Raava Academy

Cubes of Meat

"Korra!"

Bang!

"KOOORAA!!"

Bang-bang-bang

"Snnnrt, fucking pancakes on... Wednesdays?" I wake up suddenly at the noise, wondering what I'm even saying, smacking my lips together hungrily. The banging continues, and I start to come to my senses, almost falling out of bed, and groggily opening the door.

"The fuuuck, Bo..." I complain, rubbing my eyes. I'd punch him in the face for waking me up, if only I had the energy.

"You've slept in again." He rolls his eyes, and it takes a few moments for his words to register.

"Uuuurgh. What time is it?"

"Half eight," he sighs, "I'll wait here."

"Fuck!" I curse again as I slam the door. I always did swear more in the morning. "Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!" I dash around the room, stripping and throwing my pyjamas into a heap, quickly finding fresh underwear, then grabbing my deodorant and spraying under my arms. "Hah, shower in a can!" I declare to myself, sniffing my pits quickly to see if I'll get away with it. It's not perfect, thanks to that stupid fucking nightmare making me sweat, but it's not terrible. Should be okay. Should be. "Clothes, where are you... fucking-hell-shitty-stupid-pants" I grumble, rifling through my drawers. I'm so far behind on my laundry, and I can't find any fresh jeans. Well, I'll just have to wear the same ones I wore yesterday. And the day before. They're not dirty, so it's fine. Yup. I randomly grab one of my many T-Shirts, this time a black, short sleeved one, with a picture of a red-eyed, stoner giraffe. I don't even remember where I got that one from, but Miss. Beifong hates it, so it's perfect.

By the time I'm dressed, I'm more or less awake, but still feeling very pissed off. I need a coffee, and now I won't have time to grab one. I creak open my door, pouting to myself, and Bolin quickly pops into view.

Good to go?" He asks, smiling sincerely. He's a good guy, don't know how he puts up with me sometimes.

"Korrraaa, got you this. Bo said you'd need it," Opal pops her head around the corner, holding aloft the most magnificent prize I've ever seen. A tall cappuccino, no doubt just the way I like it, one sugar, extra cream.

"I love you guys, so much," I groan, taking the cup from Opal and limply wrapping my arms around the two of them.

"You should really turn your phone alarm volume up," Opal chides me as we walk down the corridor.

"It's at max!" I exclaim, "I just had a rough night, that's all."

"Nightmares again?" Bolin asks. I've told my friends just a few choice snippets from the wacky dreams, because they're often so abstract, and so hard to remember. They probably all think I'm nuts, yet they still hang out with me, and they get me coffee too. Truly, I am blessed.

"Yeah, this one was gross," I sigh, still remembering the overwhelming, metallic taste. I take a swig of my coffee to get rid of the memory, though it's a little too hot. One of these days I'll badly burn my tongue.

"Don't wanna talk about it?" Opal asks, squeezing her arm into mine, "Na-uh, sorry." I mutter. Neither of them push me on the matter, for which I'm grateful.

"Well, here we are. And on time, somehow!" Bolin chuckles, whilst we stand before the steel double-doors. Classroom eight, an over-sized room in which two cubes study together. This lesson is called Survival. It's a very broad term, and frankly the teacher seems to make it up as she goes along, yet we do seem to learn a lot from her, and her lessons are usually pretty solid fun.

As for cubes - that's what they call groups of students here, and it's a weird name if you ask me. It makes me think of meat. Maybe it's supposed to? Maybe we're the meat. We're grouped by skill level rather than age, each cube houses between fifteen to twenty students, and mine is affectionately called the Upper Cube, or the UC for short. It's the fifth and final tier, which students must reach in order to be eligible for their finals. Opal, Kai and Jinora are in the next one down; cube four, though Jinora is rumoured to be moving up soon. Lastly, there's the lower cube, or cube one, where we all start out. Moving between cubes is determined by how good you are, rather than age, though it's also been known for students to be shifted down. Shit, I hope that doesn't happen to me. I keep failing at meditation, after all.

"Hurry up, hurry up," Toph grumbles, idly swinging one leg whilst she sits on the edge of her desk. Believe it or not, she's also a Beifong, the mother to the other two. She's old, she's cranky as shit, but she's funny. She's also blind, not that it seems to hinder her any, but she can scare the shit out of people with her white eyes when she wants to. We all have to call her by her first name - Toph - because it's too damn confusing with her stupid damn daughters being here otherwise. Her words, not mine.

"Right, I want the cubes to split, you know the drill," she barks, and there's a quick flurry of activity as we each pick a partner from the opposite group, shuffling to our desks, each of which sits two. I buddy up with Jinora, as always. I'm gonna miss that once she moves up. I glance across the room and catch Asami's eye, she quickly smiles back. It looks like she's found Kai, and he's looking a lot better today - guess the man-flu didn't kill him off.

"Check it out, your girlfriend has found your boyfriend," I say, barely concealing a laugh as Jinny elbows me in the ribs. Toph glares in my direction with those soulless eyes, and I quickly silence myself. Toph's great and all, but the absolute last teacher that you'd ever want to start shit with. There's a rumour going around that some kid, a nasty piece of work by the name of Jin, was terrorising this girl, threatening sexual assault even. Toph found out. He's never been seen since.

"Okay, working in pairs, I'm going to shout out some made-up scenarios which may or may not represent crap I've had to deal with, and you are going to write the first solutions that come to mind," Toph bellows out, walking down each aisle, and depositing paper and pens. Yes! I like these ones. We get to make some crazy shit up, though there's usually quite a lot to learn, too. Toph didn't get this old by being a bad at slaying, after all.

I grin at Jinora, pen gripped firmly, ready for some quick-fire answers. We're both really good at this, and perhaps, just subconsciously, I'm looking forwards to showing off in front of a certain new student.