(The Avatar Space: 10/18/298) Ty Lee I
The path of light stretched out before her, a solitary winding tendril disappearing into a vast infinity, surrounded by an endless field of stars. Some of the twinkling lights were cloaked by clouds of crimson and pink, both above and below the shimmering trail upon which she stood. Her legs shook as she walked down the illuminated path, unsteady and afraid though she was, still she pressed through. Courage burned in Ty Lee's heart, a trait that she shared with everyone bearing the name Baratheon, most especially her big sister.
"Ursa…" she whispered, as a haze of memory overtook her, and glittered in the twilight of the lighted path.
(Dragonstone: 12/31/295)
"Why our people so mean?" she heard herself question in the blackness, before the image of her mother's solar rippled into existence. Along with the images of her, her brother, sister, and mother.
"Our people, they wished to end the bad people, before they ended ours," Steffon had replied, cradling her smaller form along his lap, from atop his seat of gilded stags. As she gazed at the sight, Ty Lee remembered her brother's warm and protective embrace, causing the faintest of smiles to grace her lips.
"Why we no talk?" she winced at the innocence of her own words as they echoed within her ears.
"The strong need not talk to the weak. They only need conquer them. Our family, our people, tolerate no weakness, and that will never change," Ursa had said, her eyes suddenly flaring in suspicion. In her mind's eye, she had remembered their mother closing the book she had been reading, and looking upon Ursa in the same manner as Ursa had been towards her younger self. As the memory became clearer, she could not help the sense of dread that began to wash over her, and wrung her hands in worry. She knew what was coming. Something frightening and saddening in equal measure.
"There were no more words to share at that point, little one," her brother had sighed at their sister's bluntness. "The barbarians did not wish to talk any more, and so they gave us little choice, but to do what we did. Regardless of what Ursie thinks, war is not always the solution."
"Don't condescend to me Steffon, and do not call me that," Ursa had growled, casting away whatever book of war had captured her interest in that moment, before rising to her feet, and causing the flames of the nearby brazier to flare dangerously in her anger.
"But babies and mommies, they no hurt us!" her younger self had squeaked, ignoring the rising tension between her elder siblings. "Sozin wrong!"
"Don't say anything Ursa!" she screamed, trying to lunge forward, only to find her feet firmly locked to cold grey stone. The manifestation of memory, which had been conjured unbidden from the deepest recesses of her mind, continued down along its resolute course.
In that moment, Ty Lee had noticed something she had not before. Her sister's image appeared mesmerized by the roaring brazier at her side, before she had turned to her tiny form with narrowed eyes. "You!" the fledgling Ursa pointed at her, immediately forgetting her conflict with their brother, the instant the words had left her phantom's mouth. "You're going to betray us! Mother?!" Ursa turned to face the Fire Lord of Dragonstone. "She's weak! She's unfit!"
"Enough!" their mother had thundered, rising from her seat, and causing the flames within the brazier to burn a brilliant blue. Quick as lightning, her mother had descended upon Ursa, before seizing her big sister by the scruff of her neck, and slapping her across the cheek. The sound had been deafening, both in her memory and the hallucination before her. So surprising had it been, that she still recalled the hush that had befallen her brother, his breath having seemingly left his lungs at the sight before them. "She is no traitor, you disrespectful little girl!" her mother had said, and Ty Lee had, for the first time in her short life, felt fear at their mother's voice. "Never talk to her that way!" their mother had snarled, slapping Ursa once more, again and again the blows had crashed against her sister's soft face.
"Mommy stop!" her shade screamed, trying its best to squirm out of its brother's strong hold, after having been ignored. "Let me go!"
"No! It is not your place," she recalled Steffon whispering into her ear.
Ursa's specter had flailed against their mother's hold, in vain attempt at deflecting the strikes, only to stray far too close to their mother's sharp chin. Shocked expressions had formed on each of their faces, and she felt the tears stream down her face, as the fear for her sister had taken hold of her heart. Both within her own mind and the remembrance displayed before her very eyes. "You dare?!" their mother had hissed, and she had cried louder than before, as their mother had locked Ursa's wrists in their iron grip, and wrenched back, pulling them in.
"I…I apologize, Fire Lord! I meant you no disrespect! I am your loyal daughter," a look of horror had come across her sister's reddened face, and the tears began streaming down from burning golden eyes.
