The XX
••• Crystallised •••
you don't move slow, I'm taking steps in my direction
the sounds resounds, echo, does it lessen your affection?
no
you say i'm foolish for pushing this aside
but burn down our home, i won't leave alive
•••••
TW: physical harm, assault, asphyxiation
Garmadon pulled me aside to try and spy our tail through the thick, phantasmic clouds while Wu and Misako spoke frantically to one another in the background.
I peeked through the porthole while apprehension filled my gut like rain in a well. Somewhere out there, hidden within the swathes of a dark sky, Lloyd's body was being piloted by a ghost with some kind of vendetta. Somewhere out there, Morro was chasing us down with sick relentlessness.
My eyes scanned the clouds. Every shadow, every darkened nebula tricked me into thinking it was him. I wasn't sure if the fact that I couldn't see him was good or bad.
"Where should I go?" I asked.
Garmadon shook his head. "Hiding is futile. Lloyd's senses are too sharp. If you hide alone and he finds you..." his voice trailed off hesitantly before he cleared his throat. "No, it will be best if you remain with us."
My hand tightened around the katana's hilt. "... okay." Because if he found me alone, he'd probably kill me.
I had never doubted the ninja's skills before, and I had certainly considered Lloyd to be the best fighter history had to offer, but perhaps that was naive of me. Morro had overtaken Lloyd and had conquered each attack of the team while barely breaking a sweat. Failure was unavoidable. It was a sharp slap of a reality check, and it had me teetering on the precipice of disbelief.
Now I did doubt the ninja's skills, and I certainly couldn't add anything to improve our odds of surival in any capacity for the impending conflict. I could see our chances of overcoming this dwindling by the second, and my body shook with a fear that felt primal. My veins tingled with the sick thrill of terror.
I didn't realise how badly I was trembling until Garmadon placed a hand on my shoulder. The weight of his silent comfort grounded me back into myself, but that didn't stop the shivers. I'd never dealt with fear quite this profound before. My mind kept jumping between thoughts, even worse than usual.
"We will get through this," he reassured, and the gentle, promising look in his green eyes made it difficult to doubt him. "Have hope."
Hope. Like what was engraved into Lloyd's sword that I could hardly wield. Hope. It was difficult to have hope when all I could sense was doom, when my chest ached and my powers no longer pulled me towards him. How was I meant to have hope at a time like this?
Garmadon looked back out the window and his expression crumbled; his sadness leaked from behind a mask of determination. That was his son out there, and though I knew they'd had a rocky relationship, the care they felt for one another was still immense. It was overwhelming how much Lloyd's father must've hurt by seeing him this way.
Hope was all any of us could do.
I'd try to hope, for him. For Lloyd.
The ninja returned, faces grim and wounds hastily patched. They'd changed out of their Steep Wisdom uniform shirts and into their gis, loaded their holsters with favoured weapons and ninja stars. The lethality of the objects dragged a cold fingertip down my spine - Lloyd wanted us to survive, to hurt him if we needed to, but could I even bring myself to? Just the measly scratch I gave him from the katana tip had my stomach in rolls.
"How far away is he?" Cole asked. I had to avert my eyes from the large, stone hammer strapped to his back for all I could imagine was Lloyd being bludgeoned by it.
"Two minutes, give or take," Misako answered. She pressed a button beside the wheel and a small, plastic man the size of my hand popped up from the console and pretended to drive. It was so bizarre in such a shitty situation that I almost started to cry.
"What's the plan, then?" Kai asked. "Overpower him?"
"And risk being blown right off the ship?" Jay said incredulously. "I don't think so. We should stun him."
"With what lightning?" Cole reminded, and made Jay slump.
"I think we should restrain him." Nya tapped a grappling hook strapped to her thigh. "He can't use his powers if his arms are restrained - at least not as well."
"He'd just use the wind to knock the hook or us away before it could even touch him!" Kai exclaimed.
They kept bouncing ideas and shooting them down. My fingers fiddled with my dragon pendant anxiously. We could spend forever trying to come up with the perfect way to restrain Morro and get Lloyd back, but we didn't have forever. We had a minute and a half.
This could be our chance to get him back, and that thought did fill me with hope. It filled me with a bit of bravery that felt a little foreign, and I wasn't entirely sure it was my own.
My touch fell away from my necklace. "I'll talk to him."
