Beatenberg
••• Stamina •••

why is so hard to go from one thing into another?
do you imagine your condition worse than it is?
do you compare yourself to figures of mythology?
your metamorphosis must be close at hand

•••••

TW: blood, mentions of vomit

The monastery's roof was disguised by the starless night and hidden amongst the dark canopy of the forest below us. I hadn't known we'd arrived until Lloyd's dragon began to descend.

I was quiet as I held tight to the saddle's pommel before me. I could feel the blood dripping from my ears and nose, but I respected the height we were flying at too much to tempt fate and wipe at them. Not that Fate would let me die, probably. It seemed that I was shackled by it just as much as Lloyd was.

I suppose my insecurities can't hit me with the 'you're a faker' line anymore, if these powers are anything to go by.

That was a relief, I guess, but it was vastly overshadowed by the pounding migraine living behind my eyes. It took everything in me not to keel over the saddle and pass out. I could at least have the dignity to do that on solid ground, thank you very much.

  The dragon landed with a quiet crunch of gravel and a shake of its head, leaving a trail of glowing mist to disperse into the air like green stars. The forest was silent, I noticed, while taking in the monastery at three in the morning. Usually I could hear all kinds of critters and summer insects. Now all I could hear was the faint rustle of leaves and the occasional hoot of a morepork. I couldn't decide whether I liked this extra-quiet scene or found it disarming.

  Lloyd helped me down from the saddle and a pained whimper escaped me when my already-raw feet touched the stones. He looked down at them and sighed. "Oh, sunshine."

  "Everything hurts," I murmured. His dragon nudged my elbow with a grumble before promptly disappearing while Lloyd scooped me up to save my scraped toes. "Is this normal for prophecies? Is being controlled like that normal?"

  At Lloyd's uncomfortable silence, I dryly sobbed in defeat and tucked my head under his chin. Great - I definitely wasn't a faker but I was still a huge mess either way. I hoped I wasn't getting blood on his gi. Then I realised that it was already tattered and bloodied, anyway. Actually, how hurt was he?

  "We'll sort it out," Lloyd promised as he ascended the stairs to the entrance. "We've dealt with worse things."

  "I was having such a nice sleep, too," I said quietly.

  Lloyd's responding chuckle was dry and sympathetic, but he didn't say anything further. He wasn't talking much at all since my weird power dome thing, and it made me uneasy. He'd been serious around me before, fully immersing himself into his role as the Green Ninja - but even then he spoke more. His near-silence was unnerving.

  Worry pooled in my gut as a million and one different worries cascaded through my mind. Lloyd dealt with weird fate shit all the time, but what if this was even weirder? It was definitely dangerous. Anything could've happened to me on the streets while I was walking through them alone - though, I suppose I did have some kind of natural defence according to Cole. But it was the principle of the matter that still frightened me.

  And what about the migraine that was still peeling at my brain? Was it some kind of consequence from using my powers? Did I have to suffer in order for them to work? How did I even make them work in the first place? It was more like they controlled me rather than I knew how to use them, which was unhelpful in so many different ways. And painful. I could barely keep my eyes open.

No wonder why Lloyd was silent. This entire situation was a lot messier than either of us thought.

"You still keeping track of how many times you catch me nearly injuring myself?" I asked in a pitiful attempt to lighten the mood. The halls of the monastery, usually bustling with monks, was dead. Everyone was asleep. "Or does this count as me catching you in time?"

Lloyd huffed just slightly in amusement. He turned to the med-bay and set me down on a gurney, before quickly rifling through the supplies beneath the bench. It gave me the first opportunity to really take in his own damage from the fight and a startled fear wove its way up my throat. Was that amount of damage normal for him?

"Hey-"

Lloyd cut me off when he returned with a new pack of tissues, already frantically pulling them out for me to catch the blood with. I took them gratefully, though kept my eyes on him. He was limping slightly, his gi torn in places and stained darker with wet blood. I could smell it in the air - dry rust, sickeningly sweet. Or maybe that was my own blood in my nose.

"You started bleeding from your nose and ears," Lloyd noted. He turned back to a shelf and wrangled out some ointment which I presumed was for my injured feet.

"I know, but Lloyd-"

"That's not normal for you, right?" he continued. His voice was pitched a touch too high, words spoken so fast they slurred into one another. "You don't usually get nosebleeds? Do you have any other symptoms?"

I recognised his panic and reached forward to grab his shoulder. My migraine could wait. Or, at least, I forced it to wait. Migraines voluntarily waited for nobody.

"Lloyd." I said his name lowly, demanding and gentle. He stopped and caught my gaze and I softened. The poor guy looked so frazzled. "Have you seen yourself? I can wait. Patch yourself up first."

Lloyd looked down at himself and seemed to notice the damage for the first time. He exhaled through his nose and slowly placed the pot of ointment next to me on the gurney.

"Are you distracting yourself from what happened by trying to look after me?" Lloyd asked, a crooked half-smile in place.

"Are you?"

His half-smile fell. Bullseye. "... maybe."

  A small pile of bloodied tissues grew beside me. A knock on the medbay entrance stole our attention and we looked up, finding Garmadon at the door. His green eyes jumped between us in concern.

  "I heard a commotion."

  "Sorry for waking you," Lloyd said. He glanced at me. "We had a... interesting development."

