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As the class wandered around Borg Tower, Nya couldn’t help but feel a sense of disconnect. A kid with brunette hair tapped her arm, begging, pleading for her attention. She blinked, face flushing at her absent mindedness, tending to the child and answering his fickle questions. But as the kid ranted on, her gaze kept drifting to the earth elemental —Cole.
Jay was nice to her. They meshed well, and he was funny. She enjoyed his company. But every time she saw him explode, watched as he struggled to contain his erratic emotions, she remembered why she couldn’t accept his adoration.
She quickly herds her class together, locking eyes with the aforementioned. Nya doesn’t even acknowledge his gappy grin when he sees her, and can only imagine the crestfallen look on his face as he tends to his own group of children. It can’t be helped.
Her eyes once again follow Cole. He was talking to a kid who was homesick, sobbing and rubbing his snotty face over his shirt. Cole stood firm, patting the kids head and whispering reassurances. Standing as a rock for the kid to lean on, until he was ready to go back and find his friends.
When Cole stood up, he winced at his soiled shirt, looking up presumably for a bathroom to clean it off. When his gaze met Nya’s, he waved, a bit startled at her idle eyes as he ran off.
That’s what Cole had been for as long as Nya had known him. He was strong, capable, and consistent . The things Nya longed for that were always just out of reach.
Jay was nice, but all he did was bring out what she wanted to hide. Every time they went on a date, something went awry. And even though laughing as the restaurant, amusement park, the world came crumbling down made life more bearable in the moment, it always left Nya wanting something else. Something… stable.
No matter where she went in life, uncertainty followed. She thought Wu might be a chance for her Kai to have a new life, as nuclear as being the hero’s of a realm could grant.
But even still, between Jay’s brash devotion and the constant threats that Ninjago was constantly under, it was worse than before. Nothing was ever consistent. Except for one person in her life.
She never thought of Cole in that way. Even now, thinking of him like that left an unpleasant pit in her stomach that she’d be more than happy to dispose of.
He was Jay’s best friend for one. And even though Jay hadn’t asked her to be his official girlfriend yet, jumping from one person to the other felt like the very thing she was trying to get rid of.
Nya stood firm as the pit in her stomach traveled, anchoring her to the ground and her eyes to the hallway that Cole had disappeared to.
It was nauseating to think about. Jay would be so hurt. His best friend .
But as Nya felt the pit in her stomach seep to almost nauseating depths, she reminds herself of the one thing he can guarantee her. Stability.
No matter how much she tried to reason, it just made sense. He’s the elemental master of earth… stability was his thing . She’d finally be able to have a say in life if the person she was with was in such control of his. She’d finally have something that she could rely on.
People always say how the people you surround yourself with impacts the course of your life. Her old neighbors in Ignicia made sure to hammer that point home before her and Kai left with Wu. And Nya was done being surrounded with other people who don’t have their shit together. She was finished with surrounding herself with others with unstable and erratic emotions. She was done surrounding herself with unpredictable forces of nature. She wanted stability.
She rolls on the balls of her heels as she leans against the hallway entrance, something in the back of her mind telling her this isn’t the way. She looks down the corridor to see Cole emerge from the laboratory, humming something to himself.
As she walks down the hallway, grinning and claiming she had been searching for him, the guilt weighs her down like soaked clothing.
In the corner of her eye, she sees Jay push another kid off to Zane, spinning around frantically trying to find her. He locks eyes with her for a moment, waving his hands to get her attention.
Nya forces herself to turn around and face Cole, her face flushing and mouth drawn in a tight line. Cole glances back at Jay, who looks on the verge of tears, turning around to find his group of kids again.
Cole places his hands on her shoulders, shaking them gently, ushering her to lift her gaze up.
His eyes are soft and compassionate. Nya stills when he opens his arms —trying to be a rock, something stable for her to lean on with whatever she was going through. Offering to be someone she could rely on.
Nya wraps her arms around him in an embrace. She tries to force her mind to see it as something more. She needs it to be something more. But as Cole’s arms clutches her back, small questions of concern bridging the gap between her ears and his lips, that's all it could be.
When she didn’t respond, Cole let go, his eyebrows wrinkled and his eyes searching her face.
He asks again, his eyes begging her to tell him whatever was bothering her. Nya opens her mouth, eyes dropping down.
Another feeling claws up her back she stands with the earth elemental, hoping for the one thing she longed for in life. Something sour, something selfish on the tip of her tongue. She needed this —did she?
Nya takes a stealing breath, her vision swimming and the words choking their way out of her throat. She needed this. Jay was unreliable at best, and she can’t let herself fail. She needs…
She wipes her sweaty hands on the sides of her tunic, clasping them together and squeezing her fingers. She forces herself to look up into Cole’s eyes— his amber, compassionate eyes.
She needs this. She needs to succeed. She needs…
“I need to like you.”
Stability.