The Dark Side of Force - Tyra Dragonheart

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

She rubbed her face again.  "I don't deserve mercy."  The way Daniel put her crimes struck at what was left of her conscience.  "I don't know what to do Daniel.  I'm nearly dead inside.  I can't feel remorse.  And it sickens me.  It hardly bothers me what I did because. . .  because I'm still convinced I'm right."  She looked up at him.  "I mean look at me.  Do I not deserve this?  I've been violent and stubborn and convinced I held all the answers for years.  Can I even change?  Andrew tried, Bella tried, Jennara tried and you're trying."  A tear rolled down her cheeks.  "I've disgraced my family, Daniel."  She started crying, thinking of what he father might say when he finds out, and how her mother must feel.  "All I wanted to do was make them proud. . ."

[cbnicholson]

*Daniel regarded her for long moments, watching her tears fall, she was right of course, she did not deserve mercy only justice for what she had done. The tears belied what she had told him though, she did feel some remorse, even if it was the remorse of a child caught doing wrong. He still wasn't sure. Just then, he heard the shuffling footsteps of the gaoler approaching, "Our time is nearly to an end, Miss Tyra." He fished out a clean white hanky and tossed it to her, sitting miserably on the cot. "Next time we speak it may only be on by letter. I will attempt to see when your hearing is to be and send word." Daniel finished his tone flat. The door opened and he turned to go.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

She whipped her face in the hanky, then looked down.  "Heh, I still have makeup on. . ."  Tan and brown blotches stained the rag as the stench of the ether floated up from her hands.  "Just try to get me a chance, Daniel, a chance to atone for what I've done, and do some real good.  Not my 'good.'  -Real- good.  That's all I've ever wanted to do."  As the door closed she looked up out the tiny barred window they allowed for ventilation.  She saw Orn looking down at her sadly.  "Hello, old friend," she thought to the moon.  "At least I won't be completely alone tonight."

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Tyra jumped to her feet in the morning when the gaoler slammed his baton against her door.  "On yer feet, scum.  It's bath time."  Tyra sighed.  She did not think she would recieve that sort of luxury in the jail.  And she was right.  No sooner had the door opened then Tyra was drenched in cold water from the goaler's bucket.  The laughing as the man closed the door and locked it didn't even bother Tyra.  She was too busy curling up on the floor, shivering in the soaked prison uniform.  And crying.  "They'll not spare me a shred of dignity," she thought, weeping over her situation.  "How did a Dragonheart become a criminal that was not even spared her dignity?"  She knew the answers though.

A few hours later, the chamber pot called.  Tyra cringed at the thought.  Not because of who might have used it before her, or other sanitation concerns.  But because she wondered how long it would be before they removed it.  But in the end, she had to give in. . .

Again that night, Orn peaked in on her from the window.  Bathed in the silvery light, she sat there wringing her hands.  She wondered what would become of all her things.  And if any of what she -had- accomplished that was good would remain for her to continue with.  Yet above all she wondered if there was anything left for her at all.  But there was one last thing she knew she could do, if given the chance, to possibly atone for some of what she did.  She had to apologize to the Stagman family for her recklessness regarding their daughter.  At least then she could rest easier, even if they despised her ever after.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

After days of the same routine, Tyra had finally acclimated to 'life' in prison, though she hardly called it a life.  In the morning, the gaoler would come by and collect the chamber pot, then every hour one of the guards peaks in to check on her, with the occasional higher rank officer with them to physically search the cells.  Some times they come in the middle of the night.  Tyra made sure to cooperate after the first week.  She had caused enough trouble, and was disinterested in giving the guards trouble.

Eventually Tyra became familiar with 11 guards and three officers, having seen them regularly enough to recognize them all.  She had also learned she did not like one of them.  A short man, strong but with an unhealthy appetite for pork, took to egging on the prisoners.  Of course, Tyra was given her share, which she quietly endured.  This only made the guard try harder but Tyra was not going to let him get to her.

One morning, Tyra woke to the sound of her cell door opening.  Well, 'woke' would be the wrong word.  Tyra had started practicing meditation at night to clear her mind, and was more 'brought back' than 'awakened.'  Opening her eyes, Tyra saw a much younger guard, one she had not met before.  As he entered nervously, Tyra saw the short one behind him, grinning smugly.  When the new guard realized Tyra was conscious, he paused.

"You stay over there, missy," he said with some trepidation.  "I don't want no trouble."

Tyra nodded.  "I'm not going anywhere."  She sat perfectly still.  To herself, she wondered if this young man was a normal guard, or if the short one was trying to get her to do something.

