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March is colder than Maya remembers.
She’s only been free from the underground prison for three months. December, January, February. And now, it’s the beginning of March.
Three months. 98 days. A fourth of a year. 0.5% of her entire life.
She’s savored every minute of it, so glad to be able to breathe fresh air, feel the sun on her face, see the ocean. To wave to neighbors and make friendly small talk, to buy clothes with clashing patterns, to eat overpriced sushi at a restaurant so loud with chatter she’d had to yell her order at the waitress. To do every little thing she’s missed out on for the past twelve years.
Still, she’d been looking forward to the end of February; looking forward to the warm rains and birdsong and vibrant greenery that spring would bring.
But March is colder than Maya remembers. The wind carries an icy chill, and the sun struggles to rise, and despite the constantly dreary weather, it barely rains at all.
And Maya’s thankful for every moment of it. Every chilly breeze that runs through her, every weak sunrise, every dark grey cloud in the sky. Because it’s still one more breeze and one more sunrise and one more cloud than she ever got to see and feel since so long ago.
It feels selfish to wish for more. To take any one of her days for granted or waste a single moment by wishing she was in another one. When every second is a beautiful joy she never thought she’d get to experience again.
But she can’t help it. Doesn’t she deserve more? After all she lost, all she sacrificed? She gave and gave to Ninjago, and now that she’s finally back in its open air, isn’t it the least she can expect to go a day without feeling bitterly cold?
Ninjago doesn’t seem to care about her circumstance, however, and she’s shivering when the roar of an engine interrupts the peaceful midday quiet, breaking her attention away from the misty horizon.
A motorcycle is sitting at the head of the short pier Maya is sat on the edge of; its rider shifts its weight onto the kickstand and makes his way down the pier towards Maya. It takes Maya only a moment to recognize the spiky hair and bright red attire.
“Kai,” she greets simply.
“Hey,” he responds, raising his hand in a wave. Maya’s glad he doesn't greet her by name in return, not sure if it would have been more awkward for him to say “Maya” or “Mom.”
She hasn’t been his mom in over a dozen years, and she’s not sure she ever will be again.
Kai comes to sit next to her at the end of the pier. He keeps his legs tucked up off of the edge, unlike the way Maya lets her feet dangle into the water.
“I know things have been a bit... weird,” Kai hedges.
“You threw eggs at my house,” Maya says, deadpan.
Kai shrugs. “Well, you kind of deserved it. And it made Nya feel better.”
Maya doesn’t think she did deserve it, really. Kai and Nya had shown up to her house unannounced with the expectation that she and Ray would drop their plans—not only for the afternoon, but for their whole lives—to cater to their needs. Maya hasn’t been able to make a decision for herself in over a decade, and now that she's finally found freedom, she’s supposed to sacrifice it for two people she doesn’t even know?
It had been devastating when she had been ripped away from her children. When she had been forced to make a choice to protect them, and had known that she may never see them again.
But time had passed. Twelve years of it. And Kai and Nya are no longer shiny-eyed children reaching towards their mommy. Instead, they’re perfect strangers, shaped by all the years and people and experiences she missed out on, deep underground.
In her darkest days, she had blamed them. After all, had it not been for them—their youth, their helplessness—there would have been no leverage with which to convince her to go quietly. Had it not been for them, she would have fought, and she would have won, and she never would have missed out on so much of her life.
It’s not their fault, she knows. But even though she doesn’t regard Kai and Nya with anger or blame, she just can’t seem to regard them with love, either.
It’s just that they’re too wrapped up in the memories of the worst years of her life. Too wrapped up in everything she lost, even if they’re not to blame. And they’re not even people she knows, so how is she supposed to love them?
They don’t love her either, she thinks. How could they? They had been so young when she left. She doubts they have any memories of her at all.
At least, she’s pretty sure Nya doesn’t. Her sharp, standoffish nature makes it seem unlikely that she’s hanging onto any hazy memories of warm, motherly affection.
But Kai’s eyes latch onto Maya, wide and desperate, whenever they see one another. His brows pinch like he’s not sure whether to relax with a smile, or carefully distance himself, or leap forward, closing the distance between them with a hug. And she knows that he must still remember how she tucked him into bed at night with a story, and how she showed him how to use the bellows in the forge, and how she used to brush his hair and give him a kiss on the forehead.
She’s not that person anymore, though. She’s not a mom anymore. And more than that, he’s not that person anymore—not innocent and naïve, not a child, not a son.
Kai’s eyes aren’t wide with wonder right now. Maya suspects it’s for the same reason he egged her house last month. That she lost some of her legendary, untouchable status when she deigned to act human.
Good. She was always going to fall short of his expectations; at least it was early on.
“It’s Nya’s birthday later this month,” Kai says, breaking the chilly silence between them.
Maya wants to snap that she knows—after all, isn’t she the one who gave birth to Nya in March all those years ago? But she’s got no reason to snap, yet—doesn’t know why Kai’s here.
And besides. She had forgotten.
