I just realized I missed wishing any Dutch readers a happy King's Day yesterday! Hope you had a good one!

Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: Unalaq is my least favourite, and Ozai is probably my favourite. And I'm interested in primitive black-powder muskets and arquebuses but the thing that would be most interesting for them to invent would be better ships. Maybe that way they could explore their world better, and who knows what they could find if they go west or east far enough.

Zigzagdoublezee: I can see the crocodile comparison. What animals would you then compare the other two nations to?

As Always, Please Review!

Yue stood with the Governor and her companions under a flag of truce just outside the wall of the fort. Every refugee had safely made it in, which was good because not long afterwards her questions about how the Fire Nation seemed to have been able to bypass them had been answered.

For as she stood there, she watched a dragon swooping down out of the sky.

The beast was a deep yellow colour, its eyes glinting gold in the morning air. It looked absolutely fearsome. On its back, a man in red armour clung on for dear life as it twisted its body back and forth.

"Tui and La," Yue breathed. She had never seen a dragon before, and was overawed by its majesty.

Finally, it swooped down and landed a short distance away, lowering its head to allow its rider to dismount. He stood up, straightened his uniform, pulled out a white flag of truce, and walked towards them. When he got close, he bowed deeply. He was wearing a helmet with a long plume sticking out of the top of it, and his uniform was flecked with red and gold. He was quite a tall man, and looked relatively young as well.

"Greetings," he said. "I have the honour to be Kaito, General of the Fire Nation. I want to discuss-"

"Is that a dragon?" Sokka asked excitedly.

The question seemed to take Kaito off-guard, and he paused for a moment.

"Uh... yes," he said. "But-"

"What's his name?"

"Tsume," Kaito replied. Then he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, who are you? I have a job to do here and it is not to do meet-and-greets with the dragon!"

"What do you want?" The Governor asked.

"It's very simple," Kaito shrugged. "I want your fort."

"No."

"I urge you to reconsider," Kaito said. "I have already managed to get men behind you on dragon back. You are cut off, surrounded, and I have thirty thousand men aimed straight at you."

"No." The governor said again. "I don't care how many men you have. The Earth King has ordered me to hold this pass and that is what I must do."

"So be it." Kaito shrugged. "If you want you and all your men to die pointlessly, that can very easily be arranged."

"Not as easily as you think," the Governor retorted. Yue saw that the negotiations had devolved into posturing and so stepped in.

"Why do we need to fight at all?" She asked.

"I have my orders!" Both men snapped at her. Then Kaito pointed at her.

"I've heard about you," he said. "You're the Avatar."

Yue bowed.

"A pleasure," she said, in a tone that conveyed that it very definitely wasn't.

Kaito seemed to be considering something. He turned and paced away from them, and then came back. They all just looked at each other in confusion.

"Alright then," he said. "I may be willing to come to an arrangement."

"What did you have in mind?" Sokka asked. Yue shivered as Kaito fixed her with an unpleasant gaze.

"The whole Fire Nation is after you," he told her. "And so if I am the one to bring you in, honour and glory will be mine. The Firelord wouldn't even mind that this fort remained in the Earth King's hands. So I'll do you a deal. Give yourself up. Surrender to me, and come back with me to the Fire Nation. In exchange, I will spare this fort."

A shocked silence fell upon the group. And then Katara burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry," she chortled. "What makes you think we want to do that?"

"Yeah!" Sokka stepped forward and jabbed a finger at the General. "The world needs her!"

Yue didn't say anything. She could avert a battle this way. Maybe save lives, on both sides. But the price was unacceptably high. By giving herself over to the Fire Nation she would be condemning herself to, at least, a life of imprisonment, probably worse considering the Fire Nation had tried to kill her before. And a hundred more battles would be fought, and the Fire Nation would win their war with her unable to do anything about it.

So she shook her head.

"A tempting offer," she said coldly. "But I'm afraid I have pressing duties to attend to, and will be unable to come with you."

"A shame," Kaito nodded. "Oh well, I tried. I offered you a way out, and you didn't take it. What happens next is on your heads."

"Is it?" Yue asked, anger flaring. "Because what started this was your country going to war unprovoked with the entire world. Otherwise we would all be living in peace! My country would still exist! All the refugees I've met fleeing your war would still be living peacefully in their homes! So don't tell me it's our fault when it's your egos that got us into this."

She jabbed a finger at him accusingly.

Kaito just smirked.

"Goodbye, Avatar," he said. "For now."

Then he turned and walked away, remounting Tsume the dragon and soaring away into the sky.

Sokka scowled.

"What a waste of time that was," he said.

"At least we saw a dragon," Katara nodded.

"Don't get too excited," the governor told them darkly. "I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of that dragon before this is done."

Yue could only agree. Tsume may have been majestic, but he was also now a weapon of war, a weapon of war that was probably about to be used against them.

"Tell me you have a plan," she said.

The Governor looked around.

"Alright, I have a plan," he said.

"What is it?"

"I don't know, you told me to say that!"

Yue smiled serenely.

"So, we don't have a plan."

"We can only do what we've trained to do," the governor said. "Hold the wall. No matter what they throw against us."

Yue could only hope that would be enough.