Remza doesn't know what to expect of Chan's party, she has heard of them. They, in fact, are the talk of the beach. And for the first time, the invitation is in her hands. She stares at it with a feeling of elation. She will finally be with the in crowd. She will finally get to join the lively banter with a tale of her own.

She isn't sure what sort of tale it will be though; perhaps she will be showered with compliments about her new outfit or maybe she will find a charming boy to spend the night with. Maybe, just maybe, she will kiss Chan himself.

"Come on, Remza!" Hara shouts, "Stop daydreaming about the party and start getting ready for it!"

Remza isn't particularly thrilled to have her musings cut short, but Hara is right, how embarrassing it would be to miss the party or turn up late for it because she was too busy fantasizing about how the night would go. "I'm coming!" She calls.

She hustles to get into her party attire. It is a rather simple ensemble; a wine red tube top and a soft pink, almost white skirt held in place by a deeper red cloth belt. The belt is probably the most lavish part of her outfit, it's buckle is made of faux gold. She snatches up a few sticks of makeup and sprints down the hall to join her friend.

"Oh, Remza, you look so pretty!" Hara gushes. "All we need to do is add a touch of makeup and fix your hair and you'll be the center of attention!"

"Thanks!" She smiles. "That pearl necklace really adds something to your outfit."

Hara nudges her. "This is about you Remza. This is your first party, not mine." She pauses and inspects Remza. "Hmm...so do you want your hair tied up in a top knot or do you want a ponytail?"

"Why not both!?" Remza shrugs.

"Because that would look kind of silly?"

.oOo.

"You look so perfect and pretty and…" TyLee gushes.

"Yes, thank you, I know." Azula nods. She does look quite fantastic if she must say! She smooths her hands over her skirt as TyLee finishes gathering some of her hair into a wavy ponytail. She can't say that she has ever let her hair fall in waves. But she thinks that it does her favors.

"She looks so cute, doesn't she Mai!?"

"Sure, if you the sort of person that thinks that piranha-eels are cute." Mai mutters.

Azula pretends not to hear the remark.

"Why so glum, Mai?" Azula asks as if glum isn't Mai's default mood.

"Because Zuko is taking too long in the bathroom and I've been holding it since we got off of the boat."

"You should have gone in the ocean like everyone else on the beach!" Zuko shouts from in the bathroom.

"Gross." Azula mutters as Mai says, "this is why our relationship is deteriorating!"

"Turn around." TyLee instructs. Azula does so and the girl begins adding gloss to her lips. She ruffles Azula's hair, "precious."

Azula gives a deadpan frown.

"Oops." TyLee puts a hand over her mouth. "Guess we'll have to redo your hair!"

.oOo.

Remza's stomach flutters. As Hara urges her to, "just go on and talk to him."

"I don't know…" Remza trails off.

"Rem." Hara speaks firmly, "you have been eyeing him all night like he is one of those juicy lobsters at the concession stand. And this is the first time in like three hours that he doesn't have a wholeass harem surronding him."

She is not wrong, Remza has to admit. They have been at this party for several hours now. They have been at the house longer than most people, she does believe that she and Hara were the second people to arrive.

Chan's slightly less attractive friend had made a point of saying, "Agni, these people are ungodly early this time." Followed by a, "I haven't even finished combing my hair." And then a mumbled, "this is what happens when you give dorks a chance."

Remza had tried not to let this deter her. But in reality it is probably why she had missed not one but two openings to talk to Chan.

"Come on, Rem. You've been waiting all day and I didn't fix you up all nice and beautiful for nothing!"

She swallows hard and gives Hara a nod. "I'll do it."

Hara returns the nod. "I'll be waiting for you over there." She points to the concession stand. "I've had my eye on a snack too, and it's a real one." It is a rather tasty looking coconut and pineapple cookie.

"Alright, uh, save me a...food item."

"Go!" Hara hisses and gives her a small nudge.

Remza swallows again as she makes her way over to the boy. He is the charming sort with a muscular build and a handsome smile. The way he carries himself is almost higher than life. And she is just Remza. Plain, and boring Remza. She can put on as much make up as she pleases and style it however she wants. She will still be just plain Remza.

Currently Chan leans back against a wooden pillar, sipping his drink.

He is alone, probably for the very first time that night.

Remza takes a deep breath and rolls her shoulders back. If she want to have a shot at him, she is going to have to at least look confident. She strides up to him with the demeanor of the prettiest girls he has spoken to that night.

