WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE , - - - [SANDRA]

[RAINE SOPHIA ELLISON]

WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE ! [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

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tag ! an && sandra ;; word count ! 992 ;; setting ! water common room ;; outfit ! jeans, short-sleeved turtleneck, fuzzy boots ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

Her room was much nicer than the room she shared in the dorms at the academy. At home, she had her own space and her privacy (except when her parents decided to be nosy) clearly defined by the walls of her rooms, which wasn’t applicable here. She had a window-seat overlooking her father’s gorgeous garden, which seemed to be in loom all the time except in winter, when even the snow seemed to be arranged artistically. She had a closet big enough to live in, too, if you were satisfied with half a studio apartment. Her bed was huge, layered with multiple mattress, bouncy, and just plain wonderful. And yet, she chose not to use her room at home. Instead, she chose to live in the dorms even though her home was fantastic. Oh, god, her home really was. There were maids, for heaven’s sake! Even after years of living with them, she couldn’t quite believe her fortune. Almost everyone she knew would love to have a maid wait on him or her. Her classmates got excited whenever she mentioned Cook’s Sunday breakfast and the sheer size of the portions offered. Of course, she still got to enjoy that traditional Sunday breakfast. She suspected her roommate hated her a little because of that—because she got the best of both worlds. She didn’t think it was an honest hatred, though, but rather one borne from envy and the that thought that Raine might be insane. Who wouldn’t want to have a master chef make her every meal? Who wouldn’t enjoy having someone else clean up her mess? And, most of all, the question that Raine’s roommate liked to ask, why would you give that up to live in these crappy dorms, let alone share a room with someone? For one, Raine didn’t think the dorms were crappy. She felt as though they were no more or less than what could be expected. It was a school, and schools had limited funds even when they were private. They were cozy rooms anyway. And at least she got along fairly well with her roommate. She knew people who absolutely despised whoever it happened to that they needed to share with. So she got luck because both she and her roommate were rather easy-going. They had their occasional disagreements, of course. Everyone did. You couldn’t get along with someone all the time. So she and her roommate liked each other most of the time, and Raine was pretty satisfied with that. It wouldn’t make sense to ask for much more. Besides, she was happier accepting what she couldn’t control. If she stressed about all those things that she would never be able to change, she would end up committed in some asylum. She liked being free, so she was chilling. Sandra was generally good for chilling. Raine liked the fellow water because she seemed to smile an inordinate amount of the time, and she preferred friends whose faces might break from smiling to ones who looked like they were suffering from a gravity overdose. Sandra, however, had chosen to move out of the dorms. It was something that definitely had Raine curious. She was just about to ask about the girl’s decision when the door opened, attracting her attention to whoever was coming in. The room had been deserted before, except for the two water girls. Everyone else was outside, as far as she could tell, or hiding out in their bedrooms with a boyfriend or girlfriends (hey, she wasn’t about to discriminate). She was starting to get restless even with Sandra there, and was therefore grateful for the interruption. If it hadn’t occurred, she would likely have suggested a walk or similarly more active past-time. It did, nonetheless, confuse her, especially when she didn’t recognize the faces. Sure, the academy was of reasonable size. It made sense that she wouldn’t know every water student out there. A sizable few, like Sandra, didn’t even live in the dorms. There were those who were younger than she and thus unlikely to run into her, and of course those who were much older than she. And there were just those she didn’t encounter because of differing schedules, even when they were in the same year. And yet, a sense of apprehension zinged through her as she regarded the students. A part of her wished to called them intruders, though she had no evidence that they were. Raine wasn’t like the American government, however, in the sense that people were innocent until proven guilty in her eyes. She was prejudiced enough to be suspicious in general. Her eyes narrowed. She felt suddenly like a predator in sight of its prey. Her muscles were insanely still, considering she was normally restless and thrumming with energy. She was tense, almost to the point that she felt she would literally pounce on anyone who moved too quickly. Her heart drummed in her chest, beating out a rhythm as if for some violent dance it anticipated. She felt primal, tribal, and she didn’t know entirely why, but it was wonderful. It was freeing, even while that energy was still caged within her. She was a volcano about to erupt. And her voice, when it came, was quiet, controlled, and betraying none of these underlying, mayhap imagined, feelings. “What are you doing here?” She glanced to the side, to see how Sandra was reacting to the interruption. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she was as wrong as wrong could be. Maybe she needed help, or maybe it was just because she hadn’t slept well the night before. Whatever the reason, she did not feel that this small group of students belonged here. They felt out of place, to, her. She wanted them to get lost, and get lost somewhere far away from here. But first, she wanted to kick their butts in a nice fight. God, she definitely needed help.

