"Baatar. You can't let them see me, Baatar."
The street was empty and there was no one in sight, but Kuvira still said the words like she was afraid someone was about to pop out from a doorway or behind a cart at any moment. It was hard to walk with her stepping on his heels every minute or so, and Baatar was pretty sure he was going to find bruises from her fingers on his arms the next day.
"Why not?" He tried to twist free, tired of being marched around like a human shield and after several tries, succeeded. Looked like that self defense practice with the troops was finally paying off. Even drunk, Kuvira had a grip as strong as iron.
"Look at me!" She stopped short and gestured at herself. "It'll be bad for morale."
Baatar rolled his eyes. "They won't even know it's you."
Kuvira huffed. "I hope so." It did look like she'd gone out of her way to be unrecognized. Gone was the severe bun she'd started putting her hair up in. It was back in the braid she kept in Zaofu, though he wasn't sure if the hair that kept falling over her eyes was meant to be a part of the style or a way to hide her beauty mark. The makeup around her eyes was smudged, probably intentional too. She wasn't even wearing green, and the yellow blouse and long, pleated skirt were a far cry from the uniform she wore daily. She could've passed for any girl from Ba Sing Se.
"You look nice," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
Kuvira shrugged expansively, swaying a little into him as she started walking again. "I needed to blend in. Not be me. Zhu Li picked out the clothes."
"Well, she made a good choice," he said, then gasped as she jogged him hard with her elbow.
"Don't get used to it. They're just a disguise."
He massaged his ribs as he made a face. "You're mean when you're drunk."
"I've been told I'm mean when I'm sober too. So with one's true?"
"Both?" Baatar ventured tentatively, unsure if there was a right answer. He flinched when she swayed into him again, but this time it turned out she just want to link her arm with his.
"It's not my fault," she complained, leaning her head against his arm. "I have resting mean face."
Baatar frowned, thinking hard. It wasn't like Kuvira smiled a lot—and over the past few months there'd been little to smile about anyway—but mean wasn't what he thought about, looking at her. But he also had to admit he was incredibly biased in that regard. Now Aunt Lin, she had a resting mean face. Baatar wasn't sure he'd ever seen her smile.
"Well, do you want to smile more?" he asked carefully. It felt like he was wading into dangerous territory here.
"No," she said shortly.
"Then don't," he answered.
She sighed deeply. And maybe it didn't mean anything, the sigh, because she said nothing after that, but he couldn't help but feel like his answer had let her down somehow. Or maybe it was all just the alcohol.
They turned a corner and found themselves in a square. There were a few people still awake here, drunks, or maybe just delinquent teens, it was hard to tell, hanging out by the dry fountain as they passed a bottle back and forth. They looked up as the two of them passed, but otherwise remained silent. Nothing to see here, Baatar thought, putting an arm around Kuvira's shoulders. Just two people walking around at night.
"You're tense," Kuvira remarked, as they turned away from the square. "Expecting trouble?"
Baatar shrugged, but he left his arm where it was. If she had a problem with it, he'd know. "Not really," he admitted. "But better to be safe, especially with you like this. Ow!"
"I'll have you know I'm perfectly capable of defending myself," Kuvira said flatly. She held her elbow at his ribs the way she'd hold a blade.
"I wasn't worried about you, I was worried about them. Remember the last time you metal bent while drunk?"
"I was sixteen!" she said, her tone wounded. Her elbow dug in again, but this time he was quicker. Intercepting her with his hand, he slipped his arm off her shoulder and pushed her away to the other side of the street. She gave an exaggerated gasp, pretending to stumble and fetch up against the wall, but Baatar wasn't fooled.
"You walk there." He pointed to the ground beneath him. "I walk here."
Kuvira's hair had fallen into her face again, but it couldn't hide the dangerous glint in her eyes, or the smirk that curled her mouth. Baatar had just enough time to curse before the pavement rolled over his shoes, trapping his feet and legs up to the knee. Then the entire block he was standing on shifted over, moving through the ground like it was water. He wobbled, and the stone around his legs crept up his thighs to steady him.
Then it came to a stop. "Hey," he said, and gave her a little wave, because there really wasn't anything else he could do. Kuvira must have sunk the earth he was trapped in into the ground a little, since he now found himself eye to eye with her.
"Say that again about my metalbending." Her voice was flat, but they were close enough that he could see the corner of her mouth twitching.
"That's not metalbending," he said, giving her a smirk of his own. "That's earthbending. Besides," he looked behind him at the broken pavement slabs and the churned up dirt beneath, "You're breaking your own rules."
As she continued to fake a scowl at him, he held out his palm. "That's a hundred ban fine for the destruction of public property."
