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She’s on her way to the encampment when she sees it. Kuvira’s pace quickens, her strides lengthen, and suddenly she is standing in front of a pile of feathers and vitriolic anger in the red Earth Kingdom clay. “Oh no,” she murmurs, bending down to examine the bird before her. “They left you for dead?”
The messenger hawk was most likely shot down to intercept the message it was carrying, but for whatever reason the perpetrator had left the bird and its cargo alone. It lay thrashing in the dirt, its left wing at an odd angle and its eyes glazed with pain. The inner lid half-covered its blazing iris, a milky white film lending the bird a sort of tragic resignation. Its feathers are still sleek and glossy, though in disarray, and as Kuvira inches closer, the hawk stops its thrashing and cocks its head, regarding her with an aloof, imperious calm. She raises her hand as if to strike out of pure curiousity, and it doesn’t flinch. The two observe one another as the sun begins to set and the sky is stained red. Kuvira’s fingers unconsciously go to her left side, trailing over the fabric of her tunic that obscures the ropey scars from her greatest military failure.
Her physical injuries from the battle for Republic City had taken weeks to heal, but the scars they left behind took much longer. Her engagement ring was back in Baatar’s possession, and though he wrote her often the miles of earth that separated them did little to assuage the residual pain of her loss and loneliness. Her time spent in prison had been comparatively small, considering the nature of her international crimes, but those months had stretched on for what felt like centuries. Visits to her cell had been short and scant. Baatar’s contractual obligations and Suyin’s influence had resulted in his immediate service to the United Republic, and had kept him from seeing her for the first few weeks of her incarceration. Still, family and forgiveness were not things Baatar easily forgot. It took time --more time than she liked and almost more than she could bear-- but once he was standing in front of her without distractions or his mother’s interruptions she felt a cautious optimism returning. If she closed her eyes, she could feel his hands tracing over the bandaged wounds from the shrapnel even now, long after the sutures were removed and the skin unbroken once more.
“Look,” Korra had said, after her trial’s conclusion. Kuvira had been sentenced to ten years of manual labor under the supervision of the United Forces, and she suspected the avatar had played a larger role in the leniency of the court than she was willing to let on. “I know this has been hard for you, but I’ve done everything I can to ensure you get fair treatment. The rest of this is up to you.”
“Why are you helping me?” she had said, rubbing her wrists as the platinum fell away. “Why did you visit me, in prison? After all that I’ve done to you and your loved ones, I don’t see how you can forgive me.”
“Baatar forgave you,” Korra pointed out. “And I think even Su is starting to see that you’re just… complicated. Besides, you and I talked in the spirit world. I think I understand--”
“Baatar knows things about me that no one else does, even if I did share personal stories with you,” she said stiffly. “I regard him as my only family. Please don’t think me ungrateful, Avatar Korra; I recognize how much you’ve done for me. But there’s a disconnect, and I don’t think you see that.”
“There’s less of a disconnect than you think, because I’m just trying to help you,” Korra said. “You’ll get it eventually.”
They had shaken hands, and Kuvira had found herself unable to say anything as she was led to her train. She could still see Korra standing at the platform, a beacon of blue in a sea of green and red. "I think you need time,” Korra had told her, “and your sentence will give you all the time you need.”
She’s careful when she picks up the hawk and takes it home. She’s familiar with hooked razors and the damage they can do; she’s made them countless times. Metal armbands became curved blades and hooked claws under her effortless direction, glinting in the sun like sharp warnings. Now, she sees the same warnings reflected off the hawk’s beak and talons and she is careful to imprison it in a column of earth before she bundles it up in her jacket. It fights her at first, but she is patient. She’s learned how to wait, and she’s seen how slow, steady compassion can make an opponent surrender out of pure understanding, rather than defeat.
Her residence is modest, but the location she was assigned to more than makes up for it. Her best years had been spent in dust and arid plains and hot sun, but rebuilding the country had proved more than fulfilling. Still, she prefers Gorou, in the northwest; its coniferous forests and mountainous topography remind her of Zaofu. She has been rebuilding a merchant town, located along a pristine lake, with tall pines reflected in its azure waters. The lake, she later learned, was named for her after the state’s conquest. Every time she looks at the smooth water, she is stung by the knowledge of how profoundly her absence affected the citizens during their time of need and resolves to make up for it however she can.
