#Following this interview Damas basically assigns himself their guardian

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

Back to Meddling Mar, picking up where we left off

Part 1, Parts 2-3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

Narrowing his eyes, Damas glanced from Jak to Mar and back again. "You never met your own parents. But you would have been old enough to remember when Seek was born?"

Mar shrugged angrily. "Loghead said he wasn't s'posed to remember I existed."

It was all Damas could do to refrain from pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off an impending headache.

These kids were going to make a lot of paperwork for the monks, he could already tell.

"...no parents or guardians," he sighed, making a mental note to look into getting some regular supervision in place once these kids were released from convalescence. "Alright. Do you have any particular skills or interests that you feel should be taken into account in your placement?"

Daxter raised a paw. "Does "surviving murder attempts on an almost daily basis" count?"

Precursors give me patience...

"Nobody should live in Haven," Damas grumbled under his breath.

"It's a pretty crappy place," Jak agreed easily. "But Dax is right. You people are all about survival, right? We've been scraping by on nothing since we were kids."

The king fixed him with a sharp look. Stern, but not skeptical. He seemed to have no trouble believing what Jak had said, it was just that he didn't like what he was hearing.

"Since you were..." Damas leaned back and drew a hand over his face. Peering over his fingers, he examined the boy.

"What is it you generally do when you aren't fighting to survive?"

Jak stared at him. "I don't...um, I don't know, I've never had a chance to find out."

Then, as an afterthought, he added, "I guess I'd explore. Find weird Precursor crap. I'm pretty good at that. I race, if the competition is any good."

"I own a bar," Daxter volunteered, "Drink mixing, finances, non-life-threatening skills."

Well at least one of them had some actual life skills. Of course, their scars and hostile attitudes did suggest they knew how to fight to survive. He didn't expect the child to offer the same kind of answer, but he looked to him anyway.

"I cause problems," Mar announced unrepentantly.

The king cracked a smile, welcoming the mischievous boy's attempt at a joke. "Hm. I see that."

Returning his gaze to the older boy, Damas asked, "Do you have any combat experience?"

"Combat makes up the bulk of my experience," Jak shot back. He folded his arms across his chest and tried to look intimidating.

Damas didn’t look intimidated. He looked troubled.

"I suppose in a city like Haven you would've had to learn to defend yourself young."

Daxter scoffed. "If we'd grown up in Haven, we wouldn't have had the guts to fight. Gotta know freedom first to recognize a cage."

"Hm. Well said," Damas commented, but his frown remained. "How did you come to be in that city? Most people don't move to Haven by choice."

"Neither did we," Jak growled. "Got tricked into a-"

He paused to think of a convincing half-truth. "Sabotaged transport ring. It dropped us miles apart, and Praxis's attack dog was waiting."

Errol's face flooded his memory and he shuddered.

"Waiting?" Damas pressed, but the boy seemed to shut down.

"Not in front of the kid," he said. It was probably supposed to be firm, an imperative.

Damas heard a plea underneath.

He thought of the scars along the boy’s arms and nodded slowly. The instinct to wince was tamped down harshly; pity was not what this young survivor required.

"You may speak to me about it later if it becomes relevant," he allowed. "At the moment, the House of Praxis and their ilk are less important than determining where, precisely, you will fit best in my city."

"I can pull my own weight," Jak grunted.

The rock began to dig into his legs, and he shifted in a futile attempt at getting comfortable. "The kid’s, too."

There, he'd said it again. It wasn’t Damas’s imagination, the castaway was actively avoiding using the little brother's given name. An odd quirk under more standard circumstances, to be sure. But for reasons he was afraid to put his finger on, something about that bizarre behavior set his instincts screaming in the back of his mind.

"Why," he asked bluntly, "do you refuse to tell anyone Seek's proper name?"

He watched a retort form and then disintegrate on Jak’s tongue.

Had he not expected to be called out on it?

Jak and "Seek" shot worried looks back and forth for a moment before Jak relented.

"His name has...history. People...expect things of us when they hear it. They demand things, actually. We're not people to them. Just tools."