"You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher!" Ursa's crimson face had paled to near white, as the words had left their mother's lips.
"No! Mother! Not there! Not the caverns! Not again!" her sister had yelped, as she was lifted to her feet and dragged away kicking.
"Enough of your bleating, child! Fire Lords do not display cowardice before anyone!" their mother had commanded, as she drew Ursa ever onward.
Try as she might to fight against it, her feet had remained rooted to the spot, preventing her from running towards her sister. As Ty Lee looked on, she saw the defiance within her childish shade's eyes, knowing full well that she had also wished to give chase, and plead for forgiveness on behalf of her sister. However, she knew what was to happen. She observed the gradual change from defiance to fear that had taken hold of her younger self. Of all the times she had strived to help others, in that fleeting moment, she remembered being unable to summon the courage to defend her own sister. Ursa, who's golden eyes had burned with utter hate, as they had turned to face her and Steffon for just an instant, before the door had shut behind her and their mother. On that day, her sister's face had forever been made of chiseled stone. Never again did Ty Lee see the subtle softness she had known from before, for Ursa had been dispatched to the North a week later, without even the barest of acknowledgements from their mother.
(The Avatar Space: 10/18/298) Ty Lee I
Tears fell like rain from her eyes, and she could not stop them. "I'm so sorry you were sent away. I did not mean to ask…" she whimpered into her sleeves. "Why?!" Ty Lee screamed. "Why am I here?!"
Silence greeted her pleas, and in the distance, somehow in defiance of the infinite space she inhabited, a star called out to her. One that glowed brighter than the rest, and behind which a dark figure could be seen, veiled in starry blackness and clasping at the sparkling light. As she continued on, down the snaking path, she could hear the voices of her friends, Maege, Azula, Lyanna, and even that of her own. Gradually, other voices came to the fore, overcoming those of her friends, but not that of hers. Each new voice threatened to blind her with the images their strange implorations would invoke within her mind.
"Ozai's general! She has broken through the walls! You must face her now! End her and you can save what's left of the city!" a boy with scruffy, spiky hair, shouted. His mismatched shoulder guards, brown gi, dark gray pants and long-sleeved shirt, and strange hook-like swords, giving him the appearance of a poor hedge knight with a flair for theatricality.
"You!" a boy clad in brown and green clothing, with dark skin, and sharp ponytail retorted angrily. "You did this! You and your freedom fighters!" he sized the spiky haired boy by the collar of his discolored gi.
"It wasn't us! I told you it wasn't us!" the boy with the hook swords twisted out of the hold. "It was Ozai. He framed us for it! I loved her, and then the Yuyan archers killed her with Longshot's arrows, but what does it matter now?! They're all dead! She saw to that, and now she's coming for us! We don't have time to argue this Sokka! The time for words is over!" In the distance she saw a vast city, perhaps the biggest she had ever seen, or would ever see, beneath a burning sky. The scale of its enormity was nearly impossible for her young mind to comprehend, even as its outer reaches nearly disappeared out over the horizon. A city of large impenetrable walls, many levels, and above which floated many large objects, that appeared as black eggs in the crimson heavens. From the eggs erupted great plumes of flame, far larger than any she had ever seen, which bathed the city below in a torrent of fire and screams. "Aang! Get down!" the boy's voice screeched once more, before a roaring stream of black and red flame flooded her senses, snuffing out the two boys in an instant, leaving only ashes and the bald one prone upon the ground. Silence followed the onslaught, until the ground shook beneath her, revealing a spherical tempest of earth, wind, water, and fire as it rose into the sky.
"Interloper! You do not belong on this world!" a booming voice echoed in the wind, coming from the small bald boy she had seen lying in the dirt only moments before, as it addressed a figure in the distance. A figure that stood as implacable and unbending as iron, amidst the smoke and twisting inferno that swirled about them. A flash of golden light blinded her senses, before she saw the figure again, much closer than before, and standing atop a field of smoldering ruins, broken earth, and choking wind. The figure appeared as a woman, one with flowing black hair, face clad in shadow. Her body was clothed in the distinctive uniform of Fire Nation soldiery, and affixed atop her head was the iconic headpiece of a Fire Lord. However, unlike the traditional one her mother bore, the woman's headpiece featured the golden prongs of a stag, behind which was a flame cast of gleaming black steel. The look of which she had instantly recognized, and known, from the times her parents would show her their Valyrian steel swords. Luminous golden eyes pierced the darkness, obscuring the woman's face, as they fixated their baleful gaze on the third child of Stannis and Azula Baratheon. Clasped in the woman's hand, and raised above her head like a trophy, was the near lifeless body of the small bald boy in his singed orange and yellow clothing. Tattooed on his, all too young, head and hands were arrows of deep azure. Ty Lee clutched at her breast, at the sudden feeling of shortened breath.
