Korra draws in a sharp, audible breath as her chest is suddenly exposed.
"Kuvira, stop," she demands in a shaky voice, "I don't know what you're doing, but you need to stop!"
The woman looks up at her. There's something on her face; the shadow of a smirk. "Need to stop? Why would I do that?" Her hand closes tightly over the cup of Korra's bra. "It's just the two of us here, just you and me. And I'm the one in control."
Korra is trembling now; panic is beginning to swiftly set in.
"Kuvira, I want you to stop."
The woman doesn't listen. Korra grits her teeth as she gropes her chest. "Kuvira," she hisses, trying to turn her torso away, but with the weight sitting on her hips the effort only makes pain flare through her wrists. The woman callously ignores her, hooking in her fingers and tugging insistently. Korra feels a warm touch brush against bare, intimate flesh and a terrible chill sweeps through her. Eyes watering, she screams.
"I SAID STOP!"
Korra furiously bucks her hips and the last of Kuvira she sees before she goes tumbling to the floor is the surprise on her face. Korra twists on the bed and has her feet pointed in the direction Kuvira falls, breathing hard and ready to kick out. But the woman only picks herself slowly up off the ground, hair falling across her eyes. The smirk Korra thinks she saw is gone; now Kuvira wears nothing. Her face is entirely devoid of expression.
"Let me go," Korra says.
Kuvira carefully pushes the hair out of her eyes and regards her from behind an emotionless gaze. "Free yourself."
"What?!" Korra pulls at the metal binding her hands, rattling the headrest. "I can't bend. You know I can't bend!"
But the woman is already turning to leave the room, a hand reaching for the door handle. Korra watches her, staring in open-mouthed disbelief.
"Kuvira?"
The door quietly but firmly clicks shut.
"KUVIRA!"
Korra shouts the woman's name until the effort makes her voice hoarse - and that doesn't take long. The feeling of sandpaper scraping down her throat is all the reward she gets, for the door remains closed and Kuvira silent. So she tries to pull herself free instead.
Korra folds herself in half, pressing the soles of her feet to the wall above the mangled frame of the headrest. She pushes, with all her might - and then kicks at the thing when it refuses to give, gritting her teeth whilst forcefully tugging at her arms. Her head bounces up off the pillows as she flails bodily, teeth gritted as she writhes in a desperate attempt to free herself. Korra's eyes are watering with pain when her legs fall limply back down onto the bed. No matter how she twists and turns, she can't escape.
"Kuvira! Let me go. Let me go, please!"
Korra can't get out, and she's scared. She's trapped in this room all by herself with no idea what's going to happen to her, and no idea what thoughts are running through Kuvira's mind. She tries to push away those racing through her own, the one's that are making her sweat as she tries not to panic. But all Korra has to do is glance down to see her top split open and chest exposed, or look up and see her hands tangled into twisted bars of metal to remember just what had been happening to her. And what is there to stop Kuvira from walking back into the room and...and...?
Tears are beginning to leak from Korra's eyes, but she tells herself they aren't. Think, think! She can do this, she can free herself. She has to. Or Kuvira just might come back. Kuvira just might decide she isn't finished with her yet. But minutes later, after Korra has tried everything the moment it comes to mind, she is still trapped.
She shouts, and kicks, and thrashes so hard against the metal frame that it cuts into her skin and scarlet rivulets trickle down her forearms. But it doesn't release her. The bars hold fast, hold her hostage. There's only one thing she has left, but Korra can't do that anymore and Kuvira knows it. She knows there's nothing Korra can do to stop her. She can't bend. She can't fight, not forever. She's helpless.
She's powerless.
Korra starts to cry. She can't stop herself. Her chest heaves with wet, loud sobs that can no longer be held back. They've been waiting to pour out, ever since she woke up in a hospital room and frantically reached for her bending. But it isn't there. It's been taken from her. She's lost her gift, her strength, and without it she's nothing. She's no one.
Korra's face is splashed across every newspaper in the city. She's the first target, the first victim, the first obstacle to be removed from the Equalists' path to resurgence. She's propaganda, never a person, never a woman who has had something precious stripped from her. No one looks at her the way they used to anymore. They all look at her like she's so much less than what she used to be. And why shouldn't they? Korra has seen herself in the mirror; with a roughly shaven head and her face drawn in quiet despair, she barely recognises herself. Korra can see it, and so can everyone else. She is the Avatar, or she's nothing at all. But if that is true, why is there always one voice that tells her otherwise?
