Wow. I really interpreted this literally. And managed to get six pages of yammering about totally random things. This was… special.

Anyway, numbers 17 and 20 are still open to guest writers, and I am officially going to have a 21st chapter based off of the suggestion of one of Alaska Rae's original reviewers. I won't tell you who, although he/she has already been asked. I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. But I want to write the 21st, so that won't be open to guests. There are only two chapters open, so if you want to guest write, hurry. And if you don't, well, keep reading! Hope you all enjoy it.

16: At a feast, play with your food.

Ozai had been annoyed by Lara his whole life. Well, not his whole life. Since he was fourteen. Many, many years. And she was annoying. And he was easily annoyed.

Bad combination.

But the point was, when Lara did something annoying that ruined something he was trying to do, he knew what to do.

Wow, that was a badly-formed sentence. Sorry.

Anyway, Ozai knew what to do. He postponed the feast.

And the postponement was over.

Hehe, that's a funny word. Postponed. I know post means after, but what does 'poned' mean? Whatever.

Anyway, the feast was going to happen again.

What feast, may you ask? Well, the celebratory feast. What was it celebrating? Something very, very special.

The Fire Nation had won.

Not what you think, not the war or anything. No, they had done something else, but no less important. Something great, and something that would go down in history as the greatest victory ever in the Fire Nation.

They had defeated the Avatar.

Okay, not really. They had sort of beat him at something. They hadn't captured him, or any of his friends. But they had stopped enemies of the Fire Nation while he was in close proximity.

They had destroyed the rebels.

Well, no. They hadn't destroyed anything. They had saved some Fire Nation citizens from a group of kids living in tree houses.

They had outwitted their enemies.

Never mind that the Avatar had been the one doing the actual saving. Or maybe it was his friends… But still, they had done something, and it was about time that something got celebrated. So they were celebrating the fact that they hadn't lost.

They were pathetic.

Finally, the dramatics said something that was true.

Does this sound familiar? Again, whatever.

Ozai stopped Lara before she entered the hall.

"Lara," he said. "Don't you dare mess this up again."

But his haste was his undoing. Because Ozai entered the hall before making Lara promise. And so she didn't promise.

And what Lara didn't promise to do, quite often, she didn't do.

So, as she didn't promise not to mess this up again, then she didn't not mess this up again. Meaning she didn't not not didn't. Meaning she did.

Recap: Ozai made Lara promise not to mess this (the feast) up for him again, but he forgot to actually stay for the promise, so she didn't make it, and decided to mess it up, (the feast, that is, not the promise) no matter what her brother said. Did that make any more sense than the other part?

Whatever. In case you hadn't noticed by now, none of this is really making much sense, so we might as well just shut up and accept that, now mightent we? Is that a word? I don't think so. Oh, well. I can make up words when I want to, I can! It's not my fault that nothing I do or say ever makes any sense! Blame Lara! She's a bad influence on me! It's true, really!

Now that the people in white coats have finally given me access to a computer, I can continue and pretend that the above paragraph never happened. That's usually a good idea with me.

Anywho, Lara was going to mess the feast up for Ozai. Because she's Lara and that's what she does.

That day, they were serving several different meat dishes as the main course. And Lara was hungry. Hungry, yes, but not hungry enough to avoid being annoying, oh, no! Not Lara, she's as annoying as ever. Don't worry.

And the meat gave Lara a plan to outwit and annoy her older brother. Because she's Lara and that's what she does.

First, she took a knife. That may give you some ideas on how she was going to annoy Ozai, but she won't. Not that way, because this is not a violent story. Most of the time.

In fact, what she cut with the knife was a piece of meat. She cut it into a person-shaped sort of thing. Then she cut out a crown and put it on. Finally, she added a face. Somehow, the meat-person resembled Ozai quite a bit.

But Lara wasn't done. She made several other meat figures, and lined them all up on her plate.

By this time, the nice General, Vahe, and several random people had all noticed what she was doing and were staring at her in confusion. And fascination, too. Ozai, however, was busy talking to some idiots, and didn't notice, much to his later chagrin.

The nice General was once again sitting next to Lara, and currently had some meat on sticks on his plate.

"May I borrow that, please?" Lara asked, indicating the sticks. Confused, the General slipped his dinner off and gave her the object she had asked for.

"General Vahe, would you please pass the sticky-sauce?" she requested. Although this man was slightly less likely to enjoy her prank, he obliged.

