Did I stay up waaaaaay too late finishing this? Yes.
Am I now taking on the day with only two hours of sleep? Yup.
Was it worth it? Absolutely >:D
Laughter filled the air as a little blond gremlin tore around the main deck of the Destiny's Bounty, finally free from the stuffy lower deck and gleefully terrorizing the seagulls that kept landing on the railings. Morro had positioned himself against the outer wall of the central room to make sure his energetic cousin didn’t get into any trouble while also staying as far away from the water as possible. Having lived on the ship for a while now, he had gotten used to being on the ocean and staying above deck without Wu around was doable, but he still preferred to keep to the middle on the off-chance there was a rogue wave that decided to rock the old boat too much.
A lot had happened in the past four years. Garmadon began attacking Ninjago City only a few months after Koko and Lloyd left him and moved into the Bounty, and Wu—feeling responsible for his brother—became the city’s defender. With his dad off fighting and Koko at work for most of the day, that left Morro to play babysitter while the adults were gone. His aunt had already taught him everything he needed to know about taking care of his cousin and he was excited, especially after overhearing the old man telling Koko about Lloyd’s element that he’d have someday (something he probably wasn’t meant to hear, but eavesdropping was a habit he still had yet to break from his time on the streets).
He enjoyed it for all of a day before he realized how much work taking care of a baby actually was.
There were alarms going off all. The. Time. Alarms for feeding times, nap times, play times, diaper changes, the whole works. Who knew babies were so needy? That first year or so was almost enough to make him give up and ask for someone else to take care of the child, but apparently ninja never quit and he didn’t want to disappoint Wu or Koko.
Oh yeah, that was another new thing. He had started training to be a ninja. Wu told him it was to help his element get stronger so he could protect himself, but the teen was pretty sure that he just wanted someone to help him fight Garmadon. Why choose a 10-year old kid though? The old man had never really made any sense before, so he supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised. Maybe now that he’s 13, he’ll start being asked to help for real.
…if he’s honest, he doesn’t want to have to fight. On the streets, a fight usually meant a night without sleep or a day without food. The outcome of a fight depended completely on the strength of an individual, and having always been on the smaller, weaker side, Morro tended to avoid them whenever possible. Using brains instead of brawn usually got one farther anyways, special wind powers or no.
“Momo, look! The birdie gived me a fissie!”
Turning his attention back to his cousin, he was horrified to find that the boy was indeed clutching a live, squirming little fish in his chubby fingers. “Ew! Go throw that back in the water!” He jerked to the side when Lloyd tried to hold it out toward him. “You don’t pick up things that fell out of an animal’s mouth!”
The blond’s face fell, his bottom lip pushing out as tears began pooling in his eyes. “But… he shareded it…”
Right. Koko had been teaching him about sharing lately. Knowing full well that the bird hadn’t been sharing and had likely just dropped its lunch when the boy scared it away, he sighed heavily—doing his best to not roll his eyes—and put on his best explaining face before kneeling down to Lloyd’s eye level. “Sometimes sharing isn’t a good thing. If an animal shares something with you, you should never take it because it might get you sick. Remember that time when you were coughing a lot and your nose was all runny and gross?” The little boy nodded sadly. “You don’t want the bird to share that with you. So let’s throw that back in the ocean and wash our hands, and then we’ll get out some coloring pages or something. Mkay?” Maybe he could get the gremlin to settle down enough that he could get some homework done.
Thankfully that seemed to do the trick, as Lloyd’s bright green eyes sparkled with excitement. “Coloring!!” He threw the fish as hard as he could and ran inside, not waiting to see that the wriggling creature hadn’t actually made it off the boat. Morro coaxed the wind to carefully lift the fish over the railing and back into the water before following after his cousin to make sure he washed up well.
While taking care of a baby was one thing, watching the boy grow up was a whole different experience. Aunt Koko had warned him about the “terrible twos,” but it wasn’t until Lloyd turned three that it really kicked in. The constant screaming and whining and refusing to cooperate was enough to drive anyone up a wall, as it did with Morro many, many times. The only thing that made it worse was the fact that when Lloyd did choose to obey, it was because he was imitating his older cousin. Apparently one does not simply “grow out of” having a favorite person, no matter how hard Morro wished that were the case. Having a loud little shadow that followed him everywhere and tried to do everything he did was not his idea of a good day, and no matter how many times his dad or Aunt Koko tried to divert the toddler’s attention he always came back.
