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Subject: "FI: A Fire to be Lighted, Part 1 of 3"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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"FI: A Fire to be Lighted, Part 1 of 3"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-01-13 AT 10:20 PM (EST)
 
[NOTE: I'm releasing A Fire to be Lighted as a three-part Mini-Serial, but once it's fully released, a combined regular-text version will be archived as a prelude to the Dìqiú Suite of Symphony No. 5. --G.]



"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted."
David Scott (American astronaut; commander of Apollo 15; seventh man to walk on the Moon), quoting Plutarch

I: Welcome to Piandao Academy

Xinqiliu, Bayue 29, 279 ASC
Saturday, August 29, SY 2398
Shu Jing, Fire Nation
Dìqiú

Welcome to Piandao Academy

After playing a significant part in the end of the Hundred Year War, Master Piandao, the great swordsman-scholar, converted his country estate in Shu Jing into an elite private school. Weary of war and national rivalry, he wished to show that knowledge, self-improvement, and cultural refinement were not the exclusive preserve of any one country or creed. His mission was to offer the finest education available to the most talented youngsters in the world, regardless of their origins or circumstances.

As the sixth generation of Master Piandao's family, we are proud to carry on his mission today. Every year, following a rigorous and competitive admissions screening process, fourteen of the most academically gifted eleven-year-olds from around the world enter Piandao Academy, to spend seven years receiving the finest education we believe it is possible to provide. No expense is spared in developing and refining the curriculum, providing the facilities, and supporting our students as they grow and learn.

Academic performance is the only criterion for admittance to Piandao Academy. Neither national origin nor economic circumstance will ever be permitted to stand in the way of a youngster who has shown him- or herself ready, willing, and able to excel. This was Master Piandao's pledge, and it remains ours today.

So welcome to Piandao Academy! You have much to learn, but you have already shown that you love learning, and so we hope you will find that this is the place for you. I look forward to seven happy and productive years with you.

Yours sincerely,
(signed)
CHANGDAO
Headmaster

In the great hall of what been Master Piandao's grand house, and was now the Academy's main building, stood a young girl in a brand-new school uniform, carrying a duffel bag. She finished re-reading the headmaster's missive, folded it up, and tucked it away in the inside pocket of her tunic, consulting instead the small card which had come with it in the mail. On one side, this informed her that she had been accepted as a member of Form Four, the new school year's incoming sixth-grade class. Not for the first time, she wondered why four. Surely it should either be Form One, the first-year students, or Form Six?

No matter. Form Four it was, also known as the graduating class of 287. The important information right now was on the other side of the card, anyway, as this informed her that her lodgings were in this building, Piandao House, on the third floor of the west wing, room number 44. That pleased her, for no better reason than that she was whimsically fond of multiples of eleven.

She put the card away, shifted her grip on her bag, turned, and was nearly run into by another student, hurrying past with a harried-looking manservant in tow. The manservant was carrying a number of bags, including a strangely shaped case that must have contained a musical instrument; the student, a boy of about the girl's own age with slicked-down black hair and an irritable mien, carried nothing at all.

"One side, peasant," the boy growled, in lieu of any kind of apology for nearly knocking her down. His manservant gave her an apologetic look with just his eyes, while the rest of his face remained stonily expressionless as they passed.

"That didn't take long," she mused, then shrugged and crossed the great hall to the west-wing stairs.

Once off the stairs, she found (somewhat to her delight) that the third floor was a maze, its corridors taking odd and unintuitive turns, the numbers on the doors she passed seeming to conform to no particular indexing scheme she could divine. It took her a few minutes to find room 44, which turned out to be between 37 and 21, and across the hall from 16. When she entered, she found that there was another student already there.

The other girl was slim, slightly taller than the one who had just arrived, black-haired, and had very fair skin. Hearing the door open, she turned to look, fixing the new arrival with eyes of a clear and distinctive amber. She also had a very distinctive hairstyle: her long, straight hair was mostly worn rolled into a bun at the nape of her neck, but her bangs, nearly long enough to reach her neck, were loose and neatly parted so that they came to points on either side of her chin and framed her very pretty face.

