iruka-2013:
This is the revised version of this chapter, since I didn’t even start working on it until it had been revised. ^^;
This chapter appears to be the climax of the present fic, as well as a milestone for Korra and Kuvira’s post-series friendship.
Keep reading
To be fair, my revisions came shortly after the chapter was initially published, so I can’t exactly fault you for not catching the first version. ;)
ikkinthekitsune:
“You’re the Dragon of the West?” she asked, her eyes wide. Kuvira’s hands had balled into fists instinctively. The “Dragon of the West” was infamous in her parents’ village, though the elders who’d been fought for Ba Sing Se at the time had another name for him.
That “been” shouldn’t be there… Also, is “another name” a general reference to some (imaginary) derogatory nickname, or a specific reference to something in the show that I’m forgetting?
In general, I think you’ve got Iroh’s voice just right—as well as Kuvira’s reaction to him, which would undoubtedly mirror those of most Earth Kingdom people of her generation who had heard of him.
I’m assuming you meant the “had” rather than the “been,” given that there isn’t a “been” in the quoted section? ^^;
The “another name” was, in fact, a reference to an imaginary derogatory nickname, albeit one that referenced something I’d seen elsewhere on the internet. ;) Basically, someone tried to make Iroh sound worse than he actually was in the context of some sort of debate by calling him “the Butcher of Ba Sing Se,” which I thought would make for a pretty effective in-universe accusatory epitaph. I couldn’t figure out how to work the actual nickname in, though. XD;
I’m glad to hear that the voices sound right, in any case! ^_^
“Used to be,” Iroh corrected. He smiled sadly, and Kuvira couldn’t help but feel like he understood her reaction. “There are many things in my life that I regret. Your people suffered greatly because of me, and nothing I can do will change that.“
That was quite an understatement, Kuvira thought bitterly. Six hundred days of siege warfare had been devastating for Ba Sing Se, and the famine he’d caused by ordering the fields within the Outer Walls burned had taken more lives than his soldiers.
Are you supposing this much would be common/folk knowledge among the downtrodden villagers of Kuvira’s early youth, or something she learned about after Su took her in (and presumably took charge of her education)?
I was kind of imagining Kuvira’s village to be fairly close to Ba Sing Se, with some of the older village folk having been conscripted to help in Ba Sing Se’s defense in the war. The stories came from them rather than Zaofu; I can’t really see Beifongs teaching that sort of history, considering the sort of terms Toph and Iroh were on.
He might have helped free Ba Sing Se, the Earth Kingdom had never forgotten what he’d been capable of.
I’m guessing there should be a “but” after that comma.
Yup. It’s fixed now.
Ifthe Dragon of the West could make the world a better place –
Looks like a missing space after “If.”
That it does, at least in your version. There doesn’t seem to be a missing space on mine (it looks like your typical weirdness with Tumblr and italics), but I’ll add an extra space there to see if that’ll fix it.
The mention of the younger General Iroh hit like a punch to the gut; the last time Kuvira had seen Iroh’s great-nephew, she’d trained a spirit cannon on him and demanded his surrender. “I took him prisoner,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
It’s interesting to consider that this is technically true, even if she never got to the point of, say, arresting the enemy leaders for war crimes (or whatever her legalistic mind had planned).
Iroh surrendered, so I have to imagine that he was secured along with the rest of his forces during the attack on Republic City. (I don’t think she’d have had to arrest the leaders for war crimes, honestly – I think she could have done what she did with Zaofu and demand loyalty in exchange for release, and she’d have gotten the results that she wanted anyway. =P )
Kuvira looked between the man who had laid siege to the Earth Kingdom capitol and the woman who had held her fiance hostage, then down at her own hands.
That’s a great sentence. ^_^ (It should be “capital,” though, referring to a city and not a single building).
…huh, I didn’t know about that distinction. It’s fixed now.
(I really liked that sentence, too. =) )
Iroh cut Kuvira off. “True maturity means taking responsibility for the harm you have done, but it also means recognizing what you have done – and can do – to prevent further harm. Unnecessary blame, whether of yourself or others, serves only to distract you from what you need to do in the present.”
Iroh’s “wise words” voice is right on, here.
Good to hear (especially since he’d be pretty out of character if I didn’t capture that part of him!).
“Xai Bau?” Korra asked. She frowned in concentration. “Oh, right, he’s that guy who started the Red Lotus! Shouldn’t he be dead by now?”
“One would think,” Kuvira said dryly.
The fact that Korra’s speech patterns seemed to regress into childhood with the rest of her in “A New Spiritual Age” makes me wonder whether or not this bit of dialogue was made to sound grown-up on purpose (and if so, what it implies about Kuvira!).