Eyes turned to me in disbelief. Their doubt was cumbrous and squeezed the air from my lungs, but I fought the urge to apologise and hide my face away in shame like how I usually would. I cleared my throat to drag back the scattered tatters of my composure.
"Let me talk to him," I repeated. "Lloyd took control and spoke to me before, he can do it again. Maybe that's why I'm here now." I looked at the katana in my hand and tried my best to believe in my own suggestion. "Maybe our linked powers can help him kick Morro out."
"No way." Kai immediately dismissed my idea. "We have no idea how crazy that guy is. He could kill you!"
"Kai is correct," Zane added, and gave me a sympathetic look when I sent him a betrayed frown. "He may ignore any form of communication after he experienced Lloyd's resurgence. We must proceed with utmost caution."
I turned to Garmadon in hopes of support, but he just grimly nodded in agreement with the rest of them. That little bit of determination in my chest deflated.
"What if Wu spoke to him?" Cole suggested. The sensei's expression greyed.
Misako shook her head. "That would only rile him up further. Besides, Morro's after Wu's staff. We need to keep him away from it."
They continued trying to piece together a plan like a jigsaw puzzle with all the wrong parts. My gaze turned to the clouds once more, and I startled upon noticing the looming figure of a dragon flying towards us.
Even his elemental dragon had been infected by the possession. Lloyd's beast was no longer a spring grass green with a puppy-like disposition; now, he looked like a dragon, one that I had proper reason to be scared of. His scales had gone cemetery grey, blending with the sky if not for the glowing swamp-green skin beneath them. The mist that trailed after his wings caught in the wild breeze and scattered like the ends of a cape. His eyes were mere husks of what they had once been. Now, they were full of hate.
The ship then lurched so violently that I staggered away from the window and was almost knocked to the port wall of the bridge. Morro was getting closer, his powers stronger. If we didn't do something soon then we were all going to be thrown from the Bounty like rocks.
While the others were engrossed with frantically coming up with an idea, I gathered my will and snuck toward the deck exit. Zane caught my eye. He didn't try to stop me, didn't raise an alarm, but the look his in otherwise his neutral expression told me to be careful.
I slipped out into the storm.
The wind whipped at my hair like it was an affront to its pride, tugging at my scalp with knotted fingers. Morro was upon us, the massive creature he rode falling to the deck with powerful beats of his misty wings. I descended the steps from the bridge and watched him, unwilling to be pinned in place by Morro's petrifying glare. The storm almost took me right off my feet.
Hope. I held Lloyd's sword in front of me. I could have hope.
My focus had never been so razor-sharp before. I could see very movement of Morro's as he dropped to the deck with feline grace. Everything about him was highlighted by my attention - the way he rolled his shoulders, the twitch of his brows, even the way Lloyd's thick fringe caught in his lashes. I read his body like how he read mine. We were both studious people.
When he approached, my adrenaline spiked and my heart jumped. I took a step back before I could stop myself and then forced my feet to plant themselves where they stood. I wouldn't back down, not when I could barely get myself out here in the first place. I had to be strong for him. Lloyd took control before. He'd take control again.
Morro's pace was no longer smug or slow. It was firm and straight, inclined enough for me to raise my sword in warning. Morro faltered. We both knew I couldn't fight, but a weapon was a weapon, and someone who was terrified and armed could be just as dangerous in the right scenario.
"Why are you doing this?" I shakily asked. My voice was almost swallowed by the howling of the air around us, but he had Lloyd's super hearing. I could whisper and he'd still hear me fine. "Let Lloyd go."
Morro's approach restarted; slower, and heavy with disdain. I scrambled backwards, almost upended myself onto my back (and probably impaled by my own sword) when he walked up to me... and breezed right on past.
I was stunned for only a moment before I turned after him. He already was halfway up the stairs to the bridge by the time I found my voice. I lifted my sword to him in desperation.
"Hey!" I shouted. "Give him back!"
Morro's steps paused. The turn of his head was just as slow and unbothered, almost bored. He didn't look at me; he looked past me, over the top of me. It was like I wasn't even there.
"Deal with her," he drawled, before slamming the bridge door open with a flick of his finger and disappearing inside.
I looked behind me and paled at the corrupted dragon that still stood at the bow. The growl that rumbled from between his teeth made my hair prickle and stand on end. My heart jumped itself over the rails and fled.