For her part, the person this girl saw entering the room was a little shorter and a bit more ruggedly built - not fat by any means, nor lacking in the graces that were, at their age, starting to differentiate the girls from the boys; but sturdy-looking, with slightly broader shoulders than usual. She had skin the color of hot cocoa, a casual gamine haircut a shade or two darker, and eyes that were startlingly blue against them both, set in an open, honest face that looked as if it were accustomed to doing a lot of smiling.

It smiled now, showing very white teeth, as its owner said, "Hi! I guess we're roommates. I'm Karana."

The black-haired girl put her hands together in front of her, left hand upraised above right fist, and bowed slightly. "My name is Azana," she said.

"Nice to meet you," said Karana, making a slightly different gesture in reply - her right fist enclosed loosely in her left hand. Then, taking a close look at her new roommate, she grinned a little wider and said, "Oh wow, nice eyes. Firebender?"

Azana considered her reply carefully. The Hundred Year War was a long time ago, but there were still those who were wary of firebenders, or worse; and many of those were from the Water Tribes. Particularly the southern one, which the Fire Nation had very nearly wiped out during the war. She wondered which of them this girl was from - it was obviously one or the other, unless she came from an expat family in the United Republic - but then told herself she was being foolish. Not everyone had an ulterior motive in asking questions, and this girl, in particular, didn't seem as if she had an ulterior bone in her body. The first part of the remark had sounded like the sincerest compliment.

Mistrusting foreigners is your mother's way, she reminded herself, it's not your way. Besides, you're going to have to trust your roommate; you live with her now.

So she nodded and said, "Yes. Are you a waterbender?"

"You betcha," Karana replied. "Hey, that's cool. Maybe we can find an earthbender and start a club. There's gotta be at least one in this place, right? Probably no airbenders, though. Oh well. It'd be great if we had an Air Nomad kid here, they're good times." She took another couple of steps into the room and looked around. "Wow, this is classy. Did you pick a bed yet?"

Azana looked around the room, as if not having considered its classiness factor yet. To be honest, it didn't strike her as much different from her bedroom at home. A little bigger, its rectangular proportions slightly closer to square, and there were two of everything, but the finishes and fabrics, the style of the furniture, and whatnot were all very similar.

The two beds stood against different walls of the room, and Azana could see where the choice between them might become a topic of contention for some roommates: One was under the window, the other against the lefthand wall, their head ends nearly adjacent at right angles. She didn't have any particular preference, though, and seeing an opportunity to be accommodating, she said, "No; you can have the one by the window if you want it."

Karana glanced thoughtfully at her. "Sure you don't mind?" she asked. "You were here first."

Azana smiled. "Only by about a minute, and besides, it really doesn't matter to me, so if there's one you would prefer over the other, please take it."

"Well... OK, thanks," said Karana, trotting over to drop her bag on the bed, then plunk herself next to it. "I do like a sky view at night," she allowed, leaning back to look up and out the window. The bed creaked slightly, causing her to straighten up and then, with a broad grin, bounce experimentally. "Hey! Springs!"

Azana eyed her thoughtfully. "This is a novelty?" she wondered.

Karana's grin became a little sly. "No springs on the beds in my house," she said. "Mom and Dad would keep us all up at night."

Azana blushed and busied herself unpacking her suitcase into the wardrobe at the foot of the other bed. "I... see."

"Sorry, cheap shot," said Karana, lying back with her arms outstretched and her lower legs still hanging down the side of the bed. "It's really because that's just not the way we do it in the South Pole. We use leather straps across the frame. Not a lot of metal to be had down there, so we don't waste it on stuff like bedsprings."

"You're from the Southern Water Tribe?" Azana asked. "I had wondered."

"Yep!" said Karana. "I come from Senna. That's Avatar Korra's hometown," she said proudly. "She's my next-door neighbor! Not that she's ever home, but still. Mom and Dad look after her house when she's away." She hitched herself up on her elbows to grin at her roommate. "You don't believe me, do you."

"I might," said Azana, returning a more moderate smile as she finished her unpacking. "I don't know you well enough yet to be able to tell."

"It's true, though," Karana assured her. "We have a key and everything. I sleep over there sometimes when I can't stand being cooped up with my brothers any more. Not that that's gonna be a problem here," she added, looking around. "This room's bigger than our living room, let alone the room Atausiq, Bori and I sleep in."

