05:33
The Zaofu Security Building was an angular metal compound built high into the Metal Mountains, sitting watch over the entire city like a an owl atop its perch. Deep into the mountainside, beneath battlements and barracks and thousands of guardsmen was their forensics department and in one particularly well ignored part of that department, deep underground sat the offices of the Zaofu coroners.
"Why do I have to be here." Bolin muttered emptily on the low metal bench outside of the coroner's office. Opal sighed and held onto his hand.
"Because you're the only one who knew the assailant." Mako said, crouching to meet his brother's eyes. "Look, I know you don't want to be here Bo but we need to get to the bottom of this.
"I've completed my examination, you can come on in now." A surprisingly lively mortician said, leaning a head out the frame of her office door. She wore a white rubber smock and black gloves, both streaked with blood.
The office was nothing but cold metal walls reflecting cold crystal lights and a desk full of ridiculously out of place office toys. And a slab. Over a large black grate there was a slab, and sat upon that slab was the body of Baraz. His face still bore the injuries of his fight with Kuvira, injuries that would never heal. His body was naked and covered in a white tarp with his feet hanging off the end, a tag around his big left toe. His kidneys, liver and lungs sat in sealed jars on a shelf and samples from his teeth, hair and nails sat in small test tubes.
The doctor pulled off her apron and both of her gloves. "Doctor Fang, yes that's my real name, no I'm not a mover villain." She said, presenting a soft hand that smelt of disinfectant and trapped sweat.
"Chief Beifong, what do you have for us?" Lin said formally.
Bolin kept his eyes on Opal, watching her with sad tired eyes as if frightened to look at anything else in the room.
"We've run all the tests we can run for the night, if you want a more in depth analysis it'll have to go through the specialist labs." She reported dryly as she sat down on the cold hard edge of her deck. "Oh would anyone like a sweet by the way." She rattled a glass and gold bowl full of hard sweets in wax paper wrappers. Bolin pinched one, then another for Opal, though he ate both.
"Your report, Doctor Fang." A slightly exasperated Mako pressed.
"Oh, oh yeah sure it's just usually me and the corpses and they aren't very useful company." Fang said, a bit dejected before she cleared her throat and stood up straight. "Based on a chemical analysis of his kidneys and liver he has recently taken up serious substance abuse including alcohol, cactus juice and over-the-counter sleep medication. Based on his x-rays I'd say he's suffered a few broken bones even before the fight with Kuvira. Ribs, jaw, knuckles, I'd say he's been getting into a lot of scrapes." She moved over to Baraz's body and moved his right arm out from under the cloth. His knuckles were bruised black and a few of his fingernails had been removed for investigation. Tattooed, rather poorly into his arms were the characters for a name. Ahnah. "Do you recognise this marking?" Fang asked.
"Ahnah, it's this girl he was with, they escaped the camps together." Bolin said softly.
"I wonder where she is?" Opal pondered aloud.
"Perhaps we should alert Security, if they're this close Ahnah might come looking to avenge him." Mako recommended.
"Good Idea, Mako, we should look into it immediately." Lin said supportively. "Doctor Fang, I'd like a copy of that report if you wouldn't mind." The doctor nodded and passed her a folder.
"We should probably get home." Bolin said, making for the exit. "If I don't get enough rest I'll have to cancel my sessions." He explained as he and Opal disappeared out the door.
"Bolin." Opal called as she chased after him. "Bolin!" She repeated, louder and then put a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah." Bolin said a bit too loudly and then turned his head slowly, he was red faced and slightly watery around the eyes. He didn't stop walking, in fact he quickened his pace as if fleeing from something. The few clerks and orderlies stuck on the midnight shift cut him a wide berth. Even afraid and on the edge of tears he wore an Instructor's uniform and that commanded enough respect to move out of his way.
"I've seen you fight a hundred metre robot without breaking a sweat but you looked like you were going to throw up in there." Opal pressed, easily keeping step with him.
Bolin stopped so quickly Opal had taken two steps before she realised. He slumped himself up against the wall of the corridor and looked over to her. "When my parents died they needed someone to identify the bodies." He finally said in one long sighing breath. "Mako said he could do it alone but I was too scared to sit with the officer so I ran in after him."
"Oh Bolin, you didn't…" Opal exclaimed, she was holding onto him now.
"I saw them, all black and brown and shrivelled. And that smell…." His nose scrunched up and he looked physically ill now, though he managed to hold onto whatever was in his stomach. " You know I can barely remember what mum looked like but I can still smell her sometimes." He finished emptily.
"Well you've got a new family now." She said, wrapping her arms around him. "And we're all so glad you're here." She said into his ear as she gripped him tighter. Bolin breathed deeply, it didn't smell of burning or death or preservatives. It was that mix of scented conditioner and the ozone tang of high altitude that stuck to Opal's hair.
06:02
Lin and Mako occupied an elevator bound for one of the higher offices of the security force. It slowly climbed a few dozen floors up to the highest reaches of the compound.
"I must say Mako you've been impressively impartial about this whole thing." Lin said, staring straight ahead at the high shine of the elevator doors.
