Claaaaang

Claaaaaannnnggg

CLAAAANNNGGG

Lyra jumped out of her bed and reached for her daggers, which were laying on her nightstand. Unfortunately for her, her coordination wasn't as good as it was when she was fully awake, so she dropped them on the floor. 

They clattered to the ground, ready to slice Lyra's toes off. Thankfully, she had the sense to dart back, and they harmlessly glanced off the wood.

Isolated Training day numero uno, she reminded herself. What a great start. I forgot Sensei Wu was gonna wake everyone up with cymbals.

Lyra checked the time. It was 5:00 in the morning. Fun.

She slipped into a black sports bra and matching shorts, knowing that she wasn't going to be seen by anyone so it didn't matter what she was wearing. While pulling her hair up into a tight bun, she reminded herself what she was supposed to be doing. Lloyd had explained what he did every weekend in great detail so she wouldn't be confused, but she still kind of was.

Wake up at dawn, then train powers. Have a quick nap, wake up, eat breakfast. Then... Lyra's mind blanked. Shoot, what next? Oh, right, train combat then napping again. Eat lunch when I wake up, then train my mind or soul. Or both. I dunno. Then I get to eat supper, research my Element because Misako wouldn't let me see the scrolls about Garmadon because she's using them all today, then go to sleep a bit after dusk.

She looked around her room, which had different training equipment strewn around the floor. Each person got one predetermined hour in the training room, three twenty-minute intervals for each meal, and one predetermined hour on the deck, and had to spend the rest of their time in their room. Other than specific cases, like Zane baking during the mind and soul training and Nya watching documentaries in the video game room.

"So, I was gonna test my limits today," she reminded herself. It seemed ridiculous to talk out loud when no one was around, but it was that or absolute silence for two full days, and Lyra much preferred the former. "For Painting. Then, tomorrow, I'll figure out my Literature powers."

Deciding to waste no time, she concentrated on her fingertips. Immediately, deep violet particles flew from them, dancing around each hand and joining together in small bursts of power. She'd already figured out the particles mimicked paint when they were glowing. When they stopped glowing, they turned into actual paint. Lyra also knew that they could be any colour she wished them to, but their base form was always purple. It was any shade of purple her Element felt like, but was always purple.

She'd never figured out if it could be clear, though. Deciding that it was a good place to start, she picked up a blank piece of parchment. As if it had a mind of its own, her power started to bleed from her fingers and spread across the paper in gentle waves, like magenta ink. Lyra imagined herself as a vacuum, sucking up the ink, and it immediately returned to her hand.

Now, she told her Element sternly, you're gonna disappear. But you're still gonna be here. Just...invisible.

Lyra wasn't quite sure how invisible paint would help, but it'd be nice to know if it was possible or not. It seemed to be impossible, however, as it didn't appear no matter how hard she tried. 

Within an hour, she was ready to give up and rip the paper to shreds when an unnatural glint of light caught her eye. Upon further inspection, it continued to glimmer.

Lyra made a ball of glowing purple light hover above the paper. To her surprise, the entire paper appeared to sparkle.

She absorbed the ink off of it, and it stopped shining.

Closing her eyes, Lyra summoned as much power as she dared. She pictured the night sky, flecked with hundreds of thousands of tiny stars. She imagined Lloyd's tiny, beautiful freckles turning into her power. With a grunt of exertion, she shoved all her power onto the paper, making sure it rested lightly on top of the page and thinly coated it. She absorbed the remains and slowly opened her eyes, not wanting to know if she failed or not.

The paper was plain and white. Boring. That wasn't Lyra's concern, though. In fact, the page was the only part of the room that wasn't sparkling different shades of the rainbow.

Whoopsies, she thought. Maybe I used a bit too much power.

It felt like Lyra was inside a disco ball, with all the spinning and sparkling that was occurring on the walls. She had the vague sense that it should hurt her eyes with how bright it was, but it didn't. In fact, it relaxed her. She was so tired after using up so much of her Element, she just wanted to...

Lyra didn't get to finish her thought. She closed her eyes and crumpled to the floor, falling asleep before her hands reached the planks.

~*~

Riing, riing, riiiiing.

Lyra's alarm on her watch greeted her. With a groan, she rolled to the side and swung her legs over to get off the bed, only to meet solid ground.

