Born of Fire. (Zuko x OC) book 1

Chapter 10

Madelyn's POV:

It had been a few weeks since the incident with the frog and I was still plotting my revenge. At first, Zuko was very wary of me, always on the lookout for something I would do but he had calmed down a bit since; which was part of my plan. He was to sweat it out, then when he least expected it I would attack! But what could I do?

What was a prank I could do to him that would piss him off, but not piss him off too much?

Since I had my hallucinations, Zuko had acted weird towards me... other than the whole plotting his demise thing. What had I done or said? A better question might be what had he seen? I remembered nothing but falling in the water and then having a frog IN MY MOUTH! That was something I would never ever forget. It was a FROG! Eeewww. I like frogs, I honestly do. They can sometimes be cute. But you don't put a frog in your mouth! That is just wrong on so many levels, especially when it is still alive. I remembered when Aang did it to Sokka and Katara in the show and it being funny, but I now decided never to ever laugh at it again.

Another thing that was probably a side effect of my sickness, my nightmares were worse. I had had them most of my life and I was used to them and was able to sleep through them, but now I found myself waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats and hyperventilating. Zuko slept through these little episodes of mine thankfully. I didn't understand, it was the same dream; lots of fire, dark figure, and all that jazz but I was slowly becoming more and more afraid of it. My fear of fire could only be getting worse even after I had made so much progress with my bending.

I refused to bend anymore with Zuko for a week but eventually he made me do it anyway. I was only afraid when I myself was bending, but when he did it in a demonstration for me I felt no fear at all. In fact, I admired it and loved watching the fire leave his hands or wherever he directed it.

Another thing that happened was despite all my attempts at stopping it, I was falling harder and harder for the Prince of the Fire Nation. I knew better than to think he felt the same, he loved Mai and that was the end of it. That one almost kiss was going to be the closest I ever got to anything or anywhere with him. Oh well, I guess.

All was sorta peaceful. Zuko, Iroh, and I were all drinking tea in Zuko's room when suddenly the boat was jerked to the side. We were at the port so no large waves should have disturbed the ship. Zuko was just starting to calm down too, but now he had tea all over him and his ponytail was on the wrong side of his face. I held back a snicker but soon we stood up and I followed them onto the deck, and there upon the back of her ferocious steed was the queen of the moles.

"Get back! We're after a stowaway." June barked.

"There are no stowaways on my ship," Zuko shouted at her. Her giant mole ripped open a huge hole in the floor like it was aluminum foil and out came a dirty little man from one of the barrels. He didn't make it far before the shirshu attacked him with its tongue and the man fell over paralyzed.

"He's paralyzed," Zuko said, awed by the beast.

"Only temporarily." She picked the man up and let me say, Damn that woman is strong. "The toxins'll wear off in about an hour. But by then he'll be in jail and I'll have my money."

"But how did you find him on my ship?"

"My shirshu can smell a rat a continent away." She bragged as she pet her monster.

"Well, I'm impressed," Iroh said, more about June than her mode of transportation. The fierce and scary lady then cracked her whip and the shirshu bolted off the ship. "Very impressed." Iroh stroked his beard.

We all went back inside, some cough*zuko*cough angrier than others.

After lunch, we went outside and Zuko and I trained. I had passed the basics and was now working on aiming the fire at my opponent, which was a chair one of the servants had brought up for me. I was usually pretty close to hitting the stationary object and by close I mean I closed my eyes the whole time and wasn't watching where I was shooting and usually somehow always almost gave Zuko another burn like I did right now.