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Nya didn’t care much for the color green.
Her brother raved about how he was going to be the Green Ninja. The one who would defeat the dark lord and bring peace to Ninjago. The one who would rise above the rest in glory and power- one who commanded respect and led the armies of good to victory. The one who the thought of made the boys’ voices dance with excitement in her vision.
If anyone among the four ninjas were to wear green, thought Nya as she flew through the Bounty’s training course set to a low speed, it would be Cole.
Cole was already the team’s leader. He had a level-headed deposition, but not to the extent that Zane did, where it would keep him from being able to empathize with others. They had just met, but Nya could tell there was a softer side to him hidden behind his puffed-out chest and strong words.
His voice made burgundy watercolor blobs flow through the air in a slow forward haze. Tangy orange bloomed in her mouth with each spoken word and his name held every shade of brown with hints of deep, deep red. His laughter leaned more towards a purple-ish burgundy to contrast the orange-yellow-brown dots of his tired grumbles when he stayed up too late going over mission plans. Each footstep from his heavy gait splattered red-orange magma at his feet. Nya played a secret game whenever she walked behind him. She would try to step on all of the splashes before they faded, which was hard because his footsteps were so much further apart than her own. Nya liked his palette for its warmth.
Cole was a foundation to lean against, a steady rock in a storm. He would make a good green ninja, even if the thought of green clashed with his red colors.
Nya stood back up after being kicked by a swinging dummy and resumed the course from the start.
Maybe it could be Zane. He may not have been a leader, but he could learn to lead in time. With a mind as logical and strategic as his, Zane would fare well in a final battle. His calculated gaze could make even the most fearsome of enemies shiver, but would bring comfort to those who called him a friend. He brought everyone to the table with the smell of delicious food and supported the others with his quiet presence.
His colors would match the green. He spoke curtly and sharp like the yellow geometric and symmetrical patterns that would travel to his left and right. Ones that matched the curiosity and excitement in his tone perfectly and filled with sharp honey tones with his chuckles. The strangely hollow clank of his walk made lemon-yellow circles rise from his feet. He tasted like green grapes, sour but sweet and perfect on a hot day. He had a name that looked blocky and white like chalk and seemed to crumble at the corners.
Zane was the glue, filling the gaps between them with crystals of ice to keep them from drifting apart. Nya could see him wearing an emerald green that matched his sounds.
Nya growled a copper line as her training sword was knocked out of her hand. She picked it up and started the drill again.
Though it was unlikely, there was a small chance Jay was the chosen one, with all his quips, jokes, and one-liners. Nya could see the intelligence behind his eyes as he analyzed his opponent’s every step. Being loud and somewhat of a jokester did not negate his ability to overcome enemies with his speed and smart movements. He served to lift the spirits of the team, even if it was through annoying them with puns.
Jay’s name was grey yet shimmered with light. Metallics and grayscale tones shimmered from his lips like the sparklers he had made once out of potassium perchlorate, titanium, aluminum, and dextrin, which he handed to her with a chrome giggle. His sarcasm was as silver as his tongue and his excited rambling started with miniature pops until they exploded in a golden light show that spun in dizzying circles like rings around a planet. The light sounds that he made had chocolate melting under her tongue, turning bitter with his frustration and richer with his jokes. The spring in his step was a rich white and a copper, sending little triangles in all directions for a short distance before they crumbled into dust. Maybe that’s why Nya liked him so much- his colors were so pleasant on the eye.
Jay was the energy- the one who was able to imbue them with the power they needed to succeed. His colors matched the best of all of theirs, but Nya was sure they wouldn’t be complimenting green any day soon.
Nya managed to block the dummy and dodge the wooden pillar that came swinging her way, if only by an inch.
Kai wanted it the most out of all of them, and Nya had a feeling she knew why. His one goal in life had to always be there for her, even though it was unjust of fate to lay that burden on a child’s shoulders. As guardian at his core and the last member to join the team, Nya suspected that Kai hadn’t been feeling like much of a guardsman in these past few weeks. Then there was his lack of leadership skills and his tendency to get lost in his emotions- but Nya could see the roaring drive in his heart. Once Kai set his mind to something, he wouldn’t stop until it was done.
His light blue was all-consuming, calling for the attention of all who listened to the jagged shapes and lines resembling ninjagan letters. They took a while to fade from the space on his chest, unlike the others’, whose colors dissipated within a few seconds. Blue often obscured her vision if he spoke too quickly, so he would have to slow down if he was trying to explain something, or she wouldn’t even be able to see him past the alphabet that covered him up. His laughter, so much brighter than it was before they met the other boys, could fill a room with color, and those quick, purposeful steps of his sent thick lines of deep blue before him, as if to light his way. His name resembled the river back in Ignacia that never failed to give her a sense of adventure as a child and the warm, buttery bread of his sound would always make Nya feel at home.
