Ty

Dear Imena,

Smart, quick, determined, hard working, and strong. That's what made Ty a great general. Though he had very little military experience, we worked well together and the soldiers liked him, which I feel is what led to our successes.

Not only was he a great general, but he was a great person as well. He was charming, funny, honest, and had no shame. After long and difficult battles, he would entertain the soldiers on the sick bay with stories. Most of his stories were made up, but they held some truth. But whether they were true or not didn't matter, they were funny, and they took your mind off of your wounds and the war that loomed over us all.

I remember the day fairly clear, it was the first of September. A large group of Andrew's followers attacked defenseless humans in Rome, just outside of the Colosseum.

I got the call from Ty, and met him and our soldiers there. After the fighting was over, we managed to capture two members of Andrew's group and arrest them. While the wounded were being tended to, one soldier asked if Ty had a girlfriend.

"Oh, so because I'm young and handsome I have to have a girlfriend?" Ty laughed, "No, I don't have a girlfriend. I'm actually not into girls."

The soldiers looked at him quizzically. Even I glanced at him, curious. Romance and relationships isn't exactly what you look at when you're hiring someone, so I didn't know anything about Ty when it came to those subjects.

But Ty lived for moments of curiosity from a crowd like that, so he took advantage of it.

"Would you like to know why?" he asked.

"Yes!" The soldiers exclaimed.

"Alright," Ty said looking down. As he lifted his head, he dramatically said, "It all started several years ago... I was fresh out of Academy, ready to start my life as a technical hybrid adult. But then I met her. Now, she was very pretty, very sweet, all those nice things. But you know what her one flaw was?"

He paused and looked around the crowd of soldiers before continuing.

"She wasn't a boy!" he laughed, and the soldiers laughed with him.

"In all seriousness, I've just never been into girls. It's that's simple. But thank you all for playing along with my theatrics. I have a lot of fun." Ty said. Then he bowed to the applause of the soldiers, grinned, and walked off.

I watched as he walked away, the I grabbed a couple bottles of water and walked over to him. When I found him again, he was sitting at the top of the Colosseum, and I flew up there to meet him.

"Mind if I sit with you?" I asked him.

"No, not at all." he said, and I handed him a bottle of water.

We sat there for a moment, drinking our water. He was the first to say something.

"Well, I doubt you're here to express your love for me after that little story time a minute ago, so what brought you up here?"

"I can't just want to bring my general some water and sit with him for a moment?" I asked, smiling.

"Of course you can, Miss Rose." he smiled, "Anytime."

I looked off to the opposite side of the Colosseum, my eyes running over the beautiful ruins that were left over from a dark past.

"It's crazy, you know. This place used to be filled with so many people who would love to come and watch very unfortunate people fight. It was very gory. Call me soft, but I don't think I could've handled watching it. I would have thrown up." Ty remarked, and I laughed at him.

After we had been quiet for a moment, Ty asked,

"Why do you think this place looks so beautiful when we know about all the awful things that happened here?"

I thought about it for a moment.

"Maybe it's not so much the Colosseum that is beautiful, but what it symbolizes. Think about it, this place has a dark past, but look where Rome is now. It's bloomed into this beautiful city with so many good people. That's not to say there aren't bad people and bad things don't happen here, but things have become more peaceful." I paused.

"Maybe this place is beautiful because even though there's a bad history here, good prevailed and ultimately led to something beautiful and good." I said.

"Yeah. I like that." Ty said.

- 𝒮. 𝑅𝑜𝓈𝑒