Chapter Text
Kuvira turned her attention back to the finger catch three and half feet above her. After a few slight adjustments, she reached out, dug her powdered fingers into the hole and pulled herself up in one smooth motion. A moment later her other hand grabbed the top volume. Her shoulder muscle contracted and she brought both hands to the geo-shaped volume. Done . She hung there for a second before pushing back, landing on her feet in the mat.
The thump echoed in the relatively empty climbing gym causing the three people who were just entering to turn their heads. The two men of the trio had similar facial features but where one was tall and skinny, the other short and broad. The woman was wearing an eye catching azure tank top and her hair was fashioned in a sporty bob. Avoiding eye contact, Kuvira bee-lined to the locker room.
The annoyance that Kuvira felt at seeing the picture from the school news came flooding back. It featured the bob-haired woman standing on the NCAA1 championship podium, complete with a shining medal.
She plopped on the bench and took a swig of water in an attempt to calm the sudden burst of frustration and anger. As she struggled with her inner turmoil, Kuvira wiggled out of her shirt and put on a clean work polo.
The two had met seven years ago. Back then Korra had sported messy fishtails, a loud laugh, and far too much energy. She remembered that Korra would fist-pump whenever she landed a touch. Despite being a head shorter and 2 years younger than everyone else in her group, Korra was still able to defeat most opponents with ease and displayed smarts well beyond her age.
“But not me,” Kuvira said aloud to herself in the otherwise quiet locker room . It belied a bitter sense of pride. She let out a sigh and her thick eyebrows scrunched together.
“Hey, I know you, right?” The question in what she thought was an empty locker room startled Kuvira. Looking up, and not surprisingly, the very object of her ire stood leaning against the doorframe nonchalantly with one hand on her hip and a grin that spread from ear to ear.
Before the climber could begin to deny the question, Korra asked, “Kuvira, yeah? You used to kick my ass in foil!”
Keeping her feeling of irritation in check, Kuvira stood up and kept her face neutral in-spite of the screaming thought in her head, which was a loud resounding “dammit.” Instead she reluctantly said “uh, yeah,” while reaching out a hand automatically. She hated herself for it immediately, “sorry about the chalk.“
Korra took it all the same by saying “no worries. We are about to start anyways. The three of us were just talking about how impressive you were with the boulder just now.”
“Thanks.” Kuvira felt weirdly uncomfortable with the compliment from the NCAA champion.
“So, my buddies Mako and Bolin are actually from the men’s sabre team. Do you want to hang out with us and maybe give us a few pointers on climbing?”
Indicating down to her shirt with a logo reading “Toph Rocks”, the name of the gym. Kuvira shook her head. She was thankful that she had the excuse of work to not prolong the conversation. “My shift is about to start. I’m doing...” She paused trying to think of what areas of the climbing gym would keep her away from the fencers. “...Stuff in the back. Admin stuff. Sorry,” Kuvira excused herself sheepishly.
“Oh, sure. That’s good to know. No problem. I’ll catch you later then. It’s good seeing you again!” Korra disappeared from the doorway after flashing another too-large grin.
Kuvira sat on the bench a few moments more with slumped shoulders. She did not look forward to the next few hours doing tedious data entry and scheduling. All because she was desperate to stay as far as she could from fencing.
---
Kuvira snaked through the mess that was the living room. Although her three housemates were playing Mario Party on the couch, she entered her room without a word. A bed, a desk, and a small bookshelf were the only furniture in her room. The walls were barren. Blackout curtains shielded the room from the quiet college town outside.
Sitting on her bed, Kuvira dropped her elbows on her knees. Seeing Korra brought back memories that she thought she had carefully stored in the back of her mind. Kicking off her shoes and laying down on top the coverlet, she stared at the ceiling until she got a sense of vertigo from the popcorn texture. She closed her eyes.
A young Korra standing on tip toes and craning her neck to see, lets out an excited yelp with a “it’s her! She’s coming!”
A really tall figure clad in green warm-ups approaches. The Olympian shakes hands with the first girl, then the one next to her, then -
Kuvira opened her eyes, forcing the memory back down. I’m in a different place now.
She picked up the phone to distract herself. There was only one new notification, a new friend request from Korra.