  Interesting was one word for it, for sure. Terrifying would be my personal pick. Garmadon noticed the dried blood in my ears and staining my cupid's bow and frowned, concern deepening. He entered the medbay.

  "What kind of development?"

  Lloyd's shoulders ran tense. "The kind you won't tell us about."

Garmadon gave a weary sigh. "Lloyd-"

Lloyd raised his palms in defeat and Garmadon cut himself off with an unhappy frown. I looked away uncomfortably. Family drama in the medical bay. Woo. It was like I was on the show Naked and Afraid except I was Sore and Embarrassed.

  This was just as bad as when Naomi got in trouble with her parents when I was over, except this was worse, because if I tried to make a sneaky getaway I was definitely going to pass out. And probably not be all that sneaky to the two men with supersonic hearing.

  Speaking of, my headache was gradually getting worse and I feared I'd get to the spot where I'd start throwing up until my stomach was empty, and then throw up some more. Garmadon noticed the clammy grimace I gave when a twist of nausea settled in my stomach.

  "Oh, my child," he began sympathetically, "I assume this was an unexpected outcome from using your powers?"

  I nodded meekly. Lloyd turned to the bench and began dolefully picking through the boxes to start finding supplies for his own wounds. Garmadon gently placed the back of his hand against my forehead and hummed disapprovingly.

"You're feverish," he concluded.

  "I am?" I asked and then, with almost comedic timing, an uncomfortable shiver brushed over my skin. "I think I'm getting a migraine."

  "We have something for that," Garmadon reassured. "Lloyd?"

  Lloyd grunted in response. He didn't look up, and it made Garmadon sigh again. The disgruntled energy made me nervously shift. Mum and I fought on the occasion, but even that wasn't like this - like a bomb was about to explode, and every breath was bated with trepidation.

  Lloyd caught my lingering gaze as he pressed some dried leaves into my palm and offered only a weak smile. He elaborated upon my questioning look at the leaves. "Feverfew. It won't stop the pain of a migraine but it'll make it shorter."

  "Oh." I chewed and swallowed the leaves with a grimace. "Do you only use herbal remedies here?"

  "Only the ones that are more effective than commercially produced drugs," Garmadon answered after he handed me a piece of willow bark. I stifled a sigh upon seeing the familiar snippet and prepared myself for the bitter aftertaste. "It is also simply tradition."

  Lloyd refused to meet his dad's gaze after he said that, and I assumed a double entendre sat behind the Sensei's words. Garmadon exhaled through his nose and turned back to me. I barely had time to smoothen out my contorted face from the aftertaste before he did.

  "You should get home before your mother worries," Garmadon said gently. "Rest. We will talk with Misako and Wu tomorrow about your powers."

  Lloyd mumbled something under his breath that I didn't quite catch. The tightening of Garmadon's frown told me he did, even without the prior knowledge of their superior hearing. I took the opportunity to escape back to my bed with an eager nod.

  The rest of the team wandered in just as Garmadon departed. The ninja tried their best not to stare at me while I waited for Lloyd to finish bandaging his wounds, they really did, but failed spectacularly. I kept catching Cole or Kai watching me curiously before quickly snapping their gaze away when I met them.

  I sighed softly. The last thing I wanted to do was make them uncomfortable, or do something to make me not fit in even more than I already did. Their heavy eyes built a gap between us.

  "Y/n," Kai called my name, voice soft with sincere concern. I looked up at him. He watched me, knicked brows knotted together with worry. "You okay?"

  I was exhausted and on the verge of falling over sideways and passing out right on the gurney, but I managed a small nod. It wasn't convincing in the slightest but, bless Kai's heart, he didn't push. He nodded too and went back to dressing his wounds. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

  Lloyd was ready to go a few minutes later and I sheepishly thanked him for giving me a lift home on his dragon despite his exhaustion and the early hour of the morning. His responding smile was small and warm.

  "Is everything okay between you and your dad?" I managed to bring up the confidence to ask as we walked through the quiet halls. "Things looked... tense."

  "Yeah," Lloyd sighed. "Just don't like being kept in the dark, y'know? It'd be nice to know-" he stopped himself short and glanced at me. "Aren't you frustrated? You're the one who's getting into danger."

  A small shrug was my answer. "I don't really know anything about your side of the world. I'm just trying to trust them."

   Lloyd gave a resigned sigh. "I suppose that's the best we can do." He picked up my hand and pressed my knuckles against his lips. "How are you doing?"

"I'm shaken and I feel like I've been run over by a truck," I replied honestly, exhaustion apparent. Lloyd smiled in amused sympathy against my hand.

I wondered if any of the others experienced this with their powers - mind control, bleeding orifices, migraines. The looks they kept sending me told me they hadn't, and my heart sunk. I watched as Lloyd summoned his dragon for the trip home and scratched its muzzle when it nudged me for attention.

"Hey," I began timidly when Lloyd turned to me. The moonlight coloured his golden hair silver. "Am... am I a freak?"

The look Lloyd sent me was so bewildered that if I were in a better mood, I would've burst out in laughter.

  "I'm the descendant of the guy who created this world and you're asking if you're a freak?" Lloyd exclaimed. "You remember I have eyes that turn red, right?"

I smiled slightly at his attempt of reassurance. "You know what I mean. The mind control stuff. The pain."

