#i blmae writers block

[fishybehavior]

How he got his soul (p.4)

Warnings!! There is death in this chapter, nothing in graphic detail, but there is some blood, and the event is partially described.   (1,222 words)

-This goes directly from the last one, cause I just wanna jump into it.

last part here

first part here

“My father built me shortly after the Serpentine Wars, he built me to be the son he never had. We hid in that tree due to father deserting from the war. He told me that he deserted after finding out that his village was massacred since there was no one there to defend the village. He lost his wife and unborn child.”

“So you knew you were a nindroid?” Jay piped in, his brows scrunched.

“Yes, I knew. He wanted me to be human, but due to the nature of my existence and how he constantly modified my workings, it would have been impossible to keep up a ridiculous charade like that. And that was most of my existence, being constantly tweaked and modified as my father tried to make me as human as a machine could be.”

“Tried?” Cole interjected.

“Yes. I lacked an important element that kept me from being ‘human’, sentience. I could make decisions, I could care for myself and others, but I lacked all emotion and had no perception of self, besides that I had tasks I was required to do.”

“Why is this important?” Kai huffed, patience wearing thin.

“Because without the context the story makes no sense,” Zane countered. “Father was desperate to ‘complete me’ as he always said, and he tried increasingly improbable and illogical ways to give me this vital piece, a soul is what he always called it...” Zane was deep in thought, and he was closing down as if he was returning to that era. His hands stilled, his eyes drained to a blank, he seemed to stop breathing, and his spine straightened almost unnaturally.

Nya coughed as Lloyd gently shook Zane’s shoulder, partially breaking the spell. He still remained ominous still, but his chest started to gently rise and fall and his eyes leaked emotion once again. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he got back to the story, “My father was desperate to give me this piece, and his prayers were answered when an old man turned up at our home. 

“Father was terrified when I returned from my chores with the old man. I explained that a snowstorm showed up shortly after he arrived and that I offered him shelter for the night. I had no idea who he was, but father did. He recognized him from the war, he was a general in the war as all the elemental masters where. He was terrified until he recognized which elemental master he was.”

“In my father's search to find me a soul, he came across the old story of the 15 weavers and the thief, an olds children tale that he heard as a child. But he found an older story, much closer to the original tale of the element masters and how their powers are passed down. When father recognized that I brought home the thief, he saw how his problem could be solved.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Kai rubbed his temples, “your father, the kind, quiet, old man, thought up the plot to kill the elemental master of ice!?!”

“Well he wasn’t as old back then, and you didn’t see the desperation on his face every time a different idea didn’t work. I didn’t know how much desperation could push someone, where it could push someone…” 

Glances were exchanged amongst the room, as Zane took a moment. When he started talking again, his voice sounded strained, and his eyes were glazed, “We had the old man overnight, he slept on my bed. I remember when my father pulled me out of the room, he explained to me how that old man was a general in the war, that he must be looking for deserters, because how could he have found us otherwise? We hid in the deepest part of the forest where the treehorns were vicious, we almost never saw other humans, let alone anyone by themselves. He then left with Falcon, saying he was going to check if there were any soldiers in the closest village.” 

Zane stopped, still, and tense. He no longer moved, as if there was something stopping him. Lloyd put his hand back on his, feeling the slight hum of his electronics through his synthetics. Zane grabbed his hand. Clenching it tightly. His eyes were staring ahead at nothing. He slowly began again in his retelling. Sounding dead, “When he left I considered the information he told me and how to best remedy the problem. If the old man had any reinforcements they must’ve been at the closest village, due to the terrible blizzard, which means they were an hour and a half away by foot. If we let the man go, he knew where we were, and if we tried to leave after he left we wouldn’t get far. Deserters were punished severely,  I was programmed to protect my father and myself from harm, but could not do much against a group of trained soldiers.”

“So you’re dad didn’t tell you that he was an elemental master?” Jay interrupted, placing a glass of water on the table. 

“No he didn’t, I would not have taken the risk otherwise…”

“So your father told you to kill him?” Cole added

“No. I made that decision. Father explained after that he was worried that if he told me to… do it. That he would be the one who would get it. My father thought that choice was the key factor that decided it, the power never went to the sword that killed but the hand.”

“Were there any soldiers?” Nya whispered.

“...It turns out there wasn’t. And if I waited 10 minutes I would have known… He said he regretted trying to put the idea in my head. He said he came to his senses, but he still waited. He waited 20 minutes for Falcon to come back, until he came inside…”

“And by then?” Lloyd asked softly.

“By then I had made my decision. He was asleep. and he was old. I didn’t think it would take a lot... I had a knife... i don’t know if he was awake the whole time or if I was too loud… there was so much red…. i thought i’d never stop .... i was so cold… everything hurt… i was screaming…” Zane went silent, dissociating as those memories replayed again and again. The struggle, the blood, the cold, the shame, his father’s face. Again and again, he circled the drain of that darkness, regret, of-

A sudden embrace broke his thoughts, his memories as he refocused on the world. Jay was squeezing him, so tight if he was human we wouldn’t be able to breathe. Jay broke Zane’s circling, but nothing broke the tense silence and the darkness on the edge of Zane’s mind. The other’s thinking, judging his story, gauging the validity, deciding what to do with him.

Jay squeezed again, tightening and loosening around the nindroid, trying to keep him in the present. As the silence ticked on. Until Lloyd gently pulled the blue ninja off of him, clearing his throat he started, “Zane, I think that we need some time to think about this. To come to terms about this part of your past. But Zane, “ He grabbed his hand and squeezed, “I don’t hate you.”

And that’s when he broke down...