The boy stared at her with tired eyes. "I couldn't do it…" she heard a soft voice utter, one that she knew had somehow come from the boy even through still lips.
At the words, Ty Lee had shut her eyes in an attempt to force the image away, and prevent the tears, only to be greeted by another nightmare. One far more confusing.
"Come on, I not scared!" a childish voice, one with whom she could almost find herself sharing class with, bellowed in a strange accent. Amongst the flies and hissing creatures of the murky jungle swamp surrounding her, a muddy boy in shorts made of leaves, and wearing an enormous leaf hat, stood defiantly against a large bald man bearing a tattoo of similar style and placement to the one of her friend little Maege Mormont.
"The Fire Lord! She never win, as long there are hope!" Insects swarmed all around them, as the child's labored breaths became her own, his exhaustion seeping into her bones, even as she observed the affair from afar. As she looked to the boy and his bizarre motions, she saw him assume a stance she had never before seen, until a blur of movement snapped her to attention, followed by the cracking of a master's lash. The boy fell forward, motionless and seemingly without reason, from some unseen foe hidden amongst the thick undergrowth. Something large rustled behind the trees, and out came a beautiful woman riding an enormous, bizarre-looking creature with a mole-like snout. A crimson tunic clothed the woman's slender body, wherein thick black belts clasped together across her midsection with golden buckles. Long fingerless gloves, of matching color to her tunic, ran up her arms, cutting off just below the shoulder. Black leather pants, and blood red boots that came up to her knees, covered her legs. A small band, with a skull clasp, wrapped around the woman's large topknot. Her reddish eyes turned to face the boy.
"Always watch your back, Avatar," the alluring woman said, as she began coiling up her whip, her head glistening with beads of sweat. The large man stepped forward, causing the woman to narrow her eyes and her mount to tense. "Careful now, partner," she spat the last, raising her curled weapon ever so slightly. The great creature bore it fangs in a gruesome snarl, seemingly intent on devouring the large man. "Nyla, easy girl," the woman stroked the top of the peculiar animal's head. "The Fire Lord wanted the best to track the brat down. She won't pay you my part if you try to kill me now," the man took another step forward, causing the woman to tighten her grip upon her lash. "Even if by some miracle you do manage it, and she ever finds out, she would be most displeased at having lost out on such a great tracker and having to dispose of another. You know how she is, how she keeps to her word, and how much she likes making examples out of particularly enterprising individuals. Remember what happened to Ozai and his court?" The man stiffened in his stance, seemingly apprehensive at the thought, before he relaxed and dropped his shoulders. They both shared begrudging looks of understanding before turning their attentions to the still body at their feet, a body whose panicked eyes still very much showed signs of life. "Now let's get the boy out of here before those smelly guys find us. We can paralyze him again later, but you need to change him. I don't do diapers…"
The world shifted, and she found herself beneath a rearing iron stag belching flame from its gaping metallic snout. Banners, bearing a black teardrop flame on a golden field, fluttered in the wind. Staring at her, below the multitude of steps leading to the rearing stag, were thousands of people, each staring silently at the events unfolding behind her. There, kneeling by a stone block, was the boy she had seen only moments ago, bloodied, bruised, and completely unmoving, save the look of sadness spilling forth from his azure eyes as they bore into her. Standing by the boy's sides were two soldiers in Fire Nation uniform, each bearing their gruesome skull faceplates. They shoved the boy forward, and he gave no resistance, as his neck was slapped down across the block. From behind the soldiers, emerged the form she had seen raising the bald tattooed boy. The woman with long black hair, marched to the child's side, wielding the sword of Ty Lee's father.