When Maya doesn’t respond, Kai continues, “We were wondering if you could come. Celebrate with us. Or we could come here, if it’d be easier.”
Maya turns to look at Kai at that. Squints in suspicion. “This was Nya’s idea?” Nya, so cold and untrusting, no nostalgia or suns in her eyes? Nya, who, last time they spoke, stormed out of their house in anger?
Kai fidgets. “She approved it,” he defends. “Look, she wants to know you just as much as I do. She’s only so upset with you because she feels like you aren’t putting in any effort to get to know her."
Kai winces the moment the words leave his mouth.
“I didn’t mean that.”
But he did mean that. And Maya feels her hackles raise because of it; not because it’s not true—it is—but because she doesn’t see why she should be demonized for prioritizing her own life after it hasn’t been hers for so long.
Still, maybe in this moment she’s feeling soft. Because she can empathize. She’s missed the opportunity to celebrate her last twelve birthdays in free air. Nya’s missed the chance to celebrate her last twelve birthdays with her parents.
Kai and Nya gave Maya back her freedom. Maybe she can do this for them.
After all, it’s only one day. And it’s not like it can go much worse than the last time they were all together.
“We can come by the morning of the 17th,” she says. She suspects that they’ll have other plans that day, but not in the morning—what teenager is making early morning birthday plans? And coming over before other scheduled plans is a great way to set a firm end time without seeming overly rude. This way, maybe Maya can get out of this without her house getting egged. Again.
“Oh, okay! Great!” Kai seems surprised at Maya’s easy acceptance. She risks a look to see that, sure enough, the stars are making a gradual return to his eyes.
“Um, we’re staying at the Temple of Airjitsu at the moment. Up near the Wailing Alps? Is that— I know it’s kind of a pain to get to, are you fine coming to us? Or...”
Kai trails off, giving Maya an opening to answer or suggest a meeting spot of her own.
She frowns. “Why are you at the ‘Temple of Airjitsu’?” She’s never heard of that temple. “What’s wrong with Wu’s Monastery? That’s where we were based the entire time I was a ninja.”
Kai gives a surprised laugh. “Oh, right. The Monastery. No, that burned down.”
Maya balks. While the Monastery had never been her full-time living quarters like it had been for Wu and a couple of the others, she had still considered it her home. It’s where she met her fellow ninja, where she met Ray. Where she fought and trained and played card games in the off hours. Where she did half of her growing up.
How could it be gone? And how can Kai be so flippant about its destruction?
Kai sees the look on Maya’s face, but he must misinterpret it, because he defends, “I didn’t burn it down! That was before I could even control fire!”
“Why don’t we meet in Ninjago City?” Maya suggests, abruptly changing the topic. She doesn’t think she can go to this ‘Temple of Airjitsu’ without comparing it to the ninja headquarters that she once knew and lost.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Kai agrees easily. “I’ll ask Nya what she wants to do, and then we can decide where to meet up. Do you... have a phone? Or are you set up to receive mail?”
Maya grinds her teeth. She does have a phone—she impulse-bought a landline a couple of months ago, excited by the prospect of reconnecting with all her old friends before realizing that everybody she used to know is dead and gone now. She hasn’t touched it since setting it up.
She’s tempted to lie; say that by mail is the only way she’s reachable. But with such a long delay between communication, Maya’s afraid that Kai is more likely to show up unannounced again than bother with a letter which may or may not be delivered on time.
A direct line to them or the possibility of continued visits, which is the lesser of two evils?
Maya catches herself, then. Rewinds the thought through her head. Sure, she’s not thrilled about the way Kai and Nya make her feel as if her freedom is only a benefit insofar as they have access to her now. She’s not thrilled about having to go through the motions with two almost-strangers who expect things from her she’s unwilling and unable to give. But when did she start thinking about them as evils?
Perhaps they’re not her children anymore, but they are still children. Still important people in their own right. Still ninja, carrying on her, and Ray’s, and all their former friends’ legacies.
“We have a phone,” she says. She traces a circle in the water with her foot, careful to avoid Kai’s gaze. She doesn’t think she can stand the look he’s surely giving her. The one she remembers just a little bit too well from over twelve years ago, but looks so different on his older face.
“Okay, great!” Kai says a couple of beats later, just a bit too high-pitched to sound natural. “Really, thank you so much. I know all this has been weird. But Nya’s never had a birthday with her parents, and she deserves to. She deserves so much that I was never able to give her, and—”
Maya winces. Here’s all the guilt and the pressure and the missed time come to haunt her, even though she’s out and free and all the worst is supposed to be behind her—
“Sorry.” Kai cuts himself off. He takes a breath. “I don’t mean to put that all on you. I’m just... Thank you. For coming.”
Maya hasn’t even actually gone yet. She could still flake out, she could show up late and be needlessly flippant and mean. She hasn’t given any indication through her past behavior that she will do anything other than ruin Nya’s birthday.
But Kai trusts her anyway. Thanks her anyway.
The stars in his eyes burn her. She’s not who he thinks. They don’t know each other at all.
