The throne room was nearly empty as I bowed on one knee in front of my Father, only a few military officers and the like. The normal servants were nowhere to be seen. Per usual, the decorative wall of flames concealed much of his form, and what little wasn’t was hidden in the cast shadows. I had been in this position for at least fifteen minutes and was starting to lose feeling in my leg. Despite knowing that I had successfully completed my mission and there was nothing the Fire Lord could pin on me without coming across as incredibly petty and ungrateful to the entire nation, I still couldn’t completely shake off the slightly choking feeling of his presence filling the room.

Let it never be said that Ozai didn’t have the art of intimidation honed to perfection.

“I see that you managed to accomplish your task.” He said, finally breaking the silence.

“I did.”

“And yet I received notice that the Water Tribe pirates who were no doubt behind the troubles to begin with managed to escape you.”

“They weren’t my priority.” I replied shortly.

One of the few other people in the room stood up at this and bowed towards the throne.

“Apologies for the interruption Your Highness, but for the good of the Fire Nation I cannot ignore what the Princess just said in good conscience.” The speaker was some random Colonel that I wasn’t immediately familiar with. No doubt he was some ‘expert’ my Father had pulled in to use as a mouthpiece against me.

“You have something to say Colonel Taso?”

“I do. While the Princess managed to complete her task with satisfactory results, she ignored the source of the trouble and allowed a dangerous subversive force to escape. No doubt they will make their way to another city and simply repeat the process, tying up our forces for months to come.” The Colonel sneered slightly.

Ah, I recognized him now.

A man who had managed to advance through the ranks with a few notable military victories in the Earth Kingdom and with the help of some family contacts.

It made sense father would use him as my detractor. If you didn’t know the actual history of his career he was the perfect person to find fault in any strategy I used. An up-and-coming officer who knew what he was doing and had no issue with speaking out against his superiors making mistakes. And if I managed to prove him wrong? Well, he was a simple military man. How could he hope to understand the brilliance of the Royal Family.

A rather transparent attempt for Father to try and strip my newly acquired forces, but too bad for him I was actually familiar with Taso. Or rather, I was familiar with Uncle’s complaints about the man and his habit of risking entire battle plans for minimal high visibility gains. He wasn’t as talented as he seemed at first glance.

“A mistake caused by the Princess’s lack of experience no doubt. But something that I feel she could overcome with the proper instruction. Naturally someone would need to...correct...the mistakes she made on her assignment.” the ambitious weasel placated.

“Hmm. It’s true that Azura hasn’t properly led anything before this incident so some mistakes should be expected.” Father said, stroking his beard before turning to me. “What do you think, daughter?”

“I think you should fire whoever recommended the Colonel to advise the people gathered here on what is a priority during an assignment. Clearly they don’t know what they are talking about.” I said shortly, fully aware I had just indirectly called my father an idiot.

If he thought I would meekly hand over my accomplishments just because he was going to make it seem I had blundered, he didn’t know me very well.

Colonel Taso stiffened indignantly but said nothing. My Father narrowed his eyes and leaned forward a bit, the flames in the room growing just the slightest bit more intense.

“Oh? And where was the Colonel’s judgement wrong?”

I took that as permission to rise from my position and face Colonel Taso.

“His insistence that the Water Tribe was the source of the disturbances the city faced for one. There was an organised resistance group of Earth Kingdom loyalists operating in the middle of Danyuan. Removing them and solidifying the Fire Nation’s control over the city was my objective, not chasing after some remnants of a backwater fishing village we could crush with a mid sized patrol.” I said to the room. “The Water Tribe might’ve compounded the issues in some small way but without similar groups already existing in other cities any action they want to take is limited.”

“That thinking is rather naive, Princess. Small groups can win large victories.” Taso retorted. “It was using one such group that I recaptured the Naga pass fortress from the Earth Kingdom.”

“Then enlighten me. What would you have done differently.” I demanded.

“You left the Water Tribe alone for too long.” Taso said in a tone I supposed he considered scholarly. “When you became aware of their presence you should have surrounded them and decisively removed them before they could escape.”

“With what forces?”

“I- what?” It seems that wasn’t the question he was expecting.

