This story is a product of an exercise I do when faced with writer's block. I take a word and write a story inspired by it. I hope you enjoy.
Garmadon's stone giant stands black against the night sky, a looming specter over the darkened city. Nya watches it from the top floor of the building the Resistance has hidden themselves in.
She slouches against a chair, arm propped on the windowsill. Anyone who looked up from the sidewalks would have trouble discerning her face past the glass, but anyone across the street might see her solemn gaze peering over the city. She shouldn't be this close to a window, where such a thing could happen; she risks being spotted by either the goliath above or the Sons of Garmadon prowling the city.
For once, she doesn't find it in herself to care. The Sons of Garmadon are hardly quiet hunters, and every time they've roared past on their nightly scours through the streets, she's done no more than lean out of view until the sounds went away. The only risk she can discern is the chance that the goliath itself will spot her.
As she watches its eerie purple eyes glowing in the distance, she half expects it to turn and meet her gaze. Should that happen, she won't look away.
She'd stare right back, daring Garmadon to find her.
It is a foolish notion, but a somewhat wishful one, too, just for the chance to show Garmadon what she's made of when fueled with rage.
She watches, but nothing happens. The goliath stands silent and still.
Eventually, she turns her eyes over the rest of the city, which sits dark as the populace hides away from their enemies. A consequence, though not a bad one, is that the night sky is unusually vibrant without all the light pollution. As such, it is covered with stars.
She can't see them like she can if she were on the Bounty, or even just on the roof of the building, but she sees enough to fill her with an unexpected pang of sadness.
The feeling is hardly new, since she's been struck by it a lot since she lost everything to Garmadon and Harumi, but there is something different about the way it hits in the moment. In previous attacks of sadness, they were usually mixed with a dose of devastation and anger, but those feelings are absent here. Instead, the pang treads almost towards bittersweet, curled at the end with a sense of longing.
She wonders if it has something to do with the events of the day. They had found the remains of the Bounty, and the sight of it at first had been horrifying.
It wasn't like Garmadon was doing much to take care of the city, but the fact that he and the Sons of Garmadon left the Bounty ruined in the streets unsettled Nya in a way that made her skin crawl.
As she looked over it, she thought she was walking on her family's grave.
She and Lloyd didn't get a long time to sift through the remains, but the fact that so much of it was missing did clue them in that something was amiss.
And this something means that her family might not have perished.
Knowing this still doesn't ease the pain Nya feels regarding the ninjas' absence.
This fact also doesn't explain the origins of her strange sadness, and in lieu of trying to figure it out, she blinks away the sheen of moisture that appeared in her eyes and decides to count the stars in the hope of finding some sleep.
She hasn't had much of that recently, but no one has.
Though the window doesn't offer the best view, she finds a cluster just outside where the goliath's head meets its shoulder, and she starts there. She always liked stars, as did the rest of the ninja, but for different reasons.
At this, a lump starts somewhere in her throat, but she swallows around it and counts.
Jay likes the stars for the constellations. He knows nearly every one, having spent many nights admiring them from his home in the desert. Once, after a dinner with Jay's parents, he and Nya sat outside and named every constellation they could together.
Jay named, at least. Nya mostly listened, sipping on a cup of cocoa. Once they were finished, Jay challenged her to make a constellation up. This, for reasons Nya can't remember, dissolved into almost an argument.
She remembers what was said, though.
"I can't make one up," said Nya, "How am I supposed to make shapes out of all that?"
She said this and thrust her hand to the sky for emphasis, and the sight of it silhouetted against the vast space left her feeling small and insignificant.
Jay said, "Come on, you can make shapes out of clouds, can't you?"
"Not really?" said Nya.
"You watch clouds with me," said Jay.
"That's because I'm there to spend time with you," said Nya, with a playful pat against Jay's shoulder, "Not stare at clouds all day."
Jay laughed, then brought her hand up to kiss the back of it. He never took his eyes off the sky.
He said, "Why don't you try it, Nya. It's just like connecting the dots."
"That's a lot," said Nya, before drawing her hand back, "How am I supposed to look past the constellations already there?"
