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Lloyd pulled himself up onto the rafters, watching the sun as it dipped behind the horizon with one last display of glory, bathing the island in a brilliant show of purples and pinks and yellows.
And red.
When he was a kid, he had used to like red because it was the color of his father’s eyes.
Then he liked red because it was Kai. Because it was Kai, running a little too hot, a little too fierce, loving and strong and a brother.
Blowing out a breath, he settled down on the rafters, still a little hot to the touch from the fading sunlight. Not the bad kind of hot, though, like the lava inside the Fire Temple. It was the good kind. Like the warmth of Kai's fire from a distance. Like the first rays of daylight.
It definitely wasn’t the kind of hot that he’d seen in his brother’s eyes earlier today.
The angry kind.
Lloyd clenched his teeth, trying and failing miserably to push down the memories from earlier in the day. With everything else going on, he'd managed to nearly forget about it. But now in the silence and the fading warmth of sunset, there was nothing to stop Kai's words ringing in his head, nothing to wipe away the image of Kai towering over him with his eyes aflame, shouting like he’d never shouted before. Holding the staff. The staff that had his power--
I should’ve been the Green Ninja!
The distant sound of his father’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. Shifting slightly, he caught sight of Garmadon walking towards the palace next to a group of elemental fighters -- Griffin, Tox, and yeah, that was Chamille. Lloyd would have a few choice words for her at the moment (his back still hurt at night from the Thunderblades), but Garmadon seemed engrossed in explaining something about conquering fear to them. Lloyd slid back on the rafters. They could enjoy his father’s lectures for as long as they liked.
He swallowed. And then there was that thing about his dad being a snake, but he was over that now.
Okay, maybe not that much, but at least his father still sounded the same. Kai’s voice had been different. Too different.
Watching his older brother smile and take Skylor’s hand just outside the palace wall, it was almost impossible for him to believe that this was the same guy who was going to smash him to bits with Chen’s staff because of some stupid title that destiny decided to throw at Lloyd.
Almost impossible but not quite.
Because he had seen the look on Kai’s face in the few moments of control he had before the staff made him spit out his darkest secret. Kai wasn’t lying. He was saying the horrible, awful truth, that he was jealous. That he hated Lloyd for being--
“The Green Ninja.”
Lloyd almost fell off the roof, and he whirled around with energy already humming at his fingertips to see Cole standing right behind him.
“O-oh.”
“Easy there, green machine,” Cole said with a wry smile. “Not everyone’s out to get you right now. I see you’re slacking with the elemental dragons practice.”
“It’s not my fault you guys aren’t good enough at making your dragons,” Lloyd said defensively. “I didn’t need to practice.”
“Hey, calm down,” Cole grumbled. “S’just a joke, sheesh.”
Lloyd’s shoulders sagged. “Right. Sorry.”
The sound of Jay’s wild laughter floated up to them from somewhere below, followed by Nya’s tamer voice, and Lloyd saw Cole’s face tighten ever so slightly. He hid it considerably well, though, acting as if he’d caught sight of something very interesting in a blank patch of sky above him.
“You’re on edge,” Cole said suddenly. “What’s wrong?”
Lloyd started. “Me, on edge?”
His brother’s eyes crinkled up in that odd sort of non-mouth smile that he used whenever anybody needed calming down. “I heard some hothead got super excited in the chamber that Chen used to take everyone’s powers. Blasting people, saying dumb stuff, that kinda thing. What went on in there?”
The younger boy looked away with a huff. “Just change the topic already.”
Cole settled down on the rafters next to him, letting one leg dangle over the edge. “Hey, I just wanna know.”
“Yeah, well, the staff had all the power, you know? Obviously anyone holding it would get hyped.”
“Like, fun-sized-green-bean-who-ate-his-entire-candy-stash-in-one-go kinda hyped?”
Lloyd snorted, elbowing Cole in the ribs. “I never ate my stash in one go.”
Cole gasped. “Wait, so that time when you threw up all night after beating me in our competition to see if you ate all the candy or if I ate all the cake first -- there was more? That wasn’t your entire stash?’
Lloyd opened his mouth, realized he had made a mistake, and ended up looking at Cole with his jaw hanging open in a rather undignified manner.
His older brother laughed easily. “Don’t do that again. By the way, Skylor asked Chen to leave Kai behind while the rest of us were taken to the factory. So when did you find him?”
