I was far more nervous waiting for the Earth Kingdom to approach for parley the second time. Technically there was nothing saying General Fong needed to accept a second meeting and he could just attack my camp before moving onto the city.

Agni knows the Fire Nation didn’t always accept second attempts.

Which is why this time I was not relaxing in a chair drinking tea.

Instead, I had an elite team of twenty of my best Firebenders standing behind me ready to turn our surroundings into an inferno before we fled back to the city should our enemies decide not to be polite.

This was the first time in my life that one of my plans had an immediate risk of getting a large amount of people hurt if things went wrong. Sure, I had ruined the career of several nobles and politicians back home, but that could always be smoothed over at some point if needed. Now I was dealing with an enemy general who had very little reason to hold back against me personally, and several reasons to make sure things didn’t go my way if he wanted to be stubborn. I had thought after all Uncle’s stories and lessons about leading soldiers into battle I was ready to hold the lives of my troops in my hands.

Only now that I was too deep into my own plans to turn back did I realise how wrong I was.

I didn’t have to wait long before the enemy army came into view. Despite the near total loss of their supplies, the Earth Kingdom decided to continue on to the city rather than retreat. Something I was fully expecting from someone like Fong, which is why I had one more…slightly...underhanded move to play if I couldn’t convince him to retreat.

“A small party is breaking off from the army, Princess.” One of my guards said, looking through a spyglass. Looks like General Fong was going to deal with me personally. Now I just had to see if that meant talking or fighting.

We waited silently as a dozen ostrich-horses grew closer and I found myself glancing at the guard with the spyglass, waiting for him to announce if they were flying a truce flag or not.

When they were more than halfway between me and the army my guards started getting nervous.

“Princess, perhaps we should move back to the city?”

“We’ll wait a little bit longer.” I was not going to give Fong the chance to say he scared me off.

We could now clearly see the riders and their lack of a flag with our bare eyes.

“Princess…” My guard tried again.

“Wait.”

I ignored the bead of sweat running down my spine. The riders were now close enough that they would catch up to us before we made it back to the walls.

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Still no flag.

I was just about to order the guards to take me back when one of the riders finally raised a truce flag. The action had me letting out a deep sigh of relief. I had been worried General Fong would mess up the plan by ignoring me entirely.

Thankfully, either he or one of his advisors had decided to at least follow the letter of tradition and meet us rather than the spirit by showing their intentions when they were in sight. I was also fully aware that any complaints about following the letter and ignoring the spirit were hilariously hypocritical, but I would still complain about it. Being hypocritical was practically a requirement of nobility.

My train of thought was jerked back to the present when General Fong jumped off his mount and caused a localised quake before stomping up to me, making my crane my head back to look him in the face.

“Well, you certainly have guts to show your face after what you did.” The General growled. “So why shouldn’t I just crush you and move on to capturing Anje?”

“I take it you found the actual prisoners I left you?” I had my soldiers leave the prisoners by the riverbank after they retrieved my infiltrators. Mostly just to prevent anyone from spreading rumors that I wouldn’t return prisoners even though I never specified I would be handing over Earth Kingdom earthbenders, but also because I didn’t need them anymore and they were a drain on my resources.

“I’m still not hearing a reason.” He definitely found them if he was that angry.

“For two reasons then,” I replied with a calm I didn’t really feel. One wrong move and this would be a mutually destructive battle I would probably end up losing. “The first is that you no longer have the supplies for a long siege. If I’m right you barely have enough food to make it back to the Earth Kingdom.”

“You’ve certainly been through with your cowardly tactic.”

“You are hardly one to call it cowardly. Afterall, didn’t you also have saboteurs try and disrupt the city?” I pointed out.

Oh, he didn’t like that at all. I could feel and hear the ground compressing alongside his fists and I was aware of my guards and the other earthbenders preparing for a fight.

I needed to make him stop before something happened, so I rushed to give him my next reason.

“The second is that your army will still starve even if you take the city!”

The rumbling stopped. The troops were still on edge but no one looked like they were going to attack.

“Explain…”

I was almost hyper aware of how close I was to burning myself here. I couldn’t afford to show any weakness.

“It’s simple really. I made sure to remove as much food from the city as possible when I sent the civilians away. Don’t give me that look, everyone does it. Can’t have the peasants starving after all.” I said flippantly. “I also happened to give several soldiers orders to burn the rest of the food supply should it look like we are going to lose.”

The rumbling was back.

“I guess if you are going to hold the lives of my soldiers like this, then I shouldn’t hold back from seizing what we need from those refugees then.”

“And what makes you think the guards with them don’t have similar orders?” I bluffed. I hadn’t thought about him going after the citizens that left. Usually nobility wouldn’t even consider it because it would reflect badly on them through their peers. Fong must not care about his image over the well-being of his men.

Irritating. Unforeseen and very irritating.

For a long time the Earth Kingdom general stared angrily down at me while I kept my expression calm, though I allowed an arrogant smirk to grow the longer he did nothing.

I was betting that he wouldn’t throw away his soldiers to a hard fought siege only to then have to starve and then deal with the reinforcements that would be on the way. Anje was a rather useless city on its own, but it’s location on various trade routes guaranteed the Fire Nation would attempt to take it back.

Fong simply couldn’t hold the city under these circumstances.

“...very well. Pray to the spirits we never meet on the battlefield again, Royal brat. You won’t be able to pull this off again. I swear by Prithvi.”

With those final words, General Fong remounted his ostrich-horse and led his group back to the Earth Kingdom army. Not long after, the army began retreating.

I closed my eyes and silently released the breath I didn’t know I was holding. That had been far more nerve wracking than normal. Who would have guessed bluffing my way out of an actual battle when I didn’t have overwhelming force would be so stressful?

That being said, I wanted to get far away from this city as soon as possible. I did not want to wind up facing another army for any reason. Certainly not one with the leading general angry at me specifically.

“Let’s return to Anje.” I ordered my guards. “And someone send word to the group moving north they are free to return to the city.”

I think it was time to return to the coast. I had gotten first hand experience how difficult it was to be a frontline commander and I found I was nowhere ready to make this a regular thing. Perhaps I should reach out to one of Uncle’s friends to see if they would be willing to act as an advisor so I didn’t have to threaten to burn down the city I was defending to make the enemy retreat.