Dancing with Your Ghost

Why'd You Go Away?

It'd caught her by surprise. Just a slip, quick and seemingly harmless. It wasn't until her adrenaline dampered that she realized there was a pain so full and so demanding just at the outskirts of her ribcage, clawing its way up into her chest.

"... oh."

It was a breakneck thing after that, knees falling hard into the dirt beneath her, hands coming up to grasp at her uniform in confusion. A shroud of smoke streaked against the sky, and the brief recognition that the mecha suit had gone up in stacks passed through Kuvira's mind.

It's okay, I'm okay. This is not how this ends. Jaw set, gaze fixed on dribbles of blood that weren't soaking up the dirt minutes before, she dug her hands into the earth, urging it to take form beneath her. A measly stoop rose up and with it, so did Kuvira, breathing heavy. "This is not.. over!" The ground quaked beneath her, reticent but there, as The Great Uniter clumsily pivoted to face whatever – whoever – awaited her.

"Kuvira, stop this! You've done enough damage. It's time to give up." If it weren't for the white-tipped flames scorching her insides, Kuvira would have laughed. Suyin stood a few yards away, arms and legs poised for a fight she wasn't going to get; the Avatar and her motley crew of traitors seemed to sweat it out at Su's behest, perched at building's edge anxiously. It wasn't until her protégé grimaced into a half-assed defensive stance that Suyin noticed the burgeoning stain along her dress coat.

"Oh, Kuv–––" In the lapsed window of time Suyin lowered her arms – and with them, her guard – Kuvira fired a series of metal panes from their designated place on her uniform.

And missed.

Severely.

Suyin flinched reflexively, but recovered in stride as her eyes followed the wayward strips into the ground.

She had never seen Kuvira miscalculate so miserably, even as a young child coming into her power. Pieces of her were already falling away.

"No!" Kuvira thrusted her hands forward a second time, losing her footing as the metal panes resisted her force, detaching in contorted masses before burying themselves into the dirt beneath her. Her back took the force of the fall, no longer in step with the earth's energy––nor the very composition of her uniform.

For the first time, she called, and the earth refused to answer.

"No, no, no." It was a strangled cry that broke through the contracted pain of her aching chest. Smoke had washed away most of the blue that had been there earlier, in the Before; patches of cerulean peeked through uncertainly, only to vanish again with a swift gust of wind. These were the remnants of an Almost Empire, and Kuvira would disappear with them. Was she ever here at all? Years living in Zaofu, serving Su, drinking in the privilege that inevitably came with their metal utopia.. to have stolen away for a few years, nameless at first, before falling at the feet of Republic City.

"I just wanted t––to protect them. They needed someone––to take care of them." Her eyes found Suyin's as she forced the words out, gaze hardening at their tail-end. "You... You did nothing. You let them starve. How could yo–––agh." Su frowned down at her, hands fidgeting at her sides as she debated her next move. The stain staring back at her from Kuvira's middle had nowhere left to grow, marring even the brassy buttons sloping along her chest.

"I couldn't, I.." And quieter then, "Here, let me help you." The matriarch kneeled steadily, ghosting a hand over Kuvira's uniform before her wrist was caught in a shaking, albeit tight, hold. She glanced over at the younger woman, eyeing her carefully as she pushed Suyin's hand away. The color was moving away from her face faster than her cheeks could hold it; the pair of tears that escaped her looked foreign, like raindrops skating over glass, without the familiar flush that always accompanied embarrassment. Su had seen it in her as a young bender, when she tried to hide her tears of frustration after failing for what felt like the millionth time to learn one maneuver, or as a proud captain of the security force after Lin had chewed her out for not stopping the Red Lotus sooner, standing stock-still in the courtyard after everyone else had left.