Huh! Turns out there's an equivalent to the "Sir So-and-so" for male knights; I thought it was "Madame," but it turns out female knights have the title "Dame." Cool.
dragonsatdawn: Thanks for the review! Again, backstory isn't mine, a friend suggested Griefbringer might have been from the First Realm and being tortured by Iron Baron made it savage. Considering what they were doing to a different fire dragon when the ninja visited, I could sure buy it.
Or trying, anyway. XP So many moving parts to keep track of, I have to keep catching myself so I don't make Vania or Lloyd born before Cole, or Garmadon banished before Lloyd is born.
Eh heh. All the chapters are snippets of the song "Lily" by Alan Walker. The song contributed heavily to the mechanics of this fic. :P
JustRandom: It made it! Thanks.
Oh yeah, I hear ya, I'm always really impressed when authors don't outright say something but still make it super clear. The close cousin of that is when you can tell the author is implying something, but there's like two or three ways to interpret it and you can never pin down which one they meant. Hate that. Gotta give points anytime they manage to avoid it.
Big fan of dragons myself. :) Ooh, interesting though! My Greek mythology is super rusty, but the name rings a bell.
Yeah, these are the same blades! The Ivory and Shadow Blades of Deliverance, at least according to the Munce and Geckles. :P
No, no Lowly in this one! I estimate that the Lowly went into the Dungeons long after Lilly had come and gone, so they wouldn't have met.
Thanks, but I can't afford to! I'm going to have to shut down operations really soon. :S
There is significance to the purple, actually! I know Cole's Earth power is orange, but I mean, nobody's explicitly said that's the official color of all Earth. I figured I could get away with the mountain choosing different colors based on which Earth master it was. As to why I chose purple, let's call it . . . foreshadowing. :3
When Lilly finally dragged herself back to the realm of the Munce and Geckles, she was hailed as a heroic savior. She protested; she looked back over her battle with Griefbringer and realized there was nothing heroic about it.
The mountain-dwellers weren't to be persuaded, though. They let her rest for all of eight hours, and then launched into an endless string of celebrations and ceremonies. The Geckles must have written several hundred poems and essays praising her, between the lot of them. The Munce cemented her battle in their storytelling and interpretive dance, and fought ceremonial duels in her honor. There were speeches, paintings made on the cave walls, lavish feasts (which Lilly honestly feared would poison her), and what felt like thousands of badges, ribbons, and gifts.
"This is really too much," said Lilly, half-amused and half-exhausted, to Gleck. The little Geckle smiled up at her; he had been enjoying vast prestige as the first Geckle to meet and befriend The Savior of the Mountain.
"You deserve all of this, mighty Gilly! You are the savior of the Geckles and the Munce, and you may be assured we are eternally grateful!"
"Ah." Lilly tried not to grimace. "Greaaat . . . "
Although she felt much more at peace now that the mind-creature was routed, she was dismayed to find that she didn't feel like that much of a better person. She could feel that she was better in-tune with her element, but her revulsion towards it hadn't waned at all. She tried to be kind to the Munce and Geckles, because after all they were only trying to thank her, but it wasn't long before she grew consistently impatient. It was exhausting always being "on," always having to be attentive and gracious, always having to smile and attempt enthusiastic thanks for six hundred honors a day. Eternal gratitude grew tiring quickly.
Or it did for the recipient, maybe. The mountain-dwellers could seemingly go for days without flagging.
At night, in bed, the only time she could get some semblance of peace, she lay awake staring at the ceiling. She pressed a hand over her belly, wondering when she would start to feel the baby's kicking. She had to get out of here. She had to go back home. Lou must be losing his mind wondering where she was.
She fished out her locket again and let it dangle above her, glinting in the dim light of the room. After a moment she popped it open and looked at the photographs inside.
Her heart sank. She still felt nothing. She looked at Lou's face and felt no longing, no hint of missing him. If anything she felt faintly angry that she had to go back to him. After all of this, even free of the mind-creature, there was still no love.
