Chapter Text
To say that Shard had undergone some character development since she joined the ninja team was a major understatement; She just went from actively trying to eat everyone to barely tolerating their existence, which was huge growth in her books.
But as much as she endured the three ninja and their respective dragons, Zane alone held a spot in her cold dark heart, and Shard loved him with every ounce of it.
She didn’t know when or how exactly it happened, but he wormed his way in and made himself comfortable in nearly no time at all, save when she first froze him solid for daring to steal from her. It was like frostbite growing on her talons, it’s no big deal until the next thing you know you have to make Flame thaw out your claws like frozen chicken.
It was different, having someone to care about and to have someone care about her in return. She never liked other dragons before, even in the First Realm. She liked being on her own. She liked being intimidating, keeping the others away (except for Whisp. He didn’t seem to get her message). But Zane just seemed to snap his fingers and say “nope, it’s going to be like this from now on.” She was still trying to figure it out.
But as much as Shard held him in high esteem, she was also an escape artist. The stalls they kept the dragons in were unbearably hot in the summer (all except for a certain smug fire dragon), so much so that she formed a habit of making prison beaks at night, climbing up, and coiling on the highest part on the monastery, soothing frost clinging to her draped white wings. Once the dreaded sun rose she liked to shake the melted ice off her scales, preferably when Kai comes outside to take the other dragons out.
On one such morning when she was climbing up the side of the monastery when she caught a faint smell coming from a small window in the white walls.
It smelled... good.
Curiosity made her crane her long neck toward the source of the smell, but she still couldn’t see. After taking a minute to debate whether it was worth it, Shard slinked across the roof and dug her talons dug into the side of the wall, hanging upside-down to see into what must’ve been the kitchen.
Peering in, she saw Zane at the human heat-maker, a pan steaming in front of him. That must be what smelled so good. Zane reached over and slid a cutting board of more food into the pan, igniting a fresh wave of crackling.
Shard watched and listened and smelled, silently mesmerized by the calming aura that had found a home in the room. Zane brushed his hands off and leaned out into the hallway, called “breakfast is ready,” and set down six plates on the table while what sounded like a herd of buffalo stampeding through the corridor.
Kai, Jay, Cole, and Nya stampeded into the room with disheveled hair and sleepy eyes, hastily taking their respective seats at the table after crowding the kitchen for the steaming food. Zane took his own plate and slid into his place beside Wu, who had walked in from his meditation room and sat down like a normal human being.
Shard watched as Zane shyly smiled as his teammates dug in, ducking his head at the happy looks on their faces. There was a feeling of contentment among them, like all the worries and responsibilities they had to deal with that day could wait on them, and they could just be together.
Shard stared and quietly swished her tail back and forth.
After they had scarfed down their breakfast, cleaned their plates, and left to get ready for training, Zane stood at the sink washing his dish. Shard made sure the coast was clear before sticking her nose through the window and snapping a breath of frost to get his attention.
Zane froze (literally) and almost dropped the dish as he whipped around and bumped his head into Shard’s glistening snout.
His eyes widened as he hastily put the plate and drying towel down and tried to ineffectively push Shard back outside. “Shard, you cannot be here! What are you doing out of your home?”
The ice dragon snorted before giving him a smug kiss with her blue-forked tongue.
The white ninja stiffened and scrunched up his face. “Oof” he returned, patting her neck as he continued his fruitless endeavor to push her back outside. “Thank you, but you really mustn’t be here. Go back to the others. Please. Kai will be out any minute to bring you breakfast,” Zane pleaded.
Shard relented, albeit reluctantly, giving one last lick before releasing from the wall and spreading her wings to catch her fall.
But as she was about to land on the cliff edge where the other dragons would be soon, she paused, hesitated, and after a moment instead sailed on the air currents, letting the wind carry her farther and farther away.
In the refreshing wind whipping around her, Shard’s talons clenched and unclenched, deep in thought. Something about that small scene she had witnessed bothered her. Why she didn’t quite know. When the ninja all sat down together to eat the food Zane had prepared, they looked happy. Really happy.
