"Did you see anything?" Su asks urgently as soon as Opal hits the ground. She has been flying around the city for over an hour looking for Kuvira or a group of resisters or anything that looks like a functional prison, looking for anything that does not leave them so in the dark.
"There were a lot of people gathered around the palace," Opal replies. "But I couldn't see anything inside. Everything else looks pretty normal."
"The rebels might be using the palace as their headquarters," Su mutters, more to herself than to her daughter. "It's been empty for years."
"Do you think that's where Kuvira's being kept?" Opal asks a little too anxiously for someone who claims to hate Kuvira as much as she does. Having the former dictator around has reminded Su of what things were like when she still lived Zaofu, when she was almost a part of the family, things that were so easy to forget when Kuvira was off conquering the Earth Nation and turning her son against her. Perhaps Opal feels the same way. They were once very close.
"It could be," Su answers. "She's a powerful bender. It must be taking a lot of people to keep her under control. You didn't see any groups of guards hanging around anywhere else?"
Opal chuckles, despite the frown on her face. "Only at the Dizzy Pig."
"What's the Dizzy Pig?" Su furrows her brow.
"A drag club near the wall," the airbender answers. "I don't think they're hiding her in there. Do you?"
"It doesn't seem likely," Su agrees, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. If there is one thing that humanizes the enemy, it is seeing what they do when they do not think anyone else is looking, but she shakes the thought from her head. To get Kuvira back, she may have to hurt people, teenagers who got caught up in a revolution because it seemed exciting, and she will have to do it without a second thought. Just like the Fire Nation soldiers who tried repeatedly to kill her mother when she was twelve.
"Is there any news?" Mako asks, pulling his feet from the end table and sitting up straight when Su and Opal enter the lounge. Prince Wu is at a table behind him with needles and thread, an impressive gold and green scarf spread across his lap.
"Aside from what kind of entertainment the soldiers enjoy?" Opal raises an eyebrow. Su sits down on the couch across from him and Opal perches on its arm.
"We think they're holding Kuvira in the palace," Su answers. "According to Opal, it's surrounded by revolutionaries, the only place in the city where they're highly concentrated."
"Almost," Opal mutters, clearly finding the whole situation more entertaining than, in Su's opinion, she should.
"I don't know how we'll get passed them," Su adds. "If we had the blueprints, I could tunnel us in, but for all we know, we'll be coming up in the middle of the war room. That palace is so old, I doubt blueprints for it even exist anymore."
"Wasn't Grandma with Avatar Aang when he got held there?" Opal asks, narrowing her eyes. "She didn't tell you about it?"
Su shakes her head, though it would have been remarkably convenient. Her mother had a knack for describing the layouts of buildings in deadening detail. "That was before she met him." Then her eyes widen. "But Katara and Sokka were there. Maybe Tenzin knows."
"Or Dad," Opal points out. "He's an architect. He likes buildings. He might have rememebered."
Su claps her daughter on the shoulder. "Let's go radio your father," she replies. She turns to the firebender lounging on the opposite couch. "Mako, are you coming?"
Mako recovers from his surprise and jumps up from the couch, pulling the Prince out of the room behind him.
Baatar is back in Zaofu with Huan, Wing, and Wei, and it takes Su four tries to get ahold of him. "Hello?" They all heave a sigh of relief as his voice finally crackles through the speaker.
"Dad!" Opal exclaims, seizing the intercom from her mother.
"Hi, honey," Baatar answers. "How's your mission going." Opal's face falls and her shoulders slump.
"Not good," she replies darkly. "Kuvira got kidnapped. We think. That's why we need you."
"Kidnapped?" Baatar exclaims so loudly that static rushes through the speaker. "How did that happen? What can I do to help? And here I thought you were calling because you missed me."
"Kidnapped?" Someone asks in the background. "Who?" They can hear garbled voices conversing and then Baatar comes back on the line.
"Wing sends his best," he explains. "And Huan says something about a night sky and a dark abyss. I'm sure I won't do it justice if I try to repeat it."