"It's not easy." Mako said holding up his burnt arm, it still hurt when he flexed at and when he tried to firebend out of it. "Baraz is on that slab because of Kuvira's labour camps, because he had Fire Nation ancestry, if I had been born anywhere but Republic City that could have been me."
"You and Bolin versus the entire Earth Empire; I'd give you even odds." Lin said calmly. "I mean you blew out that Colossus' power core."
"And if Korra and Master Katara hadn't been able to heal me that could have been a career ending wound." Mako said, there was a bit of pain in his voice as he clenched his hand.
"Mako, you're a good officer, we would have found you an office job." She said, laying an encouraging hand on his shoulder.
"I joined to help make sure no more kids would have to suffer what me and Bolin went through, there's no way I could do that from behind a desk."
"I don't know, I happen to have a pretty useful desk?" Lin said, she turned her head to look at him. As expected Mako flinched under her gaze. "Just throwing that out there."
"What no!" Mako protested, red faced. "Chief, that's years away, besides there's no way I could be half the leader you are."
"Probably not." She shrugged. "But you could always try."
The doors finally opened on the central command floor. The central offices of Republic City were larger, but so was Republic City, and yet Zaofu's counterpart was no less glorious. When the elder Bataar had designed it he had not intended it to be some utilitarian expanse of function. A high ceiling was supported by huge angular pillars at the corners of the room they were themselves decorated with brass and gold decorations of intense grid work and jagged triangles. In between the pillars switchboards and banks of radio equipment were being seen to by a dutiful staff in green and black robes. At the furthest edge of the room glass windows three floors high showed the morning sun coming in through the valley and all of Zaofu below it.
"Guard Captain Timur." The Chief said, calling across the office floor to the man stood in the middle of half a dozen desks. "We have a request to make." She said as she approached the taller, fatter, younger man.
"Of course." The somewhat tired night captain said, with the morning sun casting him in silhouette. "Anything for our friends in the RCPD."
"We need you to put out an APB on a woman called Ahnah, she's an Earth Kingdom citizen of water tribe descent." Lin explained quickly.
Timur's face scrunched up into a slight sneer. "Another outsider. Makes sense I suppose."
"What about us?" Mako asked a tad affronted.
"Hey, the way I see it if you guys can do half our job in a place like Republic City then you're okay by me." He said warmly.
"And what is that supposed to mean." Lin said, welling with patriotic fervour. "Half your job indeed." She muttered under her breath.
"It's just a difference of philosophy. Aang made the republic so that anyone could come and try and make a better life for themselves, but Zaofu was founded by the best for the best. It's just natural that we don't have to worry about crime as much as you do." He explained breezily, as if it were the most sensible thing in the world.
Lin squinted slightly and clenched her hands into fists; Mako noticed it and hoped the Guard Captain had not. "Maybe we should forget philosophy." Mako said in an attempt at diplomacy. "If you could just put out that APB, I'm sure it's been a long night for both of us."
Lin grunted and then made for the door. Mako followed after her. "Sorry if I ruffled a few feathers." Timur yelled behind them.
07:24
"Hold still!" Asami commanded. For a moment, the Avatar, master of the four fundamental elements of the universe and bearer of the oldest spirit in existence stood exactly still, as Asami told her to. And then Korra flinched again. "Honestly, I thought earthbending was supposed to be all about patience." She huffed and finally released the tape measure.
"Well maybe if you would actually tell me what it's for I'd try harder." Korra retorted. "Oh, fine." Asami huffed. She picked up a large ledger from the bed she had been sitting on and pulled out a blueprint. It was a drawing of Korra, if a tad idealised, in a heavily modified airbender wingsuit. "I started making you a wingsuit but then I thought, you're the avatar, you could do so much more than just fly with it. See, it has cable gauntlets in the wrists, and a streamlined waterskin over the back and I even included some platinum armour to keep you safe." Asami said proudly, as she traced a finger over the various parts of the suit.
"That is so cool." Korra smirked. "Does it have pockets?"
Asami's face dropped for a moment. "Pockets?"
"You know, for snacks, and things." Korra explained.
"Pockets." Asami hissed before she started pouring over her blueprints looking for a place to put the desired pockets.
"Asami, it's not as if you have to get it done right now." Korra said, resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Yes, I do!" Asami protested, almost frantically. "You heard Su, warlords and deserters are coming for this city and you've got to face them." Asami took a deep breath and then spoke again, a tad more evenly. "I promised your dad I'd look after you and one assassin already got into the city, this just felt like the best way to keep you safe. If something happened, If I knew I could have done something about it I'd never forgive myself."
"Hey." Korra said, moving closer to Asami. "I'll be fine, pockets or not." She gave Asami a quick, clumsy peck right where the jaw met the neck, it was tad too forceful and Korra's nose prodded Asami almost exactly in the ear hole, but the thought was there.
Asami laughed and twisted away playfully. "Airbending, you can master but a kiss is beyond you." She teased.
"Well we can't all be a prissy, beautiful, elegant rich girl you know." Korra teased.
"But you are, Korra." Asami laughed, Korra just raised an eyebrow. "I mean you're Chief Tonraq's daughter, doesn't that make you royalty, or something."
