Avatar/Ninjago: The Legend of Lloyd

Chapter 2: The Fugitive

Lloyd begins to doubt his decision. He looks back on more than one occasion.

I'm a disgrace, He thinks. I don't deserve to be ... what I am.

Tears well up in his eyes as he remembers what he's left behind. His family and friends- their smiles, their looks, their voices. He holds on tightly to these, determined to keep them with him forever.

His feet slip out from beneath him, and he collapses on the grass. Only then does he allow himself to cry. He cries until his sadness is spent, and only anger remains.

"Lloyd, you're pathetic." He berates himself.

He dries his tears on his cloak. Looking up at the sky, he is suddenly overcome with rage. Lloyd screams at the sky with everything he has, and doesn't stop until his throat feels raw.

Maybe that's why she abandoned me, he thinks to himself once he's done. Maybe she could tell right away what a loser I'd end up being. Sure, I was just a baby, but Moms have a sixth sense for that stuff. At least, that's what I've heard. I'll never know for sure. It must be true, though. I trust my friends.

Friend. Lloyd wonders vaguely if he'll ever be able to call someone that again, before falling into an exhausted sleep.

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Lloyd wakes to the feeling of something fluffy on his cheek. Groggy and annoyed, he waves his hand in the air. The feeling goes away for a moment, but soon returns.

"Leave me alone, Bufo." He says, shoving something away from.

A tremendous grunt is the only response.

Uh oh.

His eyes snap open a moment too late- the mysterious animal has already launched itself onto his face, scratching at him furiously. Lloyd tries frantically to pull it off, but the thing holds fast. Lloyd would probably have been better off dumping water on a monkey-cat.

Spirits, at this rate I'm going to have a worse scar than Fire Lord Zuko!

Finally, he manages to throw the beast away from him with his airbending. The menace yowls with rage as it crashes into a tree.

What would Uncle say to do in a situation like this? "Lloyd, if one day, for any reason, you accidentally throw someone into a tree ..."

...He'd better run! Okay, maybe that isn't exactly what Uncle would have said, but Lloyd still thinks it's the best course of action here. He scrambles to his feet and is about to take off when he notices that the animal, now clearly a racoon-rabbit, seems to be in pain. Cautiously, he approaches it.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that," he says.

The little animal rubs its forehead. Lloyd tears off a piece of cloth from his cloak to make a bandage, but when the raccoon rabbit removes its paws from its fluffy forehead, he's startled to see a blue stripe running down its back from its nose. A stripe very much like the tattoo he should have. Lloyd brings a hand to his forehead, instinctively. It's really a good thing that he doesn't have his mastery tattoos, now that he has to keep a low profile, but Lloyd can't bring himself to be glad. His plain forehead serves as a reminder that he didn't complete his airbending training in time. He hopes, one day, he'll be able to correct this.

"I'm going to the nearest village," he tells the raccoon rabbit, and although it probably doesn't understand him, saying it out loud boosts his confidence.

Surprisingly, the little animal leaps onto his shoulder, as though wanting to make him understand that it's on his side. Lloyd smiles, happy to have a friend. Covering his face with the hood, he picks his glider up off the ground and looks towards the valley. Not far away there is a village. Maybe that's where he'll discover his true destiny. Maybe, in the end, he's not meant to be the Avatar.