She let her hand sink back to her chest, as if she could press away the emptiness behind her ribs. She tried not to let hopelessness overtake her again. She still had to go back. She had to keep trying, and it would be easier now. She would be a good mother.
The next morning there was yet another ceremonial breakfast banquet. Lilly's lack of appetite was no longer just due to the food.
"Excuse me!" she called, over the usual uproar of Munce and Geckle squabbling. "Excuse me, I'd like to make an announcement!"
The few mountain-dwellers nearest her fell silent, but it wasn't until Moosa got up on the table and bellowed for quiet that the volume dropped enough for Lilly to speak.
"I, uh, wanted to thank you all again for your generosity," she began haltingly. She knew it would prompt another flood of chattering about how this was the least they could do, think nothing of it, but she didn't want to be ungracious. She waited for the noise to die down again.
"Although you've all been very kind, and I'm honored, I do have to go back home eventually."
A gasp went up from the collective. The handful of chatterboxes who hadn't shut up for the announcement now fell silent as well.
"You mean . . . leave?" said Glenn, the Geckle chancellor.
"For how long?" barked Mobb.
"I mean . . . for . . . good?" ventured Lilly awkwardly.
Uproar broke out.
"You cannot leave!"
"You are the hero of the mountain!"
"The savior of the dungeons!"
"The all-powerful Milly!"
Lilly sank back in her chair, overwhelmed. What was she supposed to do?
"I'm sorry," she said at last, trying to raise her voice firmly over the noise. "I have a husband, I'm going to have a baby. I have friends back in Ninjago. I can't stay here forever, I only meant to visit."
"Absolutely out of the question!" Glenn flicked one hand imperiously. "We would be lost without you, Gilly. Supposing another dragon comes along? Some other monstrous beast? Think of the cave-spiders! Bats! Minos! You must stay to protect us."
"But . . . but I . . . "
It was too loud to hear her again. She slumped, sighing. After a second she realized Gleck was sitting at her elbow, looking up at her woundedly.
"You wouldn't really leave us, would you Gilly?" he whispered.
"Oh Gleck." She sighed, squeezing his shoulder. Her heart bled at his dejected expression.
Still, she was adamant. Every day, several times a day, she repeated that eventually she would have to go home. Every time she was shot down. There was always something else the Munce and Geckles needed her to do, one more thing they needed her to see. There was always Gleck with his plaintive eyes, tagging after her like a little purple shadow of silent hero-worship.
Today was, she estimated, her fourth day of trying. The breakfasts had not gotten any easier to swallow. She longed for oatmeal and fluffy scrambled eggs. Again she said that she would have to leave eventually.
"You are insistent," sniffed Glenn. "Are you unhappy here, Gilly? We have tried our utmost to provide you with every comfort, but if there is anything else you need—"
"I'm not ungrateful!" Lilly hastened to interrupt. "You've all been incredibly generous, I couldn't ask for more. But I really do have to go home!"
"You put us in a difficult position," said Glenn stiffly. "We have told you before, how are we to protect ourselves without you? You are needed here."
"And besides, you can't leave now," said Moab, the Munce king. "There is ceremony right after breakfast!"
Lilly tried not to groan outright.
She followed silently as the Munce and Geckles paraded her down through the tunnels, singing several of the songs they had made up in her honor. And not successively, either. Simultaneously.
What could she do? Completely without trying, she had seemingly made herself indispensable to these people. The way they carried on, she worried they would descend into raw hysteria if she left them. And it's not like it was even justified; they were tough, numerous, and much better adapted to underground life. The infighting between the two peoples probably weakened them, but even getting along as poorly as they did, they could be formidable. Hand any one of these guys a pair of blades like hers, and they could do just as well as—
Her eyebrows hitched up. Oh.
They arrived at the site of the ceremony, which turned out to be the Heart of the Mountain. Griefbringer's corpse had been disposed of, right down to the bloodstains, but Lilly still noted her surroundings with a slight chill.
The Munce and Geckles had their usual round of storytelling and speechifying, then eagerly escorted Lilly towards the doors of the temple. She distinctly remembered leaving them ajar when she'd left so anyone could get in (a bit of passive-aggression towards a lineage that deserved no such elitism), so she could only assume that the mountain-dwellers had closed them to allow a dramatic reveal. At the others' urging, Lilly placed her hands on the door and pushed it open.
