1. Chapter 1

Anthropologists Note: Before we go any further I would like to remind everyone that in the cultures the Four Nations were based on, the onset of puberty was considered the onset of adulthood, on every level. From sex to marriage to education to jobs. Everything. In an attempt to be more realistic, and, to be honest, based on what the main characters were allowed to accomplish on the show, I've decided to go with that. So in-story the character will treat normally what we today might or might not consider repugnant. Let's explain one thing now to get the ball rolling. I'll explain any other things that may be potentially bothersome as they come up.

Education: In Western Europe those who were allowed to attend university typically started their freshmen years of _college _between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Which is why Ty Lee and Michiko are already essentially what we today would consider college graduates and hence officers. (Granted that was for boys, usually, but we're going to assume it extends to girls in this universe.)

Chapter One

_Ty Lee walked down the torchlit stone corridor of the Boiling Rock, the smoky smell from the torches tickling her nostrils as her feet and the feet of her traveling companion echoed off the walls. The little girl, all of seven years old, clutched tight at the hand of the young woman on her right as the two of them walked down the corridor, fear gripping the little girl. The woman, with black hair and brown eyes, looked straight ahead at the door in front of her. She looked over at the one on her left. The brown-haired, green-eyed woman ignored her as well, looking straight ahead as they rounded a corner and approached a nondescript brown metal door. The two women looked at each other, and Shiga, the one on the right opened the door. The moment the door squeaked open, there was a flash of blinding white light, and she found herself standing in a circular room. She cast about. The room was torchlit, the orange flickering light casting the bare room in ominous dancing shadows. She felt fear tear into her gut, her entire body numb as she broke free of Shiga and Kelula and ran to the back of the room, hitting the wall and sliding down it as she locked her arms around herself as she trembled._

The door on the other side of the room opened, and in walked another woman, older than her friends. This one was in the pure black trousers and tunics of Ozai's elite guard, a sword with a pommel in the shape of a skull belted in the lanyard running down her chest. She was slender, with black hair and golden eyes. Medora, the name coming to her through the fog of her fear, surveyed her friends with a contemptuous glance, and the little girl pushed herself back

"You are both such stupid idiots," the woman's harsh voice, said, cutting through the air like a knife. "Did you honestly think that a bunch of Earth Kingdom hicks and one traitor could stand up to me?" She walked up to the woman and stared her dead in the eyes. "Well, you stupid whore? Did you?

Shiga opened her mouth and Medora responded with a vicious backhand slap across the face. Shiga's head bent with the slap and she looked right back. Medora grabbed Shiga's collar and pulled her towards her. The the little girl's eyes began to water as she watched. "I'm not the incompetent old fool I replaced. In my prison, I don't suffer anyone who breaks discipline." Medora bent Shiga's head back by her hair, exposing her neck. Those who do so, will be dealt with severely. Do you understand me?"

There was a loud pthut sound as Shiga ejected a huge wad of saliva into Medora's eye. Medora, saliva dripping down her face, gave one final glare before her foot lashed out with a savage kick that took Shiga in the gut. Ty Lee squeezed her eyes shut as she heard a blade slide into clothing and flesh. She opened her eyes and saw Kelula shout as she rushed forward only to hear her shout turn into an anguished scream as a burst of fire caught in her clothing, hair and flesh. All Ty Lee could do was watch, terrified, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face as Medora stepped over her friend's burning, stinking corpse and walked over to her. Medora picked the little girl up by her shoulders and shoved her against the wall.

"I have no reason to kill you," she said snidely. Unable to control herself, she screamed, and the scream carried her awake.

Ty Lee broke awake, her scream filling the air of her bedroom, numb with shock, as she wheeled around, trying to process where she was. After a moment, her brain kicked in and recognition returned. _I'm home, _she thought to herself, as she thought to bring her breathing back under control. _I'm home on Kyoshi Island, and it's still night out. _Finally her breathing slowed, and suddenly feeling the manic strength that went with fear drain from her limbs she collapsed back into her bed. Her mind still a roil as she felt tears began to grow in her soft gray eyes as she thought of that nightmare. It had born significant differences to reality, of course. Guards had escorted them to the office that had formerly belonged to Mai's warden on that horrible night five months ago, and she'd been a young woman, not a little girl.

_I might as well have been a child,_she thought to herself. _A woman wouldn't have stood by and watched her commanding officers, her _friends_ die like animals. _That was what gnawed at her constantly. She'd just stood there, stunned into useless inaction by that first savage kick before Medora stabbed Captain Shiga, the commander of the Kyoshi Warriors imprisoned in the Rock . The guards had tackled her to the ground a second later to keep a then-First Lieutenant Ty Lee from helping First Lieutenant Kelula.

_Sure, I couldn't have thrown myself off of me when I was on the floor,_ she thought, shame burning her like a brand. _But my Dim Mak master drilled it into my bones how to break out of a hold like that. So why didn't I? I could've killed them all in thirty seconds, why didn't I? _She sighed and got up out of bed, walking towards her dresser and pulling open the top drawer, revealing two stacks of clothes: one of green tunics and one of trousers neatly folded and tucked away inside, the undress uniform of a Kyoshi Warrior officer, the traditional armor and facepaint now relegated to, somewhat paradoxically, combat and formal occasions. On top was the rank insignia, three silver bars on a golden fan that signified a captain and lying across both stacks, sheathed in a black scabbard with gold filigree, was the sword of a Kyoshi Warrior marked with the same rank insignia.

She remembered meeting them in that terrible place after Mai and her had been imprisoned their for their attack on Azula to allow Zuko and his friends to get clear of the place. Shiga's company of Kyoshi Warriors had been transferred to the Rock in order to keep them out of the capital after one of their escape attempts. Unfortunately, that had deprived them of the protection of the regular military, which had honored the ancient custom that prisoners had a sworn duty to escape and that killing them in the process of escaping was abhorrent, to a prison which had just been handed over to the Black Hand, the elite guard of the Fire Nation under Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai, which most assuredly did not honor those code. Or any code of ethics she cared to imagine for that matter. Shiga, learning of both her and Mai's attack on Azula and her expertise in Dim Mak had made her an offer. She'd offered Ty Lee a field commission in the Kyoshi Warriors, in an attempt to give her a purpose while in prison, and a possible home outside it. She'd been appointed a First Lieutenant, as a training officer over the other officers and soldiers in the unit. It hadn't hurt that she'd had three years of officer training from the Fire Nation School For Girls, the premiere women's college in the Fire Nation.

