This is for the LiveJournal user known as arielen, who also takes risks
(and copes heroically with my high-school German :-).

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She has always wanted to serve with honor.

Which means (she's been told since childhood) performing her assigned duties, however menial: no one found wanting in small matters is worthy of great. "Prison guard" was not the duty Ming hoped for when she took her oath to the Fire Lord, but she does what she is ordered to do, competently and courteously. Once the prisoners learn there is no advantage to be taken of her, she even finds room for kindness: a smile, a friendly word, a proper cup of tea.

Then the Fire Nation's greatest traitor repays her compassion with dubious counsel: to report herself falsely ill, to play blind, deaf and dumb despite his hints of coming trouble. You do not want to be here, he says.

But she takes his advice, because in order to serve with honor, you must also know honor when you meet it.