"Honey, we need to know about the palace in Omashu," Su tells him. "That's where we think they're holding her."
"Omashu?" Baatar asks. Su can almost see him scratching his head in puzzlement. "I've never been there."
"Didn't your father spend some time in the palace?" Su presses. "With his sister and the Avatar?"
"I believe he did," her husband answers. "He didn't tell me much about it. The only stories I really heard from before your mother joined them are the Siege of the North and when he met Mom."
"He never mentioned where they were kept?" Su asks, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice.
"Hmm," Baatar murmurs. "I think they were underground? There were some crystals involved somehow. And a goat gorilla named Flopsie, but I doubt he's still alive. I don't think they live much longer than fifty or sixty years."
"That's okay," Su sighs. "Maybe Tenzin will know. His father and King Bumi were close. I bet he's heard the story more than once."
"Well, that wasn't very helpful," Mako mutters after Baatar hangs up and Opal replaces the transmitter on the control panel with a quiet click.
"He takes after his father," Su replies sharply. "The brilliant but slightly scatterbrained engineer who helped Avatar Aang end a war." Mako's face falls. Opal snickers.
"Baatar is Sokka's son?" the firebender narrows his eyes like he does not quite believe it, and Su suppresses the urge to roll hers.
"That surprises you?"
"I just…" he studies the nicks in the floor, "didn't know Sokka had any children. That's all."
"They didn't live together," Su informs him. "Sokka was always going back and forth between Republic City and the Water Tribes. Baatar grew up in Ba Sing Se with his mother."
"But Grandma and Grandpa still loved each other very much," Opal adds. "They moved to Kyoshi Island together after they retired."
"Why didn't she live in Republic City or the Southern Water Tribe?" Mako asks.
"The Earth King offered her a job as head of the Dai Li when she aged out of the Kyoshi Warriors," Su answers. "She wasn't going to turn that down. I can't imagine deciding to break the family up was easy, but wanting to work? That I can understand."
"What does this button do?" Prince Wu asks from the corner, his gaze fixed on the a large red button that, in Su's opinion, screams "Press me," even at responsible adults.
"Don't touch that!" Mako yells, seizing his arm and pulling him away. "It's the emergency release. It makes the floor drop out."
"Mom," Opal turns to her, a face forming into a worried expression. "What if Kuvira really wasn't kidnapped? What if she is working with the resistance?"
Su rests a reassuring hand on her daughter's shoulder. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."
"Korra, do you know where we are?" Asami asks. They have been walking all day, and now they are in a forest. One of the many forests in the spirit world. "I don't recognize this."
"I know where we are," Korra assures her, though she is not positive that is true. She has been in this forest before, but last time, she got here because the ground swallowed her and then Iroh lead her out. She decides against mentioning that to Asami.
"I think we've passed that giant mushroom before." The engineer gestures to a large pink fungus growing through the roots of a tree.
"Nah," Korra replies with a wave of her hand. "Those things are all over the place. We're fine."
"I'm serious, Korra," Asami sighs. "Look at this tree. We're been through here already." Korra tilts her head toward the tree. There is something carved into the trunk—she squints her eyes—an extremely symmetrical heart surrounding a tidy little "A + K."
"Aww," she smirks. "Did you do that?"
Asami rolls her eyes. "No, Korra. I'm not twelve." She takes her hand and leads her closer to the tree. "See how it's healing over?" She runs her fingers across the scarred bark, and Korra follows her lead, their fingertips brushing. "This has been here for a while."
"Hmm." Korra furrows her brow in thought. Then her eyes widen. "I know who left it! A and K! I bet it stands for Aang and Katara!"
Asami looks mildly entertained. "Huh." She brings a hand to her chin in thought. "I never noticed we shared their initials."
Korra snorts, backing away from the tree and crouching to see if she can spot a second set of their footprints in the earth. "Some super genius. Come on, smarty pants. If you're so sure we're lost, help me figure out where we are."