It had all been going so well for her. The unit was progressing well in its Dim Mak studies, arranged in what they'd thought were secret times and places where the guards wouldn't catch them, she was rapidly gaining the trust and respect of her fellow warriors, and even Michiko, the most senior second lieutenant in the unit and two years her senior, and the one assigned to kill her if it turned out she was still loyal to Azula, had turned into one of the strongest friends she'd ever had. Then it all was destroyed in one night of blood, pain and fire, as the decision was made to terminate half the Kyoshi Warriors to reduce the risk of rebellion. Shiga and Kelula were murdered in Medora's office, her and Michiko had been savagely beaten and thrown in the coolers, and the balance of the guards swarmed into the cell blocks., murdering all the Kyoshi Warriors who'd been marked for death. By the time the sun rose on the Rock, only one hundred Kyoshi Warriors out of two hundred were alive, and they'd all been ravaged physically and mentally by that night's horrors. And it had been up to her and Michiko, the only surviving officers, injured and exhausted unto death to attempt to pull the unit together to survive.

And somehow, against all odds, they had, managing to even stage an uprising immediately after Sozin's Comet had left the atmosphere, an uprising that was succeeding when regular navy and army units showed up to help finish them off. After they were finally liberated, Suki had not only confirmed Shiga's field commission but promoted her and Michiko to replace them, and gave them the task of helping to rebuild the savaged company. A task, that, as the commanding officer of the second company, she'd thrown her heart and her soul into for the past five months, at .

She sighed and sat back down on the bed, catching site of herself in the mirror. She was slender, attractive, with a build that had always ensured she didn't have to work too hard to attract the opposite sex. She was not tall for a woman,coming in at an average five foot five inches. In contrast to the braids she'd worn her hair in before she was thrown in prison in the month and a half before Ozai and Azula were deposed upon the return of Sozin's comet, her brown hair now came down to her shoulders. Even in the half-light of the candle on her nightstand she could see the dark circles under her gray eyes. This wasn't the first time the nightmares had come to plague her in recent days. She sighed, derisively. She knew she wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep, she was still riled up from the nightmare to do anything more than close her eyes. _I need a walk,_ she thought to herself, standing up and letting her nightdress fall to the ground before crossing over to the nightstand and sliding on a pair of nondescript brown trousers, and undershirt and a gray tunic. She turned to leave her room before the thought occurred to her. _Should I put it on? _She thought to herself, then nodded, then pulled out her sword and buckled it on.

Five minutes later she was sitting on a flat gray rock on the edge of the sandy shore, glowing white in the light of the moon, as she stared out over the silvery waters. She breathed in deeply, inhaling the salt smell that had always comforted her when she was a little girl. It wasn't helping. "I am a Kyoshi Warrior," she said to no one in particular, recounting the oath she'd been sworn to by Shiga when she was commissioned. "We walk in the dark places no others will enter."

"We stand on the bridge, and no one shall pass," a familiar voice said from behind her. Ty Lee, a jolt of shock passing through her like a lightning bolt, wheeled around to see, to her surprise, Michiko. The First Lieutenant was seventeen, two years her senior, a few inches taller than her, with raven black hair and brown eyes with somewhat browner skin then Ty Lee's own features. She true was dressed in civilian clothes, a brown shirt tunic with black pants. "No surrender," her executive officer, and more importantly, her closest friend, said, finishing the traditional oath."No retreat."

Ty Lee nodded, smiling despite herself, the turmoil inside her finally beginning to die down at the sight of her friend. "What are you doing here."

"To inform you," Michiko said, in that half-mocking, half-serious tone she used only on issues that applied to the two of them, "that in her infinite wisdom, our commanding officer Suki has declared that you and I are to take the rest of the year off."

Ty Lee stood there, utter shock banishing all other emotions as it rooted her to the spot. Finally, she felt her mouth start working and she managed to sputter out. "Wh-Wh-Why?"

Michiko cocked her head to the left and gave her a stare that somehow managed to be both irritated and sympathetic at the same time. "Because we've both shared a brace of traumatic events. And apart from a brief excursion to order furniture, neither one of us has taken any time away from work apart from the time necessary to eat, eliminate, and sleep in five months, and judging from those bangs under your eyes you haven't really been doing a lot of that lately have you?" When Ty Lee didn't say anything she said, "Have you?"

"Not... particularly no," Ty responded. "But what about the rest of the company? And why are you telling me now, why not at dawn at the very least?"

Michiko sighed, "Because I'm having trouble sleeping, too, Ty. We're burned out, we need time to heal, to take time for ourselves, which is why this is not a suggestion from Colonel Suki, she's not even bothering to leave the wriggle room for you to not do it based on that. This," she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a scroll, is your written orders not to report for duty until the day after the start of next year, barring an emergency. As for the company, they've been mustered out for the rest of the year also. We don't need them, an they need the break also."

Ty Lee gave a resigned sigh. _I'm not getting out of _this _one, I see. _"What do you suggest we do with all our free time then?"

Michiko nodded. "We could go to Jalanda. It's in the Nerys Valley on Kyoshi's North Coast, and aside from it being a somewhat popular resort town for the rest of the local islands, it's my hometown."

"You're hometown?" Ty Lee asked. "If you don't mind me asking, why's it so popular."

"Aside from the spectacular scenery, the game filled forest, and the pristine beaches?" Michiko responded, no small amount of pride sneaking into her voice. "It's known for natural hot spring baths that seem to magically drain all the stress out of people, and you can't tell me that doesn't appeal to you at all."

Despite herself, Ty Lee found herself warming up to the idea. _A nice hot bath does feel nice right about now, _she thought to herself. _It has been _so _long. _"When do want to leave?"

"Later," Michiko responded. "When the sun's up. You own an Ostrich Horse?"

"I had one before I left for the School for Girls when I was twelve," Ty Lee, said, sighing, thinking of the elderly docile mare that her parents had set aside for her to learn to ride on when she was about nine. "But I haven't gotten one since I came here, even though I make enough money and I probably should."

