Story: Sibling Rivalry

Chapter: THREE- Snow Day

Author: Fritters-4-Psi

Disclaimer: I do not own the show Avatar: The Last Air Bender or the related characters. Nor do I profit from this fanfiction. The only major things that will affect the fanfic that are mine are: Rachel, Colt, and maybe things to come in later chapters.

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A dog barked as a middle-age woman left the house. Sharon, this was the woman's name, was leaving for work. She grumbled as she stepped into her truck. While her two kids had the day off from school, she had to drive forty-five minutes in the snow to her work. Although her husband, the father of the kids, disapproved on a normal basis, Sharon was going to let her children sleep in. When she reached work, she'd call to see if they had woken yet. Her daughter, Rachel, had probably been wakened by the dog's barks anyway. Sharon pulled her truck out of the short driveway and out onto the main road.

As she woke, the young woman pushed her blonde hair from her face. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked to her clock. The numbers, 7:23, glowed fluorescent green. She groaned knowing that if the dog hadn't been barking, she wouldn't have woken up yet. Instant panic hit. School began in more than fifteen minutes. There was too much to do in that short of time. Shower. Feed the animals. Brush her teeth. Not to mention other habits for getting ready for school in the morning.

Quickly, she pulled open the shade that blocked out most of the morning's light. Outside the window, the ground glistened white from a newly fallen two foot blanket of snow. Still, more flakes fell to the ground. The thermometer outside the window read ninety degrees Fahrenheit, which was normal. It was broken; constantly stuck at that high number, even in the coldest of temperatures. That was when Rachel realized that school must have been canceled. Her mom must have decided to let her and her brother sleep in.

She pulled back her blankets and got out of bed. As she stood, she stretched out her back. Slowly, she went a few paces to her door. As she opened it, she heard the clicking of the dog's claws on the floor. When the door was fully opened, a small sized, red tri, Australian Shepherd stood at her feet, wagging its stump of a tail. The dog was almost four, but mentally was still a puppy. She pranced, ever in the way, as Rachel made her way to the bathroom. "Poppy. Go away," she pushed the dog, gently, out of the way.

The bathroom door closed. Rachel did what she needed to do and then washed her hands. While washing her hands, she looked up into the vanity mirror. Her blue eyes were partially shaded by the uncombed strands of blonde hair. They were empty of emotion, save that of misery. One year had almost passed since the first of several saddening events. The sixteen-year-old remembered these with sorrow. She blinked several times to try and return to a present-tense of thinking.

She left the bathroom and went to the computer center. There was half an hour until eight. She would wake Colt, her brother, then. Until then, she decided that she would go on the internet. The previous night, she had put up a new chapter to her "Avatar: The Last Air Bender" story at She went to the site to check for reviews. As of late, no one had been reviewing and this time was no different. After, when she checked, her e-mail proved to only be junk.

Only twelve minutes had passed when she disconnected. Rachel looked at the game of Solitaire that she and her mother shared. Collectively, they were seven hundred dollars in debt. A few games passed, leaving them even further in debt, when Rachel heard a door open. She rolled the chair over to the doorway and looked down the hallway. Sure enough, she saw her brother's hand withdraw back into the room after switching on the light switch.

A few minutes went by. The door to Colt's room opened again. His footsteps were heard coming to the living room, where the computer center was. Silent the whole time, he walked over to the chair, where Rachel was sitting, and faced the televison which was behind Rachel. The eighteen-year-old guy stretched his left arm in the air and then ran it through his short, brown hair. In her ear, Rachel heard a small 'phhlt' sound; her brother had just farted by her face as he did very often. "What did you say?" he asked snidely.

He grabbed a tissue from atop the computer center. Rachel said nothing, got up from the chair, and walked to the kitchen table. She sat down and began flipping through the newspaper. Her brother blew his nose and, like her, entered the kitchen. As he passed her sitting at the table, he pushed the dirty tissue under her nose. Surprised, she sat up. She looked at her brother in disgust when she realized what he had done. "Don't try to eat my snot," he said in mock-disgust.

Colt picked the tissue off the table and threw it in the garbage. Laughing quietly to himself, he went to the bathroom, leaving his sister sitting angrily in the kitchen. She knew that she should get over it. He did that very thing almost every day, after all. She couldn't let go, though. He farted next to her face and pushed his snotty tissues in her face because he could. He did it for fun because he knew how mad it made her.

