Chapter Text
Sora looked at the ground below her feet, letting her legs dangle from the side of the fountain's rim she sat on. She sighed and gave Frak a reassuring side hug.
“You're not alone with this. We'll figure this out,” she reassured quietly, trying to show support while not destroying the good mood in the monastery's courtyard. The ninja were all nearby, doing whatever to have fun and celebrate their second victory over former Empress Beatrix.
Zane and Pixal stood side by side, drawing and sketching whatever they thought about. Nya and Jay were leaning against each other, obviously catching up now that the lightning ninja remembered who he used to be, Kai was trying to get Wyldfyre to calm down as the redhead tried to play with the Finders, Cole stood to the side with Geo and Mr Frohicky, talking about whatever.
Only Riyu and Rontu were missing, staying in the underground base for the time being, as their sizes would make the courtyard too stuffy with so many people.
Then there was Arin, with his parents.
Nobody was left alone. Nobody wanted to be alone.
Sora wouldn't leave Frak alone, especially. Given how, despite winning their battle against former Empress Beatrix, his issues hadn't been resolved.
Frak’s green eyes narrowed on the ground while he played with his fingers. “But I— my dad,” he frowned.
“Parents have to learn too, you know?” she rubbed his arm and looked at Arin. “You know nothing will change if you don't stand up for yourself.”
Frak closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ”I know that I have to, but it feels so wrong."
Sora wondered how such things could even happen. How come parents hurt their own children? How come they didn't realise what their actions did?
Why couldn't all parents be like Arin's?
Arin laughed as his father made a funny face. It was so bright, so genuine. It sounded like it always did, but so much better, so much more liberated.
He sounded like this because he finally got everything he ever wanted.
Sora felt an ache in her chest, one she logically knew shouldn't exist. She was happy too. She got everything she could ever demand the world give her.
Despite that, she still wished she could've had whatever Arin got.
Frak looked up at Arin and his parents. She could feel how his muscles tensed beneath her grip, hands tightening around his pants.
“You wanna go inside? It's too loud out here for me anyway, so…” she dragged out and kicked her feet absentmindedly, trying to give them both an excuse to leave.
“Yeah, maybe we-”
He jolted upright when someone knocked loudly at the monastery gates, the sound echoing through their home and souls. Sora furrowed her brows at the gates, wondering who could possibly make their way up the endless amount of stairs just to get to them.
“And we just fought against Beatrix, can't the world give us some time to rest?” she joked, trying to lighten Frak's mood.
The orange serpent hissed in amusement, “Ninja never rest," he mimicked an older person's voice, something she came to identify as an impersonation of Master Wu. Arin did it too occasionally.
“Maybe we should go on strike. We gotta stand up for our rights, no?” Sora chuckled and watched Mr Frohicky scramble to the gates. The anthropomorphic frog took many fast but tiny steps before reaching the door.
It was a little cute.
“Let's go then,” she pushed herself off the fountain and looked back at Frak. The serpent nodded with a smile and followed suit.
Sora turned towards Mr Frohicky one last time, wondering who would be waiting behind the gates. The wooden doors opened slowly, slightly, giving sight to two people.
She stopped.
She must be hallucinating.
Frak looked at her confusedly, “Sora?” He followed her gaze as green eyes settled on the two Imperian adults — one woman and one man — standing before Mr Frohicky.
She couldn't breathe.
The woman had the same black hair as ever, cut into a short bob-like cut. The golden markings on the right side of her face shimmered in the light, obviously marking her as a citizen of Imperium.
The man had black short hair with markings on the left side of his face, matching the woman's. His black eyes looked at Mr Frohicky with slight irritation, before locking on to her.
His expression morphed into something so alien she doubted she was actually alive and breathing in that moment.
Sora couldn't move.
“Honey!” the woman called out and waved at her with wide, kind eyes. “There you are, Ana! It's been so long!”
She couldn't breathe.
Her muscles all locked up at the sight of these two people. Her vision felt hazy, her throat restrained, as if someone had knotted it shut with a string.
She couldn't make sense of the situation.
A dream?
A nightmare?
Was she hallucinating?
Why would these two ever come here?
A hand settled on her shoulder reassuringly, as all of her muscles suddenly remembered how to move again. Her lungs expanded quickly, only to let go of all the air before the oxygen could get into her blood stream. “Are they…” Frak asked carefully while looking at the two approaching adults.
They had passed Mr Frohicky.
They were getting closer.
Step
by
step.
Her eyes stared at them owlishly, before she took a step back. They were saying things, mouths moving agitatedly while they looked at her with an expression so foreign on their faces, she couldn't place it within the boundaries of her reality.
