company and run him out of business." She feels a hand on her back, gently sliding up and down. She strains to remember pieces from her childhood, from before her mother died, and she hates that they do not immediately come to mind the way they used to before her father went to prison and she became preoccupied with running the large company that was now hers.

"I remember that she loved music," she recalls. "She played a couple of instruments. She was going to teach me when I was old enough, but of course I never learned any of them. She liked to sing. She had a beautiful voice. If I ever needed to find her, all I had to do was follow the music. She used to sing to me when I had nightmares. Of course, I didn't have that many of them until after she died, and then she wasn't there anymore." There are tears in her eyes, but she does not wipe them away. Her father used to conceal his tears, but it has never helped her. She looks over at her companion. "You're so lucky both of your parents are still alive."

"I know," Korra replies, her voice cracking. She wraps her arms around Asami's stomach and pulls their bodies together so that Asami can rest her head on the other girl's shoulder, and, amidst her grief over her father, she cannot believe her sudden turn of luck. Her feelings for the Avatar progressed beyond friendship when they were fighting Zaheer, once the whole mess with Mako was over and they were becoming closer, but she never imagined that she would have her. After all, Korra is the most powerful person in the world. She could date anyone she wanted, but the first thing she chose to do after setting balance to the world was take a trip with Asami. ,

"I didn't think it would bother me this much," the engineer admits. "Up until a few weeks ago, I hadn't even seen him in the three years, and he helped Amon take away so many people's bending in my mother's name. That's what make it so terrible. Her entire family were firebenders. He should have known she wouldn't have wanted that."

"But you forgave him," Korra explains. "You thought the two of you were going to get a fresh start. And he was still your father. Whatever bad things he did, he never stopped loving you, and I don't think you ever really stopped loving him either. That's why it hurts so much."

She rests her hand on Korra's arm. "I wish I could tell you my mother would have liked you," she comments. "But I don't remember."


At first, Su thinks they might not need Kuvira to introduce the Prince after all. The airship landing in the middle of the city attracts enough attention on its own. By the time they are ready to disembark, a small crowd has gathered in the town square in curiosity.

Su's hopes are dashed when Wu starts down the ramp. He is just far enough behind Mako that the crowd has an unobstructed view of him, as Su is certain they have rehearsed. She can already hear a wave of boos overtake the people in the square. She thinks the Prince might be more likeable if only he stopped looking so smug all the time. She and Opal glance at each other in concern. Kuvira, standing between them, is silent.

"You go next," Su whispers to her, an edge in her voice. "But I'm warning you one last time, if you do anything to cause trouble, I'll make sure you'll never see the outside of a jail cell again. No one will stick up for you this time."

Kuvira laughs. It is hollow and it gives Su chills. had such a musical laugh as a child. "Did anyone stick up for me last time?"

"Just go," Opal orders, and Kuvira obeys her, pasting on an alarmingly realistic smile and descending the ramp. The boos turn to cheers almost immediately.

Her daughter turns to her. "Are you sure this was the right decision, Mom?"

Su sighs. "I'm rarely sure about my decisions anymore." She shakes her head and peers around the side of the doorway. The crowd is already growing. "You should go. If they see me, they'll think Kuvira's saying what she's saying under duress. The most important thing is that they believe her when she pledges her support for Prince's plan."

"But, Mom, won't they know I'm your daughter?" Opal argues, but Su shakes her head.

"When they look at you, they won't see a Beifong. They'll see an airbender." Opal sighs and starts to bow her head, but her mother places a hand under her chin to stop her. "That's a good thing," she adds. "Our family is… not very popular right now, no matter where you are. Some people are angry that we helped bring Kuvira down, others are upset that we didn't step in to stop her earlier, but the airbenders did everything they could to help, no matter who needed it. The airbenders are the only people in the Earth Nation who everyone trusts. I'm glad the airbender legacy is the one that follows you."

"Okay," Opal murmurs. Su drops her hand and watches as her daughter disappears through the doorway.

There is a moment where no one speaks and Su knows Kuvira is waiting for the crowd to finish cheering. Then she begins. "People of Gaoling, I stand in front of you today with the Prince of the Earth Nation, heir to the throne." Su can hear boos scattered throughout the crowd. "When I came to this city three years ago, I had a plan. You listened to my plan and made up your own mind to follow me. Now, all I ask is that you listen to the Prince's plan as well. People of Gaoling, Prince Wu."

Despite the less than enthusiastic welcome Wu is receiving from the crowd, Su dares herself to entertain the thought that this could actually end well. Kuvira is a talented speaker. She always has been, even as an eight-year-old on the streets of Ba Sing Se, talking strangers into giving up money or food.

