ninjago my precious

Breakfast on the Bounty (what everyone's like at 9 am)

       On the Destiny's Bounty, there aren't many slow days. People on call for the continent are, understandably, busy. Trainings to prepare for the next, inevitable largescale battle and ongoing investigations of the particularly slippery lawbreakers take up the entirety of a normal nine to five workday and then some. That being said, unpredictable schedules of the crime underworld align about once every month with the planned, less instruction-heavy days to create what is called "A Day Off."

       These sun-soaked mornings filled with loud chatter are a more than suitable background for making breakfast. Zane isn't necessarily an early riser as much as he's just consistently awake at eight every morning. Luckily for the others, he finds cooking relaxing and enjoyable, so their free mornings have a table piled with bamboo steamers, covered plates and bowls, and each person's personalized mug filled with their tea of choice. All hands are below deck, gathering at the table like bears to honey and waiting with the silence of a brood of cicadas, and spring to action when a certain nindroid asks for the table to be set. By the time Zane sits down to eat, someone's drawn the short straw to fetch the mechanics from the workshop.

       Due to popular demand, the lowest cargo hold was turned into a workshop; the renovations took quite a while, spanning from the mainmast to the rudder, and had an unveiling when it finished. The plaque above it reads "The Dr. Julien Workshop in Destiny's Bounty II: the second Sailing Ship with Rocket Boosters," an homage to Zane's late father. Jay, Pixal, and Nya are so fond of the place that, if someone doesn’t come fetch them, they'll stay there until noon.

       Often, Pixal is the first to emerge. Before she's even sitting at the table, she'll talk about project ideas she's been mocking up or a Samurai X mission that hasn't hit the papers yet. She uses her hands and tone for emphasis around the climax of each tale. Her pitch climbs up as she's fighting a rogue serpentine gang, then it falls when she's investigating suspicious activity around a Borg Industrial warehouse.

       She sits across from Cole, one of the two most conscientious listeners at the table. He and Lloyd nod, only interrupt to clarify the situation being described, and ask questions at the end. The latter wages a war with his curls so he can make proper eye contact with the storytellers and conversation-havers. Well-placed sarcasm or a snide comment can get him to laugh, throwing his head back and covering his mouth with a hand. Compared to when they first brought him onto the Bounty, he's a bundle of sunshine. His smile encourages the appearance of laugh lines near his eyes and dimples.

       Usually wearing a band t-shirt, Cole comes in with clear eyes and soft footsteps. He might help Zane with some of the final morning tasks like cutting fruit, setting the table, and serving tea. Although he claims to daydream while everyone’s eating, he certainly pays attention to those speaking. He's the one with a reaction at the end of a particularly ridiculous monologue from a conniving gangster or persistent cat burglar. He'll stay until the end; even if everyone else has left and the table is clear, he sits with whoever's still talking until the story’s over. Even once everyone's done, he'll walk over to loosely encircle Zane's waist and rest his head on his back, which doesn't make washing up any easier, but the nindroid isn’t protesting. They usually end up side by side, with Cole taking over the washing up after some unfounded, worried chiding about robots and water.

       The other end of the table, headed by Wu and flanked by the Smith siblings, often courts unrelated chatter. Jay may be arguing across the table with Kai, his eyebrows drawn in and tone carefully pitched as loud as it can be without drowning out Pix. Despite sitting next to her, he somehow manages to make his voice sound as if it's coming from further away. Probably a trick he picked up from school when he wanted to talk during class. Although he's gained a reputation for mischief and humor, he's relatively aware of the others for a self-proclaimed class clown. He tends to notice body language indicating anxiety or stress; it takes one to know one, after all. His rambling stories and quick subject changes don't particularly lend themselves well to astute observation of his peers, but he makes it work. Somehow.

       If Jay's not heading up the chatter, Sensei Wu's recounting old stories or answering questions about the day's training and lessons. Between cups of green tea, he weaves myth and history together into an elaborate tapestry. Wu's expression remains blank throughout, but his intonation brings in drama and stakes. His flair for the dramatic extends to wearing long silk robes around the Bounty, and encourages the others to follow his example. Years ago, he even went as far as to make color coordinating pinstripe pajama sets show up on their beds.

       Kai disregards all of this. The majority of his morning garb is plush, fuzzy pants and some kind of graphic tee you'd expect to see in the Instagram shopping tab. His hair is nothing if not abominable, sometimes to the point of obscuring his vision or poking him directly in the eye. Poor eyesight never stops him from plundering the steamers and serving plates, though, to Zane's constant amusement and mild displeasure. A true older brother, he has an embarrassing story about every person at the table up his sleeve. Once, when conversation shifted to a bad picture Cole had taken of him after they rescued a serpentine village, he pointed out the time Cole stopped to buy a sketchbook in the middle of a battle. He decried the lack of professionalism until Cole reminded the table that, a few weeks later, Kai got socked in the jaw by a motorhead goon during a raid on a Sons of Garmadon warehouse, due to ogling a pricey pair of aviator sunglasses.

       Nya and her brother take turns excitedly interrupting to chime in with non-sequiturs. Famous for her fantastical connections, if Nya comments on the others' stories, it often spins off into an entire conversation of its own. Most of the others are only-children and don't understand the competition that younger siblings face when they want to speak to the table. When she was younger, her stories were unlistenable, since five year-olds aren't typically poet laureates. By the time she could dismantle her experiences into funny anecdotes, the only other person at the table was Kai. They were often together all day, so there weren't many stories to tell that the other didn't already know. An opportunity arose when they were inducted as the fifth and sixth members of a new, larger, family, and Nya took care not to squander it.

       Two more members later, the table at the Destiny's Bounty was full. Seats were chosen: backed by the bay windows, Zane sits at one head of the table, going clockwise, there's Cole, Lloyd, Kai, Wu at the other head, then Nya, Jay, and Pixal. Though the nindroids need not eat, they appreciate the good company and routine.

       The only inhabitant of the Destiny's Bounty that will interrupt them is the grandfather clock in the hall. Found and fixed by Ed and Edna, it automatically adjusts to time zones and daylight savings. Beneath the pendulum, there's an altimeter, and the clock face has not only hours and minutes, but seconds and milliseconds. They refused to stray from the original style, so the mahogany behemoth, with its ornate carvings, photovoltaic glass, and atomic timekeeping unit sits in what must be the equivalent of foyer in the modified pirate ship base.

       Now, the Bounty sits in the Samurai X cave beneath the Monastery, its restraints and docking station nearly rattling apart as Aspheera sends her fiery serpents to break through the doors separating her from Wu.

       Just ten short minutes later, ice crystals scatter across the deck. Two minutes after that, there's one fewer person in the cave.

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NOTES:

This fic leads into Zane getting sent into the Never Realm and elaborates on the morning routine that's the setting for the next story in this series about Zane's trauma from the Vex.

user MapleBreeze on ao3 mentioned that they liked my ninja team dynamics so here's a loosely cobbled together description of their lazy mornings.