#ninjago pizal

[pinkpandaslikehoney]

The Sorta Misadventures of Santa’s Village

Here is my first fic and a Christmas gift to @master-of-fluff! I hope you (and other people) like it.

“TIS THE SEASON TO BE HOLLY! FA LA LLAMA LAAAAA, LA LAAAA LLAAAA-MAAAAA!”

“Not AGAIN!”

“You’re not even getting the LYRICS right!”

“This is the seventh time within the last ten minutes…”

“SHUT UP JAY!”

—

Lloyd doesn’t even remember how he got into this situation, but he’s currently enjoying watching Jay and the others argue again about the same thing for the 4th time in the last 15 minutes.

“Come on guys, pleeeease?” Jay pleaded.

“Jay, nobody wants to go into Ninjago City right now, especially after what happened last Tuesday.”

Everyone shuddered simultaneously as memories of reporters and journalists mobbing them resurface. All they had wanted was some hot cocoa.

“But Zane, it's a whole new week! How was I supposed to know that those newspeople were waiting to ambush us after somebody decided that they wanted some chocolate lava cake at the last minute?”

“Don’t drag me into this, Zaptrap!”

“And what, pray tell, are you going to do about it, Dirt Clod?”

“What I’m gonna do…I’ll show you what I’d do you-”

It’s at this moment where Nya and Pixal come to the rescue. And not a moment too soon, because Jay and Cole look like they’re going to duke it out smack in the middle of the courtyard. Unfortunately, Kai jumps in Jay’s place, truly a shock seeing how he seemed to be vexed the most by the blue ninja’s shenanigans.

“Maybe we can just take a few extra precautions this time. We could even swing by Skylor’s noodle house or laser tag. And isn’t Santa’s Village open this week? Their tarts are a must.”

The last bit intrigues Lloyd, thoughts of doesn’t Santa live in the North Pole and I thought he made toys, not pastries swirling through his head. Unfortunately, he gets so lost in thought that Lloyd murmurs ever so softly, “What’s Santa’s Village?” Half a second later, Lloyd realizes his grave mistake, but of course, is too late by then. Grasping on to fragments of hope, he silently desires his wretched inquiry to go unnoticed, because oh how he doesn’t want to go and wants to stay home instead please no-

The incoherent squabbles disappear as if they were never there.

“You…” Nya starts, “You’ve never been?”

“Ever?” Cole adds.

“Not once?” Zane finishes.

“Uhm…well, y’know Darkley’s wasn’t big on the holiday spirit. Remember when I thought Santa was a serial killer that murdered once a year but was never caught? A bunch of kids would hide in closets so they wouldn’t be next…guess you can say they got Claus-trophopic heh heh.”

Lloyd cringes as his joke falls flat and the ninja don that familiar face of pity, guilt, and silent rage.

It was Pixal who broke the silence, unsurprisingly deciding that she had a change of heart, Zane, Cole, and Nya hastily agreeing with her.

“I suppose we could go tomorrow and have some noodles for lunch,” Zane muses.

With crows of triumph, Jay and Kai scurry inside before the others could change their mind. They weren’t going to, because Lloyd just had to open his big mouth. As he walks inside and goes straight to his room to indulge in some candy Lloyd can’t help but think that as if Santa’s Village has a sufficient amount of candy hmph.  

—

Well, it’s safe to say that Lloyd was very wrong about that.

At this point he’s not even surprised too, this day just keeps getting worse, but at least Pixal’s “hide in plain sight” trick worked, at least for now. But Lloyd suspects that’s because there are so many people. And they just keep coming.

Before he knows it, all of his friends migrate to places and seemingly vanish from thin air. Lloyd’s currently getting more overwhelmed by the number of people by the second and he’s heavily considering cutting his losses by going home when a streak of blue grabs him by the left sleeve of his coat and starts speeding off with Lloyd in tow.

“Come on Lloyd!” Jay exclaims, “Let’s go ice skating!”

Lloyd’s only experience with any type of skating was that dumb roller skating contest between him and Chamille back on Chen’s island. But not only did he hate every second, but he also doesn’t really know how to skate.  Lloyd was running on adrenaline, thoughts of not losing his elemental powers, going faster without falling over, and some raw willpower and determination. However he or anyone else looked at it, the experience was bad plain and simple, and Lloyd told Jay as much.

Only to be rendered speechless when Jay steamrolled over his semi-detailed explanation retorting, “You can’t let that be your only skating experience! Actually, it’s all the more reason to try and properly learn how, in my opinion.”

Lloyd was about to say that he didn’t care about that opinion, but Jay was only trying to help and certainly didn’t deserve Lloyd being a jerk. All too soon, they arrived at the rink where it looks like Jay already picked out skates, sage green, and cornflower blue. Jay’s always sluggish and slow in the mornings but he only picks up the pace when it benefits him? Although Lloyd can’t blame him because had he not been the leader he would’ve done the same thing.

Once they got the skates on, the challenge of stepping on the ice slapped him in the face. The mental block of willingly balancing on ice with a thin blade was too much for him. Not too much for Jay to tease about though.

“So the great Green Ninja who isn’t afraid to jump off the side of a flying ship is nervous about a little ice?” But once the Lightning Ninja saw Lloyd's expressions the jokes halted. “It’s ok to take it slow, Lloyd. Tiny steps.”

