#Jak doesn't realize yet that most of Spargus sees his battle form and is like 'carry on'

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Free Day Thursday

One of the earliest parts of Meddling Mar that I wrote, albeit a moment at least two chapters away from happening in the current setup of the story. For context: after seeing his shooting skills, Damas arranged for Jak to "job shadow" some of the wall sentries to see whether that would be a good fit for him. His fourth day up there, Jak witnessed Marauders ambushing a scout returning to the city. Jak being Jak, he instinctively staged a very violent intervention without stopping to find out if anyone else was already planning a rescue. And promptly panicked because he'd just used the Dark Jak form in front of witnesses. (TW: blood mention)

"You have sage training."

How had he missed it before? How quickly his body absorbed the healing eco, how unerring his shots were-

The boy had been trained.

"No. I don't." Jak kept walking, jaw tight and shoulders tense.

As he passed Rune and Chayne at the garages, he faltered and seemed to curl inward as if avoiding their eyes. He didn't see the gratitude in Rune's face, or the admiration in Chayne's.

Damas caught up in only two strides, catching the boy by one blood-soaked wrist.

"I'm not stupid, Jak. I know what I saw. Why didn't you mention this before? Who trained you?"

"Nobody!"

Jak whipped around, blood-slick skin slipping easily from Damas’s grasp. The same fury that had decimated the party of Marauders danced in his eyes, tangled with pain.

"Nobody "trained" me; I didn't ask for this! I was chained to a table while the Baron injected dark eco into my veins, three days a week, FOR TWO YEARS!"

The second the shout left him, Jak flinched back. Damas didn't think he'd meant to say anything at all -- or at least, anything about what had been done to him.

Damas recoiled as, all at once, the needle scars made sense. Nausea rocked his stomach as he pictured Jak -- he must have been no more than thirteen or fourteen at the time -- screaming while Aldrik Praxis watched pitilessly.

He would've been a child then. Just a child.

No wonder he'd been so hesitant to discuss Haven in front of his little brother.

Damas clenched his fists at his sides, willing himself to remain calm, to keep from drawing more attention to the distraught teenager.

"I'm going to murder Praxis."

"Can't. The metalheads got him first."

So flat and matter-of-fact was Jak’s answer that it startled a blank, almost amused, stare out of Damas.

"That is...shockingly appropriate." He huffed. "I hope the body was left for carrion. It's more than he deserves, but at least he would've finally been of some use to the ecosystem. It is...disturbing to hear that he forced that transformation on you, while my spies didn't even know something like that was taking place. I will need to review their last communiques."

Damas shook his head and hoped Jak wouldn't misinterpret the disgust on his face.

"If you ever see anyone else who was involved in what happened to you -- even if you aren't fully certain it's them -- you get me immediately, understand? It will be dealt with."

He wondered if Jak could hear the promise of vengeance hiding under his words.

As if suddenly very aware of Damas’s gaze, Jak dropped his eyes and seemed almost to shrink.

"They...they didn't mutate me," he muttered darkly. Shame colored his confession, not quite well enough to cover the bitterness. "I did it. I channeled it myself. It was that or let the overdose kill me."

Damas’s startled wheeze took him by surprise. Jak looked up sharply to find Damas closer than he'd been a moment ago, staring incredulously at him.

"You- hold on," Damas ran a hand over his head. Some of the Marauders' blood from Jak's wrist smeared across his scalp and he grimaced. "You're telling me you self-taught yourself one of the lost war sage transformations?!"

One of? Lost?!

Jak furrowed his brow.

"Why'd you say that like it's been done before?"

That couldn't be right. He was a freak of nature. An aberration. Nobody would do this on purpose.

But Damas nodded.

"Because it has. Not since the first two generations of the city of Haven, when eco was plentiful enough to allow for that kind of study. But there is absolutely a precedent for war sages. Just...never this young."

