<div class="floatleft">(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/262/e/e/yue_by_goldensunlight-d5f8eo4.jpg)</div>Yue heard a rapping on the door downstairs, but disregarded it for the moment. There weren’t a lot of options for who that was, and she’d probably find out soon. Helping Katara to another bite, she shrugged. “From the look of it, it could last for the rest of the day,” she said defeatedly. “I think you can expect to be guarded for at least that long.”<br/><br/>As she had thought, it was only minutes before the rest of the Lees returned. “There’s a council meeting, and they’re both to attend,” a younger one reported. “Messenger’s outside. Something big is going down… they say the Avatar just showed up at the gates. Airbender, believe it or not!”<br/><br/>“What? That’s stupid,” Ky said incredulously. “He hasn’t been seen for a hundred years. What’s that old cook thinking? What good can he possibly do now?”<br/><br/>“He looks like a teenager, that’s the thing… they’re guessing he’s<em>Sozin’s</em>Avatar. You know, the one they were hunting-”<br/><br/>“Shut up about that.” Ky Lee stalked over to the table and hoisted Katara roughly out of Yue’s lap, laying her on the floor and delivering several light blows to her body. “You can move on your own now, but you can’t bend. Don’t try it unless you want an aneurysm.”<br/><br/>Another Lee came in, dropping clothes on Katara’s rousing body and throwing Yue’s in her face. “Be quick about it. The Queen wants you there an hour ago.” Yue wasted no time getting dressed. The less time these women were spending eyeing her naked body, she happier she would be. When she finished, she knelt and aided Katara with her own.<br/><br/>The Avatar… an archon of justice and balance, long gone from the world. Some blamed him for the Fire Nation’s tyranny over the last century. Others knew better, that Sozin had orchestrated it all, exploiting the Avatar’s pity and the power of the comet to create the situation they were now in: Fire supremacy. Yue believed that Azula was a better ruler than Ozai and Sozin were by a long shot, as she was less bloodthirsty than they, and more power-hungry.<br/><br/>It was a very difficult scenario. Relatively speaking, the world was more stable and peaceful than it had been in nearly one hundred and fifty years. Azula had ended the war and the bloodshed that had come along with it. There was no more uncertainty about Fire Nation aggression; it was unneeded now, as everyone was now in the fold. The Dai Li ensured that everything went smoothly. Perhaps the world was modernizing and this was how it was meant to be…<br/><br/>No, Yue couldn’t accept that. Her immediate surroundings were all she needed to sweep that thought permanently away. Any regime that needed to keep a promising young bender like Katara locked up and prevented from any freedom of choice was rotten to its core. The current government might have functioned more acceptably with a different ruler, but a system entirely dependent on the state of its ruler was already flawed. There had to be checks on power. As it was, there were none. Or was there?<br/><br/>The Avatar was the ultimate power check. He had insight onto how things should be, or he was supposed to, at least… but he was still just a person like anyone else. He could be fooled and misled, and Azula would make sure that he was. She could try to reach out to this Avatar, to inform him of the real situation, but if he really was<em>that</em>Avatar, then he was still a child. He knew nothing about this world. He would be completely out of his element, probably with incomplete training, and telling him the truth might just fly him into a destructive rage.<br/><br/>Azula would kill him.<br/><br/>When this thought occurred to Yue, the rest of her world fell like dominoes. The next Avatar would be a waterbender. Azula would hunt the replacement Avatar down and either take it for her own to raise or simply wipe out her tribe trying to find it, if they chose to hide it. The Avatar would be trained directly in her image or permanently killed. This meant the only option was to let this Avatar be, to not try to involve him in any plans, and let him come to his own conclusions. She had to trust that his life up until this point would prevent Azula from fully corrupting him.<br/><br/>Katara… she was naturally wise and patient like Yue, and they were sisters in that way, but Katara had been abused regularly for years now. She had to be wearing thin… Yue could see it in her pleading eyes whenever she visited. Katara couldn’t endure this forever, and Yue couldn’t blame her, but if Katara made a move, she could doom them all.<br/><br/>She said as much, but veiled. “It looks like today will be very interesting, Katara, don’t you agree?” As she helped Katara up from the floor, she added, “Let’s just see what happens. I hope it doesn’t get too exciting, I don’t know if my poor heart could take it.” She could only pray Katara understood.<br/><br/>Now that they were dressed and ready to go, the Lees prepared umbrellas for their walk to the council chamber. “Let’s move,” Ky ordered. “Try anything and you’re dead.”