Jay’s advice wasn’t half bad, it turned out. Only when Lloyd took a bigger step and fell on his knee. He was probably most comparable to Bambi on ice.

“You don’t have to take or do so much all at once, y’know that right? Sometimes it’s okay to not be able to do everything at once.”

This time, taking baby steps, Lloyd was on the ice and slowly making his way around.

“Once you’ve got the hang of that, gently push off of each foot.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah, perfect! Now you can try to push off harder, once you feel comfortable. Remember, don't be afraid to fall.”

Lloyd was starting to think he wasn’t just talking about skating.

In no time, Lloyd was gliding across the ice like a pro, no doubt thanks to the stellar instruction. Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all.

—

Turns out Lloyd was wrong again.

“Who knew ice skating was so tiring?” Lloyd mumbled to no one in particular. Jay, who never seemed to run out of energy, was still going at it strong. Lloyd, on the other hand, was looking to find a cafe or something to “relax” (because nobody can fully relax with this amount of noise) and maybe find something else to do.

Lloyd’s already imagining a tasty peppermint frappe or gingerbread latte when an eruption of cheers throws him off.

“And we have our winners!” an announcer yells.

He tries to tell himself to mind his business and get those drinks, but a random burst of inquisitiveness got the better of him. As he pushes through the crowd, Lloyd gets whiffs of something sweet and chatter of scrumptious cake leading him to wonder if it’s a baking contest of sorts. Finally reaching the front, Lloyd saw an elegant-looking white cake adorned with strawberries and pineberries and none other than Zane and Pixal holding a trophy next to the announcer.

Lloyd just lounged around until all the spectators left before walking up to the nindroids, who were deep in conversation off to the side now.

“Hey guys,” he started, “congratulations on the win! The cake looks great!”

“Thanks, Lloyd! It’s a very good thing Cole’s not around to see it…he would’ve inhaled it by now,” Zane stated.

“His stomach resembles a bottomless pit when it comes to cake,” Pixal remarked.

“Borderline blackhole.”

“Exactly!”

“Anyways,” Lloyd cut in, “How did you make that whole cake in the, what, two hours since coming here?”

The sky turned dark and everything went grayscale. Weird 80’s music started playing in the background.

“Here we go again,” Pixal muttered.  

“Twas a difficult journey, but we managed to pull through. We ran into some complications. First, a truss of whippersnappers hid a bundle of supplies whilst we gathered supplies. Then a stripling sabotaged our oven, turning it up to blistering heats causing our first batch to burn. But we didn’t abandon hope!”

“I’m about to abandon hope the way these accents keep popping up like-”

“-no time to sulk over the trampling of blueberries. We had to progress forth-”

“What are you even-”

“-things didn’t go to plan, especially with the whole white chocolate fiasco-”

“Why are you telling him about our misfortunes?”

“-but we adapted accordingly and put on a fine finish!”

Lloyd was…confused. Very confused. Especially when Zane whispered something to Pixal and the two ran off with quick goodbyes, leaving Lloyd alone again.

—

Well, at least he finally got his drink. And Lloyd found a pretty good tree to lie under too, at least until some barbarian bombarded him with snowballs.

“Come on Lloyd!” a familiar voice exclaimed, scaring the living daylights out of him. “Smith sibling snowball fight! Run before she finds us!

On cue, a flurry of snowballs flew in their direction.

“Not FAIR, Kai. Who says Lloyd gets to be on your team?!” Nya hollered.

“He doesn’t have to say it, cause I already know he would want to be on MY team, right Lloyd?”

“Before I answer that, there’s something in your HAIR!” Lloyd finished off by tossing a rock in the tree, causing the branches to sprinkle snow all over.

“What?! Traitor!”

“Get him, Lloyd!”

And he was about to, except Kai looked livid (in a playful way, classic rivalry stuff), so Lloyd decided to run for the hills and build up a fortress and stock ammo or something.

—

Hours later (don’t judge, things get intense), and it seems like the day is looking up for him again, and finally it seems like the brunt of it is over. But surprise surprise, he was wrong about that. So wrong.

He had bumped into Cole while making a mad dash away from Kai, only for Lloyd to get a request from the Earth ninja to see the Nutcracker with him.

“What’s that?! And what is it even about, a squirrel?”

By now Lloyd should know to keep his big mouth shut, but of course, the concept wasn’t hammered in yet.

“Well, that answers my question!” Cole declared.

Which is how Lloyd got stuck watching a 2-hour ballet.

—

After the movie, which was surprisingly good, the two stopped at a bakery where they indulged in Zane and Pixal’s cake. The pair had met up with Jay and Nya in an unceremonious way. Lloyd didn’t know this at the time, but he found out later that Nya was chasing Jay for calling her a teacup? Anyhow, Nya tackled Jay on top of the table he and Cole were sitting at, effectively shattering it. When they went to the manager of the place they ran into Zane and Pixal (who ended up paying for it with their prize money). That officially killed the mood, at least until Kai dragged them off going on about Skylor’s noodles only for Jay to playfully tease him about it, attracting wary looks from the staff.

But even though they are annoying, Lloyd loves his found family and concludes that his time at Santa’s Village wasn’t that bad after all.