The Only Reason For Time is So That Everything Doesn't Happen At Once

Future's Arrival

Honestly, he didn't know how he had ended up here, over forty years in the future.

One minute he's on a duo mission with Kai, the next, he's standing in front of a shop that vaguely reminds him of Mystake's.

Before he had time to decide what to do, the door slid open to reveal a lady - Nya, he realized, a decently-older looking Nya but still the Master of Water.

Her hair has streaks of gray and there's a rough scar across her face from the tip of her left eyebrow across to the side of her nose.

"You shouldn't be standing out in the street," she told him before ushering him inside.

"I don't know how you got here or why you're here but I might as well tell you what I wished we'd known back then," Nya told him once the door was shut. "But before I do, don't worry about what I'm telling you will change history or anything - it doesn't work like that,"

He knew that she was thinking of the comics-inspired time travel rules that Jay wouldn't shut up about over a month ago (or many years ago for this Nya).

They're sitting at a small table in the centre of the shop, there are shelves against three of the four walls, the furthest wall is bare - well not exactly.

"I don't know if this - whatever's happened to get me here - is even time travel," he told her.

"It is. Look, Lloyd, I might as well say this now, you - this time's Lloyd - has been dead for over a decade," Nya said, looking to the bare wall where a mural was painted onto the brick.

It's their elemental symbols overlaid against their gi colors, he realized after a moment, but while Nya's and Zane's are missing, there are two other colors with initials instead of elemental symbols - Skylor's S.C over her orange, and Pixal's P.B and Samurai X underneath over her purple.

"They're all dead, aren't they?" he asked, already knowing the answer. "That's a commemoration mural,"

Nya doesn't say anything, just nods.

"I'm assuming that you've just come out of the Day of the Departed mess right? And this is about forty years from the end of Cole's battle with the Skull Sorcerer," Nya thought aloud.

Huh? Skull Sorcerer?

When she saw his raised eyebrow, Nya laughed and told him, "You'll see, in about five years,"

"Five years? How long are we Ninja for?" he asked.

"Kai, Jay, Cole? Just over thirty years, myself and you? A handful of years longer than that. And Zane? He's still active," she told him. "Someone has to protect Ninjago, after all,"

Lloyd was about to say something before he was interrupted by the store's door opening and someone entering the space.

The person's voice is unforgettable when they - he - spoke.

"Nya, I ne-" It's only when Zane's halfway through his sentence that he realized that the Master of Water was not alone.

"Lloyd? How are you here? You are supposed to be much older and dead," Zane stated.

"Hey Zane, I don't really know, and yeah, I've heard," he agreed. "How are you?: he asked.

"I am adequate," Zane answered.

At Lloyd's raised eyebrow, he reworded his answer. "I am...okay, much has changed in Ninjago in the last forty years,"

"What do you need, Frosty?" Nya interrupted.

In the time they had been talking, Nya had gotten up from her chair and was now standing beside a shelf.

"Cloudbud and Butterfly Pea, please, and Chrysanthemum if you have it," Zane told her as Nya searched through the various bags of tea for what the Master of Ice had requested.

"Ninjago City's population has grown faster than expected over the last forty-three years," Zane told him. "And as the only active Ninja, protecting the city has become a longer job," and harder he didn't say but Lloyd knew he meant.

"I could help for a few days, as I don't have a way to get back yet," he offered.

"Thank you, it would be appreciated," Zane thanked as Nya finally found all the tea bags.

"Butterfly Pea, Cloudbud, Chrysanthemum, and Comfrey which you probably need if you're doing what I think you're doing," she said as she handed the blue, white, yellow and mauve bags to him.

"You will have to see if you are right," Zane told her before he left.

"Zane seems more robotic than he is in my time," he observed.

Nya smiled but it's not in happiness, much the opposite.

"Yeah, watch out for Cryptor in the next few years, would you?" Nya asked, although it's not a question, it's a request.

"Will do," he confirmed.

They took their seats at the table again.