ninjago imagines

tell me that there's light (in all this starless night) | zane j.

tw: frostbite/hypothermia life symtoms. no actually he's just super cold

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It's cold.

So, so, cold.

Freezing, numbing cold that drips down his veins and throat and lungs, making him gasp for air he doesn't need. (Zane really didn't think he'd ever have to feel this way, and now he knows better than to doubt the extent of misfortune fate can bring down over him.)

The pain it brings isn't stabbing, or cutting, or scraping, or any of the kind he's used to having. It's burning, in what he supposed would be a amusing irony to ice. It burns till his teeth chatters uselessly, fingers tightening around the plastic bars of his bed until they bend to pieces, and he's offered heat pads and silver blankets to no use whatsoever.

Zane'd prepared to feel weak after he lost his elemental powers. He'd prepared to feel tired, overloaded, even readied his systems to shut down for a while just in case. He had known it wasn't going to be smooth sailing all the way after losing his element, the one shield that's stuck with him all the way through his life.

But he suspects he would never be able to prepare for something like this- this overwhelmingly painful chatter of ice as it crawled through his mechanisms, cracked lines of frost into his systems.

Zane couldn't shut down. The cold that took over him wasn't connected to his nerve systems, wasn't connected to anything mechanical a few switches could turn on and off, and Zane wondered if he would wake up again if he did attempt a reboot. Some part of his mind thinks he might not, and still want to try.

He wasn't human, but he wasn't ever fully nindroid since that night. His powers had become a part of him just as much as his code, and he'd never realized the protection it has been giving.

Zane curls up tighter, clutching at the blankets that bring no relief, and wishes for the first time he could die so easily like humans did.

———

He isn't sure when Pixal arrives, but it's already far too long in his mind. Part of him wishes she wouldn't see him being weak like this again; first dismantled, then as the Ice Emperor, and now this.

She's by his side the next time he opens his eyes, a quiet smile on her face masking the worry behind it. The room has been bustling with people moving in and out, and a little bit of his loneliness slips away with Pixal.

"How are you feeling?" she greets softly, hands twisting together above him anxiously, as if she isn't sure whether she can touch him or not.

Her bright gaze darts over him, checking for injuries, and Zane wonders how bad the damage from earlier really was. He hasn't had the chance to hear about it yet, but there's a ache in his joints and a suspicious new feeling when he moves.

"I want it back," he says quietly, and immediate wants to take it back. It's such a childish desire, more thoughtless than anything he's said before. His powers is almost nothing to give up for the safety of Ninjago and his friends, and yet... he misses it.

It is a curious feeing, to miss something that caused him so much pain, and not one he likes.

Pixal doesn't say a word, and for a moment he is worried she will leave at what he's said. But she lays a careful hand on his shoulder, light but firm, and that's all he needs.

Zane melts into the touch, the silent hum of her engine beating quietly away, and decides this it is a most reassuring. If he listens hard enough, it is just like the same buzz if his father's workshop, where he always had some other new project idea ticking and tapping away the time.

He looks up at her, and properly, instead of the few blurred glances he's had, and musters up his best attempt at a frown. Her skin is scratched and beaten, white lines cross crossing her features till the metallic sheen shines dull like it's been sanded. Her left arm looks a little off, like it's been knocked out and fit back into place hurriedly, and he winces at the thought of how it must feel wrong.

"You should go take care of yourself." He rasps out, voice breaking as another wave of cold washes over him.

"I will be fine. There is plenty of time." Pixal says in the tone that means she isn't budging, the one she uses when he's coming with a particularly dangerous plan or just tyring to sneak cookie dough from the mixing bowl because Kai says he should. Zane tries anyway.

"I'll survive a few hours without you," he quips the best he can, and the irony hits him when he realizes he can't actually gurantee that. Pixal might walk back in to a empty shell of himself, a useless hunk of metal tangled with wires.

She stares back at him, not one bit convinced. Zane's hand trembles against his will, and she grabs him, holding him steady.

"I will not leave you when you need me. Not now. And not ever."

Pixal smiles, eyes bright and Zane feels a little warmer as she pulls closer to him. 

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