Inside was a statue of herself. For the longest time she couldn't piece together how to react. She was used to people thanking her for her work, and after these last few days she was very used to it, but . . . an entire giant statue. It felt so excessive, so undeserved.
Typical, she thought ruefully. She had spent most of her life chasing after redemption and longing for some affirmation that her existence was worth it. But now that she was being showered with praise and treated like a hero, told that she was absolutely worthwhile, she only felt like it was all a mistake.
She was never going to be all right with herself. That was just something she'd have to accept.
"Read the inscription, read it!" some of the Geckles were squeaking. Smiling awkwardly, Lilly knelt to get a closer look at the writing. Then she gasped as her hand brushed the statue's base, and the entire thing lit up with patterns of searing purple light. This really was excessive. Although . . . if she hadn't been so embarrassed, she might have liked how fierce her glowing face looked.
Recovering, she took another look at the writing.
"This statue was carved with love and gratitude by Geckle and Munce craftsmen."
She couldn't help a hint of a smile. Clearly the Geckles had been the ones to carve the inscription, hence the first billing.
But still, it warmed her heart to see both the names together. She didn't know how much longer these two squabbling peoples would last before some kind of subterranean civil war broke out, so she was glad to see they could at least come together for something like this. She took no pride in slaying Griefbringer, but if the Munce and Geckles could be unified in their gratitude towards her, she could at least be a little proud of that.
"Thank you," she finally said. She brushed her fingers across the inscription one last time, committing it to memory. Then she stood and turned towards the eager press of Geckles and Munce swarming the inside of the temple, watching her.
"As always, I appreciate your gratitude!" she called, raising her voice for the folks in the back. "You've done far more for me than I deserve, and I thank you."
"Speech!" shouted a Munce somewhere in the peanut gallery.
"Tell us the story of how you slew Griefbringer!" called a Geckle, and soon everyone was clamoring. Lilly finally raised her hands in surrender and cleared her throat. She suddenly knew exactly what she needed to say.
"I'll tell you the story one more time!" she said.
She told it. She made this her best rendition yet; she did such a good job that for a second she almost believed it really had been heroic and exciting herself. She placed a little more emphasis on her swordplay, and when she described the slices that took off Griefbringer's wings, its head—which she had absolutely no memory of, in reality—she unsheathed her blades and pantomimed the motions. The listening crowd gasped and shrank away from the glinting black-and-white swords, awed.
"With these two blades, I ended Griefbringer's life." Lilly turned the blades slowly, letting them catch the light. "Their power brought me victory."
In the breathless pause afterwards, somebody started clapping. Then applause broke out in earnest. Lilly waited for it to die away, again feeling deeply undeserving of it all. Especially with what she was about to say next.
"As you probably all know!" she shouted once she could be heard. "I have to leave your home eventually. This will be my final speech to you—but!" she added sharply as uproar threatened to break out. "But! I will not leave you defenseless!"
She crossed her blades over her head, one bye one, silhouetting them against the purple glow behind her.
"These are the Blades of Deliverance!" she said. "It was through their power that I defeated Griefbringer. They can vanquish any evil! And now, for your protection, I bestow them to you."
There was considerable agitation.
"Gilly, you cannot do such a thing!"
"How will you defend yourself?"
"I will not be second-guessed!" said Lilly firmly. "Defeating Griefbringer was my last battle. I am hanging up my blades forever and moving on to a new stage in my life. I don't need them anymore. You do. Now. Would the Munce and Geckle rulers please step forward?"
Hesitantly, King Moab and Chancellor Glenn approached her. Lilly ceremoniously turned her blades hilt-first.
"I now present to the Geckles, the Ivory Blade of Deliverance! And to the Munce, I present the Shadow Blade of Deliverance. Use them only for justice! Guard them well."
The two rulers received the blades reverently, testing the unfamiliar heft. Lilly tried not to smile in the midst of her theatrics. Heavier than they looked, yeah. She knew.
