CHAPTER 1 - A Calm Capture

The ascent from the crater was slow and laborious. The light from the portal behind them illuminated every divot and curl in the vines underfoot, but still Kuvira was forced to watch her step as the ground steepened. Her eyes fixed downwards, her chin to her chest, she allowed Lin Beifong to lead her away, trying in vain to ignore the venomous gaze of Suyin.

Her mechasuits pulled ahead in minutes; by the time the three of them reached the top, they'd disappeared altogether. Probably fleeing the city, Kuvira thought. If she was to answer for her crimes, then so would they. Whichever direction they were running, she hoped they didn't stop until they reached the sea.

Outside of the crater the vines were less numerous, the ground more concrete than not, but no less difficult to navigate. More than once she had to use Lin's grip on her arm to rebalance herself. It was as though all of her grace and agility had fled with her defeat, all of her sure footedness replaced with hesitant lurches. Of course the constant burning in her side didn't help. With her hands cuffed together Kuvira couldn't brace her ribs as she walked, forced instead to curl her arms and pull her elbows back to hold herself together. Neither of her escorts seemed to notice her discomfort, and even as low as she'd fallen she was loathe to admit to any weakness. The nearer they drew to the lifeless skeleton of the colossus, the more self-control it took her not to stop altogether. What was that? The upper half of the giant mechasuit lay smoking in the rubble, and she fancied she could see the tattered coat of her firstmate. Did something move? Whoever had been inside with her would surely have been killed by the fall, but since Kuvira herself had survived she couldn't help but hold out hope for their fates.

A handpicked team of eight men, she had taken: her most loyal metalbenders and engineers. All of them had been from Zaofu, had trained with her, served under her.

All of them she had known for years. And all of them she had led to their deaths.

Kuvira gritted her teeth hard before her face could crumple. Keen eyes sought out the gaping hole from which the Avatar had carried her, searching for any signs of life. But distracted as she was, her foot caught on some debris below and for a moment she could only watch with wide eyes as the hard ground rushed up to meet her, before Beifong's grip on her arm tightened and wrenched her back before she could paint the street with her face. Her ribs jarred at the violent jerk and she choked back a strangled cry as she teetered where she stood.

"Watch where you're going." Lin snapped harshly, but steadied Kuvira with a firm hand on the back, "I am not carrying you all the way to Air Temple Island."

Air Temple Island? Well, of course they would want to keep her at what was now probably the most secure location in this wreckage of a city. She would be taken chained and tamed in front of Raiko, the very man she had only just unmade. It would anger her, had she not deserved it, and were she not trying to pull air into her lungs in a calmer fashion.

Chief Beifong frowned at her.

"Oh, calm down! You're going to pass out if you keep breathing like that."

She probably thought her hysterical, but Kuvira couldn't breathe for the stabbing in her side. Clearing her mind as best she could, she held her breath for two steps, then blew slowly out for another two. Slowly now, hold for two, in for two, slower, damn it. She was sagging against Lin, unable to keep upright, but by the end of the block she could breathe again.

All the while Su walked at their side, shooting unsympathetic glares in her direction and looking very much as though she were above it all.

If that were true, if she were above escorting her once-daughter to her jailor, why was she here? Spite. There was no sense of pride to be had here, no silent I-told-you-so. Kuvira felt nothing like a scorned child taken to task, but every bit like a sentenced woman marching to the gallows. She coughed, regretted it, and straightened as much as possible. It was rather hard to look dignified: a defeated tyrant walking through a city ruined by her hand, surrounded by the people she'd wronged.

By the time they reached Air Temple Island, her transformation from The Great Uniter to Kuvira was all but complete. The air acolytes watched her as they would a caged armadillo lion: warily, with barely concealed interest. Kuvira kept her eyes down. She watched the floor change beneath her feet, leaning against the wall- away from Lin- as they ascended into the temple itself. Suyin walked ahead, throwing open the doors into the study with a little more force than necessary, and turning abruptly on her heel to watch the prisoner enter behind. Lin pulled her charge into the room, forcing her upright with an iron grip on her arm, before stepping away. Kuvira missed the support almost immediately.

"Am I correct in assuming that neither of us expected this ending?"

President Raiko turned from the window, arms clasped behind his back as he surveyed The Great Uniter. The Great Uniter swayed on her feet.

