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Chapter Text

The Ninjago public city bus was Nya’s least favourite form of travel. The roads were bumpy, the engine always clunked around in a mildly concerning manner and the drivers always drove like they didn’t plan on seeing tomorrow. All of these factors combined would make anyone dislike taking the bus and for Nya especially since she was perpetually motion sick every time she got on one. But that wasn’t why she was nauseated today.
Her eyes drifted a few seats in front where Lloyd and Kai were sitting across from Cole and Zane. Their shrill laughter and dumb jokes would normally put a smile on her face but she remained stoic. Stoic wasn’t quite the right word for it. Catatonic seemed more accurate.

Nya slumped against the vomit green bus seat she was sitting on, just barely brushing shoulders and with the boy next to her. Jay was looking out the window, his eyes blank. Well, eye singular actually. His left eye was clamped shut, crinkling in the corners with pain. She didn’t know what had caused his eye to hurt and she wasn’t going to ask.

Nya gently brushed her hand against Jay’s, trying to provide some kind of comfort. He stole a quick glance over to her and reached out to grab her hand. She squeezed it tightly, fingertips pressing against the calloused skin over his knuckles. She stared at the back of the seat in front of her so intensely she thought her gaze could burn holes through it.

Ugh, she thought after a while, might as well try and get some sleep on this miserable bus ride. As Nya tilted her head back to rest it against the seat, she let out a sharp gasp. Her hand flew up to her collarbone and the space just beneath that under her shirt. Jay’s head, which had been turned away to look out the window, suddenly jerked towards her. The skin under her shirt was raw and rough, the soft fabric of her shirt scraped painfully against the wound. Right below her collarbone, right where the tiger widow venom had hit her.

“What’s wrong?” Jay asked, his voice hoarse. Nya opened her mouth to say something but no words came out so instead she pulled down the collar of her shirt a little, revealing the red skin underneath. Jay’s jaw dropped but quickly snapped back up as his eye made a panicky scan over the other passengers and ninja to make sure they hadn’t seen anything. Nya also glanced around, sighing softly with relief when nobody seemed to have noticed.

If her eyes got any wider they would’ve popped out of the socket. “What the hell?” Her leg began to bounce up and down, up and down, up and down. “We turned back fucking time but we still remember what happened and now this? We have scars from it now too?” Her voice was a low and harsh whisper in his ear as she huddled closer.

Jay sighed deeply, grabbing for Nya’s hand again and brushing his thumb against her tanned skin. “I don’t know, Nya, I don’t know.” Nya felt her frustration shrivel up as she heard how his voice cracked. He shut both his eyes this time and leant his head heavily against her shoulder, she felt his body relax against hers. The other ninja broke out into laughter a few feet in front of them and Nya felt Jay tense against her and saw his eyes clamped shut tightly. She didn’t exactly know what Jay had had to endure on Nadakhan’s ship but she knew it was bad. She was determined to provide whatever comfort she could so she leant her head on his and shut her eyes.

~

“Hey, you two. Wake up, we’re home.” A hand was on her shoulder. Nya jolted awake, crashing into Jay to get away from whoever touched her. Jay groaned as he fell back into the window. A familiar pair of puzzled brown eyes stared back at Nya. Kai, it was just Kai. She could feel Jay’s racing heart in his chest pressed up against her back. Nya stayed frightfully still for a couple of seconds, feeling her pulse beat loudly in her neck before Kai loudly cleared his throat. “Hurry up, the bus driver is gonna yell at us if we don’t get off quick. Monastery’s always the last stop.”

True enough when Nya looked around she could see a grouchy looking bus driver with a scruff of a grey beard around a mouth that was twisted into a scowl directed at her. Not that she could blame him, he was probably looking forward to getting his shift over with as soon as possible. Cole, Lloyd and Zane had already hopped out the sliding bus doors and were now making the slow trek up the long winding stairs leading up to the monastery, chatting animatedly. Kai followed in suit, ambling down the bus aisle, not waiting for her response.

“Yeah, sorry.” Nya mumbled, voice thick with sleep. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep for but long enough for her to wince at the crick in her neck as she got up off her seat. She saw stars the moment she was on her feet, chest tightening with pain right below her collarbone. She shut her eyes tightly, making the stars in her vision blend into the dark until she felt a hand gently wrap around her wrist. The black dots still spotted her vision, blending with the fading light coming in through the windows making the whole scene blurry but she could still make out Jay’s freckled face paling with concern. Nya shrugged, not sure how to form any kind of reply other than that.