"Yer not going to hurt me?" he asked, a look of confusion on his face.

"Why would I hurt you?  You are just doing your job."  Tyra saw the short one glare at her.

"Just hurry up, Jason."  The short one seemed to have lost his sense of humor.  "This one must have gone impotent."

As Jason took the chamber pot, Tyra smiled at him, like she did all the guards who took the pot.  "Thank you."

[cbnicholson]

A key clicked open  the lock and the door to her cell opened* Once again, the gaoler stood aside and Daniel wrinkled his nose slightly as the smell hit him. "Good Morning, Miss Tyra." he said as as he entered dismissing the gaoler with a wave of his hand.  The door shut and locked behind him. "We need to discuss your representation some more.  I am sorry, but I will not be able to continue as your counsel.  Perhaps you should give serious consideration to Mister Dalaby?  I do not know.  He is the only one to have expressed interest in defending you outside myself.  Although I question his motive for doing so."  Daniel remains standing just inside the door scrutinizing her, his expression somewhat distant.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Tyra's eyes opened slowly as he finished.  She sat cross legged on the cot, arms in her lap, meditating, when he had entered, but she heard everything he said.  Her hair was matted slightly from lack of washing, and her skin was oily and smeared with dirt.  Perhaps the first and only time Daniel would have seen Tyra such a mess, save for after a trip through a mire somewhere.  "I'll decide when I see the man.  No one but you and the guards have come by my cell.  But what keeps you from being my counsel?  Some rule or what not?"  She does not move much, but her eyes gave nothing away, save for a sadness that seems to have grown recently.

[cbnicholson]

Daniel shifted uncomfortably, "I have been warned against defending you by someone I would rather not name.   After some reflection, I decided they were correct.  Also there are rumors my defense of you has troubled some of my brothers and sisters in the church.  They seem to question my motives for doing so and as we have a history, albiet brief, I feel it taints your defense and my honor to continue.  If you wish to contact this other lawyer, I can leave a note with the clerk to have your case handed over to him, otherwise, you must face the Gold's justice alone.  I am sorry."

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

"I just hope you weren't threatened by some one so you would not help me.  Especially by one of your own."  Tyra watched Daniel's expression closely.  "As for the lawyer, ask him to come see me.  It's about time I got to see what they want from me."  She then twitched, putting a hand on her stomach.  "By the way, on your way out, ask if they can give me some scraps of -clean- clothe."  She smirked at Daniel.  "Unless they want me bleeding all over the place."

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Hours, days, maybe even weeks go by, but no one ever comes to see Tyra.

She sits in her cell, waiting now for so long she does not bother to measure the time any longer.  Her hours are spent mulling over the regret she feels more and more over hurting so many people, not just in one night but over so many years.  Hurting people she loved, trusted, befriended, took care of, even saved.  All the times she donned a black mask to achieve some agenda she wasn't even sure she understood, then or now.  Hope dwindled that she would ever see her son again, or be looked upon favorably by her family and 'friends.'  She wondered if she even had any left.  No one had come to see her except the guards, and she knew it was only because they were supposed to.

The moons did not even cheer her up anymore.  They just reminded her more of the very thing she studied them for: the fact they watch the dark world each night, and all the terrible things that happen during it.  She had become one of those horrible things.  And as she sat in her cell longer and longer, she felt she belonged there more and more.

[Dremora]

A hooded figure approaches the prison guards in Fort Vhel, just as night fully blooms, stepping from the crowd and unrolling a small piece of parchment before them; turning it end over end to show it is nothing more than a message and contains nothing dangerous, magical or mundane.
He then offers it to one of them, "For the prisoner known as Tyra." he says in a quiet voice.

Should they take it from him, he immeadiately walks away and disappears into the crowd of people either leaving late onto the road or heading into the local taverns or their home. Should they not, he tosses it onto a nearby brazier and leaves anyway.

He answers no questions and most of all never lets them closer than an arm's length.

[cbnicholson]

Daniel's expression changes to resigned acceptance, "I was not threatened physically, no, but there are rumors of some within my own order who question my impartiality and reasons for helping you, Miss Tyra."  Daniel nods slightly at her personal request, "I shall ask the gaoler to tend to you on my way out."  With that he turns and knocks on the door three times, calling for the gaoler to let him out.

[Aerimor]

*Nym approaches the building trailing a group of three other people.  The group in front of him is stopped and checked in.  As the group is processed and let in and the guard looks really for the first time to Nym, Nym extends his hand with the scroll.  The guard almost defensively takes the scroll due to the unexpected action.  Even as the guard immediately looks up form the scroll to Nym questioning "What is this?" Nym turns and hurriedly walks away simply stating, "For the prisoner known as Tyra."  The guard immediately responds with "What?" and then requests to stop.*

//Send me a PM with the contents of the scroll along with anything special about it.

