Ech. Well, the story continues! New title, same First Realm grouches. I've got some plot lined up eventually, but in the meantime I'm just going to ramble along self-indulgently. Humor me a bit. :P

The cards references are semi-canon, there's a story in an official activity book confirming that nobody in the First Realm can play cards worth a dang. :P Cards and Dragon Hunters in general seem like a good mix.

Screw her reputation. Screw responsibility and nobility. Screw Creation. Screw all that dragon stuff, screw it straight to hell; Firstbourne was going to kill EVERYTHING. And she was going to start with this pack of pestilent human so-called friends. They knew about dragons' nature, they knew she had spawn to avenge, they knew this was the battle of her millennia-long lifetime. Oni. The final battle against the freaking ONI.

AND THEY LET HER SLEEP THROUGH IT.

"Well, don't take it out on me." Faith was alive and not yet missing any limbs, a miracle never to be explained by science. "We didn't have time to go down and wake you."

Firstbourne stopped pacing long enough to give Faith a red-eyed snarl. You'd think as someone with similar losses to the Oni, she would understand.

"Believe me, it's not for lack of interest. We could have used the help," retorted Faith, unflinching. She had a healthy respect for the danger of an angry dragon (and yes, fine, if you were going to argue semantics that did mean she was scared. What sane person wouldn't be?), but she had seen enough dragons coming at her with murderous intent that she was used to standing her ground. Besides, this was . . . different.

Firstbourne rattled her head furiously and made a sound that could only be described as a sneeze of rage. She was about to tear herself apart at the seams here.

"If anyone has a right to be angry it's us," said Faith, hands on hips. "We were the ones doing all the work and nearly getting killed."

Another rage sneeze. Firstbourne would gladly get herself nearly killed if it meant sinking her teeth into some more Oni, and this despicable smart-mouthed unsympathetic little speck of a Hunter knew that. Faith had better tread incredibly carefully, or so help her—

"Oh, of course, snort at me, would you? Listen. Given that you can sense an Oni halfway across the realm, you'll forgive us if we assumed you'd wake up for an entire army of them. Marching. Loudly. Directly in front of your nose."

Thaaaaaaat did it. Firstbourne stiffened momentarily, then drew in a deep breath, her head retracting, her jaws cracking open. Faith took a step back, involuntarily. At the last second she heard a familiar voice shouting "no!"—but Firstbourne had already shut her nictitating membranes and exhaled.

Faith won the element roulette; it was only water. It slammed her into the ground pretty quick, but compared to lava, gravel, or 10,000 gigawatts of lightning, that was cotton fluff. Firstbourne finally ran out of breath. She gave a spluttering Faith a final glare and a wrathful huff, then whirled in a great flourish of tail and stormed away. Look out Ninjago, she still had a lot of rage to walk off.

Faith sat up, hacking for breath. Nearby Wu slumped and resumed breathing himself, one hand drifting to his chest.

"Faith. Oh my goodness."

"Some attitude," said Faith hoarsely, and coughed. Wu shook his head despairingly, moving to crouch next to her.

"I never pinned you as the type to intentionally bait a dragon. Especially a dragon already that angry." He was wearing an odd half-smile, though, and Faith found herself giving him a wry smile back.

"What do you think she'd do, eat me?"

"She could, you know. And you know what happened to Iron Baron."

Faith scoffed wearily, clambering to her feet without taking the hand Wu offered. To be fair, she did maybe feel the tiniest prick of guilt, because she realized that Firstbourne hadn't been right next to the advancing Oni army. She would have been closer and more likely to wake up if she hadn't changed locations after bringing Faith back to the monastery last night.

So yeah. A little guilty. But not enough to actually act on it.

Wu shook his head, still smiling.

"You two are even better friends than I thought," he said, turning to head back up the monastery stairs. Faith looked after him indignantly.

"We're not friends," she said flatly, skipping a few steps to catch up. Bad idea; healing potion still hadn't quite finished working. She gritted her teeth and hoped Wu hadn't noticed her faltering.

"She lets you ride her, doesn't she?" said Wu. If he had noticed, he at least pretended not to. "That's truly impressive, Faith. I had thought only my father's lineage earned that kind of respect."

"Respect." Faith snorted. "It's a transaction. You pay your way into her respect."

"Excuse me?"

"She makes you earn it. Every time she offers you a ride, you climb on. Then she immediately throws you off. She keeps doing it until she decides you've gone through enough pain to deserve riding her, and she's a sadist, by the way." Faith huffed. "If you're curious, the going rate is two concussions and a broken arm. Then you can ride."