'Nameless,' she muttered silently, before spotting a familiar face at the woman's side. A face she had seen many times in her mother's collection of personal family portraits. A young man with a half burned face. 'Uncle Zuko?'
Raising her eyes from her uncle and returning them to that of her father's sword, she faced the boy's executioner, finding naught but a ghastly crimson steel mask stubbornly hiding the face beneath. The gold, and Valyrian steel, flame headpiece rested prominently within an expertly styled top-knot. As they had done in the smoke before, so too did the woman's fiery golden eyes pierce through the veil of darkness surrounding the black pits of the metal guise. The boy's blue eyes retained their focus upon her, almost pleadingly, and as before, struggle as she might, Ty Lee could not move. She watched helplessly, as the woman desecrating her father's noble weapon within her iron grasp, raised it high above her head.
"Stop!" she screeched, desperately trying to surge forward against the indomitable hand holding her back.
The weapon dropped down, and she fell to her knees, sobbing as the boy's head rolled down the steps before her. The keen feeling of despair drowned her spirit, as she felt it had on the boy's own, before the world turned dark around them.
After the vision had faded, she stared at lights strobing beneath her and heard a woman's voice, both strong and commanding in its tone. "Get up," the voice said, a twinge of sadness lacing the otherwise powerful voice. "There is yet one more life you must see…"
"No…I…I can't. Please stop this…" she whimpered, as the wetness in her eyes ran down her cheeks.
"I am sorry," the voice grew soft and understanding, yet continued with its seemingly vindictive assault nonetheless. "But you must. They will each come to you, in time, and you must be prepared to learn what you can from their lives. To learn how to defeat her…"
The world flashed around her and she found herself nestled within a small house of wood, stone, and dried mud. Within the humble sparsely-furnished home was a girl, smaller than even she, happily scampering around in brown rags and dancing to the cheerful tune of a tsungi horn played an old man with a long grey beard. The grandfatherly man wore simple robes of light brown, and boasted a topknot of silver hair atop his balding head. She stood there, staring at the odd sight with a mix of incredulity and serenity, until the furs lining the entrance to the hut began to sway in the wind. The old man wasted no time, as he cast the instrument aside and kicked up a large rug at his feet. Beneath the rug she saw nothing of note, until the man slid his finger into a small, nearly invisible crevice in the wood paneling and pulled, revealing a tiny room.
"Go! Run!" the bearded man said. "And no matter what you hear, do not come back."
"No! I stay! I fight!" the young girl squealed defiantly.
"Trust me," old eyes pleaded. "Please, run! Go to the Oasis! I will find you there!"
On the verge of tears, yet still holding a fiercely determined visage on her youthful face, the girl nodded, then made descent into the small chamber below. Unable to free herself from the girl's invisible pull, she followed her down the steps and into the tiny cellar, where a small tunnel lead out into the dark depths. Beside the girl, Ty Lee stood, as partially muffled words were uttered above them.
"Uncle!" she heard a young man shout from somewhere outside the hut, followed by a long silence, then the sound of rustling fur.
"I was wondering who she would send," the old man replied.
"She didn't send me. I came with her. She's known where you and the Avatar have been, for some time, uncle. Her priests? They know things. They see things…So, where is she?" the young voice demanded, sounded both exhausted and defeated, at what Ty Lee assumed to be some hidden conflict brewing within the man's heart.
"She is not here," the old man lied.
"Please, uncle," the young voice pleaded, as the floor boards above creaked to his shifting weight. "Don't force her hand. Don't make her do to you, what she did to him. She's willing to welcome you back, if you just give her the Avatar."
"Even if I had her, I would not hand her over just to see her be butchered like an animal."
"She won't do that. She's given her word," youthful voice replied.
"The same one that she gave to Ozai?" elderly voice countered.
"It's not the same. That was…" the man stumbled upon his words.
"Different!? It's always 'different' with her, Zuko!" the old man thundered. "One moment she promises mercy, the next she is merciless! The only 'difference' I can see, is that I am not blind to what she is, and Ozai was! She is set in her ways, Zuko! You cannot change her, even if her name convinces you otherwise! Don't let her path become yours! Don't let her dictate your destiny! Ask yourself: 'Who are you, and what do you want?!"
'Zuko!' her mind sparked at the name, before it dawned on her. The identity of the elderly man in the hut. 'Iroh!'
"I…I can't, uncle," the voice whimpered.
