ninjago imagines

endings | morro

Snapshots of Morro's two deaths.

TW: Blood, death. 

• • •

The first time Morro dies, it's dark. 

It's black, deep, deep black, the kind that swallows up everything, and the deathly raven color fills up everything he can see. The only relief from it he has is the flickering torch in his hand, small flames shooting off a small glow through the tunnels.

Blood seeps steadily through his clothes, staining his hands a deep crimson color. It trails across the floor, decorating the walls with his scarlet handprints. He stumbles and drops to his knees with a thud, and pain shoots through his side as he struggles to keep the fire upright. 

Morro feels like a child again, scared of the dark and what it could hold. 

When he was younger, his mind raced to create imaginary monsters, shadowy creatures of evil, waiting for his light to die out before attacking.  

Now, he knows darkness will only hold death for him. He thinks he prefers the monsters, though. Those he can fight and hold a chance. The other kind of darkness he awaits? There's no way to beat that.

The fire dances and winks unsteadily, and his heart stutters in fear. He doesn't want to die. Hot tears spill out unexpectedly, and he sniffs, dragging a sleeve across his face. The sound echoes across the tunnels emptily, only reminding him more of how alone he is. Which is how he's going die, alone, injured, and lost. 

Without ever fulfilling anything he's ever wanted to. Dying whilst traveling to a goal he could never fulfill, because fate had taken his hopes and shattered them into broken fragments, without a care. 

He was just a chess piece, who had been played and who had been lost. Morro traces the evermoving flames with his eyes, watching the warm steady burning. 

His head spins faintly, the yellow flare barely spilling through his half closed eyes.  He can't feel his legs, come to think of it. His fingers twitch in an effort to reach, and the torch tumbles out of his fingers, light dying the instant it hits the ground. 

Now, it's pitch black, inky shade across everywhere. No difference between closed eyes, or not. Morro taps faintly at the wound torn across his chest, fingers slick with blood the doesn't seem to ever be stopping. 

At least it'll be a painless leave, he comforts himself with the only thing he can find, a empty reassurance.

And he never quite figures out when he died, with just a darkness passing over to another. 

• • •

The second time, he remembers wind. It blasts from his fingertips, furiously trying to keep him upright, from the clutches of the frigid water that barely sweeps inches away from under him. The tentacles tightens its scaly grip, and pulls, pulls him further down near his second death. 

No. Morro grits his jaw and pushes more power out, forcing himself to keep hovering. He won't die, he can't, not so close to achieving his goal. At the very least, Morro won't allow himself die in such a painfully pathetic way.  

Wu arrives in a dazed flurry of gold and white, scales and chains clinking in his hurry. There's a shouted conversation, and Morro can barely find the energy to snap a few vengeful replies back at him, strength seeping out of him faster every second. 

The frothing water swirls madly, and suddenly tugs him even further down with it. He throws his hand into Wu's firm grip, and blinks, hard. If he could cry, he would be. And as if it can sense he's getting help, the creature drags harder, and Wu's hold strains, fingers slipping ever so slightly. 

Wu's eyes are painfully desperate, and Morro realizes his Sensei doesn't know him. He doesn't recognize him anymore. Not the him now. Wu's thinking about the little boy all those years ago, innocent and senselessly trusting. Wu's not thinking about the revengeful side of him that just tried to end lives, destroy cities, and certainly not the one who just possessed a mere boy for a bitterly unchangeable reason that was nowhere near his fault. 

You can only save those who want to be saved. 

Morro smiles, a real smile, and forces the glowing crystal into his hand. The last second of time seems to slow down, freezing the final moment of his existence. 

And he remembers the sunshine. Tilting his head up, he catches the last glow of sunlight, basking in the yellow gleams with a sense of peace he can't remember ever feeling. 

 It reflects pale, pale gold off the dragon's scales, the pastel clouds, and Morro's glad he's not dying in darkness this time. He got a chance, and he's wasted it terribly, but at least he's not going for nothing this time. 

Then the tentacle wrapped around his waist wrenches him into the water so cold it burns, burns white hot though his body.

 A cry echoes faintly in the distance, his name fading away, and the blonde sky fades to a nothing in his vision. 

This time, he doesn't fall or wake in darkness.