“If you two don’t hurry up, I’m going to go back to the bus station with you on it. I don’t give a damn if you’re ninja or not. Get off.”

Chapter Text

Nya was staring at her reflection. Her bathroom mirror was a little foggy from the hot shower she’d just taken, blurring her reflection around the edges. A scowl was twisting at her pale, chapped lips. Her normally warm olive-toned skin had a grey sheen to it, making her look like she’d just seen a ghost. Her lashes drooped over tired eyes. She looked dead. And well she technically had been barely a few hours ago. But now she was back like she was never gone, like she hadn’t felt the sinking darkness of death seep into her bones, like she hadn’t felt her soul drain into the ground below, like she hadn’t felt spindly claws cradle her cold body and drag her down, down, down.

Down, down, down. Where had she been going to? Was she really back or was she really still at that place? She’d only managed to get a glimpse of that place. Between life and death. It was cold without the warmth of any sort of company since no one stayed there for too long, dark almost as if the place was hiding something from her, thick like it was trying to suffocate her even though she was already dead. It terrified her yet also comforted her. Maybe that was the only thing left for her after her short life; cold syrupy darkness. And maybe she’d be okay with that. To sink down forever…

Water, Nya felt water on the palms of her hands. She hadn’t noticed when her vision had gotten blurry but she definitely noticed when it cleared and she saw the small sink she had a white-knuckle grip on was now overflowing with water. The metal faucet was frigid under her fingertips as she shut it, watching intently as the water flowed down the drain. How did that happen? she wondered. She didn’t remember turning on the tap.

What did she remember exactly? What had happened in the last few hours? They’d gotten off the bus, she remembered that, she also remembered climbing up the stairs up to the monastery and the burning of the skin below her collarbone as she did so. She remembered the relief she’d felt as she walked through the front doors and breathed in the achingly familiar scent of Zane’s gardenias. She remembered shivering before getting under the hot streams of water chugging out of her shower. She remembered picking out her shirt with the highest collar in black, paired with her comfiest and loosest grey sweatpants. And now she was here, back in her bathroom and back to staring at her reflection.

“Ugh.” she hissed when she noticed the tear tracks running down her cheeks. She forced her shaky hands to turn on the tap again and to throw some water on her face, scrubbing at the tears with the cracked heel of her hand.

Knock, knock, knock. Nya stood upright, spine clicking into place, hand hovering under the cool water. The knock was outside her bedroom door. “Nya, dinner!” The voice was faint but she could tell it was Lloyd’s.

She huffed out a breath, bringing her face as close to the mirror as possible. Good, it hadn’t looked like she’d cried. She curled her lips into a smile then immediately dropped back into a frown when it didn’t quite meet her eyes so she settled for a vaguely neutral expression. Eyes not quite seeing, lips not quite smiling. Perfect, now she just had to keep that expression on for the entirety of dinner.

“Nya?” Nya groaned inwardly. She wasn't even two steps out of her bedroom and someone had already seen her, she was hoping she could walk around for a bit and delay eating. The thought of putting any food in her mouth made her sick. She turned on her heel to see Kai, keeping her expression of perfect neutrality plastered over her face. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes widened. Had she not covered it up well enough?

“I’m fine.” Her voice caught, her throat felt like it had been wrapped in barbed wire. What had she let slip? Maybe she was too jumpy, maybe she looked too sad?

Kai’s skeptical gaze lay fixed on her face for an eternity of seconds before he finally said oh so casually: “Oh, I’m just asking cuz the rest of us were making jokes and shit just now and Jay told us to cut it out and when I asked him why he brushed me off saying he needed to talk to you. Know what that’s about?”

Fuckkkkk. “Nope, no idea.” Did she feel bad for lying through her teeth to her big brother? Kinda but there really wasn’t any other option. Nya watched Kai open his mouth to reply and she spun and left before the words could hit her ears. She headed left down the hall, not towards the kitchen where she was supposed to be going but instead she stumbled right to Jay’s room.

Jay’s door was the most recognisable out of all the doors in the monastery. There were two round stickers on the door, one with a lightning bolt and one with a smiley face. Nya smiled at the memory of how adorably excited Jay had been when a little kid who was a big fan of them gave him a whole sheet of those two stickers. The little girl had the biggest grin with a missing tooth and proudly announced to all of them that Jay was her favourite. Jay didn’t stop talking about it for hours, he’d even coloured on each of the smiley faces with a black marker to make them look like they had a missing tooth too.

Now the missing toothed sticker smiled at Nya as she rapped on the door. “Jay?”