There’s a small part of her, angry and bitter and formed from her years in the dark, that wants to ruin Nya’s birthday on purpose. To fully rid Kai and Nya of their disillusionment and remind them that she’s just going to disappoint them in the end, just like everybody else.
But she quickly shuts down that dark urge. She hasn’t completely forgotten how to be a good person. And, really, such behavior could only have negative outcomes. Either she forever alienates herself from Kai and Nya, which is a more extreme and permanent separation than she’s aiming for, really; or she sees just how unwavering Kai’s belief in her is. If it’s strong enough to survive Maya’s purposeful cruelty towards Nya, then it’s too strong for Maya to even begin to handle.
Really, she doesn’t think that Kai would overlook it. Maya may be purposefully keeping herself in the dark about how her leaving ruined the lives of her former children, but she isn’t ignorant to the fact that Kai and Nya were left to mostly fend for themselves. And she isn’t too blind to see the way they act around each other, like the other's safety is of utmost importance above everything else.
Maya wonders if they would had grown up to be as close had she not been taken from them, if they had had more people to rely on than just each other. But she remembers Kai holding Nya after she was born, staring at her with wide-eyed adoration. She remembers Nya learning to walk and crawl, and always heading straight for Kai. She remembers that hardly a second went by when they weren’t by each other’s sides. How they went to bed at night curled up in the same bed, breathing each other’s air.
The two of them were destined to be inseparable from the very beginning.
“Our phone number is 28-41-983,” she relays, hoping that Kai will interpret it as the dismissal it is.
“Oh, wait, hold on—” Kai pulls out his cell phone, presses on it a few times. It makes Maya’s head spin: How far technology has come in her absence from the world. She even heard that there had been flying cars in Ninjago City briefly, but she’s not sure she believes that. If they had invented flying cars, then where are they? The only reason she can believe half of the things that are around nowadays are because they’re right there in front of her eyes. Like Kai’s touch-screen telephone.
“28-41-987?” Kai asks, tapping away at the device, presumably typing in the number.
“983,” she corrects.
“Cool. 983.” He slips the phone into his pocket. “987 would have been cooler, though. Just saying. You should talk to someone about that.”
Maya’s about to roll her eyes and remark on the stupidity and impracticality of talking to somebody about getting a ‘cooler’ phone number when she notices the smirk on Kai’s face.
She still rolls her eyes, but holds off on the lecture.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Kai gets up, untangling his legs and shifting his weight awkwardly. “Great. Thanks again. I’ll call when I know more about the time and place.” His hand wavers towards the pocket with his phone when he mentions calling. “Talk to you soonish.”
“Bye.” Maya spares him a quick raise of her hand in farewell, then turns her attention back to the water in front of her.
She waits until the roar of Kai’s motorcycle has faded to get up herself. Her feet are getting numb from the chill of the water. She never used to get cold due to water, but she hasn’t been its master in a long time.
And March is cold.
---
True to his word, Kai calls a few days later. Maya is out of the house when he does, busy chatting with some fishermen at the main wharf in town as they try to catch their dinner.
Once again, she can’t understand the appeal of portable phones. Why would she want to be so easily reachable? Why would she want to introduce the potential to interrupt and ruin her afternoon just because someone the span of Ninjago away thought it was time to discuss birthday plans?
Anyway, she digresses.
Ray’s in the house when Kai calls, and he gives Maya the rundown once she gets back. Apparently, Kai had suggested meeting at a grassy park along the seaside in Ninjago City at 8am. Ray had lamented the fact that it would be take forever to get across the entire Desert of Doom and the Seas of Sand, and 8am was really far too early. Kai had offered to bring his car around and drive them to the city so they wouldn’t have to worry about transportation. Ray had made sure Kai was planning on driving them back home as well before he accepted.
Now they don’t have to worry about catching a bus across the whole desert, which is great, even if it means they’ll have to sit through the inevitable awkwardness of being in a car with someone you only know well enough to small-talk with.
And it’s ironic, because Maya is actually a small-talk master. Heck, it’s what she spent all afternoon doing, chatting meaninglessly with fishermen she doesn’t know. But it’s different with Kai and Nya in a way so unique she never could have planned for it. Because every interaction is laced with the understanding of who they could have been had things gone just a bit differently.
Because she should know everything about them. She should have watched them grow up—should know about every year that passed, and every hope and dream they had, and every hurdle they fell at. But she doesn’t. And she finds that she just can’t bring herself to ask all the little questions she usually would to fill the time because behind every answer, all she can hear is, you should have been there. Is, none of this would be true if you hadn’t left.
Besides, Maya doesn’t have anything to talk about in return. She’s not about to talk about her dozen years in captivity, and it still hurts too much to talk about the life she dreamed about returning to for so long only to find it forever changed and faded away.
All her best stories star people who are dead.
She can’t help but suspect that all Kai and Nya’s best stories star people who have her dead friends’ faces, elemental powers passed down through the bloodline, like always.
