Chapter 1: Happenstance

Ballet class had ended fifteen minutes ago, so Katara, Suki and Mai were chatting comfortably while they stretched. Suki had immediately sunken into splits. Katara had already expressed her jealousy that the ballroom dancer had achieved a perfect split two weeks ago, just one week into the dance season. Katara herself always had to struggle with it for at least a few weeks before getting it back (admittedly, this was partly her own fault for doing less stretching during the off-season). Katara was secretly a little relieved that Azula had needed to leave for her field hockey game. The girl was certainly a talented ballerina, but she was also quite intimidating. And, unlike the other girls, she hadn't been attending the studio since age four. In fact, she had just transferred to Crystal Studios this year. Finished with her inner thigh stretches, Katara moved into splits as well. Once she was fully situated, she asked Mai to get a block under her front foot.

After fetching it, the taller girl resumed their conversation, "I was thinking that maybe we could invite Azula to our next slumber party?" she suggested, cool as ever, as though it was a perfectly reasonable and normal thing to propose.

"Mai those have always been just the three of us!" Katara protested.

"She's really not as bad as you think Katara. She's in my chemistry class, and we were partners for the titration experiment. She just looks scary."

"That glare is more than scary," Suki commented, "but maybe it wouldn't hurt to invite her at least once?"

"Alright, I guess I'll text her tonight after her hockey game and invite her," Katara conceded.

With that topic covered, Suki moved on to something more much important, "So, what are you guys doing for your senior solos? And who are your duet partners?"

"Why don't you tell us yours first, before you explode?" suggested Mai

"Please say you aren't dancing with my brother!" giggled Katara, "it's enough having you all over each other at school, I don't think I could handle it at the studio too!"

"Sokka refused to even try ballroom," pouted Suki, "but even if he were willing, there's no way Miss Sophie and I could whip him into shape before the show. My duet partner is," she did a little drumroll on her legs, "Jet! He's really good, so I can't wait to get working on it!"

"What are you doing for your solo? Latin or ballet?" prompted Katara.

"Latin, obviously, you lovely ladies are the ballerinas, I could never look as delicate as you! What about you Mai? Tell us what you're doing!"

"Ballet for my solo, duh, and I was thinking of asking Ty Lee to do a contemporary duet with me."

"That would be incredible! I can't wait to see it!" gushed Katara.

"You have to promise that we'll be the first ones to see!" Suki insisted playfully.

"After Miss Annika I'm sure you will be," Mai gave them one of her small, rare smiles, "and you Katara?"

"I definitely want to do jazz for my solo, but I still can't find a partner for my duet," Katara said, "honestly I'm starting to worry about it,"

"Well hey, if you get really desperate, either of us would do it," said Suki.

Before Katara could thank her, Miss Cynthia approached, "Ladies, Suki's parents are waiting outside, and I have another class coming in soon. Finish up your stretches then go study! Didn't you tell me you had a french test tomorrow?"

"Sure thing Miss Cynthia!" Suki replied happily. The three girls headed out to the coat room to put on their shoes.

As Katara opened the door to leave, a very annoyed looking boy crashed right into her from the other side.

"Sorry, sorry!" he picked up her fallen left pointe shoe and handed it to her.

"No my bad," Katara replied, taking the proffered shoe. For a split second they stared at each other, then both awkwardly stepped first one way, then the other, before the boy moved aside and gestured that she should go first. This might have made him seem like a perfect gentleman, if his face weren't beet red. He now looked very much embarrassed, and far less annoyed.

Behind the boy was Sokka, still chatting away. No wonder the boy looked so annoyed. He finally paused in his ongoing stream of dialogue to see Katara in the doorway. "Hey sis, hope you studied for the french test! I heard it's gonna be super hard!"

"We're going to Suki's house to study right now, tell Dad I won't be home 'til late ok?"

"You got it sis! Have fun, but not too much fun, you need to study too!"

Suki waved to Sokka as they got into Mai's mother's car.

-X-

In Suki's bedroom, the girls had turned on some old CDs, and Suki was painting Katara's nails as Mai called out verb tenses, to which the other two took turns responding with the correct forms. Katara had already texted Azula, but she had yet to receive an answer.

"Dormir, passé antérieur, deuxième personne au pluriel" Mai ordered.

"Uh… vous eûtes dormi?" Katara guessed.

"Yup,"

"Nice," said Suki, as she carefully painted a tiny heart onto Katara's ring finger, "and speaking of niiiiiice, who was that guy Katara ran into on the way out of the studio?"

"Azula's brother," said Mai, "at least, he's in my calculus class and he has the same last name as her, so I'm guessing he's her brother. He's pretty quiet, but sometimes he just looks so frustrated with the math, it almost makes me want to go over and help him, poor thing."

"He's kinda cute huh?" said Suki.

"No way!" laughed Katara, "you already have all the boys falling over you! You don't get him too!"

Suki stuck her tongue out, "Make a move and beat me to him then!"

"Maybe I will!"

"We all know you won't Katara," deadpanned Mai, "You two don't think you can escape the dreaded verbs just by distracting me, do you? Suki, Appeler, conditionnel passé, troisième personne du singulier."

"Ummm…"

~O~

As a girl who took dance classes for many years, I can 100% guarantee that this is the way we talked to each other :P WHAT DO I LOVE ALMOST EVEN MORE THAN I LOVE ZUTARA? FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS HELL YEAH. (also, a few of the girls at my studio did have older brothers, and some of us did find them hot. ahem). Those verbs. Man, i picked out some of the hardest and most useless tenses for these poor girls :P Also, I hope you guys don't mind that the teachers aren't people from the avatar universe. I couldn't really think of any women from canon who would be teaching dance. I honestly wouldn't really call the teachers in this story OCs though. They will have very minimal roles beyond being mentioned by name or correcting a move occasionally :P. They're actually named after some women who are very important to me though. I couldn't name them after my two main/favourite dance teachers, (they have very unique names and tbh i would feel weird knowing that someone could google and find my old studio) so instead I picked Cynthia, a woman who taught me Dance of the Cygnets, (it's only like a minute and a half long but it's crazy hard!) and Sophie and Annika, two wonderful women who I had the honour of working with as an assistant teacher to their classes for younger boys and girls!