"These two blades are a matching set," she continued. "Just as their power is greatest together, so will your power be greatest when you are together! May the Munce and Geckles live in peace forever."
She allowed herself a small pat on the back. There, maybe she'd at least delayed civil war or something. Brownie points.
By that evening she was packing to leave. As she gathered her scant possessions, and the much larger bulk of gifts the Munce and Geckles pressed upon her, she again pulled out her locket and popped it open. She stared at the photo of Lou. As much as she'd been struggling to get away from the mountain-dwellers' clinging and go home, now that she looked at this locket she realized she didn't want to go home either. Not to Lou. Damn him for ever giving her this thing; she would be so much less confused and angry if she could just comfortably believe that he didn't love her.
With a heavy heart, she fastened the locket back on. Did a final check of her room. Slung her gift-loaded pack onto her back. As she turned to leave, she felt reflexively for the hilts of her blades. She found only air, and remembered that they were gone.
Maybe it was all just exacerbated by the depression from thinking about Lou, but suddenly she found she was stopped in the middle of the room with tears spilling down her face. It was only hitting her now; she really had hung up her blades forever. It wasn't so much about the weapons themselves, it was about the part of her identity she was leaving behind. She would never fight again. All that stretched before her was a dull, demure life at home. She didn't regret it, she was fully ready and eager to settle down and be a mother, but closing this chapter of her life was still hitting hard.
She was just starting to pull herself together when there was a knock on the door, and somebody slipped in without waiting for an invitation. Gleck froze in the doorway, stunned to see Lilly swiping tears from her eyes.
"Miss Gilly," he stammered, looking like he'd need little incentive to burst into tears himself.
"Gleck." Lilly turned away slightly, trying to hide her face. "Don't worry, I'm all right! I'm perfectly fine. Don't worry."
"Miss Gilly, please don't cry . . ." Gleck crept forward and placed a tentative hand on her arm, peering up at her face. "Are you sad to leave us?"
"I guess you could say that." It wasn't entirely untrue.
"I am sad to see you leave too." Gleck's voice cracked. "You were . . . very k-kind to me . . . "
Lilly impulsively swept him into a hug again, patting his back as he struggled valiantly not to sob.
"I am going to miss you, Gleck. You've been very sweet to me as well."
That one actually was true. As indifferent and irritated as she'd grown with many of the other mountain-dwellers, Gleck's innocent admiration had never soured for her.
"Oh, now don't you cry," she said, as she pulled away and Gleck tried to compose himself. "Here, wait. I know. Let me show you something."
She reached up and unfastened her locket, opening it. Gleck dragged a fist over one eye and peered at the tiny photographs.
"It's you!" he gasped. He peered closer. "Who is that other person?"
"That's my husband, Lou. He's the one I'm going home to," said Lilly.
"Oh." Gleck sniffled and scrubbed at his eye again, but continued to squint at the pictures intently. "I understand why you're so eager to leave . . . "
Lilly smiled bitterly. That made one of him.
"Guess what," she said. Reaching down to take Gleck's hand, she pressed the locket into his palm and closed his fingers over it. "It's for you. So you have something to remember me by."
"But . . . " Gleck stared up at her, lost for words.
"I'm going back to my husband, I won't need a picture of him when I'm there," said Lilly nonchalantly. "And I certainly don't need a picture of myself! It's all yours."
Gleck was again tearing up, but he managed to fasten the locket around his own neck, clasping his hand over the golden heart.
"I'll never take it off," he said softly. "Thank you Miss Gilly."
"Don't mention it, friend."
The moment was so heartfelt, Lilly could almost convince herself that she really had just given Gleck the locket to console him. And that it had nothing to do with quiet rebellion. With spiting Lou.
She later told Lou she had lost the locket during her travels and felt awful about it. She could tell he doubted. She was cruelly pleased.
After Lilly left the Dungeons of Shintaro, she stopped by the palace and asked to speak briefly with King Vangelis before she left. He granted her a private audience again.
"So, you have returned!" he said, upon seeing her. "And with the dragon presumably dealt with?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," said Lilly, bowing. "It is dead."
