#Horse Trio | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

radioactivepeasant · 8 months

Text

Fic Prompts: Snippet Thursday

I'm revamping Demolition Trio a little because I decided the boys needed a second dog 😆

It was still a novelty for all three of them, waking to find that someone had saved food for them. Not just saved, but prepared! Mar scrambled into the antechamber that connected his room to his father's, racing to the table with an excited trill. Jak and Daxter, by contrast, stumbled and shuffled their way in like sleepwalkers. Daxter's head thudded into the table and he groped blindly for the tiny cup of coffee that Sig had set out for him.

This was a point of great contention between him and Damas. Damas was of the opinion that having an animal body meant caffeine was bad for Daxter. Sig, on the other hand, insisted that dark eco only altered the outer form, not the internal structure, seeing as Daxter didn't get sick from drinking alcohol. These debates usually ended with Sig insisting firmly that Damas trusted his judgment regarding "his" rookie.

Jak picked up a tin cup and squinted at his warped reflection.

"Do I have a mark on my forehead?" he asked Damas, yawning, "Tell me honestly."

Damas liked half-awake-Jak. He wasn't reserved or feigning disinterest and bravado. In fact, he seemed to lack any sense of ranks, titles, or even that they were relative strangers to each other, early in the morning. Jak seemed to act on an instinctive trust -- a deeply encouraging sign. He acted like the child he was, or should have been, when he wasn't fully awake.

So Damas leaned forward and brushed hair from Jak's forehead to look.

"Well, let me see. I don't see...ah. That almost looks like a bruise. Have an encounter with the doorframe on your way to breakfast?"

Jak grumbled. "Had an encounter with somebody's tiny foot in the middle of the night. And nobody's confessed yet."

With a sympathetic chuckle, Damas poured a cup of coffee and passed it to his elder son. "Well if a bruise forms, you can match it to the suspects and find your culprit that way," he suggested teasingly.

"Nooo!" Jak groaned and batted his hand away. "It'll look stupid!"

Mar reached for a slice of hydromelon and took a huge bite. With juice dripping down his hands and chin, he signed, "I don't think it was me! Because I was sleepin' and that's how come."

"Dude, have you seen how you sleep?" Jak demanded.

Mar frowned. "No? Because I was sleepin!"

The force of the laugh he was suppressing left Damas wheezing. He reached over to tousle both boys' heads at once. "You're a mess; I love you," he snorted.

Mar beamed, dripping and sticky. Jak made a sound like a broken fog horn and plastered the coffee cup to his face. It wasn’t likely that he knew the statement had been aimed at them both.

Give it time, Damas told himself, Don’t be impatient. Let him adjust. Let him learn to trust kindness before you expect him to understand.

Having someone else be responsible for cleaning up a four year old barbarian who shunned forks made life much easier, in Daxter's opinion. Unfortunately for him, Mar appeared to miss his quality time tormenting Daxter. The moment Damas had finished fighting him out of his sticky pajamas, the little boy leaned on the table next to Daxter with a wide grin.

"Daz."

One of the only four words he liked to say aloud. "Da" for Damas, "Za" for Jak, "Ih" for Sig, and "Daz" for Daxter. And hearing it in that tone always heralded trouble.

"Ye-esss?" Daxter peered over the rim of his cup to eye the sticky toddler suspiciously.

"Daxxer, wanna help me make a tower today?" Juice sprayed from his fingers with each sign, dripping down Daxter's face.

Right in front of the world's most intimidating dad. Like he actually had the option to say no. Dangit, the kid was picking up Daxter's tricks a little too well. Grinning weakly, he sighed, "uh...sure, pal. After you put on clothes."

Damas snorted. "You're not obligated to babysit, Daxter. But I would appreciate someone keeping an eye on him for a few minutes. I need Jak's help with something."

Jak frowned. "You do?"

Possibilities raced through his head. Marauders? Storms? Reassembling the cheap set of drawers Daxter and Mar demolished while "racing" said drawers down a set of stairs?

He didn't expect to be taken to a bookshelf in Damas’s chamber, and shown a hidden door. This was obviously something he didn't want Mar seeing. Why was he bringing Jak?

"Do you trust me, son?" Damas asked abruptly.

"Um...I mean, yeah?" Jak mumbled. He tried not to cling to the word son too tightly. Tried not to think of Sig gently telling him "You have a family too, if you want it."

"Good." Damas stepped into a hidden elevator and beckoned him in. "There's something I want to give you. I think it will be a great benefit to your fight the next time you visit Haven."

Visit. Huh. Jak was just starting to notice that Damas went out of his way to avoid talking about Haven like Jak lived there. It was just a place he visited. He seemed to want to think Spargus was Jak’s home -- and he probably wanted Jak to think that, too.

