Story #2: Water, Water Everywhere
Ninjago—post-Crystallized (AU)
writing prompt: water; downpour; "There's always a first time."
Summary: Morro has regained his mortality, but he still fears water with a vengeance. He attempts to make peace with his aquaphobia by sitting out in the courtyard during a soft drizzle. But his plan backfires when he falls asleep right before the storm gets worse.
"Okay. Okay. I can do this. I-can-do-this."
Morro was standing hesitantly in front of the sliding door to the courtyard, trepidatiously watching the silvery pearl-drops of celestial liquid fall gently down from the weeping clouds in the selkie-silver-shrouded sky. His ears were burning, his hands trembling convulsively, and his knobby knees knocking together as he struggled to screw up the courage and boldness to walk outside. Though he knew the rain would no longer disintegrate him, he still felt on edge—petrified that if he even touched a singular drop of water, he'd be burned—or worse.
Hence why he was trying to convince himself to go out and sit for a few minutes in the rain—just to calm his nerves and make peace with this ridiculous aquaphobia of his.
"There's always a first time." he whispered hoarsely to himself, hating how his voice was quivering and his whole body continuing to shudder from sheer petrified fear. "There's always a first time." he breathed again, stretching out a shaky hand to grasp the sliding door. "There's always a first time." he said a final time as he quakingly slid the bamboo screen open with a soft swish.
To his surprise, the rain wasn't coming down as hard as he expected. In fact, it was more of a sleepy, misty drizzle than anything else. He stretched out one quavering hand to feel the raindrops plip-plopping onto his fingers, each crystalline bead of clear liquid discovering the shape of his hand and the intricate details of his skinny fingers before flowing over and through to merge again with its brothers and sisters below. Though his fingers were twitching and his whole hand trembling, the water did not burn him.
I can do this, he thought to himself. I really can do this.
He stepped out farther to let the water slide onto his arm—and had to bite back a scream of panging fright. His chest began to heave erratically and arrhythmically, his whole frame wobbling and jittering like a leaf being battered by a cataclysmic hurricane—nay, a maelstrom—but he kept going. Water was going pitter-patter on the cobblestones and drip-plop, drip-plop in his silky raven-black wispy locks. It soaked into his skin, drenching his gi, sapping into his intriguing, unusual emerald-green hair streak, causing it to glisten in the mist and in the eerily ghostly pale-silvery light of a cloud-cloaked sun. His emerald-green eyes—full of a slight melancholy woe that had never gone away since he had been morphed, warped, distorted, transformed into a wraith, a husky shell of his true self, a shadow-ghost of what he'd once been—were shimmering with hot, stinging tears of dread even as he ventured out farther and farther. The wind whistled and howled forebodingly of even more rain, but he kept going.
He wouldn't look back. He wouldn't cower. He wouldn't flee. He simply grit his teeth, braced himself internally, and sat down criss-cross-applesauce on the glinting cobblestones, shifting his legs into the lotus position that his sensei was so fond of and looking up at the foggy clouds above him. Now that he was surrounded by the rain, he was starting to adjust to the bizarre, slightly unnerving sensation, feeling a slight tingle in his spine and a trembling chord of adrenaline in his nerves as he looked up and up and up.
The rain seemed to be humming, vibrating, quivering with chords of laughter and notes of joy, resonating and radiating with soothing harmonies of tranquil serenity and peace. The wind-chimes that hung from the roof were jingling and tinging, bell-like clarion tones ringing out to greet the world. The wind swooshed and whirled and wispily blew all around him, blustery and wild, raw and mighty, unbridled and free.
Suddenly, Morro began to feel…strangely exhausted and fatigued. Numbness was seeping into his joints, sapping into his bones, and ebbing through his veins as an odd tiredness and drowsiness began to creep over him. His bundled muscles began to buzz and hum with weariness. His aching nerves were beginning to be soothed and relaxed within him. Drool was already beginning to seep from his lips, and he couldn't help but let out an all-but-skull-splitting yawn as he slowly grew sleepier and fuzzier and hazier by the second. Tingling, pulsing, glowing warmth was beginning to cocoon him in tenderness and peace and cozy comfort…his eyelids were so heavy they seemed lined by Deepstone…the dream world was beckoning him, and the waking world was slipping slowly away…
Slowly, ever so slowly, Morro slumped onto the cobblestones, his whole body sagging like a sack of potatoes onto the pavers, curled into a tiny ball, and fell headlong into a deep, gripping, healing slumber within moments. His chest rose slowly and evenly, and tiny, sighing "baby snores" were streaming out of his lips like a waterfall of breezy, puffy breath.
Little did he realize that the drizzle was already beginning to shift into a downpour.
When Morro woke, he swiftly became aware of two things—he was curled into a ball, and he felt terrible. His forehead was pounding gong-like behind his temples, and his ears were flaring white-cold. His whole body was trembling, convulsing, shivering and shuddering with dagger-like panging chords of sheer, frigid chills. And when he tried to draw in a breath, his chest tightened, his throat constricted, and a ragged, raspy, wheezing cough rattled his spine, causing every nerve in his body to scream in agonizing anguish and pain.
Panicking, he scrabbled to his feet, staggered his way blindly through the gray and shadowy rainstorm, and somehow managed to fumble for the screen door's handle, shoving it open as fast as he could manage in his frail, numb, feverishly sleepy state and ducking inside faster than you could say "knife."
He instantly gulped and just managed to bite back a groan as his bleary, blurring vision caught a glimpse of Nya standing just inside the hallway, blinking at him in shock with her jaw dropping wide open. "What in the world?" she exclaimed, her voice a meld of surprise, fear, and worry. "Morro, what were you doing out there? In the middle of a rainstorm, no less?"
"I was…trying to…make peace…with my fear…of water." the wind-child managed to gasp between raspy, core-shaking coughs, as he shivered and shook, sopping-wet, drenched to the bone with rainwater. His vision was beginning to swim, his knees wobbling, his whole body quaking as he struggled to keep from buckling into a heap on the floor. Nya noticed his horrid condition and instantly moved to lay a gentle hand on his forehead. Morro, startled by the gesture, flinched away—but then he smacked into the screen door, crumpled to the floor, and instantly let out an ear-piercing sneeze. A huge shockwave of Wind power shot through the hallway, knocking Nya off her feet, along with everything else within a five-foot-radius. The Water Ninja was on her feet in a second, rushing over to the feverish, sniffling Morro to help him up and guide him to the nearest couch to rest.
And Morro had never felt more mortified in his entire life.