"She broke your arm?!" Wu stopped, startled. Then he visibly did some mental calculations. "It's only been three months since you made peace with the dragons. How did you heal so fast?"

Shaking her head, Faith tugged down the shoulder of her shirt, flashing a crude splint hidden under her clothes.

"Faith." Wu looked stricken all over again. "You shouldn't be running around like that, it won't set right—"

"Can't be helped," said Faith tersely.

"At least put a better cast on it—"

"Why?" said Faith. "So everyone else knows I'm down an arm and easier to finish?"

Wu fell silent, his expression strained. Faith took a bit of guilty satisfaction from unsettling him, admittedly. Just a little. It was kind of an ego boost: You don't know the ropes like I do. I know hardship. I know how to survive where you never could.

"You live in a cruel realm, Faith," said Wu at last.

"Oh really. Who told you that one?"

". . . You did." Wu gave her a distinctly annoyed look for a second, then abruptly laughed. "You're out to anger everyone today, aren't you?"

Faith shrugged, privately a little frustrated that he'd picked up on that and would presumably stop taking the bait.

"You just showed me that your arm is broken, though," continued Wu. "Aren't you afraid I'm going to finish you?"

Faith made a show of sizing him up silently.

"You don't seem like the type," she said at last. Technically she meant that as a compliment—she did admire his kindness, secretly—but she put enough of a mocking edge in her tone that it sounded more like an insult.

"Ahh. You think showing kindness to the weak makes me weak," said Wu.

Faith stayed pointedly silent. Wu side-eyed her for a moment, visibly irritated. Then he abruptly struck his staff against Faith's arm, hard enough to snap the splint. Faith shied away inadvertently, gasping. It took a second for her to realize that the blow only stung a little, about as much as you'd expect a staff to hurt—not the white-hot blinding pain she was used to whenever someone touched that arm. She did a poor job hiding her confusion.

"I did give you a powerful all-purpose healing potion," said Wu, a little too blandly.

Faith glowered. Good grief. And she'd thought this guy was annoying as a teenager.

They had made it back up to the monastery by now. Faith wavered, unwilling to concede her tiredness and nausea by just heading back to the infirmary. Wu seemed to be onto her, though.

"You should go get some more rest, Faith," he said. "You need to start taking it easier—the potion only heals if you let it. It seems to be holding up so far, but dragging yourself down this mountain a fourth time might be a little too much."

"I'll get forty winks or so," grumbled Faith, too sore to resist any harder. She was already on the threshold of the infirmary when she suddenly snapped around. "Fourth?!"

Wu had already vanished around the corner. Faith squinted after him for a moment, baffled, then looked to her fellow convalescents.

"Is he always like this?"

"Is he always like what?" Cole looked up from a game of Go Fish, then waved a hand wearily. "Actually, whatever it is, yeah. Probably."

Lloyd muffled a laugh as he drew from the deck.

"Wanna play with us?" said Cole, gesturing at the cards scattered across the bedspread. "Or we can be quiet if you wanna sleep."

Faith studied him a moment, puzzled by this in turn. The ninja all seemed so cheerful, it . . . almost creeped her out a little. Sure, she could understand that they were happy about Cole and Lloyd not really dying, but what about the city? She had heard Wu and Misako saying that the entire place had been overtaken by Oni. She had asked a monk what a city was, and he had said it was like a very large village, with thousands or millions of people in it. So then, thousands or millions of people must have died. And these youngsters, probably about two-thirds her age, were sitting here joking and playing games? That was . . . pretty cold.

But then, they were warriors, she reminded herself. Back in the First Realm she had thought they were soft, but maybe she had underestimated them. They must be used to death. They didn't let their feelings get in the way.

The thought put her on the defensive a little. It made her ashamed of how hard it was to look past her own loss. Surely the ninja must have had friends in Ninjago City, friends who were now gone. If they could shrug that off so easily, why couldn't she?

She squared her shoulders, determined to do better.

"All right," she said. "A few rounds."

Soon Faith came to regret this decision, like so many life decisions before it. Playing card games gracefully was difficult when you had no idea how. She had a vague idea that games were supposed to be fun, but this felt more like an inquisition.

The others seemed to be having a better time. Lloyd was laughing at Cole, who was pulling card after card from the deck and exclaiming in irritation each time. He was hamming it up a little for Lloyd's benefit.

"Come on, I don't think a deck is even supposed to have this many cards that don't match a six of diamonds! Who rigged this thing?"