"Consider it another aspect of your personal life you've been ignoring since you got here," Michiko pointed out smartly. "Come sunrise, after we've gotten some more sleep, we'll pack some food, go pick you out a nice horse, and we can be on our way. Which we should do today because we'll be on the road about a week."

Ty Lee nodded, a slight feeling of anticipation working through her. _I have been working hard since I got here, maybe it's time I took some time to myself to get my head together._

"All right then," Ty Lee said, nodding. "Let's do it. "

Michiko brightened. "Good, good." She looked out over the ocean, glowing silvery in the moonlight. "I'll be back later, we both have to get some sleep before we set out."

Ty Lee looked out over the darkened beach. She could just barely see the outline of the beach and the mountain it curved around, with Ganjitsu on the other side. Granted, her friend had made her way to her house safe enough, but that doesn't mean she should have to walk back. _She could stumble into a hole or a burrow in the sand and break her leg._

_ "_Michi," she said as her friend turned to leave. Michiko paused mid-turn and gave her a curious look. "You shouldn't have to walk back at night. I have a guest bedroom. You could just bunk here until morning."

Michiko nodded and turned back around, clapping her shoulder in a friendly manner. "So I could."

Ten minutes later, after her and Michiko said there good nights to one another and her exec settled into the small bedroom next door, Ty Lee had slid into her nightdress again and climbed back int o her head, blowing out the candle with a small huff. As she lay back onto her pillow, she felt herself begin to sink into the warm depths of sleep. _This could actually be good, _she thought to herself. _I get to spend time with my dearest friend, and not in an active war zone. _She sighed, remembering the last time, things seemed to be looking up. When Azula had come in and made her last performance with the Colonial Circus a living nightmare as she released all the animals and set the ring below her on fire, to drive home the fact that if she didn't drop her life and join her mission against Zuko and Iroh she'd murder her.

Just before she finally drifted off to sleep entirely, she thought. _I refuse to say those thrice damned words, "what could possibly go wrong."_


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: The use of "sir" for female officers is used both as a reference to Star Trek and nBSG, and because it is part of Avatar canon as well. As I recall a female officer who lead a boarding party onto one of the Water Tribe ships being referred to as sir.

Chapter Two

The sky was awash with the reds and purples of the sunrise as Ty Lee looked down upon the sprawling town below her, smiling depsite herself at the seemingly serene view, of the houses and shops bathed in orange-red light as smoke wafted up from their chimneys.

"There it is," Michiko said, pride, and, she could've sworn, sadness on her voice. "Home sweet home."

Ty Lee smiled sympathetically. "You haven't been home in awhile have you?"

Michiko shook her head softly. "No I have't." Abruptly her friend's stomach rumbled.

"Hungry?"

Michiko nodded. "Yeah, but that shouldn't be a problem. There are vendors on every street corner in this town." She turned to Ty Lee, a smile on her face. "We'll grab a couple of meat pies and then head towards the bathhouse."

She couldn't help but react to her friend's smile and, a wide smile breaking out on her own face, she said, "Sounds like a plan, Michi." Nudging her horse into a trot, she set off down the mountain path, Michiko keeping pace behind her. As they descended the grassy, tree-dotted slope towards Jalanda, she felt a wistfulness began to flood her, as she thought of everything Michiko and her could get up to together. Ty Lee had long ago, or more accurately, since she came into her womanhood nearly four years ago now, discovered that her pleasures boiled down into four main areas: eating, drinking, fighting, and making love. During her tenure at the Fire Nation School for Girls, she'd quickly established herself as someone who could outdrink, and outfight, half the student body, in addition to learning to use her body to attract local men. _Not, _she thought to herself, a smile crossing her face._ That any of the lover's I've had over the years have ever_ _complained, _she thought.

"Ty Lee," Michiko said, snapping her out of her reverie even as she instinctively pulled up on the reigns of her horse, bringing him to a stop. Looking at Michiko she saw her pointing to a Kyoshi Warrior section setting up a checkpoint across the road. Brown tents clustered around the roadway as she saw the group of eight men and women, no doubt new recruits brought in in the last five months since the Kyoshi Warriors, in the inverse to every other military organization in existence, was opened up to _men _for the first time, instead of the other way around. Four of the troopers below were digging a latrine while the rest monitored the road ahead. Her eyes flinched shut slightly as she saw a bright gleam, no doubt from a spyglass the noncommissioned officer heading up the guards was using.

"Why are they setting up a checkpoint here?" a confused Michiko wondered aloud next to her. "The garrison normally stays in the city and the recreational areas, there's nothing out here worth sending even a squad out here normally."

Ty Lee nodded in agreement. This was rather odd. _Well, we won't get any answers sitting here. _"Let's find out, shall we?" Nudging her horse into a trot, she set off towards them. As she was getting closer, she saw the warriors below react to her presence. The troopers digging the latrine dropped their spades and made to grabbed their longbows before slinging their quivers over their back and moving to join their comrades. She nodded in approval, at there reactions. They were well-trained.

The sergeant, a muscular woman with brown hair and eyes of about twenty-five with green field armor and the chevrons of a sergeant on her arm strode up to them.

"Captain Ty Lee," she stated, the mention of her rank causing a jolt of energy to pass through the sergeant as she immediately braced to attention and saluted. Upon returning her salute she gestured to Michiko. "This is First Lieutenant Michiko, may I ask why you're setting up a checkpoint out here?"

The sergeant nodded. "Orders, sir. Jalanda is playing host to a major trade summit between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, so we need to inspect all incoming traffic coming over the roads." She shot her friend a curious look, who looked just as surprised and curious as she did. _Eh, any interactions between Earth Kingdom officials and the Fire Nation which aren't surrender negotiations, brutal interrogation, tortore or extortion are a good thing. Though since these are diplomats that last thing probably going to be going on. _

"Of course," Ty Lee responded aloud.

The sergeant nodded. "Sir, my orders require me to ask for you and your companions for any identification before I allow you to pass."

"Of course, Sergeant," Ty Lee said, as she and Michiko swung themselves off their horses. Ty Lee reached into her tunic and pulled out her identification booklet and handed it too her. The booklet contained a copy of her commission, her duty station, her commanding officer, and a drawing of her face. She couldn't help but feel tense as the sergeant looked over them. She had a distinctly Fire Nation name, and while the sergeant hadn't seemed to react to it a minute ago, there was always the risk that she or someone in her unit was one of those very reactionaries they were out here to guard against, the people who hadn't taken too kindly to being told that they were suddenly at peace with the nation that had been their enemy since before their _grandparents _were born. She nodded however, before handing it back and inspecting Michiko's. Upon returning her executive officer's she said. "These all seem to be in order, sir. You and your executive officer may pass."