She wonders if Kai and Nya have Ray's and her faces. On the day they had been reunited, still high off the adrenaline of survival and giddy with seeing family long lost, Nya had giggled at the sight of Ray and Kai next to each other, saying how crazy alike they looked. Kai, hugging Maya good night in the early morning of the next day, had stepped back and said softly, reverently, how Nya had grown up to look just like her.
Maya looks at Ray and Kai; at herself and Nya. She can’t see the resemblance.
She wonders who that makes crazy. Are Kai and Nya trying to close a gap with a bridge that doesn’t exist, grasping for straws of how they’re still family, after all this time? Or is Maya herself so detached from who she is, who she used to be, who Kai and Nya are and were and have been through all these years? Who they could have been?
It’s probably a little bit of both. And a little bit of neither. Maya knows rationally that Nya’s nose is just the same as hers. That Kai’s eyes mirror Ray’s too close for them to be anything but blood.
But Kai and Nya resemble each other more than anyone. They grin in the exact same way, sharp and lopsided, like they know the second meaning behind every joke. And Maya knows that she and Ray haven’t truly smiled in years. So how could they resemble them?
Maya can barely recognize herself in her own reflection anymore. She definitely doesn't see the people who are no longer her children in the mirror.
Whatever. As long as the conversation stays away from family resemblances or dead friends or every second and minute and hour and year after year Maya has lost, then the car ride should go fine.
She suspects it will be awkward silence the whole way anyway. Prodding at the fragile and painful past between them isn’t high on any of their plans, Maya thinks. The last time it was attempted, it ended with Maya hosing eggs off her house, and radio silence from Kai and Nya for a month.
Ray and Maya don’t want another egg incident, and Kai and Nya don’t want to ruin Nya’s birthday any more than Ray and Maya’s presence will already inevitably take it off the rails.
...Really, why did Kai think this was a good idea again? And why did Maya agree to it? The best-case scenario that Maya can foresee is tension and awkwardness palpable enough to feel like a brick wall. Which is not exactly anybody’s greatest wish for their sixteenth birthday.
Maya tries to recall her own sixteenth, and finds that she can’t. It’s too far behind her, mixed in with too many other birthdays and celebrations and days spent happy with her family.
Some small part of her brain manages to latch onto that feeling and recognize the privilege in it. Oh, how wonderful to not be able to pick out a happy moment because her childhood had been so filled with them. How unlike her life now.
How unlike Nya’s life, she guesses. Maya wonders if any one of Nya’s birthdays had been truly happy affairs once she and Kai were on their own. Had she ever sung songs or eaten cake or gotten presents? Had she ever woken up late to a sugary breakfast made just for her, padding out of her room to a chorus of celebration and kisses on her forehead?
Perhaps Maya can understand, after all, why Kai would try and convince Ray and Maya to come. Maybe Maya can’t fill Nya's birthday with love and warmth and cheer, but maybe just knowing that somebody is there to wish you a happy birthday is enough, sometimes, when you’ve been missing out on it for your whole life.
Or maybe Maya is waxing poetic. She doesn’t need to get borderline teary-eyed about the unknown life experiences of a girl she knows through a matter of technicality alone.
Any which way, she’ll do her best to make Nya’s birthday the least awful as possible. But she makes no promises beyond that.
---
Kai is in Stiix to pick Ray and Maya up just after sunrise on the morning of the 17th. Really, Maya thinks it’s far too early to endure an awkward car ride across the desert, but she was the one who suggested meeting in the morning, and she can’t deny she was already up anyway.
Nya’s not a member of the pick-up party. Maya hadn’t really expected her to be. Who in their right mind would choose to wake up offensively early just to shuttle two practical strangers into the city on their birthday? Maya’s still not sure that Kai is entirely sane for agreeing to it.
Regardless, it means Maya has one fewer person to avoid making conversation with on the hour-long drive to Ninjago City.
Kai thanks them again for coming to celebrate Nya’s birthday, and Maya gives a wordless nod while Ray says, “We’re happy to do it.” Ray’s always been nicer than Maya.
She leaves the talking to them during the drive, minimal as it may be. Kai asks about what they’ve been up to recently, and Ray talks about his quest to find something to do with his hands now that blacksmithing has been thoroughly ruined for him. Ray asks Kai about his past month in return, and Kai finds time in his answer to talk about every member of his team for longer than himself.
After that, the silence stretches, making the rumble of the car over the uneven desert ground and Kai’s fingers drumming erratically against the wheel conspicuous as the only sounds. Kai eventually turns the radio on, and Maya rolls her window down to try to dampen the noise of the terrible pop radio music.
She lets her thoughts run, staring silently out the window and absently taking in the sights of the desert, until they pass by the craggy hill the old Monastery is perched atop, and she feels a pang. It may not be the same as the death of all her friends, but she’s been grieving the loss of her old home ever since Kai revealed its destruction.
She thinks bitterly that the Monastery had never burned down during the many years she had been a ninja. Her team would never have been so careless to allow such a thing to happen.
Ninjago City starts to crest on the horizon. “Oh, good, we’re making perfect time,” Kai says cheerily. He gets no response. Maya tries to avoid noticing how his fingers tighten on the steering wheel as his shoulders pull in minutely closer to his body.
