-AUTHOR'S NOTES-
So everyone knows, the characters are one year older than they are in the first season-
Katara-15
Zuko-17
Sokka-16
Azula-15
The only exception is Aang and Toph, they will be the same age as Katara ( the freshmen ), for the purpose of the story, sorry folks.
Enjoy the first chapter :)
The wind forced hair onto my face, the deep brown locks blocking my sight.
'Of course I kept my hair down, now I'll look like a clown on the first day.'
My nervous thoughts were momentarily interrupted by the picturesque park laid out before naturally placed around the lush field. I smiled knowing I would walk this same path everyday since the park completely surrounds the High school. Glancing down at the blue path, I began to wonder.
'How unfair it was, that just because of some stupid war 100 years ago, the divide of the nations still effects her today. It stops her from exploring culture and meeting new people. How she couldn't even walk on the same path to school with the other nations. How she would be immediately arrested as soon as she stepped over the border. How she could only have classes with those of the same nation. How she could only really interact with those of another nation was at lunch. It was all so unfair.'
"Hey! Katara wait up!" I knew that voice anywhere, and groaned at the thought of the speaker. Sokka skipped up to me, a wide smile plastered on his tan face.
"Well hello there Katara, my freshy little sister!" Sokka said as he slung his arm around my shoulders. I groaned again.
"Okay, don't ever call me that again," I said lightly, "and brushed his arm off and tried to fix my hair.
"Well you were smart and let your hair down on a very clearly windy day." Sokka smirked.
"Hey now, I know. And why are you calling me freshy? You've only gone here for one year and you are still officially a junior as well". I smiled, "Mr. freshy". I watched as Sokka pretended to be shot and fell to his knees.
"Oh get up, you big baby. You're sixteen, shouldn't you be more mature?" I kept walking without him.
"Wait!" Sokka jogged up to meet me, "That fact that I'm a sixteen year old boy is why I'm so immature." He shrugged, "It's not my fault". I tried to stifle a laugh but it came out without my consent. Sokka beamed his satisfied expression on his face. "My amazing sense of humor still ceases to disappoint me". I let out a small giggle, making Sokka give me a loving smile. We walked the rest of the way without saying a word, because the air was filled with comfortable silence. I looked into the distance, if I squinted hard enough too the right I could see green blobs, and too the left red blobs.
'It's such a shame that the fire nation exterminated the last of the Air Nomads, I've always wanted to meet one.' My thoughts began to wander again, causing her to bump into Sokka.
"You should watch where you're going there freshy, I know some people you really don't want to mess with at school." He patted me on the shoulder.
"Let me shed some light on the topic." He said with a dramatic flare. "On the fire nation side", he pointed to the red blobs, "Prince Zuko, obviously, he's a prince so of course he's stuck up and a bully to the other nations. I'm just presuming, but I know Princess Azula is starting this year, and I'm pretty sure she'll be even worse that Zuko. The Earth kingdom kids are mostly chill, there are these kids in a group that get into trouble lots, their leader is Jet, so I would stay away from them. There's no trouble makers from the water tribe, but who knows, this year brings a whole new batch of little terrors". He pretended to shiver with fear dramatically.
"Good to know, but, once again, us 'little terrors'", I said with air quotes. "Are just one year younger that you, and you should be afraid, when Mixed Groups starts, you may get one of us in your group". I grinned evilly, happy to be scaring Sokka.
"Hey, how do you know about Mixed Groups?" Sokka asked.
"I did my homework. Isn't it where kids from any class, age, and nation are grouped at random, and work together to be in the school competition. So groups of six people, bender and non-bender face of until there is a winner. And it is the only time benders can bend at school. Did I miss anything?" I looked to my brother, happy to be knowledgeable.
"Nope, you covered everything", he smiled, then went back to kicking a pebble along the smooth path. We walked in comfortable silence.
Minutes later we arrived at the school gates.
The enormous deep blue gates leading to the school courtyard stood tall and began to open. On both sides of the gates a tall beige wall seemed to go on forever, until it curved out of sight. Students entered leaving gaping Katara behind. Sokka turned to her with a smile.
"Good luck Katara, see you after school."
I returned the smile, wishing he started on the same day as me. Moments passed, then he left back up the path and into the beautiful park.
'Inhale. Exhale'
I slowly followed the mass of new students to the auditorium.
'Chill Katara, it's only high school, it's not like you're a fish diving into a pool of hungry sharks. Wait I take that back, that's exactly what I'm doing.'
The mass of water tribe kids came to a halt, I looked around with wonder. Up till this moment I have never seen anyone from anywhere but her tribe.
I could easily distinguish the different nations, just by there appearance, even in the dimly lit room. Fire nation kids had dark hair, golden eyes, and light skin normally, earth kingdom people were varied and diverse, but naturally had dark hair, green eyes, and light or dark skin. The water tribe citizens had tan skin, blue eyes and dark hair. Though nothing was dividing us, everyone stayed separated from any other nation but their own.
A spotlight appeared, and set itself upon a man standing in the center of a square stage.
"Hello, I'm Headmaster Zhao, I will be watching over you while you attend this school for the next 4 years. You are juniors, and your form class teacher will explain the rules. But if you have any serious information, you will come straight to me. As a fair warning, I will also be administering the punishment if you step out of line. But you won't, will you?" The crowd remained silent unsure of whether it was a rhetorical question or not. "Will you", He raised his voice, and everyone could tell that this wasn't a question.
"Yes headmaster", the group said in perfect unison, to nervous to say anything else.