Ty Lee nodded in relief, thanked her again and she and her friend mounted their horses, the soldiers clearing out of the road to let them ride on. As they entered the shelter of the trees once again, Michiko muttered. "A trade summit. Just what we needed, this vacation's going to be a lot more...interesting then we thought."

* * *

"This is your place, I take it," Ty Lee asked, looking at the wooden two-story house that lay, forlorn and silent at the edge of a row of such houses in one of the residential areas at the outskirts of town. Ever since she'd entered the city, she'd felt a, not giddiness perhaps, but hope, hope that she could finally find something to replace the nightmares with. Good memories to drive back the bad memories that dogged her every step. To spend some time having fun with her best friend.

Then she saw her friend's house, lying there, closed and shuttered against the outside world, and she remembered that Michiko had been no stranger to tragedy prior to the Rock. That six months prior she'd lost her parents, her husband of two years, and her two-year-old daughter to a pirate attack against this city. Her parents house had gone to their sole surviving daughter. Though, according to her she had maybe spent a week in it, in the past two years since she'd been reassigned to Ganjitsu.

She looked over at Michiko, who nodded, muttering a curt "Yes." Her friend dug a key out of the pocket of her trousers before jamming it into the lock and turning. The wooden door grunted as she pulled it open, stiff and stuck from years of disuse, and Michiko walked in, waving her in behind him. Ty Lee walked in, and immediately sneezed at the dust covering every surface seemingly made a beeline for her nostrils from every direction at once.

Thirty seconds later, when Ty Lee opened her eyes again finally and blinked at the suddenly brightly-lit room as Michiko threw open the shutters over the sitting room's window. It was a wide room, she noted, with a dining room at the far end, and two cushioned armchairs facing the fireplace. She couldn't help but imagine an older man and woman sitting in those two chairs in front of a roaring fire, one of them a little brown-haired girl on his or her knee. She imagined, pain in her heart, and fighting back tears, Michiko in one of those chairs. Just starting to raise her own family with someone she genuinely loved, to have perhaps sat in one of those chairs and playing with her own daughter. Only to have it washed away in a tide of blood and fire, by "pirates" from the Fire Nation, after her country's navy had decided to turn a blind eye to piracy, so long as the pirates focused all their brutal energies on the Earth Kingdom's population. With many, though by no means most, naval officers so lost to honor that they'd actively colluded with them, providing them with drydock and supplies before Zuko ended the war and the Navy took the opportunity to clean house.

_Just one other crime to lay at my people's feet_, she thought, a bitter mote of anger welling in her, an anger, that, in her weaker moments, added fuel to the festering rage, the bitter desire to walk into Azula and Ozai's cells and murder them. She was an acknowledged Dim Mak master, she could do it, in one stroke, she could end both their lives. It wouldn't be painless, it would take thirty long seconds for them to die a painful death as the flow of blood to their brain was cut off, but neither of them deserved anything less for what they'd done. Some part of her quailed in horror, and she shook herself, banishing the thoughts as a wave of revulsion set in.

No! She thought to herself, disgusted with herself for even thinking that. _What is_ wrong _with me. Murdering two helpless people isn't going to make the world right again, isn't going to make what happened to Michiko go away, isn't going to make it so Azula never tortured Suki or ordered the murder of the Kyoshi Warriors. _She thought about it, and saw herself trying, not to kill Ozai and Azula, but murder a broken wreck of a man, stripped of his powers and dethroned. Azula wasn't Azula anymore, just an even more pathetic wreck of a woman with the faculties of a toddler, who couldn't even wipe her own ass anymore without assistance. She thought of it, and felt shame.

"Ty Lee!" Michiko's voice called from a distance, and she abruptly realized, that Michiko had made it upstairs without her noticing. "Let's get you settled into your room so we can go to the bathhouse."

"Coming," Ty Lee called back, and hastily crossed to the stairs at the far left corner of the room.

* * *

"Now," Michiko said with a luxuriant, self-indulgent tone on her voice. "Wasn't this worth coming out all the way out here for?" They were in a chamber of the cave complex the bath house was centered around. Torches on the walls provided flickering orange light to the otherwise natural cave.

Ty Lee couldn't help but nod, even as she slid into a more relaxing position on the floor of the spring they were in._ Oh, but this _is _relaxing,_ she thought to herself as she leaned her head back. Her hair was matted to his head, and she let out a pleased sigh. "I could do this every day."

"We can," Michiko said, her tone suddenly shifting into the serious. "We've earned it. Both of us. And especially you." Her voice shook, her eyes hardened. "I am alive because of you, because of the choices you made. You have my loyalty, and my friendship, even unto death."

Ty Lee sat there, fighting back the sudden urge to cry, the water suddenly seeming cold. Before however, she had to respond to her friend's bold statement, a woman's scream pierced the air, and the footfalls rushing through the corridor beyond increased as the staff members began to scamper, their loud voices echoing off the walls.

"Bath's over," Ty Lee said immediately pulling herself out of the water and hastily toweling herself off before grabbing for her backpack, even as she heard the water slosh as Michiko pulled herself out. There were no doubts as to what they were about to do. They were Kyoshi Warriors, they were Kyoshi Warrior officers, and vacation or not, duty engrained soul-deep required them to offer what aid they could. "Time to put on the uniform again, they'll be more likely to listen to us that way."

Thirty seconds later they rounded the corner back into the main corridor, brightly-lit by the sunlight coming through the main entrance. They noticed eight or so men and women, in the dark green, almost black robes of the bath complex's staff, congregating in a tight cluster near the main entrance. All of them seemed to be trying to calm down someone sitting among them. Ty Lee sighed, and they walked towards the entrance.

"Excuse me," she said loudly, one of the men, a large burly man in his mid-twenties who looked like he wanted to smash something in anger and frustration, who turned towards them noting her uniform and straightening his back. "What's going on."

"My sister found one of the guests, the Fire Nation delegate to the trade conference, dead in his room."

Shock pierced her like an arrow and she found herself clamping down on the swear that had formed on the tip of her tongue. She shook her head and finally said, "Did it look like he was murdered?"

