Chapter Text
Kuvira could remember the last time she was in this much physical pain. The memory scratched at the back of her mind, as bitter and sick as the sharp pain that shot through her side with every breath she took. She remembered how her bones broke. How her blood painted pretty splatters on the wall as her father beat her with his favourite fire poker. It was her fault he had said. It was always her fault with him. She grits her teeth with anger and pain. Why was she thinking of him? She hadn’t thought of him in years.
Kuvira felt the sudden urge to run as Lin roughly placed a hand on her shoulder to guide her into a cell. A waiting cell Lin had said. Temporary until her permanent cell was ready for her. She felt trapped, even more so than when she did before she ran from her father’s rage. Even more so when she lived on the street, on the brink of starvation and no hope for the future. Maybe that’s why she was thinking of him? It was of her own doing. A claustrophobic feeling pressed into her lungs along with a broken rib. She should probably be worried about that. She deserved this pain though. After all the good she did, she turned around and fucked it up when she allowed her rage and hunger for power to consume her.
Guess she was more like her father than she would ever want to admit. He was always angry, emotional and quick to violence. She had spent most of her life trying to control her emotions and bury them under a stony façade. She had always weighted to be struck at first before she attacked. He was always power-hungry. He had married her mother for power and was always obsessing over rising in the ranks of the Dai-Li. She had tried not to obsess over her rank or status, tried not to allow power to get to her, but she failed. Now she had ruined a large part of Republic City’s central structures and had lay waist to Zaofu’s domes. All because she allowed her anger to get the better of her just like her fucking father. All because she couldn’t let go of the power just like her fucking father. She had to be in control just like her fucking father.
She tried to dissociate herself from her father. Tried not to blame him for the monster she had become. This was all her. No matter how similar her behaviour to his was lately. This was all on her. She had chosen the path that led her to this cell. She had made the conscious decision to hurt people and it made her sick thinking back on it.
Her thoughts were suffocating, her already doubled vision began to blur, and dark specks appeared at the edges of her sight. Her heart began to beat violently against her rib cage. She felt so trapped. She didn’t want to feel like this. She didn’t want to feel like she did back then. In the basement awaiting the fate her father decided upon. Bones freshly broken and her mother’s dead gaze burnt into her mind’s eye. She needed to run. She needed to escape. Before he comes for her-and what was that dripping out of the corner of her mouth?
A coughing fit ripped through her as she doubled over. Blood splattered on the ground and her hands were soon in it as her legs couldn’t hold her up anymore. She distantly heard what sounded like Lin’s panicked shouts for a healer. She struggled to suck air into her lungs at the same time she coughed out the crimson liquid that had begun to pour out her mouth. The pain in her side became almost unbearable and she could not even feel embarrassed as a whimpered cry left her shaking body as she called for Lin.
“Lie her down on her side!” Was that the Avatar? Hadn’t she left already? Kuvira still thought it strange how the Avatar had wanted to escort her to her cell along with Lin. Even Suyin had left after shoving Kuvira into an armoured satomobile and leaving a few choice comments as she went. Maybe the avatar still thought her dangerous?
Arms were around her, helping her to lay on her side, and she heard Lin barking at who she assumed was Korra. Through her blurred vision, she could barely make out the features of a water tribe woman kneeling before her. Moments later she felt wetness envelop her side. It soothed the stabbing pain and brought some relief to her muddled mind.
“Keep her calm Lin, her hearts beating too fast.” That was definitely Korra.
“Kuvira, look at me.” Long fingers gently cupped her cheek and turned her head to the side and away from the slowly growing puddle of blood by her head. Through her shaky vision, she saw Lin looking down at her. Worry was etched into her slightly aged features but Kuvira thought she still looked beautiful. “Hey kid, I know it’s a bit hard to breathe at the moment, but you need to calm down, okay?”
It was only then that Kuvira realized that her breathing was ragged and quick with more blood splattering out her mouth than air, and when did she become so dizzy? She tried to grab at Lin but her arm felt so heavy. Lin seemed to catch on and quickly moved to entwine their fingers.
“Kid, I’m right here, just try to breathe for me…”, Lin said something more, but Kuvira could not decipher what it was as her hearing became fuzzy and the black spots overtook her vision. The pain in her side ebbed away and the sizzling burn in her lungs intensified before everything went dark…
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…
When she woke the first thing that she noticed, was the bed that she slept on was hard and her joints and muscles ached. Then she noticed she was not wearing her uniform anymore, and that she wore plane attire like what prisoners’ wear.
It hit her then, that she was a prisoner now.