The door opened ever so slightly and Jay peeped his head out. His dark curls were slightly damp so they stuck to his forehead, his eye (the other was still shut) caught her gaze for only a second before frantically searching the hallways, he had his fingers in his mouth and pulled at his gnawed-on bottom lip.

“We need to talk.” Nya murmured, taking a quick glance around the empty hallways herself. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” He whispered, “Come in.”

Jay’s room looked exactly like Nya remembered from the fleeting glances she got. Messy, with rumpled clothing perpetually littered on the wooden floors, walls covered in posters but… Nya squinted her eyes in the dim light. There were a few empty spots on the wall, giving full view of the nasty streaks of adhesive on the paint. Um, okay.

Nya stayed close to the door, not wanting to stray any further inside. The only light source illuminating the room was the flickering light of Jay and Cole’s shared bathroom. Jay sat heavily at the foot of his unmade bed. In the dim light she could see his other eye, it was bloodshot and watery and just overall really painful looking. “What’s up?”

“Um, well, Kai said you wanted to talk to me. He said you were acting weird.” Nya felt a pang of guilt as she watched Jay’s shoulders tense up.

Jay hung his head, refusing to meet her eyes. “It was nothing.”

Nya gritted her teeth. He had put up a wall between them that hadn’t been there on the bus earlier. “Look, Jay.” She didn’t continue until he looked up with bloodshot eyes. “Nobody else remembers anything about what happened. And I’m sure you’re not ready to tell them anything yet so for now, we gotta stick together. You’re all I got.”

Jay turned his head to burrow into his shoulder so his voice was muffled as he murmured a small “Okay.”

Nya took a deep breath before turning on her heel to leave. “Try to act normal. We can’t slip up like that again.”

Just make it through dinner, just make it through dinner, Nya whispered to herself all the way to the kitchen.

Chapter Text

Nya shoved a spoonful of soup into her mouth, barely even tasting the flavourful broth and instead tasting the hard metal of the spoon. She almost cried in relief when she entered the kitchen and saw that Zane had made soup. Soup was easy to eat when all you wanted to do was throw up. It was chicken soup but Nya didn’t take any chicken, opting for just taking the soft potatoes and carrots, she felt too tired to even chew.

Nya sat at her usual spot at the round table, sandwiched between Kai and Lloyd. The dinner table was mostly quiet, just a few hushed words and the clinking of cutlery but Nya would’ve preferred if it was deafeningly loud. The sounds, the familiar and usually comforting sounds of her family sharing a meal now disgustingly reminded her of Nadakhan. The dinners she was forced to eat in the captain’s quarters knowing her family was trapped in a magical sword. The sickly sweet desserts she’d force in her mouth to appease him. The revolting meat slathered in gravy that she grinded angrily between her teeth as she listened to him talk about how excited he was to marry her. How he’d call her Delara, how he’d tell her how beautiful she was, how beautiful her body was, how he’d appear behind her suddenly and put his hands on her shoulders-

There was a hand on her arm. Nya jumped up from her sight, pulling back her arm like she’d just been burned, her chair scraping noisily against the tile as she did so. The whole table was looking at her with confused eyes and concerned head tilts with the exception of Jay who just stared with desperate eyes.“What’s wrong, Nya?” Lloyd chirped up from beside her, his hand outstretched towards her. “I just asked if you wanted some chili oil, you usually do.”

Nya looked frantically around the kitchen for any sort of reasonable explanation to how she was acting. She cleared her throat loudly. “Um, I thought I saw a bug.” She inwardly grimaced at herself, that was quite possibly the lamest excuse she could’ve come up with. But it seemed to do the trick as her family slowly turned back to their food, only throwing her a few concerned sidelong glances every once in a while.

After that, Nya could not stomach any more food no matter how hard she tried so she bided her time pushing around the floating vegetables in her bowl with her spoon until everyone else started to get up and leave. Sensei Wu left first, casually saying he needed to go meditate and to not bother him so that left the six ninja plus Pixal in the kitchen.

“So, who’s on clean up duty tonight?” Cole asked, making his way to their little roster by the window. They had the roster system in place for years but recently changed around the schedule because of publicity meetings and such. “Nya, you’re on duty tonight!”

Nya almost laughed at how unlucky she was, seriously. She had died and not even twenty four hours later she was on kitchen duty. The universe definitely had it out for her.

The others began leaving to their respective rooms, muttering sleepy ‘good night’s as they left. All except Jay who stayed in the doorway of the kitchen as Nya began clearing up the plates. She raised an eyebrow when she noticed that he hadn’t left yet. “Yes?”

“Um, I could help you clean up and, uh, keep you company?”

