Chapter Text
Lee sighed as he flopped onto his apartment bed. His family lived in Gaoling and he'd moved here to study at university, and ended up in a studio apartment with his childhood-friend Kanto. His advising counselor appointment was in two hours and he still hadn't come up with a list of the classes he needed to take, along with what professor he wanted. Professor...right! Lee was supposed to look over what professors he wanted in the library. Sitting up quickly and rushing over to his next, his eyes found a paper that had a list of professors that had been recommended from other students. At the top of the page with a star next to it read "Professor Sokka of The Southern Water Tribe: Subject ___" Right, he had to figure that out when he checked the giant catalogue of professors in the library.
"Kanto, I'm heading down to the library to look at professors until my advising counselor appointment! Do you want me to bring anything for dinner on the way back?" Lee yelled out to his roommate as he stood up to put on his shoes.
"No, I'll cover dinner tonight after I finish cleaning!" Kanto's voice replied from behind the dining table he was wiping down. "You'll be back in 3 hours right?"
"Yep!" Lee helpfully supplied from the doorway.
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"Good evening, do you need any help finding what you need?" The receptionist at the front desk asked as Lee strode up to it. The little plague on the desk told him that the receptionist's name was Li.
"Yea, I was looking through the professors catalogue-" Lee started as he helpfully pointed over to the massive shelf that covered the entire wall. Each slot in that shelf was labeled with a professors name and the department they were in. In these slots were stacks of papers that had information on the professor that they were filed under, and a stack of written on index cards with student feedback for each professor. It really was an efficient system for finding professors with everything being alphabetized by the professors' names, Lee was actually really surprised that this system was apparently only in Ba Sing Se university, his friends were always complaining about having to sift through thick and outdated encyclopedias trying to find their professors. "and I was able to find all of the ones I wanted except for Professor Sokka? Is he not filed under S?" Lee swore he saw a twitch in the receptionist's lower eyelid.
"Ah that makes sense, Professor Sokka's entry is sorted under a slightly..different system. Follow me." Li helped as he started walking towards the beginning of the catalogue, where the 'A' professors were supposed to be. To Lee's surprise the receptionist actually passed it and ended up at a large, gaudy-looking drawer that was almost four times the size of the other professors' entries, with the student feedback slot overflowing. "See, Sokka is actually the one who designed this catalogue system two years ago when he joined, and refused payment from the university. His only request was that his entry be separate and at the beginning since his initial organization system was 'by coolness.' until Master Katara mangaged to convince him that alphabetizing it would be best." Li made sure to make air quotes when he said coolness "We also ended up needing to make his section bigger because of all the people looking him up, as well as the sheer amount of student feedback he gets. The...decorations are his personal addition."
Lee looked up at the particularly eye-catching, toddler-drawn picture of a teenager with the traditional warrior's wolf-tail. "Thanks..." He forces out as Li turns on his heel and walks back to the receptionist's desk. If Lee didn't know better he would think the poor receptionist was leaving out of shame from having to witness this thing on the wall. Lee picks up one of many papers that should contain Professor Sokka's information for students. Sitting down he decides that he must read Sokka's first.
Name: Sokka Boomerang of The Southern Water Tribe
Age: 21
'21! His professor is the same age as Jin? and the receptionist said that he joined two years ago. What was a 19 year old doing teaching at Ba Sing Se university? Is he some prodigy that got a PhD in elementary school or something?'
Degree: N/A*
'N/A! That makes sense with the age. I can't believe this kid teaching without a degree!' Lee's eyes flick to the bottom of the page for an explanation
*temporarily exempted due to personal recommendation by His Majesty Earth King Kuei
'Oh, nepotism. Of course. But why would the Earth king give a personal recommendation to some Water Tribe teenager? That receptionist also mentioned that Master Katara was involved in the planning of the professor filing system? Why does this guy have weirdly powerful connections?' Lee goes back to the top to continue reading.
He looks over the available subjects and has to turn over to the back. Why does this guy teach so many subjects without a degree? Half of them don't even make sense! How is he teaching 'Mechanical Engineering', again WITHOUT A DEGREE, AND 'Air Nomad History'? He's from the water tribe and the only Airbender alive is the AVATAR! He also teaching both 'Theoretical Intro to All Four Elements' and 'Non-Bender Fighting Forms III'! This guy makes no sense. Lee's water gets knocked over from his aggressive paper flipping to make sure he read that right. Sure he may be half blind in his right eye but his left should be able to read perfectly fine. Righting his cup, he thanks the badgermoles above that he didn't get any papers wet, and goes to get some paper-towels. Lee admits, he wasn't fully paying attention to where he was going, but bumping into some random girl and knocking her down feels a little out of character.
"AH sorry! Are you okay?" Lee asks as he reaches out his hand to the girl he bumped into. She ended up on the floor and all her papers were scattered about. Lee quickly bends down and helps her pick them up while she collects herself too. After they quickly pick them all up he hands his stack to her.
"Thank you so much." The girls says. "This looks like all of them." She straightens up her stack and skims over the papers in it. "Actually no sorry, did you happen to see an index card? I was going to submit a feedback for Professor Sokka."