For a moment the climber’s finger hovered over the “delete” before finally settling on the “accept.” From there it was easy to see the fencer’s page and Kuvira began swiping through posts. Mainly they consisted of fencing competition updates and various marine mammals. And of the latter, the most featured creatures were sea otters.
Just as she was about to back out to the app’s main screen, her eye was caught by an event notice. “Tryouts for the RCU Fencing Team!” The event was scheduled for the upcoming first week of school. A strange temptation to hit that “interested” star welled up in Kuvira. In the end she threw the phone down on the bed without pressing it.
She rolled over and gave up for the evening. Just get on with your life.
---
Two and half weeks before school started, and much to Kuvira’s dismay, the three fencers became regulars at the climbing gym. It seemed to her that Bolin was naturally curious and enthusiastic about, well, almost everything. He spent a good portion of his time attempting bouldering despite the fact that he could hardly get past the starting hold. Mako, on the other hand, seemed to be bored every time he was there, resenting that he was repeatedly dragged along by his friends. Much of his conversation centered around fencing, or comparing everything to fencing. His entire focus was on the sword oriented sport and his lack of interest in his surroundings easily got on Kuvira’s nerves.
Meanwhile Korra turned out not to be the haughty and unpleasant fencing nerd that Kuvira had anticipated. Instead, the fencing champion took on climbing with gusto, embracing it as a good exercise and way to problem solve. She gravitated to speed climbing the walls. It did not take her long to move from easier paths to more challenging ones.
Kuvira mostly kept her distance from the three of them, not wanting to engage in any personally dangerous conversation. After about a week, the topic she had been dreading finally came up.
“Korra told me you guys fenced Cadet at a NAC against each other,” said Mako in a half bored way. He was returning his climbing shoes at the front desk that Kuvira was manning that afternoon. He was obviously itching to be back in his comfort zone.
Kuvira stiffened at the mention of the fencing tournament. The conversation was unavoidable as he stood closely by the desk and there was nothing calling her attention away. Doing her best to feign disinterest, she took the shoes. In a practiced manner she reached below the desk, grabbing the shoe spray. “Yes, we did,” was all she said.
Behind his brother, Bolin clapped his hands sending chalk in every direction. Being his usual curious self Bolin followed up. “That’s cool! Which weapon3?” Luckily he did not really give Kuvira a chance to answer before continuing on. “We haven’t had a decent women’s epée team since Zhuli graduated. You should totally join if you fence epée. Or sabre,” he added after a brief pause to take in more air. “I mean, Korra is great but as a team we haven’t done…”
“I don’t fence anymore,” said Kuvira curtly, cutting off Bolin’s rambling. From the corner of her eye, she could see Korra approaching.
“Why not? Do you have an injury?” Asked Mako.
“No.” Kuvira stopped herself from an eye-roll. Her tone was a bit more reproachful than she wanted to let on. Of course a person like Mako could not imagine someone leaving the sport for anything other than some catastrophic bodily damage.
“Well…” He continued to press.
“Hey guys, how about that ice cream, huh?” Korra cut in, saving Kuvira from further interrogation. “I burned some solid calories today! C’mon!” In a jovial fashion, the saberist wrapped her arms around her friends’ shoulders and turned them towards the exit. Over her shoulder she gave Kuvira a curious look, as if she had wanted to know the answer too, but thought better of it.
Thankful that the questioning was done for the day, Kuvira knew she would rather have spent twenty hours straight in a library researching obscure case law rather than spending five minutes dealing with fencers.
—
Kuvira looked at the night falling outside before looking down at her watch. Fifteen long minutes before she could close out the desk and begin cleanup. The bulk of the evening rush had passed and only a few people still lingered at the gym.
She absentmindedly sorted the carabiners. By no means did they need to be organized to perfection, but if Kuvira had learned anything in life, things had a tendency to spiral out of control like a knotted tangle of ropes. Good habits always garnered good results.
Kuvira liked working at “Toph Rocks” and all of the benefits it provided. Free equipment use and climb time went hand in hand with enough pay to cover what she knew would be an expensive year of book buying. The gym was close to the campus and kept her near the law library so she could keep up with her summer reading in prep for the coming school year.