[Dremora]

The guards are flatly ignored as Nym'roos melds into the city.

//PM sent

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

The sound of the laughter of children was heard outside her cell that day.  Struggling to peak outside the high, barred window her cell had, she saw small children prancing about the graveyard beside the Temple, sticks in hand.  They were pretending to be heroes, or pirates, or what ever kind of adventurer tickled their fancy.  They were being children.  Innocent children.

'No one is innocent, Tyra.  Not even Children.'  A voice from her past came to her consciousness.  It was Steel, explaining the Axioms.  It made her shiver.  

'Children are innocent,' she said to herself in protest.  'They don't understand the world.'  

The voice responded, though.  'Children are simply products of their environment.  They are vessel for their parents' ideals and biases.  They are not innocent.'  

"But they are innocent!"  Tyra had startled herself by yelling, when the thought was meant to stay in her head.  Her thoughts drifted to Bella, the 'little girl' she helped grow into a strong woman, and how even she was innocent.  She did not deserve what happened to her as a child.  She deserved how Tyra treated her toward the end of that relationship even less. . .

"Keep it down in there, Dragonheart."  A guard had come to check on her, jarring her from her thoughts.  "Hey!  Away from the window!  You trying to escape?"

"Na-no, sir.  I just heard children outside.  I was watch-"

"Stay away from the window, or we'll move you to a different cell.  Understand?"

Tyra nodded, sadly.  All the time she now had was making her realize how she had ruined every thing she held dear.  The girl who was Bella hated her for trying to protect her from 'choices that would destroy her.'  At least that was how Tyra saw it.  Tyra thought marrying Daniel, having children, and trying to be a Dread Blade all at the same time would fall apart, exactly as it did.  But then, were Tyra's choices any different?  And were Bella still had friends, still had allies, still had people who cared about her despite losing her daughters to death and trauma, Tyra had no one.  She had pushed everyone away for so long that they did not care to bother with her now.

Andrew, who once loved her, she infuriated by being cold and stubborn and untrustworthy.

Elohanna, bless her soul, she pushed away by being cold and resentful of her relationship with Andrew.

Bella, her once loyal student, hated her for trying to control her.

Shiff, her own father, she hated for being himself, for trying to travel the world and save it from bad men and monsters.  For being a hero.  For abandoning her, even though he was really just trying to make the world safer for her.

The laughter returned to her consciousness just as an older voice called to them.  It was a woman, a mother.  Someone who must love one of those children, if not all of them.  Tyra wondered for a moment what it was like to have a family that was 'normal.'  Not an adventurers family where you did not know if you would see you father for days, weeks, months, or even years. . .

She was oblivious to the gaoler dropping off her evening meal.  She was caught up in thoughts.  Thoughts of her own child.

Nausea assailed her at that moment.  Tyr'riel, her son, one she said she loved and cared for, she suddenly realized was another piece to a puzzle she had tried to complete at the time.  She adopted him to try and keep Andrew in her life.  And when that failed. . .  'No.'  She shook the thought out of her head.  She did love him.  She did not just take him to try and win some prize.  She took him because she knew an orphanage would not be the best place for such a young child.  She took him because she wanted to be a mother.  She took him because she knew how much Andrew wanted to be a father.  She took him to love him, and -not- abandon him.  'Then why did I send him to Voltrex. . .'  That thought would bother her for the rest of the night . . .

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

One morning, Tyra awoke to a rumbling of her cell.  She did not know what was going on, but she could feel it.  The entire prison was shaking.  Looking out her window, she could see ash falling like snow, covering everything. . .

Hours later, the area by her window had a thin sheet of ash covering it, and outside, Fort Vehl looked like an apocalyptic winter had come.  Tyra frowned.  What was going on around the world?  Had the cult won?  Was Mistone burning beneath the wings of the Cults Dragons?  Had everything really come to an end?

Was Andrew wrong?

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

A few days ago . . .

It was around midday when Tyra was stirred back to consciousness. She sat cross legged on her cot, her hands on her knees.   Her palms are turned up and her eyes are closed at first, but they soon opened.  The sound of footsteps could be heard, then a voice she thought she'd never hear again, or at least while she was in this cell.  "I'm fine," Andrew said as he nodded to the gaoler.  "I don't need anything."  The tall bard and tavern owner kept his hood raised as he looked in on Tyra.  He leaned against the bars, waiting for The Brooding One to say something.

