Salt: A Ninjago story

2: Shadows

He left the prison, later than he ever had before. As he walked the no mans land between the inner fortification and the large outer gates, he came to a stop. In the moment she had spoken to him, his thoughts had been swayed. He had meant to leave and never return, believing the reason he was there to be flawed. Then her voice had pleaded softly to him. She needed him.

He had returned to her and sat by her side. Taken her hand limp from her lap and held it gently. His fingers embraced hers. With no tension to resist, they slid smoothly together. Her face still vacant, eyelids lowered. She opened them and looked directly at him. He felt the emptiness of her life and she could have been a child, starting again where her life had stopped.

Lloyd felt suddenly exposed by the dark emptiness that surrounded him. To nobody but the giant gates, he muttered aloud 'Is this real?'

The giant dead bolts replied with the silence of their reality 'we're not here for any old reason, you young fool'

Lloyd startled himself with the thought. 'Is she manipulating me?'In the darkness of the dead space between worlds, the possibility was real. When life meant life, playing the long game was a frightening reality. But he knew, felt there was a change in her... 'There it is again'he thought 'But... I know absolutely nothing apart from how I feel. I can't trust her any more than I could trust my own father. But there was good in him once, until only the evil was resurrected. Before that, if we had ignored the possibility for good, he would never have returned to us. Trusting my feelings is all I have'.

Lloyd moved towards the gates and one fractionally opened. He passed through and it shut behind him. He could feel the multiple iron studs glare at him as he walked away, like so many eyes' judging his reasoning.

He swiftly pulled his hood down over his face and cut himself off from the world. He slid into the shadows, where no one could follow and felt at peace. He found the dark to be a sanctuary where even his mind felt free. Letting his thoughts drift, his body took over, gliding like a silver fish over walls and rooftops. This was his domain, where he could think without fear of judgement. He saw only her. He knew that if his friends could see his thoughts they would judge him harshly. He held on to the image of her eyes, her lips, drinking broth from a simple earthen cup. Only, when he held the cup to her lips, her eyes looked into his and she raised her hand to touch his. She sipped and took the cup from him then kissed his fingers.

Lloyd settled at the apex of a roof. The intimacy of care that he had experienced with Harumi had shifted. This was a new and powerful image and he waited to let his breathing settle. The exertion of his flight across the city was one thing, but this was something different. He pulled off his hood and let the air cool his face. He settled his breathing and looked back at the glow of the well-lit fortification. He knew she wasn't the Harumi he had first met. He knew with a certainty she had always hidden her true self, even when she revealed the lie. That was who he wanted.

The woman who was once five year-old Harumi was the only person he needed absolution from. Who needed to see the truth of the awful chain of events that lead to the death of her parents... and... 'And?' He asked himself aloud. He refused to answer.

He sat dangling his legs over the side of the roof and leant on the ornamental finial. He loved the city though he had never managed to experience it as an everyday person would. They took excursions. Went to the movies every now and again, but his City was a dream outside of his shadow of reality; where, projected by lanterns and neon lights he could watch a movie of real life play before him. It was better than any space movie that Jay was so fond of. From here he could watch the minutia of life and see the emotions in the faces of passers by, happiness, anger, fun... hate. If he were lucky he would see love. He saw enough young kids in love... That was the some of the best comedy and tragedy he'd watched. But every now and again, he would see the silent beat of two people in love, really in love and he felt like the luckiest person alive. Because though he knew he could never live a life so simple, he knew one day he might feel what they felt for himself.

Lloyd lowered his face onto his arm and let the lights blur as he watched the crowds jostle down the street. It was busy. A Friday night downtown, he'd be lucky to see any faces in the throng so he watched them move and wind like ants below him. Hypnotised, his eyes felt heavy. He let them close, once, twice...

He woke with a start. The neon glowed, but the crowds had gone. A few stragglers remained, drunks and the homeless. How long had he been asleep? The cold had crept into him. He shivered and then heard the chalky slip of terracotta and a smash as a roof tile crashed to the ground nearby. He threw himself down onto the incline of the roof and crawled in the direction of the sound. Keeping his body pressed to the tiles, he watched a figure righting itself to then nimbly jump to the next roof. Anyone could be wrong footed by a loose tile, it was how you recovered that marked how skilled you were. From what he could see this Ninja was pretty skilled. He followed. They did not know how many Ninja were brought up through the underground Dojo's. Their paths seldom met. When they did, it was usually when they had been disturbed in some underhand task for this or that crime syndicate. It bothered him. They worked hard to keep the forces of darkness from the Gates of Ninjago, just to find darkness woken from within. They may not be otherworldly beings, Overlords or evil souls, raised from the dead; but they ate away at the good in the world, laying a foundation of fear that was spreading it's long shadow across the city; a shadow that he was now tentatively following to its routes end.