#I ain’t complainin anyhow I HATE school

[your-unfriendlyghost]

staying home from school to take care of my sick kid brother cos my folks ain’t available is so Darry Curtis-coded of me I think

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Of Farms Fairs & Fame (Part 13)

The rain didn’t let up in the days to come, in fact, it only seemed to be growing heavier as the days passed. To the point where Azula was growing used to having to drive around in it. The television flickered in the background as she, Zuko, and their father had dinner.

“Reckon it’s gonna stop any time soon?” Zuko asked.

“I reckon that this weather ain’t normal.” Ozai shrugged. “This might as well be a summer storm, the way it keeps carrying on.”

“Honestly, I’m tired a bein’ soaked by the time I get into school.”

Waving his fork about, Zuko replied. “Yeah, same here.”

“Folks on T.V say it’s supposed to get worse.” Ozai mumbled.

Frankly, Azula wasn’t sure how that was even possible. She just knew that she wanted some sunshine back. She hadn’t been able to visit Sokka in days with the roads so flooded. She  and Zuko barely made it to school and she was growing worried that they’d end up having to walk if the road conditions grew any worse. And walking all those miles in the rain wouldn’t be an easy feat.

She stole a glance through the window, but between the rain and the night she could see very little. Lightning provided only a brief glance at the now-harvested fields. “‘Suppose I should check on our cows.” Ozai pushed his chair in. “When I git back you can show me yer song.”

Azula nodded. It still needed to be polished up, but the storms had delayed the contest anyhow. Too much interference with the power to run a decent radio show contest, is what they had told her. Not that she had any complaints.

“What’d you write ‘bout?” Zuko asked.

“Watchin’ the rain with a pig.” She replied. She’d have held Spade up if she could have, but Ozai had a strict no pigs at the table rule. Even if he didn’t, she couldn’t imagine that Spade was going to leave his hiding spot any time soon. The poor thing hated thunder almost as much as TyLee.  

Ozai re-entered with a dripping beard, a mud splashed face, and a scowl. “Cows are fine. I will shower ‘n then you can show me yer song.”

Zuko chuckled when the man was out of earshot. “Them cows never did get along with dad.”

Azula shrugged.

.oOo.

“I’m gonna head off early.” Zuko announced. He could claim that he had to beat the rain all he wanted, Azula knew that it was just an excuse to see Mai. The sky was rather clear anyhow, so it was a poor excuse, but she didn’t call him on it. Instead she fixed herself a bowl of cereal and listened to the weather man drone on. Her father refused to miss the early morning and late night forecasts.

Azula pushed in her chair and rinsed her bowl. “I’m gonna go pick Sokka up.”

“Y’all be careful. You know how the weather can be.” Ozai called from the other room.

She decided to herself that they would have cancelled classes if the weather was of any real concern but she responded with an, “I will,” regardless.

The roads were still a mess of small debris and slush, she’d have to get to washing her car after the weather cleared. But at least they were driveable. By the time she pulled into Sokka’s driveway the clouds were beginning to brew again. Azula sighed, she could have sworn that the weather man had announced, at the very least, a clear morning commute. She gave the horn a good honk or two.    

She caught a silhouette jolt behind the curtain and then it scrambled out of the house. Clumsily, Sokka climbed into her truck, seemingly unphased by the growing grey. “Good mornin’, Azula.”  

She peered at the sky. “Eh...could be a better one.” She heard the first rumble of thunder. “A much better one.”

She backed out of the driveway, unhappy to see a thick rain of muck instead of a cloud of dust. They had driven only to the first turn when Sokka spoke, “min’ if I tern on the radio?”

“Good luck gettin’ any reception.” She lifted her shoulders in a half shrug that didn’t take her hands off of the wheel. Had the roads been a little nicer, she would have chanced a full on shrug. She watched Sokka turn the dial to the left and then to the right. As expected, he only found faint static to show for his efforts. He clicked the radio off.

“So how are ya gonna do that whole concert thingy?”

“It’s been postponed.” She replied. “I ain’t complainin’ though. I’d like to have a lil’ more time with my song. To practice ‘n maybe change some things, ya know?”

