Chapter 2: Vigil
Author's note: huge thanks to pennedwing for reviewing the story! You should totally check out her stories too because they are amazing! Although honestly I'm guessing that you already have :P (see the end of the chapter for more notes)
"Friday at last," sighed Katara, closing her locker.
"Amen sister," said Mai, tossing her their shared copy of Macbeth from her position at her own locker across the hall. Technically everyone was meant to have their own copy, but they spent so much time together that it hardly seemed to matter anyhow.
Suki came bounding down the hall from where she had been hanging out near Sokka's locker. "Slumberparty night!" She exclaimed. They had been having sleepovers every Friday since the third grade, but nothing would ever dampen their excitement. "And tonight Azula will be coming too!" Katara had her doubts about this, but Suki's enthusiasm, apparently, knew no bounds, "I'll go get Mai's car, you guys get her, make her feel welcome ok?" and with that, Suki was off like a shot to the parking lot so that she could bring her car around to the front of the school.
"Do you know where her locker is?" Katara asked Mai.
"I think it's in the math hallway."
So they headed off to find her, but before they even turned the corner, Azula had appeared in front of them.
"I am the perfect guest! I'm always punctual!" Azula told them, "And I also brought popcorn and jellybeans…?" It seemed like she was trying her best to sound confident, but her statement faded off to a question at the end.
"That's great Azula! We'll have a really good time tonight!" Katara assured her, "Mai's house is super huge, and her parents are out tonight, so we can play the music as loud as we want!"
Mai's smile was genuine, but Azula's seemed somewhat forced.
When they reached the front of the school, Mai demanded that Suki surrender the driver's seat. "Suki, I love you, but you really are a reckless driver. Do you have any idea how much trouble I'd be in if the car got damaged?
"I wouldn't damage it," pouted Suki as she squashed herself into the backseat with Katara and Azula, "Azula, don't you have a car? I saw you park it this morning. It can't be a good idea to leave it here over the weekend. Should I go get it?"
"No, no it's alright. My brother is taking care of it." Azula said.
"That's kind of him," Katara replied
"Well, he does owe me. I figured I could call in my debt for this."
-X-
A few hours later found the four girls were lounging about on the ridiculously soft rug that covered most of Mai's floor, simultaneously doing quizzes from teen magazines and playing truth or dare. Suki had the stack of magazines and was circling Mai's answers to "What City should you live in?" In purple ink, and Azula had just gotten the last ice cube out of her bra, meaning it was her turn to give someone a question or a dare.
"Katara, truth or dare?"
"Truth."
"Ok, what's your mom like?"
Suddenly Katara looked like she might cry. She fussed with the tasseled corners of the rug. "My mom's dead."
"I'm so sorry Katara, I didn't mean to upset you," Azula might have continued to apologize, if Mai hadn't stepped in at that point.
"Hey, there's ice cream in the freezer. I don't think my parents would mind if we had some, Katara, Suki, I convinced my mom to buy that weird monkey ice cream that you guys like, even though she thinks it's disgusting."
The ice cream seemed to cheer Katara up a little, especially when Suki went digging through the fridge and found a jar of maraschino cherries and a tube of chocolate sauce, but she still seemed less than her usual enthusiastic self when they returned to Mai's bedroom.
"You know what would be really fun?" Azula burst out suddenly, "Prank calls! It'll be great!"
"Azula, I'm not sure that's a great idea…" Suki started, before Azula cut her off, "Oh don't worry! We don't have to call anybody important, we can just dial my brother. It's always hilarious to wake him up in the middle of the night." By this point it was already 2:00am. Mai shrugged. Suki nodded. Katara almost giggled.
"When was the last time we prank called someone?" she asked.
"Seventh grade maybe?" Suki was giggling now and reaching for Mai's vintage red telephone. Before Katara could protest, Suki had shoved the receiver into her hands, while maintaining a grip on the rotary dial. "Number?"
Azula recited the number as Katara tried to dispute the idea that she should be the one to talk. Suki waved away her concerns while dialling.
After ringing three times, a sleepy voice answered the phone, "hullo?" Katara tried her best to squash the thought that his voice was sexy. She managed to stammer out the lamest joke in her repertoire (courtesy of Sokka): "Is your refrigerator running?"
"Yeah? Yeah I think so?" he seemed genuinely baffled by the joke.
"You better go catch it!" Katara was about to hang up. The other girls were laughing, and this was typically the point in a prank call where the prankster would hang up. But she paused. Because he was laughing too. He had been woken up in the middle of the night by an unknown number, and for some reason he actually found this dreadful joke funny?
There was no denying that his laugh was sexy.
She heard his head hit the pillow as he lay back down. "Why don't you tell another?" he asked, yawning.
"Ok, umm… What do you call a cow that plays guitar badly?"
"I dunno, what?"
"Butter fingers," It was worth the strange looks that her friends were giving her to hear him laugh again, but Azula was gesturing frantically for her to hang up, so she did.
"My brother is frickin' weird. He actually asked for another joke didn't he?"
Katara nodded dumbly. Not trusting herself not to say exactly what she was thinking.
Azula broke down, positively howling with laughter. Suki giggled. Even Mai laughed, although her laughter was slightly more dignified, and didn't involve rolling around on the floor. After a minute, Katara joined in. After all, this was fun.
After Suki had called Sokka, (at her own insistence) and after they had filled out a few more quizzes in the magazines while watching the ever-classic, Mean Girls, it was finally agreed that they should sleep. After all, there was pointe class tomorrow.
~O~
Author's notes: if i owned avatar, do you think it would have ended the way it did? The answer is no. (For further clarification, I do not own avatar, i just like to play with these characters as though they were my favourite childhood barbies. nbd)
My interpretations of the prompts are so loosey-goosey lol
Although part of me wants to think that Azula and Zuko would be these suave cool kids, most of me just thinks they'd be majorly awkward nerds lol
Also, the zombie au is def not abandoned, I've just had a lot of things on my plate and been struggling with writers block for that story. Chapter 5 is coming, hopefully soon!
In regards to Pennedwing's review, I definitely agree that I need to find a better balance of dialogue to narration. This chapter was written before i even posted chapter 1, but i promise to work on that for chapter 3! The reason I play with dialogue so much, is because often times, in fiction, (both fanfiction and published fiction) character A will meet character B, have 2 on page conversations and maybe 2 more implied conversations and then be like: "we're best friends/we're so in love/it's like we've always been hanging out together/whatever" and im always left with a feeling of ? because honestly, A and B hardly know each other! How could you possibly know even a fraction of a person's personality from a few sentences and a little bit of lustful eye contact? So for me, I like to use a lot of dialogue to really show characters building relationships :P so chapter 3 and onwards will probably just be longer, because ill probably use the same amount of dialogue and expand on everything else lol. Hope you guys dont mind :P
