Shifting Sands (Ninjago AU)

Chapter 12- Cathartic Endeavors and Encounters

Skylor paced the training mat, biting back a growl of equal parts frustration and worry. Zane was a half hour late for training. Clenching her fists Skylor rounded on a dummy and punched its sternum. Zane and late were never used in the same sentence. She knife-handed the throat. So something must have happened. A tornado kick landed squarely on the synthetic abdomen.

The dummy crashed to the ground. Skylor panted heavily, bracing her hands on her knees. She felt too much like the training dummy after the last twenty-four hours. Seeing Clouse's boasted elite force using their power to cut down people in their wake still brought nausea at the thought. She couldn't claim to ever have liked Clouse, but the way his underlings acted without reprement spoke volumes about his character. But did that mean her father sanctioned such actions?

Skylor grimaced. Her conversation with Chen the night before had been confusing at best and patronizing at worst.

"-Clouse is capable of commanding his own forces-"
"-I'm sure Pyth had his reasons.-"
"-More importantly you went out without a guard?-"

In hindsight (and even at the time if she was honest) Skylor knew her actions were rather unbecoming, and dangerous despite her skill, of a princess but she didn't regret them. Especially now that she had a chance to see how her people truly lived. There'd been a quiet fear, even before Kai pointed out the actions of the guards. And now if the Masters themselves weren't even safe...

Bolobo's possible disappearance was another thing Chen hadn't seemed overly concerned about, -"He's always been a bit nomadic, he probably got distracted by some foliage on his way home"- but when Skylor confronted him about Cole... she could count on one hand how many times her father had raised his voice with her. That number went up last night. When she'd insisted that the story of Prince Cole's departure didn't appear to match with what the people had- or rather hadn't- seen, Chen had snapped saying she was putting too much attention in foreign matters.

And Chen had been the one to ask if Skylor felt anything for Cole. Nevermind the fact she was Heir and being groomed to rule the kingdom. That tended to require investing in 'foreign matters'.

Chen quickly apologized after the outburst but Skylor had already drawn herself back. With a cold good-night she stalked out of Chen's apartments only to confront Clouse in a similarly disastrous fashion. And now Zane wasn't here when he'd promised to be.

Skylor dropped to the mat fighting frustrated tears. Her world had turned completely upside down all at once and she had no idea how to righten it.
At newly eighteen Skylor had no illusions that she had the life experience her father, or even Clouse, did, but couldn't he see something was wrong? Questions she'd never thought of before spun crazily in her mind. If she could talk to Kai it might help, but that was another thing Chen expressly forbade. Even for Queen Apparent the dungeons weren't a place for a young woman, again no matter how trained. With Smoke Skylor could easily be in and out before anyone knew of her presence, but in addition to being her father, Chen was her King.

There were some lines Skylor wasn't willing to cross.

Unfortunately another line was going to Zane's quarters to see if he was okay. To send a servant would only highlight Zane's apparent lack of duty. Skylor winced, her father would not have anything good to say about that right now no matter Zane's spotless record.

Skylor took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind. 'Life's not a spectator sport,' she'd read in one of her books, 'If watching is all you're gonna do, then you're gonna watch your life go by without you.' She had no plans to watch life go by without her- even if it meant starting small.