The Lost Princess

A/N: This story does not take the comics into account as I haven't got a chance to read them yet, so this will only be TV series-compliant.

Kuvira wasn't having the best time of her life.

After four years of serving her time, both in prison and when she was doing community service in Zaofu under the Beifongs' custody, as well as occasionally assisting Avatar Korra and her companions in their missions from time to time, Kuvira had finally gained Suyin's approval to be let go of her house arrest and was allowed to go anywhere freely under the condition that she would remain in her best behavior at all times. Though Kuvira appreciated being allowed to travel the world once again, apparently the world really didn't share the same sentiment.

Even if the Beifongs had mostly began to accept her back into their family despite everything she did, everybody else weren't so forgiving. Kuvira should've been used to the judgmental stares, accusing gossips, and sometimes even violent threats from the people who suffered in her ambitious campaign by now, but it never really gets easier.

"She's a goddamn war criminal! Why is she allowed to walk free like this?!"

"My sister was never the same after she was taken to her so-called 'reeducation camp'. I don't care if she turns over a new leaf or not, my sister deserves justice for what that monster put her through!"

"Didn't she blow up an entire building, knowing that her own fiancé was inside? How horrible must someone be to do something like that?"

"Her mechanical monstrosity blew up half of Republic City! She's a menace to society, plain and simple. Someone should get rid of her already!"

Kuvira was no stranger to insults. She knew what she was signing up for when she began her campaign to establish the Earth Empire. The quest of reuniting the largest country in the world torn apart by civil wars is not an easy task. Hard choices needed to be made, drastic measures had to be taken, and no matter what she did, there will be people who would hate her for it. That was the reality that she had come to accept. Someone has to do something about the state of the Earth Kingdom and nobody else would step up to the plate, so it might as well start with her.

She had since come to accept that what she did was wrong and that she let power went to her head. For all her speeches of not wanting to repeat the Earth Queen's tyrannical rule over her subjects, she ended up doing even worse things to the people who opposed her ideology. She even went as far as putting Bataar Jr., her own fiancé, in harm's way just to get rid of her enemies in one fell swoop, something that he didn't hesitate to chew her out plainly and harshly time and time again during her time in prison. She had accepted that her actions are going to have consequences that will stay with her for a long time.

And yet, even realizing that, she couldn't help but feeling like the entire world is against her.

"You killed my father, 'Great Uniter'," Asami Sato made no attempt to hide her seething rage when she confronted Kuvira one day, "No matter what Korra says about you, I'll never forgive you for what you did. For all I care, you deserve far worse than what you get. My only satisfaction about all this is that the world will never let you forget what you have done, and it will haunt you every, single, day, until you are no longer among the living, then you can ask my father for forgiveness yourself. As long as I am still breathing, you'll always be my enemy. Remember that."

As much as she hated to be reminded of it, Asami's words were proven true. Even after four years, it was becoming painfully evident that she had no future outside of the Beifong family in Zaofu. Nobody in the Earth Kingdom would willingly offer her a job, and she would be lucky to live through a day in Republic City without at least someone threatening to end her life. So much for being a 'reformed' war criminal.