Chapter Text
8.
Kuvira’s eight when she meets the guiding light of her life.
Suyin is bright and energetic and watches Kuvira’s bending with a degree of fascination that makes her flush with embarrassment. She’s not used to attention, having learned as a child to blend in with the background, but Suyin doesn’t allow her that freedom. Her eyes are kind and her hands are warm as she fixes Kuvira’s stances and her gaze stays on Kuvira even when an assistant approaches her from behind, like she’s afraid Kuvira will disappear into the shadows if she looks away.
She asks Kuvira to come with her; Kuvira says yes without hesitation.
Kuvira had a home once, a house and a family that welcomed her for a time, but none of that can compare with the depth of emotion—the dedication and loyalty that Suyin inspires in her.
She would follow Suyin to the ends of the Earth.
-
“It’s rare to find someone your age with so much talent,” Suyin tells her on the airship to Zaofu, her new home. “I hope you’ll allow me the honor to train you.”
Kuvira looks at her with wide eyes. “Of course,” she rushes, quickly averting her eyes to the ground. “I—it would be an honor to be trained by you,” she says quietly.
There’s a hand on her cheek, gently tipping her head up. The smile on Suyin’s face is warm and Kuvira feels her stomach clench with unknown emotion, knowing she would give anything, anything to feel that smile aimed at her.
-
“Kuvira, this is my son Baatar Jr, and my husband, Baatar,” Suyin says, turning to fully face the tall man with messy black hair and severe looking glasses standing by her side. Her voice is soft; delicate with feeling that Kuvira doesn’t want to acknowledge, forcing her to look away with dismay.
Baatar Jr. stands next to them—two years younger than her and three inches shorter. His glasses aren’t a great fit for his face, continuously dropping from their perch on his nose. He looks like his father, lean and lanky and soft. Hands that don’t bend stone, hands stained by ink and roughened only by the edges of parchment he plays with as his father works.
“Hi,” she says. These are the people she must compete with for Suyin’s attention and recognition.
She will not lose.
9.
Suyin cradles Opal close to her chest, humming to her quietly as she drifts off to sleep. Kuvira sits in a nearby chair, watching the whole exchange with wide eyes.
Opal is barely half a year old and still a tiny bundle in her mother’s arms. She seems so fragile now that she’s not screaming and Kuvira can finally see more than just her mouth. Her hands are tiny, grasping tightly at the blanket around her, and her eyes are squeezed shut.
“You can go back to sleep,” whispers Suyin, finally looking up at Kuvira. There are dark smudges beneath Suyin’s eyes—too many nights with too little sleep, wrangling her three children (one non-bender, one bender, one to be seen), and Kuvira shakes her head.
“I can take care of her,” she says, holding her arms out. “You need to sleep more.”
Suyin blinks, alternating a look between Opal and Kuvira, before she laughs. “Okay,” she says, carefully transferring Opal to Kuvira’s arms. “She seems fine now, you can probably put her back in a few minutes.”
Kuvira doesn’t even notice when Suyin slips out the door, too busy looking down at the Opal. She has the same smile as Suyin, Kuvira thinks, and the same eyes when they’re open. She has her father’s ears, his calm temperament, the same blood running through their veins.
She wonders what kind of child she and Suyin would have. If Suyin would smile at her the same way she does when she looks at Baatar, a child sleeping soundly in his arms. She stays in the room, holding Opal for a few hours more before she finally places her back in her crib.
11.
“What's most important to you?” Suyin asks her while she runs through a complex movement that involves a low spinning kick to bend the ground beneath her imaginary opponent followed by an immediate jump kick to hurtle a small boulder into her opponent’s stomach.
“You,” she says without thought. “Baatar, Baatar Jr, Huan.”
She slips and falls with a groan. “Opal,” she finishes, letting her head drop to the ground. “Is there a reason why I need to be able to both speak and bend at the same time?”
Suyin covers her mouth, but Kuvira can still hear her laugh. “How else will you taunt your opponent as you fight?”
Kuvira shuts her eyes and tries to slow her heart enough to breathe through her nose. “I promise to fight in complete silence if it means we can stop these joint lessons.”
“You’ll never make it as a villain.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ll live.”
