A/N: So this is a collection of one-shots that (for the most part) follow the Morrotober 2024 prompts as posted on Tumblr. Morro is one of my favorite characters, and I love being able to take up this challenge to write 30 stories all centered around him. Some will be regular Ninjago fics; others will be crossovers or crossover AUs. (I'm even going to try my hand at a few movieverse fics!)

Some prompts have been modified due to preference, and I will mark them accordingly. In addition, I am taking up the challenge of making Morro either good or an anti-hero in every one of the stories that follow. I will try to update this collection every Saturday with the stories that pertain to that week's prompts.

So, without further ado, here's the first story with its prompt and summary indicated below-"Questions, Questions, Questions."

Story #1: Questions, Questions, Questions

Ninjago—pre-series (kid-Morro)

writing prompt: elements; elemental inheritance; difference between air and wind

Summary: Morro is very curious and loves to ask questions. But they're not always the questions Sensei Wu would expect. And when he answers them, Morro doesn't always react in the way Wu is prepared for.

"Sensei, what's the difference between air and wind?"

Wu looked up from where he was watering the plants, cocking his head to one side in confusion as he took in the sight of his incredibly curious eight-year-old student—barefooted, tussle-haired, and with his gi hanging loosely around his skinny, still rather scrawny frame—staring up at the clouds above him with an immense interest. Wu shook his head in disbelief once again at how little Morro—who had only started speaking again a few weeks ago—could be so full of questions all the time. What was even more puzzling was that Morro's questions weren't typical for someone his age. He never asked, "Why is the sky blue?" or "Why do birds fly?"—not like other children within his age group. No, he asked much more intensive, arduous questions. Questions that Wu would never have thought of at Morro's age.

Just the other day, he'd asked why the sun and the moon take turns shining in the sky—why they couldn't shine together at the same time. Another time he'd asked why some animals sleep at night and why others stay awake at night. Yet another time he'd asked why Wu would drink so much tea when there were so many other things that could be drunk, like water and milk. That question had been met with several rather quizzical (although slightly amused) glances from Wu, and Morro had quickly dropped the subject.

Yet Morro was showing no signs of dropping this subject anytime soon. When he saw his ninja master's hesitation, he sucked in a breath and repeated himself. "So, what is it? What's the difference between air and wind?"

Wu scrunched his brow, pursed his lips, tapped his chin thoughtfully for a few seconds, and blinked rapidly as he quite visibly fumbled to fish for the right words. "Well," he finally stammered, feeling his cheeks growing warm from sheer mortification, "air and wind are similar, but there are some key differences between the two. Air is relatively still, and wind is always in motion. Air is all around us constantly, but wind is dynamic, always changing, always flowing in one direction or another. Air can't carry sound or taste or smell, but wind can. Also, air can't really be felt—but wind can."

"Oh." Morro exclaimed thoughtfully, his lip squiggling in slight bewilderment before he gave a nod of understanding. Then he trotted over to the set of wind chimes hanging from one edge of the guttered tile roof and called on his Wind, making the chimes sway and wave and tremble and thrum and ting with the loveliest melodic harmony you ever did hear from a mobile. Then Morro himself began to sway back and forth on his heels to their rhythmic cadence, humming a hauntingly beautiful lullaby as he did so. He set a few other things a-whirling and a-twirling as he did so—the weather vane on the roof, the colorful kaleidoscopic pinwheels sticking up out of the potted plants, the rippling water of a nearby puddle, the colorful autumn leaves from the oak and maple trees outside laying in small piles here and there, forgotten and unraked.

Wu smiled. The scruffy, bedraggled boy he had taken in a month or so back sure did have his quirks at times—both endearing and inconceivably mystifying. Sometimes he felt that some of Morro's strange habits and poignant shyness was and always would be a mystery to him. But all in all, he was glad that he had taken the young child in. He was perfect to be the Green Ninja someday—the budding sensei was sure of it.

Later that day, as Wu was preparing some dumplings, chicken ramen, and lumongs for his young charge, Morro was sketching a picture of a koi fish pond underneath a cherry tree when he looked up from his work and asked yet another odd question. "Sensei, where do Elemental Powers come from? How do you get them exactly?"