"An-Andrew?"  Tyra could hardly believe her eyes when theyh finally focused enough to recognize the face under the hood.  He nodded to her, slipping back his hood revealing that time has not been kind to the old songwriter lately.  His hair had grown long, tied back in a sloppy ponytail with signs of grey, and his features had become gaunt.  He looked -almost- like a starved corpse, though Tyra could tell there was still much life left in the man.  "What happen to you?"

"War."

She sighed a bit, having not been involved.  She was too busy with her selfish ambitions when she could have been using her skills to fight a real monster.  "Oh, right," was all she could say in response.  Andrew just nodded solemly.  "I'm surprised you're here."  She looked away from him, the memory of what she had done to earn his ire making her heart twang with regret.  "I figured you hated me."

"I'm not really happy with you,"  He responded with little hint of emotion. "That's not the same as hate, I guess."  He paused a while, before speaking again.  "Ty is back."

A small smile came to her lips, which grew wider at the mention of her- their son.

"He's sending you a letter, he says."

"Oh.  I'll be glad to read it."  The smile faded slightly.  She was hoping he would come see her.  "How does he look?"

"Tall."

"Did the elves make him all skinny and pointy?"

"Taller than I'd imagined."  His voice drifted off a little, before he  almost laughs.  "He's still human.  He might get to six feet.  He's in a growth spurt - and  gods, he looks more like a man than the boy we left."  Tyra could see that his gaze was becoming glassy, as if he watching a dream.  "Muscles, Tyra.  Makes me jealous.   He's damned good with that sword too."   He continues leaning on the bars, talking now in an almost relaxed manner.   "It's been strange.  Too much time lost, you know?"

She knew quite well.

"He speaks elven to put you to shame, he likes girls, he's smart as a whip.  I missed so much."

"Not as much as I did."  she hangs her head a bit, her emotions seemed to shift between gladness and sadness, as Andrew unwittingly rubbed in the fact he was able to go home to their son, and she was in a cell.

"He brought Min....Elly's daughter with him."  He seemed excited by that, or so Tyra thought.  "Clarisse."

"Clarisse. . .  Last time I saw her she was a baby...  Heck, I was a baby."

"She looks about ten or so, but elves..."  He shrugged, leaving his meaning understood.

Tyra chuckled.  "She's still a baby, considering..."  She knew what he meant.  Suddenly, a darker thought entered her mind.  "Did you tell him what I did."

"I...told him you were in jail.   I told him to talk to you."  Andrew's expression had become neutral again.  "He didn't pester, oddly enough.  I tell you, he's grown up, or growing up fast."

"How did he react to that?"

"Thoughtful.  That's when he said he'd write the letter. He didn't ask to come here, so I'm giving him some time."

"Resentful at all?"  She looked in to Andrew's eyes, a mix of fear and hope in her own.  She was afraid Tyr'riel might hate her the way she had hated her father.  She did not want him to go down that road, the way she did.

"I can't tell.   It's....weird.  We're learning each other again."  Andrew scratched his chin.  "Almost from scratch.    I can't do what I did before.  I don't have the authority anymore."

"From scratch...  That's where I'll be starting from. . .  in  many ways."

Andrew nodded in agreement.  "We made a hard choice.  He may be alive because of it."   He sudden started speaking very quietly.  "Molvarien is still out there."  He started to tap the bars in a semblence of a song.

"Maybe I can find him when I get out."  Tyra smirked, some thought of her finding him all by herself came to her mind, but it made her shudder.  "No, no. . .  No I won't. . ."  She had to surpress these old instincts. . .

"The Broken One we found."  Andrew visibly shuddered.  "And she is.....no  longer being violated.  The source of the poison is gone.   Which isn't to say we won."
"Good and good."  The news -was- good, that was for sure.  She just wished she could have helped.   "Well, we. . .  I mean.  You did the best you could, I'm sure."

"We, all of us.  From Sedera to Fort Hope....twenty-nine days of siege, Tyra..."  Andrew looked at her with a serious expression."Twenty-nine days.   They blew up our provisions at one point.  Then Hilm, then finding the Broken ONe, then back to Hilm....I've been at war for almost a year."  Andrew rubbed his eyes.   "Real war.  People dying around me war."  His head hits the bars.

She sighs, looking the other way.  "Yeah . . .  I fought a  short little war here while you were off being a hero. . ."

"I don't ever want to be called that.  "When I die I get to come back.  Hereos are people who go to die knowing they'll never return if they do."

"I'm sure my father was thrilled.  I'm sure he found his way in to some front, even if he had to sneak in. . ."