"Why don't we just ask for directions?" Asami asks. Her voice is quieter and more distant that Korra expects it to be, and she can immediately tell that something is wrong. When she looks up, Asami is face to face with a gigantic creature with eight legs, eight eyes, and pincers. Korra feels the color drain from her face. It is a scorpion spider spirit.
"Asami," she whispers urgently. "Back this way. Slowly." She has heard the story dozens of times. Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi all tell it differently, but it always ends the same way. They get thrown into the Fog of Lost Souls. Korra has never been there, but she knows enough about it to know that it is not where she wants to spend her vacation.
Asami takes a step back and then another, and for a moment, Korra thinks that things might be okay. Asami will make it to her, and then she can rush them away on an air scooter. Then the spirit lunges.
Korra does not think, just acts. She jumps in front of Asami on a gust of air, fire spitting from her hands at the scorpion spider.
"You dare bend at me?" the spirit cries in anger. "I'd have thought you'd know better by now, Avatar." It points its stinger at them, and before Korra has time to defend them, they are tangled in webbing, the fronts of their bodies pressed together, being lifted into the air upside down. The creature tisks. "You humans prove again and again, there is only one place for you in the spirit world."
And then they are on the ground with a thud, dragging across twigs and leaves. Asami is grimacing, a branch the size of her wrist dragging from her hair. Korra's chin keeps knocking against the base of the engineer's neck, and Korra is certain it will bruise.
"Where is it's taking us?" Asami whispers, her voice filled with a mixture of fear and curiosity.
"The Fog of Lost Souls," Korra answers. "At least, that's where it took Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi. I think this is the same spirit," she adds uncertainly. "It looks like what they described. Well, Bumi said it had ten stingers and fangs the size of an airbending gate, but between you and me, I don't think that was true—"
"The Fog of Lost Souls, Korra?" Asami asks. Now she actually does sound afraid, and Korra would like to hug her, but her arms might as well be tied to her sides. "What's that?"
"Well it's this canyon, filled with really thick fog, and you get lost in the fog and slowly lose your mind and become trapped in your darkest memories," she replies conversationally. "I guess the fog is a spirit. That's what Tenzin said. Kya and Bumi wouldn't talk about it."
"I can't go in there," Asami hisses. She sounds nearly panicked now, and Korra realizes how difficult it will be for Asami to keep her darkest memories out of her thoughts in the fog when they are at the forefront of her mind on a regular basis. She realizes it because she has struggled with the same thing.
"Okay, you're right," she agrees. "We have to get out of here."
Asami struggles against the webbing. "Can't you burn through it or something?" she asks, and Korra frowns.
"Don't you think I've tried that?"
"Okay, okay," Asami answers. "No need to get testy."
Korra sighs. "I'm sorry. This vacation is just… not going how I pictured it going at all." Korra supposes she should have expected that, coming into the spirit world, things were never going to go according to plan, but being tossed into the Fog of Lost Souls by a giant scorpion spider spirit is not exactly the relaxing break she want them to have.
"Well we can worry about that later," Asami insists. "I see something." She cranes her neck to get a look around the spirit. "It's bones. Korra, I see giant bones."
It is actually rock spreading up over the canyon on either side and curling into itself like a ribcage, but Korra decides that now is not the time to correct her. "Listen, Asami," she begins in a rushed whisper. "We're going to get thrown in the fog. I'm going to bend the air around us to create a shield, but I can't do that until my arms are free. If you get loose before I do, you need to stay close to me, okay? It's really important. Just keep you mind on something else for a couple of minutes."
"Okay," Asami sighs reluctantly.
They come to a stop near the edge of the canyon, and Korra buries her face in the side of Asami's neck as they sail through the air in a wide arc.
Despite the fact that the sun is setting, the light stings Kuvira's eyes when they bring her outside to the tribunal. They are in a courtyard that is lined with spectators, some of them members of the rebellion and others, ordinary villagers. Ling Dao sits at an elevated desk. There is a rickety, wooden chair on the ground beside it, and Kuvira knows that it is for her, to make her look as small as possible. But Kuvira is used to looking small.
"When is the last time she was chi blocked?" Ling Dao asks when she sees them approaching.
