JustRandom: Thanks for the review! Man, good luck with all your exams.
Yeah, it happened before this story! Lilly only meets Wu after the Serpentine War, and based on the show it seems like "the Morro business" happened before the Serpentine War.
I'm sure there was plenty of crime, she just wasn't in the right places to see it. XP
Ahhh man. Make me feel guilty about how depressing and cynical this story is, why doncha? :P
Haha, it probably is rushed, honestly. I'm trying to make this story very compact, as it is it's sprawling out wayyyyyy longer than I'd wanted. Ech.
Aw. They always say, the quickest way to start hating something is to start doing it for money . . . Or for a grade. But hey, good luck with everything! Don't let me distract ya too much with updates. :P

Nyancatspacemeep: The postman rules ALLLLLLL! :P
That song did indeed contribute heavily to the inspiration for the story!

Lilly drew in a deep breath and willed herself not to let it out as a sigh. The days went by so slowly. She knew if she looked at the clock, it would show that it wasn't even noon yet. She'd already done what little work she had.

Married life! she told herself glumly. Of course she had expected it to be a little more on the dull side, but this was excruciating. When she married Lou, it came with the promise that she would give up her warrior ways. Not unexpected: Lou's aversion to bloodshed was prodigious. She had always known, deep down, that marrying him would mean hanging up her blades. But love was about give and take, she reminded herself, and it was a sacrifice she was willing to make. She had someone who accepted her now, who didn't care about her past. She didn't have to keep fleeing it.

Meanwhile, the Royal Blacksmiths had moved in a more independent direction and broken ties with their manager, and now Lilly was their unofficial new manager. This mostly just meant she handled correspondence, booking venues for their performances, securing promotional agreements, and answering the occasional fan letter. By turns she was swamped and completely idle.

She was also home alone very often. Lou no longer brought her along on tours—the argument, entirely reasonable, was that it cost more to rent an extra hotel room for a married couple than to toss four men into whatever lodgings were handy. Besides, he would have felt awkward; all his quartet-mates were bachelors.

So Lilly spent many quiet, solitary days at home. Sometimes she looked in a mirror and had to stop and convince herself she was still the same person. How had she become this creature she saw? A demure housewife with a fashionable hairdo and a modest dress, someone who cooked and cleaned house and scratched away at a little writing-desk answering letters. Sometimes she remembered the sensation of meadow-grass beneath her bare feet, or of her fingers grinding into stone, hauling her body up mountains, or the clatter and heat and stench of armor, heavy on her shoulders yet almost a part of her own body. She wanted to scream.

Lou should be coming home from his latest tour tonight. It was too early to start cooking yet, though. Again she forced herself not to sigh.

That evening the dinner was cold by the time Lou got home. Lilly was waiting by the window for him.

"You're back!" She got up to kiss him in the foyer as he took off his shoes. "How was the tour?"

"Same as they always are," said Lou.

Lilly felt her heart sink. He was in a sullen mood again. He often was, after tours were over; returning to a quiet home after bright lights and adoring crowds didn't seem to agree with him.

"Do you want me to heat up dinner for us?" she said.

"Let me wash first."

Over lukewarm, unevenly cooked pot roast (Lilly was a chef by no stretch of the imagination), she tried to engage him a little.

"So, how are the rest of the Blacksmiths doing?"

"They're fine."

"Did you get to see anything interesting while touring?"

"I don't know." Lou didn't look up from the half-raw potato he was chasing with his fork. "There was some kind of festival in Ignacia, I think."

"Oh?" Lilly sat up. "What was the occasion?"

"I don't know, I didn't go," said Lou.

He seemed irritated by her questions. Lilly tried not to feel hurt.

"Tired from traveling?" she said after a bit. Lou shrugged.

They finished the meal in silence, save for the clinking of forks.

Lou stayed at home for a few weeks before the next tour. He wandered around the house like a ghost, sighing and occasionally scratching out a few lyrics on the back of an envelope.

One afternoon Lilly sat with him in the living room. She was reading a novel, and he was laboring over a half-finished song and muttering to himself. After a moment Lilly glanced over the book.