"Actually, he was in Hlint, helping Elly cure the people there.  I still don't have the whole story."

She wrang her hands a few times, looking at the straw covered cell-floor.


"But I hear he acquitted himself well.  The Cult made a play for it."


"Thats good news. . .Have you talked to him about . . ."

Andrew kept talking a moment before he realized what Tyra had asked.  "They stopped them, and cured the town-  No.  I was on Belinara, I have not seen him."

She shrugged half halfheartedly.

"Do you want me to tell him?"
"I- . . ."  She chewed on her lip.  "I dunno.  I haven't really thought about him much since I was put here."

"What have you thought about?"  The bard started humming under his breath.

"What I've done. . .  recently. . .  in the past. . .  to you  and others....  How I turned in to that monster. . ."   She scratches under the coarse uniform she wears.

*listens, humming, head leaning on the bars*

"About things I've never told you or anyone, things I'm sure saying now will just get me locked in a pine box and dropped in the Bay..."

"Might want to keep those to yourself."  He gave her half a smile.  He wasn't being warm and cuddly, and he wasn't hostile, he was just...listening.

"I can't keep it all secret."

He looked over his shoulder and smiled, then back at Tyra.

"Look, I was . . . or am...  I dunno.  I've done horrible  things, Andrew, and looking back I keep seeing more that I've done that got me here..."

Elohanna removed her hood as she entered the cell block, and moveed closer to Tyra's cell.  She was wearing her usual white robe-gown with her silver-leaf necklace, the obvious sign that she was devouted to Aeridin.  She said a soft greeting but did not interrupt Tyra.

"Lies I told, plans that failed. . ."  Tyra sighed when she noticed the elf healer.  "Hello  Elohanna..."

Andrew motioned for Tyra to go on, brushing his hand on Elly's arm then resumed leaning on the bars.

"Hell!" she shouted, looking at the two lovers.  "You know I started hating you, Elohanna, because Andrew fell for you after I was cold to him?  Is that not twisted of me?!"

Andrew just kept humming, listening, not interrupting Tyra.

"I treated Bella like she was a mindless child..."

Elohanna tried to jump in.  "Tyra part of that wasn't just jealousy but also being protective."  Andrew leaned over to Elly, and she stopped herself nodding to Andrew and listened.

"Daniel I planned to use to keep me safe from the law. . ."  She started ticking off fingers.  "Practically insulted Commander Creekskipper to her face, many times, while trying to take that tower...."  She missed Andrew kissing Elohanna.

"Used Gurnorhn almost like a mule to collect Platinum for me...  Oh hells Don't tell him I said that. . ."  She frowns as she realized what she was doing to the Giant.

Elohanna gently squeezes Andrew's hand, her own expression soft for Tyra.

"Please?"

"He's gone missing since the Tower was taken."  Andrew stated plainly.  "I have not been able to find him."

Tyra blinked, stunned.  "Taken?"  Did he say what she thought he did?  Her tower. . .

Andrew nodded.  "The Rofireinites boarded it up the day you were put in here.  Changed the locks.  We can't get in.   I sent messages but they didn't get there in time."

Tyra began rubbing her face as the soft sound of sobbing began from behind her hands.  "Everything I worked for. . .  gone."

Elohanna moves closer placing her hands on the bars, her heart achy for the pain Tyra is going through.  "Tyra, sweetheart."

Andrew just stiffened, biting back something.

She suddenly started laughing.  "Good!"

The Elf suddenly looked confused.

"All the vileness of what I did to claim it I can no longer profit from!"  She kept laughing, slightly hysterical.  She felt almost grateful that it was gone.  All she had planned to do with the Tower fed that darker side of her.  The part that landed her in a cell.  She was glad it was gone for just that reason: it was no longer a factor in her behavior.

"Tyra."  Andrew's voice cut through her laughter, firm, loud enough to make her jump.  And she did.  After she swung from the extreme of sorrow to hysterical joy, she settled in the middle, chuckling, but crying.  "Tyra!"

The bard's voice snapped her out of her momentary delirium.  "What?"

"Come here." He was not asking, but commanding.

The prisoner stood, moving toward the bars.  "The guards may not  like that."  She said that out of experience.  The guards weren't fond of anyone hang on the bars, or being that close to visitors.

"You've lost your tower and...and your freedom."  The bard chokesd a little on the word.  "Do you want to know what I've lost?"

Tyra sniffled and rubbed her face.  She had lost herself in a moment of hysteria, and tried to compose herself quickly.  "I'm sorry.  I wasn't thinking outside the 'box'. . ."  She glances around her cell.  Seemed she was still more concerned with her own affairs than those of others.  That thought sobered her up quickly.  "What's wrong?"