"Before we took her out of her cell, ma'am," Shou answers. Before Kuvira rejected Ling Dao's second offer, they only used the glove on her often enough to make certain she did not regain her bending. Now they seem to be using it more liberally. Kuvira's back aches from multiple electrical burns.
"She's a powerful bender," Ling Dao replies, her voice like silk. "Best do it again. Just to make sure. I wouldn't want to risk the safety of all of our spectators."
The familiar sensation of an abnormally heavy hand on her body—on her shoulder this time—and then her teeth chatter. Her muscles contract as electricity flows through her body like a river.
She does not remember hitting the ground, but the next thing she is aware of is Shou and a man dragging her across the courtyard and dropping her into the chair. On the other end of the courtyard, seven men and women sit at a long table. Ling Dao looms over her like a vulture. "Who is representing you, Kuvira?" she asks sharply.
It takes Kuvira a moment to recover the use of her tongue. "I don't…" she murmurs before gathering her strength and projecting it into her voice. "I will be representing myself."
"Very well," Ling Dao replies. She almost sounds bored. She jerks her head toward the people at the long table as she speaks again. "You may tell your side of the story to the council."
"What story?" Kuvira asks. She is still relatively unclear what behavior she is even being tried for. No one has bothered to speak to her since she was pulled away from her meeting with Ling Dao this afternoon.
The other woman looks at her like she has just admitted she cannot count to ten. "Your story…" she explains, her voice thick with forced patience, "about why you are refusing to help aid, and are in fact trying to undermine, our efforts against the tyrannical monarchy."
"The monarchy is not tyrannical," Kuvira insists. Already, she can hear a hushed murmur ripple through the crowd. "Yes, it wastyrannical under the Earth Queen, but Prince Wu has no intention of following in her footsteps. He plans to make each province independent and self-led. Omashu was like that once, and it can be again."
Of course, the last King of Omashu has been dead for a long time. Most of the spectators in the audience were probably not born yet when the Earth Queen marched her troops into the city before King Bumi's body had even cooled.
"The Prince's plan will help the people of the Earth Nation," she continues. "Each province's government will be specifically attuned to the issues most important to its constituents. Under independent rule, the Earth Nation can be stronger and more prosperous than ever before. Poverty in the countryside could be all but wiped out when the people in charge are more concerned with livestock trade than gold and luxury goods."
"Under the Idiot Prince's plan, the Earth Nation will be more divided than ever, is that not so?" Ling Dao asks. She directs her question not at Kuvira, but at the crowd surrounding the courtyard. It murmurs its assent.
"Well, yes, but—"
"Which will make it more difficult to coordinate militarily if we are attacked?"
"I guess so," Kuvira answers. "But we—"
"In fact," Ling Dao adds. "If we were to be attacked by, say, the United Republic, as we nearly were only weeks ago, we would be completely unable to defend ourselves."
"The United Republic only considered attacking the Earth Nation because I was approaching Republic City with an army," Kuvira argues. "They had no choice. They were defending themselves."
"Republic City is built on Earth Kingdom land," Ling Dao points out. "The Fire Nation was defeated, and still the colonists were allowed to stay, keep the houses and the riches they stole from Earth Kingdom citizens because King Kuei was too weak to hold his own against Fire Lord Zuko. The monarchy sold us out once, and now you want to let it sell us out again. You made us strong after the Queen was assassinated. We broke you out of custody. Why have you abandoned us?"
Kuvira shakes her head. "I haven't abandoned anyone. Your cause is wrong for the people of the Earth Kingdom. No person should ever hold that kind of power. We can't handle it. I couldn't."
"So you're weak," Ling Dao sneers, and Kuvira drops her eyes.
"Yes," she admits. "I became weak when I started allowing power to control me instead of the good of the Earth Nation. I invaded provinces needlessly. I risked innocent lives, both of my soldiers and of the citizens of Republic City, for land that we didn't need, just because I wanted to expand my empire. I was greedy, and I let the power control me. My loyalty was to myself."