She agreed to come to Nya’s birthday. She made a promise to herself that she’d make an effort to not completely ruin Nya’s day. She made no such promises about making reservations for Kai’s fragile composure.
The desert and mountains disappear as they hit Ninjago City proper, and the landscape outside the city becomes obscured by the tall buildings.
Which is another thing: Maya is fairly certain that over half the city is drastically different from how it had been a decade and a half ago. Surely, they don’t just rebuild entire cities on a whim?
Maya turns her head into the car and voices her thoughts to Ray.
Kai must hear her because he speaks up from the front. “Oh, that might be partially our fault, actually. A couple years ago, there was this big snake... Long story. Anyway, it destroyed a good chunk of the city before we could kill it. We rebuilt quick, though.”
He sounds just as flippant as he had when telling Maya about the destruction of the Monastery. Do he and his team just leave a path of devestation in their wake?
“’Big snake’?” Ray asks.
Kai takes a hand off the wheel to wave his dismissal. “Long story. It was called the Great Devourer. Liked devouring. Not so great.”
Ray and Maya exchange a wide-eyed glance. They’d heard of the Great Devourer. Maya had always thought it to be nothing more than a story, herself, but she really should have learned a long time ago that most tall tales end up being true.
She used to be able to control water. It would probably be weirder if the myth of the giant serpent that sought to consume the world wasn’t real.
“Aaand, here we are.” Kai parks easily on the street next to a park lush with edge-of-spring greenery.
When Maya slides out of the car, she can smell the salty tang of the sea even over the scent of the city, indicating their close proximity to the beach. She relaxes minutely. She always feels more at ease when she’s close to water, especially the unrestrained and endless miles of the ocean. The underground swamp that she had been held captive in had been the only body of water she’d seen for so many years; when she had first seen the sea again, she had started crying, and Ray hadn't been able to pull her away from the shore for hours.
It’s one of the reasons Maya had chosen to live in Stiix. Just thinking about living so far from the ocean again had made her gut churn with unease.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many years stretch between her and her elemental power; she still feels the water inside her, rolling across her shoulders, down into her fingertips and the slopes of her back. She may not be able to control it anymore, but it’s still a part of her as inextricable as her blood and breath.
She had passed her connection with water onto Nya, of course. Maya wonders if Nya feels the same way about the element as she does. If she feels it in her shoulders and chest, a comforting swirl under her skin. If she struggles with the push and pull, channeling the power of water without commanding complete control over it. If she feels most at home staring out at the ocean, feeling her heartbeat sync up with the rhythm of the waves.
Maya used to dream of passing on her elemental connection. Of standing side-by-side with her daughter, moving calmly through forms, working to perfect her water stance. Of walking down to the creek and practicing working with the water to change its current. Of traveling to the ocean, standing on the beach, and teaching her daughter to wield her power to lift the waves overhead and send them crashing down behind her, enveloping them both in their own little bubble of perfect sea.
Maybe she’ll ask Nya about her connection and experience thus far with her element. At the very least, it will cut down on the amount of awkward silences, and Maya really can’t see how it could become a minefield conversation like so many other potential topics.
As long as they all stay away from the bitterness that clings to them like a second skin, of course. Any conversation can become a minefield if those who are participating in it are holding bombs.
Kai locks his car with a beep, then checks his phone. “Nya should be here soon,” he says, just this side of anxious, and peers up the street from where they came.
Not a moment later, a motorcycle turns into the nearest intersection and roars towards them at twice the speed limit. Nya screeches to a halt behind Kai’s car, stopping barely an inch away from his bumper.
“Hey, nerds,” Nya greets as she jumps off her bike. She’s not wearing a helmet; neither had Kai when he had pulled up on his bike to talk to Maya a couple of weeks back.
“Happy birthday!” wishes Ray, taking a half-step towards Nya, arms raising to wrap her in a hug. Nya tenses up, fingers spasming into fists, shoulders locking in tight, instinct. Ray falters in his path. He turns his raising arms into awkward jazz-hands.
“Thanks,” Nya says. Her fists unclench, and her shoulders ease down as she exhales. She shoots them a smile. “Now I’ll be able to get my driver’s license.”
Kai rolls his eyes, a grin on his face. “She’s been making this joke for weeks,” he says to Ray and Maya. “I don’t think we can even get driver’s licenses; we don’t have our birth certificates.”
Huh. Maya well and truly does not know where those would be. If Kai and Nya had never found them through their time living at Four Weapons, Maya suspects they’re gone for good.
Come to think of it, she doesn’t know where her own birth certificate is, nor Ray’s. Perhaps she should stop by their old house to look for them. Then again, what’s the point? Maya thinks she and Ray are legally dead anyway.
“Doesn’t seem like it’s stopping you,” Ray says, nodding towards Nya’s bike.
“Exactly,” Nya agrees, nodding. “I never need a license anyway if I never get pulled over. And to pull me over, they’d need to catch me.”
“I truly admire your commitment to the law,” drawls Kai.
