A/N: Welcome to the Wellspring-verse! Where everything in the show is canon and has happened, and everything that happens here is an extension/exploration/diversion of that canon! I'll be going by the canon installments of Ninjago in the Wikia article and edit in and edit out as much as I can. I will be labeling where the episodes these one shots are based on with each chapter.

Unlike most people, I do ship angst ridden Erosionshipping (Conya) and wanted to write about them. Who says I don't ship Jaya, I just like angst and depth, and the right person at the wrong time, and pain, and… well you get the picture. If no one can write out that they had potential as something special and painful then I might as well write about it. Ninjago is my newest/oldest obsession and I have to get all my feelings out somewhere.

Disclaimer- I don't own Ninjago, Lego, or its affiliates. I just want to write some stuff.

The prologue takes place during the events of the pilot episode King of Shadows.

Arc 1: A Dance of Dragons and Snakes

Prologue

First impressions never seem to satisfy do they?

It was embarrassing. Meeting so many new people in so little time, all boys, coming to her rescue. Call her a cliché but she knew she didn't need them. Nya could handle herself.

At some point she hoped it would be obvious to her brother Kai that had been the truth a few years into her adolescence. Nya knew all too well that his ego would be unmatched, so she kept up the charade. Most of the time.

She wished and prayed to herself through her mind that she could come with them. Defend herself. Do something useful. Anything. She didn't have the training, or the tools, or even a dragon so she backed down. Those reasons weren't the only reasons why she was worried. They came up to her in a list that rattled through her brain.

Number One: There was only one competent and steady ninja in the whole group, dressed in white.

Number Two: Kai had only been a ninja for as long as she had been captured, which wasn't very long and worried her endlessly.

Number Three: The blue one was choking on his words to hit on her by asking her if she liked the color he was wearing. (Obviously)

Number Four: The ninja in the black gi whom she couldn't see clearly behind a wall of the fire temple was cowering in fear in the presence of a dragon Nya had just befriended.

Nya's only conclusion that she could surmise from counting all the variables was that she and all of Ninjago were completely and utterly doomed.

"Come back to me in one piece, please? I don't want to run the shop all on my own." She said to her brother. "I'll keep a candle lit outside our shop until you return."

One by one the group of ninja came closer to the dragon, the last being the ninja clad in black, still nervous and shaking, behind a wall. Despite the reassurances of his brothers in arms and to Nya herself. He wanted to quit, stay put and give up. This wouldn't do. Not on Nya's watch.

Cole knew his life would be completely changed when Nya Smith stole into his life, and by extension Jay Walker, when she was stolen away from her brother by a master of darkness and shadow Lord Garmadon and they found her again.

He didn't get a good glimpse of her face until he was petting a large, foreboding, terrifying fire breathing dragon. Even when he was so close to her and under the trance of fear his surroundings created that pressed him like compacted earth.

Under the stress he did hear her voice, deep and immovable as a river's current, and the conversation that ensued between her and Jay beforehand. Cole truly felt sorry that he caused the handicap to Jay's voice, knocking his throat with the hilt of a scythe. With all of the time he had training with the rest he knew Jay always had a thing for immovable girls, overzealous and shrewd in his approach he would do anything to make them believe that he was worth more than his appearance and who he was.

If only the rest of Cole's brothers knew the truth that he felt the same about himself.

If this Nya they were helping save didn't care about his jokes and even if she liked blue or not, then maybe the guy had a chance. But again he thought of this only after she helped him ease him towards the dragon.

It was a tough start but she eventually got him through it, her approach was sure and steady against the behest of her brother.

"Come on, Cole. I've got something that might change your mind."

"You're not going to just thrust him into all of this all at once are you?" Nya asked from below.

"No! Why would you think that?" said Kai as he winked to the boys behind him.

"You know as well as I do that not everything can be handled like this all at once! Look at him! It's not like he had a father like ours who told us that dragons were nothing to fear."

Nya turned to Cole's direction and started walking towards him.

"Cole?" Nya asked, Cole nodded. "Take my hand."

Cole glanced at the hand that was reaching out for him and nervously to the beast carrying the rest of his team. He was unsure at first but gradually accepted it at her request.

"Yeah, uh… okay sure." He kept his eyes locked on the dragon as Nya pulled him along by the hand, drawing them closer and closer to the behemoth.

They ended up in a nearly close distance to the snout of the dragon, and Nya lifted Cole's arm to meet the bridge of its nose. Nya moved to open his shaking hand so he could rest it on the fire dragon's warm scales. She noticed more as she brought him forward that his eyes were screwed shut, his fear overcoming him.

"Relax. I've got you." she placed her other gentle and easy hand on his shoulder.

Cole leaned back into the gesture, pausing to take a deep and stuttering breath as he held his hand up to the giant nose before him. She saw that it took him a little time to get used to the roughness of the scales and once the touch of it eased his strain to his body, he calmed the slightest bit down.

Cole opened his eyes and as soon as he did the gentle giant closed his and nuzzled against him and let out a hot steaming breath. The steam caressed and carried away strands of his mop of deep black hair like a gentle wind. He let out a light chuckle and Nya could sense that to Cole the worst was over.

"See?" Nya assured him. "He's not gonna hurt you. He likes you."

"Okay, I think he got the point, we need to go."

"Hold on Kai." Nya said. She turned to Cole again. "Think you can handle it on your own?"

"Maybe. Yeah. That's not so bad. I think riding one is gonna be the tough part, now." Cole smiled back at Nya, a faint blush creeping to his cheeks. "Thank you, Nya."

She returned a smile back to him in kind as her hand on his shoulder gave him a reassuring squeeze. Nya wouldn't know this but this is the first thing he would remember about her appearance, a warm, gentle smile.

"Come on, you guys let's go! Wu is waiting for us and-"

"Patience dear brother, these things that keep us afraid take time. Need I remind you that even doing what I just did with Cole still hasn't helped you with your fear of bugs?" Nya bit back at Kai as his face turned a darker shade of red than his suit. "I mean, come on, I still have to swat the flies for you back home."

The rest of the boys, besides Kai and the one in white, cackle with laughter.

Cole's thoughts after her delivery of that statement surmounted into only four simple words he conjured in his head.

Oh, I like her…