Nya shrugged which was not the smartest thing to do while carrying multiple stacked up plates. “Sure. Can you help put the dishes in the cabinet?”

And so the two of them worked in silence, Nya washing dishes that never seemed to end and Jay wiping them dry and putting them back in the cabinets. When they were finished, Nya grabbed a strawberry yogurt cup from the fridge and hopped up on the countertop. She smiled and patted the spot next to her, scooting over to let Jay sit next to her.

There was a comfortable but expecting silence between the two of them like the air was encouraging them to talk. “You wanna bite?” Nya said eventually, holding out her yogurt cup to him.

He smiled softly for the first time in a while and gratefully accepted, closing his bloodshot eyes (now it wasn’t just one, it was both of them) to savour the taste of the strawberry yogurt. Nya frowned as he handed the cup back to her, “Jay… what happened to your eye?”

Jay stood up straight, hand shooting up to cover his left eye. “I-I got hurt on Nadakhan’s ship. That’s all.”

Nya could tell he wasn’t lying but he wasn’t telling the full truth either. But she stayed quiet as she watched him get up and leave, leaving her alone sitting on the kitchen counter with nothing but her thoughts and half a cup of strawberry yogurt.

Chapter Text

Nya knew sleep was pointless but she still crawled into bed anyway. She got under her soft blanket and lay on her side. Then lay on her back. Then on her side again. Then on her back. Then on the other side. On and on this went for about twenty minutes until Nya had finally had enough.

“Ugh!” she bit out in frustration as she began to pace up and down her bedroom floor (it wasn’t a lot of space so she could only walk a few feet before she had to turn around). She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she walked, she tried to avoid her reflection but it pulled and called to her so she couldn’t help but be enticed to stop and scrutinise herself every few laps.

She still looked rather dead only now there were dark circles under her eyes from not sleeping for- she grabbed the alarm clock on the side of her bed- three hours. She had paced around mostly in the dark for three hours. What the hell? It was four in the morning, three hours after her normal bedtime (not that she really had a bedtime, she wasn’t a child but Nya made it a point to try and get to be every night before 1 a.m).

As she stood, zoning out, staring at the ticking hand of the alarm clock and slowly feeling her shoulders droop with tiredness, Nya realised that she should probably at least try and get some sleep.

Nya crawled into bed once again and instantly her sleepy eyes fluttered into a deep sleep.

~

Nya was sinking, she didn’t realise it at first but she was. Sinking further and further. She tried to open her eyes but they were too heavy for her to force open. Everything was so heavy. And cold. The darkness around her was cold. Like water but the water was thick like honey. Nya opened her mouth to scream but all she did was let the darkness in. It choked her and slid down her throat and entered her lungs and filled her veins and it was eating, eating, eating her-

Nya startled awake. Her heart pounded against her ribs like it wanted to jump out. Her short hair had fallen out of its little ponytail and was now sticking in all directions.

She squinted her eyes against her dim nightlight on the side table, head swimming with confusion. Then the nightmare came back to her. Nya shuddered at the memory and peeled back her covers to pace her room again, she checked her clock. 5 a.m. Seriously? She’d barely slept an hour? Ugh.

Once Nya remembered the dream happened, it wasn’t difficult to remember the contents of it. She remembered the sinking, the cold, the suffocating. And she remembered not being able to open her mouth but still hearing a scream. Nya tilted her head in confusion. The dream hadn’t woken her up. It was the scream. But was it her that screamed or someone else? It hadn’t sounded like her.

These thoughts consumed her for a few more laps around her room before she got her answer.

A tortured scream rang out through the monastery halls. Nya stopped in her tracks. Jay.

Nya was running down the halls before she could even register her legs were moving. She almost slipped on the carpet.

She threw Jay’s door open. Nya threw a frantic glance into the halls to make sure no one else was there before shutting the door behind her.

Jay was writhing in twisted sheets, hands clamped over his ears as if trying to block out his own screams. Nya rushed to him. Her fingers only slightly brushed his shoulder before he jolted awake, eyes wide and panting.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Nya whispered, trying to reach out to him. He had frantically pushed himself as far from her as possible, bringing his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth like a little kid with his hands still clamped over his ears. Jay’s bloodshot eyes didn’t meet hers as they went wide and jumped madly around the room.

“Jay.” Nya tried to touch his knee.

“Don’t touch me!” Jay hissed, pulling his body back from her even further. “Don’t-” He paused.

There was heavy silence between them. The two sat at opposite ends of the bed, a sea of rumpled sheets between them. Nya’s hand was still outstretched towards him and Jay looked out the rainwater stained window.