"General Iroh has your men subdued," He said, "News of your surrender spread quickly."

Kuvira held his gaze. Of all the people she'd show weakness, it wouldn't be him. Even if she was struggling not to keel over.

"The Earth Empire won't be subdued so easily," She told him, and didn't mean it as a threat. From the way his eyebrows lowered, he took it as one. "My troops marched day and night to reach here. Even if they hadn't believed my surrender, they wouldn't have had the strength to resist your combined forces."

Raiko's moustache bristled. Something deep in the back of Kuvira's mind laughed at his expression. No doubt her metalbenders would have put up a good fight, but the Colossus had been her tide turner. Without it, she would never have marched for Republic City in the first place.

"And are you going to be our willing helper?"

Distantly, Kuvira remembered a request made far away and long ago. How full of hope she'd been. She answered now as she did then. A terse nod.

"Good. You're a prisoner of war, now, Kuvira. You'd do well not to cause any more trouble."

Kuvira could hear both threat and dismissal in Raiko's voice. They were done here. He was already turning away as Lin reappeared at her side and took her arm. Again they ascended, and this time she was done with all pretence of strength. Most of her weight settled in Beifong's grip as they wound up and up and up until Kuvira's back was bent and her knees trembling, and she was certain she'd pass out from exhaustion long before they got to wherever it was they were going.

"Up there." Lin jerked her head to a door in the ceiling. Suyin went first up the ladder as they waited below, disappearing for a few moments before her head reappeared and she beckoned them upwards. Stood at the bottom, her chained hands gripping a rung, Kuvira looked up at the door with unease… Yes, she had clambered up slippery vines to reach for victory, but that was before being thrown from her own weapon like a rag doll. It shamed her, but she only reached halfway up before both Beifong sisters were forced to metal bend her up to Su by her uniform.

The Matriarch didn't pause and wait for her sister to join them, all but dragging Kuvira back to her feet. They were in an attic, built from the same hard wood as the rest of the temple, and completely bare but for the thick poles that separated a small section of the room from the rest. Kuvira could feel no trace of metal. As sluggish as her chi was right now, the level of Suyin's distrust was enough to know there'd be nothing here for her to bend even in peak form.

They stripped her of all her armour, leaving her in nothing but torn and filthy fabric. Lin made to unlock Kuvira's restraints, but was stopped by sharp words from Suyin.

"Leave it." Kuvira had never seen Su look so vicious, not since Aiwei. "We don't know what she'll try."

She locked the cell door with a loud and dull thud. Kuvira half expected her to storm from the room, as she was wont to do, but Suyin lingered there instead, watched her through the bars.

"This is much better than where you kept my family, isn't it?"

And then she left her there, sat in the shadows above the city she'd almost conquered, wallowing in her own guilt.

The sun had long set by the time the trapdoor opened again. Through it came the pointed hat of a white lotus guard, lantern in hand. Even from the shadows of her cell Kuvira could make out the dusky colouring of a tribesman, blue eyes impassive as they fixated upon her. The tribesman turned back to the hole and reached out a hand to help up a soft, small figure dressed in crimson and gold. A flash of recognition ran through Kuvira's mind. Master Tenzin's wife, she remembered. What was her name? Padma? They'd never been introduced, even if they had once crossed paths.

"Thank you, Aklaq." The woman smiled at the guard, readjusting the tray in her hands and crossing over towards the cell.

Rather than follow behind her, the tribesman stood and watched from a distance, water skin poised at the hip. Kuvira fleetingly imagined reaching out and seizing the slight woman through the bars, if only to find out if the guard's orders were to kill or restrain.

She remained where she was.

"I'm Pema." Tenzin's wife told her, "We met once: the week of your inauguration. You complimented my sweet buns."

Her tone was matter-of-fact and Kuvira didn't know how to reply, so she simply nodded politely. Not Padma. She didn't know whether to curse her memory or her manners. Pema set the tray down against the bars, and took a step back.

"I brought you some bread and soup." She said, motioning to the wooden bowls on the tray.

That surprised Kuvira. In truth, she was sure they would forget about her for a little while, and leave her to rot up here. Pema seemed to read her mind.

"It's my job to keep everyone under my roof well-fed. Even prisoners."

