A:TNG One-Shot: Five Years

Author's Note:  I'll tell you right away that I'm not happy with this.  I wrote this over a month ago in August.  As I was looking at the paper and thinking about what to write, the bells went off in school.  That's where the beginning came from, and I just kind of went with it from there.   (As a side note, the bells at my school really aren't that loud.)  I like the sentiment of this story but not so much the actual story.

Five Years

“This place is loud,” Toph complained.  Up and down the street many bells and other noise makers were clanging.

“You can't blame them for celebrating,” Sokka told his fiance as he led the way through the crowd.

“There's celebrating,” Toph grouched, “And then there's making noise.  This level of noise is unnecessary.  They've never been this noisy before.”

“This is the fifth anniversary of the war,” Sokka reminded her.  “It's a big year.  Do you realize that all of the little kids running around today probably have no memories of the war?”

Toph ran that thought over in her mind as she felt the vibrations the excited children around them were causing.  This thought had never occurred to her before.  “Lucky them,” she muttered.  It sounded sarcastic, but Toph's words were true.  None of those kids deserved to go through what Toph and her friends had.

Sokka was also smiling at the kids.  He saw a young Earth Kingdom boy running around with two boys about his age who just happened to be Fire Nation.  It was a sight he never would have seen five years ago.  Sokka marveled over how much could change in five short years.

“Come on,” Sokka tugged on Toph's hand, “We need to find the others.”

“Of course,” Toph began to smirk, “I haven't got to pick on Twinkle Toes and Sugar Queen recently.”

A:TNG One-shots: Sokka's Drawings

Author's Note:  I wasn't expecting to write or post another one of these for a long time, but sometimes things happen.  I wrote this almost a month ago in class.  I'd been thinking about how awesome the friendship between Zuko and everyone else is.  (I think I'm going to write a whole fanfiction that just focuses on all of the friendships in Avatar.  I've been on a huge friendship kick lately.  It's what my current story is about too.  If the fanfic happens though, it won't be for a long, long time.)

Anyway, I absolutely hate the ending of this.  It's awkward.  I didn't know what to do with it.  It's staying this way though because this is just a random little thing anyway.  I'm in the middle of writing something else now, and I didn't want to spend much time on this.  I hope you guys enjoy it!

Sokka's Drawings

“What are you doing?” Sokka's head shot up at the sound of Zuko's voice.

“N-Nothing,” Sokka stuttered, attempting to hide the piece of paper he'd been leaning over.  After a brief struggle, Zuko finally managed to free the now rather crumpled paper.  He just looked at it before slowly looking at Sokka with a bemused look on his face.

“You're still drawing these childish pictures at twenty-three years old?” Zuko smirked a little.

Sokka blushed lightly, but attempted to defend himself.  “I want to capture the important moments,” he said with indignation.

“Then can't you get a real artist to do it for you?” Zuko asked.

“This is more personal.”  He snatched the paper back and leaned over it again, resuming his work.

Zuko rolled his eyes, “Whatever, Sokka.”

Zuko often marveled over the fact that he had wound up with someone like Sokka as one of his best friends.  His sixteen year old self would have lost his mind a long time ago.  Actually, who was he kidding.  He did lose his mind when dealing with Sokka all the time.  Why did her put up with him again?

Sneak Peak of my Current Project

It's been about three months since I posted here, so I figured I should give you guys something.  It's not that I haven't been writing.  I've actually been writing a lot.  It's just that nothing's ready to be posted yet.  I've been working on an original story that will be up eventually.  I've also managed to write several short little stories since school started.  Two of them are A:TNG one-shots that will be up in a week or two.  The other is a random little thing that I'm not sure will ever be seen by the public.  It's not just autobiographical, it was written in real time.  I was rather bored, and it's full of sarcasm.  That's all I'll say.

In the time that it will take me to get those posted, I thought I'd give you something.  You're about to be some of the first people to see a little bit of the story I've been working on that has so far been read by only two people (and they only read up to a certain point.  I have a working title for the story, but it's hopefully going to change so I'm not going to give you guys a title.  I'm also not telling you what it's about for various reasons.  Please keep in mind that this still needs to go through a lot of editing.  Just enjoy these little sneak peaks:

 “Michigan,” Madison said in that perfect tone. After hearing her say it, you just couldn't imagine that one word being said any other way.

~

Madison frowned, “They may not be completely aware that they're so obvious about their feelings, but they're definitely aware of most of it.” She thought for a moment before adding, “They're really horrible liars.”

~

The brick wall was warm as I leaned back against it. A glance down the sidewalk showed me that no groups were currently making their way towards me. I watched a young girl run around her yard with two young puppies. She'd been out there for at least half an hour now. When she'd first come outside, she'd stared at me for a few minutes. I'm sure I looked rather odd in my Salome costume.

Yeah...  That first and third one seem really weird our of context.  Two hints:  school play and Outdoor Way of the Cross.  Some of you have no idea what that second one means, but that just makes it more mysterious.  (I'll be really impressed if you can tell me who Salome is.)  If you have any ideas on what the story could be about, I'd be really interested in hearing them.

You have no idea how nervous I got about posting this.