Wu looked up from the small coal stove, letting the liquid in the wooden spoon he was holding drip onto the floor as he turned to face his student once again. Setting the spoon back into the cooking pot, he scooted into a wooden chair and sighed deeply before patiently explaining, "Most Elemental Powers—at least the ones I'm aware of—are gained not through conquest, but by inheritance. My father, the First Spinjitzu Master, held both the powers of Creation and Destruction within his core, his innermost self. I inherited my father's power of Creation, and my brother—Garmadon—inherited the power of Destruction. Other Elemental Powers—such as Fire, Water, Ice, Lightning, Earth, even Wind—work the same way. They are passed from parent to child—a gift to the next generation so that they might carry the fire of their family's legacy."

"So that's why I kin control the wind?" Morro expressed, the pieces fitting like gears and cogs in his head more and more by the second. "Because I'm a de-de-descend—"

"Descendant." Wu finished for him, giving a lopsided smile at Morro's attempt to say the long, complicated word correctly.

"That—of an Elemental Master?" Morro finished in one big, puffing breath, his slightly chubby cheeks flushed with both effort and adrenaline-accelerated excitement.

"Yes. You, Morro, may indeed be the only living descendant of the first Elemental Master of Wind." Wu concurred, and Morro smiled the biggest smile Wu had seen in days. Then the little wind-child turned back to his drawing, hum-buzzing happily between his teeth like a lazy, contented bumblebee. As Wu returned to the dumplings, Morro went scritch-scratch-scritch with his colored pencils and let his leg thud rhythmically against the wooden chair, seeming to take soothing comfort in the sensation of the clarion vibrations he was creating. A blue jay twittered on a limb outside a small window, and Morro stuck his tongue out at it teasingly before giggling under his breath.

Wu couldn't help but smile yet again. Clearly, Morro was starting to come out of his shell. He certainly was chattering a lot more and hiding/clamming up a lot less, and he seemed to be more outgoing and confident by the day. Maybe it would soon be time for Wu to tell his charge about his suspicions that the wind-child would indeed be the one to wear the green gi.

But not yet. Not now. Wu had to know for sure. And yet…

Tomorrow. He would be sure to tell Morro tomorrow.

And he didn't know how he could stand to wait for that moment.

Morro wasn't done with the myriad continuous questions that afternoon or that evening. First he asked why insects live only long enough to mature, lay eggs, and die. Then he asked why morning glories "go to sleep" in the twilight at the same time as the moonflowers "wake up" and bloom beneath the silver moon. Then he asked how water could be held up in fluffy, cottony clouds without it "leaking" and pouring rain all the time.

With each and every question Morro asked, Wu found that it was getting more and more difficult to answer the inquiries. His father, the First Spinjitzu Master, had possessed various strengths, but being able to explain in words how nature worked was never one of them. And Wu had, sadly, inherited this weakness in even greater detail than his brother, Garmadon, had.

And yet, even when Wu found that he was struggling to answer a particular question, Morro never got impatient or belligerent about it. He always waited calmly and quietly for Wu to stammer out a somewhat suitable reply, and if the sensei truly was struggling, the wind-child would do his best to rephrase his question in a way that Wu would understand.

But it was that very night that Wu faced a question that even he was stumped on. And it began when he was just settling into the covers of his bed for a good night's rest—when all of a sudden, the doorknob turned, and the old wooden door creaked ear-piercingly open to reveal a shivering, whimpering, sobbing Morro standing there with a tear-stained face, his fuzzy teal blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and an armload of his favorite plushies stuffed underneath his elbow.

"What's wrong, Morro?" Wu asked, a soft yawn all but splitting his skull in two as he did so. He knew this song-and-dance quite well by now, as this wasn't the first time Morro had woken up in the middle of the night and come to him for comfort.

"I 'ad a bad d-d-dream." Morro admitted, his nervousness showing in the way he inadvertently stuttered as he spoke. His little chest was heaving erratically, and his almond-toned face was growing as ghostly pale as a crystalline moonstone in the eerie, misty rays of moonlight streaming in through a nearby window. Tears were glistening and shimmering on his cheeks, and his emerald-green—almost sage-green in this light—irises were being swallowed up by excruciatingly dilated obsidian-black pupils. His little heartbeat was throbbing so much like a shattering gong or a stampede of skittish colts that Wu could hear it pounding in the stillness of the midnight air.

"Come here, little one." Wu encouraged, and Morro accepted immediately. He pitter-pattered over on scurrying, terry-sock-clad feet and dove headfirst into the bed. The moment Wu embraced him in a hug, he began to wail shyly and wheezingly, slumping weakly into Wu's arms as he just cried—and cried—and cried. His stuffies lay in a heap all around his legs, and he pulled his blanket in tighter as he trembled and shuddered and shivered and shook like a leaf being battered by a cataclysmic hurricane.

