DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NICKELODEON'S AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER OR ITS CHARACTERS. I just sell cabbages in Ba Sing Se - and make sure that a cabbage slug "finds" its way into my competitors' carts...
Ha! I fooled you! I told you that I would not post another chapter until after Memorial Day, but I figured, eh, what the heck? It's done, after all, so who am I to withhold?
Thanks again for the kind reviews - you know who you are. For those who are reading but not reviewing, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, TOO! ; )
Summers had always been difficult for Lan Chi at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. The campus was deserted; all but one or two girls went home for the summer. The ones who stayed were those who had come from the Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom, and who faced journeys of more than one month each way to get home.
And one girl who had nowhere else to go.
Although there was always only a smattering of girls left at the school, Lan, thanks to the headmistress, always slept in her own room, alone. She did not know whether to be angry or grateful - on one hand, she was kept isolated, but, at least she privacy. Privacy to finally, among other things, practice waterbending. She needed practice desperately. Her only chance to waterbend during the school year took place in the bath, when she was not likely to be disturbed. As a result of that, her waterbending skills, although not degenerated, had, for the most part, not improved, either. Still, despite the new privacy, she restricted waterbending to the nighttime hours, when she could count on full secrecy.
She spent most of the daytime hours in the library, although, after dinner, she was allowed to practice archery in the bending hall. The headmistress, although wary of allowing her to practice such a martial art, apparently decided it was the lesser of two evils, since, she reasoned, the girl's only other alternative was getting into mischief.
The summer before Lan Chi turned thirteen was, unfortunately, one of the the hottest summers on record in the Fire Nation. She awoke each morning sticking to her bed, and it only got worse from there. As a child of the Northern Water Tribe, she detested hot weather. Living in the equatorial Fire Nation, as she did, she found much of the weather detestable. By dinner each night, all the unlucky girls, Fire Nation blood or not, were sweaty and snippy, and in foul tempers.
On a particularly sultry night about a month after the solstice, Lan was in a particularly bad mood. She took her meal from the cook, who appeared even more miserable that her diners, carried it to the table where the other girls sat, and dropped it with a clatter, causing the other girls to jump. One of them opened her mouth to say something, but a dark look from Lan silenced her before she made a sound.
Lan settled down on a cushion, and picked up her chopsticks. She put some noodles in her mouth - and promptly spit them back out.
"Ugh! These are horrible! They taste like parchment!" She tossed her chopsticks on the table. "I loathe this place! I loathe the food! I loathe the boredom! I loathe the heat! I loathe -"
"The company?" One of the girls whispered, which caused the other girls to snort into their bowls.
Lan's eyes narrowed. "Everything."
Another girl put down her chopsticks. "So run away. Leave. Be done with it."
"Run away?"
"You know - leave a place without permission?"
"I know what run away means."
The other girl shrugged. "Then do it. It's not as if you'll be the first."
The thought intrigued Lan. Other girls had hated it here enough to run away? She had not even considered the possibility.
The girl, whose name Lan thought was Duozui, continued. "My sister ran away with her boyfriend when she was here - twice. It was kind of funny, since my parents sent her here so she wouldn't see her boyfriend." Duozui shrugged again.
