I was just casually listening to Simon and Garfunkel's Bookend theme when this popped into my head. It originally started as thoughts of Wu remembering Morro but then I figured I could incorporate the ninja into it as well. So this was born, listening to the song playing on repeat for around two hours instead of coaxing my brain to either get ready for sleep or else trying to work on another of my Ninjago fanfictions I'm working on. This is set after the ninja get teleported to the Never Realm in season 11.

Photographs

The old Spinjitzu Master walked into his room, a dark weight pressing heavily on his aged heart. It was a relatively bare room, consisting of a comfortable bed, a set of drawers, a writing desk and a small table which had an incense burner resting on top of it. But it was the row of photographs sitting on top of the set of drawers which caught his attention. Quietly, he made his way over to them, his gaze resting on each one in turn as the memories entered his mind.

Resting within a simple yet elegantly designed wooden frame was not a photograph as such, but an intricate sketch of a simple looking man in what could only be described as his most regal pose. He wore a similar straw hat on his head to the one the old master wore and carried the exact same bamboo staff that was in the master's hand at that very moment. The sketch itself was yellow with age but it was the only image the master had of his great father.

Of course, nothing could harm the memories he had of learning to train in the art of Spinjitzu or even just the humble moments in life. He remembered simple fishing trips being turned into important life lessons. And the ache he felt when his father disappeared was as strong as ever as the old master gazed upon the image.

Next in line was the first photograph he remembered ever taking. It was a deceptively happy photograph of two brothers and a wife. All were smiling. However, it had been taken during a time when evil was corrupting the older brother's heart. An evil caused by the simple act of losing a training weapon beyond the monastery walls when the two brothers were mere children.

But despite the evil within his brother, the old master knew that there was still some good hidden within his brother's heart. Without that goodness, the battles between the serpentine would not have been won. The battle between rogue elemental masters would not have gone the way it did. The old master's nephew would not have been born.

Funny how just thinking about his brother's family could bring forth the memories of a time when he almost had a family of his own. A family that would have consisted of himself and a little boy with long, straight hair and a surprising streak of green through the right side of that hair. A boy that was portrayed in the rather innocent photograph beside that of the master's brother and sister in law.

It was a happy image of the day the boy discovered that he would no longer be sleeping on the cold streets or scavenging through garbage cans for food. He had been so happy to have been given a home and, despite his initial fears of the camera, was more than willing to show off the new martial arts uniform he was wearing. That one photograph, similar to the sketch of the master's father in the sense it was the only one, reminded the master of happier times with the boy.

But, of course, happy times were once again marred by darkness. Where memories of discovering kites and the ability to control the wind once made themselves known, fears of losing the boy to the dangers of the world erupted. Where once the enjoyment of watching the boy grow and learn about the art of spinjitzu entered his memories, the pain of losing the boy to bitterness and destroyed hope pressed on his already pain-filled heart.

The old master had no choice but to accept that it had been his fault his first student had turned down the path he had travelled. It saddened him that the boy had thought he needed to take revenge and so returned as a spirit to take what could not be his. But he was also comforted to know that the boy that could have been his son was able to set free his anger and betrayal in the last moments of his return.

Just that thought almost brought a smile to the old man's face. Almost, because his eyes lingered on the last of the photographs. It was of his entire family, or what he liked to think of as his family. His brother and sister in law smiled back at him, both relieved that evil could no longer corrupt the brother's heart. Their son, his nephew, smiled back at him in the robes that his father, the boy's grandfather, had once worn long ago. And all around him were his students, all smiling and enjoying the fact that they had survived possibly the greatest battle of that time.

He remembered how he found each one of his treasured students. Earth, found climbing mountains to take his mind off his mother's death. Lightning, testing out an invention that may have succeeded if it weren't for that one billboard. Ice, meditating within the depths of a frozen pool of water. Fire and Water, brother and sister, in charge of their parents' blacksmith, forging weapons and battling an army of skeletons. Finally his nephew, who he took in after the boy was abandoned by everyone else and thought that causing trouble was the only thing he could do.

The journeys he had with them, the memories of teaching them lessons he, himself had been taught years before by his own father, and the pain he shared with each one of them were strong in his mind as he gazed upon the photograph. But it was also these memories that weighed heavily on his heart. It was this family that he feared for now.

Many worlds from the one the old master called home, there is a place his father visited long, long ago. It was the same place his family now found themselves trapped in. He could not describe this place for he had never been there, nor was he likely to go there. But to have an old foe trap them there because of his mistakes…

The old master could only pray that his family was safe and would be able to find a way to return to him like his father had been able to do many years before them.