Lloyd prays for his peace to continue.

For the clear, calm mindset that helps his days and nights fade into blissful blurs, so he'd need not worry or stress over simple things. But perhaps his current situation was not so simple. Perhaps it would take more than peace to help him move on, to help him forget.

But what other options were out there for him? Face his problems head-on? After all, his situation was unique.

He'd witnessed and committed manslaughter. If he faced that problem head-on, would that mean going to prison, or killing again?

His situation was indeed unique.

So as any other man of his dexterity would, he ignored the issue.

And by the way Garmadon silently escorted him away from the scene, he assumes his father is doing the same.

It's an unhealthy trait that Lloyd is not ashamed to admit he inherited.

They tread carefully past a thick lattice of ficus that lined the hallways in twisting branches, that seemed to reach for them as they walked past. Considering the ominous structure they found themselves in, he wouldn't be surprised if they really were.

He finds himself in a starkly unfamiliar room, placed prominently at the end of the hallway. It mirrored the layout of the room Lloyd had woken up in, only... emptier.

Alike the previous room, this room had tall walls, with grand pillars protruding from the corners. Unlike the previous room, this room lacked the grand, gold-veined table, and indistinguishable banner. It was completely empty, lifeless.

But this room, similarly to the last, was stained with a thin splatter of blood against the dusted floor.

Garmadon guides him to sit at the edge of the room, away from the stain. He sits uncomfortably on a tangling vine of ficus. He shifts to avoid it.

His father sits near him.

The silence eats up whatever peace remained, leaving the father and son to simmer in their familial awkwardness.

What does one talk about after such a situation? The weather? Sports? Bingo?

A leaf brushes his hand. He wonders for a moment how they grew with barely any sunlight. With only the light coming from small windows on high walls, how could the plants grow in such mass?

The question runs through his mind and genuinely captivates his attention.

Plants need sunlight to survive. Especially ficus. From what he knew about the plant, the very plant that crept up the cliffs and walls of the monastery, the plant thrived off of sunlight, couldn't live without it. The plant very rarely grew in shade, as it prefers the humid air that sunlight creates.

If the plant had grown here, in this damp, cold, shady structure, then it must have been slowly growing over the span of hundreds of years, surviving on nothing but the thick water that dripped from the cracks in the walls, like blood from an orifice.

Unlike the luscious green plant the lined cliff faces in Ninjago, this plant, while the leaves and vines were certainly identical, the colour was almost black. The leaves were so impossibly dark, darker than any plant he'd ever seen, darker than ficus should be.

He followed a thick tendril as it curved in delicate waves, wrapping around others until finally, it thinned out into brownish-orange.

He bores of the subject. The silence eats at him once more.

I should say something. But what is there to say?

I could... ask him a question, Lloyd ponders. Yes, what better way to break the silence than with a question?

So he queries the first thing to come to mind.

"...Where are we?"

His father looks to him, a sort of relief on his face. He sighs deeply, crossing his arms across his chest thoughtfully.

"If my guess is right, then I believe... we are in the Tomb of Concentration."

Lloyds breath hitches in realisation. Yes, of course, that was it! How had he not thought of such a thing before?

Puzzle pieces slowly slot together in his mind. He wonders what the bigger picture will be in the end.

With one deep huff, he releases his pent-up breath.

He searches for consolation. "So that spear- the one the masked person had... it was the Spear we were looking for?"

"Yes, the Spear of Concentration." Garmadons brow furrows as he retreats to his mind in thought. Lloyd does a similar thing.

So this structure... this is the tomb? While it makes perfect sense, something about the fact confuses it. Maybe it's the origin of the tomb: made to be the sister temple of the Temple of Light, yet constructed to be far larger. And another thing that surprised him, was the sudden shabbiness that overtook the hallways, while the octagonal room they had just left seemed far more intact, only the cracking concrete and dust giving it away as aged. But these rooms... they were so overwhelmingly broken down, with half the rooms he'd seen being collapsed or on the brink of collapse. Not to mention the mounds of plants invading the halls.

So compared to the Temple of Light, which was well-known and in peak condition, the Tomb of Concentration was grand yet... almost unfinished, and unkempt.

"You say 'masked person'..." His father shuffles as he seems to conclude his thinking. He continues carefully. "What exactly happened to you, son? Who struck you with the spear?"

Lloyd feels a frog in his throat at the mention, but not wanting to keep his father waiting, he quickly swallows his dread.

He recalls the events as well as he can to his father, not without a sigh.

"... It's kinda fuzzy, but... I remember I was on the Bounty when someone attacked me. There were three or four of them? They overwhelmed me." He remembers the feeling. Being trapped in the navigation, a looming figure blocking his exit as her lackeys attack him in waves, over and over and over until- "They held me in place and..."

