"Sweetness? Your highness? Dear princess.. you are just too beautiful for your own good. If you got anymore lovely, you would have flowers growing out of your ears.. and we can't have that.. you wouldn't be able to hear me tell you that I love you. So, no.. no, no, no.. you can't get even a tiny bit more beautiful!! But tomorrow I will look at you and you will be as beautiful as ever, I'm sure.. but you just have to tone it down or the flowers will get you."
Hahaha.. she was overgrown by flowers cause she was just too beautiful for her own good, and the rabbits and birds came and pooped everywhere and it was so bad, all cause she wouldn't stop getting more beautiful - eUë
Hehe Damage Branch Number 9 (or 5, depending). I will never stop.
Summary: As the ninja vanish one by one, Lloyd begins to fall apart.
Trigger Warnings: kidnapping, mental breakdown
1588 words
It was bad enough when it was just Cole.
Lloyd remembered the day they’d declared him missing like it was yesterday. Cole hadn’t been seen for days, and while they had been worrying since day one, they’d hoped he had just gotten caught up somewhere.
Day two had been full of distractions, too many low-grade criminals and too many things to take their minds off what was really important.
Day three was when they started to really, truly panic.
Day four officially marked their brother as missing.
Lloyd thought he could handle it. At first, he worked with the others and the police, doing everything in their power to figure out where Cole had been taken.
But as time dragged on, Lloyd found it harder and harder to get out of bed.
His brother was missing, and they had no leads.
Soon enough the others were splitting their time between searching and taking care of Lloyd. And Lloyd felt bad, really he did, it was selfish of him to distract his siblings like this. But he couldn’t get up, he could barely even eat. He just couldn’t.
It all reminded him so much of his brothers’ time in the First Realm. He’d thought them to be dead. He’d never felt more hopeless, then, never more absolutely full of despair.
But that was when he was too focused on staying alive himself, too busy fighting his stupid father. He’d cried himself to sleep every night, but he’d known he couldn’t afford to go off the deep end.
Cole’s disappearance alone should have been less bad than that.
But something ugly twisted in Lloyd’s stomach when he wondered what could have possibly happened to his brother, and Lloyd was scared.
A gentle knocking sounded at his door, swinging open slowly before he even acknowledged it.
“Hey,” Jay said, bags under his eyes and hair a tangled mess. He handed Lloyd a bowl carefully, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m going out tomorrow, gonna go around the neighborhood to see if anyone knows anything.”
“Which neighborhood?” Lloyd asked quietly, holding the spoon but finding himself too nauseous to eat.
“As many as I can hit,” Jay responded, smiling sadly at him. “We’re going to find Cole, even if I have to work through every person in Ninjago myself.”
Lloyd, finding himself with oddly teary eyes, just nodded.
He just… he missed Cole so much. He knew, somewhere deep inside himself, that Cole was still alive. But for how long? What if they didn’t find him in time? What if Lloyd was the reason? He was so busy being helpless, what if because of him they never found Cole?
“Hey, hey, don’t cry, Green Bean,” Jay said, brushing his fingers through Lloyd’s hair in what was probably supposed to be a soothing gesture. It would have been nice if it hadn’t been for the rats nest of tangles Lloyd was sporting. Jay settled for rubbing circles on Lloyd’s shoulder instead.
“I miss him,” Lloyd said, his voice barely coming out through his cries.
“We all do,” Jay agreed, letting Lloyd pitch forward and cry into his shoulder. “But we’re going to find him. I bet you he’ll be back before the month is up! Positive thinking works wonders,” Jay said, hugging his baby brother tight. “Get some sleep, Lloyd.”
———
Lloyd woke up with his entire body a burning numb.
Jay was gone, likely to do whatever it was he’d said he was doing yesterday. He was too tired to remember.
Lloyd pulled his blanket over his head, planning on going back to sleep so he could wake up whenever someone was around.
He hated being alone.
He stared at the blanket, letting his mind wander.
He wished someone could be with him. But that was selfish. They were out looking for Cole, like any good sibling would do. Lloyd wasn’t any good. If he were, he'd be out helping.
He had hours to wallow in his misery before Zane came in to check on him.
———
The weight of the world was crashing down on his shoulders.
Jay had yet to come back. His phone was going straight to voicemail, and it had been too long. Way too long.