"I have a son."  Andrew paused a moment.  "Another son.  He's three.  I'll never know him."

Her eyes widened some as she wiped her cheeks free of tears.

"Wrap your mind around that."  His voice was icy from control, not anger at her - cold, and precise. "You know who else has lost something?   Tyrian has lost a son.  Daniella has lost a lover."  He stopped a moment to let it sink in to Tyra's head.  "Chanyce is dead."

"What?!"

"Do not mourn that tower, Tyra."

"To hell with a tower, what's been going on?!"  She knew a war was being waged, but she wanted to know what was happening to people she knew.  "How did Chance die?  Where did you get a son?"

"You and your son and your family are alive and your actions will decide whether you see them or not."  He was referring to her conduct.  They both knew Tyra was doomed if her selfish nature persisted much longer.  Eventually Andrew took a long breath before starting to explain things.  "When I was with the giants, I told you about Thalia."

"No you didn't," she briefly interrupted, "but, go on. . ."  Even if he did she probably wasn't listening to that part.  She was too jealous.

"....a woman I rescued from the giants - sort of.  Long story."

She leaned on the bars, but then instinctively jumped back, rolling her eyes about something.

"Anyway, we um...." his head dips a moment, in memory rather than shame.

She motioned for him to just continue.

"...created a child together.  I didn't know until last month."

"You mean the old fashioned way?  Not by sneaking through tunnels?"  

"The old fashioned way, yes."  They shared a look for a moment, one from the past.  "And since I will not marry her, she's left and taken him with her."

"Congratulations?"

"Thanks."  His tone was flat.  His head raised and it's not pretty.  There is pain in is eyes that goes well beyond anything she's seen before, anything she has ever done to him.  "She's chosen his career already.  He'll be sent to officer's school in Prantz."

Tyra tried to smile sympathetically, though it comes across strangely, like she was forcing it, or perhaps not used to it.

Andrew looked away for a moment.  "To answer your other question, Chanynce died defending Hilm from the final Cult attack."  He paused for a grave moment.   "The one Molvarien led."

"He died with honor and bravery, then."  She nods a bit, this feeling seeming more genuine, more familiar.  "How is Daniella?"

"I have not seen her."

"How's Tyrian?"  She almost thought he was avoiding the questions.

"We didn't speak when I got to Hilm.  I don't know but I wrote her a letter. I've been at the Buckle, working with a young lady apprentice and trying to - trying to convince Thalia to let me be in my son's life, and failing."  He paused, thinking about his life.  "Failed."

"Must be hard for her, an Elf losing her son so young. . .   respectively."

"Tell me about your son.  Like, the whole story..."   She rubs her arms as she talks, fidgeting.

"Tyra, please, no."  He spoke so soflty she barely heard him.  "That's more pain than I want to remember right now."

"Well, why did she bring him to you if she was going to just take him away?"

Andrew winced like he had been stabbed.   "She wanted me to marry her.  She - I can't talk about this." He turned his head away, with a tear already loose. Elohanna listened quietly trying to contain her own emotions, while Andrew rubbed and wiped his face clear of tears.

A strange mix of expressions crossed the wannabe Dreadblades face.

"I know I shouldn't ask this but. . .  Do you want me to get him . .  for. . . . . you . . ."  As she was finishing the sentence, she realized she should have taken her own advice.

The Songman's response was whispered.  "No.  Do you think that is a good idea?"

"No . . .  But it might make you happy. . ."  She chewed her lip.  "Nevermind. . .  Thinking like this is what got me here..."

"Exactly."  Tyra thought she saw a smirk on his face.  She felt she had to offer, at least.  "Besides," she started, not thinking about what she was about to say, "my record of jobs involving children is rather ugly..."  She clapped her hands over her mouth when she realized how that sounded.

Andrew, mercifully, seemed to not hear her.  "I believe that Arkolio might be convinced to take your properties here in Vehl in escrow while you are in jail."

Just what she wanted to hear.  "And?" was all she could muster in response.

"You should send him a letter, if you want to keep them for the future."

"Tyra you need to stop fixing everyone else, and fix yourself."  Her Elf-Aunt's words were spoken softly and  gently but with a tremendous amount of truth.  Andrew just nodded his agreement.

"What's the point of saving them?  Is anyone else going to
want to work with me after this?  I may even be exiled, if not sealed away forever."

"That sounds like justification."

"Huh?"

"For future actions.  "What's the point, nothing will work out anyway"."  She found this habit hard to break . . .