Her memories of her invasion of Republic City flooded her mind along with the guilt that tugged at her heart. She looked around her cell as she tried to recall the last thing she could remember. Her memory was fuzzy past the moment Lin had brought her to the police station. She remembered having a panic attack as memories she had not thought of in so long began to plague her, and then nothing. She assumed she had passed out. She had not had an attack in years, not since she was a little girl still living with the Bay Fongs’.
She had passed out from panic attacks before when she panicked so much that she forgot to breathe, but she thought that that could not be the only reason as she remembered blood. Blood splattered on the floor. Blood that covered her hands, and warm liquid that spewed out her mouth.
She sat up in her uncomfortable bed, a dull throb in her side at the movement, as she properly scanned her cell. It was a box. A big platinum box. With a toilet and a sink to the left of her bed, and a desk with a chair to her right. There was a large door to the wall opposite her bed. It seemed to be, that there was just barely enough room for her to do some basic exercises. Do they know that she can bend platinum? They must not know. Wouldn’t the big platinum encased mega-machine give her away? She wasn’t going to say anything.
She lifted her shirt to survey where the pain was coming from and found nothing but the old scars that littered her torso, save for a few small pinkish ones she must have gotten from the fiasco of the invasion, and the dark bruises that still spotted her side. A water bender must have healed her, Korra most likely. She assumed any other would have let her die by feigning ignores on how to heal her.
She sighed as she got up to investigate the desk. It was bare save for a small pile of paper and a cup with a few pencils and pens; for letters most likely. She was surprised that they would trust her with sharp objects like this, but she wasn’t going to complain.
When she had first surrendered herself outside the newly created spirit portal, she had expected to be thrown into a much, much worse cell; maybe a wooden cell with nothing in it but the prisoner. That’s what she would do with metal bender prisoners. Especially ones of her level.
She considered herself lucky at this at least.
As time began to tick by, she began to grow agitated. There wasn’t much to do here to occupy her mind, and if she sat still for too long her leg would begin to jump, and her mind would begin to dwell on the guilt of her crimes. She walked circles around her cell to distract herself, but that grew boring quite quickly. She then tried to do some push-ups, as physical exertion always worked to focus her mind, but the pain that shot through her side put an end to that quickly.
She eventually ended up back at the desk and had begun to scribble on the papers provided to her. She scribbled nonsense things, words she needed out of her head, a few things from memory, images, trees, creeks and fountains. She drew a few of her most loyal soldiers speaking around a table with drinks. A fond memory she had. Bolin was with her speaking a non-stop chain of nonsense she tuned into every now and then to nod her head or hum something, so he thought she was listening. He barely ever made much sense when he went off on one of his word vomit sessions, but he was always a calming presence for her. Baatar had retired early that night and she had sat with Bolin and a few of her other soldiers to share drinks and tails. That was a few months prior. Before she had gone off the deep end.
She felt a pang of guilt as she remembered how she had lost her temper with Bolin and had threatened him. How she had locked up the Beifong’s in cages. How she had tried to kill Baatar. How many people had she killed with her death giant? She could count her own men in the colossal. She could count the man in that plane. She had thought he would have ejected. But he didn’t. Were there people in the buildings she destroyed? Why was she only thinking of this shit now? She had hurt so many people.
Tears had begun to fall onto the page she was scribbling on, where her pen had stilled on Baartar’s face. A few drops turned into many and eventually she had her face in her hands as uncontrollable wails wracked her body.
‘What have I done…’
The thought echoed in her mind as all the guilt of her actions bared down on her. Her father was right. She was born only to destroy all that she touched. She was a disease that cared not for who or what she hurt. His accusations before, when she was a child, were unwarranted but now after all she had done, she has made them true.
She sat there and cried out all her grief and guilt. She cried till her arms were soaked with her tears that ran down them, and till the pages on the desk were ruined. She cried until her head throbbed and her eyes became sore. She cried till she couldn’t. Till she was so exhausted all she could do was drag herself to her cell bed and lie there staring thoughtlessly at the wall before her.
She didn’t know how long she lay there but she had drifted off a few times, in and out of consciousness. The next time she opened her eyes it was because she heard what sounded like the locks on her cell door sliding open. She didn’t bother to turn to see who came in. She didn’t turn as she heard the locks sliding back in place. She felt too heavy to move. Her body felt like led and she felt tired even though she had just woken from a nap.
“Is she asleep?” At the sound of Korra’s voice, Kuvira’s heart squeezed painfully and began to speed up as her anxiety returned. She didn’t want to turn and face the woman she had tried to kill. The woman who had held her in the spirit world as she broke down in tears and finally let everything that had happened to her be felt.
"No, her heart is beating too fast.” That was Lin, her gruff voice sending shivers down her spine and enticing some life back into her limbs. “Come on kid. We’re not going anywhere till you talk to us.”
