Four Elements High school

Chapter 12: Blizzard

Zuko woke up not because of his alarm, but because of a loud barking outside. He groaned, quickly got dressed, and went downstairs to see what all the fuss was about.

"Uncle, what's going on?" he asked groggily as he was handed a mug of steaming hot tea. Iroh shrugged.

"I've tried to make the dog stop barking but he just won't quit."

"I have to do everything myself," Zuko said as he walked outside, where it was still dark. A strange dog sat on the porch, almost demanding to be let in. In the dog's defense it was snowing, hard. The dog had shaggy fur that was almost all white, except for some brown fur in the shape of an arrow on his forehead.

Weird, Zuko thought. The dog looked up at him.

"Ugh, fine. You can come inside," he said, but before he opened the door he checked the dog's collar. Appa, it said, if lost, call this phone number. Zuko looked out at the heavily falling snow. It was just 5 in the morning. He would call the owner later. 

                                                                                                ~~~

Aang's eyes opened, and for a moment he forgot where he was. Then he heard Sokka snoring loudly, and he remembered he had spent the night at Katara and Sokka's house. He pulled out his phone and saw that it was  6 AM. He also got an email from four elements high school that said it was going to be a snow day. He quickly went downstairs and found Katara eating cereal. 

"Is Sokka still asleep?" Aang nodded. Katara sighed, "Figures. Why don't you just stay here today, and we can work on the school dance. We still need need to think of a catchy name for it." 

"Yeah," Aang looked out the small kitchen window of the apartment. It was only the beginning of December, but a full on blizzard had hit. Aang felt a sudden pang of worry as he thought about Appa. Of all of the times for him to run away, why did it have to be now? He sat next to Katara at the kitchen table after getting himself some breakfast. 

"I checked in with principal Zhao yesterday," Katara said, "he isn't very happy about a school event that Azula didn't plan, but there isn't really any way that he can object, since it isn't taken out of the school's funding." Aang nodded. He was still distracted, then he heard his phone ringing and took it out of his pocket.

"Hello?" he said

"Hello? I found a white sheepdog with a brown arrow on it's forehead. This phone number was on its collar." Aang's heart skipped a beat. 

"Yes! Yes, that's Appa. That's my dog. Where can I come get him." 

"Right now??" the voice on the other line asked incredulously.

"Yes. Right now."

"Well, he's at the Jasmine Dragon Tea Shop right now." And that was when Aang recognized the voice. Zuko?

"I um- I'll be there soon," he barely managed to compose himself before ending the call. He turned to Katara, "I think Zuko found Appa."

"Zuko?!"

"Yeah. He's at the Jasmine Dragon right now."

"That's great Aang, but, that doesn't sound like something that Zuko would do."

"Katara," Aang turned to her, "I haven't told you this before, but, remember Jet's party?"

"I'm trying to forget it," Katara said dryly, "What's your point?"

"Well, Zuko was at that party, and it seemed like he was just enjoying it. It also looked like he gave Sokka some good advice. Anyways, I'm going to get Appa."

"I'll come with you," Katara said without hesitation. The two of them got on their coats and headed outside. Aang used airbending to clear the wind and snowfall, so they could see at least a little better, while Katara used waterbending to clear the dense, packed snow that covered the ground (it was still early, and the snowplows weren't out yet). 

"Technically we have our dad's truck," Katara said, "but Gran Gran would never let us use it, especially not in a snow storm."

"It probably wouldn't have been much faster anyways," Aang responded. They were both breathing heavily. 

About an hour later, they made it to the Jasmine Dragon, which, along with all of the other shops on main street, was closed due to weather. Aang knocked on the door, and it was opened almost immediately, but not by Zuko.

"Ah, you must be the owner of the dog!" said Iroh, "Come in, come in. I'll get some hot tea for you." Aang and Katara walked inside and sat down on one of the couches in the tea shop. Aang burst into a grin as Appa came running towards him.

"Hey buddy!" Appa started licking his face, "I can't believe you ran away."

"He started barking outside of the shop early this morning," said Iroh, "He took quite a liking to my nephew." He turned towards a staircase in the back of the room, "Zuko! Come down here!" 

"Coming Uncle!" Zuko headed downstairs. He saw Aang and Katara, and froze.

"He's your dog?!" 

"Yeah," said Aang, "Thanks for calling me."

"Don't mention it." Zuko's voice was flat. He looked out the window and seemed to see how bad the snow was, "You should probably stay here for a while, until it isn't snowing as much." Aang and Katara glanced at each other.

"Ok."

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The avatar wasn't pretentious, or self righteous. Aang didn't feel like the avatar at all. Zuko spent the next two hours with Aang and Katara, not doing much more than sipping tea and playing board games. It was nice. They talked a lot about the school dance that they were planning behind Azula's back, which was very impressive. In all of his years of high school, Zuko had never seen anyone who wasn't afraid of his sister. Plus, Appa was really cute. 

"Maybe I can convince Zhao to put more funding into the earth and water programs," he said. Aang and Katara looked surprised.

"That... would be really cool, Zuko," said Katara.

"Yeah, we'll take you up on that," said Aang. 

Zuko was actually sad to see them go. 

This is weird, he thought, this is really, really weird.

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