Chapter Three:

Disclaimer and all that: I don't own da avatarness. But, as my cat as my witness, I WILL :D (Cat goes to sleep) Note: A few Disney songs will appear :)

Cong was awoken early the next morning. Zuko tossed him a spear when he tiredly walked onto deck; irritated that he was woken up before the crack of dawn.

"Your a horrible warrior." Zuko commented smirking. "Mei Ying has allowed me to train you myself; so lets get down to buisness." He picked up a spear; to make it atleast alittle fair at first. At first, Cong thought he was doing pretty well; but as the difficulty level rose, he found himself unable to defend himself. "You call that being a warrior?" Cong looked to the side of the ship to avoid the scolding gaze of the fire nation prince. "You havn't got a clue." He hated being talked down to like Zuko was doing; worst of all, his sister eventually got up to watch; and wasn't too impressed with what she saw. He has humiliated; he was being made a fool out infrount of not only his sister, but the firenation. "Again!" He shot fire at Cong as he struggled to think quickly about what to do. He ended up shaking his knees and hiding behind his sister. "Your spineless!" Zuko sighed. "Might as well let you stop, you haven't made any improvements, if your what the firenation has to fear as an earth kingdom soldier; Ba sing se will be ours quicker than I thought."

"Don't be so hard on him." Mei Ying said; placing her hand on her brother's back. "He is only twelve-"

"Thats no excuse!" Zuko boomed. Starting to get irritated with his agreement to teach Cong. "If I was really trying, he'd be nearly dead by now."

"Really?" Mei Ying rose an eyebrow, walking upto him. "What about me? I'm fifteen, so I've got to be able to fight you."

"I don't like to hit a girl if I don't have to." Mei Ying narrowed her eyes and threw a water whip at him.

"Whats it going to take for me to tick you off enough?" Zuko wiped the water off his face, and smirked.

"Its on." He and Mei Ying fought; but somehow, she could tell he was holding back, not wanting to hurt her badly.

"Stop holding back!" She scolded; dodging his attacks. Zuko's eyes widend How did she know I...? But she had brought a wave down apon his head, knocking him to the floor. She smirked. "Looks like you lost to a girl." But a wave of fire caught her by suprise, she knelt down, holding her hands, tears streaming out of her eyes.

"Oh god!" He gasped. "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" When he was right next to her, she shot a wave of water at him, smirking and showing him her totally unharmed hands.

"You let your guard down."

"That wasn't funny!" Zuko scolded. Cong was observing, trying to figure out a way to defete Zuko.

It was later that night at dinner that the idea of having those two live there didn't sound so good. Zuko, Iroh and Cong all sat at the dinner table, but Mei Ying wasn't there, they saw Cong praying.

"Please don't let her be cooking, please don't let her be cooking.." But his hopes were dashed when Mei Ying brought out a big dinner for the four of them. A bowel of cabbage soup, but the chunks of cabbage were burnt, a bowel of Ramen that looked fine, and curry that looked just awful. She even had a pot of tea out there.

"might as well use my talents here. Your cook was so excited when I gave him the entire week off!" They all looked sourly at the food; was this what they were too eat for the next week? well, the Ramen looked good anyway. They all staired at it for a bit; untill Cong piped up.

"I've been eating her cooking for three years so I don't care, but your all doomed." Mei Ying narrowed her eyes.

"Shut up!"

"I'm sure its very good." Iroh told her kindly, trying to take the tension out of the room, but he wasn't sure he ment what he said. Zuko took in a deep breath; picked up the spoon and shoveld the curry into his mouth.

It tasted horrible! Just about as bad as it looked! But he lied to her to keep her smiling.

"Its um...great?" he knew lieing about food was a bad thing, but for one point: he didn't want to see her upset, for another: she could beat the shit out of him if he said something wrong.

"oh yeah." Iroh agreed, lieing for the first point. "can't wait for the next meal." Zuko tried to keep his dinner down as he shovled more into his mouth, swollowed bitterly and then asked for more.

This time, he was glad to have Ramen as his next point. It looked decent enough. He had his hopes high that it would hide the bitter taste of the curry. The second the noodles hit his taste buds, he was wrong. They were worse than the curry! instead of the sauce your suppost to use; she used vinager! He saw Cong refusing to eat it.

"I'll make my own dinner." He barked.

"you can't." Mei Ying snapped. "You can't cook."

"Neither can you!"

"Can so! Zuko and Iroh like it."

When Zuko finished choking down the ramen, he claimed to be full and started to leave.

"But you haven't tried the cabbage soup yet." Truely, he had to go throw up; it was too horrible to try.

"I'm really full,I'll try it tomarrow night." That was something he wasn't looking forward to; maybe he could shovel one of his own meals down, and then be too full to eat at the meals. He managed to get on deck and throw up his dinner over the side of the ship. He then hurried down to his room, trying not to let Mei Ying spot him.

He layed on his bed in pain; her food was poison. Her brother didn't need to be a warrior, all she had to do was feed the entire fire nation and the war would be won. His uncle came in with some tea, jam and bread.

"This is all I could managed to sneak to you Zuko." He told him, placing the food on the end table. "The tea should help your stomache, and the jam and bread should get you through the night untill you can find some good food."

"What did I do to deserve this...?" He sighed, clutching his blanket. "her food is pure poison. We should keep the cook uncle, never, ever let him quit."

"I agree."Iroh told him, pouring a cup of tea for him. "Now, drink this." Zuko sat up and took the cup of tea, and forced himself to drink it, which was suprisingly easy, considering his dinner was a battel feild alone.

The next morning, he layed in bed all day. Mei Ying sat with him; taking care of him, considering her brother was the same way when she first had to cook for him.

"How could you possibly have gotten such a bad stomache ache?" Zuko had his blankets over his head, nuzzling his head into his pillow.

"I don't know, maybe from being in the cold so long."

"Maybe, here." She gave him a bowel of foul smelling soup. "Its my mom's recipie for curing the flu. I didn't have most of the ingrediances, so I improvised." Zuko could feel a tear of pain come to his eye, no..no not again. He sat up, and she put the spoon in his mouth. He coughed; it was terrible. But he didn't want her feelings hurt; so he took it like a man.

A man that remained sick for most of the week. Cong knew it was Mei Ying's food that made him so sick, but he brought it apon himself. When he was well again; he went right back to training Cong.

w00t! Its finally done :D I hope ya'll enjoy!