A heavy sigh rippled through her body and deflated some of her anxiety. She forced her stiff limbs to sit her up and face the two women who were most likely the bringers of bad news. By the nervous and remorseful look on Korra’s face and the downright venomous one on Lin’s, Kuvira’s stipulations were right.
“What is my sentence.” She skipped the pleasantries. Her voice sounded foreign to her. Ruff from crying and devoid of energy or emotions. For a brief moment, she thought she saw a look of concern on Lin’s face, but it was gone so fast she thought she might have imagined it. Korra ever the open book had no problem voicing her concerns.
“Are you okay Kuvira? How’s your side doing? Are you breathing okay now? You’ve been out for three days and I’ve been coming by to heal you, so you should be fine now and only a little sore, but it would still be helpful to know how your feeling.”
Kuvira paused at that piece of information. So surprised that she had been asleep for so long that she couldn’t feel irritated by Korra’s rapid-fire questions.
“Three days?” She asked.
“Oh, I probably should have started by telling you that.” Korra gave her a sheepish smile. “We had to sedate you for three days to give your body more time to heal. You were pretty banged up after that explosion and one of your broken ribs had punctured your left lung. If I had known you were so badly hurt I would have started healing you in the spirit world but you were walking around just fine and I thought you just had a bad bruise, maybe a cracked rib. Not thirteen broken ribs and three fractured ones. I don’t even know how you managed to make it all the way to the police station without crying or just passing out from the pain- “
“Korra.” Lin’s voice was firm as she cut the avatar’s rambling short and Kuvira gave a grateful glance to the older woman as her head had begun to throb with a headache and her already low energy had begun to dwindle.
Korra seemed to realize that Kuvira wasn’t in the mood for a long conversation and mumbled a quick apology. Her growing guilt tugged at her heart and she felt bad for wanting Korra to shut up and leave her alone. The avatar had saved her life when she had in the past ridiculed and almost killed her, and now she learns that the avatar had potentially saved her life for a second time, and had personally been tending to her healing.
“No, I’m sorry, Avatar. You’ve helped me so much.” The avatar seemed to calm a bit at her words and Kuvira could even see a hint of a blush tinting her caramel cheeks. “I’m feeling a lot better than I did before. My side and chest are a bit sore but besides that I’m fine.”
“Good.” Korra nodded seemingly satisfied by Kuvira’s self-diagnostic and even Lin’s stance seemed to relax a bit as if she was anxiously waiting for this information.
Kuvira wondered for a second why these two women, who she had wronged so severely seemed to genuinely care for her well bean. Not for the first time did the crippling guilt urge her to break down and let her remorse paint her cheeks with rivers of tears, but she was exhausted. An exhaustion set deep in her bones making them feel brittle yet heavy. She was too exhausted to cry. She looked off to the ground at her feet as she felt pricks at the back of her eyes. Her head throbbed at the feeling, but her headache didn’t get worse.
She stood up. She had to do this, or the guilt would eat her alive. She knelt before them on her knees and ignored their confused looks. She placed her hands on her thighs and bowed as far down as she could.
“I know this might mean nothing after all I’ve done but I’m truly sorry for wronging you both.” She said. Her voice for the first time cracked with emotion as her heart constricted painfully. She could feel her eyes water, yet no tears fell. When she looked back up at the two women before her, she saw surprise painting their faces
A moment passed by as the silence hung between them. Both the avatar and the chief seemed not to know what to do with Kuvira’s apology. For a second Kuvira thought that they may reject her apology and call her a monster that couldn’t possibly be remorseful but neither seemed disgusted with her. Surprised yes and maybe a bit hopeful? It was Lin who first seemed to snap out of her stupor to respond to Kuvira with a respectful nod.
“It’s good you regret your actions. Means you’re not hopeless then. I’m still pissed at you for wrecking my city but not enough to condemn you forever.” Kuvira’s heart felt a little bit lighter after listening to Lin’s words and nodded at the older woman and bowed again.
“Um yeah. I appreciate you apologising but not everyone is going to accept your apology as easy as Lin and I.", Korra said and Kuvira’s lightness dwindled a bit.
“I’m aware my actions have garnered severe consequences and that an apology won’t fix it.” She said as she bowed again to the avatar. She thought of Baatar. Dear spirits she loved him, and she had attempted to murder him, she must be a monster to do that. She couldn’t fathom how Lin and Korra seemed to so easily accept her remorse. Especially Lin who had held a grudge against her own sister for decades. She felt nauseous as her stomach twisted in knots. She didn’t deserve forgiveness.
