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then, all Zane ever did was sit.
Cole watched him from across the courtyard of the monastery, which seemed to be permanently in a state of chilliness anymore. A light frost sat across the stones and made it impossible to train without slipping, and on most days snow fell from the sky only to disappear once you walked far enough away from him .
He had taken up residence on Wu’s old meditation carpet, the worn red material barely visible under its thick coat of ice. The sun glittered off of everything, and Cole had thought it beautiful at first, in a way, but now it felt far too cold– the hints of gold among the ice as it reflected the light were empty reminders of the warmth that had been lost.
“Hey,” Cole said, shuffling over the stones carefully so as to not fall, tilting his head at the figure who was elegantly seated on a throne of blue fractals. “Zane?”
At first the figure did not acknowledge him. Blue eyes buzzed lightly with energy, and a near pearlescent gaze only stared longingly into somewhere beyond Cole’s head, even as the earth master waved a hand in front of those empty eyes. He wondered what they were seeing– what they were perceiving beyond his own human comprehension.
The ice cracked a bit under his feet and mended itself almost immediately after. Cole felt the cold radiating off of the nindroid down to his bones, shivering.
“Can’t turn down the AC a little? Heh,” The black ninja laughed without mirth, giving his friend a lopsided smile as he rubbed his own arms for the tiniest bit of warmth. His false smile fell as he continued staring at those eyes, at the casing of ice that grew from around the other’s face and seemed to constantly spread, now rendering him immobile and only capable of looking .
Cole felt the urge to touch his shoulder, to give him a hug, some kind of sign that he was here , physically, even if Zane could not see him. But they had tried that so many times, and the frostbite injuries that resulted were hard to treat. The last thing he needed to do was put yet another burden onto his team, onto his family. Not when he needed to be their rock.
Instead, Cole cautiously sat down beside the ice ninja, finding a spot where the crystals were less frequent, and ignoring the chill it sent through his clothes. He touched the spot where the stones of the courtyard met the ice, letting his eyes rest and speaking with the earth, pleading for just a favor. Let him know I’m here.
He felt the small pull of a response, the shake of hesitance, but the motionless nod of affirmation from beneath his fingertips.
There was a coarse cracking across the ice scape, and Cole opened his eyes to see that Zane’s head had turned, just slightly, to face him. To look at him , and not the distant sights he always seemed to see.
“You,” Zane said, slowly, and Cole cringed at the way his voice was a bit crackly from disuse, a voice box no doubt covered in a thick layer of frost.
“Hey, snowflake, good to see you,” The earth ninja smiled hesitantly, “Can you even see me?”
“I see a thousand versions of you, millions,” Zane spoke with a distance to his voice, like he was truly focusing on every single Cole in his line of sight. “You are dying. You are living.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“A kaleidoscope,” Zane said, “I can see everything. Everything you could become. Everything you will become. You will–”
“Don’t tell me that,” Cole chuckled dryly, “I don’t want to know.”