#every single ninjago character needs therapy

[goldenavenger02]

lies of omission

So when they returned to the Monastery, and Lloyd retreated into the study to make a plan on how to obtain the dragon cores before Imperium could find out about them and the power they held, Sora couldn’t stop herself from grabbing Arin’s wrist and bringing him with her into her own plan.

Find out what else Lloyd was hiding.

This is for all 64 of you who voted on my poll, and the 25% of you who wanted the story about Arin and Sora finding out about Lloyd's heritage. I hope you all enjoy this one :)

“Um, how did you just never mention that you’re the grandson of the guy who created Ninjago?”

“Eh, it never came up.”

Sora didn’t want to be angry; between working with the others to locate the dragon cores, still trying to figure out the depths of his abilities as well as the fact that she knew that she would eventually have to go back to Imperium to stop Beatrix, the last thing she wanted was to be angry with Lloyd.

But, it still simmered inside her like a steady flame catching onto dry timber because he was keeping things from her and yeah, she wasn’t a ninja super fan like Arin, but he still could have told them before it ended up just coming out like that.

With how much had been kept from her all of her life, she wanted to believe that Lloyd would be different, that she could finally trust another adult again, but this just proved to her that she was sorely mistaken.

So when they returned to the Monastery, and Lloyd retreated into the study to make a plan on how to obtain the dragon cores before Imperium could find out about them and the power they held, Sora couldn’t stop herself from grabbing Arin’s wrist and bringing him with her into her own plan.

Find out what else Lloyd was hiding.

“I don’t know, Sora,” Arin admitted as she picked the lock on Lloyd’s bedroom door, twisting the small piece of metal she carried with her for this exact reason carefully, “if he’s locking us out of his room, he probably doesn’t want us to go in there.”

“He’s hiding more than being the First Spinjitzu Master’s grandson, Arin,” Sora shook her head as she felt the lock click into being unlocked, “and I am sick of not being told the truth by others, especially when I’m supposed to trust them.”

“Was it really a lie though?” Arin asked as she twisted the knob, opening the dark room and allowing him to step in before shutting the door and pocketing the hand-crafted metal pick, “it’s not like we ever asked who his grandfather was.”

“It was a lie of omission, purposefully not telling us that,” she insisted as she put her hand on the wall in order to find the light switch, “how can we even be sure that my elemental powers weren’t passed down somehow like the others? Just because Lloyd had never seen it doesn’t mean that no one had ever seen it.”

“I guess you’re right,” Arin shrugged while putting his hand on the light switch and flicking it upwards while speaking, “after all, there was a whole elemental alliance during the Serpentine Wars and-whoa.”

Sora couldn’t even ask because when she turned around from where her eyes had been scanning Lloyd’s extensive bookshelf full of Starfarer comics at the foot of his bed, she laid her eyes on what had cut Arin off.

It wasn’t the vertical, cracked, wooden frame on his bedside table with a photo of an older man putting his hand on the shoulder of a much younger Lloyd or the horizontal frame of their teacher around the same age, but standing next to the much younger ninja and his uncle.

No, it was the haphazardly open scroll lying in front of both of them, displaying a drawing of a golden monster that had four arms, large horns sticking out of its head and glowing purple eyes.

“What the hell is that thing?” Sora demanded as she picked up the scroll, feeling the wear on the edges of it, not surprised that it was in a much older form of Ninjargon with how yellow it was.

“I think it’s an Oni,” Arin supplied as he walked forward to examine the illustration closer, his eyes squinting with concentration, “but the Oni aren’t gold, they’re as black as the deepest darkness you’ve ever seen.”

“Arin, you’re speaking in gibberish,” Sora cut off her friend’s ramblings while pushing the scroll into his hands, “what is an Oni?”

“They’re demons who only want to destroy. They invaded Ninjago when I was a little kid, and turned everybody into stone with their darkness,” Arin insisted as he tried to read the ancient language, “but the ninja vanquished them with the Tornado of Creation. They’re supposed to be gone.”

Sora’s heart dropped as she continued to look at the illustration and her stomach dropped just thinking about fighting that thing…even with help from Riyu, there was no way that she was anywhere near ready to fight a demon who only wanted to destroy, especially not one that was different enough that it worried Arin.

“Can you make out any of the Ninjargon?” Sora questioned, stuffing her hands into her pocket as she leaned over his shoulder even though she was fully aware that it was way out of her league.