Yeah, she’s slowly getting back to her old self as Iroh’s wisdom sinks in. =)
“Apparently, he’s a spirit now, and he’s working with Zaheer.” She swallowed; her memory of Zaheer’s arm wrapping around her neck as Xai Bau passed judgment hadn’t faded in the slightest. “I’m sure he still wants to kill me… or worse.”
Korra’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll have to deal with him, then,” she said.
Heheh… don’t mess with Korra’s friends!
Messing with Korra’s friends is the worst mistake any villain can make. XD;
“Unfortunately, that might not be possible. Look,” Iroh said, pointing at something off in the distance. Kuvira turned and saw an ugly purple cloud on the horizon, which threatened to engulf the sky.
Here’s a classic example of the difference between “which” and “that”… Because a sentence with this construction only makes sense if “which” refers directly to the word before the comma, the sentence seems to be saying that the horizon was about to engulf the sky. To fix it you could either change “which” to “that” (“cloud on the horizon that threatened to engulf the sky”) or move the prepositional phrase from the middle of the sentence to make “cloud” the last word before the comma (“On the horizon Kuvira saw…” or some variation).
Huh, I didn’t know that. I went with “which” rather than “that” because “that” sounded off to me. Moving the prepositional phrase sounds even weirder, though, so I removed the comma and went with “that.”
“What’s that?” Korra asked Iroh in obvious alarm.
I’m thinking the “obvious” is a little… you know. ^^;
Good point. XD; It’s gone now.
“That is pure chaotic energy,” Iroh said. “If left unchecked, it will poison this entire section of the Spirit World. I suspect that it’s Xai Bau’s doing – I’m sure he realizes the Avatar cannot allow such a catastrophe.”
“He’s right.” Korra’s admission was laced with frustration. “But I can stop him.”
I like that bit expression—“laced with frustration.”
Thanks! I’m pretty fond of that expression myself. =)
“But you’re still – ”
Kuvira cut Korra off; she might have looked like a child, but she certainly didn’t feel like one at the moment. “I don’t care,” she said. “He’s doing this to get to me. I have to do something.”
Korra’s eyes widened. Kuvira wasn’t sure what Korra had to be surprised about; it wasn’t like she’d said anything out of the ordinary. But then, she looked down and realized that the ground was suddenly several feet farther away, and it all made sense.
She was herself again.
This is both a great expression of the good side of Kuvira’s determination (that is, when it doesn’t lead to her trying to conquer people), and a perfect way to get her back to adult form.
Kuvira’s determination is a lot like Korra’s – it can be really dangerous when not properly focused, but it can be a very good thing when it is. ;)
It took me some thought to decide what to use to get her back to normal, but this method just felt right once I started working with it. =)
“Well, there goes that excuse,” Korra admitted. “If the Spirit World thinks you’ve made the right choice, who am I to argue?”
Iroh nodded. “She needs this.”
Nice plot construction here, simultaneously wrapping up the scene with Iroh and completing Kuvira’s development arc, while gearing up for the next stage of the fight against Xai Bau. ^_^
Thanks! That’s exactly what I was trying to accomplish, so it’s good to hear that it works.
As bizarre as that was, though, it wouldn’t have been an issue under normal conditions. The underlying sea had a mind of its own and actively diverted the attention of those close enough to notice it, bridging the gap between islands seamlessly and fabricating artificial “sea monsters” to carry those who sank into its depths back to shore.
Way to explain the otherwise rather random creature that swallowed Jinora and Korra in “A New Spiritual Age.” ^^; In fact, this view of Spirit World physics as a whole is really cool.
I always love playing around with stuff like that, so it’s nice to hear that it works well on the audience’s end, too. ^_^
Consistency of distance, always questionable in the Spirit World, vanished when confronted with such violence; the field of ice compressed in on itself until Korra and Xai Bau were no more than the length of a Probending ring apart and she could practically smell the waves of dark energy that rolled off of his skin.
I particularly like that sensory detail (even though I’m not sure what dark energy smells like!).
As far as the idea of smelling darkness is concerned, I kind of have Kingdom Hearts to thank for that. ;) (Those games never explained what darkness smells like, either, unfortunately. XD; My own guess is that it kind of smells cold, like a day that’s way below freezing.)
Within seconds, Kuvira had crossed the remainder of the distance and commited to a body-check that forced him to react.
That’s “committed.”
That it is! Not sure how I missed that, but I’ve fixed it now.
The ground itself shifted under Kuvira’s feet and her momentum nearly flung her into the bubbling purple sea, but she regained her balance quickly, launched another attack at Xai Bau, and offered Korra the perfect opportunity to overwhelm him.