Her thoughts turn back to Kuvira. Since that day in the hospital, she has been unfailingly insistent that Korra is worth much more than just her title. That despite what has happened to her, she is the same woman. In Kuvira's eyes she sees only respect, for Korra. Not as the Avatar, but for who she is in spite of that, and it is a look she recognises from the time they sat amongst violet flowers, where she extended her hand to a woman weak, defeated and alone and lifted her up onto her feet. So Korra trusts her. She realises how foolish she has been.
Kuvira is and will always be a dangerous woman. She built herself a stage upon the bodies of dissenters for all the world to see. For three years, she manipulates, uses and abuses her way into power. And now Korra too lies at her mercy, humiliated and seething. But not for much longer.
She tilts back her head and through angry tears glares up at her bound hands. Her skin is slick with sweat and blood, but the bars twisted around them are still tight. The muscles in her jaw tense, she nevertheless hisses when she starts experimentally swivelling her wrists. Too early. She's not free yet, but she sure as hell will be. With renewed purpose, Korra narrows her eyes at the metal frame holding her captive.
The guest room door is thrown open so violently the hinges groan loudly in protest. Korra stalks across the threshold, fists clenched, lips curled and broad shoulders rolling - to find Kuvira waiting for her. Sitting on the arm of Lin's couch, the woman lifts her chin away from interlocked fingers and starts rising to her feet. It's her eyes that make Korra's single-minded stride falter, no longer empty, no longer cold, that and what Korra sees on the coffee table behind Kuvira's shoulder: a roll of bandages laid next to a plastic bowl of water. As if Kuvira cared all along.
"You did it," the woman says.
It takes Korra a moment to register that she has stopped moving, that she's standing still staring across the room at Kuvira and can't make herself move. "Did what?" she replies harshly.
"You freed yourself. You can do it."
"Do what?"
"Platinumbend."
Korra stares incredulously at the woman. "What the hell are you talking about? I can't bend anything. Especially not platinum."
"But you know how, now. You know what it takes."
Korra shakes her head, nonplussed. "What?!"
"You know how," Kuvira says again. She lays a finger against her temple. "It's this that matters; only this."
"I didn't. Bend. A damn. Thing," Korra growls, biting off every word.
"Then you wouldn't be standing there. Then I would still be in my prison cell."
Korra is silent, squeezing her nails into the flesh of her palms. Kuvira is delusional. She wants nothing more than to walk over there and hurl her fist into the woman's face. But she can't. It's her eyes, those damn eyes that for once are open and unguarded and in them Korra sees so much, but now...now she is beginning to feel like she doesn't need to ask what it all means.
"You're bleeding," Kuvira tells her. "I have -"
"Stay away from me," Korra cuts in. Her voice is thick as she takes a step back. "I won't let you touch me again."
The woman drops her eyes and wordlessly lowers the hand gesturing to the coffee table. Korra pushes down on the urge to wince as she opens the cold tap after walking over to the kitchen. She runs her wrists and forearms under the flow of water, a ring of pink impressed into her skin. The bite of the metal bars is a constant pain, even as she gradually pulls herself free. Korra shakes off excess water into the sink. She pauses briefly before grabbing some paper towels, clutching them around her wrist as she steps out of the kitchen. Her eyes refuse to go to Kuvira, who stands silent and alone. The only thing she wants now is her jacket.
"You saved me, Korra," the woman speaks suddenly, and despite herself she stops in her tracks. "You stopped me from destroying myself, from destroying everything when I learned how to bend my prison cell. I wanted to tear it all down, but you promised me week after week that you would find a way to get me out of that place. So in the end I wanted you to come and find me; me, the woman you helped keep alive."
Korra turns to face her. "What you were doing in there," she says, glancing towards the guest room and swallowing, "were you really going to...?"
"Finish what I started?" Kuvira says when words fail her. "I have the capacity for cruelty, Korra - we all do." She closes her eyes, drawing in a long, slow breath. "But I am not a monster. I would not make you suffer the things I did."
"Then why did you start in the first place?!"
"I'm a harsh woman, Korra. Perhaps I am heartless, too. That's what it took to do the things I did," Kuvira replies quietly. "But you aren't cold, like me. You care about what is right and what is not. So you should take my place. You can teach what I couldn't, because now...now you understand."
Korra doesn't say another word after that. Her head and heart are in disarray. The thought of staying here a minute longer only makes her feel more anxious to get away. She grabs her jacket and pulls up the door behind her as she leaves the apartment. Korra is flagging down a taxicab shortly afterwards as she steps out into the night. The driver asks her where she wants to go. After so many months, it's strange how easily his address finds her lips.
A/N: Chapters 3, 4, 6, 7 & 8 underwent notable revision on 7/3/15