Well, I'm back. I've been busy lately, but since I dropped ice skating I might actually have time to write on Saturdays. Sorry I haven't updated in a while, but things are getting hectic. Anyway, I was a little nervous about writing this one, so let's see how it'll turn out, shall we?

Man, this is taking forever to write. It just won't go. I've had at least two chapters up since starting this. Sorry, folks. Gahh! I finished it Sunday night, honestly. But the website wouldn't let me on. Sorry.

Anyway, a few notes about this chapter: What the little girl calls her mother is Mamma. That's not her mother's name, or a typo, it's just her way of pronouncing Mama. It's pronounced Maahmuh instead of Mawmuh. That's what I used to call my mother when I was really young.

I've always seen Ozai as unfeeling, partially because that's how his favorite child seems to be, and also because, to me, a man who could destroy so many lives must not be able to care about them. Whether that's because he doesn't understand them, or just because he doesn't care, I don't know, but he doesn't.

This was inspired by a quote that I heard somewhere: "People need your love the most when they appear to deserve it the least."

Dedication: Because I was always the practical one. And you never asked why.

Ozai was born with the ability to get through anything. Nothing ever fazed him, nothing confused him, nothing ever broke his calm. He would act just the same to his son as to any other failure, and he did. Nothing ever mattered other than protecting his country from those who would stand it the way of making it strong.

At least, that's what he told himself.

It was very rare for a Fire Lord to leave the capital, but it was done. Every Fire Lord did it at some point, for some reason.

And now it was his turn. He was touring a few minor villages in the Earth Kingdom to get an appraisal of the situation. Nobody but his highest-up officers knew he was gone, and the few he encountered on his journey would know him only as a minor general.

As always, Ozai was completely detached from the situation. He honestly didn't care one way or another about these people, but it was his duty to know how they lived, in order to know them and be able to plan around their naturally irrational actions. And so for a short while, he would walk among them.

Not as one of them, but among them. It didn't make a difference.

These people, Ozai decided, are completely boring. They are not worth my time, and they should be grateful that I don't decide to kill them just so that they will be more interesting.

He was perched on a bench outside of a tavern. The people in the tavern were drunk, naturally, so they didn't notice him. Or didn't care. Ozai, honestly, couldn't spare a thought for them.

Not that he was sitting outside of the tavern for any particular reason. To keep his cover, he wasn't allowed into any meetings a general of his ranking wouldn't be. That disturbed him, slightly. He hadn't been left out of a meeting since many years before he had taken the throne. He was the Fire Lord!

But, as the Fire Lord, he must think rationally about every situation. He must appraise it carefully. He must appear to his people to be in control, no matter what was happening. He must not show weakness. He must not even be a person in their eyes.

And when he examined it the cool, comprised way he was expected to, he knew that it was for the best. His generals feared him. They would never even consider turning against him, or saying anything in a meeting that would be considered treasonous. Ozai did not trust his generals, but he trusted their fear. Fear could be trusted.

And fear, unlike the respect and love preached by the fools in this village, was continuous. If a man feared something, he would fear it for many years, particularly if the danger never changed. But if a man loved something, his view of it was fleeting and perpetually altering to fit his newest thought. Love did not guarantee trustworthiness. Only fear could do that.

Ozai watched the people of the Earth Kingdom scurry about in their small way, in their small town, worrying about their small business and their small lives. Did they fear him?

Did they fear the Fire Nation? Did they fear the soldiers who looked at them through hardened eyes? Did they fear the people who could end their lives with a slight change in their manners?

Yes, he decided, as it was predicted when the war began, it is over today. They fear us. They will not fight back. We may not have the world, but we have the people in it. We have control over their fear.

While he was preoccupied, a small figure came up from around the corner and sat down besides him.

"Hi," the child said. "Are you new?"

Ozai stared blankly at her. She was a little girl of perhaps about six years old, her long hair combed and braided in a manner that must have taken much effort. He wondered who had done it for her, or if she had done it herself. Why would someone go into all that trouble for the hair of a child?

A very brave little girl indeed, to have come up to him like that. She had no way of knowing that he was the Fire Lord, but she must be able to recognize the uniform of a Fire Nation soldier. They had probably occupied her hometown for as long as she could remember. Why had her parents not taught her to fear him? Who would put so much effort into a child's hair, but not even tell her that she was to fear?

"Why do you ask?" Ozai replied noncommittally.

"I know all the soldiers," she replied proudly. "You've never been here before."

"You know every soldier who is stationed in this village?" the Fire Lord asked incredulously. The girl must be lying.

"I sure do!" answered the child. "My Mamma says that the only way not to fear someone is to really know them. If you don't know somebody, she says, you can hate them and hurt them and be afraid of them, because you don't understand them."

"Fearing people can be good sometimes," Ozai told her. "The soldiers here are only hear because the Fire Nation took over your village. If your ancestors hadn't been so trusting, the war would never have begun. You could be living without the Fire Nation in your home."

"Oh, well," the Earth Kingdom youngster replied. "We're not, and I don't like being afraid of people. It makes me feel bad, and it probably makes them feel bad, too. I mean, I wouldn't like people to be afraid of me. Would you?"

"The more people are afraid of you, the less likely they will do you harm. You cannot trust anything but fear. Fear is more deeply embedded in human nature than any other trait. There is nothing else."

"Yes, there is!" she insisted. "What about my Mamma and my Daddy? I can trust them, because they're my family and they love me. But they're not afraid of me. So why can you trust your parents?"

"Love?" Ozai asked sarcastically. "A fleeting emotion. It cannot be depended upon, cannot be predicted. It can be faked, and is, so often. It can change. Fear cannot. Fear is the one eternal factor."

The girl shook her head. "But if someone is afraid of you, then they don't like you. If they think that they can escape you, they will. Love is what makes you want to trust someone, and be trusted by them. Fear is ob-edi-ence," she ended her momentary hesitation over such a big word with "that's what Mamma says."

Ozai wondered if she really understood what he was saying, or was she just quoting her mother? He had never known a child to understand so much. But then... she lived in the Earth Kingdom. He had never known a child from the Earth Kingdom.

But while things were different there, they weren't different in the way that he would expect would make a child understand things. Children in the Earth Kingdom were stupid. There was no reason for her to know what he was talking about.

There was no reason for him to believe her.

Ozai stood up abruptly and turned to leave. "Trust is not what is important," he said sharply. "In the Fire Nation, we do not require trust from our subordinates. Only obedience."

The little girl looked up at him with such an absence of fear that for a moment, he was taken aback. The rest of this village feared him. Why didn't she?

"That's too bad," she replied simply. "Because then you can never really love people. And that's really, really sad."

Ozai turned and hurried away.

As he left that place, several days later, he came across a group of children, waving goodbye. Their parents rushed them inside with fear in their eyes, but there was something he had seen on the faces of those youngsters that he hadn't seen in a long, long time.

No fear. And no fear meant no control.

Perhaps, Ozai decided, this war was not yet won.