"Well, gee, his throat was slit open from one end to the other!" a frantic voice said, and she looked to see a young woman about sixteen, with light brown hair, green eyes, and wearing the staff uniform, sitting on a wooden bench. Her light brown skin was as pale as it could with fear and her hands were trembling. Ty Lee leaned down and put her hands on hers. "It's okay, you're fine, just breathe and relax. Calm down."

She nodded and took a deep breath. Unbidden the girl began, her voice trembling. "I'm a towel girl, my supervisor had handed me a load of our finest towels and told me to go to leave them in the Fire Nation delegate's chamber. When I got there I found him laid out spread-eagle on the massage table." Her eyes widened. "His eyes just staring at me, blood everywhere."

"Michiko," she said, still kneeling on the floor and holding her hand, "stay with her, I'm going to go check it out. Where is he?"

"Where I found him," the girl said. "Three chambers down from yours."

Michiko nodded and she leaned down and put her hands on the woman's wrists, Ty Lee letting go the instant Michiko had taken hold. Pushing through the crowd she walked down the corridor. When she reached the cave where he supposedly was she peered in, seeing a generic room with superficially the same arrangement as the chamber she had just been in. A natural well in the center of the room, heat ripping off the water, and a massage table near the right cave wall. She looked over to the left wall and her eyes widened. Splayed out precisely like the towel girl had said was the fit, naked figure of a man, still wet from the bath he'd apparently been dragged from. There was something about him, though, a spark of recognition, that filled her at once with confusion, and a black, sickly fear that seemed to spread out from her chest and down her legs.

She approached softly, her legs trembling softly even as she prayed inwardly that the sinking feeling of recognition was wrong, that the person she thought it was _wasn't _lying murdered on this table. She got up close to him, and her fear was confirmed, sending her crashing to her knees in shock.

Lying there, eyes lifeless, his throat cut from one ear to the other, lay Sakeri Lee, her father.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Conscious of the eyes of the Kyoshi Warrior sentries on her, Ty Lee walked stiff-limbed through the front door of Michiko's house. The second she heard the door close safely behind her, she felt her shoulders sag as she dropped into the first chair she came to, the one next to the fireplace as the shivers of shock and pain finally flooded over her. It was another hour before they faded.

When she finally moved again, it wasn't the sun setting outside the window, bathing the room in darkness, but the pressure in her own bladder that drove her to her feet again and heading unerringly, on pure gut instinct, as if no conscious will was guiding her movements, and what was left only wanted her to cease moving once more. _Traditionally someone in my position is supposed to get drunk, _she thought to herself, as she found, somewhere, just enough energy to make it to the kitchen from the downstairs found a bottle of rice wine that must have been left on the counter by Michiko before they left for their ill-fated bath trip. Her energy reserves began to peter out as soon as she reached the guest bedroom. It wasn't overly large, but in addition to the queen-sized bed, it too had a fireplace and an old wooden chair in front of it. She sat in the chair, then crunched herself down inside it, as if trying to hide from the outside world. She left the bottle unopened on the table next to her, whatever strength and desire to open it having faded away

Sometime after midnight she somehow managed to go to the bathroom again, and upon returning to her room, she wandered over to her bed and retrieved her sword and took it with her back to her chair. The blade didn't tempt her anymore than the drink did, but toying with it did focus her mind on something else for awhile. She unsheathed her sword and pressed it to her neck, before pulling the hem of her shirt down and pressing the point of it into her chest.

_It would have to be the throat_, _wouldn't it. It would be quick, painless, and zero chance of recovery. _Because what else was left in this world for her now? Out of all of them it had been her father that she had idolized, her father who encouraged her in her talents and had given her the strength to stand up to her elder sisters when they expected her to just mindlessly fall in line with whatever _they _wanted to do. He had even looked the other way when she'd joined the circus instead of coming home when Azula had driven her from the academy under a cloud. It had been his tireless hard working example that had inspired her to throw everything she was into her command, even if she'd been a tad overzealous.

And now he was gone, and with him any and all energy to do anything at all. She just sat there, her muscles knotting, discovering that if she didn't drink anything she wouldn't need to move so often. Sleep eluded her, but eventually it seemed that her thoughts seemed to slow down to about one every hour. The light of the sun re-entered he room again through the window, the circle of sunlight creeping slowly from the left of the room to the right, before disappearing as the sun finally went down once more as she strayed out of thought and time.

She heard voices calling her name. A familiar feminine voice, one that would've normally sent her back to her feet. _It's Michiko. I don't want to talk to her right yet. _As a result she said and did nothing. If she said and did nothing, maybe she and her companion wouldn't find her. She focused her bloodshot eyes on the pattern of wood grain that had been in her line of sight the past day or so.

But her attempt to remain in cover didn't work. Michiko's face suddenly appeared in front of her. "Ty Lee? You there? Talk to me."

Her friend picked up the rice bottle. "At least you didn't compound this by getting drunk." Michiko looked at her, utter sympathy on her voice. "There are limits to the human body Ty Lee, the human mind. Colonel Suki sent on us leave because she was worried you'd run up against it. Only you ran up against it anyway." She shook her head. "Well, there's nothing for it, time to come out of your shell. I'll be back." She took the sword out of her hands off her lap as she left.

Michiko left her field of view and she heard her footsteps recede before disappearing entirely. At one thought every fifteen minutes, Ty Lee's brain began to work through it.

_She's gone._

_ Good._

_ Hopefully she won't be coming back._

But after forty-five minutes, she reappeared, alongside a young woman about her age in a Kyoshi Warrior undress uniform with the single chevron of a private on her arm.

"All right," Michiko ordered. "I'll take her shoulders, you take her feet. But pull her shoes off first."

"Yes, sir," the young private said, moving to obey. She felt her shoes come off her feet and she felt a burst of pain as she realized just how sore and raw they were. Michiko put her hands under Ty Lee's armpits and lifted.

The two women carried her out of the hallway and down the hall to the bathroom and carried over to the iron clawfeet bathtub.

_They plan on drowning me. Very well._

They stopped in front of it. "All right, private, on three, one, two, three." They swung her over, and her eyes widened as she saw what they had put in the bathtub: twenty-six gallons of water, with one hundred and ten pounds of ice cubes, a good poriton of a major inn's icebox contents, floating in it. She made to spasm, to break free, but her muscles hadn't been used in a day and a half, and her dry throat made any enraged cry or demands to release her impossible.

