Once Lloyd and Misako have fished themselves from the rapids and built themselves a serviceable camp, they have a long discussion—again.
For all that Misako's job calls her to the remnants of Ninjago's history and Lloyd's role on the team keeps him busy, especially with training, mission plans, and the occasional split-second rallying cry, they rarely ever get to just talk. But the few times they do, they tend to slip into the darker parts of things. His father dominates their conversations, Darkly's makes a close second, but the fact that she's hardly ever around is a topic Lloyd tends to steer clear of and for good reason.
He has enough issues with the past, he doesn't feel like making more in the present.
Or, at least he used to.
Lloyd hops from tree branch to tree branch, eyes tracing the white constellations that pepper the sky as he looks out for a guiding north star. A vine and some strained huffing later find him so high up, a dizzy spell overcomes him. Stargazing out here on the island, far away from the ever awake city he's spent so long protecting, is an experience unlike any other. It's enough to steal his breath away and replace it was a soul-deep ache for times long past, times when he and his father would slip onto the roof of the monastery, and Garmadon would relay all the myths surrounding the stars.
The waterproof flare gun Nya strapped onto every member of the team slips into Lloyd's hand with ease. His finger squeezes the trigger and sends the beacon high into the sky like a fallen star returning to its home. With a shot of euphoria, another flare lights up from the other side of the island, marking his team's position and the telltale sign that they're on their way. He feels a grin spread out across his face at the sight and a feeling lighter than air makes a home in his chest.
Sure, there's a chance the Keepers might send their warriors after them. But this deep into the jungle? Matched up against five highly trained ninja and a samurai? Lloyd likes his odds.
"Lloyd!" Misako's voice rings through the canopy, clear as a bell. "Come down here, please."
'Good feeling gone,' Lloyd thinks. He chews on the inside of his cheek, debating the merits of confronting his mother after he spent a solid ten minutes yelling at her in Wojira's river. She could be angry with him. After all, even the slightest shift in the tone of his voice has set her off on a string of reprimands. But there was a look in her eyes earlier on the shoreline that Lloyd would describe as sad.
That's the thing about his mother. He can never tell what she's truly feeling and he'll argue that's what makes her so capable. Not her martial arts prowess or vast fathoms of knowledge or even her rare moments of quiet cunning. It's how she places everything behind a perfect, pristine mask made of nothing but logic and sensibility.
Part of him wonders if that's what rooted his father to her for so long or if it was something else he saw in her that Lloyd just doesn't. Maybe she was warmer back then, more thoughtful, more caring, more gentle, and less unquenched by the insatiable need to know. It's in her blood, the need to study, to pick apart and put back together, to dig her fingers deep into the annals of the world. He can definitely see how his nearly ancient father would have attracted someone like her. Maybe someone as intolerant of nonsense and as logic-not-emotion as her was exactly what he needed, venom-riddled and bursting at the seams as he was.
Or maybe his parents were just messed up people who sought comfort in each other. Maybe they improvised along the way. Maybe she improvised along the way.
Lloyd swallows a growing lump in his throat.
He knows he shouldn't be thinking of Misako like this; like he would if he was still at Darkly's. She's his mother and she loves him and he loves her. Things are just wholly, unfairly complicated just as everything else in Lloyd's life is. That's all it is. A big, horrible, tangled mess of things that don't make sense and might never make sense.
"Lloyd!" Misako calls again.
He hisses out a breath, resigned to his fate. No more avoiding it then.
The thick, rough bark of the tree scrapes against his palms as he braces himself against its limbs and carefully slides down into the clearing. Firelight from their meager campfire bathes the forest floor in a warm, orange glow and flickers across his mother's face. The river stole her glasses and she looks younger, unguarded without them. Lloyd resists the urge to groan as she beckons him over.
"Let me see your injury," she says.
Lloyd fumbles with both the straps on his gi and his thoughts as they swarm around his head. His mother, straight to the point, examines the wound where one of the Keepers stabbed him earlier. Her shoulders rise and fall as she breathes, calloused yet gentle hands run across his side. The injury is nearly closed up, its edges glowing with a dim, green light. It must not seem infected or at risk of tearing anymore because Misako backs off.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"Not that I can tell," Lloyd shrugs, refastening his belt. He's sure he'd be coughing up blood or unable to see straight if it were worse. Good old ninja luck, he guesses.
Misako doesn't respond. She just observes him, a slight tension in her body as if she's expecting him to keel over. He doesn't blame her. Such a thing tends to happen more often than not. Though the silence eventually becomes unbearable for Lloyd. He squirms underneath her gaze, awkwardly stuck on the words he wants to say but can't.
"How's your head?" He manages instead.