13.
Zaofu closes its gates at night, an enforced curfew she’s slowly become used to day by day. But it doesn’t stop her from sneaking out the gates with a blanket and a few snacks before evening hits, laying back in the grass just beyond the city and watching the sun set in bleeding oranges and purples.
With the gates, there’s no light pollution to block the stars, and she traces constellations with her fingers in the darkness. They're the one thing that’s stayed constant since she moved with Suyin—the one permanent fixture from her old life and the only thing she truly values from her past.
It’s by accident that one of the days she sneaks out coincides with the falling of a meteorite—brilliant tail flashing across the sky to land with a crash in a cloud of dust that Kuvira can just barely make out in the distance.
Suyin’s birthday is in a week and she’s an avid collector of meteorites and it seems almost like fate for Kuvira. It takes hours in the dark to walk to the crash site, but when she finally stumbles upon it she comes upon a loss.
She hasn’t successfully metalbended yet—she knows she can, she must because Suyin says she has the potential and to disappoint her is hearsay—and the meteorite looks like a steaming ball of ore. She clenches her fists and takes a breath.
She can do this. She will do this. She always gets what she wants.
She manages to bend off a chunk, concentrating to mold it into something resembling a star. It comes out uneven and slightly askew, but there are five tips in a mostly equal distribution, and she turns to make the long trek back.
Suyin accepts it with a wordless hug and keeps the memento on her desk, a place Kuvira passes often enough to see the soft smile Suyin has when she looks at it while she works.
14.
“Call me Su,” Suyin says one day during practice. Kuvira is exhausted; eyes closed and back flat against the ground.
Bending has always come easily to her, molding earth and, now, metal with the finesse of a master blacksmith. But Suyin—Suyin is like a part of the earth, acting on instincts honed by a life of adventure and danger.
Kuvira thinks back to Baatar, a man who forgets meals more times than not, mind working overtime to sketch out gorgeous, modern designs to fit the beauty of Zaofu. She wonders how he ever charmed Suyin, a true amazon at heart, when his sight and reflexes are worse than a baby badgermole’s.
“Okay, Su,” she says with forced indifference, like she doesn’t treasure every word Su says to her.
She senses the vibrations of Su’s footsteps before she feels the shadow shading her from the sun. “Break time’s over, let’s see if you can land a hit on me this time.”
The earth is warm beneath her hands, and Kuvira twists her wrists, aiming for the ground where she feels Su standing over her. The rock shifts and she hears a gasp before she rolls to her feet, fist aimed out and a sizeable boulder hanging over Su’s head from where she’s fallen to the ground.
“Tricky,” Su says as she laughs. Kuvira flushes, pride rising in her chest, and she lowers her arms.
Just as quickly as her own turnabout, she finds the ground whipped from underneath her, sending her crashing to the ground as Su flips to her feet to bend solid rock cuffs around Kuvira’s wrists. “But two can play at that game.” There’s another feeling gathering in her chest now, a little like a slow strangling of her heart and lungs, getting stronger every second she spends staring up at Su’s face—her eyes, her cheeks, her lips—
She quickly closes her eyes and let’s out what she hopes to be a believable sigh of exasperation. “You win again, master.”
“Su,” Su corrects, offering a hand and a friendly smile that sends Kuvira’s stomach fluttering.
15.
Huan joins them for bending lessons when he turns eight. He has no passion for fighting, though, instead favoring bending earth into odd geometrical shapes.
He still learns the basic movements, moving as fluidly through the forms as his mother. But there is an elegance and sophistication to his bending—unsuited for the fighting that Kuvira craves.
On Su’s birthday, he bends a horse out of a boulder Kuvira chips out of a cliff for him. The head is lopsided and there’s one leg too many, but Su hugs him all the same. “This is wonderful,” she says. “I’m so proud.”
He blushes under her praise as she floats the sculpture to the center of the garden, building a quick pedestal to place it on. Kuvira looks on and feels a clenching in her stomach, the bitter taste of jealousy in the back of her throat. But the grateful look Huan shoots her as Su relocates some metal from the wall to cover the pedestal sends the jealousy reeling back and Kuvira smiles in return.
16.