Lloyd’s eyes narrowed. “He told you everything already, didn’t he? I mean--” he tried his best to keep the hurt out of his voice-- “he could at least come and say whatever he’s sent you to tell me himself. Not that he kept it cryptic earlier.”
There was an uncomfortable pause, until Lloyd finally leaned back and kicked his legs out, watching the fading sunlight glint off the highlights on his gi. “So all of you feel the same?” he muttered.
“What do you mean?” Cole’s voice was low and steady.
“Does everyone still want to be the green ninja? It’s--it’s not like I chose to be--if I had to decide, I’d gladly give up the gi--”
“No.”
Lloyd looked up, and the hope in his eyes made something in Cole’s chest twist.
“I don’t care who put that dumb idea into your head--I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t care about the stupid green ninja thing anymore. All I care about is the goofy shrimp that we picked off the streets and hung on a storefront. The runt who kept getting in trouble time and time again whether it was with Serpentine or candy vendors.”
Cole moved closer, their elbows knocking painfully together. “And, you know, the demon spawn who saved our necks, like, a billion times.”
Lloyd fisted his hand on his gi, the nervousness of his five-year-old self apparent on his face.
The master of earth let out a low whistle. “And Kai said nothing to me. I really don’t know what happened back there in the chamber. So--”
“He freaked out,” Lloyd said suddenly. “The staff corrupted him. Like--it possessed him. Even if Chen wasn’t a complete nutjob already, the staff covered whatever was left.”
Cole narrowed his eyed, speaking with a sort of forced casualness. “What’d he say?”
Lloyd tried to swallow, but his throat had gone dry. “Just some stupid stuff about control, and stuff, and all that usual bad guy stuff, you know.” He winced at how fake he sounded.
Cole leaned back with a heavy sigh. “He told you he still wanted to be the green ninja, didn’t he.”
Lloyd stared out at the sunset and chewed on his lip. Cole said ‘told you’. Not ‘said’.
“He still does?”
Cole glanced at him with a soft laugh that held no humor. “Of course he does. It was the biggest thing to him, Lloyd, becoming the green ninja. Kai has always struggled with direction. Give him a big, defined goal, and he’s going to pour heart and soul into achieving it. He trained for months just for the title." Cole chuckled slightly, shaking his head. "One time he even put on the gi when Sensei was away -- the mask, everything. Once he finds something to run after, he'll never stop running. It’s when the smaller, vague things come along that he starts to struggle.”
Lloyd grimaced. "And now he's lost that. 'Cause of me."
Cole regarded him closely, and it was clear that he was choosing his words carefully. “He gave it up for you, you know. I . . . it’s not easy to do that. But he did it, and he'll never go back on it. He’ll never doubt his decision, but you don’t just forget about that sort of stuff. You gotta give him time, Lloyd. It's hard, but it'll work out.”
“How much time?” Lloyd blurted out. “How long is it going to be until--until everything doesn’t fall apart every two seconds, until I know that there’s something that hasn’t changed--that’s not going to change, how long is it going to be until things are okay?”
Lloyd’s huge eyes searched Cole’s face in a kind of desperate hope, and suddenly Cole felt unbearably helpless, faced with a little brother with too many questions and no answer that felt right. Poor kid had just been bouncing back from the whole Overlord thing, and now his dad was a friggin’ snake and Kai had accidentally gone all wacko on him.
Cole rubbed a hand over his face and stared out at the waves lapping over each other under the sunset, each one gradually rippling away into a thin sheen of white foam. He would never admit it, but he had the feeling that they all had a long, long way to go before things were okay.
He didn't have answers for Lloyd, now. So all he could do was hold out an arm to him and wrap it around his wiry frame when Lloyd leaned in.
"I don't know, kiddo," Cole said finally, and it felt so good to be honest about it, even if it was a hard truth. "We've just gotta keep going. And hey, we've got Zane back!"
Lloyd smiled, finally, and Cole eased out a breath of relief. "Yeah. I can't believe it."
They sat there for a while, watching the sun go down and listening to gulls screech overhead.
"You didn't take away his purpose, you know," Cole said suddenly. "You gave him another one, a better one. He's destined to protect the Green Ninja. Not become him. And he takes more pride in that than you’ll ever know. We all do.”
Lloyd nodded, picking at the rafters, but kept silent.
“Besides,” Cole said, nudging Lloyd, “Kai would've made a crappy Green Ninja anyway."
His little brother let out a shaky, wavering laugh, and Cole relaxed. "Yeah, he would have."