Arin had woken up delighted, but now he was growing tired and bored. It was a cold day in Ninjago. The ninja had finally settled into a sort-of normal after the final battle against Beatrix. Arin had seen his parents in that mergequake. His parents! He hadn't told master Lloyd, the green ninja did seem to have enough on his hands after all, dealing with Sora's and his training, keeping the monastery in shape, and helping Kai train Wyldfyre. It just seemed like a lot at the moment. He threw another plate at the target, it took on a few yellow-orange swirls, but he still hadn't quite gotten it. Arin sighed. Sora seemed fine, she was training on a few machines Zane had set up for her. Riyu watched on the sidelines, he looked like he wanted to give Sora her spark, but Lloyd sat by him, rubbing the scales near his neck. Riyu wouldn't lose a chance of a good head rub. Arin sighed. "You're getting better at that!" Arin jumped and just barely managed to stop the plate he was holding from falling. Nya stood by him, smiling. "Heh, thanks" Arin tried sounding cheerful. He looked over at Lloyd, who was frowning. "Why don't you use the ninja stars, we don't want to have to go and buy more plates." Arin nodded. Lloyd seemed to be doing everything possible to avoid going to the crossroads, which Arin was fine with. He didn't mind that his master seemed a little distant, who knew what he'd seen while using the dragon cores, considering what he saw while taking the source dragons' energy. His master just needed time to recover, was all.
"Arin! A little help with this?" Sora was carrying a mechanical part, probably for the SAmark01, her mech. He nodded. She had been going with Nya to get parts nearly every day, for all Arin knew, she was advancing well in the usage of her powers, unlike him. That reminded Arin, he was going to ask Lloyd how long it took him to control his powers. He'd probably get hit with the 'every master is different', but it was worth a try. He dropped his side of the part, Sora dropped hers and stretched her back. "There. Thanks, Arin!" "No problem!" Sora seemed much more cheerful. Arin felt kind of jealous. Why is she getting the hang of her powers so much faster? I've always trained harder. Arin had to be nice to Sora though, she was like the world to him, he couldn't lose her. He promised himself, if anything ever happened to her, he would do everything in his power to get revenge on whoever caused her harm. He went back up to the main level of the monastery. He was kind of bored. Maybe he would check out the library, he'd been there before, but never had the time to look through all the scrolls. He was pretty sure that the ninja had read all of them. As he opened the door, he could see Zane and Lloyd huddled over some scrolls in the far end. Their speech was fast and worried, as if they were trying to get the conversation over with as quickly as possible before anyone came in. Arin walked slowly, but at his first step, Lloyd and Zane turned around, startled. Lloyd let out a sigh of relief. "It's just you. Can I help you with something?" Arin didn't know what to say. Should he admit that he'd been eavesdropping? Or should he invent an excuse? Would they know he was lying? Lloyd sure did seem to know that something was up with Arin after their first victory against the Imperium, would he know the same now? "Arin?" Realizing he'd been silent for a good minute, Arin rubbed his head and chuckled nervously. "Yeah, fine. Sorry, I just thought I might get a scroll to read?" "Sure" Zane replied, Lloyd gave the nindroid a small tap on the shoulder before whispering something into his ear. Zane nodded, then accompanied Arin to find a scroll. That was…odd. What are they hiding? Arin wondered as he was directed away from where the discussion had taken place.