Faith wished she could see the cards he was drawing. She was paying very close attention to Cole and Lloyd's moves, trying to figure out the logic. They had explained something about numbers and suits, and she was pretty sure it had something to do with the strange little shapes printed on each card. But these kids made their moves so fast—there was no way they could be counting the shapes on each card, could they? And what was the deal with the little freakish two-headed people on some of these?

"Ugh, finally!" Cole slapped a card onto the stack. "Your turn, Faith!"

Faith set her jaw. Surreptitiously she ran her eye over the card Cole had played, trying to count the little red shapes as fast as she could. Seven? Or maybe that was eight? Then she squinted at her current hand. How was she supposed to count shapes when her cards were all overlapping like this? She could feel her irritation with this bogus game rapidly increasing. For a second she almost missed playing cards Iron Baron's way—none of these mystical rules, just play random cards until he decided he'd won.

. . . Actually, no. Heck no. She wasn't that desperate. Never.

Cole and Lloyd were trying not to watch her too intrusively. She was uncomfortably aware that she'd already taken much longer than either of them to make a move. No more time to angst; better just hope for the best. Biting her lip, she eased one of the cards out of her hand and placed it on the stack. It was the same color, at least—maybe that counted for something?

Her heart sank at the look Cole and Lloyd exchanged.

"Ah, you have to match number or suit, Faith," said Cole carefully, giving her an awkward smile. Faith looked away, tossing down her hand. Screw it, this was a stupid game.

Cole and Lloyd exchanged another awkward glance.

"Ah c'mon, Faith, you'll get the hang of it!" coaxed Cole. "Hey, look, you had a nine right here! You could have played that."

Faith couldn't suppress a disbelieving look. The card Cole was pointing at was almost completely covered by another card, no way could he have known how many dots were on it. Were Ninjagians psychic, or just really slick liars?

Brief as the expression was, Cole caught it. He squinted at her, trying to figure out what she was so incredulous about. Then his eyes suddenly went wide.

"Wait. Oh my gosh. You guys don't have writing, do you?!"

Faith didn't reply, looking away again. Whatever writing was, so what if they didn't have it? She'd already heard these clowns gushing about Ninjago enough, she was well aware they considered it superior to the First Realm. And yes, fine, she'd hated the First Realm herself, back in the day. But still, it was her home, and she had actually grown fond of it after Iron Baron was out of the picture, and you know what she was actually really missing it right now, be damned. They didn't have to keep rubbing in how much better Ninjago was, just because it had some stupid—"writing," or whatever.

Besides. This entire exercise was seriously making her feel like an idiot, and that did not put her in the best of moods.

Cole was apologizing, but she wasn't really listening. She noticed when he tapped on her arm, though.

"Come on, Faith. We can teach you. It's not hard."

Faith eyed him unhappily. Learning by definition meant revealing how much you didn't know. But on the other hand, no matter how convincingly she argued that the game was stupid or a waste of time, these two would still assume she was just scared to try it.

"Well . . . just a few things," she said at last.

"Great!" Cole flipped over the deck and began pawing through the mess of cards. "It's easy! You see these little symbols on the corners? Those are numbers. They tell you how many . . . uh, thingies, are on each card."

"Pips," said Lloyd, laughing. And there are letters too."

Faith squinted. Hunters could count, of course, but letters were a foreign concept.

"Letters are like . . . the pieces that make up words," began Cole. Then he shook his head. "Nah, nah, that's gonna get complicated fast. Let's just start with suits, that's easy."

Faith watched with some trepidation as Cole fished out various cards and laid them in front of her.

"See, for starters, the cards come in two colors," said Cole. "Half red, half black."

"I'd noticed," said Faith ruefully. That was a problem she could relate to on a personal level.

"Oh, yeah!" Cole looked up, realization dawning on his face. "Kinda like your—" He caught himself, realizing that might be a sensitive topic. "Well, ah—like—"

Faith regarded him blandly, daring him to finish that sentence.

"Never mind," Cole finally muttered, suddenly devoting undue attention to shuffling some cards. Lloyd nudged him in amused reproach, while Faith ventured a dry smile. Huh, so she had him at a disadvantage instead. This was less miserable than she'd expected.

"Anyway," grumbled Cole, rallying. "Red and black cards! And the—pips, right? The pips can be four different shapes. That's what we call suits."

"Each suit has a name," said Lloyd, beginning to sort the cards. "These are called diamonds. The shape I guess, they don't really look like real diamonds."

Faith cocked her head, wondering what diamonds were, but didn't ask.

"And this suit is called spades," continued Lloyd. He chuckled when Faith gave him a suspicious look. "I know. They don't look much like spades, do they?"

