Chapter Text
Nya hummed to herself as she worked on the Destiny’s Bounty. It had been a while since the ship had gotten repairs, and she decided the best time would be when the ninja were out. It would just be her, and her beloved ship.
And Lloyd, technically.
The little gremlin had been staying for a few weeks at this point, and he had slowly mellowed out. At first, it had been hell on earth. She and the ninja couldn’t even walk into a room without being bombarded with some kind of prank or trick.
A bucket of water dumped from the doorway, leaving a terrible mess to clean. A tripwire pulling the trigger on a toy gun, sending a barrage of fake bullets that also had to be cleaned. A can of snakes Nya was still mad she fell for that one, yet another mess.
And the kid had the audacity to laugh about it! He would revel in their anger, rejoice as they chased him down on the ship, only showing remorse when they left him alone to clean up the aftermath. She was so angry at him. He only ever cared when it affected him. When he had to clean up. When he had to deal with it.
She would yell, berate him for his actions, and for a split second, she would regret it. She would see the pain in his eyes, see the desperation. She knew on the inside that he just wanted attention. She knew that he was never taught that he didn’t need to do things like that for people to notice him. For people to care.
First Master knows she had done some terrible things to Kai when they were growing up. She wanted some kind of proof that he was going to stay. She would break things, ruin projects, refuse to eat, really anything she could think of to annoy him. She wanted him to hate her, so that maybe he would leave and get it over with. So he would abandon her like their parents did.
But he never did. He got angry, sure, but he understood that she was angry too. She was hurting and confused and scared. And Nya knew now that Lloyd felt similar things. People had left him for all his life. His father was an evil overlord, and his mother was long gone, whoever she was. Nobody had loved him in those first nine years of life and it showed.
The only thing he was ever taught, intentionally or not, was that if he was evil, if he did bad things, then people would notice him. It was the only way people would notice him. Nya knew that, but it didn’t stop her from being angry. She wasn’t as good as Kai at this.
But as his time on the Bounty grew longer, Lloyd seemed to start realizing that that no longer applied. People would shut him away and ignore him when he did things like that. But when he was “good” (really just not being an absolute menace), things were better.
He was a curious kid. Zane took him on the best, happy to answer questions when he was asked. He never seemed to mind when the kid simply… hovered. She thought that was truly an admirable gift of his, perks of being a nindroid she supposed. The rest of them were wary, each finding their own ways of avoiding him.
Weeks went by and the pranks had all but fizzled out. He was quiet now, opting to exist just close enough to observe and feel the connection of others, without ever getting within their own space. Nya found it somewhat eerie, but it was better than the constant tricks and traps.
She snapped her focus back to what she was doing. No point in thinking about that now, the kid had been holed up in his room all day anyway.
She found her thoughts drifting to the kid again. He really had been in his room all day. She knew that the pranks had mostly stopped, but something lingered in the back of her mind, telling her something was off. Different somehow.
She sighed, pulling herself away from the ship. Maybe if she checked up on him, she could actually focus on her work.
Nya stepped away from the control panel, snagging a fresh rag to clean her hands with. Once she was done, she made her way into the hall where the boy’s rooms were, but stopped when a strange sound met her ears. It was… music?
It was very faint, but she could hear what sounded like a violin being played from behind Lloyd’s door. A soft melody drifting through the air, so delicate she was almost scared to interrupt it.
She crept further into the hall, avoiding the floorboards that she knew would creak. The song, still faint, continued. Even as she reached for the doorknob, and turned it, she could hear it.
But her luck ran out as the old door creaked, and the music stilled very suddenly. She could hear scrambling, and when she poked her head in the doorway she saw a very suspicious looking Garmadon attempting to hide the violin behind his back.
“Lloyd?”
“Heyyyy Nya!” He said, an all too wide smile plastered across his face. “I thought you were working on the ship right now?” Nya could hear the slight wobble in his voice.
“I was. And I decided to come check on you.”
“Riiight, right right right! Of course! Well, everything’s good here so I bet you’d love to get back the the ship and all-”
“Cut the crap, I heard you, I saw it, I want an explanation.”
Lloyd’s smile dropped. He sighed, pulling the violin from behind his back, choosing to look at it, rather than at her.
“When I was at Darkley’s, we sometimes had these tasks. Little things we had to do to prove that we were still bad enough to be there. Once, I was given a violin. They said it was a precious heirloom of a woman who had died. They said it was the only thing left from that family, that she had no relatives, no kids, nothing. It was the last remnant of that bloodline. My ‘task’ was to destroy it.
“I couldn’t do it though. It was so beautiful and clearly it was very important. It felt like I was killing someone by destroying it. So, I staged a fire and kept the violin for myself. At first it felt wrong to use it, but I thought that maybe, if I learned to play it, it would be like keeping that family alive. Eventually playing just… felt right.”
Nya sucked in a breath. This kid. He had learned to play an instrument, that he was meant to destroy, something that could have had him kicked out of the only home he had, just to keep alive the memory of someone who he had never known? It was… beautiful. It was kind and thoughtful, and required a sort of humanity that she hadn’t thought was possible for anyone his age, let alone him.
She realized the silence must have stretched too long when he spoke again.
“Are… are you going to take it away?”
And FSM, if that didn’t break her heart.
“No, no no Lloyd. Never. I would never take it from you. I think your playing is beautiful, and your reason is even more so. I would never take that from you.”
Lloyd turned his head away from her, and Nya heard him sniffle.
“Don’t tell the others? Please? I-I don’t know if I want them seeing. Knowing.”
“Of course, Lloyd, it’s a harmless secret. They won’t know a bit of it. And, if you ever need a time to play, I don’t mind hearing when the ninja aren’t home.”
She didn’t wait for a response, she didn’t need one. Plus, she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t start crying. But just as she was about to close the door again, he spoke.
“Nya?”
“Yes Lloyd?”
“Thank you.”
She smiled.
“Of course.”
And as she returned to the control room to finish the repairs, she heard the melody again. Louder. Stronger. More confident. And she found herself able to focus again.