Lloyd's expression morphed into something a little more serious. He took a step towards me and held my shoulders, staring me down with his intense green eyes - eyes that told me to believe him no matter what words he was about to say.

"Sunshine, I think you're focusing a bit too much on the negatives," he said softly. "If you weren't there tonight, my team-" his voice caught and he cleared his throat. "My team might not have made it out. We all managed to walk away from that fight because of you."

I fell silent. I hadn't considered it that way. Lloyd's elemental dragon rumbled a purr from his throat and tapped his nose against my fingers for pats.

"They were low level crooks," Lloyd continued. "They shouldn't have had access to that kinda firepower. I- I got careless. You saved us, so... don't think badly about yourself." His hands raised to cradle my cheeks. "Promise me you won't think badly about yourself."

That's a lot easier said than done. But Lloyd was right. I nodded, and he sighed contently through his nose before hoisting me onto the saddle. The flight home was cold and short, but Lloyd warmed my body from where my chest pressed against his back, so it wasn't all bad.

We snuck through the house - Lloyd's footsteps fair more silent than mine - and reached my bedroom. I fell onto my mattress with a sigh and a wince of pain from my headache. Lloyd crouched on the floor beside my head. My eyes wearily found his.

  "Call me when you wake up," he said. His finger absentmindedly curled a lock of my hair. "We'll get through this, you and me. I'm stuck to you like glue. You're not getting rid of me anytime soon."

  I smiled faintly. It faded just as fast. Lloyd's concern deepened and he frowned, head tilting. I wondered if I was easy to read or if Lloyd was just an exceptional reader.

  "You're still upset."

  "I just want to know why it keeps possessing me," I murmured.

Lloyd sighed as he thought of a way to explain things to me. "Powers are... emotions in the purest form, connected in ways most of us don't even understand. They're like having a sixth sense." Lloyd turned to sit, cross legged and stroking the lock of my hair with his thumb. "Take Zane's dragon, for example. Remember when it barged forward to get pats from you? The dragon is conjured from his powers, and the Element of Ice is directly connected to me, and my powers like you, too."

"How do powers like something?" I asked. "They're just... powers."

"How does Kai control fire? How does Skylor absorb powers? I'm not sure," Lloyd confessed with a weak smile. "It might have something to do with souls or other mystical crap like that. It's magic, none of this is scientific; Borg went borderline manic when he scanned-" Lloyd abruptly stopped himself and looked away. "It's probably got something to do with the tugging we feel."

I decided to ignore Lloyd's strange hesitation. "You think the tugging is our souls?"

Lloyd shrugged. "It's the only answer I can think of."

"Oh, jeez." I rolled my head to stare at the ceiling. The crushing reality of it all began to truly set in. "I'm a little too young to be soulfully entwined with someone."

"I dunno." Lloyd reached over to brush his fingertips along my jaw. My gaze flickered to his red eyes, and his voice lowered a touch. "I kinda like it."

My breath caught. "... I suppose it's not so bad."

  Lloyd smirked a little and tapped the end of my nose. "Sleep tight, sunshine. I'll see you tomorrow."

  It was amazing how quickly he could calm me. I smiled at him, the most genuine I'd been all night, and caught his hand to kiss his fingers before he could pull away.

  "G'night."

  Lloyd stroked the backs of his knuckles down my jaw before soundlessly exiting through my window, stealing away into the early dawn. I fell asleep quickly.

  I had nightmares of the bleeding faces and possessed bodies of the Secret Ninja Force, surrounded by a dome the colour of peach that was slowly suffocating us.

🍃🍂🍁🍂🍃

  It rained the next day, so Lloyd picked me up in the old chevy truck that Nya was still working on. The dent in the hood that was previously there had been banged out.

  He arrived sooner than I expected - I woke at midday with a headache that still persisted and drowsy from a fitful sleep, and was still sluggishly eating breakfast in my pyjamas when he knocked on the door.

  "Sorry, Lloyd," my mother apologised as she opened the door for him. He stepped inside, blond hair damp and glistening from the raindrops that caught on his strands. "Y/n's a bit slow this morning."

  I paused my chewing of fruit loops when I noticed the suspicious twinge to Mum's tone. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. How did she know? Was I obvious? Did she read my tells when I slowly poured myself a coffee?

  "That's alright, Mrs. L/n," Lloyd said politely. "It'll give me a chance to dry off."

  I quickly resumed eating when they entered the kitchen. Lloyd met my gaze with a question to his eyes; are you okay? I answered with a weak smile - kind of okay. Sort of doing fine.

  "Would you like something to drink?" Mum asked, ever the perfect host. I heard Lloyd ask for just water as I quickly dunked my dishes in the sink and fled upstairs to change out of my pyjamas. My scraped feet only hurt a little.

  When I bounded back downstairs, pulling a light jacket over myself, I caught my mother and Lloyd engaged in a serious, quiet conversation. I frowned at them. What could they be talking about?

  Lloyd looked my way almost as soon as I turned the corner into the kitchen. He stood. "Ready, gorgeous?"

  My face erupted with heat. "Not in front of my mum."

  "Oh, please," my mother scoffed. "Like I haven't been in your shoes."