They used to look at Ana like that, with such light and hope and everything Sora came to disassociate with them.
Frak stepped in front of her.
It gave her air to breathe, time to think, energy to reboot her body and get herself to function normally again.
She was done with these adults. She didn't care about them. They didn't hold any power over her.
The sounds tuned back into something more comprehensible, like a radio that found the right wavelength, static giving way to noise and then words. She was confused by this, by the way her body seemingly gave up on it's natural functions. The cold evening air barely stuck in her lungs, her tightened throat muscles refusing to relax even when she commanded it.
Frak smiled at the two adults reassuringly, voice cheerful and kind, “Hello there! I’m Frak-”
“Step away, freak,” the man said to the serpent, “That's our daughter. Let us through.”
Sora looked up at the man with widened eyes, the way his expression settled on her and immediately softened. Alien, was her first thought. Foreign and alien and everything impossible.
“Ana, my child! We've come to visit you!” the woman smiled at her, eyes crinkling unnaturally.
They called her theirs. They acted like she belonged to them. They acted like she was Ana.
It reminded her of times where this woman had locked Sora away — times where this woman took away everything she loved.
Ana had to listen and behave like how she was told and taught.
But Sora wasn’t Ana.
She remembered screams and yells and a slap to her face.
What in the merged lands could ever cause such a change in these people? What could possibly happen to them to cause— this?
Frak hissed while he smiled, obviously trying to get the intruders to calm down. Sora couldn't understand how he just let this man call him a freak.
The ninja were all gathering around them, asking questions, making noise, making the air feel stuffy and full of toxins she couldn't breathe in. Her vision swam again.
Sora took a deep breath, willing her lungs to take in as much oxygen as she could.
But how did one exhale? How did one let go and release the tension that kept building up beneath their skin and bones?
One second she could understand them perfectly, the next she wasn't even sure whether she could trust her own senses.
Arin filled her vision, as the exploding colours all settled into the light orange of his shirt and black of his hair and eyes. She focused on his expression, his furrowed brows and small smile. Arin carefully took hold of her hands and moved his mouth slowly, as if that would help reign the chaos in again.
“Sora?”
The sounds around her didn't settle, yet Arin's kind voice broke through anyway. She nodded slowly as her breath hitched. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't-
“Can you hear me?”
She nodded and squeezed his hand. She was okay. She was okay. She was okay.
“You’re okay.”
It didn't help.
She shut her eyes tightly as warm tears left her eyes in panic.
She was a rational person. There was absolutely no need to panic. There was no need to cry nor shake.
These two people who just called her Ana lovingly didn't matter. They didn't matter since the day they refused to look at her, see her, accept her.
Ana never existed.
But then why did she react like this? Why was it so extreme? Why couldn't she breathe correctly, when she knew how to only minutes ago?
Why did they still have so much power over her?
“Can you tell me three things you can feel?”
Sora opened her mouth to answer, but her throat clogged up and refused to give any comprehensible speech. She hated it, she couldn't focus, she was failing at the simplest of things.
Arin squeezed her hand tightly and let her lean against him. She opened her eyes and looked at the paved ground. She was sitting. She didn't know since when. Everything felt fuzzy and distant, while also far too close.
Why was everything so distant?
Why were things far too close?
Why was she panicking when there was no need to!?
“It's okay.”
It wasn't. She should be, but she wasn't, and she didn't know why, nor how. Perhaps that was the worst of all.
Someone else settled next to her, not invading her space, but too close anyway. She looked at them while shaking and sobbing, identifying the person as Nya.
Nya carefully settled a hand on her shoulder, “Inhale,” she took a deep breath, “Hold,” she paused, “Exhale,” and let go, “Hold.”
Sora followed her the next time she did it, “Inhale, hold, and exhale, hold.”
Her lungs finally started obeying again, working their intended way. Her breath still hitched, her eyes were still watery and her nose was full of dripping snot, but she could finally feel her mind settling on the task of breathing.
“You're doing good. Just inhale”, Nya smiled kindly. “Now hold… And exhale… And hold.”
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold.
Arin rubbed her hand reassuringly.
“Wanna go inside?” the master of water asked.
Sora nodded as her eyes settled on the various ninja standing near the gates. The two Imperians glanced at her one last time before disappearing behind the wooden entrance.
Her body shuddered.
“Focus on me,” Arin quickly got into her field of vision. “I can tell you about a lot of pie recipes. Or the adventures I went through in the Whispering Woods. You wanna hear them?”
Sora nodded as they walked inside, Nya keeping her steady on her jelly legs.