A clawed paw landed towards me and thudded along the wooden boards of the deck. I lifted the katana towards the approaching dragon in defence. My arms shook beneath the weight of the weapon.
It was hard to believe that this was the same beast who enthusiastically dove into my hands for pats. It was hard to believe that any of this was happening, that it wasn't just some fucked up nightmare that I couldn't claw my way out of. The only thing that kept this real was the chill of the air slathering goosebumps along my arms.
The dragon's growl reverberated across the sky like thunder without the lightning. Behind me, in the bridge, sounds of intense fighting told me that no-one would come save me, not even Lloyd. I was on my own with a sword I couldn't use.
"Good boy," I whispered. His head flicked and he snarled, lips lifting over his maw of fangs the length of my forearm. I could barely breathe. "You're still my good boy, aren't you, uh... Flagship?"
He really wasn't, but I didn't know what else to do.
The dragon growled louder. I staggered backwards, katana wavering in the air. He continued his approach, a slow, steady lumber reminiscent of a lion. I didn't dare wipe the hair from across my face.
"You don't like that name? Okay..." My lashes fluttered with terror. I didn't even know what I was saying anymore. "Uh... Jack Hammer? Jason?" My back hit the exterior wall of the bridge. I closed my eyes tight. "Brandon? Bentley?"
I whimpered in fear when his muzzle touched my temple. All I could think of was his large teeth sinking into my body, tearing the life from me like a scene from a nature documentary. I was the unfortunate seal caught by an orca.
My hair fluttered when the dragon huffed and, when I didn't immediately get impaled by a mouthful of knives, I peeked my eyes open up at the towering creature.
He was still corrupted. He was still angry and dark and his eyes were still no longer his, but he didn't do anything beyond touching his muzzle to my hairline. My breath escaped me in a tremble. Just like Lloyd, he still had part of himself. I wanted to cry with relief.
"Yeah? Bentley? You like that name?" I shakily asked. Bentley pushed the top of his head into my chest. The sword clattered to the ground as my trembling hands landed around his horns - a tactical position to push him away if I needed to escape. "What's he done to you? You're still Lloyd's, aren't you?"
His growl was a little less scary, now. He was still my overgrown puppy. I pulled at his horns to lift his head, and I stared him in the emptiness of his murky eyes. Slitted pupils stared back. Only a facet of himself remained, but it was enough.
"Can you help me?" I whispered. He grumbled from deep within his throat and, while I couldn't speak dragon, I didn't let myself imagine it to be a no. "I can't fight him alone."
Bentley pulled his head up so that my hands slid off his horns. My heart stopped, but only for a second, calming when he pushed his nose into my palm with an exhale instead. Surely that was a yes.
Relief made me woozy. I really didn't want to be killed by a dragon.
"Stay here." I pressed a kiss to the spot between Bentley's eyes. "When Morro comes back to you, knock him out."
I wasn't sure if Bentley could even understand me. I had no time to ponder that, however, as I grabbed my sword and dashed up the stairs to the bridge. My glance back showed the dragon standing unsurely and shaking his head, teetering between being in control and not. Chills tingled along my nerves like a wash of ice. I hoped he lasted long enough.
The bridge was empty, void of persons and disturbed only by the various pockets of destruction. The console screens were on the floor and snapped in half. The steering wheel was hanging by two cords. Miraculously, autopilot still worked - though I'd wager not for much longer. At least there was no-one on the floor and unconscious.
Ruckus from the floor below pulled me to cautiously descend the stairs. I held my sword in position, ready to use it like a sharp bat to defend myself. The Bounty rocked in the wind, made it difficult to balance, and the old ship croaked and groaned in a way that made me nervous for a different reason; was the Bounty even going to last all this chaos?
I pressed my back against the wall when I reached the end of the stairs. My body stiffened when voices grew louder, and then relaxed when I realised it was just Zane, Kai and Wu. My palms had begun to make the katana's hilt slick with sweat.
"Our quarters aren't much further. Go, Sensei!" Zane said, and it was strange to hear his usually calm voice imbued with such hurry. He grew louder as they neared, though their footsteps were silent. "Kai and I will hold him back."
My head peeked around the corner and I flinched when the tip of a sword stopped short of my nose. It dropped just as fast, and Kai's face shifted from guarded, to relieved, before settling on something terribly furious. My heart ladened with guilt.
"Y/n!" Kai exclaimed. "Where have you been?!"
