Burnt Out - Zuko x OC

I'm Already A Fucking Queen

Kai and Sokka hit the ground. The sword was ripped out of her hand by monstrous teeth that slung it far away and a huge, hairy body writhed wildly on top of them.

Kai was lost in a tangle of reality and delusion. As she came back to her senses, she became hazily aware of the fight ensuing on top of her. Aang, Toph and Katara struggled to gain control of the creature attacking their two friends.

"What the hell is a Canyon crawler doing here?!" Toph shouted.

Sokka barely heard the comment, he was buried beneath the body of a beast, panicking, clawing at the dirt with desperation and adrenaline rushing through his veins. "Canyon crawler?!" He screamed. "Did she just say CANYON CRAWLER?!"

In an instant, Kai snapped back into full consciousness. "What? Get off of him!" She yelled.

"We're TRYING!" Another struggling voice shouted from the dog pile. They thought she meant Sokka.

"No, I meant — Ugh!" Kai grunted and shoved her elbow forcefully into the ground, sending a wave under someone's feet, she wasn't sure whose, forcing them out of the web of bodies. She did it again and again, four times total, knocking all of her friends onto their asses and far away from her and the beast.

The four of them watched in horror as the hairy creature seemed to devour Kai. It made grotesque chittering noises, ones that they'd never heard out of the crawlers in the great divide. And they heard her screaming, too.

"Wait.. is she — is she laughing??" Toph asked.

She was, they weren't screams at all. Kai held tight to Nero's furry torso, he was lapping at her face with his mile long tongue.

"Okay, I'm confused.." Sokka said, followed by Aang's, "Should we be.. helping her?"

Kai sat up and the crawler rolled over into her lap, accepting her offer for belly rubs. She smiled. Just moments after nearly killing the avatar and holding a blade to her own throat, this girl was laughing and grinning as if she were the luckiest in the world.

"This is Nero, guys. We traveled together while I was gone, I dropped him off here before heading toward the Fire Nation." She spoke directly to them but quickly leaned her head back down, resting it atop his. "And I said I'd come back for you, didn't I, my love? Have you been good?" Kai kissed his snout affectionately. "I can see you've been eating well, sweet boy. You're getting chunky!"

"Sweet boy?!" Sokka cried. "Eating well?? He was about to 'eat well', all right, he was trying to eat ME!"

Kai rolled her eyes. "If he wanted to eat you, Sokka, he would have. Nero was only trying to save me."

Nero smiled something like a grin, spreading his jaw and showing off his spiney teeth before scurrying a short distance across the field. When he came back, Kai's sword was held in his mouth, he dropped it at her feet.

The reflection in the blade looked familiar again. She no longer saw the walking corpse of a stranger staring back at her. But the reality of what she'd done began setting in and Kai felt, for one of the only times in her life, ashamed.

"Aang —" She looked up at him. They all still kept their distance even though the heaviness in the air had lifted. "I know I said not to expect an apology, but.." her chest felt heavy with remorse. For longer than a few moments, she'd genuinely wanted to hurt her friend. Not just him, though, anyone. Anything to feed the ravenous beast inside of her. If she had any more tears left to cry, they would've been let loose, but she was past that point.

"I can't fight this thing forever.." She whispered.

The world seemed to stand still as Aang slowly walked toward her through the tall grass. The early morning birds didn't chirp, the dying leaves didn't rustle, even the sun stopped rising for a moment.