They slammed her down into the bitter cold, Michiko's slender arms holding her all the way under. She felt her throat and muscles come free in the rush of energy.

"_Ice wat-_" She was cut off when Michiko plunged her back under the ice.

"Michiko, you piece of shi-!" Michiko plunged her under the water again.

When Michiko dragged her up for air once more, all she could do was shriek in incoherent rage before collapsing against the base of the tub, breathing heavily and spitting cold water.

"I"m sorry I had to do that," Michiko said softly, and damn her, she really did look genuinely apologetic!

"But you didn't leave me any other choice. The local commander temporarily revoked my leave on her own authority and put me in charge of the cleanup and initial investigation on this one. I figured you'd gone off on your own, to get your head together but you were gone for _thirty-six hours_, and I was terrified I would have to retrieve your body myself."

She made to say something, only to have Michiko's hand clamp onto her mouth. "Shut it, Ty Lee. Now I'm going to tell you what to do and you _will _do it. First, you're going back to that room and taking off that wet uniform, then you're going to march to the downstairs bathroom where the squad I dragooned for this made you a nice hot bath. You are going to take it, get dressed, and then we're going to go get dinner."

"I don't want to eat," she muttered.

"With all due respect, sir, what you _want _is irrelevant right at this point."

* * *

Once they were safely ensconced in a table in the corner of the dark, candlelit inn, Michiko glared at her and muttered threats under her breath until Ty Lee ate a few spoonfuls of the noodle soup, which, Ty Lee, noted, she'd ordered presumably because it would serve the dual purposes of hydrating and feeding her at the same time. She discovered that she actually was hungry and continued eating, and Michiko discontinued the litany of threats.

After finishing the first bowl and ladling herself another, she finally managed to ask. "What's been happening?"

Michiko sighed and leaned back into her chair. "The situation's holding together, barely. Your father's second deputy has taken over, but the situation's very tense. And neither side is happy. The Fire Nation admiral commanding the escort squadron for the Fire Nation delegation is pissed that her naval intelligene people aren't handling the investigation, and we're continuing to maintain that we should be investigating because it happened on Earth Kingdom soil."

"Well don't expect that admiral to relent anytime soon," Ty Lee said. "When word reaches Crater City and gets back, expect a very...testy dispatch from the Second Sea Lord, under whose purview Naval Intelligence falls, on this issue. Her career will be on the line if she doesn't find a way to get results and soon. Unless Zuko tells him to back down and cooperate with us."  
"Which, from what little I saw of him, he probably will," Michiko said.

Ty Lee nodded. "He'll also take extraordinary steps to take care of my mother and sisters, when word reaches them."

Michiko gave a distressed sigh. "Ty, your family was all traveling together. They're here and staying in this very inn."

Ty Lee's eyes widened, and before she could stop herself she bolted up from the table. "I need to see them," she said and made for the stairs. She felt Michiko's hand thrust out and grab her shoulder, dragging her back as she stood in front of her. Ty Lee was immediately aware of the fact that, regardless of the fact of Michiko being her subordinate, and her friend, she was both two years older and nearly six feet tall.

"No, you don't," she said, the hard tone on her voice making it very clear that she didn't much care for Ty Lee's superiority in rank at the moment. Ty Lee thought about breaking free and moving towards the stairs anyway, but she knew Michiko, and she knew she wouldn't hesitate to press the issue by force if she felt it was necessary. And considering that in addition to Michiko being taller than her and somewhat stronger than her, she was still very much dehydrated and weak from lack of food. Plus, she'd trained Michiko in Dim Mak herself, and knew very well that the odds of winning against Michiko in this state were very small.

_Besides, I probably should be avoiding stress right about now to begin with._

"Let me go or I'll put you on report." She wouldn't of course, part of her knew that she damn well shouldn't stress herself by talking to them in her sleep-deprived, still dehydrated state, but she had her pride, and she damn well had to put up even _token _resistance.

"You're in no condition to talk to them. You need to go back to the house, crawl into bed and get a good night's sleep before you even think of going up those stairs. I know for a fact that you haven't actually seen them in years, that they don't know you're one of our officers, and that they can wait a few more hours for you to recover before they find out. Now sit down and eat at least one more bowl before I take you home and put you to bed."

"Yes, sir," Ty Lee said, with mock meekness, causing a short, sharp laugh and sat down, ladeling up another bowel.

Upon coming home, Michiko had her drink two cups of tea for additional hydration. As they were sitting at her, Ty Lee sighed. "Look, Michi, I'm sorry I scared you like that."

Michiko favored her with a warm smile. "It's okay. I'm just glad I found you when I did, suicidal or not, you wouldn't have lasted long. Now, I believe it's time for us to get some sleep."

Ty Lee nodded wanly before pushing away from the table and marching upstairs, her weak, abused muscles wobbling slightly as she walked into her room, her eyes suddenly feeling like they were being dragged closed by lead weights. Stumbling towards the bed, she pulled her covers back and lay against it, falling asleep as soon as her head hit pillow.

Silence reigned in the room at the _Prancing Pony_. Paiyya Lee sat at the small dining table, the soup in front of her having long since cooled. The fiftyish woman, her brown hair jut starting to run gray, supposed she'd force her way through it eventually, but not quite yet. Any and all desire to eat had died with her husband. _Why do we stay here? Why don't we just go home?_

The answer was obvious. _Finally securing a just and lasting peace among nations was Sakeri's dream, just as it is the Firelord's dream. We have a duty to at least provide support for that dream, even if we're not qualified to carry it out. _She looked out over the room at her daughters, and sighed. _Even if not all of us support such a vision. _

She looked over at her eldest daughter in the six identical girls that had been born to her on the same day nearly sixteen years ago. Dakarai, eldest by about twenty minutes, was sitting in a chair near the window, somehow managing to look sullen and heartbroken at the same time. Heartbroken because of her father's murder, sullen because she didn't understand why they were still among the "barely civilized hicks."

