When the cherry blossoms bloom, the boughs are so full, they look like clouds, pink in the shadows. By that time, Kai is dead. He walked out the monastery's doors one morning and never walked back in, and Lloyd wishes he'd gone with him, just to do something about it.

Kai's last spring blooms slowly, with winter's chill lingering in the hollows of the hills. His last days are the last in the longest period of peace in Lloyd's life. No one knew it then, or else Lloyd might've appreciated it more.

At that time, he wanders down the mountain before the monastery, waiting for the sky to fall upon his head. The day is bright and otherwise cheerful, but Lloyd almost hears a rumbling in the white clouds, a foreboding warning hidden in their shade that something is going to go wrong.

It keeps him restless, eyes darting and refusing to keep his gaze on any one thing. Meandering more than walking, he hikes down the steps with a floppy sort of lollygag, wanting urgency but unable to think of a reason for it. He isn't used to the lack of conflict and had grown sick of the quiet in the monastery. The thought is tragic considering his age, but at this point, he's accustomed to nearly and always losing his loved ones. Who has time for quiet in a life like that?

It's been close to six months since the march of the oni, and Lloyd fully expects another megalomaniac to attempt a takeover of Ninjago by the end of the year. Given the land's track record, the prediction is not inaccurate, and most of Lloyd's frustration is simply in that nothing has happened yet.

The monastery is unbearably quiet today, as everyone had something to do but him.

Lloyd isn't bothered by this, and he tells himself as much as he reaches a level where the mountain's steps are unnecessary. Walking across the rock, he glances down to see a bundle of wildflowers growing between the cracks. They're purple and full, unlike the growth around it, and Lloyd admires it distantly, beyond his many trains of thought. Anything that grows at this height is going to be scraggly at best, even the trees. Towards the bottom is where one finds taller evergreens, and even a few hardwoods to give the canopy variety, but Lloyd can't and doesn't pay them any mind as he squats on the spot.

Everyone in the monastery had something to do but him, once they were done swimming, playing video games, and watching movies together. When they wanted some alone time, his friends all found things to do. Zane bakes in the kitchen; Pixal and Nya design new vehicles and weapons within the base; Kai disappears each day into a workroom to tinker, and Cole and Jay pitter away at their own hobbies. That leaves Lloyd, restless with nothing to do and confronted with the fact.

Perhaps he never noticed it, always with at least one teammate to distract him, but Lloyd doesn't do much on his own besides training or planning for the next mission. No video games or books interest him like they used to, and that's all he could think to try before heading outside, chased there by the silence and distant sense of loneliness that's sprung up in recent weeks.

Lloyd frowns at the flowers, wondering what they are. He's stuck in a mood that does well to dampen the sunlight, even turn the nodding blooms into little faces, laughing at his distress. He sticks his tongue out at them and looks up at the monastery, debating if he should go back. He could've trained, he supposes, but there's nothing new to glean from the activity.

He sighs. A gust of wind howls past, blowing Lloyd's hair every which way and making him wish he'd thought to pull it up.

It's been so peaceful that Lloyd doesn't know what to do with himself.

The situation frustrates him, so he sits next to the flowers and stews over the situation. He came outside looking for purpose, and the world seems to offer everything to him. The thing is, when Lloyd looks at the woods, he has no desire to explore it. When he sees a hill perfect for rolling, he's content to remain where he is. He doesn't know what to do with the world, so he leaves it just as he found it.

When he's returned to the monastery, he's disappointed to find that only an hour has passed since he left, meaning there's more left in the day than he can fill. With a groan, he opts to find Kai, desperate for a distraction, even if it is just watching his brother do his own thing.

Without Lloyd.

He finds Kai in a workroom, a place that opens to the courtyard but is otherwise hard to get to, with one door and a single window in the back that faces the other side of the mountain. There, Kai bends over an anvil, concentrated as he handles a strip of steel. With odd tools and hammers, he shapes what appears to Lloyd just a rod, but is probably something more, since Kai doesn't so much as look up as he calls a greeting.

"Don't get too close," he warns, the waves of heat flowing so hot through the air, Lloyd sweats just looking at Kai.

