The five-thirty Monorail across Ba Sing Se arrived right on schedule and Ty Lee quickly took an empty seat. She was heading to a dance studio in the Middle Ring, if all went well it would be her new home.
Ty Lee had been planning on joining the Kyoshi Warriors for real, but that had lasted all of five minutes. As soon as the girls reached Kyoshi it became painfully obvious that she could not stay with them. Very few on the warriors showed any respect for Ty Lee, and even those few kept avoiding her.
A Fire Nation girl simply wasn't right for the Earth Kingdom's finest female fighters, even if she was just as capable.
So, hoping to start a new life, Ty Lee went straight to the city she had been attacking just months before. Ba Sing Se.
It certainly was worth a shot. The citizens of Ba Sing Se hadn't noticed Zuko when he had lived in the city, and he had a blatantly visible burn on his face!
But it did take a lot of work to begin anew, even after the war was over. Ty Lee was now an Earth Kingdom girl, under the same name, but with new information. She had sent out to one of the men Azula had introduced her to, not a big strong man with a gigantic komodo rhino, but a shrimpy young man with a bad hair cut.
For very little money he made Ty Lee a new passport, and arranged for her to have a small two-person apartment in Ba Sing Se without being bothered by the city guards.
The Monorail's conductor walked down the rows of seats taking tickets, Ty Lee handed him the ticket and went to look out the window but a young man sitting next to her said, "Do I know you from somewhere?"
Ty Lee was torn; this could be either a bad pickup line or a good way to attract attention to the fact that she was carrying a fake passport. She chose to ignore the comment. However he went on, "You really look like a girl I once saw. What do you do?"
"I'm a dancer," said Ty Lee, defeated.
"Oh." The young man looked a little crestfallen at this. "I've never met a dancer."
There was silence after this. Ty Lee felt a little sorry for the man, and occasionally glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
He was a tan teenager of about sixteen, Ty Lee concluded, she liked his face. Ty Lee took particular interest in his stunning green eyes, they were like bright emeralds.
It made Ty Lee a little jealous, her eyes were a plain dingy brown.
Then again, at least she didn't have a mustache. To say the least, the facial hair looked like three caterpillar-worms resting around his mouth.
However, about the fifth or sixth time she snuck a peek at the young man, she caught his eyes. It was embarrassing!
Ty Lee quickly turned away and busied herself with a scroll on the seat next to her. She tried to occupy herself in it, to make it seem like the most interesting and amazing article she had ever picked up but it was very difficult to do so. The scroll was a passage titled The Cabbages of Wrath.
Almost as soon as she picked it up, Ty Lee was bored. She put down the paper and began looking out the window. Through the reflection Ty Lee could see the boy fiddling with his fingers nervously. Finally Ty Lee started talking, "You've really never met a dancer."
"No, never."
"Well, lucky for you! Now you have!" The moment the words were out of her mouth Ty Lee felt embarrassed for herself. She sounds totally fake and stupid, just like the Kyoshi warriors thought.
The young man chuckled though, "My name is Haru, may I ask yours?"
"Oh! It's Ty Lee."
Haru paused and stroked his goatee a little, "I think I've heard of a Ty Lee before."
She paled. Her aura flushed a sick green, "I probably wasn't me. I'm just a quiet village girl, never even been out of the hometown."
"Really." Haru did not looked convinced, but said, "Then please allow me to escort you to your destination. A shy little village girl shouldn't be alone in the big scary world."
"Oh, no that's not necessary!"
"Please, it's no trouble at all." Ty Lee had an odd feeling about this boy, and she wasn't so sure she liked it.