Suddenly my hands were very sweaty. I meekly stepped down from the stairs. "I- I tried to talk to him-"
"Tried to talk-? Are you crazy?!" he snapped. "We told you not to!"
"I can't just do nothing!" I despaired.
"I'd rather you do nothing than be killed like an-!"
"Kai." Wu sternly cut his pupil off. "Emotions are high. Let's just be grateful that Y/n is unharmed."
Kai refused to meet my apologetic gaze. My guilt grew worse.
"Let us hasten," Zane said, and placed a hand on my back to urge me in the direction they were headed. "The others cannot hold off Morro for long-"
We all yelped when the Bounty fell to the side. I landed against the wall on my elbow and grimaced when a bolt of numbness shot up my arm. Shouting echoed from the kitchen a few doors down. I grabbed my discarded sword with a groan and staggered upright.
Zane and Wu had fallen halfway down the hallway. Kai stood and shook his head, dazed from the tumble.
"You guys really just don't quit, do you?"
Kai and I lifted our heads at the sound of Morro's sneering voice. He stood at the end of the hallway, armour askew and face covered with bruises and shallow slashes. Lloyd's gi was torn in places. His hair was a mess, his gaze one of loathing.
Kai bristled at the sight of him. He stepped in front of me and held his sword aloft, ready for another round of fighting. But his arms were trembling and his breathing was already heavy. How much longer could he go on?
"Well-" Kai huffed and smirked coldly. "You know the saying, don't you? Ninja never quit."
Morro's scowl darkened, marring Lloyd's face further. "You're just an insolent try-hard pretending to be brave."
"Why don't you come and find out?"
Kai pulled his arm behind him and flicked his fingers, which I took that as my cue to flee. This time, I didn't disobey. I bolted just as Morro took his first step.
The Bounty suddenly jolted as it rebounded off something big and solid and took my feet out from under me. I hit the floor hard enough to leave me gasping for breath. Kai struggled to keep his feet. My vision swam, my chest ached from impact.
Only Morro seemed to be unaffected by the tumultuous environment he'd created. He sauntered forth, oozing threat and thrill. The confidence on his face inspired terror.
I slid across the floor as the Bounty reeled backwards. In a flash, his plan became clear.
"Kai!" I gasped and struggled onto my hands. "Kai, the ship! He's going to-!"
The Bounty, again, rammed into what must've been the side of a mountain. I yelped at the wicked jolt, and chilled in horror at the deep, guttural sound of the hull ripping apart. Planks were snatched into the air before me. Morro was going to destroy the Bounty and let it drop from the sky.
Kai shot a panicked look back at me. "Go!"
I scrambled to my feet and hesitantly edged my way around the hole that spanned the width of the hallway. Zane waited for me on the other side, carefully testing his weight on the broken boards. The clouds outside were fuzzy and dark, and the ground invisible. I was suddenly overcome with vertigo.
The boards beneath my shoes cackled and snapped with fracturing fibres. The vacuum the hole had created tugged at me, begged me to slip in and fall. I grew dizzy with caution.
A shout of frustration made me look over my shoulder just in time to see Kai hooking an arm around Morro's neck and throwing him onto the ground. Before I could feel conflicted relief at his victory, the tides turned, and Morro had swept Kai's balance out from beneath him and slammed his head into the wooden floor.
I grimaced. "Kai-!"
A board broke from beneath me. A brief feeling of weightlessness numbed my brain, before reality resurged my terror, shattered my shock, and I came to as I free-fell through the clouds.
The air was frigid, freezing my veins to my bones as my limbs flailed in the open storm. My heart hammered, choking my throat, and I cried a useless bid for help as the limping Bounty grew quickly smaller in the sky.
The wind buffeted at me, a pebble through a raging ocean. My body twisted at its whim, robbing my screams, blocking my ears and snatching tears from my eyes. My momentum gained and gained, shooting me faster towards the far-away earth.
Bentley launched himself from the ship and dove towards me, and my heart hitched with relief at his help. But he staggered mid-air and curled in on himself, fighting for control, and disappeared in a burst of black-green mist that was quickly swept away. My sob cracked, shrill with horror. I broke through a cloud and was suddenly alone.
The mountain fell alongside me, and the tops of trees became visible in the foggy horizon. This was it, then. This was the end of a life of a girl who ruined everything for everyone else. The life of a coward, of a disappointment, of a bad friend and a boring person.
