Roots of Earth ~ A Ninjago Fanfiction

Chapter 46: Black's Blood's Unearthly Scheme

"Bramble Wing..." the warrior said. "I think we ought to take this tom and she-man to Black Blood."

"What for?" Bramble Wing growled, scowling. "We've been working all night, and I'm hungry. We deserve a little treat."

"Look at the tom." The werecat nodded to Lloyd-Leaf. "Doesn't he match the description of the Son of the First?"

Bramble Wing glared at Lloyd-Leaf and shrugged. "So he's a young golden-and-green-pelted tom-man. There are probably lots of humans who look like him."

"You know the Son of Earth was captured here and the Son of Ice and Daughter of Water were seen here during the fighting, right?" Lloyd's captor arched an eyebrow. "The only one not accounted for so far is the Son of the First."

Bramble Wing looked at Lloyd-Leaf, back at his companion, then sighed reluctantly. "Mouse dung... fine." He added with a scowl, "What about the female? At least..." He screwed up his nose and made a face at Lloyd. "I think it's a female. It smells bad."

Good, Lloyd thought with a small sigh of relief. The perfume's working. They can't tell I'm a guy. Of course, he added. Now I smell like a beauty parlor. I hope nobody I know sees me like this.

"Take her, too," the werecat responded.

* * *

Bramble Wing and the other werecat forced Lloyd and Lloyd-Leaf up a set of stairs that led to a different floor, where they were taken to a large, spacious room. The warriors slammed the doors open and dragged the humans inside, then flung them to the ground with a heave.

"Bramble Wing? Mist Rise?" A young woman's voice sounded from the other end of the room. "What is this, may I ask?"

Lloyd grunted and sat up on his knees, feeling that his legs were rather constrained by his skirt, and he marveled that any woman who wore dresses like these could even walk. He decided that Nya didn't get the credit she deserved for being able to fight skeletons, snakes, stone warriors, and nindroids in those dresses she wore before she became a ninja.

"We found these two wandering the hallways as if they owned them, Black Blood," Mist Rise replied, closing the doors behind him firmly. "One of them looks like one of the humans we've been after."

Lloyd quickly scanned his new surroundings. The wide, cold room they were in was sparsely decorated and dimly lit, with several torches lining the circular wall. The flickering flames reflected off of the clean surface of the marble floor, and everyone's movement echoed throughout the chamber. The only furniture were a couple of couches and a rug shoved to the side, and at the far end of the room a desk table stood. This had probably been some sort of lounge for the higher-ranking followers of Dog Bone.

"You think so, hmm?" the voice responded quietly. "I'll be the judge of that."

Lloyd looked up to see several people in ragged animal skins standing together at the desk table, as if in the middle of a discussion. One of them stepped forward and stared down at the two prisoners: Black Blood. She no longer wore the servant girl's simple gown. Instead she had donned dark robes that fell stylishly across her figure in mixed colors of night-blue, black, violet and a misty green. Her coal-black hair fell in soft waves around her face and down her shoulders, and her green eyes and red lips stood out on her pale, hard face. Around her waist was a leather belt carrying a sheathed sword-like weapon of some kind—whatever it was, Lloyd couldn't see it very well.

Black Blood walked up to the two humans slowly, eyes looking at them with a scrutinizing intensity. Lloyd glanced at Lloyd-Leaf. She/he crouched on her knees as he did, frozen rigid and staring at Black Blood. Lloyd wasn't sure if the fear he saw in her eyes on his face was real or not.