"It's alright," she says. Her hands tangle in her hair as she steadily unwinds its braid. There's a certain exactness to the action, practiced and measured, as though it'd been done a thousand times before. "I won't need a hospital. Just some rest."
There's that strained, iron silence again. Lloyd nods, stiffly, habitually, as he's prone to do whenever he slides into these almost painfully unpleasant moments with anyone. But his mother looks tired. So tired. She looks the way Lloyd feels all the time.
"Son, about the monastery."
Lloyd stiffens. A deep chill radiates out from a pit in his stomach and settles into every bone in his body. He finds himself cringing, ducking away from her stare as shame flushes within. 'Drat. She remembers that?' He half swats that thought away. Of course, she remembers that. She remembers everything. Lloyd sucks in a breath, steadying himself for what's to come. They might as well do this right now. His team won't be here for a while.
"Sorry," he blurts out immediately. "I wasn't... I didn't mean to yell- I-"
"You don't need to apologize," Misako cuts him off. "I should be the one to apologize. I'm sorry." She pauses for a second as Lloyd processes the gut punch of his mother's regret. He's heard her explain, theorize, teach, but he's never heard her remorse. She tends to leave her past behind, after all. He wonders, in part, what might have caused her to start thinking about it again. "I like the monastery. I enjoy being around you and Wu and all of your friends. I've just assumed it didn't need me to be a part of it."
Lloyd sucks in a breath, a harsh pain blooms in his chest.
"You grew up so fast. Faster than you should have, perhaps," Misako continues. Absently, her hand finds Lloyd's hand to squeeze and it grounds him with a cool, calming wave. "You're not so little anymore. You've become a great man, one I'm sure your fa-" she breaks off suddenly, her voice going distant, and Lloyd feels the pain in his chest grow hotter and more agonizing.
It's a bit funny how they both forgot. Lord Garmadon doesn't feel real to Lloyd, sometimes. He's more like an apparition, flickering and faint and jammed permanently between the neat frames of an old photograph. Far away.
Unreachable.
But every so often, he'll search through his luggage or a box he shoved half-hazard underneath his bed and find something that very violently throws him back to his father's monastery: a journal, a folded note, the robes of a ninja master that Lloyd never quite felt worthy of. It'll force him to remember the different faces of his father, the kind ones and the cruel ones.
Then there are nights he'll bolt awake, his breath caught burning in his ribcage, his father's afterimage seared behind his eyelids. For the first few seconds, the world will freeze, time will stand still, and the only thing that will exist is Lloyd as he processes what he just saw—Emperor Garmadon or Sensei Garmadon? Vicious, embittered Oni or kind, warm father?
A shudder will work its way through Lloyd's body before he flops back down onto his pillow and burrows deep beneath the covers. Even if they'll never keep the cold away.
"He would have been proud."
Lloyd snaps back to the present. His mother's attention is trained on him rather intensely, her hands cupping his cheeks.
"Back then, when he was good, and... even before that, he loved you. He loved you so much." A shaky breath pushes out from her. "We loved you more than anything else. We lost more of you than anything else. Believe me, we tried to make peace with that. I thought I certainly had. You became so independent so quickly." She chuckles something muted and broken. "I suppose I thought you didn't need me."
He doesn't know what he needs. Lloyd spent so much of his life chasing the high of being wanted and loved the way. He used to dream of a small, tidy home with murals painted on every wall and a room all to himself. Becoming the Green Ninja wasn't exactly an ideal situation but it did give him a home and a family unlike any other. Unique, weird, and sometimes prone to waking up the entire monastery because they thought they could blend milkshakes at two AM. He knows he wouldn't trade them for anything in the world, though.
He knows he thinks the same way about his mom. Need feels almost arbitrary in this case. He wants her around. At the very least, he'd like to feel less awkward around her. Maybe a little less angry too.
He gets it. He does. His mother deals with things by diving into her work to drown out the grief of the outside world.
Lloyd can't say he's much better. After all, less than a week after he'd received confirmation that all the SOG had been rounded up, he locked himself in his room. He didn't come out for days, much to the pleading of his family. The isolation didn't help, he knows good and well it didn't. But at the time, it felt like the only thing he could do. The only thing he had control over.
"I just wanted you to be around," Lloyd says. He bites his lip. "I know you were trying to save us. But I... At Darkly's... Even after I became the Green Ninja... I was confused and it felt like you didn't care. Or if you did, it was about the wrong things." He blows out a breath, yanking his hands through his hair. "I don't know what I'm saying."
"I do," Misako replies. "I understand what you're saying, I mean. Now that so much has happened, I wonder if it would have been better if I had stayed. You needed my support more than my knowledge, right?"