"Yes you can, Zuko!"
"And what do you want me to do?!" Zuko's voice raised itself in desperation. "Challenge her to an Agni Kai, beat her, and then become Fire Lord?! I wouldn't stand a chance! I'd be a pile of ash before I even took a step! No firebender alive can beat her, except maybe you, and even then I'm not sure," her uncle lowered his voice to barely above a whisper, as he said the last. "You saw how easily she defeated Ozai!? How trivial she made it seem!?"
"The Avatar can, if we can find her before she does," her granduncle suggested in equal tone.
"You ask me to commit treason?"
"Treason?" she heard Iroh scoff. "A stranger with no proof of blood ties to us, save only her word, has stolen our family's throne. To serve her is treason."
Ty Lee felt an invisible tug, as the small girl sniffled and retreated into the gloom, taking her along for the trek. Before long, she found herself stumbling blindly forward as the lighted path once again found itself inexplicably beneath her feet.
"Dark things are coming! Prepare yourself!" the dominant female voice, which had hounded her throughout her disjointed jaunt through memories and nightmares, shouted in her mind. At the fevered warning, Ty Lee felt her arms erupt into goosepimply life.
"What?" she asked absently, as she turned, only to find the dark figure she had seen in the distance now standing as a titan in the glittering space before her. It towered above the second daughter of Stannis and Azula Baratheon, immaculately bearing her likeness of form and face upon its colossal frame, and within its massive hands was clasped a gleaming orb of light. In the lightened sphere, she saw a stormy darkness and a pair of twinkling blue stars. Lightning flashed, illuminating the creature to which the twinkling eyes belonged, and revealing a mannish form of icy mist as it charged directly at her. In the swirling fog of the orb, Stan and Boggles partially obscured her sight of the creature with their hulking forms and drawn swords.
"Ty Lee! Run!" she heard Maege scream. Her cries bearing an almost submerged quality.
"Maege!" Ty Lee shouted back, and sprinted forward. Hands outstretched she touched the orb, blinding herself in its ethereal light and soaking in the overwhelming power that surged through her, before falling into blackness.
Ty Lee awoke moments later, near a broken pit of earth, just as confused as her friends beside her. "What happened?" little Azula Mormont asked, massaging her head. No sooner had the question been asked, as a commotion drew their attention beyond the rocks lining the shore.
Amidst the crashing waves and swirling dark clouds, Ty Lee heard one voice cry out in anguish, one all too familiar to her. "Mother!" she screeched, rising from her kneeling position, before bolting across the pebbly sands in a rush towards the source of the fell noise. Behind her she heard the hurried footsteps of her friends and the heavy stomps of Stan and Boggles. As she approached the crest of the rock-strewn ridge, she saw her mother thrashing upon the wet pebble ridden sand, and the lifeless body of the Overseeer laying near her. Ty Lee rushed to her mother's side, only to find herself stopped short by the strong hands of Stan and Boggles.
"Let me go!" Ty Lee shouted, feeling the hesitation in her guards, before adding. "I command it!" Feeling the tightness not loosening at her demand, she knew the order had been ignored, and continued on with her feeble attempts to squirm out of their grasp. Efforts of which served no purpose save making the silent duo strengthen their hold over her. She watched helplessly as her mother's personal guard lifted her thrashing body and made for the infirmary within the Academy with all haste.
"Release her!" her brother's silvery smooth voice had cleaved through the storm like a sword. She saw him, her gallant brother, running up from around the cliff face with others in tow.
At the orders, she immediately felt the gauntlets pressing down upon her shoulders grow lax, until they dropped entirely and allowed her to follow the group that had taken her mother to the Academy. There she had waited, hearing the screams and cries, all throughout the night until exhaustion had finally overtaken her. The next morning she had awoken in her chambers, unaware of who had returned her to them, before a note by her bedside had captured her attention.
"Little sister, mother would not wish you to worry over her so. Not at the expense of yourself. Do not linger or she will be wroth with you when she wakes," the letter said, written in the soft hand indicative of her brother's own. "I pray you slept well, little one. With love, your dashing and magnificent brother, Steffon."
