Iiiiii'm . . . not even gonna attempt to explain myself. I know, I'm nuts. But so be it. I wrote these mostly to amuse myself, and if anyone else feels like reading 'em I figured I might as well. I used a list of 30 single-word prompts, but I'll only list the prompts at the end of the chapter so they're not distracting.

Most of these will be set after Season 10, "March of the Oni," when Faith comes back from fighting the Oni in Ninjago and the First Realm is still acclimating to a less heathen lifestyle. I'll specify the time period for each though. Fair degree of tie-in to all my other Dragon Hunter fics, but you won't need much context for these. If it's lacking I'll provide it.

And fair warning, this story is going to graduate to M-rated eventually. Until the darker content shows up, though, I'll leave it at T. I'll also give content warnings as appropriate on each chapter, just in case anyone wants to skip the bleak ones and just read the fluffy ones.


And it's been that long, so a quick refresher:

If you've seen Season 9 at all you know Faith (aka Heavy Metal) and Iron Baron

Jet Jack's the one with the jet pack, mohawk, and metal visor

Chew Toy is the crazy one with the helmet who riles up the dragons in The Pit

Daddy No-Legs has the leg mech and ponytail

Muzzle has the iron bar mask, only speaks in growls, and usually hangs around No-Legs

Arkade is the one with the welder's mask and the slot machine in his chest

Tsippa and Redskull are my OCs, they've cropped up in my other Hunter fics.


Bleak meter: Mild bleak elements, mostly sticky fluff (starting y'all off gently, see)

Timeline: After Season 10

Context, "bravors" is the term for Faith's highest officers, mostly the main canon cast from the show. Got it off a mondegreen on the Ninjago wiki.


Faith had picked up a lot of weird things in Ninjago when she visited after the fight with the Oni. She came back to the First Realm with a bag stuffed with oddities like hard candy, a wind-up hopping frog toy, a tin kazoo, and a Polaroid camera she could never figure out the right moments to use.

Some things were harder to take with her, though. She couldn't bring along the strange vibe Ninjago had—one that seemed so much less preoccupied with waiting for a stab in the back. She couldn't bring any perishable food, which meant she would most likely never taste chicken nuggets again. (Sad face). Speaking of, she couldn't bring along emojis—or at least not the phones and other technology they required.

And one of the most basic things she couldn't bring back: literacy. The whole reading and writing thing was hard enough just to comprehend, let alone learn. It had taken her days just to wrap her head around the idea that everyone, in the entire world, had agreed to memorize fifty-two individual symbols and use them in consistent ways, and if you just put some symbols on a piece of paper that suddenly meant chair to everyone, as if you had stuck the idea of a chair in everybody's brain. That was freaky.

The ninja had given her a laminated board book of the alphabet, with pictures for each letter. This served the double purpose of bringing back the fifty-two symbols and also showcasing some of the animals and common objects of Ninjago. (Well, except maybe the xylophone. Faith still wasn't fully sure if xylophones were real or mythical, all she knew was that the ninja hadn't been able to show her one.)

The book, when she showed it to the other Hunters, was met with a similar degree of confusion.

"They memorize all of these?" said Jet Jack, flipping through a stack of pages.

"Every one of them." Faith tried not to cringe. She was actually kind of invested in not damaging the souvenirs she'd brought back from Ninjago. She hoped the book would survive getting passed among her bravors' rough fingers.

"That's miserable." Daddy No-Legs was looking over Jet Jack's shoulder. "Is there any room left in their heads for anything else?"

Faith was tempted to say "sometimes I wonder," but instead she only shrugged. With time she had gotten pretty comfortable with Wu's team and had started to pick up a little of their teasing, but her Hunters probably wouldn't understand and would think she meant it.

"Ehhh . . . " Arkade looked over the top of the book suspiciously. "You're not going to make us learn all these symbols, are you?"

"No," said Faith. "Even once you learn the symbols, then you have to do even more learning to use them right. I don't think we could make it work, and we don't really need it. But I was thinking, maybe we could at least use the idea. We could come up with some symbols of our own."

There were some groans.

"What for?" said No-Legs. "Who needs symbols when you can just talk to people?"

"But that's just the thing, we can't always talk," said Faith. "What about when we're on scouting missions and cross each other's paths, but the other person is already gone? We could have a symbol to show who was here and where he went. Or if we're hunting and we can't make noise, we can use symbols to plan our strategy. Or you can use symbols to make the things you say permanent, so anyone can see them any time, even people you never meet. Even after you're dead."