She shook her head in exasperation at her daughter's attitude. Thankfully, the _"_we look alike, therefore we are alike" mentality that had driven Ty up the wall, and out of the house when she'd left school, had faded, and even when they were tormenting Ty Lee relentlessly for her "oddball" interests, they were well on their way to developing their own personalities. Unfortunately, unlike the rest of them, Dakerai had always steadfastly bought most of the Fire Nation propaganda regarding the rest of the world.

_She _is _fifteen, almost sixteen, she is an adult, I can just throw her ass out.._ As soon as she thought that she shook her head. _No, no, she's still my daughter, I need to just keep trying to make her see the truth._ Her musings on her daughter's bigoted streak were interrupted by a knock on the door. One of her other daughters, Jendayi bounded up from where she'd been sitting with her copy of _Love Amongst the Dragons_ and walked over to the door. She cracked it, and turned. "Another Kyoshi officer, Mama," she said , a trace of resignation on her voice, this would be the fifth officer to come calling in the past three days . "A First Lieutenant this time."

Ty Lee sighed apprehensively as she heard Jendayi's voice inform her mother of Michiko's presence at the door. Michiko had suggested, and she had _suggested it_ this time, as she'd seen fit to obey her orders again as soon as she'd recovered physically, that she go on ahead and talk to them before she entered the room, in an effort to "cushion the shock" as it were. The fact that she was a Kyoshi Warrior officer to begin with _and _the officer who had discovered the body were both things that needed to be taken one step at a time. She shook her head in both exasperation and affection. Her friend really was devoted to her, even if it meant disobeying her orders "for her own good".

_So, my rank means nothing to you?_ She remembered asking Michiko over lunch a few weeks ago.

_No,_ her friend had said,_ I'm sworn to live or die by your command, rather your safety means a great deal more to me, sir, _which is precisely what she had expected Michiko to say in the first place.

"Captain!" She heard her call. Ty Lee, let out an annoyed sigh, got up from the table at the end of the stairs and walked up. Hoping she wasn't making a huge mistake, each step reminding her of the pain and loss that had come upon her and her kin.

Paiyya Lee gave a curious look as she listened to what the young officer in front of her was saying: that the officer who had discovered her father's body finally had time to convey her condolences to them in person, and that she had gone on ahead of her to make sure that they were ready, and more importantly, willing to receive her.

_Why should we, _she thought, experiencing a twinge of irritation. _We've received enough investigators who've "offered their condolences" what do we need one more coming in and throwing it in our faces that Sakeri's dead, even if they mean well or are only doing their jobs._

She sighed. _No, no, that's rude, and being rude back for no reason isn't going to bring him back._

"Of course," Paiyya said aloud with a short nod. "Send her in."

Lieutenant Michiko nodded back, walked up and stuck her head out the door.

"Captain!"

She heard the sound of footsteps as they came up the stairs, getting louder and louder as their owner ascended the stairs and walked down the corridor towards them. Then she saw entered the doorway. For a brief split second she hadn't recognized her: the dichotomy of her daughter's face and the green undress uniform with the silver and gold markings of a captain pinned to her neck, throwing her ever so briefly before her eyes widened in shock. She heard no sounds from her other daughters and knew that they were just as stunned as she was, and likely slack-jawed to boot.

"Hello, mother," she began.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Paiyya Lee stood there, momentarily unable to think, her mind stunned into abject uselessness by the sight in front of her. Her prodigal daughter, gone from her life for nearly four years, stood before her once more. She was struck by the sheer presence her daughter seemed to project. It was a presence that seemed disconnected from the…incongruous, to say the least, uniform she wore. No, it was something else about her. It was something in the way she held herself, the way she took in the room, the piercing look staring out of gray eyes she saw every day.

"Hello, mother," she said again, softly, and her eyes squinted in obvious pain. "I'm sure this must come as quite a shock."

"I-I should say so," she said stuttering over her words, her mind, still recovering from the shock registered the obvious pain. Then she remembered something the officer, the _other _officer, had said to her._ That the officer who had discovered her husband's body had come to pay her condolences._ Her mind fervently, desperately, hoped that another young woman would come through the door, but she would have been here by now. In her years as an investigator for the High Sheriff and eventually High Sheriff herself, of the Barony of Black Thunder, she knew that finding a dead body was emotionally jarring even for those sworn to uphold the Firelord's Peace.

_But to discover the body of your father, who was closer to you than anyone_, and the urge to hold her daughter close to her came upon her anew, overriding all questions. Whatever had transformed her daughter from the twelve-year-old girl barely into her womanhood to the competent looking young officer she was now, had been the straw that had come perilously close to breaking the komodo rhino's back. _She tried to spare me further grief, at least for now, by making me think she was busy with the investigation, but what she really wanted was for me to not twig onto the fact that she apparently had some sort of breakdown._

"Everyone else in the room get out," Paiyya ordered, finding the strength to sound vaguely commanding once again. "I need to speak to my daughter alone for a while."

She watched as the other woman looked at Ty Lee to confirm whether or not she should go with them. It was a move she'd expected of course, she could recognize a commander's right hand when she saw one by now or she wasn't nearly as good a judge of character as she supposed. Ty Lee nodded and the young officer led Ty Lee's sisters out of the room, leaving them alone and bathed in the relative warmth and the light of the sun coming in through the window.

"So," her daughter said finally. "You must have a lot of questions for me."

_That's the understatement of the century, _she thought to herself. _ Where've you been the last three years? What are you doing in that uniform? How'd you end up finding your father's corpse?_ She shook her head.

"Where have you been all this time?" The last letter we got from you after that business at school was that you'd left it and had gone to make your own way in the world, to 'find yourself' in other worlds."

"Well," she said, and there was an unmistakable quiver in her voice, and years of reading human behavior told her that her daughter was undergoing one of the weak points that afflicted every human at some point their life, and, that more than that, and the realization stabbed at her heart, that her daughter had been wounded soul deep in more ways than just this. "I certainly found that at least."

Her daughter slumped down in her chair, and exhaled deeply. "I suppose I should start at the beginning."

* * *

Ty Lee opened the door and slipped out, feeling…somewhat better. Finally telling someone _everything _from the beginning, had improved her mood somewhat. The problem was that when you were at the bottom there was no place to go but up. By no sane standard could she be considered healed, but she at least she felt better than she had a couple hours earlier. She walked out, half-braced for a tidal wave of eager questions from her sisters, and at the very least Michiko. When she looked around, she saw Kyoshi Warrior door guards on each room, presumably her sisters' rooms. The twelve men and women all looked impressive and stony faced as they stood at ease with their hands clasped behind their back.