Aware of the dangers of blacksmithing, Lloyd rolls his eyes as he sits at the table before the window. For a while, he just watches as Kai taps and hammers the piece of metal before dunking the product in a tub, where a column of steam rises in its wake. Kai then sets it aside on a rack and turns with a grin.

"What's up, green bean?" he says, rolling his shoulders and wiping his forehead across his shirt. Left behind is a dark stain that makes Lloyd frown.

"Nothing much," says Lloyd, and that's been his answer for the past few weeks. As it stands, nothing much is happening at all, and Lloyd despises it. "What are you making?"

"A railing for the gates."

Lloyd's eyebrows rise in surprise, and he sneaks closer for a better look. On the table next to Kai's workspace, a pile of several unfinished parts crowds the surface, some ordered by size or structure, others haphazardly thrown together just to clear some space. Some parts appear functional, but most of them are bizarrely shaped things that Lloyd can't see a finished product in, hardly a railing. He doesn't know why the monastery needs a railing, regardless, for the walls are too high for even the ninja to get a leg over easily.

"Is there something wrong with the gates?" he asks before realizing how crass the statement might be.

Kai shrugs, grabbing a nearby water bottle and proceeding to swallow three fourths of it in two big gulps. Crunching the empty space, he says, "This is decorative. Like the mural, right? Each rod is going to represent one of us."

He points to the piece he just left, then, giving Lloyd a nudge, guides his attention to the pile. Pulling a rod free, he holds it proudly in the air, saying, "This is you. I made yours first."

Lloyd gawks at it. The rod is a delicately constructed flower, beautiful in its details, but the representation has him a little shocked.

"I'm a flower?" he says, unable to believe it. Flowers are small and delicate, neither of which describe Lloyd, thank you very much.

Kai laughs at the tone, but he explains, "You're green. Green represents life, and life makes me think of spring. Green? Spring? In spring we get flowers."

"Oh…" says Lloyd, unsure of the connection and the roundabout way of getting there. One also gets trees in spring. Big leaves and large, powerful trunks. Mighty things. "What is everyone else?"

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there," says Kai, returning to his anvil, "I made yours first. These things take time, and it's been a spell since we've had that."

Lloyd understands that much, at least. For him, it's been too much time, because something usually happens at this point. A villain emerges looking to start something; an unseen enemy with one heck of a grudge plots to ruin everything about Lloyd's life and relationships. Now, he sits and waits for the sky to fall on his head.

Lloyd eyes it out the window. The clouds roll across, blue at the bottom and whiter than white on the top. Lloyd used to imagine that if he could taste them, they'd taste sweet, like vanilla ice cream, but he doesn't daydream about those types of things, anymore.

"What brought this on?" he asks in the silence.

Kai glances up as he sets his piece to heat. "What do you mean?"

"This—" Lloyd turns, gesturing. "All of this. What caused it, and why?"

Kai gives him an odd look, half squinting. "Heck, I don't know. I was sitting on the couch one day with nothing to do, so I came down here. Let my thoughts get away from me."

"You never did that before."

Kai cocks his head.

"Before now," explains Lloyd, "when we had nothing to do, we just did nothing."

"We were always fighting before," says Kai, "Winning battles, stopping destruction, only partly succeeding. Now, we have time. There's room for hobbies. That's also kind of why I keep coming down here, too."

Lloyd doesn't respond right away, so Kai goes on.

"If I were to stop being a ninja tomorrow," Kai says, looking down at his metal and poking it with his tongs, "what would I do instead?"

Lloyd wouldn't know. Kai can certainly smith, but Lloyd can't imagine him becoming a blacksmith, doing this as a job. Can he, now that Lloyd is wondering, and will he? There is something distant about his friend's expression as Kai ponders his own question, a look that stretches far past the future Lloyd typically thinks about.

The expression niggles something in Lloyd's belly, worrying like a splinter.

"Is that…" Lloyd isn't sure how to ask this, "something you're considering?"

Kai laughs. "You mean retire? Of course not. Ninja never quit."

He speaks without any strings, but the worry ebbs slowly. Lloyd releases a breath as it goes, something he isn't sure why he was holding. It's not like Kai would leave. This is his home.

