Chapter Text
It’s unnaturally quiet when the baby is born.
An exhausted Misako sinks further into the bed, until she’s practically swallowed by it, and gives the man sitting by her a faint smile. The child is resting peacefully on her chest; Wu won’t claim to have much experience with infants, but he’s still fairly certain they’re supposed to be louder than his nephew is currently.
Lost in thought, he nearly misses the conversation that his brother and Misako are having.
“–aming him Montgomery.”
“We’ve talked about this, Garmadon,” she replies slowly. “It’s a fine name to have. Besides, you’ve met my father – he’ll be a good man for our son to look up to.”
He knows his brother well enough to spot the hurt that crosses his face, lasting less than a second, but if Misako noticed it she’s too tired to comment on it. They all know how many times they’ve had that discussion.
“I worry about you,” she whispers instead.
“I’m as well as I can be,” he replies, then hesitates for a moment. “Can…can I hold him?”
“You don’t need to ask,” Misako tells him, picking up the swaddled infant. Garmadon takes his son gently, holding him close to his own chest as he looks down.
“What about Lloyd?”
She repeats the name, looking a little confused. “From that old fairytale?”
His brother nods.
“Lloyd…” she muses. “It does have a nice sound to it. But…I’m not sure that naming him after someone who slayed a dragon is the message I want to send, even if it is the name of a legendary hero.” She glances at the other. “Why that one?”
“I don’t know,” Garmadon says. “It just…feels right to me.” The baby makes a tiny sound, finally, and he smiles. “I guess our son agrees with it.”
Misako sighs, but she looks at them fondly. “I’m outnumbered, then,” she concedes. “…Montgomery can still work as a middle name…”
Eventually, the conversations tapers off when she surrenders to sleep, and Wu is given a chance to hold the child. He stares at the peaceful expression on his nephew’s face, at the way even the early morning light seems to make him glow, and at the shock of white hair that looks so much like his grandfather’s.
“I wish…” his brother starts to say, and he glances up. Garmadon is not looking at him, but somewhere far out of the window. Whatever it is he was going to say, though, he does not finish it.
“I know,” Wu replies. The baby shifts in his arms, and when he turns his gaze down, is staring back at him.
∞
The newly named Lloyd, as he soon finds out, has four arms.
“I genuinely don’t understand,” Misako says, cutting a pair of holes in yet another onesie. “This…has to have come from your side, Garmadon. Everyone in my family is completely human.”
“None of us have ever looked like that,” his brother remarks, shooting Wu a glance. Hearing the baby whine from the changing table, he automatically turns to pick him up. “But I don’t care if he looks different, he’s still our child.”
“…Speaking of family,” Wu interrupts, drawing their attention. “Isn’t yours supposed to come over this afternoon?”
Misako pales, dropping the scissors.
---
One hour and several questionable fashion choices later, Lloyd is deemed ready to meet his (very much human) relatives – but between “the hat isn’t going to cover his ears, Garmadon,” and “it’s completely normal for a baby to wear shades inside, right?” Wu has doubts about how well this is going to go.
He’s in the middle of trying to convince them not to pull out the earmuffs – “it’s summer, no one is going to be wearing those,” – when a sudden voice gets their attention.
They all freeze.
“Dad!” Misako speaks, being the first to react. “…It’s good to see you, but…where is everyone else?”
Montgomery Imai was always a man of few words, he recalls, but the usual aloofness seems absent as the man approaches his daughter. “Your mother and Satoshi got stuck in traffic, they said,” he informs her. “As for the others, Hikaru said he was still on call, and Chizuru claimed to be feeling too sick to attend. I haven’t been able to get hold of Ayame or Izumi, so I don’t know what they’re doing.”
She tries not to look too relieved. “Well, there’s no rush for them to get here. It’s not like we’ll be going anywhere.”
Her father reaches out for a hug, and she obliges. “I’m just thankful I could make it,” he replies. “You know the monastery steps aren’t very compatible with me these days.” He chuckles a little, then steps back to greet his son in law. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” Garmadon says nervously.
“No need to be so formal,” Montgomery tells him. “That aside, though, do I get to see my grandson?”
His brother exchanges a look with him and Misako, who sighs and takes the child into her arms. Quickly tugging the wool hat down over his ears, she presents him. “This is Lloyd,” she says.
Lloyd babbles.
“Why is he wearing all…that?” Montgomery asks, concerned.
“He gets cold easily.”
“…In this heatwave?”
“Yep.”
“Well…if you say so,” he mutters. “Do I get to hold him, then, or did I come all this way for nothing?”
“No, of course,” Misako says reluctantly, handing the child over.
Lloyd makes a distressed sound when her father takes him, struggling against the thick coat Garmadon wrapped him up in. “I don’t think he likes all these extra layers,” the man speaks, as his wails become louder. Reaching for the shades, he continues, “It’s not that bright in here, why do you have –“
She shouts, already moving to grab him, but she isn’t fast enough.