That looming figure fills his mind again, circling him, vulture-like, out of his sight. He imagines the mask, purple and kabuki, disposed of, with nothing but a smug smile hiding underneath. The cold, too-real feeling of gold against his back snaps him back to reality.

His father waits patiently for him to continue.

"... A masked person, the one with the spear, uh... stabbed me in the back." I saw it. I saw it go through me. I thought I was gonna die, I'm not even sure if I'm alive right now.

But really, Lloyd knew he was alive: the stabbing feeling of remorse and the aching phantom pains in his stomach made that abundantly clear.

He doesn't want to think of it anymore. He wants answers.

His head spikes as he glances, away from the dusted floor and up at his father.

"How did you get here?"

Garmadon pulls a sour face, his nose twitches and his eyebrows furrow. His mouth pulls down in a frown. His eyes fixate on the ground.

"I wasn't on the bounty when you were." Ah, that's what it was: guilt. "A villager told me that Wu had called for me. I stupidly fell for it, I should have seen it was a trap."

He takes a breath.

"By the time I realised me mistakes, I could hear you and I knew it was too late. I don't think I'd ever felt fear so strong as it was that day at the temple of fire."

Lloyd remembers the day clearly, although it was years ago now: he'd been trapped in that volcano, unsure if Kai would rescue him or rescue the fang blade. He could almost feel the ghostly heat of phantom flames licking at his ankles by the mere thought of it.

Fear. Fear of losing his son. The thought touches him.

Garmadon finally looks at his son.

"When I got there, you were already fading away into... I'm not sure how to describe it. It was like stars. You just disappeared, and the spear was still there."

"Why would they leave the spear behind?" Lloyd decidedly ignored the details of his disappearance.

"I believe they wanted one of us to use it."

"So that's what you did."

His father nods, "Yes. Once we realised it was the spear of concentration, I convinced Wu to use it on me... I wanted to know you were safe."

And Lloyd smiles at the thought.

His father- Garmadon, who had only really been a part of his life for a few months- had willingly been stabbed to make sure his son was safe, to make sure Lloyd was safe.

He wills himself to focus again.

"So, Wu and the others know where we are?"

Garmadon grins back at him. "Yes again, clever boy. They are travelling to collect us with that bounty of theirs. After that, we'll be destroying that spear in torch fire mountain."

Ah. That presented a small problem.

It would take quite some time to get to the Dark Island, not to mention find the exact location of the Tomb of Concentration. They may be stuck here for days.

No. He has no time to worry about that now-

"On the contrary, you have plenty of time to worry-"

-He should move on.

His mind drifts to the other members of their team, still left in Ninjago City. Do they know what happened? What if they were ambushed too?

"What about Kai and the others?"

"Those three..." His father huffs. While he was a better person, far more caring than he was before, he still wasn't at the point to care for his son's friends. "I'm not too sure. I didn't stay for long. I think it's safe to assume that they will send out a message, though."

Him being unsure isn't too comforting to Lloyd, but he's willing to let it go. Plus, he was right. There was no way the team wouldn't get a message out after something like this happened.

The facts begin to seep into his head.

Once he'd disappeared, the only part of him left on the bounty would be his blood, fresh and dark, stained into the floorboards. He can imagine the implications of the sight, how disturbing it would be. To see the unconscious body of your friend and teammate disappear in a flurry, leaving behind nothing but his blood.

He wonders if the smell was anything like the scent that had overwhelmed him just twenty minutes ago.

He wonders who would have to clean it up.

But mostly, he wonders how they would react. It's a question he'd bet anyone had asked at least once in their life- how would my friends react if I died?

They would cry for sure, but would they fall apart? Would they disband the team like they did for Zane? And for Nya? Would they become irritable, would they destroy themselves from the inside out?

He'd like to imagine they would.

His heart thuds suddenly against his sternum. As he presses a crusted hand to his chest, feeling his hand shudder up and down with the beats of his heart, the images flush into his mind; images of the boy, open-eyed and dead on the floor. His eyes, milky and layered over, seem to stare at him no matter how hard he tries to look away.

The face of the boys father follows him too. His eyes, thick with veins of blood in the whites, grey and foggy in the iriss, followed him with his sons. Foggied eyes, gruesome and lifeless, they watched him even when he couldn't see them anymore. They were going to be constants in his life from then on, he just knew they would. Those haunting eyes would never let him outlive them.

But Lloyd- despite the gruesome, chilling thought- he felt no fear.

Although his heart beat quickly, and his breath came in small, quick bursts, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on their ends, he knew this wasn't fear, no. It was different.

His first constant whispers again.

"It doesn't scare you. Why?"

And he can only respond with one phrase.

I don't know.

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