#*strums guitar* i've never wrote for morro befoooooore

[weekend-whip]

The ask for fic thing, Morro and V

V. An abandoned or empty place

(Prompt List)

AO3 Version

. . .

The monastery’s a lot different than he remembers it.

...but then again, he also remembers it actually being there.

Morro intakes a breath—or as close as he can get—as he floats along the stairs that call forth so many innocent memories from his youth. Times playing with other orphaned kids upon the outer grounds, the roguish moments of swiping sweets from the trash, scuttling away whenever one of the old Masters of Spinjitzu nearly caught them in places where they shouldn’t be...

He even remembers the day Wu taught him how to fly a kite upon the mountain’s near-infinite stairs. How could he not, when that was the day the gentle spring breeze whispered to him the secrets of wind, and next thing he knew, every gust was under his command. As easy as breathing air, the wind was his, and there had never been a moment in his life as uplifting as that one since. 

Nor one that took the wind out of him like being told he wasn’t the Green Ninja.

Memories both pleasant and putrid came from that one single building. And even now, he still has mixed feelings about even being in its presence on this fateful night. Being here, at the mountain top that could see nearly all of Ninjago on the days when the clouds were forgiving...a place that filled his childhood with hope and what remained of the rest of his life with despair...

He wouldn’t call it home, but he can’t call it anything less either. 

So beholding it now, the once magnificent Monastery of Spinjitzu, reduced to a ghost of its former self...Morro struggles to take any kind of pleasure from the sight. The area is nothing more than a graveyard now, where the bones of the building’s framework sit buried in rubble and ashes, and the echoes of the past haunt the grounds through memories. Not even the whistling of the Wind serves to soothe the Master of it himself, only invoking something melancholic instead. 

Little of anything persists, and what once might have even slightly survived the threat of Fire has further decayed through Time and the sheer force of Nature. The Elements always reclaim everything in the end...

But, perhaps the place isn’t quite as abandoned as he thought...

For a man sits in the middle in the wreckage, three lanterns lit before him.

One for a father, one for a brother...

And one, Morro would like to think, for a son. 

“How touching,” he drolls in his own thoughts, eyeing that third lantern with a bit of unresolved contempt. How like Wu, to try and remember the pupil whose head he filled with so many dreams; the pupil he drove to believe was destined for something greater, something no one else would be destinedto achieve...only to rip it all away right out from under him and leave him to die. 

Only to give all those promises and praises and glory to someone else; someone who hadn’t even asked for it. 

The burn of envy still flickers somewhere in the remains of his soul; that uncomfortable feeling that festers when his mind unhelpfully supplies ‘what ifs’ and ‘should have beens’. But in hindsight, it is pretty hard to want for much of anything when you’re already dead. 

What could he even ask for now? A second chance? A fresh start? The option to do everything again, but better? All things he’s thrown away already, whether because he deserved more than that, because he deserved them on his own terms, or because he knew he didn’t deserve them at all? 

...why’s he even here? 

Morro scowls to himself, staring at the back of the old man that has yet to register his presence. He looks upon his old master, and only sees a man that’s lost far more than a weaker-willed man could have handled. It’s pathetic, and yet, admirable. 

He’s only seen a sliver of the man’s lifetime, and even Morro knows Wu’s accomplished so much...and lost even more. It’s something he hadn’t caught onto before, back when he was a child—as if he’s not still a child, to some degree—but now...Morro knows more. Better. Understands. 

Morro’s seen the way Wu throws down his own life for the sake of those he loves, even as Morro wondered for years—decades—if Wu would have ever done the same for him. If he had known how much stock Morro had in his pride, if he had known that Morro was willing to run away, if he had known that Morro had been trapped in a death of his own undoing...would Wu have come for him, then? 

Morro already knows the answer; he’s seen it in Wu’s eyes as he sank beneath the waves of Stiix, a single hand reaching out to help, with a harrowed call of desperation as another moment of regret is added upon Wu’s ever-growing list of personal failures. 

Morro sees it even now, as he beholds an old man sob profusely over a simple group of lanterns, representing people he’s failed to properly keep in his life. 

It’s why it hurts so much that Morro once looked up to this man without even a shred of a second thought. And why it hurts to know that, to some degree, he still does. Despite everything. 

He once believed Wu could have done no wrong...but he also falsely believed Wu wouldn’t feel awful for the mistakes he did make. 

Morro finally makes his presence known; Wu rises to his feet with a start. He draws his weapon, prepared for a deadly confrontation should it come to that once again. Morro can’t entirely blame him for having a less-than welcoming impression. 

“We have fought twice before,” Wu says, twirling his staff before him. “...and I will do so again, if I must.”

And he obviously doesn’t want to. Morro doesn’t really want to, either. 

“No, you misunderstand...”

Morro frowns to himself, makes a decision, and changes his grip upon his sword. 

There may be no saving those who don’t want to be saved...but those doing the saving? Those who return to abandoned places—and people—and are capable of giving them purpose again? 

They’re usually in need of being saved themselves. 

“...I did not come here to fight you. I came here...to warn you.”

But it’s the first time in a long time, perhaps for the last time...where the space in his chest where his heart used to be doesn’t feel quite so empty. 

A place, a feeling, he’d thought he’d abandoned long ago...turns out it never really left at all.