"Oh sands. The last spark of hope in our existence was that Jet Jack will shut up someday," groaned No-Legs. "You're going to take even that away from us?"

Jet Jack huffed.

"Just for that, I'll learn symbols," she said. "You have my vote, Chief."

Faith tried not to groan. She was starting to regret this already.


It took a lot of haranguing, but she finally convinced everyone to at least make up a symbol to represent themselves. Even for that she had to pull the "I'm in charge and I say so" card quite a bit, and even so it barely got off the ground.

"Hey, your symbol looks the same as mine!" said Chew Toy indignantly, looking over at Jet Jack's work.

"Yours was better," said Jet Jack. "I'm taking it."

"You can't do that!"

"I just did."

"Chief—"

"Jet Jack, knock that off," groaned Faith, looking up from copying down Tsippa's symbol. "He had it first."

"I don't get it," said Jet Jack, sitting back. "What if I don't want to play the game? What's stopping me from saying each symbol just means whatever I want it to? What's stopping me from saying ALL the symbols mean 'Jet Jack'?"

"Because if we don't agree on the basic rules, then nobody gets to play," said Faith. "If we can't agree that every symbol has one meaning, and nobody gets to change it, then the whole thing falls apart and we can't have symbols at all."

She saw Muzzle and No-Legs exchanging an "honestly, fine by me" kind of look. She tried not to groan again. Jet Jack, at least, said "huh" and got to work designing a symbol of her own.

"What now, Jet Jack?" sighed Faith a little while later, catching sight of her work. "You can't have two, either."

"I'm not!" said Jet Jack. "Only this one means me." She pointed to a vertical line with two jagged "wings" coming off the sides. "I just did extra work and made two. This other one means 'Chew Toy is stupid for not letting me have his symbol.'"

"Screw you, Jackie," said Chew Toy. Jet Jack stuck out her tongue.

The name symbols caught on unevenly. Some of Faith's bravors made a good-faith effort: Tsippa painted her symbol by her door, and Muzzle wore his on a patch on his sleeve. The others mostly had to be reminded to use theirs when appropriate.

Faith didn't try to push the matter any harder. Still, even if the others didn't want any more symbols, there was nothing stopping her. She took to carrying around a rolled piece of parchment on which she had drawn everyone's names. Next to their names she made various marks, each one with its own meaning.

"I thought you said we couldn't change other people's symbols," said No-Legs, when he saw the parchment once.

"I didn't," said Faith. "These other marks help me keep track of how everyone is doing. Who works hard, who makes mistakes, things like that."

"Secret symbols?" said Jet Jack. "That's not fair! I thought we were all supposed to agree on what they mean."

"If you knew, you could agree all you wanted," said Faith smugly. No-Legs looked over her shoulder again.

"So, does the zigzaggy one mean someone has been getting on your nerves?" he said. Faith started.

"How did you know that?"

"Ehhhhh . . . " No-Legs' eyes strayed up to Jet Jack's name, which had a bristling battalion of zigzags next to it. Faith reddened, catching his drift.

"Heyyyy, let me see," said Jet Jack suspiciously, elbowing No-Legs aside and reaching for the parchment. Faith held it away and rolled it up quickly, unwilling to go through that particular song and dance just now.


By and large the name symbols didn't get put into practical use as often as Faith would have liked. Unfortunately, they did get put to use.

Somehow, Jet Jack's petty jab at Chew Toy had persisted. The supposed "Chew Toy is stupid for not giving me his symbol" symbol popped up in charcoal on a few walls, or traced into the dirt. At first everyone thought it was Jet Jack being annoying, but the symbols started to crop up frequently enough that if it really had been Jet Jack doing all of them it would have been pretty concerning. Somehow the heavy implication got around town that the meaning had just been shortened to "Chew Toy is stupid."

"Already knew everyone thinks so," said Chew Toy, but his voice didn't quite achieve careless.

Also he stopped speaking to Jet Jack, which said enough.

Nor was that the end of it. Somehow Faith's symbol for "X is being annoying" got out into the broader public. There was heavy suspicion placed upon No-Legs initially, since he'd been the one to guess the meaning, but he swore on anything you offered him that he'd had no role in it. One way or another, the village was soon thick with unfamiliar symbols—other Hunters' names—followed by the "is annoying" symbol. For good measure it was somehow always somebody who either had no clear enemies or multiple of them, so the target could never know who he should go and punch. Faith would normally have been delighted that other people were showing interest in writing, but . . . not like this.

The situation declined even further. Her own symbol, a circle with a dot in it, was publicly known. It began showing up on walls as well, but with a jagged slash mark drawn through it. There were factions of Dead's End that didn't like Faith being in charge, but apparently they weren't averse to adopting her ideas to express their dislike.