Right. Fell asleep before I could even attempt to head towards the bed, Lyra thought.

She opened her eyes, prepared to see her new disco ball room. To her disappointment, everything was its original colour again.

Riiiiiiiiing!

Lyra hit a button on her watch, silencing the alarm, and slowly stood up, stretching her arms out to either side and yawning. It was 8:30, meaning she'd have access to the kitchen in ten minutes.

"Things to put on my progress report to Sensei Wu: I can make glitter paint, my powers make me very tired, and my Element doesn't fully obey me yet," she listed as she fixed her bun and wrapped her dagger belt around her waist. "Not too bad for the first..." she paused, struggling to do the math in her tired state, "threeish hours."

She staggered over to the parchment, which had fallen to the floor when she fell asleep, and picked it up, allowing her power to do its thing. Within moments, it was covered in a thin layer of purple-and-green glitter. About three seconds later, it dried to the page, meaning it was surrounded by clear paint. 

"The paint is just so invisible, even I can't see it," she murmured. "Interesting. Is it useful? I dunno. But it's definitely interesting."

She checked her watch again. 8:36.

I should head towards the kitchen now, she decided. So I can make the most of my time there.

She quickly threw a lavender zip-up sweater on, just in case she somehow passed by someone and they saw her in her sports bra, then headed out the door.

~*~

"Okay, how the hell am I supposed to train my mind and soul?" Lyra asked the air around her. Her combat training had gone poorly, with no real progress, and she needed to unwind before starting her research. "The times I feel the most calm are when..." she paused as her gaze rested upon her flute case. "You know what, actually, I'm fine with this."

She quickly opened the case up, sliding the metal headjoint onto the body and lining it up to be in tune. She did the same with the foot joint, then raised it to her lips and played an experimental A note for tuning.

She screwed her face up. It was way too sharp. She pulled the headjoint out a considerable amount and tried the A again. This time, it was right in tune.

Yes, Lyra had perfect pitch, which was another bonus her power gave her. 

Which song? she wondered.

She picked up a music sheet she'd asked Sensei Wu for the other day. She'd never gotten around to playing it, but it looked fairly simple.

After setting her music stand up, she unfolded the sheet so she'd be able to view both sides and placed it on the stand, making sure it wouldn't fall.

She once again raised the metal flute to her lips, took a deep breath, and began to play.

https://youtu.be/7TZ5I7486Ow

When she was done, she lowered the flute. Lyra grinned, knowing she'd sight-read the piece almost perfectly. Plus, it was a very fun song. The faster the tempo, the more she enjoyed playing the music, simply because slow songs were annoying and boring and took so much air to complete. The flute, which took about as much air as a tuba to play properly, made this even more annoying. She was always out of breath by the end of slow pieces.

Lyra played it three more times before returning to a few of her other favourites, such as "Flight of the Bumblebee" and "The Magic Flute". After an hour or so of non-stop playing, she decided to give her embouchure a break.

Lyra grabbed a canvas, a pencil, and a few empty paint palettes. She let her power fill the colours to whatever they felt like. Surprisingly, they were mostly green.

Ohh, she realized. Lloyd's eyes. Right. I never did get those done, did I?

With the smirk of one who knew they were about to face a challenge, she raised her pencil to the canvas and got to work.

~*~

This is not calming, Lyra thought as she used her powers to get rid of the paint for the fifth time. Not at all. I need Lloyd to be physically here for me to even attempt to get this right. His stupid, pretty eye layers shift every time the light hits them, so not even I can fully picture them in all their glory, or whatever.

Lyra absorbed her paint and threw the canvas to the side. She turned on a bit of classical music and began to dance instead, letting her instincts guide her into whatever moves she felt like.

Within thirty minutes or so, her watch's alarm brought her out of her trance. Lyra basically inhaled the contents of her water bottle as she leaned against her bed frame. Dancing was tiring.

It was 6:23, meaning she could use the kitchen in seven minutes. She couldn't wait to make a huge bowl of noodles and absolutely devour them. Lyra felt like she hadn't eaten in years, despite the BLT with a side of scrambled eggs she'd had not even six hours prior.

She stretched for a few minutes, ending her dancing session fairly quickly, then ran to the kitchen to make some instant ramen.