“Speaking of consequences.” Lin cut into her destructive thought with a hard tone, garnering her to sit up straight and meet the older woman’s eyes. Lin’s entire demeanour seemed to shift back into that tightly wound up knot she had walked into with. Korra also seemed to stiffen up a bit as a worried expression came over her. “We didn’t only come here to see if you were well. We came here to inform you of what the world leaders might decide of your fate.”
Kuvira stilled and then nodded. She made her way back to sit on her bed. Her emotions were mute now, and she could already feel herself slipping into the old habit of dissociating. “And what is to become of me?”
“There’s going to be a trial in eight months where you will be properly sentenced for your crimes. The world leaders have split between sentencing you to death and imprisoning you for the rest of your life.” Lin finished as she crossed her arms over her chest, seemingly not at all satisfied with the situation. “They seem to be leaning towards sentencing you to death.”
Kuvira was surprised with herself that this information didn’t bother her in the slightest. It scared her even more that a death sentence seemed to appeal to her. How far has she fallen? In the past no matter how bad her situation got she would always fight tooth and nail to survive. Even when the world had broken her body and mind, she still did her best to march forward. Always looking forward. Always prepared to do anything to survive or get what she wanted. Her will was always of iron, tempered by her father’s hatred and a need to prove him wrong.
But now she did not feel the need to fight. Did not feel the need to survive. All she felt now was acceptance. She was going to be rightfully put to justice. Her fight was over, and she felt relieved for it. "Thank you for telling me. I will accept any decision the world leaders come to." She felt it in her bean that she would be put to death. Suyin and Raiko would push for her death. Most likely Tenzin as well, or would he be more lenient? He is an air bender after all and the son of the previous avatar. She had put his family in danger though.
With Kuvira gone Wu would most likely take over her empire and she was sure he would be pleased to see her be put to death. So would Ms Sato. The brilliant woman was well respected and had influence. She could sway the world leaders in favour of her death. She must have known the man in the plan, Kuvira remembered seeing Ms Sato ejecting from it. Kuvira felt she deserved it. She had taken many lives before and now her life had to be taken. Lin didn't seem to agree and Korra outright disapproved of it.
“I’m going to see what I can do to help lessen the severity of your sentence. A death sentence or life imprisonment are unnecessary. I think with your skills and talent, a sentence geared towards fixing the mess you made would be better. You did basically save the earth kingdom from imploding on itself. Even though you did become, well, what you became near the end there, and well there’s only been one...um casualty.” The Avatar seemed uncomfortable with that subject. She must have known the man in the plane. But one? There was only one casualty in that whole mess she made. “Zaheer has killed far more people than you have…”, Oh if the Avatar only knew about what she has had to do in the past, “…and is the reason the earth kingdom got thrown into havoc in the first place." Korra seemed to purposely leave out the parts where Zaheer and Kuvira had personally wronged her. “So, your sentence shouldn’t be worse than his.
“Korra I understand your need to balance out these kinds of things, but I ask you to please not intervene with my trial.” Korra seemed absolutely dumbfounded by what Kuvira had just uttered and Lin was positively outraged.
“So that’s it.” Lin had growled. Her tone was low and dangerous and it sent chills of excitement down Kuvira’s spine. “You’re going to roll over and die?” Lin unfolded her arms and stomped over to Kuvira and grabbed her by the front of her shirt to hall her onto her feet. She snarled into Kuvira’s face with such intensity that the younger woman flinched back, but she didn’t look away. “You don’t get to just die. That won’t fix the mess you’ve made, and it won’t repent you from your crimes.”
“Lin…” Korra said as she gently pulled at the arm holding Kuvira up. “She’s still not fully recovered.” The Avatar seemed irritated with the chief of police. Most likely not wanting Lin to undo all the effort she had put into healing Kuvira.
Kuvira couldn’t understand why she would try to protect her from the chief’s rage. She couldn’t understand why they were so upset with her for accepting her own demise. Shouldn’t they be happy that she was most likely going to die? Why couldn’t Korra have allowed her to die instead of healing her? It seems so pointless if she is going to be sentenced to death anyway. What was even more confusing is Lin’s reaction. From what she knows about Lin through tails from Suyin, and the little interactions she had with her when she was still captain of Suyin's guard; Lin was a woman driven to see justice served. She was a by the book type who only broke the rules when they conflicted with her strong moral compass. Surely, she could see that her accepting her punishment was the right thing to do? Unless it went against her moral compass…
“Don’t look at me like that.”, Lin growled at Kuvira but listened to Korra and let go of the younger woman’s shirt. “Don’t look at me as if I would understand why you want to die.” Lin spat at her with such venom that she took a step back, but her calves connected to her bed’s edge and she fell back into her previous sitting position. This didn’t seem to perturb Lin as she glowered down at Kuvira and continued her rant. “Because that’s what this really is for you isn’t it! An easy way out, an indirect suicide. Not you actually wanting to repent for what you’ve done.” Lin took a step back and finally allowed Korra’s persistent tugs to guide her a distance away from the stunned metal bender.
