Salt: A Ninjago story

38: Tide and Time

Having walked for a good hour or so with no particular route in mind, they broke through the heavy forest to find their path abruptly blocked by a vertical face of rock. Harumi approached the smooth mountainside, looked up at its soaring face and placed her hand against it 'do you think there's a hidden entrance somewhere?' she joked, 'To a cave with untold secrets?'

Lloyd chuckled 'Secrets to what? Life the universe and everything?'

'Yes! All that... and the recipe for Puffy Pot Stickers too!'

Lloyd burst into laughter 'not you too? Dareth is obsessed with them'

'Dareth?' Harumi looked confused 'I'm not sure I know this team member. But whoever he is, he has good taste!'

'Uh, yeah well, you might not say that if you ever meet him!

'Oh? That sounds a little judgemental. Could the Green Ninja be a little less perfect than I originally thought?'

'I am many things Harumi, but perfect is not one of them...' Lloyd sighed 'I figured that out a while ago. Perfection is something forever strived for but never attained'

'That's very wise... Which book did you memorise that from?'

'No book, Harumi. I figured this one out for myself and felt a lot less pressure once I did'

'Pressure?'

'Sure!' Lloyd replied and took Harumi's hand, leading her to walk along the edge of the cliff face 'With every book and every scripture that I would trawl through and paw over, I would never come any closer to what I thought I should be achieving. So I would read faster and push harder, but still I would get nowhere, as if I were running down a long road that stretched away to the horizon, never getting closer to an ending... so I stopped... or at least, slowed. I stopped expecting enlightenment and chose to exist in the moment, just me and some words that some old wise person wrote about something or other' He laughed.

'I guess that old wise person was having a moment when they wrote them... so?' Harumi shrugged.

'Exactly!' Lloyd exclaimed 'How can you hope to truly understand what some old dude wrote in a moment of rapture? You can't'

'But you can respect it'

'You can. And perhaps this is the only way to find any form of true understanding? To feel what is behind the words, accept them as a moment from time, one persons vision to help you create your own.'

Harumi turned Lloyd to her and tapped his forehead 'So all those words are just bumping around in there waiting to inspire you to greatness, huh?'

'Maybe!' Lloyd laughed 'But I'm certainly not holding my breath'

The path continued but soon became a narrow ledge that wound it's way around the side of the mountain. The clouds drifted in and around them, obscuring the view of the Island, enclosing them in a suffocating world that consisted of the rock face to their side and the path just below their feet; seeing any further was impossible and as the path narrowed even more, Harumi's hand slipped from Lloyds and they fell into step, one behind the other 'You still with me?' Lloyd called back.

'Mmm hmm' came Harumi's reply and they kept moving, a silence falling with the icy grey of the cloud.

Time seemed to halt as they continued their ascent, each step on the rocky treadmill taking them nowhere, until in a swift swirling motion, the cloud suddenly lifted as if a great hand had wafted it aside and a dramatic view appeared below. Lloyd stopped in awe. The great jagged rocks of the beach far below showed them the distance they had climbed from where they had first stepped foot on the beach.