Montgomery, surprisingly, does not drop Lloyd upon glancing down, though his expression freezes, and he takes an erratic step back. The boy keeps fussing, kicking against the coat, until his brother moves in to smoothly take him.
After an eternity, he seems to find his voice again. “What,” he asks lowly, staring hard, “is that.”
“Uh…” Misako looks to Garmadon briefly, a desperate gleam in her eyes. “I…we don’t actually…know. He was just…born like this.”
He sits down, and Wu offers to get him a drink. The man declines, then repeats his daughter’s words incredulously. “Having freckles, or red hair, or brown eyes is something that you are born with,” he states. “Not that.” He pauses, turning to Garmadon. “Are you even human?!”
“What?”
“Our family is normal,” Montgomery continues. “There’s no way that thing is –“
His brother growls abruptly, startling them. Glaring at the man, he says, “Do not speak of my son like that.” He catches Wu’s eye, who stands up to approach them. “I won’t tolerate any disrespect of my family.”
“Dad, please,” Misako begs wearily. “Just…calm down, okay? We don’t need to freak out over this, I swear.”
Montgomery glances at his daughter for a long few seconds, then sighs.
“As far as I can figure,” she starts to explain, “it came from his side – which still doesn’t make any sense, but I can’t think of anything else.” She’s looking at Garmadon while she talks, who quickly takes notice.
“It couldn’t have,” he retorts. “Our father would have told us about something like that.”
“Your father?”
“The First Spinjitzu Master,” Misako says, and the man’s face spasms.
“…I’m no historian, but even I know that he – if he was even real – lived thousands of years ago,” he finally speaks. “It’s…impossible – there’s no way that you two are his children.” An eye twitches.
“Trust me, I had the same reaction,” she replies. From how close he is, Wu can hear when she leans over and whispers, “Just go with it.” His brother hears it too, judging from the annoyed look he gives her.
Lloyd suddenly screeches, prompting everyone to turn to him. His eyes are firmly shut, and his face glistens with sweat as he gives the coat a hard kick.
Reaching out to pull it off him, Wu scolds, “I told you that making him wear heavy clothing in this temperature was not a good idea.”
It’s as he’s putting the coat down, that it hits him.
“He has four –!”
∞
They decide to postpone the rest of the family meeting him, and Misako’s father makes every promise under the sun not to tell anyone else.
“I do trust you, dad,” she assures him before he leaves. “You don’t have to worry so much about it.”
As things start to settle into a routine, everything looks peaceful at first – but despite their resolve not to raise Lloyd any differently from a human, he seems determined not to make it easy for them.
If he was quiet at birth, then he is not now.
Lloyd doesn’t cry, so much as he howls at every hour of the day and night, often at frequencies that not even Wu or Garmadon can hear.
He helps out whenever he can to keep Misako and his brother from going insane, but even his endless patience is starting to run thin, and it’s about three months in when one of them finally snaps.
“I need a break,” Misako declares.
Garmadon turns to her at the same time Wu does, then shares a glance between them. “A break?” he asks, and she nods.
“We’re going out,” she replies. “I can’t go on like this, I’m losing my mind…I swear –“ She closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath. “We can get my father to watch him, or – I don’t know. Someone.”
“I agree,” Wu says, and hopes the bags under his eyes aren’t too obvious. “It would do us some good, I think.”
Misako looks beyond relieved.
She calls her father later to ask him, except he turns it down. “I’m sorry,” Wu picks up on him say over the phone. “I wish I could, but we already agreed to watch Shun and the girls this evening so Hikaru and Megumi can go out.”
“That’s…alright,” she responds. “I can get someone else, I’m sure.”
Montgomery apologizes again, and they hang up.
He offers to stay behind, but the others aren’t having it. “When I said we’re leaving, I meant all of us, Wu,” she tells him. “Now shut up.”
They debate for a while on who they could get, steadily realizing how few people they know, until he has an idea. “It needs to be someone who can keep a secret, right?” Wu asks, and they glance at him. “Then I might know just the one…”
---
When he calls, the first thing he hears is, “What took you so long?”
He blinks.
“Well, hello to you too, Mystake,” he says.
“Yes, hello and all that,” she acknowledges gruffly. “Now are you going to ask me to watch the tyke or am I going to have to do it myself?”
He’ll never understand how she does this.
By the time she makes it over, Lloyd has awoken into his daily tantrum. This doesn’t seem to deter her, as she walks in and immediately picks him up from his portable crib. He looks up at her, ceasing his wailing.
Wu is amazed.
She says nothing to either of them, only matching Lloyd’s stare. Then, abruptly, she breaks it and turns to him. “I can see you’re about to drop dead, Wu. Go outside and take a break; I can handle this brat.”
They’re all ushered out within seconds, despite their attempts to warn her. She brushes it off, telling them, “He’s not the first kid I’ve had to wrangle over the years, I doubt he’ll be the last.”
Mystake holds Lloyd as they leave, the boy being marvelously still for once, and whispers, “You’re quite a special one, aren’t you, Honshitsu?”