  Lloyd chuckled and winked, which only made my blush worsen. I abruptly turned away from them and shoved on a pair of slides while Lloyd said goodbye to my mother in his ultra-polite, 'I am talking to an adult I want to impress' voice. We made a dash through the pouring rain and leapt into his truck.

  The heater rattled like a dice box as Lloyd drove down the wet streets of the city. Traffic was worse, as it always was when the weather was wet, and rock songs played faintly from the bluetooth speaker in the cup holder. The windshield wipers creaked with each swipe across the glass.

  "What were you two talking about?" I finally asked. My eyes watched water roll down the window, silently betting on which one would win. "You weren't telling her about last night, right?"

  Lloyd noticeably faltered. "... no. No."

  My suspicions raised. "You sure?" I sneaked a look at his face and found him watching the road, jaw set and tense.

  "It's nothing you need to worry about," he said. "Promise. Let's just focus on what's ahead."

  I didn't really like that answer, but I let it go. Lloyd seemed pretty determined about not telling me whatever it was they were talking about. Not that I liked letting it go - it was obvious they were talking about me, given the way they'd stopped as soon as I entered the room. I didn't exactly want Lloyd telling my mother about what was going on with me, either. As far as she was concerned, I was still a completely average teenager.

  "Hey," Lloyd said quietly. I titled my head towards him, though didn't let my eyes quit staring at the road. He could probably read my mood like a neon sign. "... you think you were prophesied to hit me with a skateboard?"

  I struggled to stifle the small smile that tugged on the downturned corners of my lips.

  "That's gonna go in the history records, y'know," Lloyd continued in his attempt to lighten the mood. "The Green Ninja of legend, bested by an untrained girl with a skateboard. And then a car."

  A snort escaped me. I held a hand over my nose stubbornly.

  "They're probably writing it down in the scrolls right now," Lloyd said. "'Green Ninja meets his match.'"

  I rolled my eyes. "Please never do stand-up." Despite the jab, my grin was helplessly huge. Lloyd laughed at my expression, and it was coloured with relief. He didn't like tension any more than I did.

  It was misty at the base of the alps where the monastery stood. Somewhere in the long drive through the forest, the rain had stopped, and instead fog mysteriously clung to the trunks of trees and parted around the truck. Something brown and lithe darted away through the murk - a stag.

  "Spooky," I murmured.

  "The top of the alps is where Uchū first set foot in this world," Lloyd explained while he parked the truck. "The weather sometimes gets a little odd around here. Can you feel it?"

  I furrowed my brows as I opened the door. Then it hit me - my chest felt heavy, like it was being weighed down with lead. I felt exhausted and energised all at once. I sent him a puzzled look.

  "Magic," Lloyd answered. He watched me with a small smile. "Good to know you're affected by it, too. Makes powers go a little haywire. Doesn't happen often - only around the solstices."

  "It's the summer solstice tomorrow," I realised. It was the 24th - Christmas Eve.

  "Stay away from Jay," he amusedly warned. "Let's go. They're waiting for us."

  'They' turned out to be Lloyd's parents, Wu, Zane, and a black-haired man in a wheelchair whom I recognised to be Cyrus Borg. Beside him was a robot girl with silver hair tied back in a ponytail and green eyes. They were sitting around the dining table, talking seriously. Cyrus Borg was absentmindedly tinkering a tiny dragon together out of the spare parts of something.

  I paused at the door. "That's Cyrus Borg," I whispered to Lloyd. The man was a modern-day Daedalus, the smartest mind of our generation and any generations before us. I turned my startled gaze to Lloyd's. "Why is Cyrus Borg here?"

  Lloyd shrugged. "He's our sponsor."

  "I know, but- but we're here to talk about me," I said stressfully. The concept of being perceived by the genius who single-handedly sent the world into the high-tech age terrified me.

  "He's helping us keep track of your powers," Lloyd explained. "He's not so scary. He's actually a huge Star Wars nerd. And-" Lloyd looked smug for a second "- he prefers DC over Marvel."

  I slowly shook my head. "You disgust me."

  Lloyd shamelessly snickered and urged me into the room before I could stall any longer. I noticed that Zane's tea before him was frosted over slightly, probably because of the solstice.

  "We're here," Lloyd announced. I stilled when Cyrus Borg looked over and, in my stillness, wondered if I would ever get used to meeting the big-names in Lloyd's life. Lloyd grinned and guided my shellshocked self down to the seat beside him.

  "Good!" Misako said. "Before we start, Lloyd, how are your ears?"

  Lloyd sighed with a smile, as if he'd been asked this all morning. "A little sore, but I'll live."

  Stupor broken, I looked at him. "Your ears are hurt?"

  Lloyd shrugged. "Explosions and super-hearing don't really go hand-in-hand."

  I couldn't believe that thought didn't even cross my mind. My heart sunk with guilt. "Oh, no."

"I'm fine," he assured. "And that's not why we're here. Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Hesitantly, I agreed, and recounted the weird prophecy bits from my entire summer - the tugging that started when I saw Lloyd in the cafe that first day, the uncontrollable mind-control that had me walking into his fights, what Skylor said about how my powers felt old and, finally, the incident from the night before.

Cyrus Borg was a man with an intense gleam to his eyes, as though he were calculating the very make-up of my being. He'd sometimes lean over and speak quietly to the robot girl, who dutifully took notes. I tried not to stare at her, but it was hard. I'd never met an advanced robot that moved so human-like. Actually, scratch that, I'd never met an advanced robot at all.

