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senseigrace · 5 months

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Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly (Part Two)

I did NOT expect the story to blow up on here the way it did. I'm so glad you all enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoy part two!

(TW for referenced past torture.)

Lloyd slept for most of the day. The exhaustion from being unable to sleep and from being in pain made him sleep much later than he ever would have wanted to.

When he woke up, Kai was still sitting beside him. He had a book in his hands, something that Lloyd knew that Nya had probably brought to him.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Kai said as Lloyd sat up. “How are you feeling?”

Lloyd ran his tongue over his teeth. The fangs were still there… He wondered if they were there to stay instead of being retractable like the claws.

“A bit better,” he answered, then reached up to feel if he still had the little horns that his hair mostly covered.

He did.

And he knew he still had the wings. Even though his back didn’t hurt as much anymore, he could still feel the new limbs.

He moved them slightly, still weirded out by the new sensation. It wasn’t often when he grew new limbs.

“The others got back from their mission,” Kai said. “Zane made some food if you want any.”

Lloyd nodded, but he wasn’t really hungry. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass for now,” he said. “Um… Do you know if Uncle Wu is around?”

If Lloyd was being honest with himself, he didn’t really want to talk to his uncle. It wasn’t anything personal, but there had been something about Master Wu earlier that had felt off.

“You know you don’t have to go talk to him yet if you don’t want to,” Kai told him. “I’m not gonna tell him that you’re awake and avoiding him.”

Lloyd looked up at Kai, his mouth falling open for just a second. “I’m not avoiding him!” he protested, even though he knew his brother was right. “I’m just…”

Kai laughed. “It’s okay, Lloyd,” he said.

Lloyd rolled his eyes, then stood up. As much as he didn’t want to talk to his uncle, he definitely didn’t want Kai thinking that he was avoiding him.

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” he said.

Lloyd didn’t give Kai a chance to react, he didn’t give himself a chance to chicken out.

He opened the door to his room and walked to his uncle’s room.

When he reached the door, he knocked on it with a shaky hand.

He didn’t understand why he was feeling like this. His uncle had always been kind to him, he had never judged him for who, or what, he was. There was no reason to be scared. Especially when it was something that he couldn’t even control.

“Come in.”

Lloyd swallowed harshly at the sound of his uncle’s voice, but opened the door and walked in regardless.

When he shut the door behind him, his uncle smiled.

“How did you sleep?” Master Wu asked. He was sitting on the floor, an incense burner in front of him. He looked like he always did, a kind and gentle old man who was wise beyond his years.

Still, Lloyd hesitated by the door, his arms and wings pulled behind his back. “I slept well,” he said. “Um… You said you wanted to talk to me, Master?”

Over the years, Lloyd had begun using Master and Uncle interchangeably. Neither one of them were wrong, but sometimes he wanted the distinction. Sometimes Wu was his master, not his uncle.

Master Wu nodded. “I did,” he said. “Come sit down, Lloyd. Join me.”

Lloyd obediently walked over and sat across from his uncle. His heart was beating at a hundred beats per second from the anxiety of whatever his uncle was about to say.

So he spoke first. “Did I do something wrong?”

A look of shock flashed in Master Wu’s golden eyes. “No, of course not,” he said. “Lloyd, you haven’t done anything wrong.”

Lloyd let out a sigh of relief that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in. He knew that he had no control over what his body did, but he knew that taking the form of an Oni could never be a good thing…

“But I do want to talk to you about your new features,” he said.

Lloyd looked up at him. He didn’t know what to say, so he nodded. What else was there to do?

Master Wu cleared his throat. “I owe you an explanation,” he said. “And an apology.”

Lloyd’s eyes widened and he shook his head. Why was he trying to apologize to him? He was the one who randomly turned into some sort of hybrid freak. “Uncle?”

“I had known that this day would come for a long time, however the Tomorrow’s Tea changed my timeline quite a bit,” Master Wu said. “I should have prepared you for this, and yet I did not. I kept it to myself and I never should have done that to you. I’m sorry, nephew.”

Lloyd looked down at his hands. Earlier, there had been claws instead of fingertips. They had been sharper than swords… “I don’t understand.”

“Lloyd, you are so much more than meets the eye,” Master Wu said. “You are an Oni, Dragon, and Human hybrid. It means that you will go through changes to represent all three sides of your heritage, you’ll live a longer life, and you’ll have the powers of creation and destruction as well as your element of Energy.”

Lloyd swallowed. “I already knew that I was a hybrid,” he said. “But why did it show up? Why am I like this now?”

Master Wu sighed. “I’m not sure,” he said. “As I said, the Tomorrow’s Tea changed a lot for you.”

He hated thinking about the Tomorrow’s Tea. It hadn’t ruined his life, but it was a fair source of trauma that he didn’t like to think about. He had tried to make peace with the fact that he had been aged up so unfairly, but whenever he thought it was okay, something brought it back up.

Lloyd looked up at his uncle. “Will anything else change?” he asked. “I’m not… I’m not gonna end up like Garmadon, right?”

