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“I never thought you the worst kind of coward.” Korra folds her arms.
Kuvira cocks her head. Captivity hasn't undermined the arrogance in Kuvira's every action. “And what kind is that?”
Korra steps forwards. "The kind that runs from the consequences of her actions. The kind that disregards her legacy."
Kuvira sets her jaw. They're seated at a rickety table in a dimly lit interrogation room. The shadows carve deep lines in Kuvira's face. Both in front of Zaheer and now Kuvira, Korra remembers Fire Lord Ozai. What must it have felt like to watch the world’s greatest dictator brought to his knees? What does it feel like to bring such a man to his knees?
"Well," Kuvira drawls. She has a Southern Earth Kingdom accent beneath that Zaofu polish. "How kind of you to come here and gloat after the trial."
Korra doesn’t have an answer and suspects she never will. Nor did Aang before her. The singular moment of victory is coloured in by everything that comes after. The burials; the rebuilding; the court cases.
Korra crosses her arms. "I wanted to know why you said it."
Kuvira stares. Her greasy hair and threadbare clothing does nothing to lessen the ever-present intensity in Kuvira’s gaze. To Kuvira, Korra is a rather interesting chess piece and Kuvira is deciding how best to sacrifice her.
"I'm not going to play any kind of games," Korra says. She just has to know—
"Of course," Kuvira says. Even under the grime and imprisonment, the authority in her voice remains. "I surrendered to you, after all."
Korra narrows her eyes.
"Did you ever wonder why the era of industrialisation began in the Fire Nation? I used to, as a child," Kuvira continues slowly. Korra didn't. She used to think those kinds of questions were boring before she saw the real world.
"The Fire Nation was a number of clans who hated each other just a few hundred years ago," Kuvira says. "Ba Sing Se was the centure of the world centuries before the Cresent City."
"The Earth Kingdom had resources," Kuvira says with a bitter smile. "We sold the Fire Nation the iron for their warships; cotton for their uniforms; rice for their soldiers."
"So, what?" Korra says. Earth Kingdom tactic: remember the glory days. We could have been great, they say, as great as we were. Dissolve your responsibility in history's memory.
"So, we ate our own. Avatar Kyoshi brokered the first trade deals with the newly united Fire Islands. Generations of ministers got rich off of the money. Academics, inventors and entrepreneus were taken care of by the Dai Lee," Kuvira says. "The governament has always lacked vision. They had the audacity to be surprised when ships showed up at their doors when they signed on their deaths decades ago."
"How do you plead?" the judge had asked.
"I brought that ancient civilisation out of the dark," Kuvira says, eyes bright. "That's why I said it."
"Not guilty," Kuvira had said, tall and proud.
"That doesn't justify everything you did," Korra scoffs. "You can't possibly believe you're—you're not guilty."
"Maybe not," Kuvira says, "but it would never have gotten to where it is now without me. I was the villain who bought my people their future. You would have installed the useless-king. Either the United Republic or Earth Kingdom ministers would have made Wu their puppet. Oh don't give me that look. You know exactly how far men in power are willing to go."
Korra shrugs. "So you built a few railways and filled a power vaccuum by being a dictator. So what? That doesn't derail all the crap you did. You left that empire to rot to bandits. That's one hell of an uplefting legacy."
Kuvira looks at Korra like she wants to punch her. She doesn't.
"Avatar," Kuvira says. The words hang in the dim glow of the room. "You grew up sheltered and convinced of your own importance. I've seen you. I know what you're like. You don't care to stop and ask questions because you're convinced you know the answers by virtue of being you."
Korra narrows her eyes. "You don't know me."
"My parents dumped me on the street the first chance they got. I thrived. I was convinced I could do anything I wanted to. Not because the world cared about me but because I was determined enough to push through. I was important," Kuvira says. "You spent three years clawing for survival in backwater Earth Kingdom towns."
Korra raises an eyebrow.
"Those three years were what my childhood was like. I was a starving, broken animal," Kuvira says. Her voice is flat. As if these are facts from someone else's life story, not Kuvira's. "Well, until I was a teenager and Su fished me out of the gutter and took pity on me."
Kuvira leans forward. "I know you. I grew up convinced I was the outlier. That I was lucky because I was smart and had vision. And, well," Kuvira pauses, "I wasn't special the way the Avatar is."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Korra folds her arms. It’s a familiar argument: being special allows you to forgo suffering. It sure as hell does not.
"It means," Kuvira says, "that you don't know what you're doing. You're a child who's not meant for politics. But the great leaders of the world will bow to your whims. You don't know how the world works and are expected to run it. You never represented the people like I did. You have no right to question my legacy."
"I never—" Korra stops and takes a breath. She looks Kuvira in the eye. "I never chose to be the Avatar. You're blaming me for something I never had a choice over."
"No," Kuvira concedes, "but you were given a kind of political legitimacy I could never dream of. No politician gets to disappear for three years and come back and retain her decision making power."
"So you think the Avatar is some kind of... tyrant?" Korra says. She’s never taken Kuvira as a radical.
"Now you're making me sound like Zaheer," Kuvira says dryly. "You asked me why I pled not guilty. It's simple. I am what it means to see your people suffering when you are not the Avatar."
Korra once saw a frail little girl gulp mouthfuls of dirty sewage water. Korra passed through that Earth Kingdom village a week later to find the girl lying in a puddle of her own piss, stomach strangely swollen. Dogs circled her, waiting for her to die and become their next meal. Korra couldn't sleep that night. A deacde full of suffering breaks something fundamental in a child.
"You're definitely not me," Korra shakes her head. Kuvira’s right. There’s something in Kuvira. An animal born out of a starving child. Korra could never make herself ruthless; not even when she wants to.
"No," Kuvira says, smiling, "but I am what you could have been."
Do you think anyone would have changed if I was a bender? Asami had asked her once. Korra said nothing would have changed. Asami said everything would have changed. There’s a type of freedom and respect bending gives you that you just can’t see from the outside, Asami had explained. Korra gets it, she really does. She also gets that there is no point in what-ifs.
Korra raises an eyebrow. "What does me being like you have to do with your legacy?"
Kuvira smiles like Korra's finally catching up. "That you are in the unique position of understanding how important change is. You, the Avatar, are in the best position to understand how change is eternal."
"That's stupid. So you're saying that just because history move forwards, whatever horrible things you did won't be remembered if you wait long enough?" Korra says. "That's why you didn't plead guilty?"
Kuvira presses her lips into a line. "You're deliberately misunderstanding me. No one chooses how they are remembered. You can't deny I brought a new era to the Earth Kingdom. I brought transport, peace, and democracy. Unlike Kyoshi, I was man enough to topple the scales and bring change."
"And bloodshed, suffering, and starvation," Korra counters.
"Perhaps," Kuvira says. "Much like you brought instability, carnage, and destruction."
Korra's face flushes. "I brought back the spirits! And the airbenders and—"
Kuvira grins. Korra looks away.
"If you did not have all the privileges being the Avatar gives you, you could have been standing in front of that court room counting your sins," Kuvira says. Korra exhales. She's acutely aware of her own failures.
"You're not going to win," Korra says because she has nothing else to say about the blood on her hands. That legacy will not wash off.
"I know," Kuvira says. There's determination shining in her green eyes. "That is why I refuse the guilt. That's the hill I die on for my legacy."
What's yours? goes unsaid.