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“Ms. Sato,” the pilot of the airship calls to me. “We’re stopping for the night. We should get to Gaoling in about two and a half days.”
“Excellent,” I respond. “Thank you.”
He goes back to the cockpit. I turn back to Korra, Mako, Bolin, Wu, the guards, and her.
Every part of me is fighting my choice to have Kuvira here. The woman who ruled the Earth Empire with an iron fist. Who treated people inhumanely to stay in power. Who tried to destroy my hometown, Republic City, with a giant mech powered by spirit energy.
Who killed my father.
I had just managed to forgive him for his collaboration with the Equalists. We were in the dragonfly-hummingbird mech I had designed, and he was cutting a hole in Kuvira’s mech so that we could get into it. He finished cutting the hole at the last second, but then he ejected me before Kuvira’s mech crushed him.
I was crushed, too-just in a different way. A way that’s impossible to push aside, and can come back at any time and squeeze you until it aches. Being with Korra has helped me heal, but I never wanted to see Kuvira again.
And now the closest living family I have wants to work with the woman who took away my only remaining blood family to stop Commander Guan from turning the Earth Nation back into the Earth Empire, which Kuvira created in the first place. My father redeemed himself by helping stop her, and now she’s trying to redeem herself by helping stop a person who is, essentially, who she used to be.
The universe has such a cruel sense of humor.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I trust Korra.
I trust her with all my heart.
I realize that this is for a good cause.
But still.
Just being in Kuvira’s general vicinity is making the same scenes flash through my head again and again.
We’ve been riding for several hours, and the tension has just woven its way into the air around us. It’s like we’re all waiting for Kuvira to turn on us. More than once, I’ve found myself subconsciously placing a hand on my electric glove, which I’ve kept with me since Kuvira first walked into my ship.
“Your room is at the end of that hall,” I say stiffly to Kuvira, pointing at the hall with the guest rooms. I’m looking in her direction as I talk to her, but I keep a several-foot space between us at all times.
“There will be guards posted outside your room, and you will be expected to stay in there until we come get you tomorrow morning,” Korra explains. “The guards will report any suspicious activity of yours to us at that time.”
“I understand,” Kuvira says. “Though I don’t know how ‘suspicious’ they will find me getting ready for bed.”
Korra’s expression remains firm as she steps closer to Kuvira and puts a hand near her handcuffs. “We will see you tomorrow.”
I nod curtly in Kuvira’s direction and begin to turn around.
Suddenly, I see a sharp movement of metal out of the corner of my eye, and I turn around just in time to see the chain of Kuvira’s handcuffs hit Korra’s finger.
“Ow!” She flinches. Right after, we do too.
“Korra!” I rush to her side. A lightning bolt of shock and panic that feels painfully familiar flashes through me.
“Are you all right?” I ask worriedly, taking both her hands.
“Y-yeah.” She still seems kind of surprised.
If the air was tense before, it’s electric now. It feels like everyone is balancing on the balls of their feet, ready to take action.
“Oh,” Kuvira says. “I’m sorry. I was just moving my hands out of the way.” Her expression is calm, and her tone is only slightly apologetic.
The shock of the event seems to have subsided, and now Korra looks at the guards. “Escort the prisoner to her room, and make sure she doesn’t try anything.”
“Yes, Avatar Korra.”
As Kuvira starts to be led away, she looks at me for a moment, almost trying to look innocent. “It was an accident,” she calls.
“Sure it was,” I say, not hiding the steel in my voice. I don’t take my eyes off her, even as she’s being shown into her room. Even when I can’t see her anymore, I keep her door in the corner of my eye as I say goodnight to Mako, Bolin, and Wu. I keep it in the corner of my eye as Korra and I go to our bedroom, my hand tightly holding her hand that Kuvira “accidentally” hurt.
“You coming?” Korra asks as she walks into our room.
“Um…yeah, I’ll be back in a minute,” I say.
I make my way down the hall to the last door. Two guards are standing on either side of it.
“I’d like to talk to Kuvira,” I say.