Kuvira nodded again. A few silent moments passed before she realised that Pema was waiting for her. Damn it. She'd hoped they'd just leave it there. Clenching her jaw against the pain, she shuffled awkwardly forward and reached through the gaps with her chained hands, leaning against the bars themselves as she manoeuvred the bowls into her cell one at a time. Pema retrieved the tray quickly when she was done. Kuvira thanked her softly, eyes lowered as they tracked her retreat.

The older woman watched her settle back carefully against the wall, a bowl at each knee. "Do you need me to send up a healer?"

Kuvira refused to meet her eyes. "No. It's nothing."

"You look hurt."

"Just stiff." She shook her head. "Thank you."

It was obvious that Pema didn't believe her lie, half-hearted as it was, but she didn't press the matter. With a small nod, she turned and left, closing the trapdoor behind her with a soft clack. The guard, however, remained. Kuvira watched the tribesman warily, making no move to touch her food until they'd taken up a position against the opposite wall, eyes straight ahead, stance at ease. Clearly Raiko thought her a liar, to send a guard up to her cell despite her complete and utter surrender. It was just as well this one seemed intent on studying dust motes in the air. Kuvira had long been used to the gazes of a thousand, but the stare of one made her uncomfortable. Not with her lain so low.

She finished the soup slowly, forgoing the spoon and sipping lightly from the bowl itself. The steaming liquid warmed her from the inside, and while the room wasn't cold, she relished the feeling, savouring every mouthful. Her stomach, shrunken from her fast on the long march, was full when she finished. The bread she left untouched to the side.

Kuvira sat there, deep in the back of her cell, wide awake as the night drew on and the first rays of the pale morning light began to creep slowly across the floor. So still was she that a mouse scurried past her boot and sat there beside her. She simply watched as it nibbled at her leftovers.

The guard, as silent and still as stone, ignored her completely.

They kept her there under lock, key, and supervision for days. Kuvira rarely moved at all. She sat slouched against the wall, a shackled hand resting lightly on her side, taking shallow breaths and trying not to make any sudden movements. With nobody but a silent guard for company, and no way of moving without pain flaring in her chest, Kuvira's mind took every change in her surroundings like a thirsty man took water. Her guard changed twice during the day, each time with a meal, both firebenders. A third guard- always Aklaq, the tribesman- brought her evening meal and stayed the entire night, standing as always against the wall, hands clasped behind her back, eyes ahead. Guessing the guard's gender had been Kuvira's dull entertainment for one night, and the novelty of realising she was a woman wore off almost immediately. The guard was large and burly, with a face of hard angles, no sign of hair peaking from beneath the helmet, and no womanly form to speak of, but all it had taken was a peak at her crotch when she bent to take the empty food bowls. It seemed fitting to Kuvira. Men so very rarely posed any threat to her.

Fatigue didn't seem to affect Aqlak at all, as energised by the moon as a firebender by the sun, and so the nights passed with both women wide awake, neither looking at the other, listening to the distant sounds of the spirits hooting and giggling from far beyond the window. Kuvira wondered if the guard reported back about her lack of sleep.

She doubted it would matter.

Lin Beifong visited only once, bringing with her a basin of water, a rag, and a change of clothes. The tribesman broke position to venture closer to the cell, unlocking the door for her before taken up a bending stance on the other side of the bars. Beifong unceremoniously dumped everything down in front of Kuvira- a splash of water peaked over the lip of the basin before reversing at Aqlak's command- unlocked her handcuffs and stepped back.

"I can smell you from the door." She said bluntly, her arms crossed over her chest.

Kuvira noted that the new set of clothes included undergarments. She looked up at Lin.

"What?"

"Are you going to stand and watch?"

Beifong's lip twitched. "You say that like I haven't got better things to do with my time than watch you bathe." She looked away from Kuvira, scowling darkly. "Raiko insisted. He seems to think you can escape using the dirt from your skin, or something. Just hurry up."

She turned a little to the side as though it galled her to even be here. Behind her, Aqlak offered no such privacy. Yet again Kuvira was grateful for a female guard.