Maybe this was an ending best for everyone. Wouldn't they all be better off without me? My mum would be distraught, my dad a mess, but they would be the only ones who really cared.
Maybe Lloyd would... or maybe it would be a relief for me to be gone after I was the cause of all this hurt.
Just as I resigned myself to my ill-fated ending, a body shot through the cloud above. My crying shuttered in confusion before I shrieked when we collided, and then suddenly we were rolling through our dive. An immense force crashed into us from below, a shield of something solid enough to hurt, and slowed our descent by half. It grabbed at us still, hold slipping like butter.
I was pulled tight into a chest as we careened through tree branches, thwacked by sticks and leaves and hitting trunks and branches. Each impact threw my brain within my head until we finally landed on the ground; heavily, winded.
My eyes stared at a grass strand fluttering in the breeze. My brain had stopped working; I was in state of shock so intense that I couldn't feel my body or its aches. The only thing that moved was my ragged breathing, and the breathing of the person beneath me, fogging in the cold air between us.
I squeezed them tight and began to tremble. I'd just sped through the stages of grief and then survived a fall that should've splattered me flat like a pancake, and the turn of events left me startled. The body beneath me groaned. I forced myself to move onto the ground beside me and whimpered at the cuts I'd gotten through our gander down the forest's canopy. The sky was so distant.
Thunder rumbling from the storm above made me flinch into panic. I forced my breathing to steady as it tried to run away on me and whimpered through my gasps. With effort, I glanced at the man lying on the dirt beside me, before paling at the pained scowl on a familiar face.
I scrambled away for space, rocks digging into my numb palms, and stared at him in horror. Morro. Morro had just saved me. Unless it was...
"Lloyd?" I hopefully croaked. The shitty look he sent me made my confusion grow. So it was Morro - but why on earth did he save me? Didn't he just try to kill me with a dragon?
"I'm not Lloyd, you clueless ingrate." He sat up with a hiss of his teeth and rolled his shoulder. "I forgot how painful being alive was."
I stared at him in bewildered terror. I didn't know if I should've thanked him or punched him across the face and fled. Instead, I opted to sit on the floor and dumbly stare at him as he stood, brushing twigs from his dark hair and grumbling beneath his breath.
"Why?"
Morro peeked one dry, unimpressed eye at me. "What?"
In total disbelief, my head slowly turned from side to side. "Why did you save me?"
"You think I wanted to?" he scoffed, and looked upon me as if I were stupid. He turned away and picked out a stick that had gotten caught in his gi's belt, muttering beneath his breath. "These damn prophecies... so annoying."
For once, I was glad that I was caught up in a mess of a prophecy. I was glad of the tugging that controlled us. Though, only if I ignored the fact that it landed me in this situation in the first place.
"Give him back," I shakily begged, because if the prophecy sucked, it still gave me Lloyd. "Give him back."
"Would you quit it?" Morro seethed, and I jumped when he spun around to face me with a thunderous glare. "God, you're relentless!"
I scowled up at him. Of course I was relentless - he'd taken Lloyd, he'd stolen him from his team, from his family, from me. And he was in pain, Morro was hurting him, reducing Lloyd to a prisoner in his own body. The prophecy wasn't the only thing screwed up and determined.
Stumbling to my feet, I opened my mouth to argue, to verbally abuse him until he gave in (as if that would ever work) but wavered before I could. My legs weren't quite working the way they were supposed to. My heartbeat still thundered far too quickly. I was falling again.
Morro caught me a second time, saving me before I could hit the ground and injure myself further. Any cruel, harsh words I'd wanted to shout escaped me entirely. I couldn't speak. My brain had closed off once more.
He glared down at me, splayed against Lloyd's firm chest with legs of jelly. "You're pathetic." He sighed with a surveying tilt of his head. "You're in shock."
Relentless, pathetic, and in shock. That pretty much summed up my entirety with a neat little bow.
I pushed myself away from him. This time, he let me fall. I landed on my ass with a dazed gasp and shook my head to clear the disorientated fuzziness of my head. My body trembled, limbs buzzing with useless energy that made me limp and leaden. I turned my pissed stare up to him with effort.
"Don't touch me," I managed to snarl.
Morro crouched before me with an unfeeling smile. "If I'm going to be the Green Ninja, then you better get used to me, pet."