The ground beneath him shot up, and the rock around his legs crumbled away, all so suddenly that he stumbled. Kuvira caught him by his elbows. "You're lucky I like you."
"You mean you're lucky I like you," Baatar said, dusting himself off as she went about repairing the road. Broken chunks of paving stone trailed after her in a weird parody of turtle ducklings chasing after their mother. "If anyone else had asked me to pick them up after a night of drunken revelry—"
Kuvira snorted. A pulling gesture with her fist made the chunk of earth he'd been standing on slide back into place. Then with the same sharp, efficient motions she used with her metal bands, she put the broken chunks of paving back. Baatar assisted in his own nonbender way, kicking stray pieces of rock in her direction for her to manipulate. Finally, she smoothed it all down, sliding her slippered foot over the previously broken bit of road. "There," she declared, hands on hips. "Good as new."
"Fantastic," Baatar said drily. "Now before you tear up the rest of the city, can we go?"
"Fine." She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him along, and Baatar, completely nonplussed, allowed himself to be led. The affection was unusual, though maybe in Kuvira's mind, it was simply a matter of efficiency. That is, if she knew where they were going. The roads and alleyways were unfamiliar to him, though the flag that marked their headquarters remained in sight, rising above Ba Sing Se's green tiled roofs, so at least they were still heading in the right direction.
Kuvira wasn't even walking properly, instead moving along in half-skips that involved kicking her legs out, performing little hops and stomps that seemed to shift her weight from her heels to her toes, all the while humming a rhythmic song under her breath.
And because she still held Baatar's hand, it made for somewhat uncomfortable walking, since he'd find himself jerked along for a bit as she moved away, only to fetch up against her back as she stopped to do some confusing, on-the-spot footwork that he could only half make-out due to the length and volume of her skirt.
"Were you out dancing?" he asked, as she some did some kind of half-twirl that brought her an arms length away, before reeling herself back in.
"Me? No."
"Then what's with the—" he tried to execute a little jig to demonstrate, only to trip over his own feet and stumble.
A laugh escaped Kuvira, but she quickly recovered, covering her mouth and disguising it as some heavy coughing.
"That was terrible," she remarked, when she was done making fun of him.
"My feet are bigger than yours," he said defensively, but she just scoffed.
"That's no excuse. You just think the only way to move is to go forwards, one foot in front of the other."
"Well, that's how walking works."
"But we're not talking about walking." She linked her arm through his, and started doing that half-skip again, swinging her right foot out, then back in, stomping, then switching to her left foot foot and repeating the whole thing. "Come on, follow me."
Baatar insistently put one foot in front the other, moving like nature intended him to. "No thanks. Besides, shouldn't we—"
"Shut up," she said, hip-checking him hard enough that his teeth clacked together. "Dance with me."
"Fine," he sighed. "One...whatever this is. Then we have to get back. You have a meeting with Governor Khan tomorrow."
"I'll be fine," she said, and started humming that song again. "Follow me."
The steps, Baatar reflected as he dance, swinging out his legs to follow hers, weren't all that complicated. And the rhythm, for now, was fairly consistent. Out, in, stomp, switch, out, in, stomp. But somehow he still messed up, swinging out instead of in, stomping at the wrong time, wobbling dangerously as he switched from one foot to the other.
"You're overthinking it," said Kuvira. "Just move." At some point she'd slung his arm over her shoulders and put her own arm around his waist to steady him. She was a line of heat against his side, breathing evenly and steadily while his own lungs had started burning with exertion. The simplicity of the dance was deceiving. This was as much a workout as running several miles.
"Come on," Kuvira chided, "the basics are easy." She did some kind of sideways leap that shifted her whole weight against him, drawing her feet up under her. He instinctively clamped his hand down on her shoulder, and for a moment that and her arm around his waist were the only things that kept her up in the air. Her breath was hot in his ear, and he swallowed hard as she spoke. "If you can't keep up, I should probably fire you."
She dropped back to her feet and spun away, releasing her hold on him. Baatar let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "I'd like to see you explain that to the troops. 'He couldn't dance properly. So I fired him.'"
Kuvira did another skip, another twirl, and from there flowed into movement he recognized from her fighting style. "Every good warrior knows how to dance," she said, sounding like she was paraphrasing someone else's words. His mother's, perhaps? The kata she executed looked flawless to his untrained eyes, but now he recognized the elements of dance in it, the way her balance shifted easily from one foot to another, how her arms moved with fluid yet decisive grace.