It was strange how chilling a simple line through a symbol could be. It looked like the track of a blade.

The chill didn't exactly wear off the morning Faith found her hut had been encircled with similar scrawls of her name, each one angrily slashed out. She stood regarding it for a while, forcing herself to not be affected. Her bravors were gathering around to bear witness as well.

"That's treason," said Jet Jack, an ominous edge to her voice.

"Maybe," said Faith dully. "But I suppose I'd rather they were slashing at my name than at me."

"Next time it might be you," said Arkade. Faith smirked slightly despite herself.

"Let them try. They know just who's going to end up impaled."

"You're really going to let it slide?" said No-Legs.

"Why not?" said Faith. "Chew Toy has been putting up with written insults longer than I have. If he can, I can."

Jet Jack's gaze flickered back to Chew Toy, who hung his head silently.

"Besides, it serves me right," said Faith. "I should have known better than to try teach this realm writing. We're not ready for it. I didn't think about how it could be misused, I pushed it on everybody, and now everyone is paying the price for it. It's only fair I pay too."

The others were quiet for a while.

"Don't you at least want some help washing it off?" said Arkade at last.

"Leave it," said Faith, turning away. "I'm not going to let them think I'm afraid of some scribbles on my wall."

She didn't look at her hut if she could help it for the rest of the day.


A little while later, Jet Jack found Chew Toy plunked down in his favorite old corner of The Pit. He was tracing his own name, a spiral, into the sand with a stick, only the spiral just kept going and going until his stick bumped into a rock or his foot. Then he'd brush it out and start over.

"Hey Chewie," said Jet Jack. He didn't look up. She watched in silence as he drew and erased another spiral. Then instead of drawing his own name he drew hers instead, and the "is annoying" zigzag next to it.

"I know." She sighed, sitting down across from him. "I didn't know the mark was going to go around like that, Chewie. I swear. I would never have made it if I'd known."

There was silence for a bit, during which Chew Toy still didn't look up.

"I guess that doesn't fix the fact that you're dealing with it now, though." Jet Jack bit her lip. Despite her constant nonsense she had a very poor tolerance for people being sustainedly angry at her, especially her best friend.

"I'm really sorry, Chewie . . . "

Chew Toy sighed. He still didn't look up, but he brushed out the "is annoying" symbol next to Jet Jack's name. After a moment he wrote his own name next to hers, then drew a circle around them both.

"What's that mean?" said Jet Jack.

"I dunno," said Chew Toy, with his head still doggedly down. "Just that, we're both here, you know? Together. n' stuff."

Jet Jack broke into a relieved smile, understanding, and abruptly reached over to place her hand over Chew Toy's heart, the common Hunter alternative to hugging. He gave a short laugh and reached over to reciprocate briefly. They sat back both in much better moods, and gradually working their way back towards eye contact. Jet Jack looked down at the circled symbols again, her expression thoughtful.


It rained overnight. Faith was grateful, not only because she loved a nice rainy night, but also because it would be washing the slashed symbols off her house.

All the same, it didn't take long the next day for everyone to get busy again. First thing in the morning Faith walked out of her hut and saw her name symbol with the slash, drawn quite large on the wall of the weavers' workhouse, in sight of her door. Her stomach turned. She wasn't sure if she was angry at the act itself or at the cowardice behind it; insubordination given behind her back, so there was nobody she could pull a sword on.

She was in a sour mood most of the day. It didn't help that brand-new charcoal graffiti was already sprouting up all over town, a myriad of fresh insults crowding in to replace those cleared off by the rain. During her afternoon rounds she had to pass by the weavers' hut, and she again felt an overwhelming urge to keep her head down and not look.

The matter was forced on her, however, by the knot of Hunters standing by the weavers' house. Now she had to go investigate.

At first glance she noted it was all of her bravors. They'd mentioned cleaning off the mutilated symbols on her hut yesterday, maybe that was what they were doing? Faith's heart warmed a little at the thought, although she quickly warned herself not to get her hopes up.

On second glance, she noted that most of the Hunters had charcoal smudges on their hands, and Muzzle was just hopping down from standing on Chew Toy's shoulders. She looked beyond the group and realized that all their name symbols were now up on the wall as well, surrounding hers, which had had the slash mark carefully smudged out. No-Legs had just finished writing his own name, and was handing the charcoal off to Jet Jack. She boosted off the ground to slap a crooked version of her own mark high up on the wall, then glanced back to Faith with a smirk and swung the charcoal around, tracing a giant lazy circle around all their names.