"So," she said. "When is your next tour?"

"As soon as we can get it," grunted Lou, angrily crossing out something he'd just written. "Probably next week."

"So soon?" said Lilly, disappointed. When Lou didn't reply she ventured a little further. "It gets so quiet here without you. I get lonely."

Lou gave her a pained look, and the hint of a shrug.

"You could try to make friends with the neighbors," he said, audibly struggling to find a helpful answer.

"They're not really my type," mumbled Lilly. Which was true; she simply couldn't muster up the patience to deal with the shallow, gossipy, wholeheartedly domestic women living on their street. She knew firsthand what color intestines were; they would have barely known which end of the blade they were supposed to hold onto.

"I don't know, then. Join a book club?"

She could tell Lou was irritated by her being difficult. She fell silent, lowering her head.

Over time she had started to realize a duality in Lou's nature. She hadn't been wrong, he was indeed a very sensitive and emotionally intelligent person—in hypothetical matters. He was deeply moved by art, poetry, and literature, all places where it was safe to let his emotions run freely. And even in real life, as long as things were going well, he could be deeply sentimental. He still wrote her love poems and gave her flowery compliments, when the mood struck him.

But when things were actually tough? You could search a decade and not find a more emotionless man. He shut down like Kryptarium Prison mid-riot. At the first hint of conflict, as soon as he was stressed, whenever anything went wrong—he basically turned to granite. Even as a Master of Earth, Lilly's appreciation for granite did not go that far.

She dug her teeth into her lip, weighing her next words.

"I've been thinking of getting a job," she said.

Now Lou's head came up.

"But you have a job. You're our manager."

"I work one day out of every nine," said Lilly impatiently. "The other eight I'm bored to death. I'm sick of wasting away in four walls like this."

Huh, that sounded familiar somehow.

"But dearest . . . " Lou put down his pencil, now fully committed to the conversation. "You couldn't possibly handle the crunch days as our manager on top of a regular job."

"Then you can find a different manager," said Lilly. "I'm not even trained anyway, I'm making all of this up as I go along."

"And you're doing a wonderful job!" insisted Lou. "We would be lost without you, Lilly. Nobody could handle the quartet better than you."

Lilly bit her lip again, wavering.

"You're very important to us all, Lilly," said Lou. "Don't think all your hard work isn't appreciated."

Lilly slumped, sighing. Her determination to escape the monotony of her life evaporated. She was useful this way, she was appreciated, she actually was doing good for others. What sense was there in leaving?

Besides, she didn't want this to escalate to a quarrel. She had quickly learned that arguing with Lou was like hurling yourself full-force against a brick wall.

The Royal Blacksmiths' tour was postponed. Maybe Lilly could have tried harder to schedule it; maybe she let the matter slide out of spite. Even she couldn't tell.

The delay renewed Lou's surliness. Lilly tried to be understanding. Even if it felt like he was just eager to get away from her, she knew it wasn't really that; he just loved performing, and he grew hollow and restless when he was kept away from it. It wouldn't be fair to resent him for that.

Then again, it also wasn't fair to keep her cooped up like this, and how was that going?

One afternoon she felt ambitious, and thought she'd try to smooth him over. She pulled out some of their old piano books and went to ask Lou if he'd be willing to try teaching her again. Give him something to do, something they could reconnect over. When she found him, though, he was putting on his jacket.

"Where are you going?" asked Lilly.

"For a walk," said Lou brusquely.

Lilly stood in the hallway, overwhelmed with sudden irritation. He couldn't even have invited her along?

"Lilly."

For a second her blood stopped flowing.

"Hello again, Lilly. Did you think I'd left? . . . "

She stayed frozen, her heart thudding in her ears. It had been so long since she'd heard the mind-creature. She really had thought it was gone.

Lou was saying something, but he sounded muffled, far away. All Lilly could register was terror.

"That's a fine husband you've got there. I thought maybe you would get around to butchering him without my help, but I suppose a little help never hurts."

Get out, thought Lilly frantically. Get out. I spent so long without you, let's keep it that way.

"I'll keep quiet if you'd really like that," chuckled the voice. "You do the talking."