When Zane gave them food, they seemed to like him. He and the ninja were...friends, right? If you give someone food does that make you friends?
Maybe – maybe – she could… give that a shot. Zane seemed happy with it, maybe she could try the whole – yech – friend thing too. And besides, if she didn’t like it she could always go back to being the reclusive ice dragon who hates everyone and is to be feared by all (Except Zane, who didn’t have to be afraid if he didn’t want to). What exactly did she have to lose?
Noticing she had been drifting for a while, Shard swooped down and landed gracefully on the forest ground where the currents had taken her, claws hard to see in the morning fog still clinging to the earth. Her ears picked up the laughter of a stream trickling nearby. She got an idea.
Slinking toward the water, she kept low to the ground to hide her shadow. A slippery fish glided through the water.
Quick as death she lashed out, stabbed a fish with her talons, and wrenched it out of the water, purring with satisfaction at her work. The fish glittered in the pale sunlight, more than big enough to share. She turned and launched off the bank, flying back towards the monastery.
The ice dragon growled in annoyance at how warm the sun shone on her back, hot and sharp against her scales. She wished a fluffy white cloud or two would come by to soften it up. Thankfully the bleached walls of her home came into view before the sun reached its peak.
From the red smudge on the cliff growing by the minute, Shard knew Kai had already taken Rocky, Whisp, and Flame outside, leaving the dragons perched on the rock side as he undid their bridles. Shard landed, padded over to them with her head held high, and dropped the dead fish from her mouth proudly in front of them.
Kai took a step back as it rolled towards him and raised an eyebrow at the ice dragon. “Nice of you to finally show up. Where have you been? I was looking for you.”
Shard ignored him and looked expectantly at the other dragons who were all blinking from her to the carcass, not sure what they were supposed to do with it.
Shard could’ve kicked herself. Of course.
She blew a breath of ice at the fish, creating a crunchy shell over the silver scales, freezing it solid. There. Perfect.
She looked at the others who were slowly backing away, retreating to their stalls for their actual breakfast. Kai gave her one last funny look before turning on his heel to join them.
“Wait, where are you going?” Shard hissed at Rocky, who was trying – and failing – to slip his massive body back into the cave without her noticing. “I made this for you. Eat it.”
Rocky sent her an unconvinced look, “Yeah... I’m not eating that.”
Shard balked, bristling her neck spikes indignantly. Since when did Rocky refuse food? She turned to Whisp, who was scratching behind his ear, claw moving so fast it was a blur. “That looks gross,” he chirped, blissfully unaware of the murderous glare he was receiving from the ice dragon.
Before she could turn to Flame, the fire dragon rolled her eyes and blasted a shoot of flame at the dead fish, effectively creating a charred black husk in a puddle of water. She made prolonged eye contact with each of the other dragons before hissing “cowards” and snapping it up in one bite, wrinkling her snout as she licked her teeth. “Soggy.” She pranced in the direction Kai had gone to go find him.
Shard blinked and cocked her head as they went back into their stalls, leaving her alone with a little puddle of water. That wasn’t supposed to happen. What did she do wrong? She did exactly what Zane did: give them food. Was there something she was missing?
Kai came back out and put his hands on his hips, ignoring Flame blowing sparks at him for attention. “You coming inside or what?” Shard lashed her tail and turned around, missing the shrug of indifference from the red ninja.
“Fine. You’re Zane’s headache, not mine, sweetheart.”
Shard again climbed up the side of the cliff, sniffing the air until she located which part of the monastery Zane was in. She found him sitting at the table reading a scroll so long it rippled over the opposite edge.
Light footsteps treading on the floorboards caused Zane to glance up, spotting Jay sneaking away from the kitchen with something that look suspiciously like a container of ice cream.
“Is that mine?” The white ninja’s cold tone made Jay freeze mid-step and hastily turn with his hands raised in surrender. “No no, don’t worry. It’s mine.” He twisted the pint to reveal his chicken-scratch blue marker signature on the side.