While she's talking, Lee looks around for an index card, and he finds that he was standing on it. Picking it up, he is also pleasantly surprised to find he didn't get dirt on it or something. "Is this it?" Lee hands over the card, but his eyes widen when he notices the name Azula on the card. The girl must've picked up on it and smiles. Wait a second, she's taken a Sokka class! Lee should ask what he's like. "Can I ask a question?"
"Sure, is it about seeing Azula on the card?" Wow this woman caught on fast. Although he was a little confused as to why her eyes did a double take at his scar.
"Sorta.. I have my advising appointment in an hour and I wanted to ask about Professor Sokka. I've heard a lot of things about him and I want to know if it's worth taking his class."
"That's going to take a little bit to answer, were you sitting anywhere before? We can go there. I'm YaWen by the way."
"I'm Lee, yea just follow me." And the two walk back to the table Lee was at, he gets some paper towels that were on a table on the way and cleans up that water spill. Sitting down in the chair he was in before, in front of the pile of paper and YaWen sitting across. "So I wanted to ask, what was Professor Sokka's class like? I was looking over his Faculty Profile and some things were a little confusing. Can I ask what happened with Azula? You know, the woman who conquered Ba Sing Se and manipulated the Dai Li for the Fire Nation in the war? How's she related to Sokka?"
~~~~~ YaWen POV ~~~~~~~~
YaWen entered the classroom, she was a few minutes late and because of this, she was the last one in the room. Imagine her surprise when she looks to find her seat and sees all her classmates standing with their heads bowed down and doing the Fire Nation salute. She knew Professor Sokka's class was unpredictable so she really shouldn't be this surprised. She's late so she ends up sitting right at the front, only a few feet away from that intimidating woman.
"Good morning class!" Sokka's voice calls out. "As you can see on the chalkboard, today we'll be covering electricity with a special guest. This is Princess Azula of the Fire Nation and she has agreed to help with a demonstration." Sokka gestures over to that woman that was at the front. YaWen recognizes that name, she's writing an essay on how the Fire Nation's conquer of Ba Sing Se impacted fruit trade. The import of ash-bananas and tomato-carrots skyrocketed and the cabbage trends made no sense. "She will introduce herself now"
"Good day subjects. I expect all of you to know me already, since it's only natural for citizens to be aware of their rulers. You may think that your ruler is that...man with the bear-creature, but make no mistake. I am the ruler of Ba Sing Se despite whatever you may have been lead to believe, and do not tolerate pretenders to any of my thrones. Zuzu being Fire Lord is exempt from this as he has my explicit permission, and I can take it back whenever I please." YaWen is almost certain that the Fire Lord's name is Zuko, but she doesn't have a death wish and won't be saying a thing about it.
"As such, you will address me as Your Highness. You should be very grateful to this Water Tribe peasant for convincing me to be merciful to my subjects and you are exempt from bowing for the time being. How else are you supposed to revel in my expertise?" YaWen swears she heard an indignant 'Not a peasant' from the professor but she must be imagining things. As extroverted as he may be, there is no way her professor of all people is crazy enough to talk back to Fire Princess Azula. That being said, the terrifying look Azula gives to Sokka proves that YaWen may be wrong in her assessment.
"Swiftly moving on. You all should have a small model on your desks that you should all be able to understand how the electricity funnels through it. Up here is a larger version of the model. This model will be pumped full of lightning-" YaWen doesn't hear the rest of that explanation. Lightning? How does he expect to do that? YaWen is no firebender but is Lightningbending even real? She is jolted from her thoughts as a loud crackling sound builds up at the front of the room and Azula having electricity dancing around her fingertips. The electricity builds up until she thrusts her hand forward and feeds it into the device. The room smells of ozone and she quickly tries to map the path of electricity in her notebook. This is definitely going to be on the final. As she looks back and forth between her notes and the demonstration she vaguely hears Sokka's voice cheering The Fire Princess on underneath the crackle of lightning, but based off of the look on her face she doesn't appreciate it.
"Um, Your Highness?" a timid voice breaks the silence after she stops bending, the class was dead silent because it started to hit us that she could fry any of us in an instant. No wonder the Avatar was the only one that could defeat Ozai, his kid is this powerful.
"Yes, my subject?"
"Does the anything change if you funnel more electricity into the device? Like just now the electricity stopped at that third marker at the device, if you put more electricity into it, will it go further?"
"Impressive, I wasn't expecting a commoner like you to grasp a concept like this so quickly, if only my brother had that kind of drive, he could've come here himself instead of going depriving himself of his most trusted advisor. But alas that's the kind of burden that befalls the best Lightningbender." Azula shakes her head and turns over to Sokka, who we've all forgotten was there. "You're lucky I was nice enough to grace you with my appearance, but I'm an advisor, not a teacher so I'll permit the Water Tribe boy to answer"
Professor Sokka with a grin on his face that was really out of place considering the nexus of pure intimidation inches away from him, turned around and started mapping the model on the chalkboard, specifically the path and something he called 'crickle-crackle' units for the electricity.
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"So yeah, that's what I was writing my feedback about. He explained the concept really well and it was a really engaging lecture" YaWen explains to Lee, who was sitting there with an expression that makes him look like Azula fried his brain just by being mentioned.
"Overall, would you recommend his class for a freshman?" Lee breaks out of his daze to ask.
"Oh definitely"