The lift deposited them in a cavern, filled with the echoing bays of hounds, and Jak suddenly had an idea of what Damas meant.

Now, Jak hadn't been familiar with crocadogs before meeting Mar. And until Sig told him they used to be battle-mounts, he'd just assumed Chopper wouldn't get much bigger than a Lurker Hound.

Chopper’s mother was much.

Much.

Much larger than a Lurker Hound.

She had to be eleven hands at the shoulder, with a head approximately as broad as the jet board. The half grown pups around her leaped and bayed, snapping powerful jaws the moment they spotted Damas. For just a moment, Jak's steps faltered. Why would Damas bring him down here? Didn't Sig say Ghost hated anyone who wasn't Damas?

"Ghost!" Damas whistled sharply and held out a hand.

Ghost surged out of the shallow pool like a tidal wave, bounding up the incline in less than three steps. She pulled up short, seating herself expectantly in front of Damas with a stern "WURF!"

Damas cocked his head at Jak. "Well?"

He placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him forward a step.

"Go on, let her get your scent."

The next thing Jak knew, he was flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him. Roughly 400 pounds of pure muscle pinned him down while he was nearly deafened by excited barking. Ghost licked his face, wurf-ing and digging her cold nose into his neck.

"Gah-!" Jak shoved the huge head to the side, laughing. "Gross! Knock it off, girl!"

Looking oddly smug, Damas clicked his tongue. "Ghost, off," he commanded.

The massive predator whined and blinked sad brown eyes at him, and he laughed. "Oh? Is Jak one of yours now?"

"Wurf!"

"Now dear, we've been over this: four-legged pups are yours, two-legged pups are mine."

"Harroof!"

"Well, alright. Chopper was an exception. You needed a break."

He clicked his tongue again.

"Don't break Jak. You're not a lap dog, you know. Go on, there's a good girl."

Reluctantly, Ghost moved and let Jak sit up. He wiped the slobber from his face with a good-natured groan and looked up just in time to see the two largest juveniles bounding toward him. He had time to widen his eyes and mumble an expletive, then the dogs crashed into him.

"Ack!" Jak hit the ground for the second time as two male pups yipped and whined, apparently intent on physically merging with his torso.

"You gotta be kidding me-"

Damas stroked Ghost’s ears fondly and grinned. "Those are Chopper’s brothers, Rip and Tear. They've never been as interested in people as Chopper, Snap, and Maw. I thought for sure Maw was going to be the first one up here."

The smug look returned, crinkling his eyes at the corners.

"Obviously they recognize family."

"Which -- ow, watch the paws! -- which one is which?" Jak wheezed.

"Good question." Damas squinted at the tornado of scales and fur. When this yielded no clarity, he reached out and collared the nearest dog to hand to get a good look at him.

"Ah. This one is Tear. He's got suction cup scars across his chest from an ill-advised scrap with a squid."

Jak managed to push himself into a sitting position, sending the other pup flopping across his legs. Well. Clearly standing up was out of the question for the moment. He reached out and traced Tear's scars.

"Poor guy," he sympathized. "Did you win, though?"

"His mother did," Damas answered, "and one can only hope he's learned to choose his battles a little better."

Tear wriggled free of Damas’s grip and pounced on his brother, instigating a short-lived game of chase before nipping playfully at Ghost. Ghost was not amused. With a gentle warning growl, she headbutted the rambunctious juvenile, sending him tumbling. In an almost sulky posture, Tear decided to redirect his play-aggression to his more interested sisters. Rip, meanwhile, circled back to Jak again and clamped his jaws around one of Jak's gauntlets. With a quick shake of his head, he ripped the glove off of the boy's hand and bounced into a play bow, tail thrashing expectantly.

"Rip!" Damas scolded, "Drop it!"

"Wh- hey!"

Rip did not drop it.

The second Jak stood up, the young crocadog bounced again and took off running. With a shout of dismay, Jak scrambled after him. Damas patted Ghost’s side and took a far more sedate pace down to the edge of the pools to check on the other pups. He could hear Jak’s complaints beginning to lapse into laughter behind him. Good. He hadn't forgotten how to play.

"Good luck back there," Damas called, "I haven't had the opportunity to run the dogs in a day or two. Rip has a lot of energy to get out."

#jak and daxter #jak and daxter au #Demolition Trio au #fic prompts #writing prompts #free day thursday #snippet thursday #dadmas #king damas #crocadog #Ghost is the size of a haflinger horse #Rip and Tear are named for Doom #Snap and Maw are named for Horizon Zero Dawn #Rip is going to go to Haven with Jak and develop a taste for red armor #Damas still doesn't know if Jak remembers him or not but he's trying to win him over 😆#Mar continues to be chaos and Sig has stepped in to dad Daxter in Osmo's absence

34 notes · View notes