"This is troubling," Garmadon said. "I thought we would have more time."

"I feel as though I felt the opposite," Wu countered tiredly, as though the world exhausted him. "We knew the prophecy was meant to begin far sooner. Time and the consequences thereof do not correlate exactly in regards to prophecies. They exist outside of chronological order."

"More time for what?" I asked.

"To prepare you," Garmadon answered. "It seems as though your powers have advanced as you aged, but your control over them has not. And now..."

"And now they hurt me," I figured. "Because they're too much for me?"

The adults nodded grimly.

"We had hoped we would have enough time to train you to prepare for your powers before they emerged," Misako said. "Until then, it seems as though your corporeal form and your essence are misbalanced. You are being puppeteered by your own self."

"As if puberty wasn't hard enough," I muttered under my breath. Garmadon, Wu and Lloyd, with their supernatural hearing, stifled amused smiles. I blushed. "Skylor also said my powers were dormant - they're not now, though, are they?"

"Perhaps some of it still is," Wu said. "What you described is only a fraction of your power."

My mind went blank. What?

"A fraction?" Lloyd echoed, sharing my shocked sentiment. "It knocked her out! Anything much more could kill her!"

And with that pleasant thought, my blood turned to ice. I had half a mind to tell Zane to quit it, solstice or not, but I recognised the feeling to be fear, not magic. The ensuing silence only told me that Lloyd's incredulous theory was right.

"Okay," I said shakily. "So, what's the solution. That's what we're here for, right?"

"Yes," Misako said quickly. She couldn't meet my gaze, and it was probably because I looked so terrified that she felt upset. She turned to Cyrus Borg. "Borg?"

Cyrus Borg had been listening but not really listening to the conversation, eyes glazed and hands mindlessly tinkering with something small in a velvet box. The robot girl nudged Cyrus on the shoulder and he blinked with a startle, coming out of his dissociative state.

"Yes? Sorry? Yes?" he said with an awkward cough.

"Show Y/n what we have been working on," Wu encouraged.

"Ah!" Cyrus Borg was suddenly animated, grinning wide and pushing the velvet box across the table towards me. "You are quite the rare case, Y/n L/n! Even rarer than the Elemental Masters themselves!"

Brows furrowed, I pulled the velvet box towards me. Nestled on a silk pillow was a golden dragon pendant with a green gemstone eye, threaded through a black-cord necklace. The cord seemed to have been plaited through with some kind of golden wire. It was beautiful.

"This was originally created to measure your powers and relay it back to the base's system, in case you ever went walk-a-bouts again," Borg quickly explained. "This would give the ninja a warning to retrieve you and return you home. It also detects your mental and physical state, and record what it could be that triggers your powers. However!"

The robot girl quickly placed one of the zabuton pillows on the table just in time for the mad scientist's fists to come down onto it eagerly. I suspected he had a habit of slamming his hands down onto surfaces when he got excited.

"When Garmadon contacted me in the middle of the night about your predicament, I thought to myself 'that is no good!' So, I have upgraded the device to instantly administer a special-grade sedative that will reduce your power output by forty percent!"

Lloyd blinked at him. "Have you slept?"

"No!" Borg cheerily said.

I held out the necklace with a speculative look. "So... it's like a shock collar. Except instead of shocks, it's a sedative."

"Precisely!"

Lloyd noticed the apprehensive look on my face. "You don't have to wear it. We can find another way."

"Can we?" I asked him doubtfully. His lips thinned and he remained silent. I hooked the necklace around me. "It's better than dying, right?" I offered a weak smile, one that was not returned. At least the necklace was pretty.

  "It's connected to our base's computer systems," Misako said, voice twinged with worry. "Any unusual elemental or prophetical activity will alert us and record possible readings."

  "'Elemental activity?'" I echoed cautiously. "I thought you said it wasn't one of the First Spinjitzu Master's?"

  "It's not," Garmadon answered. "But since we are... unsure of what type of powers you possess, comparing your readings to ours is the only option."

  "Oh." So I was effectively a lab rat. Great.

  Lloyd found my hand beneath the table and gave it a supportive squeeze.

"The prophecy was meant to start earlier - with the Overlord, right?" I asked, desperate to change the subject away from my experimental necklace. "But I was living in Jamanakai at the time."

"Er, yes." Garmadon awkwardly cleared his throat. "You moved out of the city because of the... incident."

"I moved out of the city because of an incident regarding the prophecy?" I asked. "That's preposterous. Why go through all that trouble? What even happened?"

The adults looked amongst themselves. Cyrus Borg was no longer paying attention to the conversation, and was instead tinkering on his small dragon creation again. The robot girl watched me with cool eyes.

"Y/n..." Lloyd said quietly, breaking the awkward silence. "I was the incident. When I was young I looked at the prophecy when I shouldn't have and it got set back a few years - it's why no one can read it, now."

I stared at him for a few solid seconds. "Dude."

Lloyd guiltily winced. "I know."

Misako sat up straighter, eyes piercing her son. "How did you find that out? You weren't supposed to know. Uchū told me not to tell you!"

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. "Do you even know what happens in it?"