Chan catches sight over her and offers a friendly wave. Her heart quickens; she has an opening!

"Hi, Chan!" She begins. "I've been meaning to talk to you tonight." She puts on her best cheerful smile.

"Well, I'm glad that you've found the chance."

"I'm glad that I found the CHANce, too…" is what she would have said if she were an overly eager and socially awkward fire princess. But she is not, so instead she asks, "how has your night been," as any normal Fire Nation citizen would.

"Oh, it has been...uh...unusual."

"Unusual?" She inquires. She thinks that it will do her well to express interest in whatever he has to say, even if she finds the topic rather dull. It just so happens that she actually is interested in what the boy has to say, so that makes the task much easier.

"So I there I was on the beach, right?"

"Mmm hmm." Hara says with a nod.

"I was just minding my own business, ya know?

She nods again, "Yeah."

"And I was watching this kuai ball match, ya get what I'm saying.

"And I saw this group of people. There were these two really hot chicks-one of them had really pretty eyes and nice hair and the other had a nice...uh...personality-and I really just had to talk to them, you know what I mean?

"I sure do."

"But to get to them I also had to talk to their weirdo friends. Ya know what I'm talking about?"

She does not because he has not told her what was weird about these friends. Regardless she says, "mmm humm, I get you."

"Well one of them got really mad at me and I thought that he was going to beat me up for inviting the hot chicks to my party but not him, ya get me still?"

"Yeah!"

"Well this third chick who is also hot but, like, really kinda scary-if ya know what I mean-holds her hand out and tells him to chill and then she was all," he softens his voice to a pitch that rather uncannily resembles the third kinda hot chick's, "'what about me and my brother?" He returns to speaking like Chan. "And I was like, 'I guess you can come, but try not to be weird.' Ya dig?"

She is not sure if he means that he had asked the hot chick if she dug or if he is again inquiring if Remza understands. Just in case, Remza says, "I dig."

Chan opens his mouth to resume when an obnoxiously loud laugh echos around the room. Everyone seems to take pause. Chan mutters something that she can't quite hear that might have been, "aw geez, it's her, isn't it?" But she can't be certain. She doesn't think too much about it because Chan speaks up again.

"Well, yeah, so the two hot chicks, the weird hot chick, and the dude, who is actually also kinda hot show up. But they're like suuuuper early. And I was like, no one else is here yet." He pauses, leaving Remza room to laugh. Truthfully, she does not find this funny, but she laughs anyhow. He laughs too. "I know right!? Anyways so I start to give her a tour of the house but she stops me and tells me that I have a sharp outfit and then graphically describes people drowning. She added choking noises and everything. And then she said, 'because it's so sharp'. But her compliment was so long that I forgot what she was complimenting me on so I just said, uh thanks."

"Sounds, terrifying."

"Ha ha, yeeeaaaah." He rubs the back of his head and leans against the pillar once more. She watches him toss back a drink. Until then, she hadn't realized that just drinking could be so unbelievably sexy.

"Oh! And ya know what the worst part is?" He exclaims.

"What?"

She hears footsteps behind her, but elects to ignore them in favor of Chan's deep and creamy voice.

"I promised her that I'd give her a tour of the house tonight."

Remza goes tense, it would seem that she doesn't have much time. She decides that is best to just get right to it. Whoever it is that has just approached is now standing much too close. She ignores this too, because she must pose an important question. "Sooo, I was hoping that we could…" She starts.

"Chan, I am ready for a tour of the house."

Chan inhales very deeply and rubs the back of his head. "I'll catch ya later?" He finger guns Remza and hands her his drink.

Remza blushes, she is honored to be given the privilege of holding his drink. But just as this stranger has stolen away her chance with Chan, she has also stolen this brief moment of joy. She does not miss a beat, with an innocent smile, as though it is the most normal thing in the world, the stranger commits and absolute monstrocity. The most appealing and heinous social crime.

Her hand comes up in an elegant arc. At first, Remza thinks that she is about to get slapped. Instead she feels a weight atop her head. The hand withdraws and the stranger gives a self-satisfied, and admittedly adorable says nothing at all as she follows Chan away. And for a moment, Remza doesn't even know what has happened. But then it settles in; the stranger has placed her cup on her head.