"And what controls you now, Kuvira?" Ling Dao asks, and the prisoner can tell she is planning something, but she does not know what. "Hmm? Where does your loyalty lie now?"
"My loyalty lies with the people of the Earth Nation," Kuvira answers firmly. "I have only their best interests at heart."
"Are you really loyal to the people of the Earth Nation?" Ling Dao replies. "Or are you loyal to Suyin Beifong? Are you thinking for yourself or are you allowing her to dictate what is best? Suyin Beifong refused to aid the people of the Earth Nation when we needed a leader, and now you are doing the same."
Kuvira scans the crowd, their frowns and their glares, and she knows that she has already lost. As if Suyin Beifong is some sort of keyword that triggers hate. Ling Dao leans forward and asks her one final question. "Why have you betrayed us?"
Kuvira lifts her chin, though it hurts her back to do so. If she is going to go down, she is going to look strong doing it. "I may have betrayed your movement," she answers firmly. "But I have not betrayed the Earth Nation."
"I see," Ling Dao replies. "If that is how you feel, I will ask you to leave us now. The council will take your story and the opinions of our spectators into account. We will retrieve you when your verdict has been rendered."
With that, two hands seize Kuvira's upper arms and she is half walk, half dragged from the courtyard faster than her legs will carry her.
They land in the canyon with a thud. Stars burst in Korra's eyes as her head collides with the dirt. At least it is not stone, she thinks, blinking rapidly as tears threaten to escape. "Asami?" she calls to the girl beside her as she works against the webbing. "Are you okay?"
"Korra?" Asami answers weakly. "Ouch."
"I know," Korra replies. "Don't worry. I'll get us out of here. Just… remember who you are and where you are while I'm doing it."
"Doesn't sound too hard," Asami mutters. Korra continues to twist her body, feeling Asami struggle against their bonds as well. She can feel them loosening, but she cannot quite move her arms well enough to use them.
And then Asami frees herself.
"How did you do that?" Korra gasps, untangling her own body from the webbing and expecting another pair of hands to come to her aid, but they do not. "Asami?" Korra calls again, looking up, but there is no one there. She is alone.
"Great," Korra mutters. She wrestles herself out of the cocoon of web and jumps to her feet. Whirling her arms, she forms a dome of air around herself and sets off through the fog. There is a woman nearby muttering about a tiger shark. A man lurks just out of Korra's sight, but she can hear him shrieking. Minutes pass, and Korra hears nothing from Asami.
Slowly, she allows the shield of air around her to die down. Then, before the fog has time to seep its way into her mind, she rests her knuckles together and falls into the Avatar State. She throws her hands out to her sides, producing a blast of air powerful enough that the fog recedes nearly entirely out of the canyon. In the distance, close enough that, without the muffling fog between them, Korra can just hear the whisper of her voice, Asami wanders aimlessly. Korra runs toward her and seizes her hand just as the fog finds them again. She produces the sphere of air once more, this time with a grunt of effort as she maintains it with one hand.
She glances back at Asami. The engineer's eyes are blank, dead-looking. She shows no sign of even noticing Korra beside her. The Avatar sighs. "Come on, Asami," she mutters. "I'll get us out of here."
They are approaching the incline that will lead them to safety, sweat clinging to Korra's body, when she feels her fingers being squeezed. She glances back and Asami offers her a soft smile. Her eyes are sad, but at least the life is returning to them.
They climb out of the canyon and Korra finally drops her arm back to her side. Her muscles ache. Asami gazes out over the valley. "How many people are trapped in there, do you think?"
"I don't know," Korra answers. "Tenzin said it's a prison for humans. Apparently General Zhao is in there somewhere, still claiming to be the Moon Slayer."
Asami shivers, and Korra takes her hand again in a gesture she hopes is comforting. "Let's get out of here."
They walk in silence for a while, holding tightly to each other. Finally, at the base of a mountain that Korra hopes is Hai-Riyo Peak, or they are very lost, they decide to make camp.
"You're quiet," Korra comments are they drop their bags and sink into the grass on their backs. Asami sighs.
"I'm sorry I got lost," she replies. "I couldn't… I couldn't not think of my father."