"It's all made up," said Jay, giving her a smile, "Forget about them for a moment and find something new."
It took a lot more encouragement, but Nya was eventually able to do it. She found an image towards the east that she decided looked like a toad. More specifically, a toad king.
She could form a line to make the curve of the toad's back, with a twinkle for each eye. As for its royal heritage, three stars just above the eyes served as a crown. When she explained her findings to Jay, he laughed, but not in the way he did when he was teasing.
It was his joyful laugh.
"That's perfect!" he said, "Now I'll see it wherever I go! The Toad King, Ninjago's newest constellation!"
Nya's lips curl upward at the memory. Jay held true to his word, and he told all their friends of Nya's constellation—which is exactly what he called it. Truth be told, Nya thinks of it as Jay's constellation, because she wouldn't have seen it had it not been for him.
She stops counting and tries to spot the king from here, but she can't find it. When she goes back to her cluster of stars, she's lost her place.
Taking a breath, she starts again.
Kai is different. He doesn't see constellations and wouldn't learn them if given the chance. When he looks at stars, he doesn't see shapes, but he sees stories. Every star has a story, some which related to others, and Nya remembers every story Kai ever told.
From the window, she spots a star they both recognized as children, so much that it was a favorite of Kai's to talk about. It sits over the horizon after sunset, one of the first stars to appear at night, which is likely why Kai spoke of it so much. It is a familiar presence in a scary world.
As Nya watches the star, she thinks of the first time Kai ever talked about it, a long time ago.
"That star is a fairy," Kai boasted at ten, pointing at it from the window of their home.
Nya, then eight, squinted at it from her brother's side. In the fading light of the setting sun, it was dim, but its shine grew stronger as Kai continued his story.
"She used to live here with the rest of us," said Kai, "Until she fell in love with the moon."
Nya next looked at the moon. It was a crescent, grinning wide from above the star in question.
"Every night, the fairy flew across the land," said Kai, "searching for the highest peaks and mountains she could find, until she found one that reached the moon."
Kai said, 'peaks and mountains,' but Nya understood those to be the same thing and judged her brother's storytelling harshly for it.
"She got so good at flying that she became the best flier in the whole world," said Kai, "She was stronger and faster than anyone else, so she decided that she didn't need a mountain high enough to reach the moon. She would reach it herself."
At this point, Nya began shuffling, itching for other things to do. But Kai seemed intent on telling Nya this story, so she stayed.
"One day, that's just what she did," said Kai, "She waved goodbye to all her friends, then flew high into the sky. She flew higher and higher until she became a star. Now she can shine next to the moon forever."
It was a sweet story, especially so for a boy of Kai's age, who usually told stories of hammers and battles between warriors. Nya remembers her response.
"That's dumb," said she, "That star is probably so far away that it doesn't know that Ninjago exists. The moon is dust to that star."
That made Kai mad. "It's just a story. It's not supposed to be realistic."
"I'll say," said Nya, and she ran off for her crayons.
Nya shakes her head, wishing she responded differently. So often she would find Kai sitting up at the window, watching the sky with a gaze she didn't understand at the time, and she thinks this attributed to how many stories he'd tell.
Maybe it wasn't accurate, but the older Nya gets, the more she likes that story. Of course, this fact might peg her as much of a hapless romantic as Kai was, but she doesn't mind anymore.
She looks for the moon and spots it in the distance, tucked nearly too far for her window frame to catch. It is further from the star than it was on the night that Kai first told the story, but the moon and the fairy are still together in the sky, it seems.
This thought makes Nya sit back, scratching her cheek in embarrassment. She might me a bit more of a romantic than she thought.
When she settles again, she thinks of how Lloyd views the stars. He likes the stars for wishing, and he insists that every star can serve as a wishing star. According to Lloyd, one can pick their own star for wishing.
"You have to make sure that you don't pick a planet by mistake," Lloyd warned when he first told Nya of the rules of wishing.
He was young then, and he often hid under his hood when he was feeling anxious.