"The South elects its chiefs, you gold digger." She answered with a self amused chuckle, then her voice changed to a more tender note. "Besides the Avatar has to travel the world I couldn't really make a home there." She said softly.
"So what do you call home?" Asami asked, she half suspected the answer as she took hold of Korra's hands.
Korra slumped against Asami, her powerful musculature slackened and relaxed for a moment. "Right here." She said with a lopsided smile.
O8:07
"It's not good enough." Su yelled between ragged breaths as she dropped down from her wire in the middle of a similarly exhausted dance troupe. "From the top, we're doing it again until we get it right!" She barked with all the fury Lin might muster leading her officers into battle.
"It's been a hundred and twenty six times already." Officer Hong Li protested.
"Then you better hope we get it on the hundred and twenty seventh." She snapped in response.
"Su you've been up since dawn." Lin protested as she walked in, Mako had gone off to talk with Kuvira's guard detail.
"I run a city Lin, that's nothing new." She answered snidely as she let herself out of her harness. As she placed both feet on the floor she seemed unsteady on her feet. She wobbled over on tired legs to sit on the windowsill. "Take a break, we'll try something else after lunch." She said to her dancers, defeated.
"Su, are you alright?" Lin asked, maintaining a comfortable distance.
"Of course I'm not alright." Su snapped. "I negotiated with Raiko to have them moved to the South Pole, I let them back into the city, I ran to their rescue, and all Kuvira could be bothered to say was a load of nonsense to shift the blame for all the suffering she caused and then she snaps at me, for not loving her enough!" Su ranted, her voice echoed through the hall of the Beifong estate as the last of her recital group was shuffling out. "I gave that girl everything." She seethed, more quietly.
"Su." Lin said hesitantly. "I don't want to take sides but you never did make her a part of the family."
Su scowled at her for a moment, if it were anyone else she might have considered much worse than scowling, but she didn't. "She was eight when I found her Lin, I didn't want her to live under the Beifong name if she didn't have to, you remember what that was like."
Lin nodded sadly for a moment. "Yes, I remember. But did you even ask her." Lin crouched down until she was looking her sister in the eyes.
"I didn't know how to ask her without it sounding like I was coercing her. By the time I thought she could decide for herself she was her own woman and she'd fallen for Bataar, I thought it might make things awkward for them if we just started treating them like siblings. I just wanted what was best for her." She explained tenderly.
"Did you ever tell her any of that?" Lin asked, she moved to the windowsill opposite her sister.
"Well you know how it is Lin, you try, but then when the moment comes you can't think of a way to say it right so you leave it until next time." Su replied.
"Well she's not going anywhere." Lin answered.
"No. She's crossed the line this time." Su snapped. "The entire continent is in disarray, who knows how many are dead, and my city is flooded with refugees with no where to put them and no domes to keep them safe, because of her."
"Su couldn't you just…." Lin went to say.
Su stifled her with a look, the only time in her life that had ever worked. "No." She said simply. "We're done here."
08:32
Sweet steam rose out of a small porcelain cup. The body had been removed a while ago, but the epicentre of destruction that it sat in was still there. When Lin entered the Villa she wondered how long Kuvira had been watching that upturned living room.
"Hello, Chief." Kuvira groaned tiredly, it seemed as if it had been a considerable undertaking to turn her head from the mess to the door, as if the weight of her own head was nearly too much to move. The healer had come and gone, but Kuvira still looked beaten, her nose was slightly crooked now and the skin around her eyes was still a slightly tender purple. Bataar hadn't fared much better, dark and heavy rungs sat on his sleepless eyes. He moved slowly and deliberately as he set the two cups of tea down on the table. When he sat beside her it was obvious he had a pensive frown on his face as he just watched the gears turn in Kuvira's head.
Lin carried a slim folder in her off hand, she sat at the table and slid it across the table.
"What is this, Lin?" Bataar asked as he turned the folder the right way around for them. It became clearer upon opening up the folder to reveal a series of autopsy photos and copies of a coroner's report.
"I'll give you the run down." She said flatly. "Based off the evidence I'd say that this guy was having a pretty tough time of it, then he heard you were coming here and made a break in."
"How did they get in?" Bataar prodded.
"Well, with the walls down and the Earth Continent in disarray Zaofu's got a lot refugees coming its way, for all we know he was here for months." Lin responded.
Kuvira just sat there shaking her head as she listened.
"Ku-Ku, are you okay?" Bataar asked.
"Ku-Ku?" Lin muttered under her breath.
"Fine, yeah." She lied briskly. "I'm just going to go lay down." She said emptily. She stood up, kissed Bataar on the head and wandered down the hall wearily, her head still shaking. The Beifongs waited until they heard the bedroom door squeak shut.
"One of those days?" Lin asked softly.
The walls of a metal house were thick but they couldn't do much to block out Bataar's voice. Kuvira lay face up on the bed, fully clothed. Just listening.
"I'm afraid so." Bataar huffed. "I thought coming back home might cheer her up, I mean she seemed like she was letting go yesterday, but now….honestly she's worse than ever."