Kuvira sat there and stared wide-eyed at Lin who was now breathing heavily as she seemed to be seething to herself as Korra whispered quickly into the older woman’s ear, assumedly to calm her down. What Lin had said shook her to her core. Kuvira was aware of her dark thoughts that always shadowed the back of her mind. She may have always been a survivor and eventually a conqueror, but it was always at the back of her mind the urge to give up. The thought of how easy it would be to just not prevent her death. It was her darkest thoughts she always tried to stomp under her boot. Yet now they had begun to crush her under their weight, and she hadn’t even noticed it.
"What I think Lin is trying to say, Kuvira.", Korra said taking a step towards Kuvira. Lin off to the side still growling under her breath but seemingly subdued. “Is that if you really do mean your apology, if you really are remorseful for what you did. Then you would fight to live so that you could work towards repenting.”
Korra was now crouching in front of her. She had hesitantly placed a hand on Kuvira’s thigh to gain her attention. Emerald green eyes looked into ocean blue and for the first time since she had woken in this platinum coffin, Kuvira felt a seedling of hope plant itself within her.
Lin had managed to calm down enough to be civil and Korra had asked to do a check-up on Kuvira’s injuries. Kuvira removed her top to give the Avatar better access to her ribs and wasn’t surprised to see the large dark bruises blotched over her entire left side and spotted over her right side. Korra set to work with bending water out of her pouch to begin healing Kuvira. The cool, sparkling water that pressed into her skin soothed the constant ache and Kuvira couldn’t help but sigh in satisfaction.
Lin had become deathly quiet when Kuvira had removed her shirt and had been pointedly looking at her feet with a slight red to her cheeks. Why the usually stoic women seemed bashful now was a mystery to Kuvira. She looked down at her bare chest and glanced to Korra who was focused on her task and then back at a still blushing chief of police. It dawned on her that maybe the older woman was far more conservative than the younger was. Or maybe she was respecting Kuvira’s privacy. Or maybe she found her attractive…
This thought brought heat to Kuvira’s cheeks and she glanced away from the older woman and instead stared off to the side. She suddenly felt self-conscious about her body. She had nothing she thought she should be ashamed of. Her body was well sculpted with muscles that took hours of intense training over years to achieve. Her breasts were a nice shape, full and perky. Besides the blotches of bruises, she had scars that marred her body. Dozens of them scattered all over her body in varying lengths and thicknesses. She was never bothered by her scars and liked how fierce they made her feel.
How many scares did Lin have on her body besides the two that streaked the right side of her face? She must have many from her career as a police officer. How would they wrap around the chief’s well-built body? She had watched Lin practice all those years ago in the Beifong training grounds. She knew that there must not be much changed in that muscle definition since she last saw it. Even with her armour on now, she could see the strength in her arms and in the way she stood.
Kuvira mentally chastised herself for thinking such things about the chief of police, of the city she had trashed with her giant robot. A woman who was twenty-five years older than her. A woman who would be the one to most likely guide her to her death chair if they did not manage to convince the world leaders to keep the ex-dictator alive.
Korra had soon finished their session of healing and told her as she put her shirt back on, that she would be visiting her weekly to check up on her health and assess her mental state until her trial. The avatar had said that the world leaders and the council of Republic City wanted to sentence her to death sooner but she had convinced them to think it through more thoroughly, and to give Korra time to prove that Kuvira deserved to live and have a lesser sentence. She had said that, that her father and her cousins would back her. The water tribes weren’t really affected by the whole earth empire mess and Korra’s father remembered Kuvira from when she had flung herself off a cliff to save his life. Kuvira had forgotten that.
Tenzin didn’t need much convincing since he didn’t believe in the death sentence, yet he was one of the council members pressing for a life sentence without parole. Korra had assured her that Tenzin may be pissed at her for threatening his family, but he wasn’t the petty type and would come around eventually and help Korra get Kuvira a more reasonable sentence.
Raiko and Prince Wu were pushing for a death sentence and Suyin was on the rocks and seemed to be leaning towards a death sentence too. Kuvira had cringed at this information. Suyin had attempted to take her out before and that bitter memory brought sorrow and anger to her soul. Yet she had expected her to push for her death immediately. She expected nothing less from Suyin, but it still stung deeply. Suyin was still the woman that took her in, took her away from the streets and saved her from being captured again by the Dai Li, saving her from the potential sick lifestyle she would have had otherwise. Kuvira had always seen Suyin as a mother and role model. It had hurt her deeply when Suyin had turned her back on the Earth Kingdom, even after Kuvira had broken down and told her what her life was like before the Beifong’s. She hadn’t told her about what it could have been. Maybe she should have. It had devastated her when she came to Suyin three years later looking for an alliance with the woman who once raised her, only to have her attempt to murder her in her sleep.
