When Hatred turned to Love (ATLA Zuko x OC)

Chapter Fifty - The Puppetmaster

I'm back! Vacation's over!!!!!

Thirty chapters left to finish this book! (I know it's a lot, but it is something).

I know I haven't updated at all the last three days and you can count this one for two chapters (because it's huge!) and I'm sorry if it turns boring!

Enjoy!

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The moon was nearly full, there were some clouds on the sky and there was a quiet breeze, with creepy sounds coming out of the forest. The perfect scenery for ghost stories... for Air Nomad ghost stories, hearing some Water Tribe stories Iris could come to only one conclusion, Water Tribe stories were hardly terrifying.

"Suddenly they heard something down the hall in the dark... Ooooo-ooh... It came into the torchlight, and they knew... the blade of Wing Fung was haunted... Aaaaaaah-aaah!" Sokka said finishing another terrible story and trying to make it scarier taking out his sword.

But no one seemed terrified... not even a little. Surely back then, Aang and Iris used to hear much scarier stories than this.

"I think I like 'the man with a sword for a hand' better," Aang said resting his torso on his elbows.

"Water Tribe slumber parties must stink!" Toph said boringly.

"You said it! You guys call that scary?" Iris asked resting her chin on her hand while she sat cross-legged beside her brother.

"No, wait! I got one, and this is a true Southern Water Tribe story," Katara said.

"Is this one of those 'a friend of my cousin knew some guy that this happened to' stories?" Sokka asked putting the sword behind and sitting back down.

"No, it happened to mom," Katara said.

Everyone sat straight to her answer. Who knows that might be interesting...

"One Winter, when mom was a girl, a snowstorm buried the whole village for weeks. A month later, mom realized she hadn't seen her friend, Ninni, since the storm. So mom and some others went to check on Ninni's family. When they got there, no one was home, just a fire flickering in the fireplace. While the men went out to search, mom stayed in the house. When she was alone, she heard a voice "It's so cold and I can't get warm!" Mom turned and saw Ninni standing by the fire, she was blue like she was frozen. Mom ran outside for help but when everyone came back, Ninni was gone!"

"Where did she go?"

Now everyone was frightened. Even Toph had folded her legs across her chest and Aang had wrapped Iris arm in arm. Sokka ran beside Iris and he hid behind her.

"No one knows, Ninni's house stays empty to this day. But sometimes people see smoke coming out of the chimney like little Ninni is still trying to get warm," Katara answered creepily.

Iris started laughing. The expressions on everyone's faces were so ridiculously frightened.

"Where the hell is the fun in this?" Sokka asked looking at her in disbelief.

"You guys really don't know much about spirits, do you?" Iris asked "The plot of the story is very obvious. Ninni was murdered by someone. I don't know who, but I'm willing to bet her parents had something to do with it. Since no one was home, they committed the crime and they got away," Iris said.

"But there was no dead body left behind. I would have solved it!" Sokka said pointing proudly at himself.

"What if they had taken the body and covered all trails?" Iris asked and everyone looked at her seriously. "I'll give you another version of that story. There are many reasons for a parent to murder his children,"