Sky-blue wasn’t a color that would match the gi Kai so desperately wanted, but it was what made blue her favorite color. Ever since the first time she was able to remember being held by warm hands and could see the promise he made, to be a good big brother, dance behind her eyelids in the center of her vision, she knew she’d never see any other color the same way. The flickers of blue in the forge when she thought of him and his sky-hot temper made her smile, because her brother was home.
Kai was the drive of the team. The push and pull- the movement. He drove them forward, and had learned only recently to stop leaving his teammates to choke on his dust.
One foot stumbled over the other and Nya was sent sprawling to the ground with sawdust-brown squares. She cried out in frustration- This was worthless! She was already good at so many other things, why did she ever decide to train like a ninja when she could just be-
Nya had an idea that sent her flying to the lower deck of the ship. One with the comforting pink-white wiggles and click-clacks of metal on metal. One that tasted like peaches with every click of the socket wrench.
It was an idea she painted with red, like her own colors. One patterned with Xs and none of the Os.
Nya felt something off about the color green.
Lloyd stays with her on the bounty while the boys are away, and Nya didn’t know what to make of him at first. There were things about him that just set her off. His eyes were a deep red, his ears were too pointed, his fangs a bit too sharp, and his freckles glinted under a light like scales.
But he wasn’t bad company. On the contrary, she had fun teaching the mini-overlord how to steer the bounty, and playing hide-and-seek was a good way to pass the time. Nya was impressed by Lloyd’s ability to fit himself into small spaces, though she won most of the time because he had difficulty stifling his noises, glowing around him like a swirling stream of bubbles in black-blue, and he would giggle a sour apple and nutty taste when she caught him.
“Mercy!” He cried a calm blue that contrasted his tone as she chased him across the deck. His footsteps were red and splattered outwards like water. She used to compare them to blood, but their lighter color made them look like kool-aid now.
With a smile of her own and the orange ripples of her pounding feet, Nya yelled in lighthearted pinks, “Never!”
He would smile at her when he heard an embarrassing snort leave her lips. Pastel blue clouds dance in waving splotches formed to accompany his cackles. His ‘evil laugh’ made the clouds crack with white light.
Sometimes, even when he was quiet, she could see flickers of green in between his fingers or licking at his heels with his quiet footsteps. They weren’t normally a part of his color palette, and it was only sound that set off the colors. Her gut told her something was up, and if Kai had taught her anything, it was that Smiths always followed their gut.
His name didn’t match his colors, after all. Green cursive didn’t complement blue-black.
Nya desperately wanted to wear green.
She wanted to be more colorful like her brother and friends who wore ninja suits that seemed useless in stealth but would mean she was part of the team. She wanted to be powerful like them, not someone to be left behind. Oh, how she yearned to grasp that destiny and show them all that she was worthy to be considered a true member of the team.
Yes, she was brash and had a fuse shorter than her brother’s. Yes, she gave up easily when she didn’t succeed right away. Yes, she had already made her mark as a samurai and she was content with her place as an auxiliary member, but she couldn’t help but ache.
“I’m sorry, Nya,” Wu’s voice was as white as his beard and traveled in lazy lined waves, “but the weapons have spoken,” there was something mournful in his voice as he placed the weapons back on their racks with a wavy pink click! “I am sorry.”
She smiled, shrugged, and spoke with a voice tinted blood-red, “It’s okay,” she tried to ignore the ache in her chest, “I’m already a samurai."
Wu’s voice turned grey and flowed down his body like a river when he later told her brother that reaching his true potential would be unwise.
Her brother was silent after that for a moment, and Nya hated the lack of color, so she filled the silence with rosy-crimson spikes from her quiet growl.
Kai might have been hungry for power, but he had been deprived of it their whole lives. He was nothing but a soothing force of blue, whispering soft words behind her eyelids in the dead of night.
Nya’s rose cheers taste like sour candy as Kai flew out of that volcano in a red shield, cradling something that set a pit in the bottom of her stomach.
A protector, thinks Nya as he speaks the words that make her choke on her envy, guarding a splash of summer green with blue-black accent tones.
Nya loved the color green.
Green was her little brother who had grown much too big much too fast. Green was the color of his eyes, the glow of energy from his hands and the click of his fingers against the table and the soft tap of his feet below his bouncing leg.