This time, Damas knew that it wasn't the brothers' resemblance to Mar that kindled a growing empathy in his chest. He was the only surviving son of King Arez and Queen Maegera for his entire youth. The pressures placed on him by the history attached to his blood had been enormous, threatening to crush him with every passing day. Every look of disappointment on his mother's face when he failed another channeling test his older brothers had excelled at, every reprimand by his father's counselors while Arez sat silently and did not defend him -- they'd all added to the weight on his soul. Becoming nobody in the desert-

Earning his rank with his own blood and sweat had been liberating.

He tapped his fingers restlessly against his forearm and nodded again.

"You want him to experience life free from the burden of other's expectations," he guessed.

Jak’s eyes slid away. "Well one of us should," he scoffed.

Somehow, Damas didn’t think he'd meant to say that out loud.

If only I could say I'd never felt the burdens you carry, young castaway. But if nothing else, perhaps I can show you how to let them go...

"Why not both of you?" He gestured between them. "You have some years yet before you'd be expected to earn your gate pass and work more than just chores."

"Because someone has to keep us fed?" Jak answered slowly, like he was afraid it was a trick question. "What else would we even do here?"

"Well, what kind of education have you had?" Damas asked, seeming to change the subject.

He had a feeling he could guess by the bewildered faces staring back at him.

Jak looked uncertain and embarrassed, and Seek just looked uncertain. If they'd been surviving on the streets in Haven -- which so far sounded like the case -- Damas didn't suppose they'd had much opportunity to pursue more than the most basic education. And with no parents to speak of, any money that could've gone to tuition would have, by necessity, been funneled to mere survival.

"I...think Dax might be the only one with more than basic reading, writing, and cartography," Mar admitted. "Because he knows math with ration cards and ratios and stuff."

"Cartography?" Damas raised his brows. "Not many still study map-making, I'm impressed!"

Mar lit up at the praise, only to realize a second later that this was still "the Snitch", and he still bore a grudge. Quickly, and not very convincingly, he schooled his face back into a skeptical scowl. Jak was even less convincing as he tried to look like the compliment had meant nothing to him. As if he wasn't sitting that little bit straighter, holding his head that little bit higher.

Damas felt something inside him loosen just a little at the sight. So, they weren't so hard to crack after all. The castaways wore tough outer shells to be sure, but here and there he could glimpse the children underneath. They responded to praise like most other young ones, it seemed. Well, if they were truly determined to pull their own weight in this city despite their age, doubtless they'd find their share of approval out there.

Damas nodded and rubbed his chin. "That will serve you well out here. New citizens are required to learn a basic history of Spargus -- lest we repeat the mistakes of the past -- but whether all three of you require any other remedial schooling will be determined by the head of education."

Daxter jolted so hard that he fell off his rock and into the water. He came up spluttering.

"What?! You can't make us go to school!"

He got a wry look in return.

"I most certainly can. Citizens of your age may choose whether they pursue a more academic education, or a more experience-based education, but make no mistake-"

Damas leaned forward and pointed.

"-you will have to learn some things if you wish to thrive here."

Jak stared him down.

"I'm not leaving my brother by himself," he challenged.

For a moment, they kept eye contact, one trying to gage the other's meaning and the other refusing to be the first to look away. Then with a tired grumble, Damas stood up. "Follow me," he said shortly.

He picked his way across stepping stones to the dais carved from stone. From there, he followed a narrow walkway between planters and water to a doorway half obscured by a linen curtain. Then he paused, and turned to regard the boys.

"Sometime tonight, younglings," he called dryly.

They hesitated, but dragged themselves from the pool to follow.

"The school day," said Damas briskly as he led them up a short flight of steps, "Begins at dawn and ends at noon. Six hours are generally allotted for education, to allow the city's handful of children the same schedule as adults. Regardless of whether you chose the temple school or an apprenticeship, you still wouldn't be leaving Seek "by himself" for an entire day."

Daxter scrambled up the steps behind him. "Well whaddya do after lunch?"