Lilly felt claws scuttling over her mind, and then an eerie scratching sensation, as if the creature had suddenly started ripping away at her brain.

"Lilly!" Lou's voice was raised in concern by now. "Say something! Can you hear me?"

He was reaching out to shake her shoulder. Without thinking Lilly's hand snapped up and struck his hand away.

"Get your hands off me!" she barked.

He reeled back, his eyes wide and startled.

"Go on!" Lilly didn't know why she was shouting, or why the edges of her vision were blurred with rage. "Go on, take your stupid walk! Just think about yourself, like always!"

Lou's eyes searched her, his face twisted in confusion. After a second Lilly's fury evaporated, leaving a cold dread. She was about to soften her tone, try to explain or excuse herself, but Lou's expression was already turning hard. Without another word he turned and walked out the door. The softness with which he shut it was much more terrible than slamming.

Lilly stared after him a second, terrified. After a second she realized her breath was much too fast and shallow, and she was shaking all over. Her legs gave out beneath her and she dropped to her knees.

"Get out," she guttered. "Get out of my head!"

The claws in her cortex tightened. She felt the creature's silent pleasure.

The months lurched along slowly after that. It got better and worse. Sometimes they still had sweet conversations, though those grew less and less frequent. More and more frequent, meanwhile, were the screaming matches. If you could call it a "match" when Lilly was the only one screaming, and Lou only went sullenly, coldly silent.

Once in a while they did have tender reconciliations, and Lilly's heart would clench at the memory of similar scenes in childhood books, the ones she had re-read over and over. More often, though, after a fight she and Lou would simply avoid each other for days, sulking. After a few days they would slowly work their way back to normal speaking terms, with no apology, acknowledgement, or attempt to fix anything.

Lilly didn't know where their fights came from. They were usually over the most trivial things, or over nothing at all. Definitely, the mind-creature played a heavy role. She heard its voice less, but she could sense its influence as waves of inexplicable anger, an urge to hurt others. No matter how she struggled, the closest she came to controlling herself was restraining herself from physical harm. Usually.

Still, partially the fights must have been driven by her frustration with her dull, isolated life, her pining for the freedom of a roving warrior, her disappointment that the relationship had turned so bitter. How could she have known that Lou's tenderness and romanticism were only the veneer of his personality?

She often ended up holed up Misako's front parlor, sobbing and asking what she should do. She didn't love this man anymore, living with him was hell. At the same time she was ashamed to admit defeat by leaving him. She couldn't stand to give up, to accept the fact that their marriage was unfixable. It seemed to her like giving up on believing in love at all.

Misako offered quiet sympathy. She knew how it felt.

One morning Lilly was washing her face in the bathroom after a night of crying. There had been a particularly bad fight last evening. She looked at herself in the mirror and was disgusted, as she often had been as a child. What a pathetic mess she was. How had a self-assured warrior been reduced to this?

"Lilly."

Groaning, she shut her eyes and clutched the edge of the sink, willing herself to fight the creature back. She was in no shape to handle a second altercation with Lou so soon.

"Lillyyyyy . . . " The creature's voice was an odd singsong. Something seemed different. Lilly's eyes snapped open blankly. Then, five seconds later, she was curled over vomiting her guts out.

The knocking on Misako's door that morning was much more urgent than it had ever been before.

A/N: Ninjago wasn't satisfied with chucking snarled timelines at my head. It also left me the task of figuring out how Lilly, the insane warrior woman who diced dragons and mastered martial-art moves of atomic strength, was the same person as Lilly, who was frail and gentle in Cole's flashbacks and looked downright Victorian in his locket photo.

Have at thee, Ninjago. I'mma do it!

Also Season 8 played right into my hands. Lou was already an interesting case—even in earlier seasons, he showed strong hints of "very sentimental on paper, cold, demanding, and emotionally unavailable towards real people." And then "Sons of Garmadon" confirmed that, faced with grief, his solution was to shut down so intensely that he ended up physically and emotionally neglecting his young-teenaged son in the bargain. Classic stuff. I'm impressed Ninjago went there.