~*~

"Research time," Lyra muttered, picking up her laptop. The second she opened it, a timer played from the right-hand corner. She had two hours before she had to stop her research and hand her computer back in to Sensei Wu for 'safekeeping'. 

Lyra wished she could research helpful things, such as how to find Garmadon, but Misako and Sensei Wu had specifically told her not to because she had to 'focus on her Element first,' which was totally dumb. Lyra hadn't even thought to argue that finding Garmadon would help her know more about her Element because the only reason she really wanted to get him back was so Lloyd could be happy.

Now that I think about it, why wouldn't they want me to help? she wondered. Especially with my Literature power. Whatever. That's a question for Future Me to ask.

She clicked on the YouTube search bar. "Let's see...art...frogs."

Lyra's mind was still on green things after her humiliating failure to paint Lloyd's eyes. She wanted to do something to restore her self-esteem. "Frog origami?" she wondered aloud. "What's origami?"

She pressed play on the video, only to pause it within the first three seconds to rush around to get supplies. She needed post-it notes, which she happened to have in her pencil case, a pencil, and pencil crayons or markers. She opted for the pencil crayons, since she hadn't used them in a while.

She folded up her post-it paper as the person in the video showed, though there were a few times where Lyra wondered how anyone ever thought up of folds like that. For example, pinching the corners and folding the bottom half inward to make a boat shape seemed so random, yet it ended up working out. Within an hour, Lyra had a mini-army of paper frogs.

Halfway through, she'd run out of green sticky notes, so she'd settled for the next best thing: yellow and blue. Because they made green.

Oh, I probably could've just changed their colours with my Element, she realized. Whoopsies. May as well just do that right now.

Concentrating on her Painting power, she raised a hand over the pile of origami frogs and dusted each one with green particles. As Lyra watched the sparkling bits of power make their way to the paper, she was reminded of fairy dust.

She smiled triumphantly as each frog turned a dark green shade. However, her smile faded when one frog turned its tiny head to the side and looked at her. The rest of the origami did the same. They bounced off the desk, landed on the floor, and surrounded Lyra.

Lyra blinked, shocked. Holy shit. I think that actually was fairy dust.

The frogs, which had been facing Lyra, whirled around, forming a protective circle.

"Magic fairy dust that turns paper into guard dogs," Lyra muttered, slowly twisting around to inspect each frog. "Heh. More like guard frogs."

A few of the frogs turned around again and gave her a look she swore meant that they were unamused. Which was completely irrational, as the only facial features they had were black dots for eyes.

A thought struck Lyra. She stood up straight. "Did I just create life?"

Am I a mother now? To a bunch of pieces of folded paper? How the fuck do you raise a child, especially if it's just an animal-that-isn't-really-an-animal? What happens if they get unfolded?

"Hey, you." Lyra pointed to the nearest frog. It blinked up at her. "Can you talk?"

The frog shook its head. It shook its head. 

Lyra raised a hand to her forehead, checking for a fever. It felt normal. "But you can understand me?"

The frog nodded.

"Are you...alive? Like, do you have a soul?"

You better not.

The piece of paper shook its head again.

"Oh, thank goodness." Lyra put a hand to her heart in relief. You're just something my Element creates? Like a guard?"

The frog nodded again.

"That's fucking insane." Lyra sat down and ran a hand through her hair, which had fallen out of its bun a while earlier. "Absolutely fucking insane."

The frog that she'd been talking to hopped up onto her shoulder and nuzzled her cheek with its paper nose.

Lyra giggled. "Hey, that tickles!"

Two more jumped beside it. Lyra took a moment to appreciate how they managed to jump over ten times their height. Then all thoughts of how impressive they were vanished as another one tripped over its own foot.

"Oh my goodness, that's adorable!" she squealed. "You're all awesome. You're my new friends." Her bright eyes shone as a thought struck her. "Lloyd's gonna love you!"

Lyra's smile stretched all the way across her face. She could imagine his green eyes sparkling like stars when they jumped onto his shoulder. 

"Hm..." she cupped her hands and picked up the one that had fallen. "Will you listen to whatever I tell you to do?"

The frog, which Lyra had just noticed was smaller than the rest, nodded. Despite being paper, it managed to look eager.