“With what forces Colonel. I’m curious where you would get the forces needed to surround them.”

“With the same forces you had access to Princess.” Taso said in a confused tone.

I raised an eyebrow as I stared impassively at him. “Somehow I’m not surprised. You’re saying you would have emptied the City the moment you discovered the Water Tribe’s location?”

“No, of course not! I would have taken the proper amount of soldiers from the local guard to encircle the port by land and used the scout patrol you were given to block the sea route.”

There was some shuffling among the other military officers as they started to realise the flaw in the Colonel’s logic. I saw father shift his gaze to a few of them out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t help feeling a little malicious joy seeing him still unaware of what precisely the issue was.

“Is that so? I suppose that fits with your past actions. You seem to like retaking positions lost to idiotic decisions.”

One of the generals, one I assume was familiar with Taso’s most impressive feat, broke out in a coughing fit to cover his startled laughter.

While it was true Taso had managed to reclaim a fallen outpost in Naga pass with less than twenty soldiers following him, what was left out of the reports (but not Uncle’s gossip circle), was that the only reason the outpost was lost in the first place was because a patrol had been lured out of position chasing after a high rank soldier from the Earth Kingdom.

If they had simply diverted and then returned to their route then no one could fault them for the detour, but Taso had convinced the others to keep pressing on after the officer even after he had deliberately shown himself to the patrol after losing them several times.

Any soldier worth their command would’ve guessed there was something up after the second or third time, but not Taso. So while they were off chasing a lure, Earth Kingdom soldiers had walked completely undetected through the hole in the scouting pattern and captured the fortress by surprise.

That Taso managed to recapture the pass was immaterial since the sudden loss of a supply route meant the siege of So Chu was forced to pull back. By the time that Naga pass was recaptured the city had been reinforced and the siege needed to be restarted all over again.

“And the City would’ve been overthrown by the Rebel elements since anyone competent would’ve realised the garrison there was the only reason they hadn’t tried to take the City again after they failed the first time.” Taso was looking rather red.

“If the city was unstable I would’ve conscripted for the city guard just as you did.” He tried to defend himself.

“Yes, because conscripts from the unhappy population would be an excellent choice to guard a city while the regular soldiers go on some halfwit adventure. And before you bring up that I used locals as well, remember that I had any new recruits stationed far away from critical points in the city and simply used them to keep the peace with the civilians there.” Taso’s mouth snapped shut as he was no doubt about to bring that point up.

I felt I had made my point and turned back to the throne. “You see, Father? I took the necessary steps to secure the city you tasked me with bringing under control, added to our forces, wiped out the resistance, and even secured the countryside from our enemies. But if the advisor who tricked you into thinking Colonel Taso here could have done a better job because some Water Tribe rabble were too cowardly to even fight, then I suppose we must censure the generals here as well. Afterall, they often let the enemy get away on occasion, which must be a sign of incompetence if a Colonel could do better than all of them.”

And just like that the atmosphere in the throne room grew even heavier as my Father realised he couldn’t trap me. If he decided to punish me for letting some pirates get away when they weren’t even part of my mission, then he would need to uphold that decision for every military operation afterwards. The officers would revolt in a week.

“Colonel Taso, you are dismissed.”

“I-...yes, Fire Lord.” the man ground out.

I ignored the glare he not-so-subtly threw at me as he left the room. He would wind up somewhere else in the war effort no doubt. Either a remote outpost or somewhere similarly unimportant. I had likely ruined his career, but that was the price he paid for trying to get involved with royal politics.

“Azura, I have a new mission for you.” Father decided to cut his losses. “While Danyaun was easily the most obviously rebellious of the colonies, no doubt there are similar groups infiltrating the others. Root them out. And if you find those Water Tribe pirates again. Don’t let them get away.”

I bowed and accepted the order while scoffing internally. Yes, yes, I will stay far from the capital and your ham-fisted attempts at cunning. Besides, this arrangement worked perfectly for my own plans.

With another few bows and farewells, I left the throne room and returned to my estate. I crafted a few letters for Azula letting her know what I would be doing and arranged for their delivery and arranged for the chefs to prepare dinner.

A nice way to end the day after such a colossal waste of my time.