The ache in Lloyd's chest grows, spreading both deep down into his stomach and up into his throat. He stumbles with his words but ultimately settles on: "Right."
"There's so much I cannot take back."
"But there's so much you can do now."
Lloyd doesn't process that he's said that until a few seconds after it's left his mouth. He flinches when his mother looks at him, an icy sensation jolting through him.
"What I mean is... I just... I miss you, is what I'm trying to say." Lloyd chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment, most certainly not meeting his mother's questioning gaze. "I miss you a lot."
He curses himself as his thoughts attempt to break out through his useless rambling. But he forces them into a box tied up in locks and chains and throws out the mental key. He can dredge them back up at the monastery over the two-gallon tub of ice cream Zane tried to hide in the furthest reaches of the freezer.
Ha, as if anyone on the team can hide their sweets from Lloyd. But that's off-topic.
Lloyd shakes his head, forcibly putting himself together. "And I kind of would like to talk more."
But what's there really to talk about that they haven't already? Her abandoning him? His father taking the broken remains of their family and shattering it even more? The prophecy that sparked this entire horrible thing in the first place?
Lloyd's sick of it. All of it.
He's sick of the way trauma scratches at his chest, sick of scratching at the barest threads of control for his own life, sick of trying to wrangle even the smallest choice out of destiny's claws.
He's sick of feeling like the Green Ninja always comes before Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon.
And it's with that gnawing sense of exhaustion that he finally nails down what he craves the most.
He wants to feel comfortable in his own house. He wants whatever he and his father had before the Tournament of Elements wrecked it.
He wants to come bounding in, prattling about the newest release of Starfarer. He wants to talk about every little innocuous thing that his mind latches onto like music and tv and that sick new backflip routine he and Kai are working on together. Because he loves hovering over Nya's shoulder when she's tinkering together with Jay and Pixal. He loves harassing Zane during his meditation sessions with Uncle Wu and button mashing to destroy Cole's character in a video game.
He loves everything and everyone, and he does so tirelessly, or so Master Wu has told him. Lloyd wants his love to finally, finally feel justified.
"Because you deserve to have that justice," Nya once told him as they both stood over Harumi's grave. "You deserve to have that peace."
And that is a whole lot more emotion than Lloyd has the capacity to deal with right now.
Fortunately, because Lloyd has the greatest team in the entire known universe, he won't have to deal with it right now.
They're still a good distance away if the sounds of their echoing voices are anything to go by. Lloyd would be disappointed in them for not keeping quiet—they're ninja for heaven's sake—but he's vibrating with joy just because he can hear them at all. And hey, he's looking for an excuse to escape his mom now that he's opened his mouth and destroyed the weird, fragile peace they used to have. Sayonara, terrible conversation.
Lloyd hops up, making half-harried motions towards his team as he slips away. Then his mother's hand shoots out and catches him by the wrist and every single reflex Master Wu drilled into his during ninja training flies out the window.
"We can talk more," Misako says. "If you want."
Lloyd's mouth dries up like the desert. He squeezes his eyes shut, stomping down on the urge to cry.
"It doesn't have to be right now. We can wait until we get home."
"Promise?" He manages.
"I promise."
Throat burning raw, vision swirling with wetness, Lloyd's quickly falling apart here. But he gathers his strength and offers her one more sympathetic and pathetically teary-eyed look. Misako's expression is still made of stone, no indicator of how she feels except for the earnest gleam of her eyes. Not trusting his voice, Lloyd nods once then sprints into the foliage.
Lloyd is holding his mother to that promise.
Which is a near thing because his whole family, blood-related and found, is garbage at keeping promises. But it's something to hold onto, a chance that maybe they can start untangling this mess. So he lets it drive him through the rest of the mission.
After an epic clash with the Keepers and another attempt at human sacrifice, this time with Jay at the forefront, Lloyd finally figures out what's going on with Wojira. More importantly, he figures out that Ronin is behind this—the clod. Talk about an inability to stay straight, and the guys harass him about the Serpentine all the time.
Fortunately, it cleans up nicely, like a present with a neat bow on top. He locks Ronin away and makes contact with the police force so they can make a custody transfer. Then he does a quick debriefing with Cole and Master Wu for sanity's sake.
But above all, he clears things up with Chief Mammatus who offers Lloyd and his team copious amounts of first-aid and care to make up for trying to kill them all.
Lloyd tries to decline without kicking up too much of a fuss, Pixal and Nya have stockpiled a surplus of medical supplies on the Bounty, so if there ever was a time to use it, it'd be now. However because Jay's a massive drama queen, he manages to convince everyone to stay for just a teeny-tiny bit longer so he can regale anyone who will listen with stories of how he survived an encounter with Wojira herself and garner some interest among their hosts.
