Amber

Chapter 1

Amber. That was Ty Lee's earliest memory.

She'd been perhaps three or four years old, and in a rare display of paternal affection, her father had taken her six sisters and her to the beach.
The sun had glared balefully down from an unhelpfully cloudless sky, and Ty Lee – always the most sensitive to heat amongst her sisters, an unfortunate trait in the often baking Fire Nation – had stumbled a little way from the outsize shared picnic blanket, shin deep in sand that felt hotter than the dragon festival barbeque, little on her childish mind besides the need to find shelter from the relentlessly beating rays.
Plodding clumsily along, her ungainly padding feet a far cry from the petite gymnast's tools they would eventually become, it wasn't long before she tripped.
With a little wail (unnoticed by her father, swamped as he was by the attentions of six identical, bouncy little girls), she fell face first into the sand, pain flaring in her foot.
She blinked grit out of her eyes, and gazed tearfully at whatever had tripped her up. What she saw was almost enough to stop her crying. It was a fist sized lump of some hard, yellowish-orange substance, jagged on one side, as though it had been broken away from a larger piece.
She'd never seen this strange rock before, but that wasn't what caught her attention. It was the insect caught at its centre. Spindly legs curled up around itself, the little thing gave off a strange air of acceptance, as though it had accepted, chosen, even, to be trapped within the honey coloured lump for who knew how long. Like it had wanted to be taken.

A few years passed, and she was nine, standing behind her hastily tidied desk at the back of the class in the row of seven she shared with her sisters. Torn doodles and half finished stories stuck out like rather bland confetti, quickly stuffed into the compartment beneath the writing surface, but in a family of nine in a fairly modest house, to say that Ty Lee's definition of tidy was elastic was putting it lightly.
Sensei Hinata, the terrifying dragon of a woman who ruled the class with poisonous words and a stiff metal-edged metre stick, glowered down the length of the impeccably kempt room (what was the point of a tidy classroom if you still didn't learn anything?), glowering at the seven Ty sisters and their varying degrees of shabbiness, and gave her signature cough.
"Ahem. Today, class, we are greeting a very important new pupil. I expect best behaviour in front of her. Anyone who feels the need to act up will find themselves out of the school before they can say Agni Kai!"
"Some loss." Muttered Ty Lat on Ty Lee's left.
Sensei Hinata beckoned to someone just beyond the doorway, with a wrinkled hand that trembled ever so slightly.
"Class, welcome Fire Princess Azula."
A...girl walked in.
Ty Lee was hesitant to say 'a girl'. Given the freedom of thought and necessary vocabulary, she would probably have said 'the most breathtakingly, terrifyingly beautiful being she had ever laid eyes on'.
Princess Azula was dressed in a simple red mini dress, that somehow only managed to accentuate the aura of pure power that rolled around in invisibly electric blue waves. Her face was thin, but gently featured, with a small nose, large eyes filled with just a little too much cold calculation for her age, a pouty little cherry of a mouth, and silky, carefully combed black hair tied back in a topknot, adorned with a piece of red metal in the shape of the Fire Nation symbol.

Trembling slightly, Ty Lee performed the customary bow along with the class, her eyes not moving as she did so.

She almost fainted when the princess's eyes settled on her.

Azula's eyes slowly traced her slight figure, wandering upwards with no particular haste to lock with her own.

Amber eyes.

Almost all firebenders had orange eyes, everyone knew that. Orange eyes, Seville eyes, magma eyes. But Azula's eyes could only make Ty Lee think of amber, of thick, entrapping tree sap that hardened like stone.
And if Azula's eyes were the amber, Ty Lee knew who was the insect.

Sensei Hinata gave a cringing bow and a sickly smile, and spoke in an unusually soft voice, "Where would you like to sit, your, ah, highness?"
The Princess's eyes glittered. She didn't hesitate, or consider. It was as though her mind had been made up from the start. Her eyes didn't release Ty Lee's as she pointed.
"Her. Next to the girl in pink."

Sensei Hinata blinked, her act of complete servitude forgotten as she glared at Ty Lee like she'd done something wrong (on top of the usual fifty or so accusations of unwonted carefree cheerfulness).
"Her? Ty Lee? With all due respect, Princess, Ty Lee is merely the rather lack standard daughter of a merchant, along with her six sisters. I'm sure there are others more suited to be your workmate. For instance, Kenji there, his father is–"
The Fire Princess broke her gaze with Ty Lee and fixed the teacher with one altogether colder and more condescending.
"Did I ask for a list of the parentage of all the dunces in this excuse for a class? Or did I say I would sit there next to Ty Lee?"

Hinata's smile wavered, and she bowed her assent.
Azula gave a smile as warm as the North pole, and turned away. The gesture was clear. Dismissed.

Ty Lee tried not to hold her breath or blush as the Princess walked over, aware that looking like a tomato would not make a good first impression.

Azula's amber eyes entrapped Ty Lee once again, as the Princess slowly lowered herself into the seat.
Ty Lee found that everything, the murmur of the other students, the inane wittering of  Hinata, all became background hum as her eyes were locked with Azula's.
"Ty Lee?"
Ty Lee started. Azula had spoken, presumably confirming her name. Ty Lee nodded, not trusting herself to speak yet.
She considered hugging the princess – that was how she usually greeted friends, new or old – but found the thought of touching the skin that radiated such power terrifying. She settled for a handshake, extending her arm tentatively towards the princess.
Azula grasped Ty Lee's hand with her own, rather tighter than necessary, and held it up between them, the same way Ty Lee had seen her father's business partners hold up signed contracts between themselves.
She half wanted to pull away, but once again, was lost in the amber of Azula's eyes.

"You're my friend now. Maybe I won't burn down this dump, for your sake."

And here we have the first chapter of my Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction! I will alternate between writing this and my other story, and to be honest may just write whichever I feel like.