Azana closed her wardrobe, turned, and climbed up onto her bed facing Karana, folding her legs under her in seiza. Arching an eyebrow, she said, "You sleep with your brothers?"

Karana's face went slightly red under her brown skin. "Well, not sleep with them sleep with them, I mean, we all have our own beds. And now that Tausi's older he sleeps in the living room a lot of the time. I guess you get to be 14, you're too good to room with your little sibs any more," she added, rolling her eyes. "How about you?"

"I don't sleep with my siblings, no," Azana replied with a slightly mischievous twinkle.

"No, I mean, have you got any," said Karana.

Azana shook her head. "No, I'm an only child."

"Oh. Wow. Huh." Karana's face took on a thoughtful look, and after a moment she shook her head. "Nope, I tried, I can't really even imagine that."

"It's very peaceful."

"Sounds boring to me. And lonely." A thought seemed to occur to her. "So you've never shared a bedroom before now?"

"No," said Azana, "I never have. Hopefully I don't snore," she added with that little twinkle again.

"I'm pretty sure I do, but not very loud," said Karana dubiously. "Well, here's hoping, right? You've already been a lot nicer to me than the first classmate I ran into. He nearly trampled me in the lobby, called me a peasant and ran off. I imagine he'd have told his butler to give me a good thrashing if the guy hadn't been busy carrying every suitcase in the world," she added with another eyeroll.

"Ah. That must have been Prince Shinzen," said Azana thoughtfully.

Karana looked puzzled. "Who?"

"Prince Shinzen," Azana repeated. "The Fire Lord's younger brother's son, so not in line for the throne, but you wouldn't know it to speak to him. We're slightly acquainted," she explained, almost apologetically. "Or rather, I was introduced to him at a reception ball in the Capital last spring. Mother was very pleased to learn that he'd be starting at the Academy this year. She hopes I'll 'make his acquaintance' now that we're schoolmates, by which she means she confidently expects that I'll graduate as Princess Azana. Or, even better by her lights, marry him in my fifth or sixth year and drop out of school without finishing. Too much education is bad for a young woman's prospects, after all," she added, a trifle acidly.

"... Ah," said Karana, slightly discomfited. "So, uh... where are you from? Caldera City?" she wondered.

"No; Shu Jing," Azana replied matter-of-factly.

Karana blinked at her. "Uh... we're in Shu Jing."

"I know."

"I mean... the school is in Shu Jing."

"Yes."

"Sooo... you live in the same town. Your parents live here. Your house must be... what... no more than two or three miles away."

Azana nodded. "You will have passed it on your way here," she said. "The big white one with the red roof, just before the turnoff to the mountain road."

Karana blinked again, remembering the house. "That's not even a mile from here. You could walk to school."

"I know," Azana repeated.

"Huh. Well, OK, then," said Karana. Dropping the subject, she rose from her bed and got started putting away her things as well. This didn't take long - she didn't have very many - and she finished in time to watch Azana unpack her second bag. This contained a portable computer and various odds and ends to go with it, as well as a selection of pens, pencils, and other office supplies, all of which she arranged neatly on and in the desk nearer to her bed. The last item to emerge, wrapped in a towel for protection, turned out to be a framed portait of a handsome, slightly fierce-looking young man with a truly outstanding specimen of a facial scar, covering an area like the palm of a hand around his left eye.

Karana, standing behind Azana's desk chair and a bit off to one side, considered this as Azana placed it on her desktop, angling it so that she could see it while she sat there working if she turned her head a bit.

"Cute guy," she decided after a few moments' consideration. "Shame about the eye, though. Who is he?"

Azana turned and gave her a judicious look, trying to figure out whether she was being teased. The curious expression on Karana's face was as guileless as she'd been right along, though, so Azana decided to take the question at face value and replied,

"This is Fire Lord Zuko."

Karana looked puzzled. "Oh," she said, and then, "Why do you have a picture of a dead Fire Lord?"

Azana thought about her answer for a moment, then explained, "When I was born, my grandfather took me to a Fire Sage rōshi - a holy woman - to be blessed in the old style. She gave him this and told him that if I kept it near me always, Zuko's spirit would watch over me." She gave a self-deprecating little smile and added casually, "I don't think that's really true, but I've gotten used to having him around." With an inquisitive tilt of her head, she asked, "Do you think that's weird?"