It works in spades, lamentably, and before long the Keepers have showered all of them in offerings of food and other such goodies. Lloyd slips away as soon as possible. Not because he's ungrateful, no. It's good to have more allies on their side should they ever need to call on help. But he needs to prep the catamarans for their trip home.
After that, all that's left is to secure the Storm Amulet and-
"No, Clutch."
"Oh, come on, Misako!"
-keep Clutch Powers' filthy mitts away from it long enough to get back to Ninjago. It's with the slightest bit of restraint that Lloyd purses his lips and looks the other way. His mother has made it abundantly clear that this isn't his fight. Anything to do with the Explorers Club is her obligation, not Lloyd's.
"The amulet belongs to the Keepers." Misako, firm and pragmatic, holds the Amulet far out of Clutch's reach while also combatting him away with just the lugged soles of her boots. "We've caused enough trouble here as it is."
"What am I supposed to tell the Explorers Club?"
"That there was nothing out here except for a crime ring the Ninja busted. If you want to embellish your own ego, you can tell them that you helped. I bet Cecil will love the drama."
Clutch throws his hands in the air and storms off toward the nearest catamaran, which just so happens to be the one Nya is untying from the pier. She flashes him a sharp simper. Clutch havers at the sight of it briefly, then shakes his head and stomps on, clearly determined to prove that he's not scared of her. Misako blows out a breath at the display but otherwise transfers the amulet back to Chief Mammatus with no trouble.
A few soul-crushing goodbyes are said between some of the Keepers and the ninja. Some starker, strained goodbyes float between the Keepers and the Explorers Club. Then the ninja take their leave, dragging any lingering archeologists off with them by their scruffs.
Once everyone has stepped safely onto the Bounty, Pixal goes rogue and starts running her mouth at the more injured members of the group. Before long, she's dragged them all into the infirmary. She narrows her eyes at Lloyd in particular. She's far more vicious than she needs to be when tending to all his scrapes and bruises. He says as much but Pixal takes an unyielding stance against him.
"Well, maybe this would not have happened if you hadn't rushed in all alone," she quips, finishing up the stitches on his right shoulder.
"Maybe I wouldn't have rushed in if someone had my back on my first plan-"
"Your plan sucked," Pixal says in a matter-of-fact tone. Lloyd winces. Ouch.
Lloyd sticks his tongue out at her like he's seven-years-old. He's definitely going to find a way to dye all her stuff pink, even if he has to use bleach. Pixal shoots him a look of the utmost 'really?' combined with 'if you do, I will kill you.' As though she can read his mind.
She pokes him in the chest. "You know it sucked. It was bad and you should feel bad."
"I'll feel bad when you feel bad for leaving me behind," Lloyd snaps. Then he suddenly comes aware of the weight his phrasing has because everyone stiffens.
Dammit, Lloyd swears. He meant for that to be funny. He was hoping Kai would get vitriolic enough to smack him with one of the sickbed pillows but now he's just upset everyone, especially when they all have a painfully honest account of his abandonment issues. Cole looks like he's going to open his mouth and say something to that but Lloyd's not having it. Not today. No sir. Not dealing with this right now.
He snatches up the nearest pillow and ceremoniously hurls it at the knot of guilty-looking ninja. Just as he'd hoped, it hits the mark dead-on.
"Stop that," he hisses. "You heathens."
Kai sputters for a few seconds before decisively mowing Lloyd down and clobbering him right back. It sets off the exact chain reaction Lloyd was aiming for. Everyone gets in on the pillow fight, all but chasing each other around as much as possible. Pixal darts around the raucous for a hot minute, protesting that she's not done tending to everyone, before she throws caution to the wind and joins in.
Lloyd revels in the chaos for as long as possible, even when Cole and Nya pin him down for Kai to tickle mercilessly. But somewhere in there, when he has a break, he'll catch Misako nursing a pair of Clutch's interns.
He'll wonder if she remembers her promise.
A/N:
Me, merrily going along, writing this fic: :)
The Season 15 Finale, winding back their throwing arm with a brick: Hey, bud, whatcha up to?
No, but in all seriousness, I rewrote this author's note twice throughout the duration of Seabound to try to justify my reason for developing Misako and Lloyd (listen, the previews hyped up that the Island was about them. I am scandalized it wasn't.)
In concerns to all of Seabound though-
NO SPOILERS: I loved it. 9/10. Interesting dynamics, good writing, clever jokes, both direct and environmental. I am also in a supreme amount of pain. Those who watched the finale will know why. The only time I've loved a season this much was when the Tournament of Elements aired, and we all know how that ended. Guess I'm naturally drawn to angst.
The only complaint I have is that I wish Kai would have been more prevalent, especially at the end.