Sokka nodded. He gave a jerk at a particularly loud bang sent courtesy of some nasty looking clouds. She thought of poor Spade, hiding under her bed and then of TyLee who was probably shivering, bedbound and home alone for a few extra recovery days. Azula almost wanted to skip school and visit the girl. But she didn’t want to hear another ‘good grades and hard work’ lecture from her father. The rain was coming down now, mercilessly so. “Shit.” She whispered to herself. She wasn’t one for that kind of speak, but she has had it with this weather. She could barely see where she was going.

“Ya think ya should pull over?”

She looked at the time and bit her lip. “Probably.” They should have called classes off anyways. If they gave her a hard time, then they could hear it from her father. She pulled off to the side of the road, put the truck in park, and folded her arms over her chest.

“Thinkin’ that ya shoulda stayed home taday?” Sokka asked.

“Yup.”

Sokka laughed, though Azula couldn’t see what was so funny. Just as soon as it started, the rain seemed to lighten up until it was little more than a couple of heavy drops now and again. But Azula didn’t resume the drive, something chilled her. Something she couldn’t place. She unbuckled her seat belt and stepped out of the truck.

“What are ya doin’?” Sokka asked.

Azula held up a hand and he went silent. Silent, just like everything else in the field around them. She listened for the rain, for the call of birds for anything. Her tension only grew.

It was so quiet.

So very quiet.

A sense of foreboding stirred in her belly.

She knew this quiet.

It was the same quite that came before Lu Ten’s death.

“Sokka, run.”

She didn’t need to say it, the look of dread on his face and his steady flow of profanities said that he was already well aware of their predicament.

She fixed her eyes  on the sky. A shrill whine cut into the quiet and her heart picked up that much more. It was the kind of confirmation that set what she already knew into stone.  

She looked around almost frantically, everything was flat. So uselessly flat. Not a barn in sight, abandoned no otherwise. She looked back towards the truck, her stomach sinking even further at the horrific rumble.

She could see it clearly, the look on Iroh’s face, when he came knocking on their doorbell to tell his brother about how Lu Ten had been ripped right from his hiding place under the overpass they sought shelter under. It was why her uncle cringed at the first flash of lightning no matter how mellow the storm.

“Whaddo we do?” She barely heard him over the rumble.

She simply grabbed his hand and pulled him back into the truck. She hustled to fasten her seatbelt as that sickly green sky glared mockingly down at her.

“I thought we weren’t suppos’ta try ta out run ‘em!”

“Myth!” Azula shouted. “There ain’t no safe way ta do this one.” After Lu Ten’s demise, Iroh had insisted that they researched tornado safety tips. She had, but that didn’t stop the man from drilling the facts he’d learned into her head. “They say that if you can’t find a place ta hide then yer best chance might be to drive away, fast as possible.” She was pretty sure that, that’s what she had read. Granted most of her sources advised that folks should do such only if they knew for sure which direction the twister was heading in, but she left that out. She also vaguely recalled reading somewhere that there weren’t many options for people facing a twister head on. It was behind them though, perhaps they had a chance.

Azula threw the truck into drive and accelerated, steady but fast. The last thing they needed was for her to flip the vehicle herself. The engine roared, but not loud enough to overpower the freight train rattle of the tornado.

“Shit.” Sokka hissed again. It wasn’t doing anything to ease the anxiety welling up.

“Which direction is it gonin’?”

“I...I think…” He trailed off.

“Sokka!”

“It’s hard ta tell!”

The peddle was practically to the floor, the fields rolled by in a blur. Azula couldn’t recall a time she drove so fast, much less on roads so muddy. Lord help her, what if she lost control? They’d be dead as soon as it happened. The sky opened into a rain again.

No, she realized. It was too heavy to be rain.

The sky was spitting hail at her. She hoped...prayed that the windshield would hold.

“Which way’s it goin’, Sokka!?” She yelled again.

“I think. I think that it’s right behind us.”