She and Baatar sneak into the greater city for his fourteenth birthday, wearing long coats with hoods that hide their faces. The guard lets them onto the train with a curious look that he eventually shrugs off when he sees their tickets.
It’s his first trip into the city unaccompanied by guards or parents, and they're free to roam as they wish. Baatar drags her to the library and some of the history museums, while Kuvira insists on stopping by an armory and a sweets shop.
Things go without a hitch until they stop by an ice cream parlor while they wait for the next train up to the estate.
“Well aren’t you two the cutest couple,” says their waitress, smiling indulgently at them.
“Um,” Baatar says and averts his eyes.
She winks at them and leaves them with a few menus.
“Is this—” Kuvira starts, only to be interrupted by the frantic shaking of Baatar’s head.
“No, of course not.” His cheeks are a blotchy red, and all Kuvira can see when she looks at him is his father.
The waitress ends up serving them a sundae on the house, a sticky sweet thing full of whip cream and syrupy fruit. Baatar avoids looking her in the eye the whole ride back.
19.
The day before she leaves for the academy, Kuvira walks into Su’s office dressed in uniform. A look of surprise crosses Su’s face, and Kuvira knows Su understands the significance of the metal jacket she wears, the distinctive helmet she has tucked under her arm.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to stop me,” she says, a preemptive strike. “This is my way of giving back for all that you’ve given me—a way to protect what’s most important to me.”
“I would never have stopped you.” Su stands, walking over to her and placing a gentle hand on Kuvira’s cheek. “You’ve grown so much.”
She has an inch on Su now, a drastic difference from the feet that separated them when she was a child just learning to master her horse stance.
“Thank you for all you’ve done for me,” she says as she steps back, clasping her hands together and bending into a deep bow.
“Oh, stop that,” she hears, and she looks up to find Su with her arms akimbo. Su brings her into a hug, pressing a gentle kiss to Kuvira’s forehead that sends a shiver down her back. “Come back to visit. We’ll always be here for you.”
Kuvira can finally put a name to the feeling blossoming in her chest whenever she sees Su. Affection and arousal mixed into some indefinable mass that festers in her heart. It’s why she’s running to the academy, because she can’t stay with Su, who sees her as her daughter.
Not when Kuvira sees her so much differently.
20.
Kuvira loses her virginity to a fellow academy recruit.
Kay has green eyes, short dark hair, and a passion for fighting that rivals Kuvira’s own fervor. She’s a competent bender and sparring partner, and she fucks with a single-minded intensity that leaves Kuvira breathless, grasping at the wooden headboard of her bed as pleasure surges through her veins.
Sometimes, she looks down into Kay’s eyes and sees someone else between her legs, a playful smirk on a familiar face as Kay licks her clit that sends her head tipping back as she comes.
“It’s not strange, you know,” Kay tells her during a break of one of their spars. “A lot of people have a crush on her.”
She blinks. “Who?”
“The matriarch.”
At Kuvira’s puzzled look, Kay rolls her eyes and sighs. “Suyin Beifong?”
Her world shatters for a moment, and she’s sure her cheeks are flushed a bright cherry red. “What—”
Kay laughs. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. That distant look you get when someone mentions her.” She shrugs. “I understand; she’s beautiful and her bending is exceptional.”
Kay doesn’t know her past—that Su essentially adopted her and is supposed to be her surrogate mother, not an object of desire.
She doesn’t let herself feel guilt for her feelings this time. “She moves with such elegance and grace,” she says, allowing herself this one spoken concession.
“And you want to know what that’d feel like when she’s under you.” Kay leers, a flirty, teasing thing that Kuvira can’t help but laugh at. “I know.”
23.
Both she and Kay have the morning and afternoon off, a reward for taking two night shifts in a row, and something Kuvira is immensely grateful for. The sun is just peeking through the window, and she shifts further to her side, throwing an arm over Kay with a mumble and hiding her face in Kay’s hair.
She hears footsteps nearing the door and a soft knock of fist on metal, but she ignores both sounds in favor of nuzzling against Kay’s neck.
“Kuvira, are you there?” asks a familiar voice. There’s a shift of the knob, and the whine of their rusty door opening and suddenly—“Kuvira!”