“I’m sorry.” Jay whispered eventually, pulling his knees tighter to his chest. His hands were trembling.

Nya let her hand fall and pulled it back to her side. “It’s okay.” she murmured back. “It’s okay.”

She didn’t know exactly what Nadakhan put Jay through on his ship but knowing how long he was there for and how he was acting now and knowing Nadakhan, she could take a wild guess. She looked at him now, hands shaky with bloodshot eyes dating back and forth. “You’re okay, Jay. You’re not there anymore.”

He met her eyes for the first time and scooted a little closer. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’m not there anymore. But I can’t seem to escape it.” Nya felt a part of her break hearing his voice crack with held back tears. “How the hell do I escape it?”

Nya almost laughed at the impossibility of the question. “I don’t know. I mean, we survived. Now I guess we just have to live in the aftermath of it.” She didn’t reach out to touch him again before she got up to leave.

Just as she was about to turn the door handle, Jay’s soft voice reached out. “You were right before, Nya. You… you’re all I got.”

Nya smiled softly. “Just don’t yell out in your sleep again and wake the others.” she said and shut the door behind her.

Chapter Text

Miraculously, no one mentioned anything about any sort of screaming in the night that morning at the breakfast table. Nya had been tapping her feet incessantly under the table waiting for their absent questions, planning exactly the lies she was going to spit through her teeth but no questions came. Instead they all finished breakfast in silence, only interrupted by Master Wu telling them that they were going to work on endurance for today and the chorus of groans that followed after, the only exception being Zane who loved endurance training almost as much as Nya.

Though no matter what she did, Nya could not get excited to run for the next three hours. Normally she looked forward to feeling the wind whip at her short hair and laughing as the others lagging behind as Zane entertained her with conversation while she focused on her breathing since he didn’t need oxygen. But today was different. As she walked back to her room, she could feel the tiger widow venom burn just below her collarbone at the mere thought of running. They had an hour before training in which Nya spent the whole time staring at the bubbles in her ceiling as if it held the answers to the universe until Kai popped his head in to call her for training.

Nya got up with a slimy stone of dread settling into her stomach. It couldn’t be that bad, right?

Master Wu sat sipping at his tiny cup of green tea as the ninja got in a circle to stretch. Kai, Cole and Lloyd were chattering away about something, Master Wu hissed at Kai when he stopped stretching out his arms to gesture animatedly as he talked. Zane was watching the birds as he arched his back slightly in what Nya assumed to be as far as his titanium body could ‘stretch’. She herself had her arms raised over her head, trying her best to ignore the agonising burn on her chest. She spotted Jay across the courtyard, eye (his left eye was still squinting shut) staring vacantly at the trees just past the walls of the Monastery.

Suddenly, Nya was thrust back, back on the ship, back when they first found Jay after he was kidnapped. His left eye had been bleeding then, shut tightly and crested with a bruise and the other eye looking just as vacant as it did now like Jay was somewhere very far far away and only his body was stuck in the present. Nya had shook his shoulders then, trying to wake him up even though he wasn’t really asleep and he started back into reality but sluggishly as if on autopilot.

In the present, Kai clapped a hand on Jay’s back, mouth open to say something but he was cut off by Jay flinching harshly away with fists raised shakily in front of him.

“What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you?” Kai chuckled awkwardly, glancing around at the others who were now all painfully staring at Jay emptily staring at Kai in an unsteady fighting stance.

“Um, Jay, are you oka-” Lloyd began.

“He’s fine.” Nya stated curtly, a light smile plastered on her face. “He just didn’t get much sleep last night. You know how antsy he gets when he doesn’t get enough sleep.”
The others shrugged and mumbled their replies, moving their gaze to the ground and heading to the open Monastery doors. Kai still kept close to Jay, settling for putting a hand on his shoulder but even from her place across the courtyard, Nya could see how tense his body was. She heard Kai mumbling something about ‘fixing his sleep schedule’ and ‘not drinking so many energy drinks’ while leading Jay to the door.

Nya sighed. They really needed to get it together.

All the ninja turned towards Master Wu who was still sipping on his green tea, ignoring their expectant stares even though he full-well knew they were waiting for him. Finally, after a good long sip of his tea, Master Wu picked up and tinkled the little bell beside him. “See you in three hours, ninja.”

