Probending Circuit season 4 round 1

Team: Future Industries Fire Ferrets

Position: Earthbender

Task: Round 1: Feels Like the First Time

It's the fourth season, and also the first time competing for most of the participants here. So, our first theme of the season is going to center around trying something for the first time. Your stories will include a character/characters experiencing something for the first time (eg. learning a new skill, traveling to a new place, starting a new job, etc.), and should highlight how their lives will change if they accomplish this thing or how their life is now different from before they started this new thing.

Prompts:

(dialogue) "I'm nervous, but excited" (location) Ba Sing Se (character) Opal

Word count:

The first day

The drive to the university seemed endless to Opal. Her parents were in the front seats driving her and her stuff to her future home for the next 6 or more years. Her parents were concerned about letting her go study in a town that was so far away from her homecity. Opal's mother had been the mayor of a small city called Zaofu, a place, that was protected by the best tchnology the world had to offer. All of it provided by her father and oldest brother. So logically her mother and father were worried about letting her study in a town like Ba Sing Sei. A city that was known for having thiefs, muggers and some criminal gangs. But what else was there to do? Ba Sing Sei was the only university that offered the things she wanted to study.

"Are you feeling okay, honey?" asked her father, meeting her eyes in the back mirror.

"Yes" she answerd, "I'm nervous, but excited"

All too soon they arrived at student dorms and unpacked her stuff. She still couldn't quite belive it, that she would be living here for the next years. In things home, there were no annyoing younger brothers, who threw around stuff and called it a "game". There wouldn't be an art crazy older brother, who hid in his room almost all day and who would yell at anyone who dared to interpretate his art in the wrong way. And there wouldn't be an older brother, who, together with his fiancee, only came to visit at special events, like christmas and birthdays.

"Opal, sweetheart, we're off to dinner now. Do you want to join us? Or would you like to stay here and wait for your roommate and friends to arrive?" asked her mother.

Opal shook her head and replied "I'd rather stay here. Korra and Asami should be here any minute and they promised to show me the area."

"Alright then. Have a nice day with your friends. And give them our greetings, okay.?" her father said.

They both hugged her goodbye, sad to see their only daughter go and live so far away from them. When they were gone, Opal let herself fall on her bed and blew a few strands of her chin lenght hair from her face. Here she was now. Alone, without family. Back in Zaofu, she lived protected surrounded by security men and women and her family. It wasn't until a few years ago, when a group of teenagers came into the city to hide from a bunch of criminals that were after one of them, that she had made her first real friends. Not those 'friends' she had before, who were only friends with her because they wanted to see her brothers or because she was the daughter of the mayor. Korra, Asami, Mako and Bolin were different. They weren't just her friends because of her mother, they were her friends because they liked her. A knock on the door startled her and she sat up. Would this be her roommate? She didn't know a lot about her, just that she was a girl from a small village somewhere in the Earthkingdom. Or would this be her two 'tourguides'?

"Come in!" she yelled at in the direction of the door.

It opened and there stood Asami and Korra, cheerfull and excited to show her friend around. The girls hugged each other and then Asami and Korra dragged her off by her wrists to show her the place. Asami and Korra were both older than her and had been studying on the Ba Sing Sei university for three years now. And now she would join them.

The girls showed her everything: the best places to go to eat, where the buildings she needed were, to whom she could go if she needed anything and so on and so fort. Opals head buzzed with all the information she got. Would she be able to remember it all?

It was early evening when she came back home to her student dorm. Her roommate, who had obviosly arrived while was gone, introduced herself as Mai and would be studying the same thing she would.

During the night, Opal was almost toonexcited to sleep. Tomorrow began her first day. What impression would she make? She had never before been with that much young adults, that were older than her or the same age. Would her boyfriend, Bolin, help her if she needed anything? - Nah, of course he would. Except if he had another girlfriend - he wouldn't have, would he? Inbetween these thoughts, she must have fallen asleep. When she woke up, sunlight tickled her face, it was so different from home, where the sun had never awoken her. She dressed herself quickly, hastily ate her breakfast in the dorm's eating room and then stormed outside in the park near her dorm. She needed the air now and she needed to walk a bit, to collect her thoughts, before everything started.

"Hey, managed the first night away from home and parents alright?"

She stopped in her steps and smiled. She knew that voice. Turning around, she ran towards him, throwing her arms aroumd him and kissing him.

When she broke the kiss, she whispered "Yes I did."