Now Zane was generous to a fault. That generosity did not extend to his ice cream. Zane loved ice cream. And he would defend his pint till his dying breath if need be. The other ninja knew better than to try and swipe his caramel swirl.
The white ninja nodded, but paused to take a closer look at Jay’s face. Shard noticed it too. The lop-sided carefree grin always plastered on the lightning master’s face looked stretched, thin, like it was pulled up by strings and a puppeteer. Fake.
“Is there something wrong?” Zane inquired, only confirming Shard’s theory by the way Jay’s pink eyes widened a little.
“What? No, why would anything be wrong?” Jay deflected, giving a nervous laugh.
“Lying is wrong,” Zane said simply, burying his chin in his elbows resting on the table as he waited patiently for Jay to take a seat across from him, scroll forgotten. Both he and Shard knew Jay wasn’t the type to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself; That was more Cole and Zane’s department.
Just as they predicted, Jay reluctantly sat down and popped the lid off the ice cream container, producing a spoon he must’ve swiped from the kitchen. Up close it was much more apparent that he’d been crying sometime earlier.
“Sorry,” Jay mumbled, stabbing half-heartedly at the freezer-burned dessert. “I just…it’s just that, well I found out someone I knew passed away last night, and I really cared about her and stuff. I just found out about it like an hour ago.”
Zane hummed and rolled his head to the side to show he was listening.
And Jay told him about an old lady named Daisy who worked at a convenience store in the city. At first he sniffed a little while telling the white ninja some stories about her, but towards the end, they turned more cheerful. Jay actually smiled for real a couple of times. All the while Zane listened, not saying anything, not even really looking at him, just being there.
Eventually, Jay sighed and propped his head in his hands, pausing for the first time in about twenty minutes. “Yeah, so... that’s - that was – Daisy. I uh, thanks for listening and stuff. I know I can ramble a lot.”
Zane gave a little smile, taking his head off his arms for the first time since Jay started talking. “It was my pleasure. I am sorry for the loss of your friend,” he said, straightening and glancing at the clock on the wall. “Well, we are late for training. Shall I tell sensei about everything? I’m sure he would understand.”
Jay grinned and swiped at his eyes, “Heh, that’s ok. I really am feeling better now. Maybe sensei will go easy on us and only make us do a hundred penalty push-ups.”
Zane’s shoulders slouched. “Previous experience would render that statistical outcome unlikely.”
Jay laughed and got up to put his half-finished pint back in the freezer. “Guess we should get going then.”
Shard pulled away and snaked back to her perch on the cliff, tail dangling limply beside her. That was... what even was that? Zane just sat there, hardly did anything, and he somehow made Jay feel better? Was listening to someone else bellyache supposed to make you a better person? Was that what – barf – friends were supposed to do?
Shard watched a flock of birds skim the clouds beneath her. She tried doing that whole spiel this morning and it didn’t work out so well. Would trying this be any different?
Seeing Flame’s blood-red scales made the decision for her as the fire dragon shot a fire column out of her stall, erupting into a blazing inferno, and freeing her to pace like a caged animal along the narrow cliff.
Well, isn’t that just convenient? Shard sighed to herself as she jumped down beside Flame, recovering from an almost fall with how little room there was width-wise, and moved to the side for more room.
“What do you want?” Flame hissed, feathers of smoke coming out of her maw, making Shard cough.
“I just – cough – wanted to know what’s wrong,” the ice dragon retorted, trying to clear away the smoke with her wings.
Flame stared at her suspiciously, a drop of magma dangling out the corner of her mouth. “Why would you want to know? You’ve never cared before.”
“Well,” Shard wrinkled her nose, not quite sure how to answer, “I care now, so spill it.”
Flame blinked at her, partly because of the black soot now coating the white dragon’s nose and partly because Shard had just uttered the words I and care in the same sentence. Shard wasn’t sure how to take that much surprise at her words.