"You don't have to apologize," Korra assures her. She scoots over in the grass until she is close enough to wrap her arms around her girlfriend. "I know what it's like to not be able to get a memory out of your head. Trust me. I spent years trying to do it."
Asami sinks gratefully into Korra's side. "I thought I was there again," she admits. "Watching him die. The last thing I said to him was Dad, now. I meant for him to eject both of us."
"He knew that," Korra answers. She toys with a lock of hair near the perimeter of Asami's face, wrapping it around her fingers. "He just wanted to make sure Kuvira was taken down and you didn't get hurt."
"I told him I never wanted to see him again," Asami continues. "What if I died thinking I still hated him?"
"You two were making up," Korra replies. "He knew you loved him. You just needed more time."
"Time that we didn't have," Asami mutters. "We take time for granted, you know. I thought I could take my time forgiving him, and maybe we could learn to be a family again. I just assumed he'd be there waiting when I was ready. If I'd known what was going to happen—"
"You would have jumped back into a relationship you weren't ready for," Korra interrupts. "You can't rush something like forgiveness just in case something happens to the other person in the meantime. It has to come naturally to be real. Do you think we'd be as close to Mako as we are today if we'd forgiven him right away? I think we'd still resent him deep down. And I bet you didn't immediately forgive me for kissing him while the two of you were still dating either. This is why it's better that we don't know when we're going."
Asami sighs. "I was back in the night my mother died too," she adds. Korra can feel the engineer shudder against her. "I can still smell charred flesh. I used to smell it all the time when I was younger, but it hasn't come back to me for a while."
"I'm sorry," Korra answers, rubbing up and down her girlfriend's arm and wishing she knew what else to say. It suddenly hits her that she did not say goodbye to her own parents before they left.
"It's funny," Asami continues. "When I was younger, I used to hear her voice all the time. If I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing, I would think about exactly how she'd reprimand me, or if I did really well on a test at school, I could imagine her telling me she was proud of me in the exact tone of voice she would have used. The older I got the less I could hear her until I couldn't at all anymore, but the older I got, the more I needed to know what she'd have to say. There have been so many times the past few years that I would have given up the entire company just to have one more conversation with her."
"Really?" Korra asks, her eyebrows raised. As long as Asami has owned Future Industries, it has meant the world to her. The last piece she has of a family that has long been torn apart.
Asami shrugs. "Well, maybe not the whole thing, but at least a part of it. Like when I found out my father was an equalist, or when Mako and I broke up, or when I realized I was starting to… really like you."
Korra gives her a squeeze. "I know it's not the same, but you can talk to my parents anytime you want. If you ever want…" she rubs the back of her neck with a free hand and hopes that she does not sound like she is rubbing in the fact that her family is very much alive, "a parent's point of view or something. I know they'll think of you like a daughter. My dad already loves you."
And then, before Korra even has time to flush in embarrassment, Asami is hovering over her, kissing her. It is emotional, wet with tears, but not at all unpleasant. Asami's hands are gliding over her face and neck, and then they are slipping down her body and under the hem of her shift, warm against Korra's sides. There is a part of her brain that is screaming too fast, but Korra pushes it aside as her hands linger at Asami's waist before moving beneath the fabric and up her back. Asami's skin is smooth and soft and Korra could run her hands across it forever.
Asami presses her into the ground aggressively, much more aggressively than Asami has ever handled her before, and a voice in the back of Korra's mind is still screaming that something is wrong, but she ignores it. Asami's palms feel too wonderful against her ribs. She feels fingers tugging at her chest bindings. Her own hand finds the clasp of a bra, and for a moment she wonders if they are really going to keep going.
Then Asami's hands are retreating, slipping back down her stomach to her waist to work at the knot on her pelt instead, at the tie on the front of her pants.
"Asami wait," Korra croaks. The hands still at once, and her girlfriend looks up at her, eyes heavy with confusion and concern. "We can't do this," Korra chokes. "Not tonight. Not like this. I mean, look at you. You're crying."