Michiko stood up as soon as she closed the door. "How'd it go?"

"Surprisingly well," Ty Lee said, a ghost of a smile on her face. "She seemed to genuinely want to get to know me again." The ghost of a smile disappeared. "She seemed genuinely ashamed that she was never able to keep me safe from Azula."

"It's a terrible thing for a mother to know her child suffered and she was unable to protect her." She winced in shared pain with her friend, whose husband and daughter had died, while her battalion had been fighting a raiding force advancing overland from Saltpans, in an ultimately successful attempt to push them back to the ocean and prevent them linking up with the pirates already fighting the Kyoshi Warriors for control of the town.

The battle had ultimately saved the rest of the valley, and she'd been twice mentioned in dispatches for both her valor and, most importantly, her _cunning_ in the battle, quite the achievement for someone who'd been a platoon commander, been a fully commissioned officer in the first place, for only a month.

But no amount of accolades would ever make losing her daughter and her husband okay. That pain, even if she remarried, even if she had another child, would follow her until the day Ty Lee finally laid her to rest.

Ty Lee opened her mouth to say…something, but she realized that, ultimately, there was nothing she could say that hadn't already been said.

"Moving on," Michiko said suddenly, as if to banish the memories. "What do you want to do now?"

Ty Lee looked at Michiko as if she'd suddenly sprouted a second head that spoke in dirty rhymes. "'What do I want to do?'" She repeated. "What I want to do is stay on top of this and skewer whoever did this."

"We can't, unfortunately" Michiko said. "Suki's orders still stand. Lieutenant Colonel Zama called _me, _and me alone, in, and only temporarily, as she is Suki's junior and can only…reinterpret her orders for forty-eight barring an all-out assault. That passed a long time ago. We're civilians again. At least until New Year's."

Ty Lee opened her mouth to say, "Fine, then we'll investigate as private citizens," but she got as far as "Fi-,"

"And before you suggest the two of us become tough renegades out of cheesy ballads, I would like to remind you that outside a major war, that only works _in _cheesy ballads. Not that I don't find it tempting, but if we cross paths with the local forces, we'll just get thrown in the stocks, and we won't find out who murdered your father in their will we?"

Ty Lee sighed, though her last words piqued her interest. "What do you suggest we do?" She asked, carefully schooling her voice.

"We stay subtle, and stay on vacation. And if finding some way to enjoy our vacation takes us to the seedier areas of town where the people who know the people who may or may not have assassinated your father roost, that's only because the dangerous, rough-and-tumble atmosphere is more suited to our tastes."

Abruptly, Ty Lee's stomach rumbled, and Michiko smirked. "Let's go downstairs and eat first though. As much as the atmosphere appeals to us, the food is piss poor. Besides, I want you to meet the innkeeper, we've been friends for a long time."

"What can you tell me about him?" Ty Lee said as they sat at a corner table, munching on braised pork as they waited for Michiko's friend to have a moment to come out to see her. Ty Lee took a swig of rice wine from the bottle next to her, then forced herself to put it back down.

"Well," Michiko, a wistful expression on her face as she leaned back in her chair. "He's young, to be running an operation of this magnitude. Only three and twenty. He's Fire Nation."

She wasn't surprised at that, truth be told. The Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom's respective backwaters had largely stayed out of the war. They hadn't been friends, but they hadn't precisely been enemies either, leading to a substantial if relatively small amount of emigration and intermarriage. This unfortunately hadn't meant there wasn't more than enough ill feeling to go around, considering what had happened.

All of which meant that she could despise Azula, Ozai, and the people who had willingly gone along with their casual brutality and murder with all the contempt such men and women deserved, but not extend that hatred to the entire Fire Nation.

"How long have you known him?"

"The innkeeper hired him for the inn when he was sixteen, and since my family owns half of this town, I've known him since I was nine. When the family of my own I attempted to start was taken from me, he went out of his way to help me when I was as just as bad, if not worse than you were. How do you think I hit upon the idea of throwing you in a bathtub of ice water?"

"Ah," she said, she _had _wondered where that particular idea had come from. "He seems like quite a man."

Michiko nodded as she finished, before grabbing onto her own bottle and taking another swig. Abruptly she heard the door to the kitchen open and close and a smile break out on Michiko's face. "And here he is."

Ty Lee looked up at him, and shock and more than a little instinctive fear jolted her out of her seat and backing away from him, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword, and the other making a Fire sign, the sign for protection against the undead in the air in front of her. To protect her from a man who should not, could not possibly be there.

"No." she said. Staring back into a face she hadn't seen in person in nearly eight years. Then abruptly reason, and a sense of embarrassment, and anger reasserted control. Reason shouting at her that of course there was no such thing as the undead, embarrassed that she had responded, the way she had, and anger at the person who should by rights be dead. And if he wasn't dead, what was he doing _here_?!

"Lu Ten," she growled, biting off each word, and advancing on Iroh's supposedly dead son, who for his sake looked to stunned with recognition to move.

"You know him?" Michiko said, shock evident on her voice, both at Ty's attitude and the implications of the name she'd just identified him as.

Unfortunately, Iroh's twenty-three-year-old son who had supposedly been killed in action at sixteen had recognized his cousin Azula's "friend". He turned to run towards the door, unfortunately exposing his back, and his spine to Ty Lee. Her fist slammed into his spine in just the right spot, causing him to fall the ground, limp as a deboned fish.

Abruptly, she found a hand roughly gripping her collar as she was spun around to face an enraged Michiko.

"What are you doing?!" She shouted, a mixture of anger and surprise on her face.

"That is Lu Ten," she said, talking through the slight tightening around her throat. "It's a common enough Fire Nation name I'll grant you, but this Lu Ten is General Iroh's son. He supposedly died in battle during the Siege of Ba Sing Se when I was around nine." She stared down at Lu Ten's feeble attempts to move. "What is he doing in an inn in Kyoshi? Alive, and apparently not telling his father he still lives. He's going to tell me why."

The anger disappeared from Michiko's face, and she released her hold on Ty Lee's throat, giving an appraising stare to the man on the ground.

Ty sighed. _First my father dies, then someone else that was already dead turns up alive. This situation just gets weirder and weirder._


End file.