"I was born to keep people safe," continues Kai, staring at the fire's gold glow, "but as time goes on, and things start to quiet down, I want something to return to. Like my parents, your family, you know? They all settled down after a while. Not stopped, but made a life for themselves in the meantime. That's what I'm thinking about. Something I can do instead of waiting around for the next baddie to come along. Smithing helps me figure out what I want."

Waiting around, like Lloyd is doing now. His upper lip curls, and he looks back out the window, deciding then that he doesn't like this conversation. He's not used to Kai thinking so…distantly. It's true that his friend is getting older—they all are—but Lloyd somewhat expected things to stay the same, in a sense. The one constant in Lloyd's life has been his friends, defending Ninjago at his side.

He doesn't expect that to change. He doesn't expect to 'settle'.

Behind him, Kai suddenly pauses, aware that Lloyd is no longer participating in this conversation. "Why do you ask?"

Lloyd shrugs. He's starting to realize what's wrong with him, and he can't say he's pleased. He says, "I think we'll get some rain soon. Those clouds are looking dark."

They are more blue than white in the distance, or maybe Lloyd is just hoping they are. Hoping for rain, hoping for trouble.

Kai is quiet, and Lloyd doesn't have to turn to know that he's staring at him.

Kai says, "What've you been up to, Lloyd?"

Nothing much. The words hover and die in the back of Lloyd's throat. Nothing much, because Lloyd is thinking through his likes and dislikes, scouring his memories, but he can't think of anything he likes to do. Outside of fighting for everything Lloyd holds dear, he is nothing much.

"I don't have any," Lloyd mutters.

"What?"

"I don't have anything like that. Hobbies."

Kai sets down his tools, and all is quiet for a moment. Then, with heavy steps, he approaches Lloyd's side and leans against the wall. Lloyd won't look at him, because there's something sad in Kai's face that Lloyd both recognizes and despises with a passion.

"What do you like to do?" Kai asks.

Lloyd thinks, and he honestly doesn't know. He used to read comics, but that was ages—no, lifetimes ago. He doesn't know if he's the kind of person who would enjoy those things anymore.

That makes him bite his lip hard enough to draw blood. He doesn't mean to, and he certainly has no reason to be worrying at this as much as he is. After all, it's not like he's in any danger. Aside from his father and other imminent threats that haven't promised to return but are out there anyway, there's nothing in Ninjago to make his stomach turn like it is.

No, he's just faced with the fact that he's nothing much.

"I don't know," he says.

Kai stares him down. "It's okay."

"It is not!"

"Hey," says Kai, "You know the great thing about hobbies? You can always pick something up. It's never too late to learn what you love, and we have time."

"I never—" says Lloyd, "I never noticed this before. I always had something else to think about."

"And now you can think about this," says Kai, "Play the field. Learn what you like and do what you love."

It's sound advice, but Lloyd is upset that he even has to hear it. At last, he looks at his friend, and Kai gives him a smile, crooked at the corners.

"You'll find something wonderful," he continues, "It's okay."

He says that again, unusually calm about this, which makes Lloyd think that he's overreacting. All he needs is a hobby, and a hobby isn't anything big, right? What is it but a task to pass the time until he returns to fighting? The longer Lloyd thinks, the worse he feels.

It's just a hobby, but finding what he likes is somehow a more daunting task than strategizing their next big battle. With this, he hardly knows where to begin, for it seems more than a hobby that he's missing in life. It's something else, something essential that he's lost over the years.

Lloyd swallows and sighs, willing himself to calm down for Kai. That's when he notices the hand on his shoulder and looks up at his friend again.

"It's okay," Kai says, "I'll help you."

"I don't know where to start."

Kai nods, and he has an answer for this, too. "Come here," he says, returning to his workspace, "You want to learn how to make nails?"

Lloyd looks at the anvil, then the hammer Kai holds out to him. Nails? Kai wants him to blacksmith? Lloyd, who can't hit a nail fully forged?

He can't see it, but Kai wants to help him. Help him like he always does, by offering a place to start.

Lloyd nods.

It takes him two tries before he's frustrated, but then again, his day is already ruined. He can hold a hammer, but wielding it is a skill he didn't even know existed and doesn't have.

Kai gives him the run-down of the basics of blacksmithing: heat; hold; hit. One heats the metal to mold like clay, saves body parts by holding the metal with tongs or other tools, and hits to beat their metal into shape.