“I learned from the best,” Nya shoots back.
Kai and Nya share a look that has them both snorting with laughter.
Maya wonders why she's even here.
“Anyway,” Nya says matter-of-factly once she’s recovered. “Who’s up for a walk along the beach?”
“Yay,” Kai says in quite possibly the flattest tone the exclamation has ever been said in. “I love the sea.”
Maya watches as Kai’s eyes flit quickly to her and then back to Nya again. His posture tightens just a hair.
“Maya, you probably actually love the beach, right? I think you mentioned that you found water comforting to be around.”
“Yes,” Maya confirms shortly, not quite sure how to slot into this conversation.
“Why don’t you two chat about how cool the endless miles of unforgiving and deadly ocean are? And we can talk about something less existentially terrifying.” He gestures to Ray.
Maya sends Kai a glare for his obvious attempts to make them all socialize, and sees her sentiment reflected in Ray and Nya’s faces as well. Kai resolutely avoids eye contact, as if he knows their reactions. Instead, he starts ushering them forward towards the scent of the ocean, eyes roving across the horizon.
Deciding that it’s more hassle to worm out of the arrangement, Maya dutifully falls into step beside Nya, who starts up a brisk pace, leading them to the beach. To be fair, Maya had just been thinking about asking Nya about her connection to water. This was as good a chance as any.
“How did you unlock your true potential?” she asks, because that’s a safe enough launching off point, she figures. She’d been elated when she'd unlocked her own true potential.
“Woof, that’s a long story,” Nya surprises her by saying. How long a story could one moment of connection with her element really be? “You want the full spiel or just the cliff notes?”
Maya shrugs. She’s got nothing better to do than listen to Nya talk since she’s already committed herself to spending her morning in Ninjago City with her. Plus, she can’t deny she’s curious. “Full spiel.”
Nya’s right. It’s a heck of a long story. Every time she seems to be making progress forward in time through the tale, something new will come up that will necessitate a tangential backstory. Like the fact that ghosts can be released from the Departed Realm and possess people, and that sometimes ghosts of former ninja trainees possess current ninja in an effort to release the queen of the Departed Realm, who is a massive being covered in ghostly tentacles and is dead-set on destroying the nearest city.
“So yeah. I pretty much had to blow up the bay to try and drown her while also making sure to direct water away from my friend, who was a ghost. And this was like a week after I even learned I was a water elemental.”
They’re leaning over a railing on a cliff that overlooks the beach, watching the waves lapping below.
“She put all of us to shame,” Kai pipes up from beside her. He and Ray had fallen silent and listened in on the story almost immediately. “Jay stopped a roller coaster. You defeated a primordial being. One of your potentials is clearly much bigger.”
“Oh, shut up, he saved my life. I seem to recall that your true potential saved you from a volcano that you erupted.”
“Yeah, but wasn’t it cool?”
Maya doesn’t even know the full context, and she still rolls her eyes; she’s certain she does it in tandem with Nya.
“Whatever,” Nya shrugs off. “Anyway, yeah. That was my true potential. Mr. Idiot”—she jabs a thumb over her shoulder to point to Kai—“found his when he saved Lloyd from an erupting volcano, which was only erupting in the first place because he destabilized it.” She looks at Maya. “How about you? How’d you unlock your true potential?”
Maya tries not to let the insurmountably high standard that Nya has set throw her off from telling the story.
“It was in Ignacia, actually. At the time, it wasn’t a town I had ever visited. But we got notice that there was some sort of creature terrorizing the villagers, so we went to check it out. It didn’t seem dangerous or high priority, so it was just me and Libber. When we got there and talked to the locals, I thought they were just spreading ghost stories because none of them could agree on a visual description or identify a pattern of behavior or anything. But someone offered to let us spend the night so we’d be able to keep an eye out, so that’s what we did.
“It was just after dinner. The sun was setting, so there was still light out enough to see, but it was darkening by the second, and colors were beginning to get washed out. We heard this terribly loud sound, like the roar of an animal mixed with the roar of a car engine, underlaid with this wailing. It made all my hair stand on end, and even though I had been operating as a ninja for a few months, I had this urge to bolt.
“Libber and I raced outside, and there the creature was, at the house on the end of the road, by the edge of the town. It was prowling around the building, making these horrible, loud roaring sounds, and it kept swatting at the structure and then trying to lock its jaws around it.
“In that moment, I understood why we hadn’t been able to get a consistent description of it from the townsfolk. Even Libber and I, when we gave a report the next day, had different accounts of what is looked like, and we were both looking at it from the same vantage point, and we were trained to absorb visual details. It was just... bizarre.
“Anyway—” Maya shakes off her tangled memory of what the beast had looked like. “Libber tried shooting lightning at it, but it only made it angry. On the plus side, it abandoned its attack on the house. On the downside, it turned its focus on us. We tried our best to take it down, but it was the size of a house, and it had thick skin. It was like we were stabbing it with toothpicks.