She opened her mouth, then closed it.  "I don't get it . . ."  Almost as hard to break as her stone-encased head.

Andrew became stoic.  "You are creating legitimacy for poor behavior based on past assumptions.  Instead of thinking of what your path forward is."

"Honestly, all I know that I want to do if they let me go is to get away from this kingdom."

Andrew kept talking over Tyra.  "The point of saving them, if it were me in there, is to use them for something good - or at least, something useful.  Storing materials gathered to help rebuild Kuhl, for example."

"Would getting away from this kingdom change anything about why you are here?"  The area about her cell was beginning to become a chorus of voices.  Andrew had another nod for Elly, and a smile for her.

"Maybe.  I mean, I've grown so hateful of the corruption I see here that I think it's corrupted me, too.  I mean, I hurt people just because they were criminals.  Like, blanket prejudice.  "You are a criminal, I hurt you.""

"Now you are just plan making excuses Tyra, corruption exists everywhere."

"Yeah but. . .  It's not like it is here in Brelin or Trelania.  Sure, it exists but. . .  Co'rys?  Come on, Elohanna..."  The truth of the matter, at least according to Tyra, had been brought forth finally.  "This place is a huge swamp!  It's full of muck and mire and snakes. . .  Literally and figuratively."  Tyra frowned at the end.   And I've sunk in it. . ."

"And because it is a swamp you go after people who you have no business judging?   Elohanna The land did not create your situation child, you did."

Andrew uttered soflty, as if to himself.  "She's not ready yet."

"How is getting away from here not a good step for me?"  It made sense to her.  Why did no one agree?  Did no one else see it her way?  Was it even how she saw it, in reality?

"Running away is not a good step.  Face those you hurt.  Face those who have reasons to distrust you."

"I'm not running away.  If I were I would not have let myself land -here-."  The woman rubbed her forehead.  "I just want to go see someplace else.,  See how people live in a land not run by greedy lords.  I mean, dammit."  She growled in frustration.  She felt as if everyone had lost all faith in her.  And at the same time, she was sure it was deserved.

"In that case, Hilm could use some help, when you get out.  They've got a bit of rebuilding to do.  Thousands and thousands of dead to burn or bury."  Elohanna and Andrew frowned at the thought.

Tyra became nervous at the thought.  Suddenly the idea of leaving behind what she was doing in Co'rys was a real possibility, and some part of her was not ready to move on.  Some part of her wanted to go right back to work, doing exactly as she had been.  A part of her wanted nothing more to see her hands covered in the blood of -  NO! she blinked and her eyes shoot down to her hands.  They were clean.

Andrew and Elohanna exchanged glanaces for a moment, before the bard continued.  "Three countries to sort out.  And without much if any corruption - Toranites are good like that."

"Well I can see what my hands can do."  She went back to staring at her hands.   "I mean. . .  I can see what I can create, instead of destroy. . ."  Build, she thought.  What can I build?

Elohanna chewed on her lip, unsure if she wanted to say something but unsure of her own words.

"Look, my hands have brought a lot of pain, and plenty of death.  Putting them toward creating would be good."

"Why I suggested it."  The bard barely smirked.

"Well you always were wiser than me, Andrew."

"Not...by much."

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Two letters arrive for Tyra in the Fort Vehl  prison.  Their date stamp indicates that one was sent well in advance of  the other but they are both delivered to her cell at the same time.   Both have been opened, the contents checked and re-stuffed into the  envelopes.
 
The first letter is from Tyr'riel.  The child's block handwriting is  gone.  She would not recognize it now if not for his signature; he  writes in elven script with a steady hand that shows a lack of patience  with flowing curlicues and seeks to keep the lettering as concise as  possible.
 
 
Mother
 
Dad told me where you were and said you'd done some things that you  meant to turn out good but turned out bad instead.  He told me to ask  you directly so I'm asking.
 
Why are you in jail?  Why weren't you there to meet me?  
 
I'm pretty mad at you right now.
 
 
Ty
 
 
 The second letter isn't a letter and has no note and  no signature.  There is one sheet in the yellow parchment envelope, a  sketch, smudged by clumsier fingers than the artist's.  It is only the  second drawing he's ever given her.
 
The young man in the sketch seems on the very cusp of child to man.   Black hair retaining the fineness of youth is cut short above the ears.   The jaw is starting to square, the cheekbones more prominent, yet some  baby fat still softens them.  The eyes are heavy-lashed and dark, with  the same epicanthic fold as his father's but double-lidded instead of  Andrew's single lids.  All in all the boy's face would be serviceably  attractive if it were not for the fine mesh of faded pox marks forming a  craggy landscape.  
 