"Would you mind if I test it out?" When the frog nodded again, Lyra continued. "Perfect. All of you, jump onto my bed."

Immediately, each frog made their way up onto her grape-coloured bedspread. 

"Not you," Lyra told the tiny one when it tried to hop out of her hands. She slowly stood up. "Does this work for other animals, too?"

Lyra placed the frog on top of her head and rushed to the laptop. She still had thirty minutes left before she had to return it to Sensei Wu. She typed "Easy origami" and waited for it to load.

"Hmm...which animal?" Lyra looked at the frog, which had hopped onto her nose. "Butterfly or dog? Nod for butterfly, shake your head for dog."

The frog shook its head. Then it nodded.

"Both?"

It nodded once again.

"Butterfly?"

It shook its head.

"Dog?"

The frog nodded nodded.

"Wait, butterfly? You know what, I'm just gonna do both."

The paper frog shrugged and hopped onto the floor to join its family.

"Alright, then." Lyra tapped the space bar and followed along with the butterfly tutorial.

Before she knew it, she had around five butterflies and dogs each. Her laptop made a buzzing sound, alerting her that she had to put it outside her door for Sensei Wu to collect.

Once she heard the sensei's shuffling footsteps leave, Lyra turned to the origami. The frogs had returned to watch the process.

Is there anything specific I have to do? she wondered.

The tiny frog, which had joined the rest of its group, shook its head at her.

"Wait, you can understand my thoughts, too?" 

They all nodded.

Lyra grinned. "This is surreal. I can have a literal army of paper."

What specific thing do I have to do?

Lyra closed her eyes, raised both hands over her creations, and attempted to re-create the fairy dust from earlier. When she opened her eyes, nothing had changed. 

"What did I do differently with the frogs?" Lyra put a hand on her hip and frowned. She glanced between the frogs and the others. "The only difference I see is how the frogs have patterns. Oh, and...eyes! That's it, isn't it?"

The frogs nodded at her. Lyra took another moment to register just how creepy it was for pieces of paper to respond to what she said before re-creating the sparkling dust again. She made a singular black particle go on either side of their faces until they each had two eyes. 

Will it work now? Lyra asked the frogs.

They all bobbed their heads up and down.

Wanting to keep her eyes open this time, Lyra fluttered her fingers over the folded bits of paper. This time, the fairy dust was pink and brown. The brown dust made its way over to the dogs, turning them a dusty shade but still obviously parchment, while the pink found the butterflies and changed their colour to magenta. The second a particle made contact with the paper, the creature stirred.

Lyra watched, amazed, as the dogs and butterflies nodded in acknowledgement to each other, then to the frogs.

"Can you guys turn back to paper?" Lyra wondered aloud.

The second the words spewed out of her mouth, the group stilled. The frogs turned back into a mess of green, blue, and yellow, while the dogs and butterflies returned to blue.

Not creepy at all. 

"Turn back," she ordered.

Instantly, the creatures started to glow. Dark green spread across the frogs, brown across the dogs, and magenta across the butterflies. This time, the butterflies took flight. 

They whirled and fluttered around Lyra's head, creating a mini-tornado before settling on either of her shoulders. The frogs quickly joined them, jumping up while the dogs climbed.

Lyra was certain she looked like it'd been raining paper, with how many animals were on her clothing, but she was fine with that.

Lyra yawned. Her sight blurred slightly as she stumbled to her bed and changed into a fleece hoodie and fluffy pyjama pants. As soon as she was done, she collapsed on the covers, not even taking the time to pull a blanket over her before she fell asleep.

Word count: 3.2k

I absolutely adore frogs. I made all of those origami ones in that picture when I first started this chapter (I was sick don't blame me T_T) and now use them as decorations for my bookshelf

QOTD: Have y'all ever done origami? What kind?

A: Well, frogs, ofc, plus cranes, swans, butterflies, hearts, and a few things I forget. I'm not even good at origami because I suck at folding but I'm just too stubborn to give up

Also we're getting pretty close to the Possession arc and I cannot wait 

Please do comment and vote because it really does help with motivation and motivation=frequent updates

Please remember to drink water, eat food, and get an appropriate amount of sleep for your age<3

~Aspen