On that night, he and Nya waited on the deck of the Bounty for the ninja to return from a mission, and he pulled his hood all the way down to properly see the sky above. Though Nya didn't ask, Lloyd told her all his advice for wishing on stars.
"I made that mistake when I was little," said Lloyd, like he somehow wasn't little then, despite being the definition of it, "and I couldn't understand why my wishes weren't coming true. Now that I've got a real star, all my wishes come true."
"Which wishes have come true for you?" asked Nya.
"You aren't supposed to tell!" said Lloyd with a frown, "That makes them less likely to come true!"
"Why?" asked Nya.
Lloyd went quiet as he thought, and he remained silent for so long that Nya worried he wouldn't speak up again. When he did, he bypassed the question entirely.
"You aren't supposed to tell," said Lloyd, "but I guess since these are already fulfilled, it's okay."
He looked at Nya with a seriousness that almost made her laugh. She held her tongue, and he explained.
"I wished that I could get away from Darkley's," said Lloyd, "I hated it there. I wanted my family, and I wanted friends who were nice to me because they liked me, not because they're worried about who my dad is. I wanted friends who liked me for me," at this point, he smiled, "and I have all that now!"
Those words still make Nya sad.
Shooting stars also counted as objects to wish upon, and to Lloyd, they were extra special.
"Shooting stars are for really important wishes," said Lloyd, "If you wish on a shooting star, it's practically guaranteed to come true, so wish wisely."
He followed this with a sage nod that likened well to Master Wu.
This time, Nya manages a smile at the memory, though it falls the second her eyes land on the goliath's silhouette. She hasn't seen Lloyd wish on a star in a while, and she wonders if he still does it.
She thinks of him now, far too burdened with responsibility and tragedy for his age. He doesn't sleep much these days, either, though Nya can hardly blame him. She just wishes he would, so he could have a moment's peace. Many nights, Nya will roll over and find Lloyd quivering in his bedding, turned to a corner or lying on his back and staring listlessly at the ceiling.
The stars in his eyes have gone out.
Nya blinks. She's lost count again, so she starts over.
Right by the goliath's face.
Cole says that the stars hold memories of everyone who ever lived in Ninjago, and that a part of everyone lives on in the stars, even after they're gone.
"Think about it," said Cole, "People have been looking at the stars for as long as there have been people. We've all been looking at the same stars!"
Nya thought of the constellations and the names that were given to them long ago, and silently agreed.
She and Cole were on a mission, and they were supposed to be keeping watch from a hilltop far away from where the rest of the ninja were enacting a plan. Unfortunately, the hill was so far away that neither of them could see much, so they spent the night distracted by scenery.
They were lucky nothing happened, but they were so bored at the time that Nya thinks that trouble might have been a relief. Of course, if that happened, they wouldn't have spoken about what they did, when Nya learned what Cole thinks of the stars.
"It's like we are all taking part of some large, collective memory that we get to share with the whole world," said Cole, and his eyes turned distant, staring somehow further than the stars stretched as emotion filled his voice, "Even past generations. In that sense, no one can really die."
"How so?" Nya asked.
"When I was little," said Cole, "My parents and I used to sit out and watch the stars come out. I'd run around the yard or sit in my mom's lap or something. We looked at these same stars. And my parents probably did that with their parents, too, and so on."
Cole got quiet then, holding the silence before continuing, "It's like they're still here, in some sense."
The sentiment left Nya a little shaken, but understanding Cole's point made her feel less alone. There was a comfort in knowing that she wasn't the only face looking up at the sky that night.
Cole found a comfort in the stars that Nya hadn't seen before, and even now, the thought gets to her. She knows without seeing that hundreds of other eyes are likely staring out their windows as she currently is, searching for something they cannot find elsewhere.
Or maybe they're simply watching the goliath. Nya catches herself looking at it again, and she wonders if it will spot her. The thought makes her glance about the streets below for any sign of trouble—any clue that she's given away her position, but there is nothing. The Sons of Garmadon haven't made a trip through this street in a while, but she has heard them driving in the distance.
Nya does no more than adjust her seating before returning to rest.