∞
Her presence ends up becoming a frequent one at the monastery, due to her uncontested ability to keep his nephew calm. When she eventually cites ‘being too old’ to climb the steps, they decide to bring Lloyd to her.
This is especially helpful on the nights when none of them can get him to sleep.
During his visits, she gives him the strongest tea she has, and he passes out in the corner listening to her murmur what sounds like a lullaby, but in a language that he’s never heard before.
Whatever it is, it feels strangely nostalgic to him.
He asks about it, at some point, and she only fixes him with a sly look. He knows better than to try again.
---
By six months in, Lloyd is walking.
Or attempting to, in any case. Wu isn’t entirely sure this is normal – don’t babies crawl before they walk? But his nephew has defied everything about parenting that he thought he knew, so he might as well add one more thing to the list.
At least the constant tantrums have finally stopped, somewhat.
“Satoshi and Ayame keep asking me about seeing him,” Misako remarks one early morning, as they enjoy the cool breeze in the courtyard. “They say it’s not fair that only dad has gotten to meet him.”
“Do you think they’re ready?”
She doesn’t speak for a long few seconds. “I hope so.”
In the end, she decides to invite them over, and forgoes dressing up Lloyd. “I told dad to tell them,” she explains. “They’ll probably freak out too, regardless, but I want them to accept him.”
“They better,” his brother says. Misako rolls her eyes.
“They will,” he counters.
When he wakes up on the day of, though, his nephew looks normal.
“He just…changed,” Misako says, having gotten up earlier to bathe him. “Like, one minute he was gold, and the next he was human.” She looks at him, currently fast asleep in her arms.
Lloyd’s hair, which had once been white as snow, was now blonde – almost shimmery under the light. The extra arms had disappeared, along with the pointed ears. His nails appeared regular, not clawed like before.
“I have no idea what to make of this,” she goes on. “Is this…supposed to happen? Like how do we even know what’s –“
“Are we interrupting something?”
He spots Montgomery hovering by the entrance, with some others who look vaguely familiar. “I knocked, but I don’t think anyone heard,” the man explains.
“Oh…no, that’s fine, dad,” Misako replies, going to greet them. “Hikaru! I’m so glad you could make it.”
“I wasn’t gonna miss it a second time, that’s for sure,” she’s told.
One of her sisters tumbles in just then, panting hard. “Mi!” she exclaims as soon as she catches her breath. “Would it have killed you to put in an elevator?”
“This isn’t my house –“
The sister – Chizuru, Wu remembers – steamrolls right over whatever she was going to say next. “He’s adorable!” she gasps as her gaze comes to land on Lloyd.” She takes him before Misako can protest. “Oh! He has your eyes!”
He had woken up sometime during the chaos, but thankfully does not cause a scene. His eyes flit from person to person, soaking everything in instead. Chizuru was right, also – they resemble his mother’s, a rich brown.
“But he’s…more normal than I was expecting,” she continues. “Based on what dad said, I thought he’d be growing horns or something.”
“That’s new, actually,” Misako informs her. “To be honest, I can’t explain it.”
“Well, he’s still adorable either way,” Chizuru says. “Aren’t you?”
A little girl pops up from behind her, tugging on the hem of her shirt until she glances down. “I wanna hold him!”
Whose child is that?
“Kazumi!” the woman he assumes is her mother swoops in, pulling her back. “What have I told you about asking for things?” She turns to Misako. “Sorry about that – my usual sitter was out sick, so I had to bring her.”
“It’s really no problem.”
He spies a few more people – Misako’s own mother, he’s sure, and one he recognizes as Izumi, the ever missing sister.
Having only ever grown up with one sibling, Wu finds this many family members to be completely unnecessary. With the hall having limited space, he starts to feel a bit overwhelmed. “I’ll…be in the living room,” he mutters.
---
Eventually, the family breaks into his sanctuary, and he suppresses a scowl. But someone hands Lloyd off to him, making him ease up slightly.
Her parents have claimed the sofa, with Misako sitting next to them, and the rest scattered randomly around the room. Garmadon comes in last, observing the crowd a minute before electing to take a spot by him.
His brother’s presence is the most comforting.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve even met all of her siblings until now,” he says. “It’s…certainly a lot. No idea how they keep track of them all; I could barely keep an eye on you.”
Wu smiles faintly.
“But it’s good to know that they have each other,” Garmadon adds, softer. “That they’ll have Lloyd, too, no matter what he looks like…that’s all I could ever want for him, really.” His expression is distant.
He looks at the boy in his lap, and Lloyd looks back at him.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, though he already suspects, but his brother doesn’t answer him.
Their attention is drawn away when an older kid sits near him, introducing himself as Shun. “Can I hold him?” he wants to know. “Please?”
“You’re…Hikaru’s son, yes?”
A nod.
Wu obliges, placing him into the other’s arms gently, and watches as Shun beams at him. Two girls around his age wander over, wanting to take their own turn. “Perhaps you are right,” he murmurs. “They’ll have Lloyd just fine.”