Green was the color that slowly started to overtake his clothing, his hands, his every waking day. His blue-black and sour apple stayed the same, though. He was still her little brother, even though he matched her in height.
His shoulder was so much broader than when she last placed her hand on it. The shift of fabric was a transparent sea-green bushy shape.
“You okay, little guy?”
Lloyd’s sniffle radiated yellow squares. The color of his voice was darker as he spoke in a new voice, “I don’t feel so little anymore.”
Nya missed the color green.
Lloyd wore gold now. Gold didn’t match the blue-black-violet she loved so much.
Recently she had begun to think that Jay’s chrome didn’t match her red, either. Perhaps someone with burgundy would be better.
Perhaps Nya should just stop looking for a color to compliment hers.
Nya saw green.
The yellow honeycomb voice of her lost brother had turned a deep forest green, just as his skin now shone silver and his eyes glowed a bright blue. Heavy footsteps on the stone floor sent ripples of brown columns dancing on the flat surface. The taste of purple grapes bloomed in the back of her mouth, and Nya was unsure how she felt about the change.
But she had her brother back. That was what mattered.
Nya hated the color green.
Cole's voice had taken on an ugly overlay of yellow, making the once pleasant hues turn a sickly shade of grey with the new warble and echo of his voice. Nya hissed crimson when the taste of lemon bloomed in the back of her mouth with his words, and whined when Cole's expression turned just as sour in response.
Though she didn't hold it against either of her brothers, ghosts were green, too. This particular one bore a sickly lime green whirlwind haze so much unlike the warm spring and summertime green gi on the body he stole.
The splash of water from her hands made her grimace from its bright green starburst, but the salty cracker scream she got when she splashed the dissolving ghost made her grin
Nya was so happy to see green again.
They hadn’t seen each other in a year, and she wanted to see the color of his sparkling pastel blue haze and black sarcasm that rolled off his tongue.
She wasn’t prepared to see his swirling bubbles turn to multicolored triangles that danced like stars or for the haze to become violet.
“Your voice is different,” was noted in sour-sweet candy.
He shrugged, “I’ve grown a bit since we last saw each other.” He laughed that same nervous laugh that sent flickers of white through white-violet clouds and when she tasted nutty sour apple. Nya relaxed.
Not everything had changed, even if she tasted caramel as well.
Nya loved the color green.
But she still mourned the comfort of deep burgundy-brown watercolor drops, orange-yellow murmurs late at night, and the taste of citrus behind her teeth.
She wanted to hold the deep green honeycomb and suck on purple grapes again. She wanted to hear heavy shockwave brown footsteps and see the geometric patterns dance behind her eyes once more.
She choked on the taste of chocolate like bitter black coffee. Her heart yearned for the sight of chrome and gold swirling sparkles and white triangles. She was addicted and the withdrawal made her feel sick.
And- oh, First Master, she couldn’t let herself cry at the sight of a cloudless sky, no matter how much she wished to trace shapes of the same color onto a red-plated chest. The rations of bread sat like a brick in her stomach. She didn’t tell anyone how she gagged in the bathroom until the taste went away.
Nya had to be strong like her sound, because Lloyd was left heartbroken at the sight of their deaths and the sound of a ship crumbling with white flashes and cracks. She had to be strong because Dareth had full faith in them and he had supported them for years so she had to pay it forward. She had to be strong because Pixal looked so lost without Zane beside her. She had to be strong because they would have wanted her to be. They would have wanted her to keep going in their names.
“I miss them, Nya.” Sobbed Lloyd against her shoulder in black jagged lines, “I can’t do this without them.”
Nya couldn’t stop the waver in her see-through crimson words as she ran her fingers through his hair, “I- I don’t know if I can, either. But-“ she pressed her face to the crown of his head to muffle the slow spikes of her sounds that bounced with each stutter of her red-orange breath, “We have to. We have to endure, okay? T-They would have wanted-“ she choked, because being strong didn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to feel- and Nya felt strongly.
A yellow sniffle, “Okay.” A nod of sea-green shifting fabric, “Okay.”
Nya hated to see green go up in flames.
The resistance never quits, though, and some sacrifices were necessary to see them through these dark times. At least she still had Pixel, in all her lime-green and cotton candy glory. At least she still had Dareth with his smooth purple and oaty kindness.
At least she still had blue-black and sour candied apple.
At least she still had her little brother, and she would love him even without the color of his gi.
Blue-black was a better color, anyway.