Kicking away her boots first, she peeled off stiff socks and breeches. Her tunic was long enough to offer some modesty, but even still she scrubbed her legs and changed her underwear quickly. Now for the difficult part, she thought. Her fingers began to fumble with the clasps at her neck. Lin's eyes flickered over as she gingerly pulled the tunic over her head, and despite her lack of comment Kuvira knew she could see the dark bruises painting her torso. The areas were so tender that Kuvira avoided them completely; dragging the rag carefully around the contusions before shrugging into the loose shift. The chest bindings she left aside, unable to bear them.

"You done?" Beifong grunted.

Kuvira returned to her position against the wall and held out her hands, allowing her wrists to be handcuffed once again. Lin picked up the clothes- neatly folded- with a wrinkled nose, and marched from the room without another word. The cell door clanged shut behind her.

"Psssst."

Kuvira paused, bowl at her lips.

"Psssst."

There it was again. One look at the Fire National Guard showed no reaction to the sound. Couldn't he hear that?

"Over here!"

It sounded like an echo, bouncing in from every direction. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for the source. It must have looked comical to the guard, or else he thought her mad, with her soup poised at her lips and her eyes rolling in their sockets: he laughed, and his jaw moved like the unhinged mouth of a puppet.

"You look ridiculous!"

Soup sprayed out like a fountain as Kuvira did a spit-take, jumping nearly out of her skin. She choked on air, and quickly dissolved into a coughing fit that had her close to tears. Her ribs burned, her lungs shrunk, and in the end she could only lay there curled on her side and try to breathe through the pain, watering eyes shut tight.

She opened them to see the Avatar looking down at her from the cell bars, brows drawn in concern.

Behind her the National stood as though nothing had happened, eyes ahead, mouth still.

Avatar Korra followed her gaze back to the guard. "Could you unlock the door for me, please?"

Kuvira slowly pushed herself back up against the wall, forcing the confusion from her face as the National drew closer, keys in hand. He looked no different from any other day… Had she been imagining it? Impossible.

The Avatar entered her cell somewhat hesitantly. If she noticed Kuvira's distraction she didn't mention it.

"You're not gonna… shove me across the room, are you?" Korra gave a small smile as she crouched down beside her, but Kuvira only lowered her eyes. "Lin said you needed healing. I'm sorry for not coming to see you earlier. With everything that's been going on I completely forgot you were inj-"

"Don't apologise." Kuvira interrupted, "You don't owe me anything."

The Avatar just looked at her with soft eyes. She brought out a water skin.

"Maybe not, but still… You mind helping me out here?"

Her hands hovered in the air between them as she waited for consent. Kuvira nodded once after a brief hesitation, and Korra helped inch up her shirt.

"That is one nasty bruise," She whistled lowly as the discoloured skin came slowly into view.

"It's what happens when you fall twenty stories." Kuvira muttered. Korra gave a huff of laughter at that.

"That was only twenty stories? Felt like a whole lot more." She gathered water around her hands like gloves, and pressed them lightly against Kuvira's chest, "You really shouldn't have held onto the railing like that on the way down."

Kuvira simply grunted in reply, concentrating on holding her shirt in such a way as to protect her modesty. She almost regretted discarding the bindings; it was bad enough that both Lin and Aqlak had seen her.

"Have you been in the city?" She asked as the water around the Avatar's hands began to glow. For a short moment the pain intensified and Kuvira bit back a wince, but it was quickly replaced with the heady relief of healing.

"Err yes," Korra said, "As of last night we now have all of your men in custody. Well, the ones in the city, anyway."

Kuvira took a deep breath, just because she could.

"Death count?"

The Avatar looked up at her in surprise, even as her hands continued to move.

"Death count? Zero."

Kuvira looked at her incredulously. "Zero? Nobody died?"

"Not a single one of your men." She shrugged as though it didn't surprise her. Kuvira wondered if any of them truly thought she'd come to Republic City for death. "I mean, the guys in the Colossus were pretty banged up, but your army surrendered when you did."

There was silence for a moment. Kuvira let her head tip back against the wall as the soft warmth spread throughout her body, reaching from the pads of her toes to the hairs of her scalp. It felt as if she were being slowly submerged in water. She'd never felt anything so wonderful, so pleasurable. How weird this would be if there were no water between them, with nothing but Korra's callouses against the tender skin. Bending seemed to allow for all manners of compromising positions.

She was distracting herself. Ask her.

"You said none of my men."