Karana shook her head. "Not really. My father's a doctor, and he has a lucky coin he got on a trip to Ba Sing Se when he was a kid. My brother Bori asked him one time, if he's a man of science, why does he carry that old coin around all the time? 'You can't believe in that superstitious junk.'" She grinned. "And Dad said, 'Well, son, they tell me it works whether you believe in it or not.'"

Azana laughed. "Oh, I like that," she said. "I'll have to remember that."


They had the weekend to get the lay of the land and figure out where everything was (and how to get to it and back from it, which in Piandao House was often the bigger challenge). On Monday, promptly at nine AM, instruction began.

Within a week or two, Karana had learned that her graduating class was called Form Four because the rotation of forms had begun when the school first began operating. The first group of students to enter were Form One, and Form One they remained, through all seven years of their schooling; and when they graduated, the first-year students entering in the Academy's eighth year were the new Form One, and so on. Just for fun, after learning that, she sat down one night with a perpetual calendar and worked out whether that reconciled with the year the school's letterhead maintained it had been founded in, and discovered to her satisfaction that it did.

To her delight, Azana didn't think there was anything particularly strange about that wanton act of nerdery, and their friendship progressed without a hitch. By the end of September, all of Form Four were becoming friends, which was part of the intent in keeping the class sizes small and arranging matters so that they did almost everything, from lessons to dining to PE to Selected Afternoon Activities, together. The idea, never stated in so many words but plain from context, was that each form would in effect become a kind of family, blunting the sting of homesickness and short-circuiting the usual sort of internecine warfare that stereotypically plagued larger, less intimate boarding schools.

For the first couple of weeks, it looked like the fly in that ointment would be Prince Shinzen, who was, just as Karana had found him to be upon their first meeting, haughty and difficult. He had a tendency to regard his acceptance to this, the most competitive junior/senior school in the Fire Nation - possibly the world - as a sort of exile to the hinterlands, and wasn't shy about letting his peers, if not the faculty, know about it.


The matter of Prince Shinzen came to a head at lunch on the second Friday, when the prince - unable to sit off by himself thanks to the way the tables were arranged in the refectory - grimaced at his bowl of soup and pushed it away, remarking ostentatiously,

"I don't know how you people can live this way."

By this point most of their classmates had decided that the only safe way to deal with Shinzen was just to let him vent and not engage with him. Karana, on the other hand, frowned at her bowl for a second, then looked up and said,

"What's your problem? It's perfectly good five-flavor soup."

Shinzen rolled his eyes at her. "Yes, well, I'm sure it's all very well for you, who grew up gnawing on seal eyeballs, but for those of us from the civilized world it's all a bit rustic."

Karana snorted. "First time outside Caldera City, huh?" she said.

"Hmph!" Shinzen replied, turning up his nose. "No, we've summered on Ember Island since I was a boy."

Karana's eyes went all big and round. "Ooooh, get you, the world traveler," she said.

Shinzen scowled at her. "Oh yes, by all means, laugh," he said sarcastically. "Before you came here, how far had you ventured from your igloo, or teepee, or whatever it is you people live in?"

Karana shrugged, her face going thoughtful. "Hmm, well, I suppose you have a point. I haven't been to Caldera City or Ember Island. Compared to my next-door neighbor back home, I've hardly been anywhere at all."

(Next to her, Azana gripped her soup spoon tighter and focused all her will on not bursting out laughing, as Shinzen took the bait.)

Shinzen folded his arms and looked superior. "Hmph," he repeated. "Well, there you are, then. You're hardly in a position - "

As if he hadn't spoken, Karana went innocently on, "Just Nanisivik, Sanirajak, Ba Sing Se, Gaoling, Republic City, and about half the Spirit World," ticking off each place on her fingers as she named them.

The prince's face darkened, as he began to suspect he was being made game of. "You expect me to believe that?" he asked dismissively. "Rubbish."

Karana narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you implying I'm a liar?"

"I didn't think there was anything of implication about it," Shinzen retorted.

