Unscripted | Ninjago AU

Chapter 1

Nya's POV

5 years ago

As soon as I smell the scent of bacon and gingerbread, I sit up in my bed. Looking out the window from from my small room, I see that the sun just recently rose. It's just peaking out from over the horizon. To my left, I see my mom already got out of bed, but I could tell that from the smell.

Slipping on my green and white stripped fuzzy socks, I walk out into the rest of our small apartment. In it, there is a couch, a small kitchen, a separate room for a bathroom, and a Christmas tree standing in the corner. It's sparsely decorated, a few ornaments here and there, with garland wrapping around it. A small tree topper, a star I made when I was seven, sits on top of it.

"Nya! I didn't expect you to be up so soon," my mom smiles at me, a spatula in her hand.

"You know I can never sleep in, let alone on Christmas morning," I take a piece of the bacon that's already done. I sit down at the small table we have in the corner. It's a fold up table, and it's very fragile. If too much weight is put on it, it collapses.

"I expected later than 6:10. You're lucky I'm an early bird," she smiles at me. She wipes her hands on her apron. "Did you see that Santa brought you a present?"

"Mom, I said I didn't want anything. You letting me pursue my dream of acting is more than enough. Besides, I'm 13 now. I don't need anything," I tell her. She shrugs.

"I'm not letting my only child go presentless on Christmas. What type of mother would that make me?" she points at me with the spatula.

"I'm not going to go presentless. Gabe invited me over to his house tomorrow for late Christmas. He's getting me presents there," I explain to her.

Gabe is my boyfriend of about a month. We met on the set of his Disney Channel show. I played a student at the science fair with a total of one line, but somehow, we still ended up talking. Although he just turned 16, he seems to have a genuine interest in me.

"I still want to meet him, you know. I don't like it that you're with a boy so much older that I haven't met," my mom informs me.

"He's fine, mom. He's the one who got me the audition for the show I was doing stuff for a couple weeks ago, the show I got the callbacks for," I defend his merit.

"That's the one about the ninja, right?"

"Yeah. I'm auditioning for the little sister of one of them. They have a loose idea of what's going to happen, and they're going to solidify it once they cast the actors," I elaborate.

"It's great that he did that for you, but I still want to meet him. Some of the people in the industry can be nasty. I just want to make sure my girl is protected," she smiles softly at me, her long, black hair falling down over her shoulders.

"Like my father?"

"Like your father," she agrees. She places the rest of the bacon on the plate and wipes the excess grease on her apron. "You should open your present now, and then we can watch Christmas movies together."

"Did you get the day off of work?" I ask, hopefully. She nods, and I let out a yelp of happiness, clapping my hands.

"They nearly didn't. The car washers wanted me to come in, but I convinced them that not many people would be going to a car washer on Christmas," she tells me. She takes off her apron. As I walk over and sit down on the ground in front of the tree, she sits down on our couch.

I pick up box. It's relatively small, wrapped in shiny red paper. When I shake the box, I feel a shift in the box. I slowly unwrap the present, and when I do, my eyes widen. "My own phone! Mom, you didn't have to."