"They look nothing like spades," said Faith flatly. "I could believe shovels, maybe. Not spades."

Lloyd startled her by laughing.

"Ace of shovels? I like it."

Faith snorted, a little insulted, but let it slide.

"Anyway, even if they don't look like spades, they're called spades." Still grinning, Lloyd pointed to the next set of cards. "And those are called clubs."

"They do not look like clubs." Faith was more startled with herself this time. Normally she would have kept her mouth shut.

"I guess you'd know what clubs look like, all right," muttered Cole under his breath.

"And these," continued Lloyd, highly amused, "are called hearts."

"They do not look like hearts."

"Yeah, I always wondered why—" Cole broke off, giving her a disturbed look. "You know what a heart looks like?"

"Of course I do. Still beating."

"Of course you do," sighed Cole, while Lloyd fixed Faith with a look of undiluted horror. Come to think, probably nobody had told him about the First Realm's limb and vital organs situation.

"Well, anyway." Cole gave Faith a dirty look and tried to steer the conversation away from that topic. "I guess you don't have the heart symbol in the First Realm?"

"I don't know." Faith took the proffered bait—for some reason she didn't want to frighten the FSM's grandson too much, unusual for her—and squinted at the three of hearts. "It looks very familiar, but I don't know why."

"Ehhhh . . . I really doubt you have that symbol," said Cole drily. "Can't imagine it getting much use." At Faith's questioning look, he explained, "the other suits don't mean much, but hearts are also a symbol for like—ah, you know, mushy stuff. Love, and all that."

"Oh." Faith rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I figured you'd say that." Cole snorted. Meanwhile Lloyd tilted his head, looking honestly concerned.

"You don't have love in the First Realm?"

"Ehhhh." Faith shrugged. "We have the theory, I guess."

"Huh." Lloyd said nothing more, but Faith could see his expression clouding. She regarded him curiously. He had definitely crossed over, but it must have been recently, if he could still be troubled by a loveless world. He must not have been disappointed too many times, yet. Poor sap . . . all those disappointments still ahead of him.

Cole was really giving her the stink eye now, and she couldn't even resent it. Sure, she might believe everyone was due for hard knocks till they wised up or died, but she felt kind of bad being the one doing the knocking. It had been the same with Wu: as much as she wished he'd get over that blind innocence already, it felt cruel trying to speed up the process. Maybe it was familial.

"It . . . might be a strong theory, though," she said slowly. "I guess some Hunters believed in it. There was Tsippa, one of my . . . " She searched for the right word, something neither too personal nor too hierarchical, then finally gave up. "Well, she was someone I knew pretty well. She was engaged. I guess she thought she was in love."

"Past tense, huh?" said Lloyd, with a pained smile. Faith shrugged, avoiding his eyes. Poor Tsippa. She'd always hung back from the warrior lifestyle, but that hadn't saved her this time.

It got quiet for a minute. Faith rearranged cards unseeingly. Cole and Lloyd exchanged an awkward look. This conversation had gone downhill too many times to salvage by now . . .

Luckily, at that moment an annoying clanging sound started in the distance. Everyone started slightly.

"Oh, that'll be dinner!" said Cole. He eyed Lloyd. "You think they'll let us out of bed for that?"

"They can't stop us if we're already there." Lloyd was already sliding out of bed, grinning. "Faith? You feel up to coming?"

"No, I'm fine," said Faith.

"We can bring you—"

"No," said Faith, a little too forcefully. Seeing that Cole and Lloyd looked startled, she added grudgingly, "the healing potion doesn't leave you much of an appetite."

"Ohhh." Cole made a face. "Yeah, I heard it's nasty. I hope Master Wu doesn't give us any."

"We need to look super healthy, all right?" Lloyd gave Faith a wave as he left. "We might still bring ya something, though."

Faith shrugged. She kept sorting cards, trying to ignore the distant clanging of the dinner bell. It was the same cowbell one of the monks had rung to warn of the approaching Oni; the same cowbell that had jolted her awake, momentarily convinced that Chew Toy was outside baiting a dragon. She didn't like to hear it.

She sighed gratefully when the clanging finally stopped. With the ache somewhat abated, she began to carefully study the playing cards, determined to learn the little symbols in advance so she wouldn't have to struggle in front of the Ninjagians.

Now she could count in peace. This card was . . . spades, wasn't it? And it had four spades. She squinted at the tangle of lines in the corner. So that particular mess of lines meant four? Hmmmm.

She began to count cards one by one, examining the numbers and laying them side by side. Nine of diamonds. Three of spades. This one had the little people on it, nevermind that, but it looked like clubs. Two of diamonds. Nine of hearts.