I’m not sure about the parallelism in the second part of this sentence, which seems to give the three actions equivalent importance that they don’t really have, if that makes sense… I think that, because “offer” is more of a passive action word in the first place, it needs to be emphasized by the structure of the sentence, which could be done by (for instance) linking the two action clauses before it with an “and” and turning “offered” into a participle (“… regained her balance quickly and launched another attack at Xai Bau, offering Korra…”). But that is a little picky, since there’s nothing technically wrong with the sentence as it stands. ^^;
Hmm, good point… I ended up taking your suggestion, then altering the sentence before it to try to improve it further. Hopefully, that makes things better.
Korra was sure that victory was at hand when an agonizing scream rung out, and bending energy was suddenly the last thing on her mind.
That’s “rang out”… and unless you mean to say the scream itself causes Korra physical pain, it should also be “agonized.” (This same usage occurs again a little later.)
Good point. I’ve made those changes now.
Korra’s hand kept moving until it came to a halt over a certain spot. “This might hurt a bit,” she warned, then slowly started to draw it out. That was an understatement; by the time Korra had managed to expose half of it, Kuvira was reduced to begging her to stop. Korra paused to sever the part of the claw she’d already removed before agreeing.
Considering that this is Kuvira we’re talking about, that really says something about much it hurts. O_o
The idea behind the spirit claw is that it’s slowly eating away at Kuvira’s very existence, with movement lighting up undamaged "nerves” as the claw connects with them. Think Korra’s mercury poisoning, except that Kuvira’s conscious as it’s ripped out of her. >_<
(In other words, yeah, Kuvira might be more stoic than just about anyone, but no one could take pain like that silently. =( )
The ice shook and shivered; Korra helped Kuvira to her feet, insisting that “We need to get out of here now!”
I think you don’t need “that” here. On a more general note, breaking so many sentences with semicolons has a tendency to slow down the action a bit (or given the feel of stringing it out), rather than providing the “punchy” feel that works better for an action sequence.
You’re right, I don’t.
The problem with the semicolons is that while it does slow down the action, it also provides connections between actions that I want to maintain. In this particular case, it’s there to make the point that Korra’s insistence was due to the ice shivering and shaking. Maybe that’s not necessary, but it feels odd not to have it. =/
Kuvira saw the shadow a split second before the spirit crashed through the ice and just barely managed to pull Korra out of the path of its jaws.
I think this would make more sense as two sentences; as it is, it sounds like the spirit, not Kuvira, is the one dragging Korra around.
Ah, good point. I couldn’t find a two-sentence version that I liked, but I reconfigured the second to make the subject less ambiguous.
Korra might have been busy redirecting the attack, but Kuvira saw everything. She saw a serpent the size of a train instantly absorb into Xai Bau as it crashed down on him from above, she saw the painfully bright flash of purple light as it disappeared, and she saw the massive waves of energy pour off of him in some dark mockery of the Avatar State.
Xai Bau paused to catch his breath, then slammed his hands down on the ice, and this time, the energy below boiled and frothed immediately, giving off an acrid smoke that seemed to consume the stars in the sky. Veins of dark energy shot towards Kuvira, cracking the ice and freeing up deadly purple jets; she jumped backwards and out of the way just as a stream of gold swept up to hold the darkness at bay.
These paragraphs are just really nice description. You’ve captured the color of the Spirit World beautifully, and the “warring colors” motif helps clarify what might otherwise be a difficult-to-picture sort of battle. :-)
Thank you very much. =D This chapter was a lot of work, so it’s great to hear that it was worth the effort. ^_^
There were few things Korra hated more than watching as someone else put their life on the line for her. She might have been able to channel more power through her fingertips than any other human who ever lived, but when a jet of dark energy shot out from under Kuvira’s feet and nearly took her leg off, Korra felt utterly helpless.
I like this bit for being one more instance of Korra’s dedication to protecting her friends. ^_^
Me too. ;)
She still has part of that spirit in her! Korra remembered with a jolt. Kuvira clearly had no intention of letting that stop her – she regained her composure just quickly enough to avoid Xai Bau’s followup attack – but it was only a matter of time before the spirit exposure took its toll.
That broken/partial spirit possession thing is a really clever way to tone down (and slow down) the danger of spirit possession as shown in “Beginnings” (…which is actually one of the most disturbingly unconventional depictions of violence the show ever gives us O_o).
Thanks! I needed something that would provide a ticking clock, and that’s what I ended up coming up with. Good to hear that it works. =)
But then, Kuvira gasped out, “Why are you doing this?” and Korra knew Kuvira wasn’t ready for her help.
“Funny,” Xai Bau said, rising to his feet. “You cared little for those answers when your hands were wrapped around my neck.”
