BIG GIANT SPOILERS FOR THE LAST MARCH OF THE ONI EPISODE, just a warning! (It's out in New Zealand, if you're curious, and it should be up on youtube!) You kinda need to watch it to understand this, too, but it's all angst, folks.
So I just had this feeling, during the episode, that I'd seen some certain ninja mourning over their supposedly dead teammates before, you know, recently...anyways, I figured Lloyd and Nya would probably have some pretty rough feelings left over from that, so here's this short (and it actually is short for once!) fic about that.
It's quiet on the Bounty.
There's the sound of the wind rustling against the sails, the creak of wood, the steady chime of the monitors. But the rest of the ship is doused in eerie silence, filled with the lost echoes of the shouting that had rang across the deck hours earlier. It's an empty sort of quiet, a hollow one that speaks of loss. It's the same gritty-eyed, white-knuckled pain, the same short-breathed agony Nya remembers feeling not long ago.
Her breath catches. Months. They've barely had mere months since they'd crumpled into the same devastated shock, the same shattering crack in their heart that's never really healed when Lloyd had delivered the news that horrible night. That pain is written in Nya's blood, false loss as it was, the hurt of it scarred into her soul. It's in Lloyd's as well, she'd seen it as he'd yelled at his father — the same depthless grief, the dizzying sensation of it all crashing down around their ears in a repeated pulse of not again, not again, not again-
The bandage roll slips from Nya's fingers, thumping quietly to the floor where it rolls briefly, unraveling a strip of white behind it. Nya quietly curses herself, snatching it up again and straightening the bandage. She carefully tears the strip off, setting it aside and bringing the start of a clean one to rest against Lloyd's arm.
"Hold still," she says, more out of need to break the silence than actual direction. Lloyd's barely moved since she dragged him belowdecks, his face devoid of emotion in that eerily blank mask he wears.
But she'd seen the Oni hit him over the camera feed, the awkward way he holds his arm, hears the odd hitch in his voice when he breathes. She doesn't know what transpired below in the fog. She doesn't know if she wants to know. Doesn't know if she wants to learn what Cole saw before he-
Nya swallows.
But Lloyd wasn't left unharmed, that much is obvious. It's what she'd feared even before they'd sent him down with his father, the strung-out feeling of building anxiety as she'd watched her little brother walk into danger on a camera feed once again, too far to be of any help to him.
Today's full of reminders of the past months, it seems.
Nya winds the bandage a little too tightly, and Lloyd lets out a quiet hiss, breath barely slipping through his clenched teeth.
"Sorry," Nya murmurs, quickly loosening her hold. Lloyd gives the smallest shake of his head, still staring fixedly at the wall. Nya wonders if he's trying to capture Cole's voice in his head, too, memorizing it, so he doesn't forget what it sounds like-
Nya swallows again, catching on something hard in her throat. All she hears is that last scream. Not his laughter, not the steady voice that'd talk with her on late nights, not the strong tones of her brother — just that last, fearful scream.
Before it was swallowed by darkness.
Something in Nya's chest burns hot, pulsing painfully with the beat of her heart.
Why didn't she remember that stupid lever-
She suddenly speaks up, her voice almost a desperate gasp as it escapes her.
"Lloyd?"
He makes a small sound of acknowledgement, but that's all. His hollow-eyed gaze doesn't move from the wall, a hundred-yard stare into nothingness.
Nya bites her lip, hard. "Is this what it felt like?" she asks, her voice wavering.
Lloyd finally turns to her, his eyebrows just furrowing in an expression of confusion, the blossoming bruise on his cheek turning a deep purple in the cabin light.
"What?"
Nya blinks back burning tears, fighting with the little that's left of her resolve.
"On the sky tram," she rasps. "With Harumi." Nya shuts her eyes tightly. "Is this what it felt like to watch?"
Lloyd's eyes widen, his mouth opening slightly then closing. Something flashes in his eyes — the same endless emptiness, that same knife-like feeling, the sudden horror as you realize you could've stopped this and you didn't-
"Yeah," Lloyd whispers, blinking rapidly. His eyes are suddenly shining, glassy in the cabin lights. "Yeah, this is what it felt like."
Nya inhales, her chest shuddering. "Oh," she croaks. She takes a breath, then another, trying to stop the wave building in her chest.
"I'm so sor-"
She breaks down just as Lloyd reaches her, his arms wrapping tightly around her, pulling her close as she sobs. They sink down to the floor, Nya's face buried in his shoulder as she hiccups, Lloyd's hand rubbing comforting circles on her back, as if he can chase the pain away by contact alone. She would know, their positions are so often reversed-
"My fault," she gasps, through shudders. "S'all my fault."
"It's not," Lloyd's voice is agonized, insistent. "It's not, Nya."
Nya shakes her head, swallowing the heartbroken wail. "It feels like it is."
Lloyd is quiet. His arm tightens around her shoulders, his head coming to rest atop hers.
"I know," he whispers.
Another hot wave of tears floods down her cheeks, and for the first time, Nya's grief feels less like the raging, vengeful flames of her brother.
It feels more like the quiet call of the ocean, the darkened depths of drowning, grief-stricken guilt.