Karana shot to her feet, hands flat on the table. "OK, that's it, pal. You and I are gonna settle this South Pole style." She stuck out her right hand. "Give me your hand."

"I beg your pardon?" Shinzen demanded indignantly.

Karana shook her head. "Too late for that now, give me your hand." Shaking her own insistently in the air, she bored into his eyes with hers and repeated slowly, "Give. Me. Your. Hand."

On her feet next to her roommate, while all their classmates looked on in curious puzzlement, Azana leaned and murmured in her ear, "Karana, what are you doing? If you start a fight you'll be expelled."

"'Sawright, trust me," Karana muttered back with a little grin. As Shinzen, compelled by his own curiosity as much as her imperious will, got to his feet and extended his own hand, Karana took it and maneuvered it into a strange sort of clasp, their fingers curled together like the coupling on a train. "OK," she said. "You ready for this, your worship? So as not to commit lèse-majesté, I'm only gonna use my right thumb."

The prince arched a puzzled eyebrow. "Your right thumb?"

"The left one's way too powerful for the likes of you," Karana explained.

Shinzen sneered slightly. "Do your worst, snow savage," he replied.

Karana grinned fiercely. "Oh yeah, it's on now," she said, sounding pleased as anything. "Get ready! One! Two! Three! Four! I declare a thumb war!"

The other twelve members of Form Four, as well as a number of students from other forms and several faculty members who saw the commotion and gathered round to watch, all had to agree that Shinzen put up a good fight. Once he figured out what they were doing, he grasped the basic premise of the game quickly and gave it his best effort - but his best effort came to naught against the superior experience, the wily cunning, and the mighty right thumb of Karana of the Southern Water Tribe. Within two minutes she had him figuratively on his knees, sweating and muttering as he tried, without a hope of success, to extricate his own thumb from its predicament.

"Say it... " said Karana, her grin becoming sly.

"Ngh! Hmph! Never! Nnrgh," Shinzen grunted, struggling fruitlessly. "Augh!" he added as she applied a tiny bit more force.

"Say it!" Karana commanded him sharply.

He kept resisting for a few moments longer; then, his shoulders sagging, he accepted the inevitable and bowed his head in capitulation, mumbling,

"... your thumb fu is best."

Karana released him and held both hands aloft in triumph while he slumped back into his seat. "Haha!" she cried as the spectators applauded. "How you like me now? How you like me now."


There were no more difficulties with Prince Shinzen after that; indeed, he bore up under his humiliation gallantly, and before the fall break his haughty front had crumbled entirely, revealing itself as camouflage for homesickness and dismay. Once he got over that, he became part of the group, his academic strengths and weaknesses fitting neatly into the overall mosaic of Form Four. Gifted in classical languages and weak in math, he made a natural study partner for another of their classmates, a boy named Chou from the eastern Earth Kingdom, who was a mathematical genius and rubbish at verbs.

The 279-280 academic year unrolled as smoothly as a carpet, the days following one on another with the easy regularity of a ticking clock, broken up only by the irregular cycle of holidays. Azana and Karana both stayed on for the fall interval, during which the residences didn't close; they spent the week catching up on various work they had to do, writing letters to (geographically) distant relatives, and talking long into the night across the three-foot right-angle gap between the heads of their beds. In this way, Karana learned that Azana's parents both came from old Fire Nation military families - soldiers on her father's side, sailors on her mother's - and that her father, Izuno by name, was a retired general in the Fire Army.

During the winter holiday, when they had to leave so that the Academy's facilities team could carry out routine maintenance, she met the general, and found him kindly and charming in almost perfectly inverted proportion to his much younger wife. Azera, Azana's mother, and Karana took an instantaneous dislike to each other, and the atmosphere in the big old house by the mountain road was distinctly frosty for the one evening the latter spent there before catching her flight back to the South Pole for the holiday.

They resumed course naturally enough when the spring term reunited them, though. Azana apologized for her mother's unpleasantness, Karana apologized for her imperfect forbearance, and the matter was buried. No further invitations to the house were extended to Azana's roommate, but then, Azana seemed to be going out of her way to avoid going back there herself most of the time, so that was no great hardship; and having met her mother, Karana could no longer blame her for that.