Lara took the meat-Ozai and put the sticky-sauce on it's back. The she placed the stick in the sauce (no pun intended) and held it there until it stuck.

This process was repeated with each of the meat-people until each of them was, essentially, stick-puppets.

Once again, however, Lara wasn't finished. It wasn't enough for her to make toys out of her food, no.

She had to play with it.

And so, Lara ducked down behind the table, taking the meat-people with her. One by one, she poked them up, created something not seen in the Fire Nation since the war started.

A puppet show.

"Hello, everyone," Lara said in a fake-deep voice. Everyone paused, and turned to look at her, or, rather, at the Ozai-puppet. She continued as if there wasn't an entire roomful of people watching her.

"My name is Puppet-Lord Ozai. How are you today?"

"Fine," said someone in the back of the room, sparking nervous giggles. The person clapped her hand over her mouth before she could say anything else stupid, but Lara continued as if she hadn't.

"That's great! I am too. Would you like to meet my puppet-subjects?"

"Yes!" called a few people, laughing.

"Good. Here's my brother, Puppet-General Iroh. Say 'hello', Iroh."

A chubby, bearded puppet popped up. "Hello, everyone! Pleased to meet you."

"Hello, Puppet-General Iroh!" a few more people shouted.

"You'll also want to meet our sister, Puppet-Lady Lara," Puppet-Lord Ozai continued.

"Hello, Puppet-Lady Lara!" was the general outcry.

Another puppet arrived. "Hey, everybody!" Lara said in her own voice. "How are you today?"

A chorus of 'great' and 'good' was heard in the hall. A few servants and guards poked their heads in to see what was going on, and exited to get their friends.

"Then there's my daughter," Puppet-Lord Ozai told them, "Puppet-Princess Azula."

"Say hello to Azula!" Lara called.

"Hello, Puppet-Princess Azula!"

Real-Princess Azula just sulked.

"Hello, my friends," Puppet-Princess Azula called in a cheerful voice. "I'm so glad to see you all so well."

Real-Princess Azula sulked a little bit more.

"Puppet-Princess Azula has an older brother," Iroh informed the watchers. "Here he is!"

A fourth puppet rose from underneath the table. "Hi!" the puppet exclaimed. "I'm Puppet-Prince Zuko. Are you enjoying the show?"

"Yes!" called everyone. Well, nearly everyone, anyway.

"There are many other people in our kingdom, which we call the Puppet Nation," Puppet-Lord Ozai explained. "Would you like to meet them?"

As the audience did, several more puppet-people popped up.

"Hello, people of the Fire Nation!" called one of the puppets. "I am Puppet-General Vahe."

"Hello, Puppet-General Vahe!"

By now, however, Lara was holding the puppets in a very awkward position. Puppet-Lord Ozai was being held up by her teeth, (which made talking difficult, but she managed) Puppet-Princess Azula, Puppet-Prince Zuko and Puppet-Lady Lara were between respective fingers in her right hand and Puppet-General Vahe, Puppet-General Iroh and one other who was yet to be introduced were on her left. And they were going to be difficult to move.

Fortunately, her plight was noticed. Another funny word! Plight!

Anyway, it was noticed by the nice General, who ducked down under the table and took a few puppets for himself. Now, at least, it was manageable.

"Would you like to see a normal day in the Puppet-Nation?" Puppet-Lord Ozai asked.

"Yes!" called the group in general.

The puppet show went on for about half an hour, detailing life in the Puppet-Nation, which included random songs and dances, a bit of muffled laughter from under the table, Real-Princess Azula stalking out of the room after Puppet-Princess Azula started square-dancing with Puppet-Prince Zuko, whose real counterpart was, fortunately, not present. Otherwise, the story would be over, as a direct result of Lara's death.

But then Lara made a terrible mistake.

She started recounting the only humorous story she knew. The story of her pranks.

Now, normally, that wouldn't be a problem. But it showed some very embarrassing things done by important people in the Fire Nation. Even if they were in the Puppet-Nation.

Like General Vahe following a fireball/tumbleweed. Or Ozai being afraid of furbies. Or… doing yoga.

The citizens of the Puppet Nation might know that their Puppet-Lord did yoga. But the citizens of the Fire Nation didn't. And the Fire Lord was not happy about them finding out.

So, he reacted in a typical way.

"LARA!"

Puppet-Lady Lara turned to the Fire Lord. "What?"