Zane sees the stars in their most utilitarian sense, as points for navigation.
On a camping trip once, a long time ago, the ninja found themselves lost in a stretch of woodlands that seemed endless. They'd been lost for two days by the time that Nya was ready to lay down and let the forest consume her.
It would have saved her the frustration of dealing with their situation.
"We're going to die here," she pouted one night by the fire, which she and Zane tended to while the rest of the ninja attempted to pitch their tents.
This should have been done during the daylight hours, but the ninja were too busy celebrating their discovery of a river, which allowed them to fish and boil water.
"Another group of idiots in the woods," Nya bemoaned, tossing with a huff another load of wood by the fire.
"We may be idiots," said Zane, poking the fire's embers with a stick.
He inhaled like he was going to say more, but he didn't. Nya just gave him a look before returning to sulk. Zane caught the expression and sighed before settling onto his hunches.
"We will not die here," said Zane, "It will take time and effort, but we will find our way back."
"That's what we thought yesterday," said Nya, "If we hadn't gotten lost in the first place—"
"There is no point in fussing about that now," said Zane, "We are fine. We have direction now, and we will find our way home."
"Direction?" Nya paused in drawing designs into the dirt. "What direction?"
Nya expected him to point at some location in the wall of woods nearby, but instead, Zane looked skywards.
"Do you see that star?" Zane said, and then he pointed.
Nya followed the line Zane's arm made until she found what he was looking at. It was a bright star, one that Nya recognized. It was one of few stars that just about anyone could recognize, since it was a staple of the sky regardless of season or time of night.
She can't see it now, but she recalls Zane's words.
"That is a polar star; it aligns with the axis at which our world tilts," Zane explained, "It is always constant, which means that we can use it to determine direction."
He paused for a moment, looking at the star with something like adoration on his face. Nya wasn't sure what he was seeing, but he found something written above.
"This star aligns north," he said when he returned to himself, "which means that this river flows due east."
He said it like it was common knowledge, and to some people, Nya supposed that it was.
"If memory serves me correctly, we should happen upon a town some ways down," said Zane, and he smiled at Nya, "We're fine."
Nya stared at him, then at the star. "You got all that from that tiny little dot?"
"Of course," said Zane, "You're never really lost if you have the stars to guide your way. You just have to know what to look for."
Nya thinks of these words and closes her eyes, unable to bear staring at the sky a moment longer. She misses her friends so much that it aches.
A footstep falls behind her, and all at once, the spell she's fallen under dissipates. She turns with a start, ready to stand, but she sees Lloyd at the other end of the room. He hovers in the doorway, looking as surprised to see her as she is to see him.
A minute passes where neither of them speak, then Lloyd says, "You're not supposed to be up here."
That is true. With Lloyd's statement comes the realization of just how long Nya has been sitting at the window. Anyone could have seen her if they looked close enough.
"Well," she counters, "neither are you."
Lloyd doesn't deny it, instead looking to the window and saying, "What have you been doing? We're supposed to be careful."
"I've been careful," says Nya, which is something of a lie, "I was trying to take my mind off—things."
Lloyd approaches her side but stays out of the view the window creates, saying, "Is this about what happened today? You know that they're alive. They have to be."
It does seem to be the reason for Nya's troubles. They did find the Bounty today, but the ninja weren't there. This could mean many things, really, and Nya is caught in all the questions.
The fact that her family didn't perish at Garmadon's hand doesn't guarantee that Nya will see them again. She has no clue where they are, and in some ways, that makes it worse, because she doesn't know what happened to them.
With no clues to their whereabouts, the quiet question remains if they'll ever find their way back to Ninjago. Back home.
That terrifies her.
Not knowing terrifies her.
"We still don't know if they'll come back," says Nya.
"They will," says Lloyd, "They always do."
The faith Lloyd has in the idea that the ninja will return strikes Nya with guilt for not sharing it. She looks for the sky and wonders what is wrong with her, but her eyes land on the goliath's face again. She waits for it to turn, but it doesn't.
"I hate that I can't do anything about it," says Nya, "Wherever they are, we can't help them, and I can't stand waiting around."
