Morrotober

Day Thirteen

He was still ranting when Nya and Skylor arrived. Morro didn't care enough to acknowledge them. "It was so stupid!" he said, sitting on the pawn shop's counter. "Like I'm supposed to finger paint my feelings?"

Ronin rolled his eyes. "Hey, Nya," he said, leaning out from behind Morro. "What's up?"

"Not much," Nya said. "What's up with him?"

"He went to therapy," Ronin said.

"Art therapy," Morro said disdainfully. "Useless."

"Hey, hey," said Skylor, ruffling his hair. Morro shoved her hand away. "It's good you're doing any therapy at all. Didn't Borg want you to start it, like, years ago?"

Morro groaned. "Yeah, but that was supposed to be real therapy, not just messing around."

Nya laughed. "At least you got to make something, right?" she said. "What was it?"

"Yeah," said Ronin. "You've been complaining this whole time, right? I want to at least see what you drew."

Morro pushed him away. "Ugh. It's not like they had anything interesting, it's just paper and pencils."

Ronin snorted. "So what was that crap about finger painting?"

"I mean, they had it, but I'm not using my hands to paint!"

Skylor smiled. "If you're not comfortable showing it, you don't have to, but I wouldn't mind seeing it if you are."

Morro shrugged and dug in his back pocket. "Here," he said, holding out a folded piece of paper. "It's not interesting."

He hopped off the counter and unfolded the paper on it. Nya, Skylor, and Ronin gathered to look. "Huh," Nya said. "You drew towers?"

Morro nodded. He had drawn five stone towers of varying styles and fantastical elements. "They had some prompt for me, but I didn't care about it."

Skylor shook her head. "So it's not that art therapy sucked, it's that you're a tough patient."

"I'm not surprised," Nya said. "This one's cool."

She pointed to a tower with a waterfall falling from the top window. Morro nodded. "I don't know how you'd actually make something like that," he said. "I mean, sure, it's a cool looking fountain, but it'd be a lot of effort to pump that much water to the top, especially if it's flowing constantly."

"You thought about making it?"

"No? Just like, how it would be done." Morro pointed at another one. "See how big this one is? It would have to be wind-resistant, so I tried to draw it with an aerodynamic shape, or something."

"Huh," said Nya. "You know a lot about this."

Heat rose in his cheeks. "Not really," Morro said, looking away. "There's plenty of architecture I don't know."

Skylor patted his shoulder. "Is this what you're going to college for?"

Anxiety spiked through him. "I'm not going to college," Morro said sharply. "I don't care if Dad wants me to, it's my choice."

"You could be an architect," Nya said. "These are cool."

"It doesn't matter, I just drew them for fun."

"Aw, c'mon." Nya smiled at him. "Your dad is Cyrus Borg, which means not only is your college totally paid for, but every university in Ninjago will be fighting to get you. Chances like that don't happen to everyone. They sure didn't happen to me."

Morro started to talk, then stopped, and settled for a wordless grumble and snatching his paper off the table. Skylor coughed and changed the subject, but Morro tuned out the rest of the conversation until it was time to go home.

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