They look at each other, and then nod. “Just be careful,” one of them warns.
Kuvira is staring out the window as I walk in. She turns around as I close the door.
“Is this about what happened with Korra?” she asks. “I told you that was an accident.”
“And now I’m telling you ,” I reply coldly. “You hurt everyone here, but you cut deeper for me. You killed. My father. You need to understand that.”
As I pause, Kuvira nods. She looks like she wants to say something else, but then thinks better of it.
“I was supportive of Korra on her decision to bring you because I trust her. But I can’t trust you. I can’t trust that you were telling the truth about what you did to Korra. Because I’m not letting you hurt anything or anyone else I love. If you give me one more reason to think that you will…”
Instead of finishing my sentence, I punctuate it with the stoniest glare I can muster.
Kuvira keeps her expression neutral, simply saying, “Understood.”
I’m at the door when I hear her call, “And, Asami?”
I stop but don’t turn around.
“Whatever this means to you, whether you believe me or not… I am sorry.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t even know if I can say anything to that.
So I leave.
“You okay?” Korra asks me as I slip on my nightgown.
I hesitate for a moment, my teeth snapping over my bottom lip. “Myeah, I guess.”
Korra comes over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hey. I want you to know how much I appreciate you supporting me on this. It’s hard for all of us, but I know it’s really hard for you because of…” She hesitates. It’s clear that the same event is running through both of our heads.
“Because of Hiroshi.”
Dad.
I flinch when she says my father’s name. Then I look away.
“I just... I know that we need to do this, to prevent the threat to the Earth Nation’s democracy, but I’m worried that if she turns on us…”
I turn my head back towards Korra, but I look to her left instead of looking straight at her, like there’s something behind her.
“I can’t trust her. Not yet. If she turns on us… I can’t lose anything else to her.”
Now I look directly at Korra, into her cerulean eyes.
“Especially not you.”
I sit down on the bed. My vision blurs a little, and Korra’s outline becomes fuzzier as she says, “Asami.”
She sits down next to me. Her hand that was on my shoulder makes its way up my neck and caresses my cheek. Her other arm is wrapped around my waist.
“I know, I get it,” she whispers. “But it’s going to be fine. We won’t let Kuvira do anything bad. We’ll keep our guards up, we’ll be careful, we’ll stop this Guan guy from doing anything to mess things up, and we’ll work through it. And then we can put everything behind us and go out somewhere. It’s like what you said about all of the challenges we’ve faced.”
I chuckle softly at her hundredth reference to what I said that day. “As long as we stay together, we can overcome anything.”
I take a deep breath and let it out on the word “yeah” while I’m speaking. “Yeah. You’re right. We can work through this. I trust you, Korra. Always.”
Korra smiles and shakes her head. “What did I do to deserve such an amazing girlfriend?”
“I think that question answers itself,” I say.
Korra makes a sound that sounds partway between a laugh and a sigh of relief, and pulls me into a hug. I squeeze back, tight and hard.
Her head suddenly rises up from where it was resting on my shoulder, and is now millimeters from my face, looking expectantly at me.
“I think you know what comes next,” she says.
“I think so too.”
The space between our faces closes as Korra leans in to kiss me.
For what is probably a few seconds but feels like a small pocket of forever, we just sit like that. Then Korra starts to unravel herself and gets on her side of the bed. I yank the covers over me and let my head fall down.
For a few minutes, those pre-sleep thoughts start to seep into my head.
Kuvira could just be waiting until we're asleep.
She could be playing us all.
When we least expect it, she could knock out the guards, make her way down the hallway, and… and… and…
Suddenly, Korra takes them all away with a soft squeeze of my hand. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she murmurs.
I nod. “Sweet dreams, Korra.”
“Good night. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding and close my eyes. My hand is still in Korra’s. I use it to pull myself in closer to her, and we drift off re-entangled in each other. Neither one of us letting go.
She’s my girlfriend, the closest family I have left.
My whole world.
And I won’t let anything take her away from me.
Especially not Kuvira.