As soon as they started running, the ninja decided their pace for the day. On any normal day, the order would go like this; Zane at the very front, Nya in second, then Lloyd, then Jay, then Kai and Cole in last because he was the bulkiest out of all of them. But today was different, Nya helplessly watched as Zane sped off in front of her despite them usually being side by side, her running was barely fast enough to keep ahead of Lloyd who was usually pretty far behind her. Nya tried to do what she always did when she ran, focus on the gravel beneath her feet and her breathing, but she couldn’t focus on either one. Her breathing was ragged, the wound below her collarbone burning, burning, burning her skin and the ground felt like it was falling out from under her and dragging her down into Hell where her skin was burning, burning, burning even hotter.

“Nya, are you alright?” Zane’s voice echoed in her ears. Nya peeled her eyes off the chasming ground and forced them to meet Zane’s look of concern. “Your running is messier than it usually is. You usually care a lot about technique.”

Nya sucked in a deep breath. “Y-yeah, I’m f-fine.” She forced a painfully wide smile. “Prob-probably just having an off-day.”

She kept her cheek-hurting smile until Zane nodded. “Ah, I understand. Well, I don’t exactly understand per say. I don’t really have any off-days but I can sympathise is what I mean.”

Nya forced out a laugh that caused her throat to feel like it was tearing itself apart with tiger widow venom all over again.

“Oh, well, I will catch you later then.” Zane replied cheerily and ran off towards the hills, allowing Nya to drop her smile and breathe a sigh of relief.

For the next twenty minutes, Nya made her trek up the large hill beside the base of the Monastery. The ninjas’ usual route for endurance training was this: down the steps of the Monastery, up the hill, down the hill, through the big canyon, into the forest and back up the Monastery stairs. Usually, the three-hour and 45 kilometre run would be a breeze for Nya, something that she looked forward to in order to collect her thoughts. Right now though, the last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts and memories. Luckily, Nya couldn’t focus on her thoughts at all. Her wound was burning, her vision was blurring out the mountain in front of her into a slightly orange blob and her throat was being shredded to itty-bitty pieces. She could barely see her own two hands in front of her. Her body was leaning forward dangerously. It felt like she was dying all over again.

Nya felt her stomach flip as her palms hit the rough rocky ground, knees scraping against the gravel. No, just keep going, otherwise they’ll know something is wrong.

But she just couldn’t. The burning of her wound was spreading across her chest, setting her lungs, her veins, her blood on fire. Nya heard the hurried footfalls of who she assumed was Lloyd behind her and was absently aware of him kneeling beside her body crumpled on the ground as the place between worlds beckoned her back to its syrupy embrace.

Chapter Text

Nya was on a ship. Not just any ship. The ship. Nadakhan’s ship. The rotting floorboards creaked underneath her feet as she walked. She clamped her eyes shut, maybe when she opened them, all of this would go away. She knew where she was headed towards, knew there were crew members waiting at every possible exit on this goddamned ship so escape was essentially impossible.

The door at the end of the hall, that’s where fate had led her to.

The captain’s quarters.

The door was heavily decorated, the dark grain of the wood intricately carved, the frame inlaid with a thin strip of what she assumed was gold and a peephole bejewelled with colourful gems. She lifted a shaky hand to knock on the extravagant door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Immediately, the door swung open. Nadakhan stood in the doorway, his captain’s garb even more ridiculously fancy than normal if even possible. He had a slimy sort of smile, the kind that threatened to slip off the second Nya made a wrong move. Nya’s eyes flitted down to the Sword of Souls sheathed at his hip, the red bulb flashing with the trapped souls. His hands, which were lined with thick gold rings studded with fat rubies, gestured for her to come inside. “Come, come, my love.”

It took everything in Nya not to physically recoil from the pet name and to step inside the captain’s quarters. There was a huge canopy bed in the corner with cascading curtains that looked like it was supposed to be white but had yellowed into a sour brown, swords lined the walls and an equally fancy door stood on the far right, where Lloyd and Cole had found Jay in. But the centre piece of the whole room was the eight seater dining table planted right in the middle of the floor like it was establishing dominance, the ornate chandelier overhead threatened to drip burning wax over the feast set onto the table.

Although the whole place had the illusion of being luxurious, it still carried the strong odour of must and decay like the whole ship was rotting from the inside out and Nadakhan was desperately trying to keep up the facade with heavy perfume spritzed in every corner.

Nadakhan shut the door behind Nya, moving (not exactly walking since he technically didn’t have legs and was basically just mist from the waist down) to stand by one of the chairs. He pulled it out. “Sit. Eat. You must be hungry, my love.”