The spring interval showed how far Prince Shinzen had come in his assimilation into the class, as he invited all of them to spend the week at his father's seaside villa on Ember Island, vacation retreat of the Fire Nation's great and good. The royal household seemed somewhat unprepared for an invasion of 11-year-olds, but at least they were all relatively mature, very scholarly 11-year-olds, so havoc was kept to a minimum and a fine time was had by all. True, Karana did almost cause an international incident when she decided to teach Shinzen to surf and he nearly drowned, but he was the first to admit that it would've been his own fault for not following instructions.


Upon their return to school from break, the students of Form Four found an exciting new development awaiting them; for this was their first spring term, and so their first meeting with the Academy's regular springtime guest lecturer.

She was a tall, thin woman of ambiguous middle age, with iron-grey streaks in her thick brown hair but a largely unlined face, and she moved with an easy, efficient grace that stirred still-sleeping instincts in certain members of the class. Gold-rimmed pince-nez gave her a serious, scholarly air, but the grey eyes behind them were given to twinkling without much provocation, and she had a ready smile of the kind that made it difficult to be nervous in the vicinity.

Also, there was a wide blue tattoo in the shape of an arrow on her forehead, revealed by the way she wore her side-parted bangs, and she was dressed in robes of saffron and crimson; and so, though there were none in the student body, Karana got her wish to see an Air Nomad at Piandao Academy after all.

"Good morning, everyone," she said, standing at the lectern normally occupied by Form Four's designated teacher, Professor Zhou. "I am Master Shespa. Headmaster Changdao has asked me to visit your class for a few days and tell you a little bit about my people, the Air Nomads." She smiled around at the room, then went on, "Let's start by getting a feel for what you already know about us. Does anyone want to start us off? Tell us something you know, or think you know, about Air Nomads."

Chou put up his hand hesitantly. "Uh... you're all airbenders?"

Shespa nodded. "That's true, very good."

"You're all descended from Avatar Aang," said Prince Shinzen positively.

"Also true!" Shespa agreed with a smile. "Two for two. Anyone else? Yes," she said, nodding toward perky little Kiko at the back.

"My uncle told me once that you're a lot of fun at parties, but I'm not sure what he meant," said Kiko brightly.

A few of the class's more mature members giggled slightly at the faint blush that rose in Master Shespa's cheeks as she cleared her throat and said, "Ah. Well. We'll come back to that... "


Before they knew it the school year was ending, with final examinations and chamber-orchestra recitals and all the usual trappings of academic springtime, and the little campus buzzed with the news that - as she tried to do at least once in every graduating class's career at the Academy - the Avatar was going to speak at Commencement.

Xinqiliu, Liuyue 5, 280 ASC
Saturday, June 5, SY 2399

Everyone in the student body knew what Avatar Korra looked like, of course; for all that she never sought celebrity, in her position she could hardly avoid it, and her image was all but inescapable. Few of them had seen her in person, though, and even fewer had ever seen her in an academic gown and mortarboard before. She seemed to know that she looked a bit weird in such a costume; after her introduction by Headmaster Changdao, she stood at the lectern in the Academy's chapel-cum-assembly-hall and gave them all a wry little smile, as if to say, I know, right?

Like all the great graduation speakers, she opened with a joke:

"Normally I'd start with an anecdote from my own school days, except... I... actually wasn't allowed to go to school when I was a kid." Korra glanced around with a comically exaggerated look of discomfiture, which got a giggle from her audience, and then brightened with an oh-yeah-I-know look and declared decisively, "So, uh, don't do what I did! Go to school!" Then, with a frown, she muttered, "Except you already did, you're graduating - tell you what, I'll come in again."

So saying, she turned and left the stage, to gales of laughter from the students and a mixture of the above and bemusement from their parents. A moment later she bounded back onto the stage, grinning, and said as if she hadn't already been there, "Thank you, Headmaster Changdao. It's an honor, as always, to be asked back here. Every time I wonder if I'll ever hear from you again."

Changdao laughed, bowing, along with his students; then the room quieted and Korra stood looking at the graduating class. "Wow. Look at you guys," she said. "Unlike me, you look like you belong in those robes. But like me at 17, you're probably wondering, OK, so, now what? And, well, I have got a few things I can tell you about that... "

After the ceremony, as Karana led her past a little knot of Form 7 students, Azana overheard one of them say to the others, "The thing I like best about her is that she's so genuine."