" Good", he smiled a cruel smile, "the only rule I will cover, is the most important rule, and no one will break it. There is to be no inter-nation relationships above friendship, it is unlikely, since you only see the other nation in the halls, at lunch , and during the competition. But it has happened before, and I will make sure that it will never happen again".Though he just scanned the crowd it was like he made eye contact with every single one of them. "If I feel that the open lunch is too much, I will take it away. It is a privilege and if you don't deserve it then you won't get it". He stood in silence for 10 seconds, then spoke. "You are dismissed, look at the class sheets and go to your selected class room".
Even when we were dismissed we all stood still, waiting till he left the room, and when we finally couldn't hear the click clack of his shoes, we scattered to the sheets.
I found my name, and of course, I knew no one else on the list. I walked alone through the winding halls to my class. I touched the door, exhaled sharply, then walked into my form room. I found that we all have delegated seats, I sat in mine a took in the surrounding. We sat in seats two by two, I could see a tag with my name on it, KATARA TANKA. I could also see that the tag next to me read LEVA HANSTASHI , there were about 10 other students in the class with me and more arriving. The walls were blue, with light waves painted on, simple, yet beautiful. The chair next to me screeched as someone slid it out, and in. A pretty girl sat next to me, she had straight black hair, tied up in a bun. Dark green eyes that you wouldn't normally find in the water tribes, and smooth olive skin, that blue clothes flowed over. So this must be Leva.
She studied me as I did the same to her, moments passed before she spoke to me.
"Hi, I'm Leva". She gave me a sweet smile, and pointed to the name tag in front of her.
"Hey, I'm Katara", I said, and turned my tag so she could see. I was worried that awkward silence would follow our short introduction, luckily she wasn't done talking yet.
"Are you excited for Competion this year, it'll be our first time". She had a excited look in her eyes, the same one I would see in my brother's".
"Yeah, my brother has told me all about it, it seems fun. Especially since I'm a water bender, and it's the only time I can do it at school", I said.
"Really! My brother's a f-", she looked lost for words and a bit embarrassed"... bender. Yeah. He has been at this school for two years, and his group has won every time. I was happy that the conversation was flowing so easily between us, so I said,
"Oh cool! Who was your brother's group mentor?" It seemed that she just remembered something suddenly, and checked my name tag.
"Oh! Tanka! Are you Mrs Tanka's daughter?" She had an excited look in her eyes, I guessed she had some sort of connection with her.
"Yeah, she's my mom!" When I gave the good news, her smile was from ear to ear.
"Oh, that's so cool! She was my older brothers group teacher during last year's competition!" I was happy to have something in common with her, I'd like to make a friend to hang out with.
"Cool, what's his name? I can ask my mom if she remembers him." I briefly looked around, to find that the class was now full of fifteen year old's chatting loudly.
"Yeah. You probably already know him". She looked quite awkward, I was worried that I had said something wrong, but she began to speak again. "Well let me start by saying that I was adopted when I was eight, so I'm not blood related to them, and I still decided to keep my name", She closed her eyes briefly, deciding whether to tell me his name or not. "His name is-", her sentence was cut short, because the door slammed open and a figure walked through the door, draped in blue. All eyes were now glued to the mysterious person, and all conversations had stopped. The figure turned to face the class and pulled off the hood, grey eyes locked with the class. An old woman with long white hair stood in front of the teens, dull and wrinkled skin, a crooked stance, this must be our teacher. But she wasn't just our teacher, because I knew her.
"Hello, kids. My name is Hama, I will be your form teacher for the next year", she looked happy, but her sweet smile expanded when she spotted me. One of my grandmothers close friends was my teacher, I was just relieved that I wouldn't get a mean teacher, even though most of those came from the fire nation. The new teacher cleared her throat, "You kids can talk for a while longer while I get set up", and with that she hobbled over to her desk and began to unpack supplies. I turned back to Leva, waiting to hear what she was going to say.
"So, what were you going to say?" I asked, excited to find out the name of this girl's brother.
"Yeah. Actually never mind, he's a nobody, you probably don't know him anyways", I wasn't so sure that her brother was just a 'nobody', but I didn't want to push it, I couldn't risk scaring away the only friend I've made.
"Okay, whatever you say". By that time the form time was over, and we were on to our next class. The teacher dismissed us and sent us on our way. The door opened and we stepped into the flood of kids of all ages. I wanted us to walk to class together but she was stuck to the wall. I gave her a questioning look.
"Sorry, I have to wait for my brother to give me a note". I nodded, deciding to wait for her, so we could walk together. I noticed she actually looked scared.
"Are you okay, you look, a little scared of something", I said gingerly, "maybe your brother".
"No, it's not him I'm worried about, it's my sister, she can be. Difficult". I wanted to ask more questions but I heard a boys voice.
"Leva! Leva you there?" His voice was coming from a little ways down the hall, but I couldn't see the person speaking.
"Who's that?" I asked Leva.
"That would be my brother", she said pointing down the hall.
I look and see something I definitely wasn't expecting. A Fire Nation teen. He had black hair, that fell perfectly onto his forehead, golden eyes that I could catch even in the crowded halls. The most eye catching thing was his scar, that covered quite a bit of the left side of his face, obviously from a burn. He was very attractive. I was dead to the world for a few seconds while my eyes analyzed him. 'Damn, he looks good', I was a bit shocked, but I realized that I had seen him somewhere. Because I now recognized him as the Fire Lords son.
Prince Zuko.
I plan to update every 1 or 2 weeks.
Dont forget to review, the feedback will make me want to update more.
And sorry this chapter is so short, it's kind of like prologue, I will make the other chapters longer.
Thanks!