Quietly, Rachel pushed the chair back from the table and stood. She walked to the back hall so she could get dressed to go outside to feed the animals. Her boots were comfortable, but would only keep your feet warm for about twenty minutes. The jacket used to be a dark brown, but years of use had turned it to a lighter color. However, the old coat was no less warm. The black gloves were not unlike the boots. One glove, the left, was perfectly fine. As long as it wasn't extremely cold if she stayed outside for a while, the left glove kept her hand warm. The other glove, had a hole in one of the fingers, which caused her hand to get cold very quickly.

Once dressed, she stepped out into the frosty, early-February air. There was about two feet of snow on the ground so far and it was still falling. Rachel trudged through this to the lower barn, where the bull and steer were, and where the grain was stored. The grain for the sheep had been mixed the night before, so Rachel just grabbed the bucket and started walking to the upper barn.

By the time she had reached the big, red, upper barn, Colt had come outside, mixed grain, fed Spartan and Riley (the bull and the steer), and was on his way to the red barn. As he walked, he quietly sang 'Reise, Reise', a song by the German band, Rammstein.

Rachel poured the grain into the blue feeder. She had already given grain to the three brood ewes and the two yearlings. Now, she had just given the mix to Sophie, the ewe who had lambed a week ago. She had given birth to a ewe and a ram. The twins jumped and played around their mother's legs while she ate. Rachel looked at them, adoringly, before moving on to feed the two, olderrams.

Quickly, Colt entered the barn, dumping the grain where it belonged. Before he left, Rachel asked, "Hey, Colt? Would you mind bringing some water up here?"

Her brother ignored her request, but he did reply, "Mmm. Look at those lamb chops. I can't wait to eat them. I can already smell them cooking."

He strode off toward the house through the snow. Immediately, Rachel knew that Colt wasn't planning on bringing up any water. After throwing hay to all the sheep, she walked down to the lower barn, where the water hydrant was, and began filling buckets. She had filled two five-gallon buckets, each, three times before she returned to the warmth of the house.

It was so warm by the wood stove that Rachel stood there to warm her nearly frozen hands and toes. Poppy, who had also discovered the comfort of the fire, was laying on the floor in front of it. Rachel hadn't always loved the wood stove upstairs. For the longest time, she hated it. When they first installed it, it was nearly impossible to get started. Now, she could get it roaring in hardly any time at all. In a mean spirited, joking way, Colt called her the Fire Lord.

In reality, he called her 'Fire Lord' in reference to the Devil, who lives in the fiery pits of Hell. Rachel could laugh at it, though, and that made her feel better. The reason for her belittlement of the insult was because of a television show she watched. It was called 'Avatar: The Last Air Bender'. In the show, there really was a Fire Lord; he ruled over the Fire Nation. Although, Rachel wasn't sure which was worse to be called. Even though she wasn't Christian, she knew that 'Devil' and 'evil' were basically synonyms; that really wasn't the best of things. On the other hand, the Lord of the Fire Nation was bent on world domination and disowned his own son. Of course, everyone believed that the man that ruled the Fire Nation was frictional.

The house was quite. Slowly, Rachel walked out into the kitchen. The dirty bowl by the sink showed that her brother had already eaten his breakfast. She moved into the living room, to get a tissue from atop the computer center. Seeing how he wasn't using the computer and the bathroom was empty, Rachel assumed that Colt had went back to bed. She was, in fact, quite glad.

Now that she thought about it, though, she was also tired. It was an odd day, indeed. First, there was this unexpected blizzard. Now, she was tired. It wasn't like she had stayed up late, or any thing like that. What's more, is that, normally, whenever she woke up and got out of bed to do something in the morning, she never went back to sleep afterward. 'I'll take a shower and see how I feel then,' she thought.

It was a short shower. Rachel got changed out of her 'Sheep Counting Club' pajamas. In their stead, she put on a pair of jeans, a red, v-neck, long-sleeve shirt, and her Happy Bunny socks that said "Hurray for guys with money!". Lazily, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. With her current book, The Plague Dogs, she flopped onto her unmade bed. While continuing reading the book, she slowly drifted off to sleep.

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A/N: Yeah, Colt reallt has called me the Fire Lord before. I almost started laughing when he did because I thought of Ozai. I don't think that's what he meant, though.