Faith paused to look at the card more closely. This one was the love symbol, wasn't it? How strange. She didn't know if she was fascinated or disgusted. Who would ever make use of this?

She had a sudden mental image of Tsippa tracing hearts in the sand for her fiance; endless hearts stretching out all around. Angrily she stamped the image out, as if it had been drawn in the sand itself.

Some time later, a noisy swarm came down the hallway to the infirmary. Faith had been dozing, but she sat up quickly when she heard them.

"Hey, Faith! We did bring you something!" Cole sounded like he had his mouth full. The full posse came bustling in, Zane carrying a cake and Cole already munching a slice.

"Look at this!" Cole gestured grandly. "These guys got me and Lloyd a 'hooray, you're not really dead' cake!"

"Apparently that's a thing now," put in Lloyd, bemused.

"And since I have pieces of ribs in my lungs, but not in my stomach, I can eat it!" continued Cole cheerfully. "But then Zane remembered that you were asking about cake, back in the First Realm, and boy, now you finally get to try some!"

Faith perched on the edge of the bed, eyeing the alleged cake curiously. This was it? It looked . . . kind of homely. Given Cole's breathless description, she'd have expected it to glow or something. Maybe it was all in the flavor.

"We thought we'd all just come over and eat it here instead," said Zane, already doling out slices. "These two really should be in bed, anyway."

He fixed Cole and Lloyd with a meaningful glare. Cole performed an exaggerated dead-man's flop back into an infirmary bed, then immediately convulsed and gritted "ahh—" It took him a second to pull himself back together, but as soon as he could breathe evenly again he waved off Zane's scolding and took a resolute chomp of cake.

"Well." Zane sighed, shaking his head. "At any rate. Here's a piece for you, Faith. Enjoy."

Faith took the proffered plate and spent a moment examining it. Normally she wouldn't accept food she hadn't seen being prepared, that was just common sense. But everyone else was already tucking in happily, and why in blazes would they try to poison her right after they'd dragged her back from the brink of death? It was probably safe enough.

She poked away with the spoon for a moment, puzzled by the texture.

"C'mon Faith, try it already!" Cole's mouth was now full of his second (third?) slice. "It'll change your life."

That wasn't her idea of reassuring, but all right. She waited for a moment when nobody was watching and took a spoonful.

For a few seconds she realized she'd been wrong, they were absolutely poisoning her. Nothing edible should taste like this. It was like honeycomb, very much like honeycomb, but somehow eighty times sweeter. The sweetness was devastating. If she'd thought the healing potion made her queasy, she'd been a fool.

She wasn't sure how long it took for her other senses to come back online. Every instinct screamed to spit this unholy substance out before it killed her, but just enough higher functions remained online to remind her that that would cause a scene. She'd picked between making a scene and possibly dying lots of times before, the choice was easy.

"Faith?" The others were starting to notice something was amiss. "Hey, are you okay?"

She knew better than to try chew anymore. With the same fortitude that had helped her to bring down six-ton rage-blinded flying reptiles, she pulled herself together and swallowed. That helped a little. Breathing slowly through her nose, she salvaged the last few bits of sludge from around her teeth, feeling herself crawling back into the land of the living with each moment.

"Faith, seriously." Kai was watching her with his head cocked anxiously. "You with us?"

Very deliberately, Faith set her slice of cake aside.

"I think I've had enough of that."

"What, don't you like it?" said Kai.

"You don't like cake?!" Cole's head snapped up. "Ohhhh, come on! That just ain't right!"

Faith sighed, embattled and frustrated, as the others carried on disbelievingly. She didn't need this right now.

"We can't be friends anymore," concluded Cole at length, folding his arms. After a second he eyed the nearly-intact slice. "Uh, if you're not gonna eat that—"

Faith watched in some disbelief herself as Cole downed the slice in three bites. Ninjagians were unholy beasts, plain and simple. Sands. If all the food here was like this, how was she going to survive?

Once the cake was polished off, the others hung around the infirmary for ages, chattering and laughing. Faith didn't participate herself. Somehow she was disproportionately exhausted. After a while she lay down and rolled to face away, shutting her eyes. Something crinkled under her arm; she realized it must be one of the playing cards from earlier. Struck by a thought, she fished the card out and took care to cover the pips with her hand before looking at it. Hearts again. And this number was . . . ah! Four. There. She was learning. Not everything was hopeless.

Allowing herself a small, tired smile, she uncovered the card to check. Oh. Nine hearts.

Never mind.