"Come on, 'Zana," said Karana, tugging at her hand. "Hurry up or we'll miss her."

"Are you really going to - " Azana began, but then they broke through the crowd of parents and whatnot at the front of the hall, emerging into the clear not far from the table where Headmaster Changdao, the Trustees, and the other dignitaries had been sitting. The headmaster was standing by the end of that table now, chatting amiably with Avatar Korra. She looked up at the approach of Azana and her roommate, then smilingly excused herself and turned toward them.

"Gran-gran!" Karana declared happily, releasing Azana's hand to propel herself into the Avatar's embrace.

"Don't call me that!" Korra replied, in exactly the same cheerful tone, as she grabbed the youngster up in a hug. "Hey, kiddo, how've you been? Your dad says you're not writing enough, so that must mean they're keeping you busy," she added with a grin, setting Karana back on her feet.

"They sure are," Karana agreed. "But I like it. I'm doing really well! It'll be good to get home for Glacier Spirits, though. Are you going to be there this year?"

"You bet," said Korra. "In fact, your mom asked me if I'd bring you down with me. Save them some airfare. What do you think? You can come to Republic City for a few days and then we'll head down on the Polar Star."

"That sounds awesome!" Karana said, nodding with a big smile. "You're the best, Gran-gran." She turned and indicated Azana, who was standing and regarding them with look of faint disbelief. "I want you to meet Azana. She's my roommate. And my best friend! And she didn't believe me when I told her I know you."

"Er... I didn't not believe her," Azana qualified a bit lamely, quailing slightly under the Avatar's gaze.

Korra grinned and made the Water Tribe salute. "Eh, not a problem," she said. "People are always namedropping me in vain. Hard to know who to believe. Hi!"

"Um... " Not sure what to do with her own hands, Azana settled for offering the Fire Nation salute in return, then plucked at her school uniform's skirt, thinking it might be appropriate to drop a curtsey at this time. "I'm very pleased to meet you."

"Likewise!" said Korra cheerfully. "You and Karana are best friends, huh?" Her smile became a little bit nostalgic. "That's great. Everybody needs at least one."

"Can Azana come to the Glacier Spirits Festival with us, Gran-gran?" Karana inquired. "Please? She doesn't eat much and she's very quiet," she added with a mischievous grin.

Korra laughed. "Sure, why not?" she said, but Azana shook her head.

"I'm... very sorry, Avatar... " she said hesitantly.

"Korra," said the Avatar. "C'mon, you're Karana's best friend, right? We don't have to stand on ceremony. Just don't call me Gran-gran and we're good," she said, mussing Karana's hair.

"Oh. Uhm... all right... Korra," said Azana, blushing furiously now. "I... " She shook her head and got hold of herself with an effort. "I'm very sorry to have to decline your generous invitation, but I'm afraid my mother would never agree to let me go as far as the South Pole." She hung her head, embarrassed. "I was barely able to convince her to let me go to Ember Island, and only then because it was Shinzen inviting me."

Karana made a dismissive noise. "So just go, what's she going to do, come down after you? She has a problem, hey, Gran-gran's the Avatar. She's gotta deal with it. Right, Gran-gran?"

Korra gave the younger waterbender a sentimental smile. "Sorry, kiddo, doesn't work that way," she said. "I don't stick at kidnapping if the situation's desperate enough," she added wryly, "but not being allowed to go halfway around the world on vacation isn't exactly tyranny when you're 11. Much as it may feel like it." Then, seeing Azana's slightly miserable nod of agreement, she offered, "I'm happy to go talk to your mom, though, if you like."

Azana shook her head. "No... no, thank you, Av - uh... Korra. I don't think that would help." Wincing apologetically, she added, "Mother isn't... um... your biggest fan."

"Ah," said Korra with an understanding nod. "Well... sorry to hear that, but believe me, I know how it goes. The invitation's open, though. Maybe sometime when you're older you'll be able to swing it, and we'd love to have you anytime."

Azana smiled, wanly but genuinely. "Thank you," she said. "It's really been an honor meeting you."