And never created against their will in such cruelty- such evil-

For some reason, this didn't seem to calm Jak. There was a desperation building up over the remnants of anger in his eyes -- a sense of suffocating pressure Damas recognized only too well. He reached out again to place a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Look at me; hey, look at me. You don’t have to do it again," he soothed, "I won't make you act as a sage, I promise, Jak, I promise. But I do need to know your capabilities -- and what you need to avoid to keep you safe, mentally and physically."

"Why?" Jak croaked, "What's it matter to you as long as I can pull my weight?"

"What's it mat-?" Damas stared, then made an aggravated sigh. "Because you're one of my people, Jak! I take care of my own. Would you let Seek run around with a thorn in his foot?"

Suitably distracted by the seeming non sequitur, the boy screwed up his face in confusion. "No?? What does that have to do with-"

Damas’s fingers dug into his shoulder. He stared into Jak's eyes and did not flinch away from whatever he saw there.

"Just because your "thorn" isn't something most people can see on the surface," he said patiently, "doesn't mean I'm going to let you run around on it and drive it in deeper."

Now Jak looked uncertain, even a little lost. It was as if he had no reckoning for being treated as if his pain mattered. As if he mattered. Faced with someone who actually seemed to want to understand, what could he do? If he let any more of the poison out of the wound, would Damas still understand, or would he turn away like everyone else?

"Haven doesn't know it's a...sage thing..." Jak swallowed hard and rubbed his fingers together, trying to scrape off the blood. "They just call it a...an abomination. A monster."

The king curled his lip. "That's rich, coming from Haven."

He let go of Jak's shoulder to casually loop his arm around him.

"That city is a den of vipers, boy. If they tell you the sky is blue, they're lying."

For an instant, Jak stiffened at the unexpected -- and somewhat unorthodox -- embrace. But after a moment the touch -- and the words -- began to feel familiar.

"My friend Sig says that, too."

Unexpectedly, Damas chuckled. "Ah! I knew I recognized that style of gunning."

Jak's head whipped up. "You know Sig?"

He supposed it made sense. Sig was a Wastelander, after all.

"Know him?" Damas smirked at him. "I'm the one who sent him undercover in Haven!"

The thought wheeled through Jak's mind several times, circling closer each time. In a weird, roundabout sort of a way, that meant Damas had saved him twice. If not for Sig taking Jak under his wing, teaching him to fight and shoot, Jak strongly doubted that he would have lived long enough to fight Kor. Sig was the one making sure Jak actually ate, or slept at least an hour or two, when the Underground didn't give him a chance to rest between jobs. Sig never judged him for his transformations, always telling him "if Praxis wants to steal fire from the gods, he doesn't get to complain when you steal it right back". He didn't even know the true reason behind the dark form, but he'd guessed Praxis was at least tangentially involved.

"Sig...he um, he said he was going to train Dax and me. Teach us to be Wastelanders," Jak admitted. "But then I got a- arrested."

The word tripped him up, too filled with memories of horror and dark places.

"He doesn't do that for just anyone, you know," Damas remarked. He sounded pleased. "You two must've impressed him."

With a light pressure on Jak’s shoulders, he guided him away from the garages and towards the public baths in the North Market.

"Come on. Let's get you cleaned up before your brother gets out of school, hm?"

Jak still didn't really like the public baths -- even if everyone else was as scarred as he was, he hated seeing his own scars -- but it was faster than going all the way to the cove to wash. Mind still whirling, he allowed Damas to lead him to the building, all the while wondering how long this unusual streak of kind fortune would last.

Before the man could go ahead of him to the baths, Jak caught his arm and grimaced at the sticky, bloody fingerprints he left. "Don't- don't let anyone tell Ma- my brother. Please."

Damas’s eyes softened, and he nodded.

"Not a word," he agreed, trying to ignore the slip. "It isn't our story to tell."

*Mar. You almost said Mar, didn't you? I know it's him, I know my son's eyes. But. But I know your eyes, too. And I will find out why.*