Kuvira remembered that night. After she had locked Suyin away and seen the pure hatred in her eyes. She had broken down and cried herself to sleep in Baatar Jr’s arms. Now Suyin has the opportunity to move to finish what she started that night. The wound in her heart festered at that thought.
She was outraged when Lin had informed her that Suyin was attempting to lessen Baatar’s sentence and was trying to convince the world leaders to sentence him to house arrest. She kept her anger to herself and tried to reason with herself. Baatar would be fine. She should be happy about that. Kuvira knew where Suyin’s loyalties lied. She knew regardless of how she felt towards the woman, Suyin never and would never see her as one of her children. That didn’t make it any less hurtful to hear that it seemed Suyin was quick to forgive Baatar and quick to let Kuvira die. The years she spent as the women's adoptive daughter meant nothing.
Lin looked pissed as she regaled her argument with Suyin over Baatar’s sentence. Korra also seemed irritated with Suyin’s behaviour. Baatar would also have a trial and so would Kuvira’s highest-ranking soldiers who took active charge during the war. Though their sentences were going to be a lot less severe than Kuvira's. The rest of the foot soldiers would be left alone, deemed to be only following orders and nothing else. Kuvira felt relieved to hear most of her men would be okay.
Lin explained that Kuvira would be confined to this cell till her trial, only allowed to leave it under guard supervision to use the prison showers. She would be brought one meal a day and would be provided with sanitary items later that day after Lin and Korra left. Lin took it upon herself to be Kuvira’s ward and would come to check up on the younger woman often. Kuvira would not be allowed any other visitors until the trial and Korra would be acting as her lawyer.
Kuvira thought for a moment what Ms Sato would be thinking of that. She knew that her and Korra are close, just how close she wasn’t too sure, but they had seemed to be more than friends. She wondered if Ms Sato was okay with Korra defending her the way she had been apparently doing. Especially after Kuvira had threatened the avatar’s life multiple times. She would have to ask Korra later when it was just the two of them.
Too soon did their little meeting end and Lin, and Korra said their goodbyes and left. As soon as they were gone Kuvira was left with the deafening silence that surrounded her, the blank four walls that confined her and her own dark thoughts.
With nothing to occupy her time healthily, Kuvira was left to sit and think, and cry, and sleep when her tears were drained. She thought of things and people she hadn’t in years. Her father, her mother, her twin brother. The friends she had lost in the three years it took for her to stabilize the Earth Kingdom. Baatar hadn’t known about them, he had only joined her a year into her campaign and by then she was already broken from loss and hardened by what she had to do to keep the bandits under control. By then she had already gained numerous supporters and he never saw the dirty and bloody shit she had to do.
Now that she thought of it, she doubted the world leaders and even the avatar or Suyin even knew just how bad of a sorry state the Earth Kingdom was when she was first tasked with bringing order. There was chaos in Basing Say and especially within the more remote parts of the Earth Kingdom only inhabited by the common folk. The bandits had rampaged, pillaging villages, raping women and selling children into slavery, mostly sex slavery. It had become kill or be killed with the common people and the rich fucks used their wealth to either leave the Earth Kingdom behind or to buy bandits to protect them or help them with their dirty little money-making schemes.
Kuvira ground her teeth together as she thought of all the reasons and anger that fouled her to beat the Earth Kingdom into her Earth Empire. She won’t deny she did some good and some fucked up things to achieve the peace she had brokered. She definitely would not deny that she would do it again. Just maybe not go off the deep end. At some point, she had lost her way. Some point before she had conquered Zaofu. At some point, she had allowed the pain and loss she had suffered to fuel her motives to conquer Republic City and take the fate of her Earth Empire out of the hands of greedy rich fucks. At some point, she had become blinded by pain and ambitions. At some point, she had begun to become a danger to the people she had once promised her life and soul to protect.
In the end, she had given up her soul, had given up her life and her very humanity for her people, and look where it had led her.
The sliding door at the bottom of her cell door opened, and a deep gruff voice announced to her rudely that the Great Uniter’s toiletries had arrived before they shoved a box filled with some basic female sanitisation and hygiene items through the opening of the door. The box tumbled over at his harsh shove and a majority of the items went scattering all over the floor at her feet. A moment later and the small sliding door closed shut and a clicking sound signalled it was locked again. Kuvira took a moment to stare down at a stray tampon lying next to her foot before she sighed and resigned herself to clean up the mess.