The first two tasks are easy, considering Lloyd can't use his hands to touch anything. It's the hitting that gives him the most trouble, and it doesn't do well for his already bad mood. Turns out beating your frustrations out on a piece of metal just flattens it into a useless pancake, and that blacksmithing requires more than striking the metal into shape. It's about molding, about patience, about control.

Lloyd has no idea what he's doing, and his frustration breeds high as morning creeps well into late afternoon.

"I can't do this, Kai," he says halfway through hour five, when his tongs shift and the steel falls out of place, "I can't do this!"

"You can," says Kai, unusually patient as he supervises.

"Can't!" says Lloyd, "I can't hit that well."

The proof of this, outside of Lloyd's own hand, lies in the pile of failed nails, all set aside waiting to be reheated and repurposed into more successful attempts. To him, the pile is a monument of why he shouldn't be doing this at all, but Kai is shaking his head.

"You can't hit well because you're just starting out," Kai says, "That's how it works. You're already walking better than you were an hour ago, right?"

Right, Lloyd supposes, if by better, Kai means that he can hit the steel once or twice and get it to look a certain way. Better is not good, and Lloyd can't get the hang of the simple shapes. Kai made a nail in three hits tops.

"Believe me," Kai continues, patting Lloyd's shoulder before returning to his own work, "They look better than my first ones. I didn't get good until last year, and I've been smithing since birth, practically."

Lloyd snorts, wanting to feel better, but the day is shot as far as turning it around goes. He's already dealing with lack of self, and pounding nails isn't helping with it. It's hard to imagine he'll ever get good enough to make something out of this.

With a sigh, he tries hitting the steel again with his hammer, but the tongs shift as he grips it wrong. The nail falls, twisting as it does.

Staring at it, Lloyd doesn't say anything, but Kai says, "Keep at it. You've got this."

Kai is trying so hard, but Lloyd doesn't 'got' anything. If he's being honest, he's ready to settle for a mope fest until he works the courage to try something else. This is just one of many things he can do until it's time to be the Green Ninja again.

"I don't have the patience for this," he says, resigning to spend what's left of the day sulking as he drops the hammer with a clatter.

Kai glances at the tool, and Lloyd blanches at the thought that he should have been more considerate. He's so wrapped up in himself that he's forgotten good manners, and he chides himself for getting this way.

But Kai's voice is soft as he says, "I didn't either. For the longest time."

Lloyd isn't sure how to reply.

Kai looks up, and he says, "Just find something that speaks to you. Anything you want. Then tell me all about it. I'll be counting on you."

In Kai's final spring, in his final weeks, he spends his days helping Lloyd. Helping like he always does. The day is late, and sunlight now shines golden through the back window.

"What if I don't?" says Lloyd.

"You will."

Lloyd thinks. "And what if I don't want to?"

"If you're content to sulk," says Kai, grinning as Lloyd starts to smile, "I'll bully you into liking blacksmithing. Then we can put up the railing together."

Despite this experience, Lloyd likes the sound of that. The worry in his brow relaxes, and Kai spots the change even though Lloyd tries to remain indifferent.

"Okay," Lloyd laments, looking at his pile of failed nails, all twisted and curled into a depressing heap, "but only if I don't find another hobby, first."

"Alright, Lloyd."

Kai pulls his latest piece from the bucket of water, the one he was working on before and continued to mess with while Lloyd pounded his failures. It's a beautifully sculpted wave mounted around a rod, just like Lloyd's flower, but taller.

"Nya," Kai states, setting it against a hook to cool.

Though Lloyd doesn't appreciate the height difference, he does think it beautiful. Lloyd marvels the rod from across the room before turning to the rest of the pieces Kai has finished so far. Most of it is structurally based, and Lloyd's flower sticks out among the rest.

Taking it in hand, he slides it out from the rest of the pieces, admiring the detail in the petals and leaves. He still doesn't see himself in it, but it is a work of art.

"What kind of flower is this?" he asks, wondering where Kai found the inspiration.

"Not sure," replies Kai, "They always pop up in spring. Every year, bright and early."

The next day, Lloyd enters a library and checks out a book on wildflowers.

Thank you for reading! Updates will be infrequent.