Chapter Text
31.
“I trusted you.”
Kuvira doesn’t bother looking up from where she’s seated on the floor; she knows who her visitor is—has since she heard that distinctive pattern of footsteps—and the voice only confirms her suspicions. It’s a voice she’s spent years straining her ears to hear, basking under praise and affection and love—the wrong kind, but enough at the time.
There’s none of that craving to listen that voice now, though. Not when it’s laced in such entrenched disappointment and betrayal. However, trapped in chains of platinum in a cage of wood, she has very little to do with her time, and so she responds.
“You must regret that decision,” she says, unable to hold back her resentment any longer. “But, then again, you were lacking in suitable options for your successor, weren’t you?”
“Don’t.”
The word is a warning that she doesn’t care to heed, there’s not much more room for her to fall as it is. “Two nonbenders, two hot-headed idiots, and a coward. Not the greatest record for such an esteemed bloodline.”
“Kuvira.” Su’s eyes narrow, and here’s the anger she’s been searching for, the anger Su is so good at wielding.
“None quite the right match to assume your position of leader, so you defaulted to the orphan who worshipped the very ground you stood on—” Kuvira looks down and laughs. Her words are bitter enough to taste on her tongue. “The perfect host to become your replica.”
“Kuvira.” Su’s tone’s changed, and when Kuvira looks up, ready to face the product of her spite, she finds herself looking up into pity.
“Don’t.” It’s her turn to warn. “Don’t you dare.” Because where she was ready for anger, for vicious, unadulterated fury—pity is what the Avatar gave her and something she’s wholly unused to, something she doesn’t know how to respond to.
“I always thought of you as my daughter,” Su says, gentle like when Kuvira was eight years old and already sick of the world. “I still do.”
Kuvira closes her eyes to stop herself from laughing hysterically. “Well I certainly never thought of you as my mother.”
Su sighs. “Yes,” she says quietly. “But that doesn’t change anything.”
There’s a click, and the door to her cell swings open. Her eyes widen. “Su—”
“You will leave immediately.” Su unlocks her cuffs—hands warm but eyes unfeeling and cold. “You will never see Zaofu again.”
She reaches out to catch Su’s wrist. “I love you,” she says, voice soft and delicate with feeling.
“You have five hours before they realize you’re missing and start searching. There’s a jeep with supplies outside.” Su gently tugs her hand from Kuvira’s grasp, and when she turns, there’s an uncharacteristic sadness in her eyes. “Goodbye, Kuvira.”
Su leaves with all of the lithe grace and elegance that Kuvira remembers, and she has to stop herself from running after Su, from pinning her against the wall and demanding answers to all the questions crowding in her mind. She doesn’t get up, alternating glances between her cell and her chains for a moment. It’s not a question of whether they’ll be able to catch her—even if they send Korra after her, she won’t have trouble evading capture—but whether freedom is worth never seeing Zaofu again.
Of never seeing Su again.
Spirits, when had she become so pathetic—has she really fallen so far? That she would comfort herself with scraps like a coward? This is her second chance, to redeem herself in her own eyes if nothing else.
Freedom tastes empty, but she drinks her fill.