At the mention of his brother, Master Wu flinched. “Lloyd…” he said softly. “His Oni genetics were not the cause of his evil, that was because of the venom of the Devourer. Yes, the man that was brought back is all Oni, but he is also only the evil side of your father.”

Lloyd felt his eyes begin to burn. He had been told that all of his life, but when Garmadon had been brought back… He couldn’t help but wonder if the evil was caused by more than just venom from an evil snake…

“I’m sorry, Uncle…” he whispered.

Master Wu sighed. “Don’t apologize,” he said. “I did not mean for this to become a lecture on your father. Even if he does possess many of the Oni characteristics that you perhaps will inherit.”

Lloyd nodded and looked down at his hands. “I just don’t know what to do, Master Wu…” he said, and he hated himself for the way his voice cracked. “I don’t know if I need to hide this part of me or if I should… I dunno…”

“It is perfectly acceptable not to know things, nephew,” he told him. “I certainly didn’t know what to do when I had my first experience with my Dragon side.”

Lloyd looked back up at Master Wu and tilted his head. In the midst of everything else, he had somehow forgotten that his uncle was also not a human. He was just as supernatural as he was, if not more.

“May I see your wings?” Master Wu asked.

Lloyd nodded his head. He had no problem with his uncle inspecting his wings. After all, he was probably the only person in all of Ninjago who had any idea what wings on a human should look like.

Lloyd sat up straight and allowed Master Wu to extend his wings all of the way out, to inspect the newly formed joints on his back, to touch the sensitive scales…

His touch was the same gentle one that had cleaned many wounds and wiped so many tears out of his eyes, but Lloyd couldn’t have been more relieved when the poking and prodding was finally done.

“They look healthy and strong for a pair of new wings,” Master Wu said as he sat back down. “If they continue to grow like they are, then I have no doubt that you’ll be able to fly by your next birthday.”

Lloyd couldn’t hold back a gasp at that. Of all of the things that he would be able to do, flying had always been one of his favorites. Of course, he used to be able to summon an elemental dragon, but after everything that had happened…

That wasn’t important.

He had wings now. He could fly.

Well, not yet, but one day.

Then a thought popped into his head, one that wasn’t related to him, but to his uncle.

Master Wu was more Dragon and Oni than he was, and yet… He didn’t look like it. Not in the same way that Lloyd did.

Lloyd leaned forward towards his uncle. “Do you have wings, Uncle Wu?”

For a second, the question seemed to shock Master Wu, his expression completely unreadable for a second. And then he smiled sadly at Lloyd, his golden eyes filled with a sorrow like Lloyd had never seen before.

“I did.”

It took a second for Lloyd's brain to register what his uncle meant, but then his eyes widened. “You mean..?”

Master Wu let out a shuddering sigh. “I had them when I was your age, and I was so proud of them. After all, they were stronger and brighter than Garmadon’s were. But then…” he stopped and a dark expression took over his face.

Slowly, two and two were being put together and Lloyd’s stomach flipped.

“Nephew, we’re in a unique position. Our heritage is what makes us strong, but it’s also what makes people hunt us down,” he said. “They took me and I… I couldn’t fight them off.”

Master Wu frowned and looked down. “They cut them off,” he said. “There was nothing my father could do to fix them.”

Lloyd heard a strangled cry come out of his throat, but he hardly processed it.

Someone had cut off his uncle’s wings. Master Wu had been hunted down and tortured. They had taken something that he loved away from him.

He could feel the tears burning his eyes as his mind began to spiral.

Lloyd had been captured so many times before, but would he be targeted more now? He no longer had the protection of looking human. He couldn’t blend in anymore now.

“I.. I,” he stuttered as he pushed himself away from his uncle. “I don’t wanna lose…”

Master Wu reached out and grabbed both of Lloyd’s hands. He held them tightly in his own warm hands. “Lloyd, look at me.”

Lloyd looked up at his uncle’s gentle golden eyes. He didn’t say anything though, he couldn’t even come up with any words to say.

“I will never let that happen to you, nephew,” Master Wu told him. “I promise.”

Lloyd wanted to protest. He had been kidnapped by snakes, had his Power Drained by The Overlord, possessed by Morro… There was so much more too.

No one could truly protect him, not even himself.

However, Lloyd found himself nodding at his uncle’s promise. The idea of blissful ignorance to the truth was much more appealing than the reality.

“If you wish, I can teach you more about your heritage,” Master Wu told him. “And even though I cannot fly anymore, I can teach you when the time comes.”

Lloyd wiped the tears out of his eyes and nodded at his uncle. His uncle had been there for him for so long. He had been the first kind person who had interacted with him in years after he had taken him in.

“Really?” he asked.

Master Wu nodded. “Of course,” he said.

A smile found its way onto Lloyd’s face, and he knew that his newly acquired fangs were probably showing, but he didn’t care. “I’d love that.”

Master Wu grinned, and Lloyd noticed that his teeth were more pointy than normal for the first time. “We’ll start first thing in the morning then.”

#ninjago #lloyd garmadon #ninjago lloyd #dragon lloyd #oni lloyd #hybrid lloyd #sensei wu #hurt/comfort #angst #my fanfiction #ninjago fanfiction #wings #part 2/7

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