A minute before she could lock up, the glass doors opened and in came the last person Kuvira wanted to deal with that evening. Korra stepped into the gym lacking both her usual companions and proper workout wear.
This can’t be good. Kuvira thought while Korra scanned the people still in the gym. Stuck behind the front desk there was nowhere for the climber to hide. The fencer approached with a little hint of trepidation.
“We’re closing in five minutes.” Kuvira said matter-of-factly even though she knew Korra was not there to climb.
“Actually, I’m here to talk to you.”
Kuvira sighed and spun her chair, already looking for a way to evade the conversation.
“Look, I know you don’t owe me anything. But the more I think of it, I just keep remembering how serious a foil fencer you were, and, well, I found this.” She pulled out her phone and slid it across the counter under Kuvira’s gaze.
On the screen was an old photo taken some years before when digital cameras had a lower pixel count. In it are four adolescent girls of varying heights flanking a woman in green warmups. In the background are the classic signs of a fencing club. There were various countries' flags, another one with Olympic Rings and some equipment in neat rows in storage along a wall. The old woman was an Olympic champion. Kyoshi had made a surprise visit to the club to encourage young female fencers. Korra’s usual smile and distinctive fish tails were on display as she stood next to the Olympian with a slightly taller Kuvira on the other side.
Staring at the photo for a beat too long, Kuvira asked with a calm she did not really feel, “what’s your point?”
“Well, we all managed to qualify for the camp that Kyoshi ran that year, right? I lost to you at the NAC and you promised me a rematch at camp. You never showed up and I was dying for a rematch.” Kuvira continued to wear a flat expression on her face.
Korra quietly slid the phone back to her side of the desk. She then asked “What happened?”
Her turquoise eyes glared at Kuvira, daring the other woman to share.
“Nothing,” Kuvira said with a sigh bordering on wistful.
Korra furrowed her brows and an obvious look of disappointment crossed her face. Kuvira could feel the fencer’s body language begging her to give in and share.
The climber was bending a little in the battle of wills. In one breath she said “the project I was under ran out of funds. My foster parents neither wanted nor could afford to keep me fencing.”
Visibly abashed, Korra dropped her eyes and said “I’m really sorry.” Her expression revealed that she was uncomfortable with the results of her pushing.
There are a few beats of awkward silence that Kuvira finally broke by saying “it doesn’t matter now. It’s all in the past.” She had said it not just as a statement, but also to convince herself.
“Well, do you still WANT to fence?” Korra had found she could look in the other woman’s eyes again.
“Does it matter what I want?” It came out a little sharper than Kuvira wanted.
“Well, this is a great time to hop back in. The school pays for equipment, travel, and coaching. Mako and Bolin weren’t lying, we could always use more women to fill out the team.”
“It’s not that.” Kuvira fidgeted. Sure, she had stopped fencing at fifteen because of money. Hopping back in at twenty-one meant she had lost six years of training. Six years of experience. Six years of the camaraderie, the hope, the sure rush of knowing you were better than your opponents. Climbing was fun, but it had not managed to scratch that itch of testing skills and knowledge against an opponent in real time.
She knew coming in freshman year that the school had recreational fencing classes and it was common practice for teams to recruit from the classes when they needed to. She feared she would not be as good as she once was and that she would not be able to match up to the fencers already on the school’s NCAA team.
“It’s been a long time since I fenced. You probably have way more experienced fencers.” She said quietly.
Korra flashed an unexpected toothy grin. “C’mon, I’ve seen how smooth you are on the rocks. With your skills we’ll probably see you at Paris 2024 if you start training now.” Kuvira softened at Korra’s exaggeration. There was just something really sincere about Korra’s unbelievable optimism.
“Korra, not everyone is a natural like you.” At this Korra grinned, looked a little sheepish and ran a hand through hair leaving it to rest on her neck.
“Can you at least come to a practice at the town club? I have spare foil gear I don’t use anymore and they rent equipment. We could go over the basics and see how rusty your footwork is after your break.” There was an appeal to at least trying her hand at holding a weapon again after six years. Stopping had not been by choice, but starting again would be Kuvira’s decision and no one else's.
