Prophecy

Epilogue: Final Sunset

I thought that the air would always be warm with a sunset, like most sunsets I'd seen, yet this evening the world was cold and crisp. It was a bite out of a fresh apple, and I was pretty sure I wasn't the only one who noticed. Though, maybe I was the only one that noticed. I wasn't sure. It wasn't like I interacted much with the human race anymore.

     The Dark Island had become a refuge in my and Lloyd's later years, a place far away from the curious, prying eyes of society. Both of us had Oni blood, so both of us stayed relatively fit while our neighbors grew old and passed away. Lloyd feared that we might be in danger, especially from maniacs who got the idea that we could somehow show them a path to immortality. We ended up doing what Wu had done before us. We left Ninjago to live out the rest of our days elsewhere.

     And strangely enough, we chose to come back to the Dark Island. There was a set path of memories and past grievances, yet I knew Lloyd and I had experience in blocking out the painful reminiscing. Putting the good future forward was an essential step in strengthening our marriage. It had done us much benevolence over the years. As much as it hurt to see the place where Shade slaughtered a man, then collapsed sobbing into my arms, or the place where my only daughter rejected us forever, or the place where Morro was so lifeless I thought I'd lost another child, I knew I couldn't let those memories define the island. Just like I didn't let my time as the Quiet One define me.

     The Temple of Light didn't respond much to Lloyd anymore. It did little things for us at first, such as opening up the pathways where the First Spinjitzu Master's old quarters were kept or changing the murals on the walls to keep us updated on our children's lives. As the years dragged on, Lloyd's connection weakened with his blood, and the temple stopped responding to his touch. Lloyd and I spent time building a small shack a little ways away from the Temple of Light, as well as tilling our own garden and raising livestock. Meanwhile, in the valleys below us, colonizers spread throughout the island.

     It took a little over one hundred years for the Dark Island to claim it deserved independence from its mother country. It took almost fifty for them to win it in a political war. Lloyd and I stood atop our mountain as Ninjago and the Dark Island battled time after time, even though most of the fighting was due to trade skirmishes. We watched the little huts of the colonists turn to flourishing cities; we watched the swamps get leveled and drained to become farms. The once deserted island converted into a full-fledged country, and a rather popular one at that.

     It took the citizens another fifty years after their independence to discover where the Temple of Light was hidden, and another twenty for them to prepare it for tourists. Soon, the mountainside was packed with people from both Ninjago and the Dark Island, all of them coming to revel in the heroes of legend. The Ninja. Our tale to save the realm.

     Lloyd and I grew old together, watching the world transform before our eyes. There was a sort of stillness upon Lloyd's figure, a tranquility in his eyes that he could never fully explain. Sometimes he'd tell me he felt as if he could embrace the entire world in his arms. Sometimes he sat in front of our shack and watched the warm sunsets, smiling at nothing at all. He'd finally found his peace in life, and I was content to share that with him.