“Only one phrase, and I’m not even sure if it’s right,” Arin admitted, his voice shaking as he spoke, “the descendant of light and darkness”,” 

The fear on her best friend’s face was enough to make her worry that he knew exactly what that meant, but she knew that she had to ask regardless, her mouth going dry, “Lloyd is the grandson of the First Spinjitzu Master-”

“-and the son of Lord Garmadon.” Arin confirmed as he put the scroll down, “we need to get out of here, now-”

“What are you two doing in here?”

Lloyd’s voice was stern, quite a few degrees above any of the annoyance that Sora had heard before, only making her fears that he was going to unleash the entirety of whatever the hell she and Arin couldn’t translate on them.

But when the two of them turned around, she was mildly relieved that he looked exactly like himself, albeit pissed off as he continued to speak, “this is an invasion of privacy, you two.”

“We’re leaving now, Lloyd,” Arin insisted, grabbing onto Sora’s wrist and trying to pull her out, but despite her fear, her anger took over and she refused to move despite Arin’s insistence of “Sora, let’s go.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that the First Spinjitzu Master is your grandfather?”

“I already explained this, Sora,” Lloyd sighed as his eyes continued to scan the room, seemingly trying to figure out what they had messed with, “it never came up.”

“It just never came up?” Sora scoffed as she reached for the scroll, making sure that it unrolled itself where Lloyd could see it in all of its horrific glory, “or did you want to keep this from us, like everything else that you haven’t told us?”

Sora expected Lloyd to lash out at her, to tell her to get out of his monastery, even just to scream at her for violating his personal space; so when his muscles tensed and his face froze in a mix of what looked like guilt and fear, she almost felt bad for not leaving when Arin tried to pull her away. Almost.

“Arin, I need to speak to Sora. Alone.” Lloyd finally spoke, his fists still balled up in what looked like stress until Arin left the room, when he only moved to pull the worn scroll out of her hands.

“My parents hid everything from me,” Sora’s anger was bubbling up now, unable to be stopped as she started to shout, “everyone hid everything from me in Imperium and I thought you were different, Lloyd!”

“Sora-” Lloyd started, but her yells cut him off with a violence that scared her in the deepest parts of her beating heart.

“Ever since we met, you’ve been honest with us. You told us everything, and now this!” Tears were starting to prick at her eyes against her will, the signs of where she had grown up starting to push through the exterior that she had built, “I wanted you to be different, Lloyd. I needed you to be different.”

“Do you really want to know everything?” Lloyd’s voice was filled with a comforting tone despite the numbness in between the lines, but when Sora nodded, the last thing she wanted to hear came out, “then you’ll have to wait.”

“But why?” She demanded, starting to feel the fire burn in her chest again, “why don’t you want me to know?”

“It has nothing to do with you, Sora. It has everything to do with me,” and with those words, the fire was instantly extinguished with confusion, but her lack of questioning allowed him to continue, “I’m not ready to talk about it. I don’t fully understand all of it, nor did I ever want it to happen. I can’t stop you from doing your own research, nor would I ever dissuade you with how much your ancient Ninjargon needs work.”

Despite the heavy air around them, she couldn’t help but smile briefly at the mild jab at her awful translation skills before letting out the apology that had built up despite her anger.

“I understand, and I’m really sorry for digging through your stuff, but can I ask you one question? After that, I’m done prying. I swear.”

“You can ask me whatever you need to, Sora,” Lloyd insisted, his gentle, calloused hand resting on her metal shoulder, “whenever you need to, even if I’m unable to answer.”

“Are you an Oni?” She couldn’t hide her voice trembling and given Lloyd’s slight slump of his body, he definitely heard it as well.

“The First Spinjitzu Master was half Oni and half Dragon, so are Garmadon and Master Wu, but my mother is human.”

“So you’re Oni, Dragon and human?” Lloyd’s nod was all the confirmation she received to which she couldn’t but speak while the pieces clicked in her head, “that’s why you’re the conduit, because you’re part dragon.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Lloyd agreed before waving her toward the door, the scroll still in his left hand, “I’ll be out to talk about the plan in a few minutes. You should head downstairs.”

“Okay,” Sora nodded and headed toward the door, only to stop and say, “and Lloyd? I get the whole “shitty parents” thing, so you can talk to me too.”

“Does this mean you still trust me?” Lloyd’s voice was soft as he looked up from the scroll, his green eyes full of genuine questioning.

“Yeah,” Sora agreed, no longer harboring the anger that had built up inside of her once he she had processed his reasoning for his own lies of omission, “yeah, I guess it does.”