(Dragonstone: 10/31/298) Ty Lee I
She smelled the fresh sea air, as she ventured to her mother's room. The cries and shouting had long since quieted and as the floorboards creaked beneath her on her journey, she could only hope her mother fared better than the healers had claimed. Down the long hall she walked, seeing the twinkling stars from the window slits lining the infirmary tower. The sun was long from rising, but ever since the day her mother had fallen, Ty Lee found that sleep no longer came easily to her. As she lingered beneath the cerulean gloom, she heard the softest creaking of floor boards coming from her mother's room, before discovering the door slightly ajar and oddly bereft of guards. Tiptoeing to the wooden entryway, she peered in through the space between door and frame. Standing beneath an unnerving moonbeam, clad in a crimson gown with gold trim, was her mother, gently massaging her left arm and the black mark marring its otherwise perfectly creamy sheen. Muttering something under her breath, the Lady of Dragonstone looked to the moon through her window's square opening, her normally golden eyes rippling an eerie blue in the moon's azure light. A second sense tugged at her mind, screaming at her to duck away from the gap she gazed through, before she succumbed to its call. In that instant she felt cold and could see mist hanging in the air with every breath she took. Ty Lee froze, her eyes boring into the slit where she had spied upon her mother, feeling an icy gaze looking upon the same spot as she but from the opposite side of the oaken threshold. Ty Lee heard scuttling feet in her mother's room, and then nothing. For a tense moment she held her breath, wondering on the nature of the noise, before a long silence replied. Nearing the door once more, she glanced through the gap and found the room empty of its previous inhabitant. Pushing open the door, she scanned the room and found it truly deprived of life. Only a square window, and the unsettling light of the ghostly blue moon it allowed entry, were present to greet her senses. Feeling herself pulled to the window, Ty Lee neared the small wooden frame and stared out into the land beyond the academy. In the darkness, she beheld a small figure running out into the night, a figure sheathed in crimson hood and cloak.
"Mommy?!" her mind yelped. "Mommy? Where are you going?" she whispered, watching as her mother's unmistakable form secreted away into the darkness. Looking down from the windowsill, she briefly considered leaping below, but judged the fall as too great. "How?" she idly wondered before bolting out of the room, intent on tracking where her mother had gone. Hidden under the cover of darkness and pale moonlight, the youngest of the Azula's brood trailed her wayward mother out of the Academy grounds and into the surrounding hills. A dreadfully empty gaze reflected stray moonshine, as they scanned their surroundings. Concealed in the shadows of the rocks, and small trees lining the rolling hills, Ty Lee felt a deep worry gnawing at her bones. As the Fire Lord of Dragonstone approached a clearing, Azula's youngest realized that her mother's previously pristine and unblemished skin, bar the black mark, had steadily developed a sickly pallor as the night had lingered on. "Mommy," she covered her mouth at the sight, watching closely as the specter stole away farther into the night, but not in an entirely unknown direction. 'The flowered hill,' she understood at last, and followed at a safe distance.
At every moment before then, her mother had always seemed invincible, but when Ty Lee saw her quietly come upon the flowered hill, that unyielding strength vanished before her very young and impressionable eyes. Azula Baratheon, the Lady and Fire Lord of Dragonstone, her mother, knelt in the moonlight, along the soft dirt marking the grave of the Overseer. Alone and bereft of guards, silver tears streamed down her mother's porcelain-like face. "I…I'm sorry I didn't listen. I'm so sorry…I…" she heard the voice of iron crack and quiver, fading away into a sound as soft and delicate as a butterflies wings. Her mother placed both hands upon the soft dirt, and raked her fingers through it. "Forgive me? Please…"
Ty Lee wrung her hands, a sense of awkwardness slowly creeping into her stomach, as she gazed upon her mother from just below the flowered hill. The soft whimpering of her mother's cries, made the knots in her stomach tie ever tighter, as the quickly rising guilt at bearing witness to her mother's grieving threatened to wring out all the bile buried within. Ty Lee knew her mother loved her, just as much as she did her, however the fledgling daughter of Azula Baratheon understood that the strength and image her mother projected was not the whole of her person. Deep down, hidden beneath the impenetrable armor, she could see the vulnerable woman her mother struggled to contain. Yet, to see the armor so completely shattered, as it was upon the hill, nearly broke the youngest Baratheon of Dragonstone.