“Fine,” the fire dragon said slowly, wings fluttering nervously. “It’s Kai. My stupid human is supposed to be the fire master, right? And I’m a fire dragon. We were literally made for each other. So why is he always off anywhere else but with me? Why does he always find someplace to go when I’m stuck right here.” Flame looked down at her talons, a restless frustrated look on her face. “I know not everything is about me. It’s just that… he never comes by. I never get to see him.”
Shard rolled her eyes and examined her claws in boredom, “You’re clingy.” She thought it was something serious, like having a dislocated wing or something, not Flame having abandonment issues with her rider. Realizing she’d just said that out loud though she winced and hastily rephrased her comment. “I mean, uh, that must be very difficult for you.”
Flame glanced up, heat waves curling off her black and red back. “Clingy? So that’s what you think? You think I’m just sitting here feeling sorry for myself? Well, sorry to bother you, Shard. I won’t bore you anymore.”
While Shard was thinking that yes, that was exactly what she was doing, she was self-aware enough not to say it out loud this time. But before she could think of a more constructive response Flame was gone, slicing through the sky so fast she left a trail of angry black fumes in her wake.
“Wait - uh – sorry?” Shard tried, heart already sinking knowing the fire dragon was well out of earshot. She snarled in frustration with herself and sank down, burying her head in her talons and sighing deeply.
She must’ve drifted off for a long time because the sun was low in the sky when she cracked her eyes open. In front of her was Zane crouched down, street clothes whipping around him in the wind.
“Hello there.” He greeted.
Shard gave him a look, lifting her head so she could look down on him instead of vice versa.
“Would you like to come into the city with me?”
Shard froze and pretended to yawn indifferently. The prospect of getting off this mountain with Zane sounded absolutely amazing, but her pride forbade her from letting him know exactly how happy she was.
It didn’t matter. He knew anyway.
-
Zane needed to grab some things for dinner at the store, so Shard found an open park to land in while Zane dismounted. (Zane was slightly more discrete than Jay about landing his dragon in the middle of a densely populated area without considering the repercussions.)
“I’ll only be a few minutes, alright?” Zane reassured, taking off down the sidewalk toward the market, disappearing around the corner.
Shard dutifully sat and waited for him to return, ignoring the stares from the few passing pedestrians and several raccoons sticking their heads out of a dumpster.
Waiting had never been her strong suit. She tapped her talons against the dirt, readjusted her position more times than she could count, and even made a modest ice sculpture of some people screaming in terror, which didn’t seem to help with the stares she’d been getting.
Eventually worry started to creep up on her. Zane should not be taking this long. Something must be wrong.
With that new thought she stiffened and lashed her tail, half flying, half trotting in the direction she’d seen Zane go.
Why on earth were there so many people in this world? There are only like, seven people she actually liked so why not clear out all the other riffraff?
The First Master probably would frown on that thought so she shook her head and sniffed the air for her rider, tip-toeing so as not to mow anyone down by accident.
Picking out Zane’s smell took longer than she thought. By the time she had navigated the thinning streets, she had found him with an arm of groceries facing three much older, much larger boys on the nearly abandoned sidewalk.
At first there didn’t seem to be any real danger; the boys were just talking to him. But as she crept nearer, watching from around the corner, she picked up on their conversation.
“So you’re one of the kids that crazy old man chose to be the ninja, huh?” The biggest of the three boys said, more of a statement than a question. Zane hadn’t hit his growth spurt as Cole had, and the other boys practically towered over him. Zane’s passive face didn’t look frightened, but his eyes kept flitting back and forth for a way out.
“Why pick you and not me, huh?” The older boy turned to his friends and shrugged innocently, making the other two grin and snicker. “I’d be a great ninja. Prob’ly be a lot better than this little weirdo, right?”
Excuse me?
What did they just say to her chil – her rider?
Shard came closer, icy air venting hazardously from her jaw, getting a feeling of Deja Vu from the fish that morning. When the leader noticed Zane wasn’t laughing, or showing any emotion at all for that matter, he paused, flicking his hand out to make Zane flinch. He didn’t. “Ugh, what is up with you? Is there something wrong with you?”