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..
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She wasn’t sure how many days had passed. She tried to tell the day by when her meals came but she was damn sure that the guards tasked with watching her were forgetting to feed her some days. When she did get food, it was bland, or it had been laced with roaches. Once she received a food tray with white goop that smelled awful and a cup filled with what she swore smelled like piss. She didn’t touch that shit and opted to starve instead. She didn’t trust what the guards were giving her.
She couldn't tell the days by light either as the blaring fluorescent lights above her head never switched off. Never. They were on twenty-four-seven. It completely disorientated her sleep patterns and Kuvira felt exhausted all the time. She can’t remember the last she slept or the last she ate. She knew the guards weren’t giving her the opportunity for her daily showers Lin had said she would get one every day. Her hair became matted and oily before two guards had finally busted into her cell to hall her over to a shower.
Lin was coming for a visit they had said as they quite literally dragged her out of her bed and practically carried her to the showers. She was dizzy and lethargic and the food she had eaten a few hours prior wasn’t settling well in her stomach. She swore she felt drugged. They must have put something in her food to subdue her before her shower. That’s the only way she could explain why she couldn’t see straight or walk straight when she was finally left alone in the enclosed shower they had thrown her in.
She didn't complain though and was just glad to finally strip out of her foul-smelling clothes and allow the ice-cold water to wash down her body. The cold water sobered her up a bit and she could finally think straight and stand up properly on her feet. She scrubbed herself down raw and washed her hair thoroughly. She didn’t know when the next time she would be this clean.
She was startled when a guard barged into the showers without warning. He looked at Kuvira and sneered at her as he dropped a pile of clean clothes on the ground next to her old ones. He picked up her old ones and gave her naked body a once over before he stomped his way out the showers again. He called out behind him that her shower time was over and that she had to get her ass dressed.
For a moment Kuvira just stared after him. Coldwater freezing into her bones without a bother. She was stunned by the brashness of the guard and had to shake her head clear so she could refocus her slowly sobering mind on the task of switching off the water and drying herself off.
She had barely finished getting dressed when the two guards that had dragged her here barged in with shock batons and before she could blink electricity was ripping pain through her body and she was on the ground in an instant. They roughly cuffed her before dragging her back to her cell where they shocked her again to immobilize her before removing the cuffs and leaving her cell.
Kuvira didn't move for a long moment from where she lay face down on the floor. Her head was dizzy, phantom throbs of pain ebbed where they had shocked her, and she didn’t want to move when her stomach felt like it was knotting itself up. She finally forced herself to move to the toilet when her nausea became too much, and she emptied the contents of her stomach violently into it. When she had finished dry heaving, she flushed the toilet before groggily digging through the cabernet under the sink for toilet paper to clean off her mouth.
She threw the used paper in the toilet when she was done before she crawled her way to her bed and climbed into it. She vaguely thought that they must have changed her sheets while she was gone because her bed smelled clean before her mind blanked out.
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She woke up to a gentle nudge to her shoulder and all she could do was groan as her body felt too heavy to move and her mind was spinning and foggy with sleep. She groaned again when whoever was shoving her shoulder shoved a bit harder and she wanted to fuck up whoever had woken her up while she was in so much discomfort.
“Kuvira are you alright?” Lin had said close to her ear and the younger woman startled a bit. Her eyes flew wide open and her forehead almost bumped into Lin’s face when she moved to look at the older woman. Lin stood leaning over Kuvira’s bed with eyes widened in surprise. She straightened up and scratched at her cheek as she looked at Kuvira with a bit of concern. “It’s in the middle of the day. Why are you dead asleep?”
“Middle of the day?” Kuvira repeated dumbly as her groggy mind worked to waken itself up. How long had she been asleep? It must not have been long since the guards had mentioned before that Lin was coming. At least now she knew what time it was. “Sorry…” She croaked out; her throat still raw from her violent vomiting fit. She sat up in her bed to properly regard the woman standing before her. “It’s hard to tell time here.”
“Why is it hard?” Lin frowned, clear confusion shining in her eyes.
For a long moment, Kuvira said nothing as she came to the realization that Lin might not know how the guards have been treating her. “The light.” She hated how weak her voice sounded at that moment. "They're always on and I think my meals and shower times are sporadic. Can’t ever tell what time it is.” Kuvira watched Lin’s expression turn from confusion to concern to outrage in a split second.
“Give me a few minutes.” Lin had growled out before she stomped over to her cell door to loudly bang on it. It opened and the poor guard on the other side didn't even get the chance to process the chiefs first words before she had begun yelling at all the guards that were on the other side of her cell. The door closed and locked behind her and completely muffled her outraged hollers.
