The Second Master of Wind

Acceptance

Aeria's POV

I was in my room sitting cross-legged on my bed folding back another crease in the purple origami iris on a green stem from my dream I was creating when my eyes wandered and landed on the wooden box I brought with me from the shop that I've had since I was a kid. I picked it up and was about to try to figure out how to open it, again, when I heard a knock on the door.

"Hey Aeria, can I come in?" Lloyd asked from the other side and I answered with a grudged 'yeah', he came in, and stood in front of me.

"You alright?"

"Honestly? I'm more confused than anything else..." I shifted the box around in my hands so it was hidden from Lloyd as he took a seat on the bed a little ways past me.

"Why?"

"I mean at first I was angry, typical of me, because I was being told that I'm going to have to be all these things that I wanted nothing to do with at first, but, then... I became worried that if I'm going to have to do all that stuff the prophecy told me, I might as well do it right, but... what if I can't?"

"That sounds hard, but you know you're not alone in it right?"

"How can you say that if you have no idea what it's like?" I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged them while still looking Lloyd in the eye.

"Actually, I do know how it feels to be put under a lot of pressure to be something you don't think you can be."

"How?"

"When I was first told that I was going to be the legendary Green Ninja," Lloyd made exaggerated hand gestures at his title, making me laugh softly a bit as I sat cross-legged again before he continued, "I was told that I was going to have to defeat my father, Lord Garmadon, in the ultimate battle of good versus evil, but I didn't think I would have had what it takes to be able to do that. In the end, I almost lost him, but then he came back completely cured of his evil powers."

"How did you and him deal with that?"

"We weren't alone, I had my friends with me to prepare me for my destiny and my dad had my mom and uncle just like how we're all here for you." Lloyd gave me a half-smile that I returned before my face fell and I looked down to the box hidden in my lap before whispering and trailing off,

"I've always been alone since..."

"What's that?" Lloyd changed the subject, seeing my uneasiness, by pointing to the wooden box with painted and engraved patterns on it that I was shuffling around in my hands.

"Oh, it's a box I've had with me since before I was taken in by the Lynns, I think there's something important in it, but I haven't been able to figure out how to open the stupid thing in years." I shook it around to make my point.

"Can I try?" Lloyd held out his hand and I hesitated before he assured me, "I promise I'll be careful with it."

I handed it over to him as he turned it over and shook it again before rubbing his fingers over some of the designs. As soon as he did, a section of the patterned wood slid apart to reveal plain wood underneath.

"Woah!" I was startled a bit as I started to think that he'd broken the box until he raised his hands and proceeded to explain,

"It's a sliding puzzle box, it's supposed to do this until you've entered in the right number of moves to fully open it." Lloyd continued to slide and reset pieces of the box for a few minutes until a sharp 'click' was heard and he slid open the top to reveal a small compartment within the box.

"What took me years to not even solve took you only a few minutes..." I half moaned as Lloyd handed me the box to take out its contents: two folded up pieces of yellowing paper, a small, glossy smooth, circular stone that was pitch black and had carvings along its smooth surface, and, at the very bottom, a small, sloppily made origami crane made from an old newspaper.

I took out one of the papers and unfolded it to reveal a photo of a little girl with her black hair in pigtails, with a streak of purple in it, frozen in mid-jump onto the shoulders of a little boy with short black hair with a green streak in it as he was frozen as well, turning around to smile at the little girl.

"Is that...?" Lloyd started and I finished his question with,

"My brother..." I touched the photo right over my brother's smiling face and I started to tear up, but quickly blinked them back.

"You two look happy." Lloyd placed a hand on my shoulder as I continued to stare at the photo.

"We were... we always were when we were together." I handed the photo to Lloyd so he could look at it when I started to explain,

"I remember this day, we were wandering around town looking for something to do when he decided to tag me and run off, so I followed him." I paused to laugh a little to myself before continuing, "He thought he lost me when he ran into town. He got so scared, he stopped running, but I was waiting for him in front of someone's house when they were having a family reunion or something like that. I jumped onto his back right as someone was trying to take a picture. We thought they were going to be mad and boy were we right, we took the photo before we ran off with them chasing after us until we completely left that town for the next one."

"Do you remember a lot about your brother?" Lloyd asked me as he handed the photo back to me.

"Not much, I remember he would do whatever it took to make sure I was safe and happy, even if that meant moving around a lot to different places, that's why I made him this." I pulled out the small, lopsided paper crane and smiled as I made it flap its little wings carefully, "I told Nya and Xia about this, one day my brother got hurt trying to protect me from some bullies and he was so frustrated that I wanted to do something to cheer him up for a change, so I made him this. I thought it was gone forever though, like him..." I put the paper crane and the photo back in the box, pulling out the other paper to reveal a map doodled onto the paper but didn't make it to reading it, before I started to cry even more and Lloyd embraced me in a hug as I cried into his shoulder.

"I miss him... so much..." I sobbed even more as I was hit with a wave of emotions: sadness, anger, nostalgia, and, above all of it, guilt, "It's because of me that we got separated."

"I may not know what happened back then, but I know that it wasn't your fault." Lloyd let go of our hug to face me.

"You don't understand, I wasn't careful when we were out stealing food one day and I ended up getting tossed down an old well. The next day I got sick to where I could barely move and it was in that moment that I got taken fr-" I stopped myself with a gasp as I realized that I remembered what happened that day when, only a moment ago, I couldn't, "I didn't remember that before."

"You must've finally remembered after opening up so much." Lloyd gave me another half-smile, "It's like I've been telling you, we're here for you if you need us for anything." Lloyd put his hand on mine before saying, "I'm here."

"Thanks..." I mumbled awkwardly when I finally realized we were holding hands and pulled away to brush away the tears streaming down my cheeks as I stood up and Lloyd got up too as I continued, "I-I'm gonna go clean up to go train. Thanks... for being here."

I went to open the door to reveal Nya standing on the other side with her mouth agape before she started hopping in one place and containing silent squeals as Lloyd came up beside me to see her there as well.

"What did you hear?" We both asked at the same time.

"Everything!"

1425 Words