A coldness coursed through me at his words. He wanted to be the Green Ninja, not just end him? Then he'd never give Lloyd up - not if he and the title of legend were both so tightly entwined.
And what of me? My fate was just as entwined with the legend as his. If Morro never gave Lloyd up, then where would that take the prophecy? What would Morro do with me? How could Lloyd ever survive a life such as that? How could I? It made me unfathomably angry.
I shook my head. "No."
Morro's smirk grew at my defiance. "You don't get a choice."
"Fuck you."
My head hit the dry ground faster than I could blink, and my gasp cut short when Morro's hand gripped my throat tight. The back of my skull throbbed in beats. Stars danced in my wavering vision. His stare was bored as he watched me struggle, choking and clawing at his unbudging hand.
"I don't enjoy being spoken to like that," he murmured. My body shivered as I tried to drag in air, glaring at him with wide eyes. "Just because you're part of some big prophecy doesn't mean I'll give you special treatment." He leant down with a wicked glint in his dark eyes. "I'm not like Lloyd."
Behind the dizziness of fear and slowly losing oxygen, I found this sickening; Lloyd's face curling more into a tighter smile as the ghost behind his eyes watched me flail. The face I had kissed and held and dreamed of; the face whose faint freckles I'd counted while lounging beneath the sun. The hand I'd held, the hand I'd traced the scars of, the hand who'd protected me. It was so, so sickening.
It couldn't end like this. Morro wouldn't kill me, but that wouldn't stop him from stealing me away or imprisoning me somewhere or god knows what else. I had to get out. I couldn't save Lloyd if I was shackled myself.
My hand scrabbled at the dirt beside me. My fingers glided over a rock and I wasted no time in bringing it to the side of Morro's head with enough power to unbalance him, to send him tumbling from atop me. I coughed horribly while gathering as much air as I could with each rattling breath. My throat burned. The treetops span in circles. Everything was slow like the evening tide, but my thoughts were moving as fast as hummingbird wings.
"You witch!" Morro roared, snapping my dazed focus into attention. He held his bleeding cheek with gritted teeth. "How dare you?!"
He began for me again, and I suddenly felt that even the prophecy wouldn't save me from his wrath. I scrambled backwards at his rapid approach while my eyes still swam.
I wished I'd fallen with the sword, because then at least I'd have something decent to defend myself with. A stubby branch was all I could find. I held it aloft, and it was light but my arms still weaved with the effort of it. Maybe the others were right. Maybe I should've just gone home and let them handle the situation. I wasn't ready for this - I was in over my head.
I held my breath as he came upon me, and I tensed at the inevitable pain that he would bring. I was so tired, so sore, I could barely even hold my head up, let alone fend him off. Powers or not, I was still just an average seventeen-year-old, and Lloyd's body was a trained machine fit for a title of legend.
My vision blurred as Morro towered above me - his dark hair haloed by branches and the thick clouds overhead. In the sombre light of the night Lloyd's face was terribly beautiful, softly glowing, white parchment with eyes of liquid abyss and twisted by malice. My stick was pitiful.
How cruel this was. How awful this day had become. I could do nothing to save myself.
I winced in anticipation when his hand reached out to snatch my hair, but then his body convulsed and doubled over with a shout of pain. Owlishly, I watched as he thumped to the ground on his knees, fell to his elbows, and panted awfully loudly with his forehead pressed to the dirt.
I was too frightened to do anything but stare as he corraled his breath with each rise of his shoulders. His body shook like a leaf in the wind. Part of me wanted to reach out and help him. A stronger, more cautious part held me back.
Lloyd lifted his head. His blinks were slow and heavy, exhausted, glossy with tears. His brows pinched a knot between them. And when he found the irritated skin of my neck and reached out, I instinctively pulled further away. His crumbled expression was the definition of utter misery.
"I'm- I'm sorry," Lloyd whispered. He was barely audible, lacking strength, and his apology dripped with self-hate and regret. "I tried to stop him... I'm so sorry, sunshine."
My wary heart broke at the state of him, at the way he looked away from my neck in loathing. Every part of me was telling me to run, but how on earth could I ever? I would run from Morro, but never Lloyd.
I pulled myself to my feet and had to take a moment to balance. When I was sure my leg wouldn't crumble from beneath me as I took my first step, I walked forward and pressed myself into Lloyd's body. My cheek grew cold at the chest piece he wore. His body tightened, he remained still.
"It's not your fault," I murmured. "It wasn't you."
