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"Come on," Lloyds workout clothes are thrown in his face as soon as he enters the dojo. He barely manages to grab the pants, the shirt falling to his feet. "Get out of your gi we're doing something different today."
Lloyd’s looks at Cole with derision, who is dressed in a strange leotard and track pants combo. Screwing in the final screw of a freestanding bar he’d set up on the far wall of Dareth’s dojo. Standing, he shakes the bar and mutters to himself, “Not great, but it’ll do.”
He turns to Lloyd, “Well what are ya doing standing around kid? Scoot along, go get dressed.”
Lloyd doesn't scoot. "Not until you tell me what you’re doing weirdo."
Cole smiles easily, "I figured we'd try ballet, get some variety in your training."
Lloyd grimaces, giving Cole an incredibly sceptical look. "Isn't ballet a girls thing?"
"Buddy trust me, plenty of guys do ballet." Cole says with a laugh. "How do you think I can teach you, I did it heaps when I was your age."
Lloyd continues to grimace but loses some of his scepticism. Cole was really strong, and a great ninja. If he did ballet… “Fine, as long as I don’t need to wear a tutu.”
"Nah, no tutu.” Cole replies with a smile. “But you're missing out. They're really fun and swishy. Kind of like your old cape."
Lloyd flushes with embarrassment at the reminder of his old cape and escapes to the change room. Ignoring Cole snickering behind him.
When he got back Cole had already started with his stretches and began to guide Lloyd through his own. The session was simple, Cole spends the majority of the time instructing Lloyd through basic positions and movements. Correcting his posture or positioning in a way that reminds him of practicing a kata with Kai and Jay. And just as difficult, he thought as he lay on the ground at the end of the session sore all over. The comparison makes ballet seem way less girly, and he reluctantly admits that Cole’s jumps and spins are pretty cool.
At a certain point Cole takes a step back to watch Lloyd practice one of the positions when he spoke up suddenly.
"You know ballet was always my favourite dance. Mum signed me up for it when I was a bit younger than you. It was a bit embarrassing really, she used to cheer at my recitals like it was a football game.” He says with a chuckle. “But I loved dancing with her.”
Lloyd looks up at Cole and blinks in surprise. None of the ninja ever talked much about their parents, with the obvious exception of Jay. (Who’s parents had become a presence in their lives and had seemingly adopted the lot of them into the Walker family.) Lloyd looks back down at his feet, forcing himself not to feel jealous and betrayed. He knew about Cole’s dad, but he’d always assumed the fellow runaway was the same as Lloyd when it came to his mother. He didn’t like how much it hurt to discover he was wrong, how lonely he was feeling.
Cole continues, missing all of Lloyds internal conflict. "She loved Coppelia, especially the doll dance. We'll finish up early today and I can show you a video of it. It's kind of creepy so you'll probably love it too."
He walked towards the makeshift barre. "Maybe later, if you want, we can try and learn it. But right now buddy, you gotta fix up your feet in third position."
Cole stepped gracefully into position, "See you're doing this, but you gotta be doing this ." And the lesson continued.
—--
A couple of years later.
Lloyd was spending the rare lazy day with Jay, laying down staring at the clouds as he was regaled with stories of the ninja's origins and how they'd unlocked their true potentials. He quietly pushes back the guilt at forgoing productive work. It wasn't like he could up and walk away from Jay mid conversation, and in any case he was curious to hear about the adventures he'd missed while kidnapped and attempting to kick-start his villain origin story.
"So I get all true potentialed and zip zap zop I'm fast as lightning. I managed to stop the rollercoaster and save Nya from being snake food. We lost the fangblade obviously, but I've gotta say there are way less cool ways of bunking it up."
"Yeah you would know," Lloyd says, and laughs when Jay yells in outrage. But critically not in disagreement. Lloyd was pretty familiar with Zane and Kai's stories at this point, particularly having witnessed the latter's true potential moment. There was one ninja he was still curious about.
"Hey what about Cole? I don't think he's ever told that story."
"Oh man, that was nuts. The fang blade had been turned into a talent contest trophy. You know Cole's dad is a singer right? We used him as an in, but Cole hated dancing so our plan was to fake it till we could get close enough to steal the cup." Jay explains.
Lloyd frowns, thinking back to Cole's ballet lessons when the man had only ever talked about the dance positively. He almost interjects so say as much, but he's too slow for Jay's motormouth.
The lightning master sighs, "Yeah, don't tell Cole I said this but honestly it was kind of awkward. Things were kind of tense between Cole and his dad, and he'd been lying about being a ninja. Said he'd been going to some fancy dance school. I'm glad they sorted it out, and not just because Cole got his true potential. He basically saved himself from being crushed by a bunch of falling stage lights. It was pretty cool."
Lloyd blinks in confusion. "Why did Cole lie about being a ninja?"
Jay shrugs. "I don't know, his dad put a lot of pressure on him though. Kept on talking about the family legacy. Apparently his mum had passed away pretty recently too, probably didn't help. If I had to guess that probably had something to do with Cole deciding to train with Sensei Wu. He doesn't really talk about it a lot, but that’s Cole for you. Guy barely talks about anything."
Lloyd is silent and contemplative. He thinks back on those ballet lessons, Cole's laugh and proud smile when Lloyd completed a move correctly. The few stories of his mother peppered into their training. He thinks he remembers a melancholic, somewhat worried expression once or twice.
As a child Lloyd had been somewhat convinced Cole had chosen ballet just to embarrass him, even after he'd realised how fun it was and how much Cole liked it. Payback for all the pranks and rotten behaviour. Now he's glad to finally see it for what it was, sharing something, and someone, he loved at a time when Lloyd had really needed it. And maybe an attempt to say ' I understand."
"We managed to win the competition though, even after Pythor ate one of the judges. Cole did a bunch of jumps and some sick tiger move thing. But again, we lost the trophy, blah blah blah. He seems pretty chill on dancing these days. Honestly that competition kind of got me into it too, but DDR is way better."
"Huh, cool."
They sit in silence, watching the clouds drift past.
"Wait Pythor did what now?"
---
