#mostly ty centered

The audience of students from all four kingdoms began to disperse once Headmaster Celestia had finished her speech. Ty was still staring at the stage in awe as Celestia walked away from the microphone, each stride as sophisticated as her words.

Maybe one day Ty could hold herself like that.

“Whoops!” Condor leaned over and gently pushed up Ty’s chin. “Your mouth fell open there! Careful, the flies are going to smell your breakfast and come in to make a family!”

“That is quite the disturbing picture, Condor,” Rune frowned but it was a thoughtful expression more than it was perturbed. “It’s impressive.”

“Ah, maybe we watch too many scary shows at night.” Tannim said, glancing around the auditorium.

“Or Ty is rubbing off on you.” Rune suggested and Condor seemed overjoyed by the notion.

“Rub rub rub!” Condor began smushing and squishing Ty’s cheeks at high velocity, giggling along with her partner’s squeaks.

But soon, the four realized that they were quickly becoming the only ones standing around the middle of the room. Everyone else had spread out to inspect the job listings on the holographic screens at the edges of the auditorium.

“Well, leader,” Rune crossed his arms, briefly watching Ash and his team wander towards the listing for escort missions. “Shall we find a Hunter or Huntress to shadow before we get stuck with sentry support?”

“Ooh, I’m going to fall asleep if we have to wall watch,” Condor said, saluting the absent city sentries. “To those of you bravely hiding your snores for the safety of our Kingdom, we salute ye!”

“Aw, they see more action than that.” Tannim patted Condor’s shoulder. “But I guess the less action the better.”

“Hmm,” Ty, cheeks still ruddy from the playful assault, became pensive. There had been something on her mind that made jokes feel way flatter than they actually were. “Can we check the listings for criminal investigation?”

The suggestion caught her teammates’ attentions.

“When Hunters and Huntresses are involved, I’d call that job akin to bounty hunting,” Rune commented, finding Ty’s proposal to be oddly specific. “I suppose we’ve been hunting more criminals than Grim as of late.”

“Doing what we’ve been doing best. Not a bad idea, Ty.” Tannim beamed and Condor raised her leg, resting her heel on Tannim’s shoulder as she did a standing split.

“And we can show off our stuff!” Condor flexed, imitating their guest lecturer’s smirk. In all likeliness, Zhoom would be the Hunter they’d shadow if they decided on that field trip.

“There’s something I’d like to check there too.” Ty spoke and midway through her sentence, she had started to walk towards the sign-up are for criminal investigations. Somewhat puzzled at her behavior, the rest of Team CTTR followed suit.

The sign-up interface was more complicated than many of the other enlistment options available to the students. Not only were locations listed but the names and bios of the crooks on the run were displayed as well.

“They’ve got the cream of the crop!” Tannim exclaimed, catching sight of high risk profiles on the record that Ty was scrolling through. There was the terrorist Vayle, the renegade known as Frostscythe, even Xan who he had faced down in town months ago.

“More like the scum gathering at the underside of the barrel,” Rune said, watching Ty’s finger hover over Drakath’s profile. “Though you are right? Why would they offer these jobs to students? Is there a shortage of hunters?”

Then, Ty toggled the screen to another profile.

It was that of a woman, or what could barely pass for a woman. The scruffs of her hair were what could be called a pale and sickly blonde. Rotten, sundried hay was more pleasant to look at and that was her best feature. The rest of her face was marred but not from scars or bruises. The woman’s features were straight out of a history book from the chapter where people thought that alcohol couldn’t hurt fetuses.

“There she is,” Ty sighed, touching her own face. There was a touch of melancholy that got Tannim and Rune to tear their eyes from the bile inducing visage. “Huh, they haven’t updated her picture.”

“Yuck! Who is that? What is that?” Condor exclaimed, shielding her eyes from the sight. She almost yelled ‘can humans actually look that scary?’ but yikes, that would give her away! “Who is she?” The huntress-in-training squinted at the criminal’s bio. “A pro-li-fic assassin?” Condor sounded out the words. “Well, that face is killer.” Condor elbowed Ty, waiting for a follow up.