Lloyd didn’t know what to do.
Jay wouldn’t just not answer their calls, especially when they were all distressed as they were. He had to have been caught up with something, or… or…
He knew. Deep down, Lloyd knew what had happened.
Wrapping his mind around it sent tears pouring down his cheeks. Not again. Please not again.
God himself wouldn’t answer his pleas.
Jay was gone. Taken, maybe dead. He wasn’t coming back. Just like Cole. It was happening all over again.
Lloyd didn’t know what to do.
———
Barely a few months later was the day Lloyd found himself at his tipping point.
Zane had gone out — a stupid, stupid decision, and Lloyd should have begged him not to go — and though it had hardly been an hour, Lloyd was getting nervous.
It was only a quick trip. Zane would be there and back, he’d be back within the next fifteen minutes, even. There was no reason for Lloyd to have any idea that Zane wouldn’t be coming back.
Of course he would come back.
Zane wasn’t going to succumb to whatever horrible, horrible fate poor Cole and Jay had met. Zane was strong. Zane was smart. Zane would be fine.
In the back of his head, Lloyd wondered if maybe Cole and Jay had just run away together. He giggled through the tears at the thought of them having been at a cozy little cottage this whole time. Happy and unharmed.
He almost wished they’d abandoned him. It would be easier to face than whatever the reality must have been.
The clock kept ticking, as it always did. No word from Zane. No nothing.
Lloyd was too scared to call.
He was too scared to hear the dial tone, too scared that it would go straight to voicemail. He was too scared that they wouldn’t be able to track his phone when Zane didn’t pick up.
They never had any luck with tracking phones. Not before, not now.
Whatever had happened to his brothers was smarter than that. He wished bad things could be stupid.
Hours later, he heard the door open.
The relief was almost enough to get him out of bed.
He was beat to it, though, as his own bedroom door swung open to reveal… Kai and Nya. Right, they’d gone out together earlier to talk to the police again. Together. Safe.
Zane wasn’t safe.
When his last two siblings left asked him where he was, Lloyd couldn’t answer. Zane was supposed to be here. He was supposed to be back. He was supposed to be with them.
“Where is he, Lloyd?” Kai asked, his voice soft, but sounding like a demand all the same. “Please, you’ve got to tell us.”
“Gone,” Lloyd whispered, trembles and shakes running up and down his whole body.
“What do you mean gone?” Nya asked.
She knew what he meant. They both did. The siblings shared a look of terror.
“We have to find him, we’re going to, we’re going out right now—”
Lloyd surprised all three of them when he interrupted Nya with a scream that ripped from his throat like fire.
“I can’t!” he sobbed, throwing himself around the two. “Not again, not again, I can’t, I’m sorry,” he cried.
“We’ll find them,” Nya promised, hugging him tight. “We will.”
“You’re okay, Lloyd,” Kai said, his own cries muffled as he tried to comfort his baby brother. The last brother he had left. “We’re here. We won’t ever leave you.”
———
Lloyd had never believed Kai to be a liar. But today, he knew it to be true.
Kai had lied to him.
He’d told him he’d never leave, he’d promised him, he’d sworn it, how could he do this to him?
His brothers, every single last one of them, were gone! They’d left him!
He didn’t know what to do. With Kai gone, what more did Lloyd have? It was Garmadon’s reign all over again.
But this time they’d been ripped from him one by one, they were gone, it had been a year since this had all started. Cole wasn’t ever going to come back, was he?
All Lloyd had left was Nya. His father was an evil incarnate, his mom was hardly ever around, his uncle probably only saw him as the Green Ninja.
The Green Ninja.
Lloyd scoffed. That legend, that destiny, had taken absolutely everything from him. It had stolen his childhood right from under his feet, it had caused him pain and hardship that most could never even fathom. It had put him through absolute hell, for years!
But he had dealt with it. It had all been okay, because his family had been with him. His brothers. They’d been by his side every step of the way, they’d made all of it worth it.
Was it worth it now?
No, Lloyd decided, clenching his fists tightly by his side. It wasn’t worth it, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t any of that. He couldn’t live like this, not anymore.
He was going to find his brothers, he was going to bring them home, and then nobody was going to come after them ever again.
Even if he had to burn the world to the ground to do it.