"Wonderful, Dame Lilly. My highest compliments. Is there anything I can do to reward you?"
"No, Your Majesty. I only wished to speak to you on two subjects," said Lilly.
"Continue . . . "
"One is a warning," said Lilly. "I'm sorry to say this, Your Majesty, but Griefbringer was far from the worst evil down in the mountain tunnels. While I was fighting Griefbringer I encountered a . . . well, this mysterious green skull. It was gigantic, and it glowed. When I touched it, I felt an evil that I cannot even begin to describe. An evil so powerful it immediately began to take over my very body."
"Gracious!" King Vangelis looked alarmed. "I trust you are unhurt?"
"I think so," said Lilly. "But I thought you should know that there are highly dangerous objects buried beneath your city."
"You must have encountered the ancient Skull of Hazza D'ur," said King Vangelis. "I thought that was only a legend . . . " He looked at her sharply. "Is the skull still there?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. I couldn't move it."
"I see . . . Hmmm. I shall have to take measures, then." The king seemed to go oddly distant. After a moment he started, as if just remembering that Lilly was there. (And watching him a bit oddly.) "I'm sorry. What was the other thing you wished to tell me?"
"Well, I guess it was more of a question," said Lilly. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, were you aware that there are vast legions of people living underneath your mountain?"
"Oh! Yes, the Munce and Geckles." King Vangelis waved dismissively. "I am aware of them."
Yet seemingly he hadn't seen fit to mention that it was them being terrorized by Griefbringer. He hadn't done anything to help, only sealed the tunnels off from his own subjects and left the mountain-dwellers to be slaughtered.
Lilly left the king on cooler terms than she had met him. Somehow, although she couldn't place her finger on why, she no longer found him attractive.
She visited Wu briefly before going home as well.
"So, did you learn the Spinjitzu Burst?" he asked her.
Lilly hesitated. Wu got around, and would surely be curious about Shintaro after hearing of her adventures. Supposing he visited the Dungeons someday and heard all the fuss about her swords, and no talk of her own Earth powers?
"No, I didn't," she said. "My blades were enough."
She could tell that Wu actually believed her, too. Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised—she had successfully lied to two entire peoples and left them suspecting nothing. She was getting good at it.
When she got back, Lou was overjoyed. For a while things were very different, to the point that Lilly almost didn't know what to make of it. She could see Lou constantly biting his tongue, backpedaling, weighing every word before he said it. So anxious to prevent any more fights and keep her happy.
Maybe she should have found it touching, but honestly it just made her ache inside. Making each other happy shouldn't have to take such intense, deliberate, continuous self-sacrifice.
Still, she felt like it would be wrong not to be grateful. Whether he truly loved her or just couldn't stomach rejection, she didn't know; but at least he was trying. She tried as well.
It verged on the miraculous, but her pregnancy continued uncomplicated. Lou seemed to be gearing up to be a doting father; he carried on for hours about how he would love teaching music, poetry, and dance to his little one. Lilly thought of the absent weight of her blades on her hips, and wondered what she would teach her child.
Lou wasn't there when she went into labor. He was out touring with his group. In his defense, he had planned to be home by the due date and Lilly was early-term instead; but still. She had to stumble to the neighbors' house and beg them to take her to the hospital. As they ran around frantically trying to get transportation, she waited in pain, terrified that she was going to give birth here in their living room. She felt so alone in that moment.
Then when they got to the hospital the neighbor stayed back to snatch supplies, while her husband helped Lilly into the labor ward. One of the nurses who came to whisk Lilly to her room said, "I'll get someone to find a chair for your husband."
The man sputtered, caught off-guard.
"He's not my husband," guttered Lilly.
"Oh." The nurse looked at the man and clearly drew some wrong conclusions. "Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right, he's still welcome to stay. Please don't worry, we have paperwork he can sign afterwards if he'd like to accept custody—"
"He's just my neighbor!" Lilly half-barked, breathless with pain. "My husband is away!"