"Mommy, please don't cry…" she whispered, closing in about her mother's shaking form, and reaching out towards it with trembling hands. No sooner had Ty Lee placed a hand upon her mother's shoulder as a blindingly swift motion found her with azure fire daggers crossed at her throat. A tempest of sadness and anger stared at her from behind swirling bluish-gold eyes, until they beheld her face beneath pulsating blue flames. A look of horror quickly overtook the storm of anger surging within her mother's tormented eyes.
"I'm sorry, my little flame! I'm so sorry!" the Lady of Dragonstone cried, pulling Ty Lee into a constricting embrace across the midsection, and weeping into her chest. The woman who had once been made of iron, was made frail and felt as ice, and as shuddering arms embraced her, Ty Lee felt a strange warmth cascading down the side of her face. Quickly she realized it to be the warmth of her mother's tears as they had trickled down upon her cheek. Stunned, but not unfeeling, Ty Lee comforted her, squeezing tightly and sifting through her hair with young fingers, before producing tears of her own. Together, upon the flowered hill, mother and youngest daughter cried until the beginnings of the morning rays kissed their skin.
"It's okay to be sad, mommy," Ty Lee sniffled, seeing the look of anguish passing upon her mother's face, which had grown considerably healthier as the sun's light invigorated them in both body and spirit. As the words left her lips, and seemingly without a second thought, her mother's quaking form stilled and turned to iron. Pushing away from the comforting embrace, her mother gently squeezed Ty Lee's soft hand, and peered into her eyes. The golden-cobalt speckled eyes, of the woman who Ty Lee had seen lost in the moonlight, had been replaced by a set of cold narrowed eyes forged of molten gold.
"Time to go, little one," her mother kissed her cheek. "Your classes will be starting soon, and I have words to share with your Lord Stark and your brother. I will inform your teachers of your tardiness. Wash up and make yourself presentable," the Fire Lord said, rising from her prone position and rubbing away at stray tears.
As Ty Lee grew closer to the royal apartments, near the Administration grounds, she began noting what she had not before. Banners, each bearing the different sigils of the Narrow Sea houses, flapping in the salty sea breeze, just outside the Administration grounds. Beneath the bits of the colorful waving fabrics, stood near a hundred men, each clad in armors emblazoned with the sigil of their houses. The silver seahorse of house Velaryon was amongst the most prominent of the sigils represented in both steel and cloth. At the head of the silver seahorse was a man with a mane of long silver-white hair, and immaculately handsome features. She instantly recognized the figure of Monford Velaryon, a man she had met twice before, standing tall amongst his retainers and barking orders which were lost in the gulf between them. What little she knew about the Lord of the Driftmark, and little it was, had come from her classmate Monterys Velaryon, the lord's own son. A man of honorable repute, and one of unflinching loyalty to the house of the burning stag, little Monterys had held nothing but the utmost praise for his father. Beside the seahorse were men brandishing the red crab of Celtigar, and the blue swordfish of Bar Emmon, who stood equal in number, with only a handful of men bearing the seven golden stars of House Sunglass, and the white ram of Rambton. Ty Lee had bypassed the gathered knights and lords, as she slipped away around the grounds to the rear exit of the royal apartments, and made herself ready for instruction.
Once the tedium of her instruction had passed, she rushed for the tower desperate to find her mother, before being waylaid by excuses from the Dragonstone guard of her mother being occupied. It wasn't until the latest of night, when the moon had waxed full, and the depths of her exhaustion had taken their toll, that the memory of a warm kiss and even warmer words had slipped into her dreams.
"Be safe, little one," the words said, tinged with sadness. Come the morn, the sound of her mother's velvety voice lingered upon her mind.
When youngest Baratheon returned to the Academy grounds, she had found nothing, save the news that both her mother and brother had departed before sunrise. Never had they done such a thing, especially not her mother, and she had felt it in her bones that something had changed within the Lady of Dragonstone.
(Dragonstone: 3/6/299) Ty Lee I
As the warmth of the sun permeated throughout every pore of her skin, she stirred from her ruminations and the silence echoing within her mind. Even now, looking upon the undulating sea, Ty Lee could not hear the whispering voice of the one that had been there during her encounter with the iceman.
"Where are you? Who are you?" she asked, hearing as the gulls whined about in the air above her. "Why do you leave me now? When there is so much to ask? So much to understand? Am I going mad?"