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notes ! this is what happens when I get bored in astronomy ;;

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[SANDRA HARU CHANG]

Though Sandra had moved out around last autumn or so, and it had now been just around a full year actually, she still made periodical visits back to the Water dorms -- or rather, the Common Room. It was a decent enough place to hang out, after all -- her fellow Waters were usually congregated there, even though generally many of them spent their time there in little huddles plotting giant prank-y schemes against the Fires and Thunders. Sometimes their allies got stuck with it too, but hey, Waters didn't discriminate -- okay, they totally discriminated, but there was nothing wrong with a little bit of harmless joking around. Sandra wasn't much of a prankster and even she thought so! She was much too lazy for it, mostly, and just didn't like to be that mean to people -- but she was much more okay with lazing around and making jokes at each other, and this was what usually led her to hanging around in the Common Room, sometimes to meet with friends and other times just to kill time and see who she could run into.

Admittedly, moving out of the dorms had put a tiny bit of a damper on her social life, but really only because she just wasn't available for everyone to come see at all hours of the day in her dorm or whatever. Being a social butterfly by nature, though, she hadn't really let this stop her, so of course she still made plans with people... Well, she did when she wasn't too busy napping and being lazy anyway, but that was too much of the time. Luckily, she sometimes had strokes of genius that led her to doing what she'd been doing today while waiting for Raine to show up -- she'd just gone to the Common Room and napped there, waiting for her best friend to arrive and wake her up. Admittedly the nap was short because of this, since it hadn't taken Raine long to show up, but that was always better than nothing, and hey, naps or not, she always had time for a friend like Raine. That was saying a lot, too, because she liked naps more than the average person, to be perfectly honest.

She was just lounging around on the couches, flopped over and feeling a bit lazy, in the Common Room -- empty except for the two of them. That didn't last very long, however, because during a brief lull in the conversation she heard someone coming in, and it was weird when she turned around and... found that she didn't know them. Alright, so it shouldn't have been that weird -- there were far more students around here than she could possibly know on any kind of personal basis, and so it wouldn't have been too weird if they were just some Waters who weren't anywhere near her age and whom she, therefore, hadn't ever yet run into, especially since she'd moved out of the dorms and so that detracted quite a bit from meeting with her fellow Water elementals. The problem was that she recognized the people who'd barged in, though, and this realization made her sit up straight for once, propped up on her arms, her legs still swung over the couch in the position she'd been lying in.

"Wait..." Her eyebrows wrinkled together in mild confusion, but she stayed where she was, sensing some sudden inexplicable energy in Raine. Well... she wasn't sure if that was good news or not. "You guys aren't Waters," she said aloud, stating her suspicions, and she knew from the looks on their faces that she was absolutely right. "How..." She wasn't a timid person by nature but she didn't like fighting (mostly because she was terrible at it) and she stood up to move over to where Raine was, looking at the people who'd entered -- two Fire elementals, she knew of them even if she didn't actually know them or their names. "How did you get in here?" She tried to resist the urge to shuffle and fidget, because she knew that this tended to make her look like easy prey or something, instead mumbling quietly so that only her friend could hear, "I don't like this." Not at all.

[RAINE SOPHIA ELLISON]

WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE ! [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

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tag ! an && sandra ;; word count ! 796 ;; setting ! water common room ;; outfit ! jeans, short-sleeved turtleneck, fuzzy boots ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