It made him regret, for a moment, never having taken up his mother's offer to teach him martial arts when he was younger. After all, she'd worked with benders and nonbenders alike, she would probably have known what to do with him. He wondered briefly what it would be like to fight next Kuvira, if their bodies were in tune as their minds or ambitions.
"A ban for your thoughts."
He shook his head. "It's nothing. Thinking of could've beens."
Kuvira gave him a shrewd look. "Those are dangerous."
"I know." She'd stopped dancing, so he reached out and took her hand. "You still haven't told me where you went."
"Oh," she gave an off-handed shrug. "It was a cultural showcase. I happened to see a poster about it somewhere."
Baatar frowned, trying to remember if he'd seen anything like that over the past days. At the city hall? A police station? A restaurant? "I didn't know they had these kinds of things here."
"It's a large city, Baatar," said Kuvira, an undercurrent of impatience in her voice. "People here come from all over. This dance happens to be from the southeastern part of the Earth Kingdom, near the southern Air Nation islands."
"And they've brought it all the way to Ba Sing Se?" He tried to recall if he'd seen anything similar in Zaofu. "Nice."
"That's what I want, Baatar," said Kuvira. "Our nation, united. So that everyone can see what we have to offer, all of us, from every corner of the Earth Empire, not just powerful states like Zaofu and Ba Sing Se and Gaoling."
Her spine straightened as she spoke, her gait changed. Soon they were going to reach the compound that housed the officers from their army, including themselves. But for now, she still held his hand. He squeezed her fingers. "It will happen, Kuvira."
She didn't say anything, but she squeezed back too.
When they were a block away, Kuvira ducked into an alley, dragging him along. They'd pulled back the guard over the past few weeks, reducing posts to the entrances of buildings. Kuvira believed the city had calmed down enough for that to serve as a sign of confidence and trust, and judging from the peaceful streets tonight, she'd been right. Baatar watched in surprise as she stripped off her blouse and skirt. Less surprising was the undershirt and military trousers she'd kept on underneath.
"You were really going the whole way with this disguise weren't you?" he remarked, as Kuvira licked her thumb and started rubbing away the black on her eyelids.
"I'm just a girl from Ba Sing Se, out to have some fun." The tone of her voice was sing-song, but sober. Baatar suspected she'd been sober since before she'd started dancing.
"But did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Actually have fun? You as..." he gestured at her, "yourself."
She gave him a small smile. "Yes. It was nice, to get away for a bit. Be someone else for a while." She kept rubbing away at her makeup, but with only her thumb it was just getting worse.
"Here, let me," offered Baatar, pulling out a handkerchief that was thankfully free from oil stains and anything else. Instead of taking it from him, Kuvira tilted her face towards him, offering. He hesitated, and she flushed suddenly, turning away and snatching the handkerchief from him.
"Well, I'm glad you had a good time," he said lamely, as she wetted the cloth between her lips and brought it to her eye, still turned away from him. He wondered if it was his cue to leave. His escort mission seemed completed, she didn't need him anymore.
"I haven't been a stranger in a while." Her voice was low when she spoke. The one eye he could see was now free from makeup. "It's nice to be among people who don't recognize you, who don't have any expectations.
"And don't get me wrong." She looked up, and the Kuvira who looked at him with determined green eyes was the one he'd gotten to know over the past six months of their campaign. "I don't fear those expectations. They're necessary. But—"
"It's nice to not feel them for a while," he finished for her.
She gave him back his handkerchief, nodding. "Thank you for walking me back. And sorry if I was being...silly."
"Well, it least it's just me," he said, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and not some kind of grimace.
"Oh Baatar." She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I don't know if I've ever told you how much I appreciate you being here."
"It's…" he shrugged. "We have a plan. A goal. And we'll see it through."
"Yes." For a moment she swayed forward, but then seemed to think better of it. Stepping back, she removed her hand and bundled her clothes under her arm.
"I'll see you in the morning then, at the drills."
Baatar made a face. That would mean about four hours of sleep.
Kuvira caught the look, and glared. "You'd better be there."
Clicking his heels together, he gave her a snappy salute. "Yes, ma'am."
She sniffed and turned on her heel. "Goodnight!" he called after her, and she responded with short wave.
Baatar watched her go. His room was in another building; at Kuvira's insistence they'd been housed separately to ensure the safety of the chain of command in case of an attack. He wondered what the guard at her building thought when they saw her. Maybe they'd assume she'd been out on a run, or at a top secret meeting. He wondered what excuse to give to his own guard.
"I've been out dancing with a stranger," he murmured to himself. "Just some girl from Ba Sing Se." Then he had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. What a strange, strange night. Heading to his building, he absently attempted a step from the dance. Swing in, swing out, stomp, switch. This time he managed without tripping.