Shard’s nostrils flared. The white ninja was just standing there while the boys pushed him around. She growled and advanced, intending to give these potential food products a piece of her mind, but she was still a distance away, and the three boys had their backs to her.
“I bet I could be a better ninja than you or any of your friends. I mean, I could get you just like that.” With that Shard heard a thud as the leader shoved at the white ninja. Hard, sending Zane snapping back against the brick wall directly behind him with a grunt.
All three boys whipped around in surprise as Shard roared and barreled into them like bowling pins as she swooped down, and snatched her rider up in her talons.
“Shard! What are you doing?” Zane cried, clinging desperately to the claw that was the only thing keeping him from an ugly fall as the concrete sidewalk grew further and further away. “Where are we going!?”
Shard snarled in response and let him climb up to the relatively safer place on her back, skimming over the clouds until she was high enough to soar without much effort. She turned her head around to check him over. The boys hadn’t really been trying to hurt him, but the force had sent Zane’s head bashing against a hard wall, a trickle of red could be starkly seen against his white hair.
She bared her teeth dangerously. No one. No one hurts Zane.
She forced herself to land on an abandoned dirt road to make sure he didn’t have a concussion, wanting to get him home as fast as possible. When she tried to check Zane pulled away. “I’m fine. You do not need to do that, it’s just a scratch.”
Shard arched her eyebrow, having none of that, but when she persisted he wouldn’t let her nearer than a claw's length. “I said there is no need for that.”
Shard bared her spikes and hissed a guttural threat to let her help. It came out harsher than she meant, but it underlaid a taste of the scolding she had in store for him when they got home. Why was he being like this right now?
“What? You think I don’t know I am not like everyone else?” Zane finally snapped at her last attempt to grab him, startling her into silence. “You think I don’t see them look at me like I’m some kind of - of freak? You think I don’t hear them whispering things about me when they think I can’t hear?”
Shard blinked at him as he deflated, shoulders sagging, continuing in a much smaller voice. “Trust me, I am aware of it. But I can’t change what they think so it is illogical to feel sad about it.”
Zane sighed, the last bit of icy bitterness being chased away by thawing exhaustion as he moved closer, rested his forehead on Shard’s arm, and closed his eyes. “Can we just go home now? Please?”
Shard never felt more like a block of ice. Cold, hard, and unresponsive. Um, what should she do? She had already messed this up twice, she really didn’t want to mess this up with Zane. Should she just bring him home like he wants, or could she leave him for just a minute to turn those bullies into rotisseries?
Zane would probably be mad at her for the latter, but she wasn’t ready to just do the former and call it a day.
The ice dragon rested the tip of her nose on his shoulder and purred, deciding. She was going to do what she did best.
This time she let Zane climb onto her back first before taking off, turning in the direction of the monastery.
She wasn’t rushing to get back, taking light detours while riding the air currents. After a while she felt Zane slump against her neck, must’ve fallen asleep.
She flew as smoothly as she could with the shifting atmosphere, being forced to glide closer to the ground when it grew too strong. Once she reached the white walls on the top of the mountain though she spiraled up and touched the tiled roof, gently nudging Zane to wake him and-
WHAM
WHAM
WHAM
She slammed her tail into the roof, giving a roar for good measure in case the idiots inside somehow missed her little wake-up call.
Zane nearly fell off her in surprise and scrambled to hold onto one of her neck spikes. “What are you doing!? Stop, you’ll wake everybody up!” Zane pleaded in a whisper-shout, desperately reaching out to close her mouth, which she shrugged off.
The three other ninja came darting outside and whirled around to see the white dragon drop Zane unceremoniously to the ground, where he somehow managed to land without breaking an ankle.
“What’s going on?” Cole asked once he helped Zane up, glancing at the dragon and giving him an expectant look. Zane brushed himself off and glanced hopelessly at Shard.
“She’s, she’s been acting most peculiar all day.” He paused and gave a look that could’ve been taken as thoughtful had it not been for the calculating eye darting going on, “Perhaps she is ill and I should remain with her for the night.”