Sandra confirmed her suspicion that the intruders were honestly intruders. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on them, studying and memorizing their faces. If there was a fight, or if they got away, she would know exactly at whom to point the finger. They weren’t supposed to be in here. Surely, there was a school rule against this. There had to be. That’s why the dorms had passwords and secret entrances. They were supposed to protect the students of the different elements from those on the other side of the alliances. And it had failed in this particular case, which was in no way comforting. She’d just be waiting for a stranger to break into her room now and put shaving cream all over her bed. Great. Maybe they should report this to the school authorities and ask them to change the password so this wouldn’t happen again. Or maybe they’d just start a little war between themselves and whoever these idiots were, and the teachers wouldn’t technically have to know what the hell was going on. That would certainly be amusing. Kicking their butts would be, as well, but maybe it wouldn’t come to that. She also wouldn’t be too happy if either she or Sandra got hurt, so she’d probably be fighting defensively even if she started something, which she didn’t appreciate at all. Maybe they should just kick out the idiots who’d dared to come in. They looked about the same age, at least, which meant that they wouldn’t have too much experience or power on the two water girls. Helpful, even if nothing else was. Raine didn’t even know what element these guys were. Fighting a thunder was way different than fighting a fire. Fighting a thunder meant no physical contact if it was possible to avoid. Fighting a fire meant physical contact was a good thing as long as you had enough water to protect yourself from a burn or two. Man, she wished she’d started on the college-level training already. But no. She had to be happy with what she had already. After all, the college thing was why she was going to college here. She was working her butt off in her elemental classes so she would do well later, so her stamina would be appropriate to what she was trying to do. She wanted to be a powerful elemental and that meant pushing herself. She was fine with pushing herself. Being bullheaded could be a good thing. Not necessarily in a fight. In a fight, sometimes you had to let yourself be hit down. Sometimes, you had to admit defeat. Sometimes, you shouldn’t get up. Being bullheaded in a fight was more likely to get you killed than it was to get you a win. Raine had to admit that she didn’t like losing, but sometimes (and that sometimes was something she would limit to as rarely as possible) you just had to do it. She was certainly hoping that this was not one of those cases. She hoped that this was one of those occasions in which being bullheaded scared off your enemy with the reckless courage, the strength of stupidity. Even if the numbers weren’t useful. The blonde stood and put both of her hands on her hips, standing with her feet at shoulders’ width apart. A power stance, in more than one sense of the word. She was balanced and rooted, but ready to break into the gentle flow of her element. Maybe she’d wait until they made the first move. Maybe she wouldn’t. It really depended on the icky they were about to experience. Would there be any verbal fighting going on or would they slide straight into the physical and the magical? She had to wonder, even though she was partially in control of it. As a whole, she felt it would be best to go for the simple: “You’re not welcome here. So get out. And tell whoever you got the password from that I’m coming after them, too, if I find out who they are. Better yet, tell me who they are and maybe I won’t kick your butts too hard.” Go backless threats. It wasn’t like she could guarantee that she’d even be able to. The intruders even looked appropriately amused. Fantastic. She glanced at Sandra, hoping for back-up even if Sandra wasn’t a fighter. Confidence could sometimes be enough to get rid of a big bad wolf. And they were facing a whole pack of them. What if they were just going to get their butts kicked? This was all just false bravo. She couldn’t do this. She’d get mauled ten times over. Self -esteem issues, now is not the time for you to make yourselves known.

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notes ! TA DA LA RA AM I LADY GAGA NOW? O.o Feel free to have your way with the intruders :3 ;;

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[SANDRA HARU CHANG]

Sandra wasn't a fighter by any means of the word, but this didn't really mean that she was no good at sticking up for herself. She didn't like to see people get hurt, though, and that was the main thing -- it was easiest for her to stand up to those that she knew to be bullies or just overall jerks or something because she was predisposed to already. It was very different when she was doing that as opposed to... oh, yelling at some innocent bystander or something. She couldn't even imagine doing it -- it just wasn't in Sandra's nature. Thus far, however, she was of no help in this situation, both out of principle and out of circumstance, because so long as the Fires hadn't yet done anything, she really wasn't even capable of mustering enough attitude to stand up to them. The word "attitude" wasn't meant to imply anything negative in this instance, obviously. This was just the way things had gone in Sandra's life, but she was most always honest about the things that went on in her life -- she wasn't going to pretend that this was anywhere close to her comfort zone.