Lloyd returned my hug with vigour and a sob. His face buried into my shoulder, and I held him desperately while I ached with a separate pain than the agony of his possession; heartbreak. All I wanted to do was shield him from harm.
"You- you need to stay away from me." His arms tightened around me in contrast to his warning. "He's dangerous. I can't- I can't bare to hurt you again."
My eyes closed with anguish. "Don't make me go."
"You have to." Lloyd's voice was muffled as he spoke into my hair. His body tensed and he held his breath, and I froze in his hold. He relaxed with a lethargic sigh. "He's getting strong."
"Be stronger," I quietly pled. "I'll find a way to fix this."
Lloyd was silent for a moment before pulling back and finding my gaze. His hand traced my temple to my cheek before stopping short of my neck with a pale grimace. His green eyes drifted back to mine. "This isn't your fight."
"It is."
"It's not-" Lloyd stepped back with a grunt. His touch slipped from me and held at his head instead, expression contorted with pain. My hand lifted and hovered, unsure, helpless. When he regained himself, he sent me an imploring look. "I- I need to... He'll hurt you again. Y/n, you have to go home."
Lloyd was already backing away from me, in grave need to flee. No tug on my gut told me to follow him but I dearly wished to. I wiped an arm over my weepy eyes and balled my shaking hands into fists of ardent decision. I wasn't going to go home.
He could read the thoughts in my eyes and knew he'd been beat. I wouldn't listen to him - I wouldn't listen to any of them. No matter how scared I was, no matter how little training I had, I would never go home if Lloyd was in trouble.
"Bye, Y/n," he said forlornly, and turned to leave.
I watched him walk away with my heart in my throat. What if this was the last time I ever saw him again? What if one of us died? Anything could happen. The heroes didn't always win.
If this truly was the last time I saw him, there was something I needed to say.
"Lloyd," I called, and my voice fell halfway through. He turned back to me, teetering with his drained reserves of energy. I held my breath for a second as he stared at me, and resolved in forming the words I'd been too hesitant to say before. "I love you."
Lloyd raised his head, and his green eyes widened. Shock plastered so clearly across his pale face that it almost brought a bittersweet smile to mine. I wished I could've said this in a better place, under better circumstances, but I'd feared that our time was running out. He needed to know just how much I adored him.
Lloyd stared at me as if it were the most baffling thing in the world; that he could be loved such as I loved him. That it was real and true, and standing right before him with shaky legs and a bruised neck. That despite everything, despite all his scars and secrets, he was still loved.
My heart was on my sleeve for the first time in my life, and it was slightly terrifying. Every book I'd read talked about how simple the words were but how much weight they held, and I truly didn't appreciate the intensity of it until I spoke them myself. My three words hung in the space between us, jostled by the storm, stabbed onwards by my uncharacteristic resolve brought forth by crisis.
Lloyd's expression twisted with the many passes of his emotions, until he finally brought his first foot forward and propelled himself to swallow the distance between us. I was gathered into his arms before I knew what was happening.
The kiss was startling and fierce, imbued with more certainty and passion than I'd felt from Lloyd before. It burst with heat and silk from this cave of uncertainty we were trapped in, a tiny light of warmth in an infinite cold labyrinth. He kissed me like I was the Goddess he devoted himself to; full of such potent worship and adoration that it made my head spin, and I knew exactly how he felt. If he had a shrine, I'd lay myself upon it.
He chased me, and I him, and I would chase him forever if I could. Our own little circle of bliss.
But I couldn't, and that hurt with an ache so terrible that it left me breathless.
Lloyd pulled away and the heat in his cheeks was the first colour I'd seen on his face since Morro took him over. His forehead pressed to mine, and I stood tall to bring me even closer, as if I could lock myself to him, a willing prisoner with a single-tracked mind.
Lloyd didn't want that for me, though. I knew through the tears teeming in his eyes that he would never let me follow him, that this was a goodbye I couldn't ignore. He stroked my face as if it'd be the last time he'd see it again, and then brushed away my tears when that thought silently broke me down. At least I got to tell him that I loved him before he left.
"I'll find you again," Lloyd vowed, his whispered promise so zealous that the trees bowed beneath his power. He kissed me again, this one softer, sweeter, an 'I'll see you again,' and my lashes fluttered my eyes shut with the thump of my heart. "I love you, my favourite uncommon case."