The sketch cuts off at the shoulders which seem to promise a robust musculature even now.
//Thanks RollinsCat

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

They let Tyra keep the letter in her cell, mostly due to the fact it was harmless and without contraband, and partly because she asked them so nicely.  "Please, it is from my son.  Let me keep it?"  Even the guard she hated left it, and the drawing it contained, be when he did one of his random searches.  He even returned with due haste when she asked for ink and parchment, and with the quill she forgot to ask for.

It was late in the night by the time she finished.  The guards bothered her little, though they did come by to see if she was done, and do visual inspections.  The Guard She Hated did come in and demand to read her letter, mid sentence, but he handed it back after what Tyra could tell was the first sentence.  She had no secret plans to escape in it, regardless of what the Guard thought.  Bared it all to her son.  How she heard of the kidnapping of a merchant's baby daughter, and how she ran to an informant in Vehl to learn things as soon as she could.  She told how she bullied a pitiful runt of a man in to giving up the kidnapper's name, and how after 'trying' to avoid detection in order to learn things, she had to face the kidnapper and his friends openly, and how one of them tried to kill her.  She told him how she then cut the man's hand off at the wrist when, after she revived him from death, he reached for his sword, and after she had already pinned his hand to the floor with her sword.  She told how she let herself be misled and nearly killed an innocent man and his wife and child.  How she let herself be 'caught,' but lied to the Rofireinites who found her tending to the man she harmed.  She told him how she found the kidnapper again and tortured him for more information, and then used an innkeep to uncover the mastermind.  How she was outmatched by the mastermind and started an hour of terror by racing around the city, ultimately confronting the kidnapper a third and final time.  She told him how the man attacked her in a frenzy of anger because of her torturing him, and her having to kill him to defend herself.  She told him how she threatened a simple deckhand to find the mastermind at last, and how she viciously slashed the elf across the chest, after carelessly ripping the child out of the elf's hands, dislocating the babe's shoulder.  She told him of her underwater escape and her eventual confession to Daniel Benjamin Peotr.  She told him the truth, even the few trivial truths she neglected to tell Daniel.

She did not write the word 'sorry.'  Not once.  Instead she just apologized as sincerely as she could.  To Tyra, 'sorry' had become a safe word to excuse her behavior and then continue doing it.  It was something that meant nothing to those she said it to.  She knew that she could not behave the way she did before: with arrogance and self righteousness; with impulse and violence.  Tyra had to do as Jennara suggested:  "Be honest with yourself."  

At the end, she told him what she had wanted to do, while admitting to what she had done.  She had murdered and tortured and lied and threatened and wounded, where she had intended just to rescue.  She caused more pain than she relieved.  She wished she could go back, undo the harm and do it 'right,' but she admitted to the fact that without her incarceration, she would not have 'seen the light,' and she would have done the same things, or worse things.  Or better things.  She knew she had the potential, but she had squandered it for so long.  But she did not put that in the letter.  She would put that in action, and show people she was not the monster she had become for a night.

When she finished, she asked a guard for a candle, and they let her seal the letter.  She scratched a T into the wax before it was solid, her improvised seal, before she returned the ink and quill to the guards.  Looking out the window as she walked back to her cot, she saw The Gold's Eye, feeling it looking down on her.  She wondered if he would see her walk free ever again, or if he would be watching her rot in a cell forever.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

By now, Tyra's cell had a new bed of hay across the floor, and even a less uncomfortable cot to sleep on.  They even gave her a chance to bathe.  Now the only stench came from the other cells, but she still felt disgusting.  It had been almost two years of waiting before Tyra heard word of what her sentence would be for committing what amounted to five counts of assault, one count of manslaughter, and another count of aiding the escape of a fugitive.  She was to be released in a years time, her sentence of three years in jail having been allowed to account for the time already served, two of 'her' properties in Co'rys were to be seized, and she was to be beheaded.  Knowing she was finally to be punished did not make her feel any better about what she had done, however.  Now each day was a countdown to the next, a countdown to a date with the head-man.  The only 'solace' came from the fact the Rofireinites were the ones punishing her, not the Vehl authorities.  She had heard that some wanted her drawn and quartered over hurting that little girl.  She found herself praying to the Gods for the first time in ages, though it was mostly to Rofirein, and mostly for the headman to kill her with one swing.

She wondered if they were going to let her return to life at a bindstone after, or if they would make sure she stayed dead.  She did not have the heart to ask, for fear of cluing someone in that she was nearly 'immortal.'  Instead she looked forward to redeeming herself, but mostly, she looked forward to seeing her son.