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Zigzagdoublezee: I think Toph just has that effect on people.

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"Thank you again," Poppy told her, bowing. She was stood in the doorway leading from her house into her garden, flanked by attendants, and Yue was stood with her friends in front of Gembul. They were preparing to leave.

"You're welcome," Yue said, awkwardly. For Toph's sake, she had decided to go along with her fiction about what had happened on the previous night, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"Thank you for the hospitality," Rinzen bowed. "We really appreciate it."

"Nonsense," Poppy shook her head. "It's the least I can do for you. But there is something else."

One of her attendants produced a long, thin packet and handed it to her. She advanced down the steps and offered it to Yue. She took it, and bowed.

"Thank you," she said.

"Go on," Poppy said excitedly. "Open it."

Yue undid the string around the packet and then tore off the paper, to reveal a sword, slightly curved, sat in a blue scabbard. She blinked at it, unsure of what to say for a moment.

"I..." she began.

"Isn't it great?" Poppy said. "I had one of the finest blacksmiths in Gaoling make this. We've been planning it ever since we first heard about you."

She gestured for Yue to unsheath the blade. Yue did. The metal was a ghostly, pale white, and glowed ethereally. Yue hurriedly sheathed the sword again, not wishing to wave it around so close to Lady Beifong, and tucked it into the blue fabric sash around her waist.

"Thank you," she said again. "Honestly. "But... I don't know how to use a sword."

"You can learn," Poppy grinned. "And in the meantime you look good wearing it."

She clapped her hands and reached into her robes, pulling out a scroll which she also handed to Yue.

"Could you give this to Jet the next time you see him?" She asked. " Since you're headed that way anyway."

"I'll do my best," Yue replied.

"Good," Poppy said. "Now, I shouldn't keep you any longer. "You've got a world to save after all."

Yue bowed again and turned away as Team Avatar began boarding Gembul. First Rinzen hopped aboard, then Sokka, then Katara, then Suki. Yue paused, took her new sword out from her sash, and packed it into one of the saddlebags, before moving to join her friends in the saddle.

"Ready?" Rinzen grinned from his customary position in the driver's seat. "You might want to hang on to something!"

"Goodbye!" Poppy waved to them. "Have a safe trip!"

"We'll try!" Rinzen called back. Then he snapped the reins and Gembul lifted off, soaring into the warm morning air. Yue sat on his back, quiet and contemplative. Once the initial thrill of flight had passed, Katara noticed.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

"I don't understand," Yue said quietly. "I really thought she was the one."

"If she doesn't want to come, she doesn't want to come," Suki put a hand on her shoulder. "Nothing we can do about it now."

Now, Gembul was soaring up and away from Gaoling, leaving Poppy Beifong and her difficult but powerful daughter behind them.

They were headed north, back towards Jet's army, to check in with him and bring him a letter the Beifongs had written. Then, the plan was to go further north. They had waited long enough. It was time to get to Ba Sing Se.

Apart from anything else, there would be no shortage of masters there.

Yue leaned back in the saddle and sighed.

"She lied, you know," she said. "She wasn't kidnapped by the Fire Nation."

"I think we'd picked that up," Katara told them. "So what happened?"

Yue looked at Sokka. He nodded.

"We were," she said. "I couldn't sleep. We were in the garden. Ty Lee and Azula ambushed us. They chi-blocked us, put us in a cart and were taking us away."

"I guess that explains why you didn't have your weapons," Suki nodded.

"Azula's also teamed up with Lu Ten," Sokka told them. "So he and his gang of traitors were also there."

"And Toph... fought them?" Katara guessed.

"She did," Yue said. "She was incredible. But for some reason she doesn't want her mother to know about any of it."

"Why not?" Suki asked.

"She gave me a list of reasons, most of them didn't make much sense to me."

Yue stared out towards the horizon, watching the trees passing by underneath them.

"Although she did give one reason for lying that did make sense. She said if she gets captured, that doesn't matter. But if I do... that could cause people to lose hope."

"And?"

Yue adjusted her bright white sleeves. She had been a Princess until not long ago- indeed, legally she probably still was. It wasn't like she had had much time to sign abdication papers in all the confusion. But if there was one skill she had gained from that life, it was management of her own public image.

She considered for a moment, and then spoke again.

"I don't know. I get it, I do. I dress up in distinctive white clothes, I don't try to dye my hair, I try to stand out on purpose," Yue said. "And I know I'm painting a target on my own back by doing it, but that doesn't matter. I do it because I am not just a person. I am the Avatar, and that makes me a symbol. Of hope, I'd like to think."

She looked at Suki, and then to the bag slung over the saddle where her uniform, modelled after the clothes worn by another Avatar long ago, were kept. Then she looked at the bag where she had stashed her new sword. Suki nodded, seeming to understand.

"So I can see why she can think that," Yue said. "But it doesn't matter that I was captured. It matters that I escaped, and that's because of her. I think she deserves so much better than playing the victim."

"Clearly she doesn't agree," Sokka observed.

"Yes," Yue nodded. "Clearly. Nothing we can do about that."

She closed her eyes for a second, taking a moment to feel the wind rushing past her face and through her hair as Gembul raced through the sky. It would not to do linger on Toph. She was in the past now. And the world still needed her.