Lloyd shook his head. "They wiped it from my memory. I only knew it was me because my father told me a few days ago."

"Garmadon!" Misako hissed disapprovingly. Her husband raised his hands in defence.

"He gave me the puppy dog eyes!" he whined. "You try telling him no! Those things are lethal weapons!"

Misako dropped her head into her hands. "Unbelievable," she muttered.

"Anyway." Garmadon was quick to change the subject. His guilty green eyes turned to me. "If this, uh, incident hadn't occurred, you would have unlocked your powers and fought against The Overlord alongside Lloyd."

"When I was fourteen," I said dryly. "Like... a kid. Because I would've been a kid."

"Y/n..." Zane quietly warned, speaking up for the first time.

"No - this has been bothering me for a while." I had no idea where this fire of indignation came from, but I suspect it had been simmering ever since I learnt about how young the ninja were when they began fighting against evil. Maybe the stress of knowing that my powers could kill me made my logic train fall off its track. "If Fate is so pretentious about their stupid prophecies and disrupt everything just because a kid looked at a scroll, why make it about kids in the first place?" I scoffed in disbelief. "Why are they making children fight their battles and then punishing them if they're curious about the battles? It's ridiculous!"

A loud explosion of thunder boomed overhead. I instinctively ducked, eyes wide.

"The Fates don't like to be insulted," Lloyd said, though there was a hint of amusement to his voice. I waited until my heart beat was back to normal before straightening my shirt and clearing my throat.

"Yeah, well, the Fates can stick it," I grumbled.

  Cyrus Borg looked around the table. "Are we finished? I have an expo to get to."

  "Yes, yes," Wu said wearily. "You're excused."

  "Brilliant!" Cyrus Borg nodded to the adults, and then to Lloyd and I. "Hopefully you won't die!" And with that cheery note, his motorised wheelchair left the room with the robot girl hot on his heels.

"I think I will also make my leave," Zane said, before uncharacteristically hurrying from the room.

"It might be a good idea to continue this at a later date," Misako agreed. She sent me a sympathetic smile. "It's a lot to take in." She seemed to hesitate for a second, floundering for words. "I... hope you do not hold this against us. Our hands are shackled just as much as yours."

  I released a weary exhale. "Of course not."

  Lloyd, beside me, was a little more bitter. "I disagree," he said, just quiet enough for me to catch. Wu and Garmadon shifted uncomfortably in their seats. They eventually left to consult the scrolls.

  "Well, in any case, you have a patrol you're late to lead," Misako said, staring directly at her son. Lloyd complied with a quiet nod, but I could tell his anger was bubbling beneath his skin. It spewed from him like an aura - like a spring about to pop. He was angry at himself.

  I guess I should've been angry, too. I had powers that could kill me and I had to be collared like a dog just so they wouldn't. But I couldn't find it in me to be angry. It wasn't as if it was Lloyd's choice to read the scroll. We'd both been punished for it - I was just... punished a little more.

  Misako had an innate mother's sense and could tell that Lloyd wanted to stew things over alone. She smiled fondly at me. "I'll drop you home." 

  "Oh." I glanced at Lloyd, but he seemed a million miles away while getting to his feet. "Okay."

  Lloyd's goodbye was short and distracted. His eyes lingered on the golden dragon that rested beneath my throat as he turned to leave.

  "Heroism never gets any easer," Misako sighed. I looked to her in question. "It's struggle after struggle. But that's what defines a hero, isn't it? To do good even when it feels impossible."

  I nodded. I hadn't ever really thought about the whole good versus evil thing - I'd always considered the world to be varying shades of grey - but meeting the team changed that.

  Misako stood. I followed her out of the monastery and to her car. She stopped me just at the bottom of the entrance's steps, placed a hand on my shoulder.

  "I have a feeling you're going to become a great hero, Y/n."

  I smiled like it was a joke, but it fell away when I realised that Misako was being dead serious. She grinned at me, something secretive, something like she knew even more than she let on, before turning to her car and sliding into the driver's seat.

  I spent the whole drive wondering what she meant.

🍃🍂🍁🍂🍃

Misako insisted that she came inside to meet my mother and since I was dating her son, I couldn't find a reason to say no.

After torturing myself through playing host for an acceptable amount of time while my mother and Misako gossiped over tea and chocolate biscuits, I excused myself and retreated to my bedroom, where I laid on my bed and contemplated the barrage of bombshells that had decimated my Saturday afternoon. My fingers twiddled with my new necklace all the while.

It was a lot to come to terms with. I rested on my pillows while the sun leaked through the window and warmed my legs. My brain filed through the information, comprehending it all into something I could understand.

I knew that Lloyd had made my summer a little less lonely, and a little less boring - but this had me swimming in depths I hadn't expected nor been prepared for. I kept getting pulled beneath the surface.

I held the dragon pendant to the glint. The gold metal shone against the sunlight, blinding me momentarily. The green-jewelled eye looked like a glowing, lush field. Not quite as enchanting as Lloyd's eyes, but close to it.

The pendant dropped back to my chest with a sigh. I hoped Lloyd was okay. The look he had on his face when he left for patrol had burned into the backs of my eyelids - so guilty, so full of self-loathing. I wanted to talk to him, but Misako was right. He needed to deal with this revelation himself before talking with me. I probably needed to deal with it by myself, too.