Kuvira slightly felt bad for the guards regardless of the way they had treated her. She had come into their home with her giant mecha and wrecked it. Their hatred towards her was understandable. She hoped Lin wouldn’t go as far as firing them.
It must have only been half an hour but to Kuvira it felt like hours before she heard the locks on her cell door sliding open and then the door was swung open by a terrified looking guard before Lin stomped her way into the cell with a tray of decent looking food on it. Kuvira’s thoughts zoned in on the greens, oranges, browns and whites of the food in the tray Lin had brought over to her and her mouth began to water.
“Jeez don’t look so ready to attack me for food, kid” Lin grumbled as she sat down on the corner of Kuvira’s bed before placing the tray in front of the starved looking woman. "Have at it." Lin had barely said before Kuvira was already scarfing down the food presented before her. She vagally registered that this was the most delicious food she had, had in a long time-and was that beef? “Damn, kid. You really are hungry.” Lin had mumbled, clear concern dripping off her words.
Kuvira said nothing as she focused on consuming the best meal of her life. Lin patiently waited for her to finish and the younger woman appreciated it. When she was finally done eating, she took the mug of warm tea on the tray and began to sip at the soothing liquid. For the first time in what felt like a long time, she felt content. Her belly was fall and her nausea and dizziness were gone. her mind felt clear and she finally could properly look at the older woman that sat on her bed. Lin was watching her carefully, studying her as if she was assessing Kuvira’s health.
“You’ve lost weight.", Lin stated with remorse etched into her aged features. “I’m sorry.” She said barley as a whisper. Kuvira thought for a moment she might have misheard. Korra and I were held up with the world leaders, repairing the damage done to Republic City and some other shit.” She looked away for a moment. “I was supposed to visit you a few days after the first time and Korra was supposed to come by last week.”
“How long has it been since the last time I saw you?” Kuvira asked.
“Two months.", Lin said.
Kuvira was struck by the amount of time that had passed. To her, it felt like years and she had completely forgotten that Korra and Lin were supposed to visit her regularly. She couldn’t blame them. They were busy cleaning up her mess.
“That’s alright. I understand that you both are very busy -”
“No, it is not." Lin had cut her off, the older woman’s previous rage returned tenfold. Her eyes blazed with a promise for pain and Kuvira wondered for a second if she was directing that towards her. “It looks like you've lost almost half your body weight. And you also look like you are about to pass out at any moment. I will make sure from now on Korra and I will come by more often.”
Had she really lost that much weight? Kuvira looked down at her arms. They seemed thinner than she had remembered them being. She had thought it was from a lack of exercise. She could hardly find the energy to get out of her bed to relieve herself most of the time. So, she had thought it was maybe just her muscles atrophying. She tried to recall how many times she had received food and could only remember hand full of times. Now that she knew how long she had been here she must have only been fed every two to three days, and sometimes the food she received was inedible.
“I’m also swapping the guards out for ones I trust better to take care of you. You are supposed to get a meal every day in the evening. The meal should contain three different types of vegetables and a type of meat. With your meal, you are supposed to receive a mug of tea and two bottles of one litre of water. Every day a guard is meant to escort you handcuffed to the showers. Every afternoon at nine the light here is meant to be switched off and switched back on at five in the morning.” Lin finished her description with a sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose as she groaned out an order to Kuvira. “You will tell me in three days if the guards are doing what they are meant to do.”
“Okay.” Kuvira had softly agreed. She felt extremely exhausted suddenly and she regretted eating her food so fast. Her stomach now felt like it was far too full, and she struggled not to throw up. Lin looked up at her with concern when Kuvira made a gagging noise. The next moment Kuvira found herself half hazardously stumbling to the toilet, falling to her knees to empty the excess food in her stomach. Lin was by her side in seconds, holding her hair out the way for her and rubbing soothing circles into her shacking back.
When she was done, she weekly flushed the toilet and rested her forehead against the ceramic lid. She was half-collapsed into Lin’s side and she was far too tired to care or truly feel her pride be bruised. Lin was still rubbing her back and was now running long fingers through her hair. Kuvira felt like she could pass out in the older woman’s arms. For some reason, she felt safe and content in Lin’s presence and for an absurdly delirious moment, she thought to herself that she wanted to stay in this women’s arms for the rest of her life.
She vagally processed that Lin was trying to say something to her, but her mind was too hazy to make out the words being whispered in her ear. She thought she might have heard something to do with a bed, but the thought slipped out of her grasp as fast as it came, and soon she felt herself being lifted into strong arms. She felt weightless for a moment before she was lightly placed on something hard yet soft at the same time. Not long after she felt something that might have been her bedsheets pulled up to her shoulders and soon after she drifted off to sleep.
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