I laughed quietly, and it was broken and weak and full of despair. His touch lingered for a second longer before he stole himself away, and any and all parts of warmth within me left with him. When I opened my eyes, he had disappeared.
Cold returned like a vicious monster and rattled me with chills. Lloyd was gone, taking himself as far away from me as possible before Morro could regain control and finish what he started. I tried to peer through the canopy of trees to find the Bounty, but the clouds had yet to thin, and shielded their location from view. I was alone.
Lost in a forest, huh? This felt familiar. My smile was bitter and sad.
I sat down against the trunk of a tree and waited.
🍃🍂🍁🍂🍃
I hadn't realised I'd fallen asleep until I woke groggy and disoriented, slumped on the cold, damp ground with the early morning sun bleeding through the trees.
My blinks were slow and languid, sluggish in my waking. My brain filed through the events of the night before, took note of the dull throb in my chest, and I felt my body go limp with weariness. Lloyd was still gone. I was still alone.
Birds chirped in the branches overhead, welcoming the beginning of a new day. It was much too chipper to match how I was feeling, but I brought myself to my feet, anyway. No use in wallowing on the ground when I could be finding the others.
And I tried to, I did, but the expanse of trees and the lack of landmarks made me wander aimlessly. I thought I knew the direction that the Bounty was headed in - somewhat south-east - but my certainty faded with each few minutes that passed. There wasn't even a river to follow.
Tired, hungry and feeling gross, I leant my weight against a tree and hugged it. I wasn't strong enough for this. Maybe the prophecy picked the wrong person.
My eyes shot open when my neck tingled with the sensation of something watching me. I let go of the tree and turned around, expecting to find some earthly beast staring at me from through the pine trunks, but that fear was squashed as soon as my eyes laid upon the creature who'd invoked such feeling.
A mythical beast with the body of a small dragon and the antlers and legs of a stag wandered through the forest with its golden eyes pinned on me. A long, scaly tail swished behind it, leaving a misty trail of gold. Its gold-peach whiskers flapped in the nonexistent breeze as the creature turned its eyes away from me and continued its procession.
My lips parted in awe. It was a creature that moved silently, leaving only hoofprints of perfect circles, a diligent beast of myth. It was a Kirin. Its power filled me with a buzzing warmth, and something within compelled me to follow in its peaceful path.
I couldn't recall how long I'd followed the Kirin as it led me through the forest. It felt like I was in a daze, stumbling after the graceful creature. Only Zane's voice calling my name roused me from my stupor, and I looked out amongst the trees for the origin of his voice. When I looked back at the Kirin, it was gone.
I returned to myself then, a clarity so astute that I no longer felt tired and beaten down. I staggered through the woods and called my reply.
Zane's emergence through the scrub almost made me bawl with consolation. A similar look of relief crossed his otherwise neutral gaze, and he caught my stagger into his arms with barely a grunt. My tears snagged in his gi.
"Located Y/n, en route back to base," Zane spoke into his mask's comm before slipping it back over his head. He frowned down at me. "You have been significantly harmed."
I smiled painfully up at him. "I'm aware."
He began lifting my arms and examining my scratches like the medical professional robot he was. "You look terrible."
"Thanks, Zane." I rolled my eyes at his terrible bedside manner and tried not to cry even more. "I'm also sweaty and smelly, gonna bring that up, too?"
His smile was wry. "I am certain you will survive." He hummed disapprovingly at my wince when his fingers passed over my skull. "Did you hit your head again? You must cease doing that."
"Well, gee," I muttered. "I guess the next time someone attacks me, I'll just politely ask them to avoid my head."
"The sarcasm was unneeded, but seeing as you had quite the traumatic experience, I will let it slide." He lightly touched the bruise on my neck with a complicated look in his eyes. "... Morro did this."
My gaze fell away. "... yeah."
"Did you speak to Lloyd?"
"I did," I sighed. "He's trying, but Morro's getting stronger."
Zane frowned with displeasure, but didn't comment on what I'd reported. Instead, he glanced back the way he came and knitted his brow in concern.
"Let us return to the others," he decided. "You can tell us all that happened."
I nodded and let him lead the way back to the others. It was a relief to be in the company of a friend again, and a friend that knew how to fight. I felt some of the unsure tension leave my aching body.
When I glanced over my shoulder I found the hidden Kirin amongst the trees, watching after me with gold-bright eyes.