My eyes closed. Lloyd wasn't kidding. His life was manic.

I was called back down an hour later to bid Misako farewell. I walked her to her car quietly, still sombre beneath the weight of my thoughts and the ache of my head.

"Are you doing okay?" Misako asked when we stopped by her car. "You know you can ask me anything." She stopped, and then backtracked with a rueful, apologetic smile. "Within reason."

I smiled weakly. "I actually have a different kind of question for you, if you don't mind."

"Go for it, honey."

"Are you an Elemental Master?" I asked. It had occurred to me out of the blue that the distinction was never made, and I felt as though this question was easy enough for my overloaded brain to handle. "If you aren't, then how did you find the Elemental Masters when they were in hiding? How did you meet Garmadon?"

"Ah." Misako smiled, and her eyes seemed to hold centuries. "No, I'm not an Elemental Master. But I was granted immortality by Uchū. We met when the world was still young, far before we went into hiding."

I nodded in understanding before abruptly pausing and running her answer through my head again. I stared at her. "I'm... I'm sorry, did you just say immortal?"

Misako looked at me, very genuinely surprised. "Did Lloyd not tell you?"

I struggled to keep my jaw from flopping open. This was actually the worst question to ask, I realised. My brain had been completely blown to bits. He's Jesus. The joke isn't quite as ironic. It's legitimate. He's Jesus.

"Oh, dear," Misako murmured when my gaze grew glossy. "If I had known you were unaware, I would've broken the news a little more softer."

I stared at her owlishly. "How old are you?"

The question would usually be considered rude but Misako just tilted her head in thought. "I lost count after two-thousand."

Holy fuck. I felt the world sway. I had to lean against her car just to stay upright, and she watched me with a worried frown.

"How old is Lloyd?" I asked.

Misako hesitated. "... he is eighteen."

I hung my head with tattered relief. "Thank god. Thank god." I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I'd found out I'd been dating a senior citizen in the skin of a teen.

"Are you-?"

But I cut off Misako's concerned question with a startled laugh. "Oh my god!" I yelped in eureka. "That's why there's so many gaps in the records! It's not that they're missing, it's just that... you're all just immortal."

'Just immortal,' as if it were no more astounding than a Sunday walk. I could feel my rattled brain and my exhaustion ushering on a vague sense of hysteria. I held my face with my hands while my thin laughter died.

  Misako blinked comically. "That's what you're worried about?" she asked, before lowering her voice. "I suppose we are more alike than I assumed."

  Misako left after assuring both herself and I that I hadn't gone completely insane. I watched her car disappear down the street. Rain began to gently fall, soft droplets of water that sunk into the material of my shirt and clung to my hair. I watched the sky for some time. I had never felt so small.

  Lloyd was sitting on the windowsill when I returned to my room. My day had been so bizarre that his arrival didn't even make me bat an eyelid. I stared at him for a few belated seconds as I leant on my door to shut it, and he silently matched my tired eyes. I took a seat on my desk chair and turned it around to face him, crossing my arms.

  Enigma, Zane had said. I thought I knew the depths of what he'd been implying, but I was barely scratching the surface.

  "When were you going to tell me you're immortal?"

  Lloyd winced, though his expression was unsurprised. He probably caught the tail end of my conversation with Misako.

  "I was going to tell you, honest," he said sincerely. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "It's hard to know how to break the news that you're gonna be living a gazillion more lifetimes than everyone else."

  I could barely even process that sentence. "Immortal, Lloyd." I half-heartedly threw an eraser at him, which he glumly caught. "Is there anything else ground-breaking that I should know?"

  Lloyd faltered. His hand with the eraser dropped to his lap, and he still couldn't meet my gaze. "... no."

I dropped my head back with a sigh and closed my eyes. He was lying, of course, but I didn't have the energy to pester. I had a feeling that if I ingested any more information, my brain would implode.

  "I... brought you your Christmas present," Lloyd said quietly. "Since I figured we might not get to see each other tomorrow."

  I peeled my eyes open and watched as Lloyd rose to his feet. He picked up a thin cardboard box from the sill beside him and silently approached before holding it out for me. I took it slowly and slipped the lid off.

  Inside lay an ancient kanzashi - a metal hair pin with an ornate decoration of pink sakura flowers at the end. It was obviously far older than I; the thin spokes were a design choice no longer used in modern versions and the metal had slightly oxidised. It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen.

  "I know you like old stuff, so I asked my mum if there was anything of hers she wouldn't mind giving away." Lloyd managed a small smile. "I guess it's good that you know how old she really is, now. I thought you'd like it better than anything new." His gaze unmistakably dipped to the gleaming pendant around my neck.

  "It's beautiful," I whispered. I gazed at it reverently, afraid to touch the precious object. My dim mood had lifted into something pretty and grateful. "Lloyd, it's perfect, thank you."

  "You should try it on."

  I recoiled from him with a worried look. "But it's so old! What if it breaks?"

  His smile grew a little. His face softened. "It won't break."

  "I don't even know how to put it in."

  "I'll do it for you," Lloyd said patiently. He held out his hand for the kanzashi. "May I?"

  I cautiously picked up the pin and placed it in his hand. Lloyd then turned the desk chair on its stand and spun my locks of hair into a bun. He slid the pin into place.