Her eyes shoot open and she rockets to sitting position, finding herself staring directly into the dumbfounded expressions of Su and Baatar Sr.
Oh. Oh, Spirits.
Kay shifts by her side, murmuring a sleepy, “Kuvira?” She rolls over, rubbing a hand over her eyes as she sits up as well. “What’s wr—”
Her eyes widen and she freezes, hand clutching to the blanket that covers her breasts. “Matriarch.”
Kuvira contemplates throwing herself out the window, caving in the roof, fashioning a sword to stab herself with, anything to break the awkward silence that’s fallen over the room now. “This is Kay,” she says instead.
There’s another beat of silence accompanied with a continued round of staring. “Lovely to meet you, Kay,” Baatar finally says, offering a small smile. “We wanted to take Kuvira out for breakfast, we’ll just—step out into the hallway and give you two a moment.”
He tugs at his wife’s hand, eventually able to pull her out of the room, even when Su continues to doggedly stare ahead.
“I should dress and meet them outside,” Kuvira says, shooting Kay a worried look when she doesn’t get a response. “Are you okay?”
“The matriarch and her husband are at our door,” Kay says faintly.
She slings on a pair of pants that she’s not sure are hers and flings a top over her shoulders. “I’ll explain when I get back,” she rushes, bending on the metal pieces of her armor with little finesse. “I’m sorry.”
Su has managed to regain some of her bearings by the time Kuvira rushes out the door, and she greets Kuvira with a brief, stilted hug that accurately forewarns the rest of the morning.
Baatar makes a valiant effort to carry the conversation alone, asking about her recent promotion and how she’s enjoying life at the academy. Su stares at her the whole time, eyes thoughtful and piercing, and Kuvira wants nothing more than to sink into her seat and drown.
-
One beautiful spring day, Su decides to create a dance troupe. The flowers are in full bloom, fresh, brilliant pinks and oranges decorating the green of the garden, and Kuvira has been assigned to patrol the estate boundaries.
It’s a mundane task far below her rank; she’s lieutenant and the top pick to become Captain of the guards once Zhang retires, but she suspects her voluntary absence from the estate these past few months has been noticed and finally called out. Su can bear grudges and repress thoughts for weeks and months, but, in the end, she always makes her mind known.
“I always thought you would end up with Baatar Jr,” she hears. When she turns, she finds Su standing next to one of her meteorite statues, arms crossed against her chest.
“You may have raised me in your image and with your ideals,” she says. “But I am not you.”
Su closes her eyes and sighs. “I know.”
Kuvira wonders if Su even noticed the similarities she shares with Kay; the same green eyes, the same close-cropped hair, the same warm smile, the same vicious temper. If she’s told her son that his infatuation is a doomed affair, that Kuvira's not in love with a copy of Su's husband but with Su herself.
“Does she make you happy?” Su asks as Kuvira turns to leave.
Kuvira pauses, gaze fixed to the ground. She thinks back to Kay’s mumbled excuses, the fear and betrayal in her eyes as she stumbled through her half-hearted reasoning about breaking up.
“Yes,” she says, even when it hurts to say such an outright lie. Aiwei isn’t here to expose her.
“I’m choreographing a new dance adaptation of Love amongst the Dragons,” Su says. “It’d mean a lot to me for you to join.”
“It’d be my honor." Because even now, she still can’t say no.
24.
Her promotion warrants a formal ceremony in front of the capitol building, and Su pins the newly minted captain’s badge to Kuvira’s lapel in front of hundreds. Behind her are the people she’s sworn to protect, and in front of her is her reason why.
“I’m so proud of you,” Su says to her, running a hand along Kuvira’s collar then up to cup her cheek. “You’ll make a great captain.”
She catches Su’s hand before it falls, letting herself indulge in holding it there for a few, warm moments before she leads it down. “Thank you,” she says, voice catching in her throat. She throws her arms around Su, enveloping her in a surprise hug.
Kay has been avoiding her since their breakup and Kuvira’s stopped trying to talk to her. But that’s behind her now; she steps out of the hug, turning to the crowd and walking up to the podium.
“Under the wise leadership and guidance of our matriarch Suyin Beifong, Zaofu has always been a peaceful and orderly town,” she says. “I resolve to keep it that way.”