“Please say you will come! As much as I want that rematch, I think it would feel better if I kicked your ass when you had some practice under your belt.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Kuvira, knowing that the dream of wiping the floor with Korra’s ass would feel all the better if she could do it not just in climbing, but with a foil in hand.
___
A quick slap on the thigh sent the two opponents into an attack. Korra struck Kuvira’s weapon out of the way with a circular flick of her wrist, forcing a wide open target. Hastening to defend herself, Kuvira took two steps back and caught the tip of the incoming foil, breaking her opponent’s attack. Quickly she sent her tip forward and compressed it making the blade bend obviously on target. “Touch,” said Korra acknowledging the hit.
“Score is now three to four.”
The duo returned to their respective on-guard lines and bowed their legs, preparing another engagement. Before they settled back on guard, Korra wiped the bottom of her slippery shoes off on her tall socks adding to the level of dirt already there. Kuvira read the “tell” knowing she was making Korra second guess her plan of attack.
Another quick thigh slap and an “allez” from Korra and they began again. The attack followed a very similar pattern to the previous engagement. After Kuvira blocked and attempted to hit again, but before she could riposte, Korra was ready with a block and hit of her own. “Touche” acknowledges Kuvira. “bout.” 4
The fencers took off their masks, saluted, and shook hands. Out of habit, Korra ran a hand through her brown hair to loosen the strands that had stuck to her sweaty forehead.
“Hey, good bout.” She sat down on a bench at one end of the hall. Her opponent followed placing her mask on the bench between them and swept her long braid behind her back with her free hand.
“I don’t know. It’s like my limbs can’t keep up with my brain and my brain can’t keep up with my eyes.” said Kuvira, taking the glove off her right hand. She flexed her tense fingers and cracked the joints.
“You gotta start somewhere,” said Korra encouragingly. “You’ve gotten a lot faster than last week for sure.” Korra zipped open her white jacket. Sweat had stained the shirt underneath it making it stick uncomfortably.
“Hmm” Kuvira was poking her foil to the floor absentmindedly, making the tip retract and rebound, the metal blade flexing and unbending with each push. “Do you think I have a chance of making the team?”
Korra turned to look at her contemplatively. “I mean you are already better than most, but foil is our best squad as far as the women's teams go. Jinora is Coach Tenzin’s daughter and has been fencing since she was little and has a lot of tournament experience.”
“So…Nepotism?”
“Dude, it’s not like that. It’s more of a ‘carrying the family legacy’ kind of thing. Go Bison.” Korra said the last part while pointing at the school’s mascot on her soaked shirt.
“I’m an orphan, remember? I’ll just have to take your word for it.”
Used to Kuvira’s dark humor, Korra ignored her sarcasm and continued. “And Opal is our team captain. She’s a junior, too, but she’s been in the championships every year. So…” Korra shrugged apologetically, “only one spot left on the squad.”
“M’kay.” The lighter skinned woman nodded. She felt stupid. A week and half ago she could not have cared less about how many people were vying for how many spots on whichever teams. Now that she had made up her mind to get back into foil fencing, the very real chance of her not making the team really nagged her.
Shaking herself out of the frustrating thought, Kuvira turned to Korra with narrowed eyes and a teasing smirk. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask, were you hitting on me when you came to Toph Rocks that day? Digging up ancient history and everything.”
“What?! No!” Korra’s jaw practically dropped to her chest. A priceless expression.
Clearly satisfied by the banter, Kuvira smacked the glove on Korra’s arm. “Relax, I’m just fucking with you.”
Korra’s dramatic pout turned to one of her usual smug looks and she said, “Come to think of it, back when I was 12, I might or might not have a minor crush on whoever managed to kick my ass. Let’s just say it’s a prodigal complex.”
The corner of Kuvira’s mouth twitched down disdainfully. “What an idiot.”
Sprawled on the bench, Korra laughed whole-heartedly.
Kuvira had grown to like the saberist in the two weeks they had been training together. She found that they actually shared many similarities. They were both competitive, athletic, very cocky in some aspects of life and very insecure in others.
“C’mon. One more bout.” Kuvira stood up. “And I hope someday someone will wipe that grin off of your face. Fencer or otherwise.”