It ignites a fury in Remza. And burning fury to match that of the firelord's hottest throne room flame. Her face reddens as her anger simmers. This bizzare girl has stolen her chance with Chan! Stolen her chance with Chan and humiliated her by using her has a cupholder-it was fine when Chan did it because Chan's muscles are glorious beings. She watches the pair disappear into the crowd and her rage reaches such a burning intensity that she may boil the lemonade on her head.

She is, in fact boiling the lemonade.

It is steaming with her rage.

It is on fire.

She knocks it from her head with a yelp.

.oOo.

"Is this your first time on Ember Island?" Chan asks. She almost doesn't hear him, she is staring at his delicious biceps.

"No. I used to come here years ago."

"It's a great place, if you like sand." His muscles flex as he tightens his hold on the wooden rails of the balcony. She very nearly forgets to give the fake laugh that TyLee has advised. She takes extra caution not to laugh too loudly. She counted about twenty-eight people staring at her. "Yeah, it's like, welcome to Sandy Land!" He gives a wides sweeping gesture and she forces another laugh. But it is easier this time because he is lauging too and he has a cute laugh so she is laughing at his cute laugh and in the Capitol prison Iroh is laughing because 'them punk ass guards ain't gonna see it comin'.'

Chan stops laughing but Azula does not because she is once again distracted by his biceps. They contract beautifully as he makes more sweeping gestures to indicate the vastness of the sand on the beach.

"Your arms look so strong."

"Yeah, I know." He says and she knows that they are made for each other because that is exactly how she responded to TyLee when she called her the smartest, most beautiful, perfect girl in the world. Chan blesses her with a full flex of his muscles." She leans in and kisses him.

"You're pretty."

The logical choice would be to respond with, "I know." Instead she says, "Togetheyou and I will be the strongest couple in the entire world!" She increases her volume as she speaks. And to really drive her point home musters twin blue flames and pulls out a megaphone and shouts into it, "we will dominate the Earth!"

She thinks that the megaphone might have been overdoing it because Chan is looking at her as though a bird has just shat on him. Which might have happened because one did just fly by. That small flicker of hope dies out when he rubs his head and flashes her an awkward smile, "uh...I gotta go…"

Azula, deciding that she will not let Zuko one up her at anything, including melodrama, quite literally flops onto the ground in defeat.

.oOo.

"Sniff him out gurl! Sniff him out and win him back!" Hara's advice echos in the back of her head. But Remza is not a scent bender nor is she a dog. So she cannot track him by scent. She has to rely on her eyes and ears, which is not good because she is woefully near-sighted.

So woefully near-sighted that he walked right in front of her and she mistook him for Firelord Ozai. She could swear that she also spotted the Avatar at this party, but that would be preposterous. What would the odds of the Avatar and a member of the royal family being at this party.

(The Avatar is in fact there. But he is wearing hipster glasses so nobody recognizes him-except Mai, but she doesn't care enough to bring it to anyone's attention. She also isn't telling anyone about the really big, hairy spider-wasp in the corner.)

Remza, after deciding that Chan is as lost as an Avatar trapped in an iceberg, makes her way onto the balcony for some fresh air.

She makes it to the balcony but she does not find fresh air, for the stench of defeat is all too strong in this area.

Remza inhales very deeply as she finds the source.

It is, undoubtedly, the very same weirdo that placed a cup upon her head.

The weirdo looks up with teary eyes and Remza tries to cling to her anger. But the weirdo looks like a kicked baby rabaroo.

Remza groans, "what's wrong?"

"I-I was doing so good." She mutters. "I thought that I had a chance with Chan. I thought that…"

"Yeah, I did too! And you know what happened!?"

"What happened?" The weirdo asks. Remza blinks, it is as if she truly doesn't know…

"You. You happened."

"Oh."

"Yeah…"

The weirdo pulls her legs up to her chest and hugs her knees. She glares in the direction of the door and Remza can't tell if she is furious or emotionally wounded. She thinks that it is a mix of both with anger taking a slight lead.

The girl's glare intensifies.

The house catches fire.

This has nothing to do with Azula's feeling of rejection; Mai has finally informed Zuko of the spider in the corner.

Remza sighs again, really she should point and laugh. Instead she finds herself slumping to the floor next to the weirdo. "Look, I know that he's ridiculously gorgeous, trust me. I. Know." She lets her mind wander for a moment, to a world of endless elegant hills that rise against a sunset horizon. Those elegant hills are Chan's arm muscles, tanned by many days of lounging on the beach. "But you know who else is gorgeous?"

