Kuvira’s feet sounded rhythmically along the floor. One crossing over the other and then again and again.

The echoes of footfall a reminiscent of things passed…

Of a synchronized dance.

Her dance was lonely now.

She assumed it’d remain that way for quite some time. Her soldiers weren’t exactly fond of dancing, and the ones that were…well they weren’t graceful to say the least.

Kuvira remembered all too clearly dancing with a group. She considered them to be friends of some sort. They were a close group and their dance never out of sync. And in a way she missed them. But she had to let them go if she wished to make it by in the world…

If she wanted to achieve anything…

Make history.

Leave her mark.

Her family was rather unremarkable. They were cowards. They were lazy and unimpressive. And when she suggested doing something of importance they left her to the streets—they didn’t want their youngest child to outdo them (not that it would be hard to do).

She was just a child then…when Suyin took her off the streets and introduced her to Zaofu.

Everyone was so talented there…so unique.

She belonged there.

There…in a place where her talents could be nurtured. Where they could flourish.

And flourish they did…until they were too much for even Suyin.

It would happen again. They’d fear that she’d outdo them and cast her aside. This time she’d do the abandoning. This time she’d pave the way for herself before she could be cast out and written off again. Of course the dancers…her dancers wouldn’t join her.

They preferred the simplicity and the elegance of the dance—the peacefulness of its art—to ‘the path to war’ as they called it.

But it wasn’t a path to war, it was a path to unity. To greatness. And it held an elegance of its very own.

But as it would have it, Kuvira seemed to be the only one who could see grace in her cause…

In being a solider, a warrior, a poweress.

And so she’d dance without them. Even if it meant dancing alone.

Alone in the dark.

In secret.

Maybe one day they would join her again. Maybe they’d see that uniting the Earth Kingdoms was a dance of its own. That Kuvira’s two passions are one in the same.

Until then…

She moved herself into a slow and graceful spin, let her body sink to the floor and then back up (in an arch) into another neat and fluid twirl.

…Her dance was her own. Her path was her own. And she’d make the best of the both of them.