Burning Sands

A Legend of Korra thingy for Rabolin Week 2013

By

EvilFuzzy9

A/N: So, this is for Rabolin week, as conceived by Flashwally22. For the uninitiated, Rabolin is the harem pairing of the Red Sands Rabaroos and Bolin. Because why the hell not?

Prompt One:

LOCKER ROOM

It was a little known fact, outside probenders, that different teams frequently had to share training facilities, and even dressing rooms. There simply wasn't enough space in the coliseum for every individual team to have their own exclusive facilities.

It just wasn't economically feasible. Even with as much revenue as professional bending matches brought in, budgets nonetheless often had to be kept very frugal. Between arena upkeep, advertising, the costs of broadcasting matches live, wages for security and janitorial staff, as well as the winnings for victorious probending teams, meant that there was little cash left over to be put towards such so-called "superfluous frivolities", as the probending commissioner had put it.

Thrift was the name of the game in any business, and probending was just as cutthroat as stock exchange or automotive manufacturing. Cost cutting measures were implemented wherever possible simply as a matter of course, and if making teams share locker rooms meant a few more yuans for owners' wallets, then so be it.

Of course, most probenders were used to this sort of spendthrift attitude from the organizers, so such measures were typically accepted with only minimal grumbling. But still, some people took poorly to these sorts of measures, and many refused to get dressed in the same room as a rival team.

Such was not the case with the Red Sands Rabaroos and the Fire Ferrets, who with the new season shared not only a locker room, but also frequently training sessions. Other teams might have adjusted poorly to such an arrangement, but the ladies of RSR took to it with considerable aplomb.

Especially since the Fire Ferrets' captain, Bolin, happened to having difficulty keeping teammates on.

"Another flop?" remarked the earthbender of the Rabaroo's, the doughty and solidly built Ula, when she saw Bolin walk dejectedly through the door. She was in the middle of changing into her practice clothes, shirtless with nothing but a tightly done breast wrap to cover her chest.

"Yeah," said Bolin, not even looking twice at Ula's compromising state of undress. He had grown used to the ladies of the Red Sands Rabaroos, and did not get at all awkward around them like he might with other women. "None of the people who've been coming to these tryouts are any good. The waterbender who came in today, for instance, well he kept putting out the firebender's flames with backwash. She got real irritated by this, and now my waterbender is in a burn ward and my firebender's in a holding cell downtown."

"Why is it that so many of your tryouts end with someone in either the hospital or prison?" wondered the captain and firebender of the Rabaroos, Adi, who was just coming out of the showers with her team's aloof, bespectacled waterbender, Umi.

They were of course wearing naught but towels, and a more gauche man may have taken the opportunity to ogle their nice figures. But Bolin did not.

He could be quite the gentleman, when he wasn't actively trying to flirt with someone.

"I don't know," said Bolin. "It's getting really old, though. I mean, are all the good probending really already taken?"

"That seems highly improbable," remarked Umi, fumbling briefly for her glasses when she came to her locker. Finding them after a few seconds, squinting terribly from her search, she donned them. The lenses fogged up almost immediately, of course, but she readily endured the inconvenience.

"I know, right?" said Bolin. "But I keep getting all the terrible ones. I must be the unluckiest team captain in the whole league!"

"Nah, I doubt that," replied Ula, going over to give her fellow earthbender a bright grin and a reassuring pat on the shoulder. She was still shirtless, but Bolin did not comment on it. "I'm sure there are plenty of poor bastards with worse luck. Sooner or later you're bound to find some decent replacements for Mako and Korra."

"You think so?"

"I'm sure of it! Right, gals?"

Ula turned to face the towel-clad Adi and Umi, who gave her short nods.

"Yeah," said Adi, "who wouldn't want to be on a team with you, Bolin? You're bound to draw a winning hand eventually."

"Definitely," added Umi. "It's just a matter of patience and perseverance. You'll never succeed if you don't try, after all."

Bolin beamed. "Thanks, you guys!" he cheered. "You're the best friends a guy could ask for!"

The word friends dropped on the heads of the Red Sands Rabaroos like a five ton anvil. Their moods instantly darkened, and their eyes flashed dangerously as dismay was channeled into righteous fury. The air in the locker room became suddenly tense, and Bolin felt inexplicably as though he had just walked over his own grave.

Before he even knew what was happening, the clueless earthbender was tossed head over heels out of the room by three simultaneous blasts of earth, water, and fire. The door slammed loudly shut behind him, and Bolin could only stare dumbly at the ceiling as he tried to process what had just happened.

In that instant, he concluded that women must be the most fickle creatures on the planet.

The poor, oblivious fool.

A/N: I sincerely considered making this smutty. I really did. But, in the end I decided that it would just be more fun to do something like this. Haha, as fun as smut may be, sometimes it's nice to branch out and do something relatively more family friendly. :D

Updated: 10-28-13

TTFN and R&R!

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