After Lloyd’s hands were squeaky clean, Morro picked him up and let the boy ride piggy back as he grabbed crayons and paper. One good thing about having a shadow was that if Morro put things away, Lloyd would too. They didn’t always end up in the same place, but they could almost always be found nearby, which the older was extremely grateful for. With coloring materials acquired, he headed to his room to pick up his laptop and stuffed everything into a bag before climbing back up to the main deck. He laid out the papers on a table tray and placed the crayons in its cup holder, and soon the younger boy was engrossed in scribbling out art.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Morro slumped back against the wall and opened up his computer. He had never really done well attending school in person; the few months before and the few months after the move to Ninjago City had proved that. It wasn’t that the material was hard, just that he didn’t learn well in group settings. There were always too many people around, too many potential threats distractions stealing his attention. But once Aunt Koko learned about his struggles, she found out that most Ninjago schools had online programs and helped Wu set up the technology required to make it possible for him to learn virtually (translation: Koko did all the setup for him. The old man had no idea what he was doing when it came to anything electronic).
Morro took to it like a moth to a candle.
It was a bit of a learning curve getting used to typing instead of handwriting like Wu had taught him (although he still took notes on paper for a couple years), but the ability to work at his own pace in the comfort of his own home did wonders. Once he understood the material, assignments were accurately finished in record time, and he had made a little competition with himself out of being the first one in the class to turn in a flawless assignment. And on top of the educational benefits, the setup allowed him to still watch over Lloyd when needed. With the number of times the boy had sat in on Morro’s video meetings with teachers, he was practically a student himself.
Speaking of the boy, he had gotten up from his makeshift desk and was currently holding out a paper for Morro to see. “Lookie! It’s Momo and mister Veggie Man!” And indeed, there was a stick figure with green eyes and green and black hair next to a big green ball-shaped creature, both of which were holding a green stick in one stick arm and an orange stick in the other. “Veggie Man makes sure everyone eats veggies just like Momo does. Even their carrots and yucky eeks.”
The teen suppressed a smile as he remembered a few days back when Wu had fixed a dish with leeks, and Lloyd had refused to eat any of the vegetable until his cousin challenged him to a leek-eating contest. He only ended up eating three pieces, but it was progress. “Yep, ‘cause veggies are good for you. Especially the green ones. Why do you think green is my favorite color?” He poked Lloyd in the side until he squirmed from the ticklish sensation and moved the paper out of his way. “Now go draw another picture, okay? I’m not done with homework yet.”
Lloyd whined in protest, but Morro nudged him back toward his spot and ignored him until he sat back down. Once the boy quieted down, Morro dove back into his studies and tuned out the rest of the world. He was so focused that he didn’t even notice the passing of time until a scream and a splash broke through his concentration. His head whipped up from the screen to find Lloyd missing, and his stomach filled with dread.
Frantically running to the railing, he was horrified to see Lloyd floundering in the water, barely staying afloat as small waves lapped against him and pushed him into the side of the ship.
His cousin was in danger of drowning, and here he was, feet frozen to the deck. The water in front of him was no longer the ocean, but a raging river crashing down the middle of a small village. The cries he heard became his own, the pressure in his chest his own inability to draw in breath. Morro hated water. It had almost taken his life, and now it was trying to take Lloyd’s as well. His heart pounded in his ears as his knuckles turned white from gripping the railing so hard, and all he could do was stare at the blond while the waves claimed him as their own.
His body suddenly moved on its own and before he knew it, he was plunging into the freezing cold ocean and grabbing hold of his cousin. He didn’t know how to swim, but he couldn’t just let Lloyd die. Lloyd was his cousin, his responsibility. Someone to be protected and held and cherished. He…cared about Lloyd, in a way that he had never cared for anyone before; not even himself.
As he tried to push the younger up above the surface, he vaguely sensed the wind swirling fiercely around them. But that didn’t make sense. They were in the water, weren’t they?
As they were slowly lifted out from under the waves, Morro curled himself around Lloyd protectively. Whether to keep the wind from ripping them apart or to keep him from falling back into the ocean, he didn’t know, but even when they dropped back onto the deck of the Bounty, he couldn’t bring himself to let go until the boy started coughing and he realized there might be water in his lungs.
They stayed there on the deck for several minutes, Lloyd choking out fearful sobs while Morro patted his back to help get any water out. When the blond was no longer coughing he crawled back into Morro’s arms and continued to cry; the teen simply let him, picking him up and carrying him below deck. Outside time was definitely done for today.
Lloyd physically clung to Morro for quite a while after his tears dried up, and the teen was inclined to agree with the choice. He had slipped up by allowing a lapse in attention earlier, but from now on he would never allow anything to happen to the boy again if he could help it. At some point he went back up to retrieve his laptop and Lloyd’s art supplies, and they spent the rest of the afternoon drawing more soldiers for Veggie Man’s army of vegetable-eating enforcers.
By evening Lloyd seemed to be back to his energetic gremlin self, and Morro, silently grateful for the return of normality, made a promise to himself.
As long as Lloyd had a cousin, he would have a protector.
The movie!Morro master post
Here’s Veggie Man and his army for anyone interested XD