Nya swallowed the lump in her throat and forced her legs to sit in the chair, falling backward onto the hard wood. Nadakhan moved to sit in the chair exactly opposite to her. He watched her survey all the food in front of her, a smug smirk playing at his cracked lips. There was roast beef soaked in gravy, grilled vegetables, finger sandwiches and pastries coated in fruit sauce. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, my love, are you not impressed by such a spread? It was not easy hoarding all this food on a boatload of hungry pirates.”

Nya looked up at him nervously, moving her fork around mindlessly in the grilled vegetables, not making any actual effort to stab at them. “O-Of course. I am very grateful.”

Nadakhan’s cracked lips stretched into a rotting-toothed smile. “Good, good. I know how much you enjoyed grand feasts in your former life.” He chuckled while heaping roast beef onto her plate from across the table.

Nya took a deep breath. This was all to save her friends, she reminded herself. Her brother and the others were all still trapped in the sword casually strapped around Nadakhan’s waist.

So Nya bided her time, pushing her fork around aimlessly and grinding sickly sweet pastries between her teeth.

The tension was almost tangible in the silent air that was only interrupted by the scrape of a knife on a plate and the crunch of vegetables under teeth. It went on like that for several minutes before Nadakhan broke the silence. “Would you like to see some old pictures of you?”

He didn’t wait for Nya’s reply before snapping his fingers, making a thin stack of yellowed paper appear. She didn’t make eye contact with him, only staring at the photographs he levitated out in front of her one by one. He held them slightly out of reach of her hands and Nya was sure that was because the paper would crumble between her fingertips the second she did. The similarities between her and Delara were horrifyingly exact. The same shiny black hair, same inquisitive brown eyes, same lightly tanned skin, for fuck’s sake they even had a mole under their eye in the same place. Nya couldn’t take her eyes off the photos no matter how hard she wanted to. Her eyes kept drifting to Nadakhan’s arms around Delara, touching her, feeling her up and how much she herself looked like Delara. She could almost feel herself in the photos, being touched by Nadakhan’s rough and clumsy hands.

Nadakhan cleared his throat loudly, jarring Nya out of her spiral. “I asked what you think. Do you remember any of this, my love?” He purred while snapping his fingers and making the wretched pictures go away.

Nya let out a too-sharp laugh that sounded more like a wince. “O-Of course I do. Though it is a bit hazy, hah.”

Nadakhan narrowed his eyes at her, slimy smile slipping right off his face. Suddenly, he got up. HIs chair scraped noisily against the wooden floor. Nya leapt out of her own chair, hurrying to the door and trying to turn the locked handle.

Nya yelped as she felt Nadakhan’s rough hands on her shoulders, spinning her around to face him and pinning her against the bejewelled door. “Listen, girl, I know you are not my Delara. I am not a fool.” He hissed, breath reeking of stale alcohol. “All that matters is that you look like her and that you can’t go anywhere else.” Nya squirmed, painfully grinding her spine into the door even more. “Ah-ah, don’t forget, girl. I still have your family. And if you ever want to see them again, you will do exactly as I say and you will marry me by sundown tomorrow, you hear?”

Nya felt the ball of anger in her stomach unravel and claw at her throat. “Fuck you.” She spat. Nadakhan shut his eyes as her spit dripped down his face excruciatingly slowly.

Then he unsheathed his sword. And pointed the tip right at her neck.

He let out a gruff, mirthless laugh. “Hah, you may think I just have them trapped in here but you are wrong. I own them, girl. Even from here I can make their lives miserable.” His other hand snapped and the bulb flurrying with trapped souls at the hilt of the sword crackled with red electricity.

A blood-curdling scream filled the room. To Nya’s horror, she recognised the voice.

It was Kai. He kept screaming and screaming until something in his voice cracked.

“No!” Nya yelled, legs kicking uselessly at Nadakhan’s misty bottom half.

Nadakhan lowered the sword, sheathing it at his hip once again. Nya stood there, motionless, back still pressed against the door with Kai’s screams still echoing in her mind.

Then Nadakhan leaned his down to her ear, his murderous hands finding its way off her shoulders and straying down her back. Nya shuddered. “Do not worry, girl. Soon, I will make the love of my life appear again and you, this Nya Smith will be gone.” Nya felt his lips twist into a perverted smile. “Delara was always willing to do whatever I wanted and soon, so will you.”

Nya’s vision was dotted with black as she looked at the floor, trying not to feel Nadakhan’s hands tracing lines up and down her body, trying not to feel the cold gold rings on his fingers. There was black spreading over everything, spreading like ink, bleeding into the walls, covering everything, making everything turn to black, black, black…

Chapter Text

Nya sat up quickly. Too quickly. The skin of her collarbone stretched painfully and burned. Her hand flew up to her wound reflexively as she looked around. The soft fluorescent lights hummed overhead, the crisp white sheets of the bed she was sitting in was starchy against her skin, there was a metal cart next to her and an empty loveseat beside the bed. She was in the monastery’s infirmary.