“If you’re going to kill me,” Kuvira said, “don’t I at least deserve to know why?”
“Dictators don’t deserve anything but a painful death,” Xai Bau declared, punctuating his words with a sudden twist of the spirit tendrils inside of Kuvira.
Your Xai Bau is a great villain—his actions and dialogue are so hard core, like Zaheer on steroids. Somehow it helps that his goals are different from Zaheer’s simple “destroy the Avatar.”
Characterizing Xai Bau in a way that wasn’t just Zaheer Redux was important to me, and I decided that having him come off as more willfully cruel would be a great way to make that distinction.
What was interesting about Zaheer was that, while he did awful things, he never really seemed to enjoy it. His reaction to Korra’s torture was creepy because he didn’t react all that much, not because he was taking satisfaction in it.
But Zaheer was always characterized as a warrior philosopher, and there was no reason why Xai Bau necessarily had to be the same thing. So I figured it might be interesting to have him see the judgment of unjust authority figures as good in and of itself rather than a necessary evil… and take great satisfaction in their punishment, accordingly.
What remained of him fell into the energy below with a golden splash, and the serpent spirit exploded out of of the pool as if it had been burned.
There’s an extra “of” here.
Not anymore. ;)
Korra ignored the spirit and pulled Kuvira away from the growing cracks in the ice. Avoiding a plunge into the unstable energies threatening to burst below their feet was far more pressing than dealing with a spirit that had been so diminished that it stood no chance of defeating her.
That was a mistake. The spirit reared up to its full height – closer to the size of a boanaconda than a train, now – and dove at Kuvira so quickly that its head was buried deep in her stomach before Korra could react.
Spirit World wounds—gruesome, yet fortunately impermanent. ^_- (It’s not quite clear what “mistake” refers to, though, since Korra’s decision in the previous sentence is expressed in such negative terms.)
Yup. Rather convenient, eh? ;)
(The idea was that ignoring the spirit was a mistake. I’ll try to clarify.)
Kuvira stiffened, her body blurring dangerously as the dark claw within her reacted to the spirit’s presence and its dark energy flowed into her. In desperation, Korra wrapped her hands around the spirit’s neck and tried to rip it out, holding Kuvira’s body down with a foot on her ribs when her back started to arch to compensate.
Wow, even Korra’s saving-people moves are hard core. O_o
That’s Korra for you! ;)
(The last two words confuse things a bit, though; at first I thought “compensate” somehow referred to Kuvira’s back, which is the closest noun. A rearrangement that puts the final verb closer to the middle of the sentence would fix it… or you could just lop off those two words, which would be way easier. ^^;)
Removing the last two words is definitely easier. XD;
Korra breathed a sigh of relief as the gold glow that washed over Kuvira helped knit her damaged soul back together. The spirit had, thankfully, taken its severed claw with it when she’d pulled it free. “You didn’t need to put yourself through all that. There must have been some other way – ”
“What other way?” Kuvira asked. She took a long, ragged breath before speaking again. “Believe me, if I thought we had… any other option, I would have taken it.”
I’m guessing one of the points of the development in previous chapters was to give these two a chance to fight together… if so, the payoff was totally worth it. ^_^
Yup! That’s exactly what I was going for. =D
As painful as it had been to see her suffer like that, Kuvira was right. They needed to know what Xai Bau had been planning; if he’d taken his secrets to the grave, there was no way it wouldn’t have come back to bite them later on.
That’s “had needed to know”…
Right. Fixed.
Even so, there was no way she was going to let Kuvira die for it. The ice between them and the shore had already started crumbled back into the sea,
That should be “started crumbling.”
Yeah, it should. o_0;
When Kuvira opened her eyes, she found herself lying on an infirmary table with a shocked-looking healer standing over her.
“Thank the spirits you’re awake,” he said. “The chief would have had my head if I lost both of you.”
The old “don’t move the body of someone on a Spirit World journey” rule sure isn’t followed very well in LoK, is it? ^^;
To be fair, it wasn’t followed very well in A:tLA, either. XD;
Kuvira certainly felt like her body was dying. Her limbs were nearly as weak as they’d seemed at the end of her ordeal in the Spirit World, and she could only hope that was temporary.
“Her ordeal in the Spirit World” seems to be referring to one of her previous forays in other chapters, but in that case there should be some qualification like “previous ordeal” or “last ordeal” to clarify.
No, it was meant to refer to the most recent one. I’ll clarify.
IIRC, this story still has at least one wrapping-up chapter, then a sequel in the works… If that’s true, then this is a fine place for the main denouement. ^_^
Well, it did, but it’s been posted now. ;) But, yeah, this seemed like the ideal place for an epilogue to me, too.