"There, there, shh, shh, shh." the sensei admonished, gently rubbing Morro's back in soothing circular stroking motions and running a hand through the wind-child's silky, wispy mop of raven-black wavy locks, his fingers momentarily brushing the odd emerald-green color streak that had been in Morro's hair for longer than Wu even knew about. Perhaps it was a clear sign of Morro's possible choosing as the Green One—but Wu didn't think it best to bring that up now. Instead, he sucked in a long, emotion-stricken breath and murmur-crooned, "There, there, little wind-kit. You're all right. You're safe. I gotcha. That's it—breathe, Morro. Just breathe. Relax and breathe."

Little by little, Morro's sobs began to dissipate into wolfishly whimpering hiccupping coughs, and his bundled nerves and cramping muscles began to relax more and more as he snuggled into Wu's cuddling, kind embrace, nuzzling his head into Wu's chest and nestling his lovies closely to him as he let out a long, gentle sigh. He seemed to take great comfort in the comforting chords of Wu's heartbeat, the tender warmth of his strong arms, and the resonating timbre of his pulse as he sagged deeper and deeper into Wu's chest and let out a sigh of his own.

Then he cracked open his eyelids, gazing deeply at Wu's own sparkling, glinting amber eyes, and whispered so softly the sensei had to strain his ears to pick it up, "Why do the stars disappear?"

Now that was a question Wu was sure he could answer. His mouth opened instantly, and before he could stop himself, he blurted out, "Stars are actually always there. We just can't see them during the day because the sun is too bright."

But the response he got from Morro made his heart sink all the way to his toes. It all happened so fast, Wu wasn't the slightest bit prepared for it. In that moment, several freakishly horrendous things occurred. First, Morro's lip quivered. Then his heart began to race, thudding and thumping like a spooked mustang as his eyes welled with tears anew. His chest began to heave even more arrhythmically than before, and tiny wolfish whimpers and hissing wheezes and ragged coughs were beginning to ebb from his lips as he completely broke down. A few seconds later, Wu couldn't help but let out a small oof as Morro flung his little, gangly, spindly arms around Wu's waist and wept buckets of heart-shattered, core-sick tears.

He looked so wounded, so forlorn, so melancholy, so pitiful, so shaken and sorrowful, that it made Wu's stomach bunch and ball into tight, taut little knots within him just to look at him. "Then—why—am—I—all—alone?!" Morro howlingly sobbed, sniffling and coughing and crying his little heart out.

Wu's heart sank even further as he realized what Morro really had been asking. He hadn't actually been asking about stars. He'd been asking about his family. When he had wondered aloud why stars disappear, he'd been really asking, "Why is my family not here?! Why is my sister not here?! Why am I all alone in the world?! Why?! Why?! WHY?!"

And it made Wu's chest tighten and his heart swell with interfused guilt and grief to hear it. His grip instantly tightened around the distraught, traumatized Morro (though not enough to hurt the wind-child) and he immediately began to whisper, "Oh, Morro, my little wind-kit, you're not alone. You have your sensei. You have me."

"It's—sniff—no'—hic—th' same." Morro blubbered, his sobs turning into little more than babbled gibberish and strangled hiccups as he spoke.

"I know, little one, I know." Wu admitted. "But don't worry. As long as I'm here, you will never be alone or unwanted again. I promise."

Sniffle, then a small cough, then a long sigh, and then—silence. When Wu looked down again, he saw that Morro had succeeded to fall asleep in his arms, just as he had on other nights when he had come to Wu for comfort and gentle, tenderly tranquil peace of heart. The little child's chest rose and fell deeply and evenly as the sea of wondrous dreams slowly beckoned him away from the waking world, and a few seconds later, Wu felt a twinge of motion and looked down to see the bony, white-cold fingers of Morro's left hand curling around a fold of Wu's pajamas, clutching it like he would never let go.

"Sweet dreams, my little wind-kit." Wu crooned under his breath, closing his eyes to wait for the new dawn to arrive. Then, then he would tell his charge his thoughts about the little one's potential.

But for now, all the world was fast asleep. And in that moment, so was Wu.

And so was Morro—slumbering drowsily and deeply and restfully, blissfully unaware of what the next day would bring.