After the whole thing with Lloyd and Kai almost drowning during the Morro attack, Master Wu had set up a fully functioning and unfortunately always operational infirmary right in the monastery. The hospitals are crowded enough after a catastrophe like in Stiix, we don’t want to divert the doctors’ attention from the civilians, Master Wu had said. It made sense, Zane and Pixal had all the medical knowledge known to the human race downloaded into their heads so there was no reason any of them ever actually needed a hospital.

Nya brought up her knees to her chest, wrapping the blanket around herself a little tighter. She would’ve done anything to be in an actual hospital right now, where the doctors were strangers and she didn’t need to explain how she got the wound on her chest. If Zane saw it, he wasn’t going to be happy if Nya didn’t give him answers.

The porch light outside the infirmary window flickered slightly. Nya tilted her head to the ticking clock on the wall.

9: 30 p.m.

Nya gaped. Their run was supposed to be only three hours, from 8:30 to 11:30 and she had barely made it past the first twenty minutes so… Nya did the math in her head. She had been asleep for ten goddamn hours. A groan escaped her lips as she flopped back onto the bed. If the others weren’t already worried about her, they would definitely be wildly concerned after she slept for ten hours after running only twenty minutes. It was the most unlike Nya thing she could ever do.

Someone cleared their throat from the doorway. Nya sat bolt upright, trying not to wince as her burn stretched. “Zane, um, hi.” She muttered nervously. “What’s up?”

Zane raised an incredulous eyebrow her way which was impressive considering his face was literally made out of solid titanium. “What’s… up?” He said very slowly.

Oh, God. Nya thought. She was so fucked.

“Do you have any sort of explanation as to why you just collapsed out of nowhere? I mean, seriously, I thought your running was a bit sloppier than usual but I had not expected you to just keel over like that.” Zane exasperated. “Then you don’t wake up no matter how many times Lloyd prodded you in the shoulder and stay unconscious for ten hours.”

Nya narrowed her eyes. “Ya’ done?”

“Yes.” Zane huffed.

“Okay, firstly, I’m going to put salt in Lloyd’s cereal for giving me a bruise on my shoulder.”

Yes, yes, very good, play it casual and annoyed. Not absolutely fucking mortified the way you actually are.

“And, secondly, I just haven’t been sleeping. That’s all.” She crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to put some pressure on the wound that had started to throb painfully.

Zane gazed at her for a couple of seconds.

Shit, did he not believe her? What was she gonna do if he didn’t? She couldn’t tell him the truth, she just couldn’t. Everything was too fresh, too raw to relive.

Luckily, though, Zane just breathed out a heavy sigh and moved to sit at the foot of the bed. “Okay, if you say so. I know you guys have trouble sleeping a lot of the time.” He opened his hand, palm up, a clear sign for Nya to take it. She pretended not to see it. “If you want to talk to someone about it, you know you can come to me, right?”

Nya nodded, trying to stop her chin from trembling.

Zane retracted his hand. “Are you sure you are well? I did not give you a check up or anything while you were unconscious since it was not life or death. But since you are awake now, do you want a check up?”

Nya shook her head. “No, I’m very sure it was just the lack of sleep. I’ll be fine after this.”

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” He reached out to ruffle her already messy bedhead hair, the same way Kai always did. “You better go sneak back to your room. Master Wu was not impressed that you interrupted endurance training. The others were pretty happy though, considering circumstances.”

“Good to know they were very happy I passed out.”

Zane laughed then pursed his lips slightly. “Yeah, all of them except Jay. He did not join in on much of our conversation today or the day before for that matter.” Zane looked pointedly at her and Nya swore to God that for a split second he was seeing into her fucking soul. “Do you know anything about that?”

Nya shook her head, not trusting her mouth to speak.

“A bit weird, I suppose but this is Jay we are talking about, he is always a bit weird. Though that may be rich coming from me. I did used to speak to my robot falcon on the regular.”

Zane got up to leave, taking the pressing weight that was making a dip in the mattress away.

Nya was halfway through a sigh of relief when Zane stopped at the doorway, peeking his head back in to look at her. “Hey, Nya?”

“Yeah.” Her voice shook ever so slightly.

“I am here if you want to talk, remember that.”

“I will.” No, the fuck I will not.

Nya and Jay had to keep this secret under wraps. And fast.