Sora sat on the living room couch with Arin and Frak on either side. Lloyd settled himself on the ground, reading through a comic book while they all watched a movie about a little witch leaving home to explore the world.
The contents of the movie hardly mattered.
Arin got emotional at every given moment, whether that be because the characters are all super nice to the witch or because the witch lost all motivation to keep going.
Frak on the other hand couldn't stop commenting on the movie's contents, questioning every single decision made by her and asking why some people were obvious pricks compared to others.
Sora could hardly focus on the movie with these two around. Lloyd chimed in once in a while with an anecdote that was probably meant to teach them something, but left her more confused than not.
The evening felt a bit better like this.
Her mind still kept drifting to what had happened before.
She didn't understand what had happened. She couldn't even comprehend whether those two adults had been real or some kind of illusion, maybe skinwalkers or shapeshifters who thought this would be funny.
She watched too much 'Intelligent George', didn't she?
There was no way the real ones would have looked at her with such kind and genuinely happy eyes, with smiles big enough to stretch across their entire faces.
She couldn't forget the image of those adults invading the monastery grounds so easily. She couldn't forget the image of them passing every obstacle standing between her and them effortlessly.
She couldn't forget how they had been almost within arms reach.
“Noooo, what do you mean she can't fly anymore!” Arin frowned beside her and pointed at the TV screen like it had personally offended him.
Frak looked at Arin, “Isn't that because of her emotional state?”
Arin looked at the serpent with betrayal, “You mean that she's burnt out? But now she lost her ability to speak to her cat! Not the black kitty!"
Sora sighed and stared at the screen. She wondered if Arin was deliberately acting like this to make her laugh. Then again, she had never watched something with Arin before. Maybe it was a cultural thing, since Frak also refused to watch the movie in silence.
“This is the last time I'm watching a movie with any of you.”
Her two friends stared at her incredulously.
"But Sora!" Arin protested with a giant frown.
“But why? Did I do something weird?” Frak asked with a small hiss.
She smiled at them and curled up into her blanket. The movie was cute. She liked the cat.
She liked cats generally.
She should make a robot kitty, just for fun.
Lloyd looked up at his students, “I have to agree with Sora on this one. I'm not really watching the movie, but you haven't gone five seconds without either whining or talking about the significance of x y z.” His green eyes looked slightly amused though, even as he tried to hide it.
“Right?” Sora asked, “I guess we'll have to ban them from movie nights.”
Lloyd laughed, “If we ever have one. The last time we did was years ago, even before the merge.”
“That's because video games are better,” Jay walked in with Nya, each holding a bowl of popcorn in their hands.
The master of water handed her bowl over to Sora, while Frak and Arin immediately dug into the puffy delights. Sora carefully took a bit too, relishing in their salty taste.
Despite Arin and Frak being a bit annoying, she'd not have it any other way.
—
“Hey, Sora?”
She turned around to look at Lloyd, who looked ready to go to bed soon, given his green pajamas and tired face. It was late, the sun had set hours ago and they wanted to train early in the morning tomorrow.
“Yeah?” she asked carefully and undid her ponytail. She wanted to go to sleep soon too, before her thoughts could spiral. She didn't want to think about that, yet the more she fought the memories, the more insistent they became.
Lloyd walked up to her and smiled kindly, albeit worriedly. She knew what he wanted to say, what he wanted to talk about, even before he said it. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She looked away, eyes taking interest in the two moons moving in the skies. Before the merge she had never seen the sky before in all of its clarity. The light pollution from Imperium was too strong to allow for the sight of the beautiful stars.
“You can always talk to me about it, if you want.”
Sora looked at Lloyd again, her throat aching slightly. She didn't understand why her body was doing this. Logically she knew there was no reason for it.
Rationally, she knew she had talked to them before even after the merge. It happened during their first battle with Empress Beatrix, when the people — which she refused to call her family — started begging her to come back, begging her to become the Ana she never was nor could be.
She hadn't panicked back then.
So why now?
Sora closed her eyes and shook her head slightly, then looked up at Lloyd again. His eyes shimmered with an unnatural green, like emeralds, as he smiled at her reassuringly.
“That's alright,” he chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head, “Just know you're not alone. If anything’s up, just tell me or anyone else.”
“Thanks,” her throat ached, but she felt a lot better after saying it. “It means a lot.”
Lloyd patted her shoulder, “Of course.”
His hand left her shoulder as he turned around and walked towards his room. Something in her tensed when he did.
She didn't reach out.
She didn't even know what was holding her back. He had just told her that she could ask for anything.
She didn't even know what she wanted.
Sora stayed restless for the night.