"You know the old saying, any friend of Karana's," replied Korra, smiling. "Great meeting you too. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again."

"I have to go and get my stuff together," said Karana. "Where should I meet you?"

"On the sports field," Korra said. "Ikki brought me over, so it's the bison express back to the city for us."

Karana grinned. "Awesome. See you there in a few minutes. C'mon, 'Zana, you can help me pack, anyway."

As the two girls crossed the courtyard from the chapel to the main house, Karana couldn't resist giving her roommate a little smirk and saying, "See?"

"I never said I didn't believe you!" Azana insisted. Then, softening, she added, "She seems really nice."

"You were expecting her not to be?" Karana wondered rhetorically.

"I wasn't expecting anything," Azana said. "I didn't know. Is she really your grandmother? You didn't mention that."

"Nah, I just call her that to get her goatadillo," Karana said cheerfully. "'Cause she looks so much younger than Mom, but acts like her mother sometimes. She's actually really old, nobody knows how she does it. She likes you," she added brightly. "I can tell."

By this time the circuitous route to their room was so ingrained in them that they could follow it without even really paying attention, and as they did, Karana went on, "Are you sure you can't come with us? Glacier Spirits is soooo much fun. Everybody in Nanisivik is dressed up, and the spirits come out and put on a show, and there's games and food and we all play hockey together and oh it's just awesome. You'd have such a good time. And you wouldn't have to go home for, oh, weeks. You could meet my parents. And my brothers! Tausi will just ignore us, he's way too cool to hang with the little kids any more, but Bori's nice."

"I want to, Karana, I really do, but you know what Mother's like."

"That's at least half the reason why I want you to come!" Karana argued, pushing open the door to their room.

"If we push her too hard, she could go to the Headmaster and ask for you to be given a different roommate," Azana said.

"I'd like to see her try!" declared Karana, thrusting out her jaw pugnaciously.

"No you wouldn't," Azana told her. "Because she might be able to make it happen, and if she couldn't, she might take me out of school altogether."

Karana stared at her. "She would do that? Pull you out of the best school in the world? But you're kickin' tail here, girl! The only person in our form with better grades than you is Chou, and that's because he's some kinda freakin' wizard!"

"I know," said Azana, not boasting, but acknowledging the fact. "But you know full well that Mother doesn't really care if I get an education anyway. In fact, she's never been entirely comfortable with the idea. She thinks being too clever will hurt my marriage prospects."

"Pff. Only if you wanted to marry somebody who likes 'em dumb," Karana scoffed. Then, giving her a dubious look, she added, "Uh, you don't, do you?"

In spite of herself, Azana giggled, just as her roommate had hoped. "No," she said. "But the fact of the matter is, I'm only here because Father used all his influence over Mother to get her to agree, and the balance of power in their marriage is always unstable. If we give her too much trouble, Mother may decide that getting her way is worth making him angry. So no. I really wish I could, it sounds absolutely wonderful - but I can't go to the South Pole this summer."

Karana sighed, her shoulders slumping. "OK," she agreed glumly. "I guess when you put it that way. Spirits, your mom's a bitch."

"Karana!" said Azana, faintly scandalized.

"Well she is," Karana insisted doggedly. "But if I don't make her mad at you, you'll be back for fall term, right?"

"If Father and I have anything to say about it, yes," Azana said.

"You promise?"

Azana nodded. "I promise."

"Your word as a fellow bender?" Karana persisted.

Azana sighed slightly and made the firebender salute, saying with an audible I-am-humoring-you air, "I give you my word as a fellow bender that I'll see you in the fall. Unless Mother banishes me to Chameleon Bay or something," she added wryly.

Karana's sigh was noisier, a gusty sound of discontentment. "I guess it'll have to do." Then, seizing her roommate in a hug, she said, "Take care of yourself, Azana. I meant what I told Korra. You're not just my best friend now, you're the best friend I ever had."

Azana blinked, surprised, as she returned her friend's embrace. "I... yes," she said, closing her eyes. "Thank you, Karana. I... I feel the same."

"Welcome to Piandao Academy" (Part 1 of A Fire to be Lighted, a Future Imperfect/Dìqiú Mini-Serial)
by Benjamin D. Hutchins with Philip Jeremy Moyer
special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2013 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


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