26.
The Avatar and her friends visit during a dance practice, and Kuvira’s sure that Su calculated the timing so they walk in on the most complex move. It’s actually Kuvira’s favorite part, too, being launched from the metal petals always feels a little like flying.
Lin Beifong is an odd reflection of her future—will Kuvira remain Captain of the guards as long? Lin seems to find satisfaction from her job, but Zaofu is much more peaceful and boring compared to Republic City, she’s sure, and Kuvira is already becoming restless. Lin's also a representation of the grudges Su can keep, and the destruction from their fight lasts longer than it takes to fix the estate. The papers make quiet and subtle comments about Su's rage, and Kuvira can only agree.
She’s always known that Su has a temper, an anger that builds easily and quickly, but the explosive quality to her and Lin's fight is still surprising. And, just days later, to see them fighting together so easily even after decades apart and a twenty-year rift only recently healed between them—it sends a flush along the back of her neck that she’ll never admit to.
And then there's the Avatar.
Korra is willing to sacrifice her life and more for a cause she believes in and Kuvira takes that lesson to heart. What Korra does is true service, and Kuvira knows if there’s ever a cause that calls upon her in the same way, she will do the same and put everything—her life, her personality, her integrity, everything—on the line.
27.
“There are already wars,” she says. “The Earth Queen nearly destroyed our nation, this is our opportunity to change things.”
“It’s not going to happen,” Su snaps, eyes narrowing in a clear dismissal.
There’s an edge to her tone that Kuvira’s unused to, a brittle, threatening sharpness that reminds her of that morning with Kay, when Su realized that Kuvira's not a perfect copy of her, that her storybook ending wasn’t meant to be and her surrogate daughter was sleeping with a woman that could only be described as a younger version of herself.
She closes her mouth and turns away. Su doesn’t believe in the monarchy but she’s not brave enough to do what needs to be done. Su is willing to abandon her homeland so she can live and lead in her utopia, ignoring all those who don’t have the same luck or wealth.
She imagines her life if Su hadn’t spotted and taken her to Zaofu—a childhood spent in an orphanage because her parents didn’t want her followed by an adulthood fending off those who would exploit her bending. And for the first time in her life, Kuvira despises Su, who has never felt unwanted or helpless.
If Su won’t help her save their home, that’s fine. Kuvira will do it herself.
28.
“Baatar,” she says, looking at his earnest face and feeling utterly helpless. “I don’t—” She pauses and doesn’t know how to fill the silence.
It’s been six months since they left Zaofu, four months since they fully settled the unrest in Ba Sing Se, three months since their first province swore loyalty, two months since the next three followed. Six months since she proposed the plan to Baatar, knowing full well of the love he held for her. Six months since she last saw Su’s face filled with betrayal and anger.
She looks at Baatar and sees his father—gentle and soft with none of the elegance and vicious edges of his mother. His glasses fit better now, thick rectangular frames that sit comfortably on his nose. He’s still two years younger than her but now three inches taller, a gap that matters little to Kuvira, who could snap his back with a move of her arm.
“It’s okay,” Baatar says, smile sad. And even though it hurts to see, it’s in a different tier of pain compared with Su’s disappointment.
“I love you,” she says. “But as a brother—I can’t give you what you want.”
“It’s okay,” he repeats. His head dips down with a sigh. “Before we left, Mother told me about that morning she found you in bed with your—friend in an effort to stop me. It doesn’t matter; I’m indebted to you for setting me free, for allowing me the chance to fully prove myself to our parents.”
She winces. “Your parents, you mean,” she says. “Su made her opinion of me quite clear.”
“Kuvira,” he says. “Marry me.”
She looks up at him incredulously. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t care if you don’t love me. The Beifong name has meaning in the Earth Kingdom, and we’ll need that. You saw Ba Sing Se.”
We’d be seen as conquerors, Su had said, and greeted with nothing but war.
And like so many other things, Su had been right.
Ba Sing Se, overrun by warring factions, had united against an outside aggressor. The fighters she imprisoned were sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, martyrs battling for the freedom of their city. They saw her as a dictator, fully capable and willing to inflict her will and force their obedience. And, faced with few options, she eventually accepted her role.