"You're not waiting around. We might not be able to help them, but we can help here," says Lloyd, and his jaw sets as he continues, "We have to be ready for when they come back."
Again, with 'when' they will come back. Never if. Nya knows that the ninja will do everything in their power to get back home, and Nya is ashamed for doubting that they will reach it.
It isn't like she doubts the ninjas' skills. It's just that they've never been this far from help before. They've never been this far from Nya.
She sighs, for Lloyd is right about one thing. Nya can't help the ninja, but she can help the Resistance. She can ensure that the rest of her family has a home to return to, a home to fight for.
That is one of few things she has power over. She'll just have to have faith that the ninja will do the rest.
Lloyd steps closer then, so he can peer out the window. "What are you looking at?"
He finds the goliath, and his face falls.
Nya says, "The stars."
And Lloyd blinks. "What?"
"You know that there are more of them now that the city is dark?" says Nya, "We can see more of them, at least."
Lloyd looks. "I hadn't noticed. I was always looking at the city."
For a moment, he stares, as close as Nya was to the glass, too close to be safely out of sight, but Nya lets him look. He probably needs to as much as she did.
She asks, "Do you still wish on stars?"
Lloyd laughs, a bitter sound that reminds Nya too much of Garmadon. "That's a bunch of kid stuff."
"But do you?" says Nya, "You still have your star, right? Your wishing one?"
For some reason, she needs to know that he still has that: one last scrap of childhood.
Lloyd is quiet.
Nya looks at the sky. "I've got one."
"Really?" Lloyd raises his eyebrows and casts her a sideways glance. "You didn't pick one out for the sake of this conversation?"
"It wouldn't matter if I did," says Nya, "You told me all the rules for wishing. Now I've got a star."
Lloyd hums.
"Besides," says Nya, looking down as she does, "it couldn't hurt to start."
"It could," says Lloyd, "Sometimes wishes don't come true, and the disappointment hurts."
"I'll make sure not to pick a planet, then," says Nya.
Lloyd stares at her. "What star did you pick?"
Nya points to the fairy that fell in love with the moon. "It's that reddish one above that building over there. See it? It has a cluster around it."
"I do," says Lloyd, "That's a good one. That star moves around the sky a lot because of its position, so you might have to catch it at certain times."
He says this, then ducks his head as though embarrassed for knowing so much about the star to begin with. Nya just nods along, hanging onto every word.
"That makes sense," says Nya, "It was said that she was the fastest fairy in the land."
Lloyd frowns, and his confusion surprises a laugh out of Nya.
"What?" says Lloyd.
Nya grins and explains, "Kai used to tell me stories about the stars. That star was a favorite of his. She fell in love with the moon."
The expression on Lloyd's face does not change. "But the moon is like—a speck of dust next to the stars."
"You know, I said the same thing," says Nya, and the humor drains out of her as a melancholy feeling settles once more, "You'll have to ask Kai. He's the one who came up with it."
Lloyd glances away as he replies, "I guess so."
A silence passes before Nya speaks again, "So which star is your wishing star?"
Lloyd looks, but his eyes fall on the face of the goliath again. "I can't see it from here."
Shaking his head, he turns away. "You'll have to wish for me, okay? I'm going to get some sleep. You should do the same, soon."
Nya sighs. "Okay. I'll wish for you."
"And remember," says Lloyd as he heads for the door. He pauses before leaving, debating if he should speak. "Shooting stars are extra powerful, so if you see one—" he swallows, "—make it count."
"I will," says Nya, and she means it.
She smiles at him and is graced with one in return before Lloyd makes his exit, at which point Nya settles back by the window.
She doesn't spend much longer there, but she looks at her wishing star and hopes that wherever the rest of her family is, they can see the stars, too.
I can't actually remember how soon Mystake told Lloyd and Nya that the rest of their team went to the First Realm, so it's very likely that this story is riddled with inconsistencies regarding canon. Because this was an exercise, I don't really care. I just hope you enjoyed the story!
Thank you for reading! I hope you have a wonderful day!