White Hot Flames (ZukoxOC)

34

        The woods were dark, vines creating eerie shadows that Sokka was taking full advangtage by telling horrible ghost stories. "Suddenly, they heard something down the hall, in the dark. Oooh... It came into the torchlight. And they knew the blade of Wing - Fun was haunted! Aah-ah..." The water tribe boy draws his sword and wails in an attempt to sound crazy.

"I think I liked "the man with a sword for a hand" better," Aang murmurs, awkwardly scratching his cheek.

Toph scoffs. "Water Tribe slumber parties must stink."

"Did you ever have sleepovers, Lia?" Aang asks suddenly.

Rezalia tilts her head. "Well, I snuck into Zuko's room a lot so yes, but no. We never told stupid stories or braided one anothers hair or have pillow fights- well except that one time but that was mostly because I pissed him off but that's not the point. Yes I slept over but we didn't do typical sleepover things."

"Oh," Katara mutters.

"I do know a story, though," Rezalia offers. The others perk up. "In the heart of the biggest volcano in the Fire Nation, there lies a demon. Trapped away for thousands of years, shackled to the Earth's core, and yearning for a way out. So it crafted a human of molten rock and fire to set him free. Only, the demon had been in that volcano for so long and no longer remembered what a grown human looked like. So it crafted a baby, a child it could mold to it's very whim. However, as the demon layed the the child on the volcano's edge to cool, the nation's bravest warrior saw the child."

"The warrior did not know what the child had been crafted for, what the child was. So, he did what any good man would do and took the child into his home to raise as his own. The warrior's wife was overjoyed to finally have the daughter she had always wished for and the people were happy that their finest warrior would have an heir. On the child's second night among humans, it's true nature was shown."

"Flames the color of the purest snow raged against the stone house, trapping the wife inside and burning her alive. The warrior had not been inside the house at the time of his wife's death but he did return in time to cease the spread of the fire, saving the rest of the town. But he was too late to save the woman he loved. And yet he kept the child, determined to raise it properly and turn it into the greatest fighter to ever grace Fire Nation soil. The people could not understand the warrior's wishes but they respected him and thus respected his wishes."

"The child trained day in and day out, but for years could not control its horrid flames. It burnt down training facility after training facility and yet the warrior continued to train it anyway. For years the child was trained, discipline crafted into its very core. But it was still unstable. The child had been crafted with a purpose. One it could never forget. So, the child stole into the heart of the kingdom and used its twisted words to bend the innocent prince to its will. The great Fire Lord could not save his poor son and was forced to banish him, taking the child along with him so that the demon could never be freed from its prison."

"The child went on a rampage, killing all that it encountered. Nations far and wide came to know of the Fire Nation's greatest shame. A child they could not control, a devil they could not tame. The child still roams the world, searching for a way to gain access back to it's creator and killing all that stand in its path. When the wind howls in the night, it is the pained cries of a not-human child yearning for its maker. When the embers in your campfire burn just a tad too bright, it is a sign that the child is near. When the air grows too still it is a sign that the child is near and it has killed all that breathes around it."

At the end of Rezalia's story, the group was barely breathing. "Lia," Sokka says slowly. "Was that story...about you?"

"Kinda," Rezalia shrugs. "That's the ghost story parents tell their kids to scare them into behaving but it is technically about me. Hardly anything about it is true, though."