"Me?" The weirdo answers softly.

Remza goes deadpan, she is making this whole comforting thing really hard. But she is not wrong, Remza was, in fact, going to say, "you."

The weirdo peers up at her, waiting for the answer. Reluctantly and somewhat spitefully Remza confirms, "yes, you."

The girl's face seems to brighten some, and for a heartbeat, Remza forgets about the cup incident. She smiles back. "You're very pretty. Really weird, it's kind of off-putting, but very pretty."

"Pretty enough to ignore the really weird stuff."

Remza looks the girl over; she is wiping at her eyes, eyes that are a vivid gold. Her hair sweeps gracefully over her shoulders. She has a pretty sweet tan. But she looks so small and sad. Small, sad, and annoyingly adorable. Remza pauses and inhales through her nose. "I guess."

This time the restored brightness shows through in a smile. Just like she hadn't expected the girl to put a glass of lemonade on her head, she doesn't see it coming when the weirdo throws her arms around her.

Remza finds herself patting the other girl's hair. "It's gonna be okay. We don't need him anyways." And the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes it is true that Chan is no big loss.

He only talks about himself anyways. Himself and his biceps which he has named Cha and Chi. This girl at least talks about interesting things like how she is going to bring glory to her family and nation, this really cool rock she found, how she'd almost drowned because she'd forgotten that she can't swim, that she is the princess of the Fire Nation, and that she put a snapping turtle-duck down her brother's swim trunks.

This story is so ridiculous that it eclipses the very brief mention of her royal status.

The weirdo nestles herself into Remza's arms and, without thinking about it, Remza wraps them around her. She is very warm and, now that the stink of defeat is gone, she smells nice. Like a campfire with a dash of firelily.

Chan on the other hand reeks of testosterone and pure BRO!

Yes, Remza decides once and for all that this poorly socialized, absolute disaster of a human being has saved her.

She kisses the girl's forehead.

.oOo.

Azula's face flushes. It isn't the impression she wants to leave on this girl. She does not want to appear sheepish and timid, she is a mighty and powerful dragon. A blazing and uncontrollable fire (much like the one crackling in Chan's living room).

But she has already blemished that image by letting the girl walk in on her weeping. So she resigns herself to the blush creeping over her cheeks.

The girl seems to find that endearing anyways, so she will accept it, but only under the guise that it had been a meticulously done tactical courting move.

She may have lost Chan, likely to that girl with the silly pigtails-a shameful defeat really-but she can still have victory. Unlike the girl with the silly pigtails, she will rise from the ashes of her shame and humiliation. Because unlike the girl with the silly pigtails, she isn't just a dragon. She is also a phoenix. And, like a phoenix, with the girl's kiss, she has risen again.

Azula closes her eyes and squeezes the girl in a rather tight hug. "Will you dominate the earth with me?" She inquires.

The girl cocks her head, "what?"

"Will you...be my girlfriend?" She asks quietly, almost shyly.

"I guess that I can be." The girl smiles as she rubs Azula's back.

"And together, we will be the strongest couple in the entire world?" This time she says it softly, almost as a question.

"Uh..sure?'

"We will dominate the earth?" She suggests, a little louder, more hopefully.

"I guess that we can do that too." The girl shrugs as she continues to rub small circles on Azula's back. The princess softly purrs at the gesture. If this bothers the girl, she doesn't indicate it.

"Good." Azula says, nuzzling her head against the girl's chest.

The girl kisses the top of her head. It reminds her of when they had first met. She remembers it very vividly; their eyes meeting and Azula deciding that she was the perfect person to set her glass upon. And just as Azula had set the cup upon her head, the girl now rests her chin upon Azula's.

"Can you hold this for me?" Azula holds out another cup.

"Sure." The girl smiles, she holds out her hands. But Azula places it on her head.

"You're the best."

.oOo.

Remza sighs again, what is she getting herself into? Whatever it is, the girl is staring at her with such delight and warmth that it doesn't matter. She doesn't even have the heart to move the cup and inform the weirdo that putting a cup on someone's head isn't appropriate social conduct.

"I love you." The girl mumbles and kisses the crook of her neck.

Remza is well aware that they have only just met, but she lets the girl cup her cheek and stroke it lovingly. And despite everything Remza replies, "I love you too."

A portion of Chan's house collapses and the fire gushes out. They don't notice, they are too busy staring into each others eyes as rays of moonlight fall over them.