For this part of her sentence, she lives in the mountains. Residences have sprung up lakeside and international relief efforts for the poorer cities, coupled with money from funds she herself had set up during her time as president, have eased Gorou into the modern era. There are ore reserves deep beneath the soil, and the export of freshwater fish and precious minerals began a strong upward trend for the area’s economy. She’s known as Kuvira here, or sometimes as the reclusive former commander. Her history is common knowledge, but the people of her nation are as forgiving as they are resilient. Standing beneath the tall pines, the sun’s rays throwing a myriad of shadows and golden shards of light on the leaves and her face, she can feel a calm she hasn’t felt since her early days in Zaofu. Platinum cages of her own making have been replaced with a sea of green and red, or rich earthen tones of leaves and bark, all under the stretch of blue sky that watches over her as she fulfills her contract.
It’s late when she reaches her house, and later still when the hawk ceases its shuffling and finally goes to sleep. Kuvira tries to remove the scroll tied to its leg, but receives a gash on her hand for the trouble. “I forgive you,” she says, her voice dry as the summers in the Desert Pass. “I’m giving you a new lease on life, you just haven’t realized it yet.”
After a few days the hawk seems significantly better, stretching its wings and regarding her with a wary interest when she brings it scraps of meat. The morning sun has tinted the outdoors in gold, and when the hawk allows her to run her fingers over its back and wings she wonders if it can fly again.
The grass is soft to her feet, and when she kneels down with the box she half expects the bird to walk around with the same wonder she felt, when she first arrived in the area. It doesn’t move, and she jostles the box in gentle encouragement. “Can’t you walk?” she mutters. “Maybe you need a nudge.”
Her fingers brush its back and suddenly it’s flying, soaring through the air like triumph distilled into blazing eyes and sharp angles and streamlined limbs. There’s no trace of damage to the wing, and no trace of hostility in the eyes when it alights on a tree branch and watches her.
“Made a new friend?”
She recognizes the voice, and a smile blooms over her face as if by its own volition when she sees the avatar for the first time in a year. For the first time, letting go of her ever-present guilt seems possible. “Not yet. Maybe with time.”
Korra jogs over, her hair longer than it used to be and her eyes as bright as ever. “I think it likes you,” she said, standing next to Kuvira and watching with her as the bird leapt into the sky again, wheeling through the air with an unconquerable freedom Kuvira remembers all too well. She'll experience it again, one day.
“I was patient,” she hears herself saying. “It pays off.”
“It does,” Korra agreed, and suddenly she’s thrusting a letter into Kuvira’s hands. The weight of the envelope is suspicious, and before she opens it she feels the ring inside. “I’m here with a talented engineer who’s been assigned to bring modern amenities to the town just south of here--”
Kuvira nods, tearing open the envelope and unable to keep the excited tremor from her hands and voice. “You expect me to believe this is purely coincidental?”
“I tried,” Korra says, shrugging. “Do you want to come with me? You guys can have a little reunion and everything. I think you know why he wanted this letter hand-delivered.”
“Why are you helping me?” Kuvira asks again, the accusatory edge to her voice from a year ago long since gone. “We haven’t spoken for months.”
“Because you’ve stewed in guilt long enough?” Korra says, beginning to walk and gesturing for her to follow. “Because I’ve seen the work you’ve done and I think you’ve earned forgiveness.”
“I have a ways to go, and others might disagree.”
“Maybe,” Korra concedes, “but you’ve earned my forgiveness, so I pulled some strings…Avatar bully pulpit and all...”
The ride to the next town is the longest thirty minutes of her life, but it doesn’t matter once they’ve reached the United Forces encampment. Baatar’s face says more than the choked words that spill from his lips, and Korra stands by with her arms crossed and a smile on her features as she watches them. Kuvira’s face is in his chest, her arms around his neck, everything around them muffled by the rumble of his voice and the sound of his breathing; she hears Korra’s words all the same.
“...you’ve earned my forgiveness,” the avatar is saying, the truth of the words ringing in her voice, “and I think you’ve earned back your family.”