She gripped the steering wheel tighter. There had to be a house somewhere, at that point she wouldn’t be any opposed to kicking in someone’s door and rushing into the basement with a, “howdy y’all, fine weather we’re havin’.”

“What’s ma gonna do? What’s Kat gonna do?” She heard Sokka whimper. She didn’t dare glance behind her.

Still she couldn’t help but ask the same about Iroh and Zuko. About her father.

Azula heard a harsh thump and spiderwebs formed on the glass. It was becoming harder to drive against the wind, the streets were flooding with broken fence posts and tree twigs and fragments of furniture, so carelessly chucked about by the twister.  

Through a torrent of unrelenting rain and hail she could see a structure looming tauntingly close. From Sokka’s posture, knelt over in a silent prayer she knew that they didn’t have much time. She threw the truck in park and yanked him from the truck. “Sokka, c’mon.”

Doing so she caught a glimpse of death. It was humblingly large, a stark reminder of just what mama nature could do. There were flashes of electricity as power lines snapped and flailed before getting sucked in like spaghetti twisting around a fork.

Azula dragged Sokka towards the house. He had to be in some sort of daze. “Dammit, Sokka, help me open this here thing.” She kicked at the door. The ‘for rent’ sign flapped wildly. “Fuck!” She shouts as the thing ripped from the ground and lodged itself in the door. It was just enough to snap the man into action. He threw his body against the door until it caved, sending the both of them crashing to the floor. They scrambled clumsily to their feet and frantically searched for the basement door.

Azula pried it open, with the sound of rattling abandoned kitchen utensils haunting her ears. It smelled of musk and mold in there. Like something rotting, a healthy helping of spiders and other critters occupied the space with them. But in comparison they seemed harmless.

The shatter of glass told her that the windows had busted. She gripped Sokka’s arm. As she pulled herself closer, she could feel him shaking. Or maybe she was. More likely, they were both trembling. They  could have been up there, only a moment or two longer and they could have been part of the debris. She heard a particularly loud bang and something poked through the ceiling.

The rumbling was growing softer.

Softer and softer until it was as dreadfully quiet as before the storm.

Azula wasn’t sure just how long they’d stayed put for.

She hadn’t realized she had been crying until Sokka wiped the tears from her eyes. The product of stress and relief. She allowed for a switch, she was now in his arms, his face buried in her hair. Another few minutes slipped by before Azula slowly got to her feet and even slowlier crept up the stairs.

She didn’t know exactly what she expected to see, but it wasn’t a clear view of the mutilated field. The northmost wall had been torn away completely, pipes leaking and remaining boards bobbing perilously. There was an entire motorboat wedged into the floor.

Unsure of how well the structure would withstand, Azula stepped around the wreckage with as much caution as she could. It mattered little that the place had been free of furniture when they entered, it was filled with it now; broken dolls, couch cushions, and lampshades.

“Look at this.” Sokka pointed.

At first she saw only a bike, bent and twisted with a wheel still spinning. She followed his finger further to see combine laying toppled, its cutterbar facing skyward. “They shoulda cancelled class.” Ozai was going to have a fit for sure.

“Ya don’t say.” Sokka muttered, rubbing the back of his head.

She hoped that Zuko was alright, that he’d left early enough to either miss it or be in the school building when the twister touched down. She reached into her pocket, groaning in defeat at the realization that she’d left it in her truck. Which--she looked around--may either be completely gone and swept away or that shiny red thing buried under a heap of trees and part of the roof. It would be one more thing for Ozai to fuss over, that truck was fairly new.

She picked her way through the pile of debris until she found herself a seat, a battered lawnchair. “Make yerself comfy, Sokka, this could take a while.”

The wind tousled her hair, gently and soothingly, a stark contrast to the force it had once been. Sokka rubbed at her shoulders. She noticed a streak of red on his forehead. His cheeks and clothes were coated in mud. She couldn’t imagine that she was in a much better state. She was soaked to the core.

“I’m glad yer okay.” Sokka noted.

She squeezed his hand. The sun beat down and the sound of birds was slowly coming back. The world was coming back to life. What a morning it had been.