At that Shard lashed her tail again, smashing a good portion of the roof tiles, making everyone wince. No no no! you are not going to self-isolate and cut off all your friends and...
oof.
For a minute she looked guiltily down at her claws at how familiar that sounded. Maybe she was the bad influence here.
Putting that little nugget aside she used her nose to prod Zane closer to his friends, who were now giving the white ninja suspicious looks.
“Is there something wrong, frosty? Why’s Shard acting up?” Cole pointed out, arms crossed as he propped himself up on a support beam. “You were gone for a lot longer than you said you’d be.”
Zane had the nerve to smile innocently. “Nothing is wrong. I was merely detained longer than I anticipated, that is all. But I am rather tired, so if you don’t mind think I’ll -”
“What’s that in your hair?” Kai interrupted, indicating the crusty brown pattern coating his white hair. The others turned to the white ninja, raised their eyebrows, and waited for an answer. They all knew they certainly didn’t put that there.
Zane’s hand unconsciously went to the cut and the others pretended to ignore the small wince he gave when he touched it. “Ah, I was clumsy and tripped. Nothing that won’t heal.”
Thankfully, Zane is just about the worst liar to ever walk the sixteen realms, and even the ninja in their thick-headedness didn’t buy that lie for a minute. Zane wasn’t clumsy, and he certainly didn’t go around lying for no apparent reason.
“Did someone do that to you?” Jay asked, hands fiddling mindlessly while the redhead’s brain worked. He’d been bullied enough to know when someone was trying to cover for someone else. “You don’t have to lie.” He gave a small wink. “Lying’s wrong.”
Zane looked around as if trying to assess a possible escape route, which Shard effectively blocked off with a puff of frost and an evil eye. After failing to convince her with a wordless beg he sighed in defeat, “It was just some kids from the city, they didn’t mean anything by it.”
Seeing how Kai looked like he was about to go find Flame and fricassee the kids himself Zane quickly added, “It was nothing! It’s done now and we have certainly dealt with worse, have we not?”
Cole’s face darkened into a frown. “Bud, that’s not really the point. Why weren’t you going to tell us? Yeah, we can get pretty banged up, a lot, but that doesn’t mean we’re just gonna blow you off when you need us to have your back.”
“Yeah, now let’s begin again, who were they, and what are their addresses?” Kai prompted a little too cheerfully.
Zane raised his eyebrows in response but there was definitely a smile there, a real smile this time. He glanced back down at the ground. “Thank you, friends.”
So Zane gave a brief recount of what happened, though he didn’t share everything, the ice dragon didn’t really expect him to.
Shard inclined her head in satisfaction, watching the scene unfold as Zane’s friends led him inside when he was finished to get patched up, snaking back to her cave and using her tail to shut the door behind her with a click. With a tremendous yawn and a blast of ice coating the floor, she curled up with her tail resting across her nose, letting out a deep sigh.
Just as she was about to drift off Whisp’s bubbly voice prodded her back from dream world. “You awake?”
Shard curled her lip and readjusted her position, “No.”
“Can I sleep with you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“... Remember that fish I caught earlier? The one I froze and Flame ate?”
“Yeah,”
“That’s going to be you if you try to climb over.”
“... Oh.”
After a moment or two of blissful quiet she heard the labored grunt of Whisp squeezing through the narrow opening in the top of the divider and spilling out onto the floor with a painful “oof.” she kept a low growl to herself as she felt the lightning dragon’s lithe buzzing body plop down almost directly on top of her, hearing a yelp when his tail touched her ice and safely tucked it under his wings. With a final sigh he laid his head on the crook of her shoulder, forked tongue flicking in and out sleepily.
As Shard was about to bite his head off as a little lesson about boundaries she paused and reconsidered, slowly lowering her head back to the ground. Listening to the dragon’s soft snores. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to leave him be.
Shard groaned and refroze her ice bed, feeling it grow warmer with another hot body in this confined space.
This was going to be a very long night.