Her educated guess that they were Fires became less of an educated guess and more of a pretty much certainty when Raine spoke, and they reacted with rather inappropriate anger. Definitely Fires. None of the other elements could get so easily wound up and angry -- there were pretty bad-tempered Thunders and Winds, but she wasn't sure she'd say that those other elements had real tempers. There was a certain different type of disposition there. This was pure fury. Raine's threat didn't make them back down -- it just seemed to make them angry, and of course angry Fires didn't often make the wisest of decisions in a fight. Regardless, they were pretty powerful, even with the elemental disadvantage against a Water. "Wouldn't talk so big if I were you," one of them said, the shorter one of the two, taking a step forward. It was almost like a challenge, but Sandra wasn't willing to accept it -- right on cue she took a step back in return, reaching out to touch Raine's arm for no real reason except probably to reassure herself that there was in fact someone there on her side.

"Raine," she said softly, not typically a quiet person, but it was pretty intimidating to have a few of the enemy elementals inside what was supposed to be their space -- even if they did have the upper hand elementally. "Maybe we shouldn't. It'd like... wreck the furniture and stuff," she said, gesturing to the couches and such in the Common Room, not sure if she was speaking to her friend or the intruders anymore, but Sandra didn't want a fight. She cleared her throat. "So," she said then, shifting gears suddenly and not sounding very afraid anymore (even though it really was frightening, alright), "can you tell us who let you in here and then you can... you know, be on your way?" Even if there was a fight, it would be unwise to have it inside here, right? Maybe the Fires just wanted to wreck their Common Room in the first place, though, so it didn't really make a difference. Either way, it didn't much seem like they wanted to do much compromising.

"Make me," one of them said. Oh man.

[RAINE SOPHIA ELLISON]

WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE ! [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

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tag ! an && sandra ;; word count ! 6 0 4 ;; setting ! water common room ;; outfit ! jeans, short-sleeved turtleneck, fuzzy boots ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

For Raine, the main problem happened to be saddled with the fact that waiting for one of these guys to do something would end up with her and Sandra at the very obvious disadvantage. It was like a chess game, she supposed, even if she never really liked chess. The one who went first usually decided the pace of the game, and pace was really important to a game like that. Similarly, in a fight, the one who threw the first punch was usually deciding what the pace was, and in a fight that pace was equally important. The person who threw the first punch was the person with the advantage, and she really didn’t want to give these jackasses the advantage. She glanced up at the water above, wishing she had some closer to herself for the fight that was bound to come. At least she could pull it out of the moist air. There was enough water down here that she wasn’t surprised so many water ladies had issues regarding frizzy hair. Right now, these guys were causing a much bigger issue for her than frizzy hair ever would. Jackasses. And then, of course, they rose to her little challenge, and she wanted to throw a punch after all, not caring that they were both bigger than her because she was short. Hell, even Sandra was taller than she was. Looking up at the guys wasn’t a big deal. She was used to being short. She supposed that was mostly a small dog complex applied to a human being. Small elemental, huge ego. She was going to blow up in someone’s face, preferably the fires who were standing in front of her. She was just about to throw a very well-thought-out and very sarcastic quip back at them when Sandra said her name, almost warning her, which only expanded as she continued about the furniture. She took a deep breath. Sandra was right. They really shouldn’t get the furniture destroyed, even if she was itching for that fight. Her eye twitched when they basically asked for it. “No. We’re fine. Go ahead and leave.” She kept her voice soft and calm. She really needed to relax. Because she was so not letting this go. They actually turned away from her—well, one of them did. The other kept his eye on the two girls as they returned to the exit, stilling looking rather pissed off, which was fine with her. They had just as little plan to leave without a fight as she did to let them do such a thing, so, before they could act, she pulled water form the moisture and whacked them both with a thin, whip-like strip. They retaliated with heat, and Raine pushed Sandra out of the way so their hair wouldn’t catch fire. It was on. It was so on. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite on fire. When one of the pillows caught fire, she threw some water at it to extinguish it, crouching on the floor next to the couch and keeping her eyes stubbornly on the two boys in front of her, hands angled to grab for any water that she could, ready to throw it at them, merciless. “Ready for this?” she asked Sandra, glancing at her. “Or you wanna hide in the dormitories?” If Sandra preferred that, she would be going along with that. It would be safer, it would hurt her pride, but she would go along with it if her friend preferred such a thing. It would be safer anyway, to do that. Safe. Safe was good sometimes.