A long pause. Korra's eyes were on her hands, focusing a little too much to pass as mere concentration.

"There was one casualty. One of ours."

Did she really want to ask who? How could she not? Suyin hadn't been her only mother. Kuvira had also been raised to own her mistakes, to accept the blame and the guilt. She couldn't run from this.

"Who was it?" She asked quietly.

"Hiroshi Sato."

"The industrialist?" There wasn't a soul on this world who wouldn't know that name. But how he'd become involved in her war, Kuvira was at a loss. "I'd thought he was in prison."

"He helped build the hummingbirds. He was piloting the one that cut through the robot."

A memory flashed through Kuvira's head-rage and sweat, the metal hand breaks free, slams down, crushes machinery and sinew, twisted, dead, lifeless, filthy INSECT- and she suppressed a shiver.

The Avatar's hands were moving again, brushing over her stomach to the ribs on the other side. Silence again. Kuvira didn't know much of the industrialist's relation with the avatar, could've sworn she'd thrown him in prison herself, but it was painfully clear that his life was something of worth to Korra. As had become the norm in the last few days, she didn't know what to say.

"…Avatar, I know no amount of apologies-"

"-don't, Kuvira." The Avatar's tone was firm but not unkind, "I'm the wrong person for that. You can apologise to his daughter one day, when she's ready."

Hiroshi Sato had been a widower. And now Asami Sato would be an orphan. The thought of it made Kuvira sick. For three years she had pulled the tattered rags of her kingdom from the dirt and sewn it back together, just as Suyin had done for her when she was only a child. This long journey she'd undertaken, the lives she'd saved and the lives she'd taken, the blood, sweat, and toil she'd spent to give her forsaken nation the guidance it needed… And here she was: just another murderer begetting death and destruction alike. The ruins of Republic City would attest to that.

"Wasn't that your plan, minimal casualties?" Korra continued, "Bigger stick and all that, the whole point of having the greatest weapon in the world… Well, aside from me, of course."

Kuvira grimaced. "Things didn't go quite to plan."

"Well, all of the citizens were being evacuated. The United Nations army stood down. Even the men in the battleships made it out. And you didn't hit any of the airbenders."

Not for lack of trying. She'd tried to swat a 9-year-old as though he were nothing more than a fly, for Prithvi's sake.

"Baatar?" The name was almost a whisper.

"He's alive." Kuvira closed her eyes in relief, hoped the Avatar didn't notice how she sank back against the wall. "Actually, without him, we would have lost the city. He told us how to bring down the Colossus."

"He must hate me." She kept her eyes closed.

"Actually, even after you fired, he didn't look so happy to be helping us. He was just-" There was a pause as Korra searched for a word, "-heartbroken."

So, Baatar had lost all faith in her. That was almost worse than the thought that he could hate her. She'd already known it in her heart, but it did little to soften the blow: she'd lost him, herself, and their empire.

"I'm just about done here." Kuvira looked down and saw the bruises across her torso had all but faded beneath Korra's hands, "You won't be a hundred percent for a little while, so try to take it easy."

I'm sure my time as a prisoner will not be too strenuous, she thought, but kept silent. The Avatar gathered the water into a ball, before directing it back into her water skin in a steady stream. She sat back as Kuvira readjusted her shirt.

"They're going to be moving you soon." She said, "By some miracle the police headquarters is still standing. Well, most of it, anyway. Raiko wanted to keep you here in an immobiliser, but I talked him out of it."

The look on Korra's face turned sour so quickly that it was almost comical, and it was clear she did something much louder than 'talk'. In truth, it would be no less than Kuvira deserved, having kept Suyin and the twins in the same conditions as she conquered Zaofu. Although the close confinement would be inconvenient in the long term. Hence the underground prison.

"Will I get a trial?" Kuvira sat straighter against the wall as Korra stood and made to leave.

"Oh, definitely." Korra nodded, "But it could be a while. We've got a long year ahead of us." She smiled wanly and stood back as the guard locked the cell, before raising her hand in farewell and turning away.

"Korra."

The Avatar turned back, eyebrow raised.

"Thank you." Kuvira looked her dead in the eye. Whatever passed between them was silent, but the both of them knew as well as each other what was left unsaid.

Korra just smiled again. "Take care, Kuvira."