“Eventually, it got a couple of lucky strikes in, and Libber and I were knocked aside. I don’t know what it would have done next—maybe it would have come to finish us off, and we would have been done for; maybe it would have just turned its attention back to gnawing on houses. But instead, one of the village kids threw a rock at the thing.” Nya’s eyebrows shoot up in fear. Maya nods her agreement to the terror of the moment as she continues.
“She threw a few more rocks and yelled at the creature to go away. Her dad was there in just a couple of seconds, trying to drag her away, but it was too late. I saw the creature tense up, coiled like it was about to attack that little girl and her father, and something in me snapped into place.
“I threw my hands out, and— Well, you know how True Potentials go. There was a huge wall of water, and I was glowing and floating, and a moment later, the creature was being flooded out of the village, the wave avoiding everybody else around. All the village folk came out to celebrate and thank me, but it was all I could do to smile and make my way back to the room we’d been offered for the night and pass out."
Maya chuckles. “We kept monitoring the village for a while after that, just to make sure the creature’s attacks stopped, but it never returned. You know, I actually have no idea where I sent it. Sometimes I wonder if I pushed it all the way out to sea.” She looks out over the water and holds in a snort of amusement, momentarily picturing the massive, grotesque creature trying to swim through the surf.
Kai whistles. “Wow.”
Nya hums. “It’s interesting; we both actually tapped into our power over water when we unlocked our true potentials. You summoned a huge wave, and I blew up a bay. None of the others really did that.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point,” Kai muses, like he only just realized it to be true. “I guess we were all around our elements. But I didn’t manipulate fire when I unlocked my true potential. I didn’t even really do anything, just tried to shield Lloyd.”
“I didn’t use fire, either,” Ray says.
“Weird. Hey, maybe you two just have a real close connection to your element.”
“Yeah.” Maya stares wistfully out at the calm expanse of ocean. “I miss it.”
“I don’t know how I spent so long without it,” Nya admits. “As much as I’m still awesome without any powers... I don’t know, I just feel like the truest me when I’m tapping into it. Everything else falls away for a bit.”
“It’s just you and the water,” Maya agrees.
There’s a long stretch of silence, and both Nya and Maya watch the waves lapping against the shore before Kai breaks the silence. “Do you want to go down to the beach? Enjoy the water from closer?”
Nya shakes herself. “Nah, I’m good. I’m not going to make you do that.”
“Aw, come on. I don’t hate the water that much. Besides, it’s a special occasion.” Kai pretends to get choked up. “This’ll probably be... the last time... you’ll see the ocean... as a 15-year-old...”
Nya shoves Kai. “I’m sure I can find it in me to forgive myself for such a betrayal. Or, I could literally come here again tomorrow.”
Maya’s eyebrows pinch together.
“But it’s your birthday,” Ray says before Maya can.
Nya’s head quirks to the side in a perfect imitation of Ray’s. “Yeah.”
“Which is why it’s so devastating,” Kai says, wiping a fake tear away. “Age only goes one way.”
“Yes. But—” Ray trails off. Maya catches as his eyes move up, as if he’s trying to remember something.
Maya herself does a brief sanity check. No, she’s pretty certain it’s the 17th.
“You’re 16 today,” Maya says.
Kai and Nya freeze, faces painted with pure surprise. Maya only gets more confused in turn.
“I’m lost,” Ray says. “We did lose track of time in the past decade, but I’m pretty sure I know what year it is. It’s your birthday. You’re turning 16. Right? What am I missing?”
There’s a beat of silence before Nya chokes out, “It’s my birthday?”
Maya remembers, all of a sudden, Kai’s comment from earlier. About the fact that they didn’t have their birth certificates. How young had they been when Ray and Maya had been taken away? At what age did Maya know her own birthday?
She dials back the biting tone that had instinctively leapt to her tongue. “Yes.” Her voice is even softer than she meant for it to be. “March 17th. Just a few days before the start of spring.”
Nya reaches out and grips onto the handrail. She takes a moment to process before looking over to Kai with a question in her eyes.
Kai looks even more off-balance than Nya does. He’s looking wide-eyed at her, and his fists are clenched tightly by his sides.
“I— I completely forgot that I guessed at our birthdays,” he says, voice coming out strangled. He spares a glance at Maya. “You— I remember that you called her your ‘spring joy’ when she came home. Because that was when I learned what seasons were. So I thought— I don’t know.” He looks back to Nya. “I thought you were born on the first day of spring. It was the best guess I had. If anybody had ever told me your birthday, I forgot.”
Nya lets out a weak laugh. “Well, you were remarkably close, considering.” She releases her grip on the rail and shakes out her hands with small movements, trying not to make it obvious. “I think I can live with half a week’s difference. As soon as I finish wrapping my head around it.”
Kai notably relaxes at Nya’s words. His fists unclench, and he allows a small smile.
He’s immediately on guard again, though, when Nya’s brows furrow in new confusion. “Wait. Did you say our birthdays?”
