I walked slowly towards the imposing building, fear radiating from my newly washed pores. The Stauffer's Academy for Young People was one of the best schools in America and not only did you have to be rich, you had to be smart to get in. My brother and I was the only exception, seeing as we were the only two people out of 1000 to be on a scholarship. My name is Katara Ridge and my brother is Sokka. Our dad left for war about 5 years ago and has been fighting over seas ever since. We live with our mom and grandma (A/N I decided that they should keep their mom =]) in a small home 1 hour away from the school. It's a good thing the school is a boarding school or we would be late every single day.

I had just left tennis practice and was heading to the Foreign Languages building for my first day of conversational Spanish. A trio of girls stepped into my line of sight and stopped their designer shoe clad feet in front of me.

"Oh look," the raven haired one with pure gold eyes said. "Fresh meat. What are you doing here? You obviously can NOT afford to be here judging by your last season K-Mart jeans."

I looked up and a shockingly beautiful girl stood there, with two girls behind her; one had hair just as black as the one talking and the other had a thick light brown ponytail that reached the middle of her lower back. Nowhere near my calf length ponytail.

"Excuse me," I said before trying to step around her. A blue flame suddenly jumped from her hand and she put it in front of me. The look she gave me could've melted the ice block I so badly wanted to incase her in.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To my Spanish class." I all but whispered.

"Here that girls, she is gonna be in Spanish with us!" the brown haired girl said.

"Ty Lee shut up!" yelled the leader.

"S-sorry Azula." She said before flipping the ponytail over her shoulder and smiling a bright yet evil smile at me.

Suddenly a shadow came up behind me and a cocoa colored arm flew over my shoulder.

"Hey sis!" Are you ready? Good lets go!" Sokka said with way to much enthusiasm. I smiled at him, grateful for him coming over and continued my way with him to Spanish class. Sokka and I made it with a few minutes to spare and sat down in the seats we had only received yesterday. The class was pretty small seeing as how most people decided to take another language. But I was going to spend some time in Spain after I graduated so I thought that I would work on my Spanish.

The trio that bothered me walked in the class and walked to the back of the small room and sat at the only table with 3 chairs. The rest of the tables had 4 chairs.

Sokka and our good friend Aang sat down next to each other, Sokka on the end and Aang next to me. We talked about the time we went to Michigan and went to the apple cider press, Aang sneezed and since he is an airbender, that sneeze caused chucks of apple to fly onto the people working the presses. They weren't happy about that. We had a good laugh when the chair next to me was suddenly yanked out and a figure with jet-black hair sat down. His backpack dropped off the table and onto the ground causing his things to scatter. I leaned over to pick up the drawing pencil that rolled near my foot and started to return it to him when I made eye contact with him. His gold eyes were almost an exact copy of the girl named Azula who insulted my Target NOT K-Mart jeans.

I quickly handed him the pencil and turned to the teacher who had recently walked into the room.

"Thanks," a silky voice said.

"No problem, so you're an artist?" I asked calmly.

"Yeah, are you?" he replied. His gold eyes staring at me as if he were searching my soul.

"Yeah, but I do ceramics, not drawing."

"That's cool! Maybe I'll see you in class tomorrow. My dad had to talk to me so I missed it today." The boy said with a sad look on his face.

"Maybe, I'm Katara"

"Zuko," he said before sticking out his hand, I grabbed it and shook it.

I smiled and turned to the front of the room, trying to catch what Senora Mangrano was saying. She was a young woman with gorgeous caramel skin and waist length hair the color of amber.

"hola clase, esté preparado para una diversión, pero el año interesante" she said.

Sokka and Aang looked confused as she said that one sentence.

"Hey K!" Sokka stage whispered.

"What?" I hissed back.

"What does that mean?"

I slapped my hand to my forehead. This was going to be a long class.

The bell rang signaling the end of class and the end of the school day. I grabbed my books and started to leave when Zuko called my name.

I turned and waited for him to catch up to me.

"Hey, I was wondering if I could see some of the stuff you've done already. I know I just met you but I thought it would be kinda cool." He said.

I burst into a huge smile. No one had ever really wanted to see my pieces. I nodded and smiled again. Then my smile faded when IU saw Azula and her friends walking towards me and Zuko.

"Hey Zuzu! Remember we are eating with dad tonight!" she said.

"You are related to that?" I said to Zuko before I could stop myself.

Zuko burst out laughing and nodded. "Yeah, I know how you feel Katara. And yes Zulia I remembered."

I didn't notice the look of anger she had when I made my comment or the angrier she got when Zuko called her by her nickname. Suddenly the air around us got a lot warmer and Azula's eyes got a weird glint to them. Zuko must've recognized that glint because he grabbed my hand and started to run, pulling me with him.

After running for about 2 good minutes we stopped at the giant field behind the school. It was mostly used for sparring since it had a lake and was obviously made of earth. But at that moment it was being used as a safe haven for Zuko and me.

"I'm sorry for making you run like that, but she was about to try and burn you. Believe me I know," he said before pulling up his sleeve and showing me a horrid burn on his forearm.

"That's sick and cruel." I said softly.

"Yeah, that's my sister." He said just as soft.

A gentle wind blew, ruffling my hair and sending the thick pieces of jet black silk from his eyes. We sat in the silence for a bit before getting our things and heading back to the school. Hoping that what we just experienced wasn't the calm before the storm.