  "How do you know to do this?" I asked while he adjusted the kanzashi so it would sit perfectly. The gentle tugs of my hair had me blinking in sluggish bliss.

  "Celebrations run a little more traditional than your average party at the monastery. I help Mum out sometimes." When he was satisfied, Lloyd spun the chair back to face him. He glanced at the pin only briefly before focusing instead on my face, lifting a hand to adoringly stroke my cheek. "Beautiful."

  My skin heated beneath his touch. He kissed me slowly, skin only a whisper, featherlight and brief. It still left my head spinning and fingers curling into the armrests. My eyes shut of their own accord.

  "I'm sorry," Lloyd whispered against my lips.

  My brow knotted together. "For what?"

  "For ruining the prophecy and hurting your powers. For screwing up."

  I gently shook my head. "You were just a kid, Lloyd. It's not your fault."

  I felt him pull away and my eyes opened with the movement. He turned his head with a troubled frown.

  "But I-"

  "You're forgiven," I cut in. "Don't stress over it."

  Lloyd met my gaze with a helpless, sad smile. "You forgive me too easily."

  "You're too hard on yourself," I countered. I picked up his hand and linked my fingers through his. "What's done is done. The past should be left there. There's not enough time in the world to worry about things that have already happened."

  I paused then, because for him, there was enough time. There would be enough time for anything, even overthinking - that was the curse of immortality. But Lloyd didn't seem to notice my slip up.

  "I've got your present here, too," I said, changing the subject. Lloyd watched curiously as I pulled out a small wrapped parcel from my desk's drawer. "I had Kai's help."

  Lloyd ripped open the wrapping and smiled in surprised delight when a pile of comics stared back at him. He got to the bottom of the pile and paused.

  "Is this a Nightwing comic from Dixon's run?"  Lloyd asked very seriously. At my nod, his grin grew so bright that I was almost ashamed of what would greet him - almost. Lloyd eagerly opened the comic before his face fell in confusion, and then he pulled a 'really?' look my way.

"Did you just give me a Spider-Man comic disguised as a Nightwing one?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea what you're talking about. That's Nightwing." It was so very clearly, obviously not Nightwing.

"I can't believe you're gaslighting me into being indoctrinated into the Marvel cult." Lloyd threw the comic at me with a laugh of disbelief. "You're evil."

  I airily shrugged, turning circles in my desk chair. "I heard somewhere that you like pranks and thought I'd provide."

  Lloyd shook his head with a snicker. "You got me pretty good."

I preened. I thought it was a pretty good prank, too, considering I'd never really pranked anyone before. "Thank y-"

I was cut off by the sound of the doorbell ringing. I looked to the door of my room curiously as far-away voices floated up from the floor below.

"Someone called Rose," Lloyd supplied.

I gasped in delight and scrambled from the chair. "It's my aunt!" My scampering feet tore me through the hallway and down the stairs just in time for a woman a few years younger than my mother to walk past the bottom of the stairwell. "Aunt Rose!"

Rose looked up just in time for me to burst into her arms for a hug. She yelped in surprise before shrilly laughing and hugging me back just as tight.

"There's my favourite niece!" Rose cheered. She pulled back to send me a fond beam. "How's my lil' sharpshooter doing, hey? Been fighting any snakes? Aren't they crawling everywhere in this city?"

I shook my head with a giggle. "No snakes."

"Darn." Rose tsk'd and shook her head in mock disappointment. "You know, back when your mum was your age, she was wrangling serpentine twice her size."

"Wasn't she pregnant at my age?"

"Hey, now." Rose sent me a conspiratorial wink. "Teen mom's are a fierce breed of people." Her face then paled somewhat. "A breed that you will never be yourself, you hear?"

I rolled my eyes. "I know." I'd been hit with the safe sex talk harder than most considering that I had been an 'early surprise' to my own parents.

"Oi." Mum poked her head out from the kitchen, carrying a plate of roast potatoes for dinner. "What are you two talking about?"

"Nothing," Rose innocently said. She noticed the kanzashi and touched the petal edge with 'this is cute!' before patting my shoulders in parting before following after her sister. "Do you need any help?"

While they converged in the kitchen, I felt a presence behind me. I turned and found the unfortunate package tied to my fantastic Aunt Rose: my cousin.

"Ugh." I groaned and rolled my eyes. "You're here."

My cousin's lips split into a thin smile. "Good to see you, too, cuz. How's the city treating you?"

"Fine," I answered stiffly. "How's the wicked witch of the west life treating you?"

My cousin's smile didn't waver. He perused the entrance of my home and observed it slowly, as if preserving it in his gaze alone. He'd always been creepy, but not just creepy - he was also a major dickhead.

My cousin chuckled. "Good." His eyes darted to the space behind me. "Well. Aren't you going to introduce us?"

I followed his gaze and found that Lloyd had silently appeared behind me. He eyed my cousin quietly, sizing his thin appearance up. He probably heard the twist my tone took and came down to investigate; but it was nothing more than bitter family drama. He met my gaze. I couldn't tell what he thought of my cousin (though I wasn't anxious for him to make a good impression).

I looked back at my cousin wh raised his eyebrows at me, waiting. I sighed and stifled the urge to roll my eyes again. They were going to roll right out of my head.

  "Lloyd," I began grumpily, "meet my cousin, Simon."