Wanderlust - Ninjago SI-OC

CHAPTER FOUR: UNDER ROSE FINGERED DAWN

A freezing cold takes over her room, and Vale wails in her mind.

Is it too much to ask for a peaceful night?

'¡Ni siquiera es de mañana todavía!' Vale laments, holding back a whine as she burrows her face further under the covers. There's no light coming in from behind her blinds, and yet the world decided to fuck with her and make her room as cold as a glacier. This is all after not being able to sleep in the whole night, too, of course. Because she's extra special, and the universe simply loves her oh so very much.

God, hasn't she been through enough?

Reluctantly, Vale pushes her covers off of her and stands up, a shiver crawling up her spine once her bare feet make contact with the floor.

So cold.

Eyes only half-open, Vale walks to her closet. It's mostly empty, with only a few doubles of the clothes she's pretty sure Wu bought her. But it also has this one fluffy blanket she'd snatched from a room down the hall. She'd initially gotten it once it was very cold out to cover herself so she could still watch Kai train. But at the end of the day she was too tired to take it back to where she found it, wherever that room was, and brought it to her room. Then she'd decided she deserved that extra blanket, actually, and stored it in her closet.

It looks so so pretty and warm, the faintest light - which comes from literally nowhere and Vale is certainly not focusing on, especially this early - shining down on it and accentuating all its curves so it practically shouts to the world just how warm and fluffy it is. For a fraction of a second, it almost looks real, bathed in moonlight.

It is the most beautiful sight Vale's laid eyes on ever since waking up in Ninjago.

...she's only half-joking about that.

Swiftly, Vale snatches the prized blanket up and drapes it over her shoulders, the shivers that wrack her body now pleasant as she is engulfed by soft heat.

Content, Vale turns around to go back to bed-

-and comes face to face with a blade.

'Qué,' she thinks, bleariness gone.

For in front of her stands a stranger, dressed in black, and looking about ready for a fight.

"Hi?" she squeaks against her will, startled.

The stranger only narrows their eyes, bringing the blade closer to her face.

But it's not knives they're holding, Vale realizes, as she slowly backs away and her blanket falls from her shoulders.

They're shurikens.

'Zane.'

The stranger - Zane, Zane, this is Zane, this is it, they're starting now, right now - follows her, step by step, until the back of her feet hit a wall.

Shit.

A blade is brought forth to press against her neck, the edge of it ever so softly grazing her skin.

Shrouded in darkness, Zane speaks.

"Who," he says, voice flinty, "are you, and what are you doing in our home?"

Eyes wide and fearful, Vale lifts her head as much as she's able, trying to put distance between her and the blade as she scrambles for words.

"Val," she says, rushing, her voice not-quite-right as she speaks. "I'm Val, I'm Val, and I am- I am sleeping. I am sleeping here, this is my room." Then, when Zane doesn't bring his weapons back to her very exposed throat, she asks back in a squeak, "Who are you?"