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notes ! I have nothing to say about this -_- I’m sorry for the failure here ;;

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[SANDRA HARU CHANG]

To her own surprise as much as she was sure it would have been to everyone else's, Sandra was thinking rather strategically. They were, after all, in the Water dorms, and if the Fires wanted to try anything, then there was distinct Water advantage. Besides which, Waters typically had the edge on Fires anyway -- that said, the guys were much bigger than both herself and Raine, and she wasn't sure they would be able to do much against a couple of dudes if they, for whatever reason, chose to forego the element thing and just walk over and shove the two of them around or something. She hoped it wouldn't come to that, though -- Fires were typically unafraid to flash around the flames first.

Sandra was impressed with her best friend's ability to remain calm and collected in a moment of near-crisis, honestly, but Sandra just hoped that it was enough on her part to stand there and nod and not run off bawling like a baby. Well, that really wasn't that likely to happen -- she was just a little bit tougher than a four-year-old girl -- but even so, it was the principle. All she could do was kind of be back-up here, and she really wasn't very good at it. She didn't say another word to the Fires, afraid that she would just come out squeaky and what-not if she did. She did, in fact, squeal a bit when Raine pushed her out of the way, but thank god -- Sandra wasn't ready to have half of her hair scorched off by any unruly Fires, no sir. "Um -- She held up a hand, making a fist and forming a ball of water from, mercifully, the extremely wet air, but she really wouldn't have been able to do very much of either the fist or the water. She wasn't much of a fighter at all.

She abandoned all pretense of being able to put up a fight and scurried over to join Raine crouching by the couch. "Well I mean --" She didn't even really have to finish the sentence, because the look on her face as she glanced at the stairs gave it all away, but she did after a brief hesitation anyway. "Dormitories. Definitely dormitories. I don't think they'll be able to do anything..." It wasn't like things in here were going to catch fire very easily, and she was sure that other Waters would show up again sometime soon. "Can we...?" she suggested, tugging at her friend's sleeve a little and gesturing vaguely in the direction of the girls' dorms.

[RAINE SOPHIA ELLISON]

WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE ! [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

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tag ! an && sandra ;; word count ! 4 6 9 ;; setting ! water common room ;; outfit ! jeans, short-sleeved turtleneck, fuzzy boots ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b]

Raine used the water that Sandra formed and threw it in the face of one of the fires with a shout of amusement, knowing it probably wouldn’t end well. But it was fun, and god, she loved the look on his face as it exploded over him and ruined his ‘do. Totally deserved, the jerk with the perfect hair did. She shrugged it off, then glanced back at Sandra as the girl crawled over to her. Her gaze mimicked the other’s and followed it to the stairs, considering just how many there were. She hadn’t counted them in a while, which was a bit of a disadvantage because she couldn’t quite remember how long they would take to climb at a full-on run, ignoring the possibility of tripping. She couldn’t remember if Sandra was much of a klutz or not, which would honestly have been a better thing to know, too, but that was completely pointless right now because she just didn’t know. You couldn’t know everything anyway. She nodded seriously when Sandra voiced her preference, then glanced over the couch again, wondering why the guys hadn’t retaliated yet. Just as her eye-line cleared, she saw a ball of fire coming toward her, and ducked barely in time for it to course over her head and hit the wall behind her. “Jesus! Watch where you throw that!” she yelled, enjoying the situation much more than she knew she should. She grinned at Sandra, then nodded towards the dormitory stairs. “Run for it. I’ll distract, then follow, and we’ll barricade the door with whatever we find, yeah?” As soon as Sandra was up and running, Raine pulled more moisture from the air and threw it at the offenders, aiming mostly for their eyes. Double-checking that no furniture was actually on fire, she darted for the stairs as well and tromped along them until she found the room Sandra had hidden in. Following the barricade (dressers were mightily useful), she slid to the floor, hand on her belly, and couldn’t help but burst into a laughter mixed between pure amusement that they had just sort of kicked butt, and relief that they weren’t about to get their hair burned off. She could only hope that the password would be changing so the fires couldn’t get back in, or that they had at least learned their lesson. She doubted this would lead to a war, but hey, you never knew. She grinned at Sandra, knowing that her friend probably hadn’t enjoyed the confrontation nearly as much as she had. She was just so much more one for fights than her friend happened to be, though she knew that not everyone was the same, which was a good thing. The world would be dreadfully boring if that were the case.

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notes ! and our short thread has been finished xD ;;

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