The Place Where It All Began
A/N I do not own TMNT but I am forever grateful for their existence!
It had been a year. The fall evening air was on the precipice of winter's chill. Tendrils of misty breath leaked from his mouth with every exhale underneath the lonely streetlight. The only difference between then and now was the absence of daylight.
Funny, he hadn't felt one ray of sunshine on that day so long ago.
It really wasn't surprising that the place lay nearly undisturbed despite the passage of time. They had only reclaimed the city from the Kraang a few months previous and while under the aliens' rule such projects were the first to be abandoned.
He wondered if anyone had actually set foot on the construction site since that day. The splintered wooden boards remained in derelict. The icy pool of water still clung to the pit's base. Even the occasional shuriken remained ingrained in the frosty ground.
Not for the first time did he ponder how he and his brothers had managed to not slice their feet open more often walking barefoot as they did. Ninja stars such as these were hardly the first sharp objects their scaly toes had precariously brushed across over the years.
Kneeling down, Leonardo dug his nails into the frigid soil embracing the dull metal. When he finally managed to wheedle the shuriken out, he found its surface bore several spots of blighting rust. Left alone, even this once carefully forged weapon would bare holes in its core for all to see. Its defenses down, what good would it be then?
Pulling himself up, cringing not from pain but the audible sound of his once-broken leg cracking, he avoided catching his reflection in the star's fading metallic surface. The face he saw there would no longer be the same as the one who threw it.
None of them were. He supposed that was the nature of things.
Suddenly a sharp impulse erupted through him causing Leonardo to hurl the fracturing star into the frozen water below. Except it didn't even reach its destination. Instead its fading light was absorbed into the sheet of ice coating the pond. From his vantage point, he could only glimpse the smallest of sparks from the steel tip.
Water. Metal. Ice. Wood.
Where did that leave him?
Indigo eyes searched the dark sky above. There were no stars to be seen. Not even clouds. Just endless obsidian darkness.
"Guess that leaves me out in the cold." Leonardo huffed quietly as his eyes fell back to earth.
"Well, you could come inside."
He thought he had left the Lair unnoticed. He had not expected to be followed. He had not expected company.
He turned to the platform nearby, "Raph."
His immediate younger brother regarded him a moment before jumping down to the same level, "But I guess if you wanted to do that you'd have done so already. So my question is: what are you looking for?"
"What am I looking for?" Leonardo acknowledged the question, his voice barely a whisper in its uncertainty. What was he looking for? He hadn't left anything behind of value here. The rusted shuriken was proof of that.
When he failed to respond further, Raphael plopped down, his legs hanging over the edge, "Maybe you just have to accept what you've lost can't be gotten back, and you know sometimes, it's even for the better."
"Raph?" Leonardo couldn't see his brother's face, only the back of his scratched carapace.
"I'm just saying," Raphael placed penetrating emerald eyes onto his brother, "Maybe it feels like a loss, but when you think about it, more likely it was a trade-off. Yes, you lost to Shredder, but what did you gain from it?"
"I…" His voice drifted off into the abyss of hesitation.
"But hey," At Leonardo's silence, Raphael shrugged, "What do I know? I'm just blabbering on."
Cobalt eyes fell as his brother looked away. Only then did Leonardo catch the glimmer of light from the rusted shuriken embedded in the ice far below. "After all this time…" He murmured, "It's still here. Even now I can't make it sink."
Leonardo sat down to be greeted by Raphael's strong arm wrapping over his big brother's shoulders, "A bit busted up, but no guts no glory, right?"
A tiny grin graced the elder's beak, "But still here."
Raphael smiled back, "Exactly."
A/N This was conceived by a little burst of inspiration while I was working on "Growing Pains." Mostly because I've been feeling all the Leo feels lately. I need to write for him more.