Faith approached the small group, a hint of a smile already tugging at the corner of her mouth for reasons she didn't quite understand. Her bravors all backed aside a little bit so she could get a good look.

"What's all that about?" she ventured.

"Just so nobody has any questions about where our loyalty lies," said Arkade, dusting charcoal off his hands.

"Oh." Faith looked up at the collection of names again, momentarily overwhelmed. "That's very kind of you," she finally managed. She tried desperately to think of what else would be appropriate to say.

"Chew Toy's idea," said Jet Jack, saving Faith from further floundering.

"Ahhh." Chew Toy waved her off modestly.

"We got to thinking," continued Arkade. "Maybe we just had a bad start with the symbols. Maybe if we just had more symbols about good things, people would use those more instead."

"It's a good thought, but somehow I doubt people will get as much entertainment out of saying nice things as they do out of insulting people," said Faith, smiling wryly.

"Maybe, but we won't know unless we try, will we?" said No-Legs. "You had that parchment full of secret symbols, right? Were any of them for when we did something good?"

"We did do something good now and then, right?" said Jet Jack, grinning.

"Well, not you," retorted Arkade. Jet Jack made a face.

Meanwhile Faith was pulling out her parchment, knowing that she'd have to give up using it after this. If her symbols were no longer secret it would just be endlessly embarrassing for all concerned. As it was she kept it close to her chest as she consulted her various marks.

"All right," she said, taking the charcoal. "This one means 'such-and-so did an extra good job today.' And this one means 'such-and-so was nice to someone today.'"

"You're keeping track of that?" Jet Jack huffed. "I'm doomed."

"Ehhh, this one means, 'such-and-so met quota today' . . . " Faith trailed off, a little awkward about revealing there were so few ways she was pleased with her bravors. It's not like they were that disappointing, there just weren't too many things she could specifically pin down in writing. She didn't have a symbol for her appreciation of No-Legs' serious, no-nonsense work ethic, or the way Chew Toy kept prying a smile out of her, or her gratitude that Arkade knew how to count past twenty and did an excellent job keeping inventory.

A thought came to her. Initially she balked, but finally she went ahead with it, knowing she would regret this.

"And there's also a symbol they taught me back in Ninjago," she said. "It's not really writing, but we don't write exactly like they do anyway." She carefully drew a charcoal heart, noting with frustration that the halves weren't equal.

"Hey, that looks like Jackie's wings!" said Chew Toy. "When they're folded all the way."

Faith nearly dropped the charcoal. For a second she stood there struggling not to laugh. Dammit. She knew that thing had looked familiar!

"Well, what does it mean?" said Arkade.

"Well, it means . . . " Faith stopped, stymied. "Well . . . " Yeah, definitely regretting this already. She stepped back from the wall, sighing. "I don't know how to put it. It's . . . caring about somebody, I guess." She felt stupid saying even that much.

"You mean love?" said Chew Toy, without missing a beat.

"Ughhh . . . well, yes." Faith hoped she wasn't blushing.

"Yuck," remarked Chew Toy. There were some muffled noises of distaste from the others as well.

"All due respect, Chief, but . . . " said No-Legs, waving his hands abstractly.

"I know, I know." Faith smiled ruefully, reaching over to rub out the heart mark. She knew she had to be visibly blushing by now. "Forget about that one, I figured it wouldn't catch on out here. Things are different over in Ninjago."

"They're kinda drippy over in Ninjago," said Arkade bluntly. "But the other ones are good. We can try to use those."

"If you think it'll be any use," said Faith. "I appreciate all of your trying. And . . . " she glanced up to their circled names overhead. "Thank you for this as well."

As the knot of Hunters dispersed, Chew Toy glanced over to Jet Jack with a mischievous grin. She immediately snapped her wings out as far as they'd go, glaring.

"Not a word out of you, wise guy."

Faith was a lot more forward about looking at the weavers' house for the rest of the day. She turned back on her doorstep to take one last look at it before going to bed. As much as leading Dead's End was a nightmare sometimes, as much as her bravors gave her constant headaches, every now and then there were moments like this.

She slept pretty well overnight, especially considering it wasn't raining. In the morning though, it turned out that some of her bravors were either blabbermouths or liars, because the wall surrounding Dead's End was plastered with charcoal hearts. An endless bobbing loop of them, all the way around the village.

If nothing else, she finally had a suitable moment to use that Polaroid camera. She chastised herself a little for sentimentality, but after all—that's what it was for.


Prompt was "Writing."