Asami sits up. She stares at Korra for a moment dumbfounded, as if she did not notice the tears streaming down her own cheeks, and then she is sobbing, her shoulders heaving as she gasps for breath. She buries her face in her hands. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," Korra replies as she sits up. She reaches out and draws Asami to her. The thick fabric of her shirt quickly soaks through at the shoulder.
"I just didn't want to feel so alone anymore," Asami admits. "When I was in that fog today, reliving the days my parents died and the moment I realized my father was an equalist, it was the worst I've ever felt."
"I'm sorry," Korra tells her. There is really nothing else to say.
Kuvira is not in her cell for long before she is retrieved. An electric shock, now familiar, runs through her body, and then she is nearly dragged up the stairs by guards who are unwilling to wait for her legs to start working again.
The sky is dark when she arrives outside. The courtyard is lit by purple lanterns, King Bumi's signature color and probably all the resisters could find the in musty closets of the palace. It looks festive, almost like Kuvira is not about to be read a verdict for a charge of treason.
She is not lead back to the rickety wooden chair like she expects to be. Instead, the guards stop in the center of the courtyard in front of the council table and force her to her knees. In rags with messy hair, under the disapproving eyes of the people surrounding her, she feels like she is a child, back in Ba Sing Se, unable to understand why no one wants her.
"Kuvira," Ling Dao's voice comes from behind her. "You are here today contesting a charge of treason against the People's Resistance in the Earth Nation. Do you understand the charge against you?"
"Yes," Kuvira answers, lifting her chin in defiance.
"Do you still wish to contest those charges?"
She grits her teeth. "Yes."
"Very well," Ling Dao answers. Kuvira can hear something like disappointment in her voice. "Council members, how do you rule in this matter?"
The man at the center of the table, middle aged with a thick beard, clears his throat. "We find the accused guilty of the charge of treason."
Kuvira sighs. It does not come as a surprise really. Ling Dao would not have put on a showy trial, open to the public, if she was not positive she would get the result she wanted.
"The council has spoken," the woman behind her announces. "Kuvira, former Great Uniter of the Earth Empire, you have been found a traitor to the people of the Earth Nation. I want this trial to serve as proof that justice shows no bias. A person's power, connections, and prior heroics have no bearing on the actions that bring them before the People's Court, and every person, whether a florist or a butcher or a…" a pause, "former hero, will be tried and sentenced the same way. Therefore, I am bound to the penalty set forward for the charge of treason by the Council of the People's Resistance. Kuvira, for your betrayal of your people and your choice to undermine a movement in their best interests, you are sentenced to death by hanging at sunset in three days' time. You are dismissed to your cell. On my part, I will bestow upon you the comfort of your prior accommodations. I recommend you use your remaining time to reconcile yourself with the spirits. I wish you peace and tranquility in your last days."
Kuvira is gaping. For the first time since she was named captain of Zaofu's guard, she is not focused on projecting strength. She had been expecting imprisonment. A long imprisonment. She has been underestimating the resistance movement after all, underestimating their dedication. Still in shock, she allows herself to be lifted by the arms and dragged back into the dungeon, back to the cell that once reminded her of a hotel room. It seems like nothing other than a prison now.
A/N: Hi, everyone. Sorry about the mini-hiatus there. I explained it all in the author's note on All I Ask of You, a Tyzula oneshot that I posted last weekend and am now shamelessly plugging, but in case you haven't seen it, I was on spring break, and I decided to leave behind everything that was stressing me out, unfortunately including fanfiction. Anyway, hopefully updates will be regular again, though I realize they've never been super regular for this fic and I apologize for that. Thank you, everyone, for your patience.
Also, I've been asked this enough times that I'm going to go ahead and answer it here. When I first posted this story, I didn't put Kuvira as part of a pairing because I had not decided who, if anyone, she was going to end up with. I won't tell you what I've decided, but I will tell you all that it is not going to be Su.
Anyway, this was obviously kind of a big, emotional chapter. Please let me know what you think. Thanks to everyone who reviewed Chapter 6, and I'll see you all at the next update.