". . . Oh." The nurse didn't say anything more, but Lilly caught her look of silent pity. The humiliation was like a physical stab. As much as she knew this wasn't entirely indifference on Lou's part, in this moment she still hated him. A part of her knew she would never fully forgive him for this.
Childbirth was about equivalent to fighting Griefbringer, it turned out. To her surprise, for the first time since she was little, life followed fiction. She had read about how new mothers felt right after delivery, the exhaustion and joy and tenderness towards the tiny new life, but she had assumed that like everything else this was only romanticized wishful thinking. Given her track record, she had expected to feel hollow and disgusted, or something. Maybe even resentful towards her baby.
But no, it was just like the books had said. She instantly worshiped him. It was a bizarre hodgepodge of feelings flowing through her as she first held him; she was filled with so much love for her baby and so much anger towards her husband, it seemed either one of those emotions should have left no room for the other. She was miserable and overjoyed and most of all exhausted. So, so exhausted.
Lou came rushing in the next morning, full of apologies. Lilly heard them dispassionately. She let him see the baby and hid her contempt at his awkward efforts to be affectionate.
"What are we going to name him, dearest?" said Lou, taking her hand.
"Oh, I already named him," said Lilly. She relished the flash of pain in Lou's eyes. "I'm sorry, but they were asking and you weren't here."
"I-I understand." It took a second for Lou to recover. He managed a smile. "So, what did you name him?"
"Cole." Lilly stroked the tiny fluff of dark hair atop her baby's head. "Little Cole Brookstone."
Lou had sworn to her that there would be no more fights. Now that they had a child, they would come together for him and fix their lives in order to be good parents. That was how life worked.
Lilly almost believed it. If anything could have induced her to be a good person, it would definitely have been her baby. She would have died for him forty times over; even more than that, for him she was willing to keep on living.
One night, in a strange reversal of the usual, Cole was sleeping peacefully and she couldn't sleep. She eased his crib closer to her and Lou's bed and lay with her cheek on her pillow, watching his tiny chest rising and falling. She gave herself up to adoring his soft wispy curls, his dark eyelashes, his precious tiny fists. In this moment she was quietly, deliciously happy.
"Lilly."
Time stopped around her.
"Lilly, did you think I was gone? . . . "
She bolted into the bathroom, shaking all over.
"I don't go anywhere, Lilly. I will never go anywhere. Now, considering you have this delicate little morsel in need of total protection . . . I do expect to have a wonderful time with you."
"No." Lilly gripped the edge of the sink, hearing the laminate creak beneath her fingers. "No. Damn you. I defeated you."
"You did put me under for a little bit."
"And I'll do it again." Lilly gritted her teeth, summoning up the power she had gained with the Spinjitzu Burst. She felt the mind-creature tense and flurry, frightened of the cleansing power rising against it.
"I'll kill you every day if I have to," hissed Lilly, shutting her eyes. "Do you hear me? You will not touch my child."
She felt the mind-creature's panic increase as the elemental energy flooded towards it. Then, suddenly, the creature went still and laughed.
"Very well."
There was a soft whooshing sensation, and suddenly Lilly's mind was clear. She drew in her breath in stunned relief—
—She couldn't breathe.
All down the street groggy neighbors stumbled to peer through the blinds, morbidly curious about the ambulance sirens at 3 AM.
A/N: Somehow I wasn't too invested in "Master of the Mountain." Out of the entire season, there were maybe only two moments I had any feels over—and Cole's flashback about Lilly isn't one of them. I know, what's wrong with me. But one of them was Gleck finding out that Lilly had died. It was nicely understated but still very touching.
Also on the topic of Geckles, stupid detail in the dubs. While digging through the Korean dubs on YouTube to double-check plot, I discovered a weird little difference. You remember Zane was always lobbing pebbles at Kai trying to support him as Geckle chancellor, including when Kai formally declares peace between the Munce and Geckles. In that scene, in Korean version only, he chuckles when Kai glares at him. I dunno, I always enjoy it when there are arbitrary variations between dubs. It hints that either the writers or the actors are really putting thought into the context or adding their own flavor to the characters, rather than just grinding out a straight translation.