She will become the angel of death, the Great Uniter, if that means bringing peace to her home. She’s an unknown outsider, no famous name or bloodline to distinguish her, and it’s the best she can do.
“Kuvira?” Baatar asks, voice hesitant.
“Yes,” she says, looking up at him and steeling her resolve. “Let’s get married.”
30.
Kuvira has the whole Beifong family separated shortly after they set up camp in Zaofu. Their permanent prison is still being designed and built by Baatar, and limiting the family’s interaction before the cage is finished is something both she and Baatar agreed would be for the best. They exchange the pods for platinum handcuffs and chains and lessen the security. Wei and Wing are unlikely to try something rash without one another or information on the status of their mother, and Su is too protective of her family to try anything that could risk their lives.
Kuvira pays a visit while Baatar is busy trying to replicate Varrick’s experiments, intercepting Su’s meal and taking the bowl to the cell herself.
“Suyin,” she says, keeping her tone formal. “I thought we might talk.”
This scenario has haunted her dreams for months, but the disgust and anger on Su’s face still hurts like a kick to the gut. And even now, even when she knows Su hates her and wants nothing more than to see her dead, Kuvira is still firmly, inextricably in love.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Su says.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you had joined me,” she tries, letting frustration bleed into her voice. “You tried to assassinate me.”
“I created you. It was my duty to stop you.”
“Created me?” she asks. She steps forward, placing a hand on Su’s cheek. “What, are you that ashamed of how much of yourself you see in me?”
Su flinches, and Kuvira knows she’s struck gold. “Isn’t this what you wanted, for me to follow in your footsteps? I’m even engaged to Baatar—I know how much you hoped for that.”
“You're just using him,” Su snarls. “You don't love him.”
Kuvira laughs, vicious and bitter and sharp. “No, as you very well know, I love you.” She stumbles—no, no, the tense is wrong. “Loved you,” she corrects, even if it feels hollow and false.
Su looks as if she’d been slapped across the face, eyes wide with shock and complexion pale. “Me?”
She turns away, fleeing the cell at a run. Su didn’t know—she didn’t, and now Kuvira’s said too much, revealed her most vulnerable weakness and confessed a love that has no hope of being returned.
She never visits Su again.
-
She hasn’t sparred with Su in three years, not since she was still welcome in Zaofu, but she can feel that fighting her is different, anyway. Su still bends metal as gracefully as Kuvira remembers, with a fluency that makes her seem like she’s almost dancing, but there's a precise goal in each of Su’s movements, every punch and kick charged with the determination to defeat Kuvira, with none of the playful enjoyment of the fight that she had become so used to when they'd sparred.
Kuvira’s simply surprised that Su lacks all of the bloodlust present in her assassination attempt. This is an effort to incapacitate her, not kill her. Another effort to bring down the monster she’s created without putting her down.
It’s an unfair fight—Kuvira's fully armed while Su's still in her black assassination outfit, equipped only with minimal essentials, and she eventually knocks Su off the train to the ground. But it would’ve been different if Su had approached with killing intent, because where Su could attack with no regrets, Kuvira knows she’d never be able to land a fatal blow without destroying a vital part of herself in the process.
Vengeance and bloodlust are things Kuvira knows Su possesses in spades, and she can only wonder at their absence now.
-
Baatar—her fiancé, her brother, her best friend, her partner—is in the warehouse. But so is the Avatar.
She imagines the pain and hate on Su’s face, the shock and horror of realization, the feeling of betrayal and disappointment. She remembers how much Su’s smile had mattered to her when she was young and naïve, when her world had revolved around Su and Zaofu. She would’ve done anything for Su, then, just like she's willing to do everything for her nation, now.
She lifts her arm, bringing her shoulder perpendicular with her face. “Do it,” she says. This is her role in this war: to bring peace and stability to her people, and this is her ultimate sacrifice: throwing away who she is and everyone she loves. She’s the Great Uniter before she's Kuvira, and she's given up too much already to stop for something as fickle as personal attachments, not when she has her people to stand for.
The helmsman doesn’t question her decision and he pulls the lever. Kuvira closes her eyes and feels a little like she's falling.