Kai winces. He tries to wave her question off. “We can worry about my birthday when it rolls around. Now we know it’s your actual, proper birthday today!” He reaches over and punches Nya in the arm. “One, two—”
Nya grabs his fist and twists his wrist far enough to stop him, but not far enough for it to hurt. “Kai. C’mon. I’m serious. You’re not going to let me be the only freak who didn’t know their birthday, are you?”
Kai’s eyes go wide with guilt. “That wasn’t your fault.”
Nya scoffs and rolls her eyes. “And I’m sure that means it was yours.”
Kai opens his mouth, but Nya cuts him off before he can respond, hand up. “Nope. Don’t want to hear it. Not your fault. Why would you have needed to know?”
Nya turns to Ray and Maya. “So. When’s this idiot’s birthday?”
“When have you been celebrating it?” Maya asks, curious.
Kai shrugs. “June 20th. I remembered it had been really hot on my last birthday, and I figured that summer was the hot season, so I went with the first day of summer.” He gestured between himself and Nya as he said, “I had a theme.”
“June 20th is my birthday!” Ray exclaims.
Kai laughs in surprise. “Do I get bonus points for that?”
Nya rolls her eyes, smiling fondly as she shakes her head.
“August 4th,” Maya says, ripping off the bandage. She doesn’t know if there’s a good way to tell your teenage son, whom you don’t know, his birthday. She suspects there isn’t, but even if there were, she wouldn’t be able to do it anyway. So she just blurts it out to have it over and done with.
“Huh.” Kai blinks. “Well, thank fuck I’m still older than Jay.”
“You idiot,” Nya immediately scolds. “You know, he was adopted. It’s possible his birthday is really—”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Kai says loudly, cutting her off. "You're a sick and twisted individual. Sick. And twisted."
"Well, it's my actual real birthday today." Nya crosses her arms smugly. "So I'm allowed."
Nya, pulling a mock prissy face to rub in that it's her birthday, doesn't see the evil look come across Kai's face, but Maya sure does. Kai tackles Nya and continues punching her in the arm. "Three, four—"
"I'm gonna kill you, Kai!" Nya clenches her fists and throws her arms up, and a wave descends onto the four of them, pulled up from the waves lapping at the shore at the foot of the cliff below.
The water is bitingly cold.
When it washes away, Nya is the only one left dry. Kai, hair plastered to his head, is howling with laughter on the ground, spluttering with every inhale.
Maya looks at Ray, who is dripping wet and looks like he's been sucking on lemons. She looks at Kai and Nya, who are smiling bright as the sun on the ground in front of them, barely phased by the facts of their past. Not even looking up at Ray and Maya.
Maya only came for Nya's birthday. But Nya doesn't need her around to celebrate. Desn't need her at all.
"I think..." Maya says, flicking her hands and spraying droplets, "that we can find our own way home."
Kai and Nya sober up at that. Kai looks up at Maya, eyes gleaming with hurt. "What? No! It's— We haven't even—"
"Kai," Nya murmurs, just loud enough for Maya to hear. She doesn't say anything else. But evidently, she doesn't need to. Kai's jaw clicks shut.
Maya knew that Kai was the only one with stars still in his eyes. Maya and Nya are more alike than just their connection to water, after all, it seems. They both know how the world really works.
"I can still drive you back," Kai offers, and it comes out like a plea. Maya looks from his wide eyes to Nya. Her hand is clutching at the fabric of Kai's damp jacket. She's staring directly at Maya, and her eyes are as stormy as the unforgiving sea.
Maya made a promise to herself. That she wouldn't ruin Nya's day.
"Well..." Ray starts, and Maya can't quite tell from the tone of his voice whether he's about to accept Kai's offer, or whether he's about to yield and say they'll stay longer. He's always been kinder than her. But he's always been more short-sighted, too.
"No," Maya rejects, firm. "No. You still have birthday to celebrate."
Kai opens his mouth again, but Maya's eyes catch on how Nya tugs at his sleeve, just once, gentle and quick, and he stops, voice catching on an exhale.
His eyes flit to Nya. The fragile stars for Maya go out. Warm embers take their place.
"Okay," he acquiesces. "I hope your trip back is safe. Thanks—"
He falters.
Nya reaches a hand out towards Ray and Maya—grabs and pulls. The water gets sucked out of their clothes until they're as dry as ever.
The ends of Kai's hair are still dripping.
"Thanks for coming." Nya's voice is as cold as her eyes.
Maya only nods in response. There's nothing else to say. Not to the girl who was born 16 years ago to this day, but didn't know so until five minutes ago. Who remembers her by circumstance alone—the woman she used to live with, back when memories were blurry clouds. Who, judging by the way she looks at Maya, and the way she looks at Kai, had only agreed to Maya being here because Kai had wanted it so badly himself.
The birthday gift Nya had been looking for, Maya supposes, was to see Kai smile. But that will be easier without her around.
Maya grabs Ray's hand and drags him away, back towards the vast desert that leads home.
Behind her, she hears Kai and Nya's duplicate voices, whispered to each other, heads tucked in, shared breath: "I'm sorry."
A breeze whispers past, and Maya shivers.
She can't fucking wait for it to be April.