"My dear people," the Prince begins. "My great aunt ruled this country from a throne in Ba Sing Se, just like my great-grandfather before her and my great-great-grandfather before him, but, in case you haven't noticed, Ba Sing Se is a little far from here. I've spent a lot of time in the United Republic over the past couple of years, and I have to say, I like what they have going over there." Su cannot hear anything from the crowd, but nothing is certainly better than the heckling she imagined. "I don't know how familiar you guys are with foreign politics, but they elect their leader every few years. It's this new thing called a democracy. I know I'd never heard of it before, but it really got me thinking. The Earth Kingdom is too big to be ruled by one person. You guys don't need the same things they need in Omashu and the people in Omashu don't need the same things they need in Ba Sing Se. Whatever the person on the throne decides to do, it's going to be bad for someone, and I'm all the way in Ba Sing Se, so really, the people it's the most likely to be bad for is you." Murmurs are beginning to rise through the crowd, and Su clenches her teeth, waiting for the big announcement.

"I have come to you today to announce that when I take the throne, I am going to break the Earth Nation into states based on the provinces we already have. I will set up elections in each state and the people will choose their leader. The states with be completely independent from one another. Then, I will abdicate the throne. There will no longer be one united Earth Kingdom."

Within seconds, the crowd is in an uproar. Su can hear shocked cries, yelled obscenities, and she sincerely hopes that Mako is good at his job. She hopes that the crowd will calm down enough to hear what Kuvira has to say.

"People of Gaoling!" she can hear to former dictator call in an attempt to restore order. "People of Gaoling!" The screaming dulls, but Kuvira does not have the crowd's undivided attention the way she did when she first appeared on the ramp. "The Earth Kingdom's monarchy is broken. This is something the Prince and I agree on. For generations, we have had nothing but corruption. We had a King who was not aware that he had lost most of his nation to a war. We had a Queen who disappeared her citizens when she wanted them in her army. Then you had me. I had noble intentions when I started out on my quest. I wanted to bring the Earth Nation into a new era, and era of prosperity and stability that we have not seen since before Fire Lord Sozin decided to invade almost two hundred years ago.

"When I came to you, I asked you to join me in my mission. I offered you an Earth Empire, and you agreed. You sent your children to fight with me. Over time, however, the provinces began to stabilize themselves. They had problems with bandits and with imports that they were no longer receiving from other parts of the continent. Their people were starving, but they did not want to relinquish their power to a stranger. If a general marched an army up to my door back in Zaofu and demanded we hand over control, I would not have wanted our matriarch to agree, but my admission prevented me from remembering that. I did not want Earth Nation citizens to starve, but more than that, I wanted to realize my dream, my mentor's dream, of a strong and free Earth Empire. I came to Gaoling a uniter, but I assure you, by the time I took the Hu Bo province, the Yai province, and Zaofu, I was a conqueror."

The crowd is growing louder again, angrier. Su would like to feel moved about the things Kuvira is saying, the wrongs she is admitting in front of a crowd of her supporters, but things are becoming too heated. Kuvira seems to sense it as well. She plows on. "I come to you today to let it be known that I am in full support of Prince Wu's plan to break up the Earth Nation and install elected leaders. The Earth Kingdom's monarch controls more land, more resources, and more people than anyone else in the world. I no longer believe that any one person is capable of holding that much power and not becoming corrupted by it. This way you will be able to hold your leaders accountable. They will be forced to put your interested in front of their own. This is my dream for the Earth Nation. It always has been, and I hope that I will one day see this dream become a reality. I stand behind Prince Wu, and I stand behind the Avatar."

The noise outside is deafening. Calls of, "Liar!" and "Great Uniter!" and "Free Kuvira!" ring through the air. There is a crash from somewhere on the square, and then it grows so loud that Su can no longer distinguish one sound from the other.

Opal emerges through the doorway first, pulling Kuvira by the elbow behind her. Then, Mako pushes Wu back onto the airship in front of him and begins cranking the wheel to retract the ramp.

"I think that went well," Wu comments cheerfully, brushing off his suit and smoothing his hair. Opal rolls her eyes.

"He's just never been greeted by a welcoming crowd," Mako explains as he finishes rolling in the ramp and pulls the door closed. It does not drown out the roar of the people in the square.

"They're not going to believe a word I'm saying as long as they think I'm being told to say it," Kuvira points out. Su would like to admonish her for her pessimism, but it is what they are all thinking.

"We need to get back in the air," she says instead. "I can still hear them outside. We'll come up with another plan on our way back to Republic City."

"I just hope we didn't make it worse," Opal mutters. No one replies.


A/N: I know this chapter is a little later than I usually post. In general, I try to have a chapter done by the day I want to post it, so I can put it up in the morning, but that didn't happen this week. Anyway, it's here now, and it's a longer one, so hopefully that makes up for it.

Please remember to review! I'll see you all next week (or on Wednesday)!