“Yeah, mom did have that way about her.” Ty made a smile but it wasn’t happy. It wasn’t exactly sad either but it was there.

Ty’s response didn’t exactly register with Tannim and Condor until Rune spoke up.

“Is it wise to speak of out in the open?” Rune raised a brow and Tannim clenched his teeth to keep from spitting out anything that might accidentally make Ty sad.

“No. Nope, it’s not smart at all but no one’s around,” Ty clasped her hand behind her back, glancing from side to side to find her fellow students engrossed in their own interests. “I just wanted to see if they were still searching for her is all.”

Tannim and Rune held their silence, scrutinizing the profile again. The woman looked nothing like Ty at first glance but then that stare caught them. It was a gaze that could bore holes into steel from miles away and colder than any winter imaginable. They could see a hell in that woman and the demons inside looked back. The duo saw that before they noticed her eyes were the same ice blue as Ty’s.

“Your…real mother?” Tannim asked, hyper aware of the chatters of his peers in the background.

Ty couldn’t properly answer Tannim’s question. She was too busy dwelling on how this was probably the worst idea ever but then, Condor got to her.

“I’m sorry!” Condor crushed Ty’s face into her chest with a hug. She had lifted her partner right off of the ground and was suffocating her with love. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! But that’s dumb, even if I didn’t know I shouldn’t have said mean things!”

Being plopped back on her feet, Ty gasped for air, clutching her neck. She was about to get a word out but Condor grabbed her shoulders.

“We’ll find your mom!” Condor declared, tears stinging the corner of her eyes. “We’ll find your mom! And have a mom lunch! And have a mom outing at the beach! And then we could convince her to do some jail time and she’ll be out with you before you know it!”

Rune was about to say something about how a political assassin with a victim list in the triple digits was not going to see jail time but refrained.

“Um! Condor!” Ty bit her cheek for a moment, averting her eyes from her partner’s sincere concern. Oddly enough, her throat felt dry and so were her eyes. “We…we can’t do that.”

“She’s your mom! She loves you!” Condor argued. All moms loved their kids. That was the way humans worked. “She’ll listen for sure!”

“I meant…we can’t catch her. No one can.” Ty murmured. “She’s dead.”

Another uneasy silence fell over the crew.

“It’s been years since my mom’s done anything and they’re still looking for her,” Ty laughed, glancing at her mother’s picture again. It was the first time she’s seen her mom since her death. “I feel like I should tell somebody but then they’re going to ask for proof, there’s going to be tons of paperwork, a lot of nasty back talk, the works. But it’s not like she’s going to do anything again so can we just—“ Ty turned back to her team. “—let that get sorted on its own?”

Seeing that Ty was uncomfortable, Condor stepped back and let her arms fall at her sides. At a loss of what to say, Tannim went to touch the interface but retracted his arm, thinking twice.

“Yeah, let’s track someone who’s actually worth our time,” Ty scrolled back up the convict list. “There are lots of crooks near home.”

“Hmm, I have more of a mood for search and destroy.” Rune began to walk, leaving no room for arguments.  

“That’s an idea.” Ty responded rather quickly and trailed after Rune. Tannim followed suit but Condor stood back.

Taking out her phone, Condor used the only feature she knew how to work. Going back to the profile of Ty’s mother, Condor took a picture of the woman, scrolled away to another bio, and rushed back to her team.

“It’s been way too long since we had a good round of Grim busting,” Ty remarked, watching Rune handle the sign up. Tannim was practically glued to her side but Ty didn’t want to point it out. “Good thinking, Rune.”

Condor grabbed her hand then, squeezing it.

“Hey!” Ty’s tone was unusually high and it was hard for her to look Condor in the eye. “What was the hold up?”