Wryly, Damas gestured around. "Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but it gets very hot in the summer months here. We try to accomplish most of our work in the morning and evening. Midday is for resting and doing indoor work. Even my predecessor -- may even the ground reject his bones -- knew that it was best to give families time together during midday."

Unexpectedly, Jak snorted. ""May even the ground reject his bones"? Wow. Someone's got dad issues."

"Probably," Damas agreed, giving the boy an annoyed squint, "But my predecessor wasn't my father. Gods, what a nightmare that would've been."

The thought stayed in his mind a second too long and he shuddered.

"If I'd had to call that stunted slime my parent, I think I'd have just disowned myself."

Behind him, Seek giggled. And though the older two boys were clearly trying to look like cool, aloof, teenagers, Damas could tell it had amused them, too.

See, Pho, someone appreciates my wit around here-

He cleared his throat.

"No, titles in Spargus are not inherited. We earn them. I am king because I had the practical experience necessary to keep a city running. And also because I killed the old king in single combat."

Jak blinked. "....yeah, that would do it."

He hurried up the next couple steps to put him level with Damas.

"So uh, where exactly are you taking us?"

"Map room."

It turned out to be more of a utility room than a map room, full of gages and pumps for what looked like a truly massive water filtration system. A flickering, scratched screen took up the back wall, showing a readout of the city, and it was here that Damas led them. Spargus was smaller than Haven by a good fifty percent, but it was still far larger than the boys had anticipated. Just the northwest district alone could have comfortably fit all of Sandover at once!

"I'll have to ask around and find out what rooms are open at the moment," Damas said, eyes fixed on the map.

The lines around his mouth deepened.

"There are always some. Even the most experienced warriors are not immortal."

Mar grimaced and silently commented to Jak, "Morbid guy."

"He's not wrong, though," Jak agreed.

When Mar tired of squinting at the screen, trying to decipher the tiny writing, he boldly poked Damas in the back. Jak stiffened, but Damas didn’t seem unduly bothered by the impertinence.

"Yes, little one, what is is?" he asked, turning slightly.

"Are there other kids here, or are they all teenagers like Jak?" Mar demanded.

If he was going to be the only eight year old in a class, then he refused to go.

Damas turned back to the screen and rapped sharply on the side until some of the fuzzy quality cleared a bit.

"Spargus, at the moment, is home to twenty people between the ages of fifteen and nineteen," he said, "and twelve between the ages of two and thirteen."

Only Jak caught a flicker of what almost looked like pain in Damas’s eyes as he added quietly, "Far too few..."

He blinked and seemed to shake himself, then made a sound of triumph as he tapped a spot on the northwest edge of the map.

"Alma's place, of course!" He glanced back at the boys, realizing they wouldn't have the slightest idea who Alma was.

"One of our non-warrior citizens. She keeps rooms for newcomers. Rent is a touch eccentric, but at least it shouldn't put much burden on you."

Daxter hopped up to grab the edge of the console. After several seconds of struggling, he managed to claw his way up to a sitting position and folded his arms.

"Rent?!" he demanded, "All we got is a fiver ration card! Exiles don't get severance pay!"

For a second, Damas pressed his lips sharply together. If he found the ottsel's way of phrasing things funny, he was never going to admit it. Ever.

He cleared his throat and set about downloading the map into an odd-looking talk-box plugged into the side of the monitor.

"We don't use ration cards here. We barter. Time, food, water, shells, artifacts -- mostly artifacts. Most rooms come with a set of scales -- you'll need them."

Daxter looked a little put out, having become rather adept at making financial decisions based on Haven's currency. Jak and Mar, however, were relieved. It sounded far more like Sandover's way of life, except it applied to everyone and not just them.

Damas unplugged the talk-box and handed it to Jak. "Batteries are hard to come by out here. Try not to use this if you don't have to."

"Um...thanks." Jak switched on the boxy device's bulbous screen and cycled to the map. "We don't have anything to trade for this."

The king studied him for an uncomfortable moment, then his lips twisted at the corner into a smirk.

"You let me fix that haircut you gave yourself, and I'll call it even."

Jak did not appreciate Daxter's howl of laughter. Or Mar agreeing on his behalf.