Tumgik
#eldritch damas
radioactivepeasant · 10 months
Text
This Week's Prompt Poll
Tis the Season for Shenanigans
24 notes · View notes
quietbluejay · 5 months
Text
My Experience With Metallic Embroidery Threads
Currently, I've worked with 3 brands of metallic embroidery floss, DMC (Diamante), Cosmo (Nishiki and Opali/Shabon-dama), and Kreinik (#8 Braid).
DMC Diamante: DO NOT USE, this is the WORST it was a nightmare to work with.
Cosmo Nishikiito Opali/Shabon-dama: I love this stuff. It basically behaves like regular embroidery floss. The main issue is it is the absolute worst to thread and it's a little slippery, so you have to give it a long tail to make sure it doesn't escape your needle and you spend several minutes trying to thread it again >_<
Cosmo Nishikiito Nishiki: This is what I used for the Eldritch Raiders sigil, I would Not recommend doing that with it, it really did not like all those short stitches and curves. HOWEVER It is nice to work with as long as you use it for something more appropriate. One thing that was also fun was that it is multi-ply! It's probably the easiest metallic to thread
Kreinik #8 Braid: Currently my favourite for all-around metallic. It's not quite as easy to work with as the Opali, but it's also got a more dramatic metallic effect. One thing I liked a lot about it was that once you got it in the needle, it STAYED in the needle. I want to try working with #4 at some point.
Tumblr media
Feanorian star is a 5min thing I did to try out my new Opali colour tonight, plum blossom is using Kreinik #8 as a border. Those small stitches were actually not that horrible to pull off! Hence why I say Kreinik braid was great to work with. I could not have done that with either the Diamante or the Nishiki. I think the Nishiki is the best in terms of "looks like actual metal" though. Well I guess the Diamante isn't too bad in terms of looks but it's an absolute nightmare to deal with it's something I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy
3 notes · View notes
orphanedshadow · 3 years
Text
Tumblr media
@soufflefcrged asked: What kind of things does Kara like to eat and drink in particular? Is there anything she doesn't like or that is harmful to her, food or drink wise? What's the tastiest kind of poison?
In a way Kara’s quite picky, as a lot of things are harmful to her if she ingests them. For example preservatives and artificial ingredients. The effects range from minor irritants to causing necrosis of the intestinal tissue. Luckily for her she heals decently quickly and is extremely difficult to kill, but it’s still pretty damaging and the effects can linger for a while.
What she likes best is things plucked directly from the ground and still with a coating of dirt. This includes everything from potatoes, to rotted meat with maggots, to poisonous mushrooms. She will also eat things others consider ingredients, like ergot-contaminated rye.
When it comes to cooked/mixed foods she usually likes them hot enough to kill humans. Her sensors for heat in food work, but she’s got a massive resistance. To her the Carolina Reaper is mild enough to be eaten as an entertaining snack, and she’s basically immune to the effects of chilli in her eyes.
She also likes insect-based cuisine, including things like fried locusts. In fact she prefers foods from less industrialized parts of the world as they’re much less likely to make her stomach hurt, and tend to have more flavour that is based on natural things instead of artificial ones.

The tastiest kind of poisonous (earth) mushroom in her opinion is probably the Podostroma cornu-damae. However, she is extremely fond of varieties of poison that only grow in Hell, or in the Fae realms. Basically if it’s a plant that is poisonous she thinks it’s extremely tasty, the more lethal the better. Picking one as her favourite is hard though, as in some ways it is like comparing desserts to pastas. Both delicious, but in different ways.
Kara loves fish, especially raw. A part of her gets a thrill out of it, and feels quite victorious. The creatures thought they could escape her by living in the water, they were wrong. Poisonous fish are even better, and she will eat them raw and unprepared. 
And now for some even grosser things, and meat related info.
In some ways Kara is a pseudo-vegetarian. She avoids meats in many places as they are often contaminated with various compounds to keep the animals healthy. Hormones, antibiotics, that sort of thing. But at the same time she loves meat…just not the kind found at the store.
First of all, yes, she will eat human flesh. Also the flesh of pretty much anything she hunts, as she does not waste any part of her kill. If she offers you jerky don’t take it, long-pig is literally your best option…and your worst fall into the realm of “eldritch horror that will take over your body if you consume its meat”
If need be she will eat the meat of animals, but that’s usually more of an “it was there and dead, and I could not make a construct with it” or “I found it dead and I did make a construct with it but only needed the bones, so the rest is to be used for nutrition”
Her favourite “normal” earth animal meat is the cute and cuddly Koala. Unlike pretty much every other living creature she doesn’t care that the flesh is tainted with toxic eucalyptus, to her it’s basically just marinaded in deliciousness.
Also those brightly coloured frogs? Well, if she finds them dead then they’re gonna be eaten.
As for the question no one asked: What about the mushrooms that grow in shit? Does she at least wash them off? 
For you my sweet summer child I just have to say, what do you think she is? No, she will take bat guano covered mushrooms off a cave wall and shove them in her mouth. Sometimes she wipes them off with her hand, but that’s her getting fancy.
0 notes
theliterarywolf · 6 years
Note
Can't help but see Eldritch grandma as a librarian in Dama Fristad who loves telling stories.
Now, I’m not saying that that’s a pretty damn good fit, but...
1 note · View note
radioactivepeasant · 5 months
Text
Free Day Friday: untitled Jak oneshot/ Daxter Snaps And It Doesn't Go Well
(This takes place right after Jak finally gets to return to Spargus in Jak 3, because I had some Feelings about the Dark Eco Oracle and its well-loved shrine having been either moved or destroyed in Haven. Also for reference: since the original Jak concept art was a cat/foxlike alien child, hence the ears being set so high on his head in TPL, I'm hereby deciding that their species can purr. Because I said so.)
This is Quite Long, so I'll probably crosspost to AO3 later.
TW: panic attack
Jak hadn't been surprised by the summons when he'd returned from Haven. He knew he was in for it. Damas had started trusting him with more and more responsibilities and then Jak had screwed it all up. Running off to Haven and then getting stuck there immediately after? Not a good look.
Honestly, Jak was just grateful he wasn't being "escorted" up by city guards.
Part of him wanted to go in fighting. That's all Damas cares about, right? a small, bitter corner of his heart muttered.
The rest of him was too afraid. He finally knew better than to look to anyone in Haven for affirmation or examples. Damas had been the closest he'd ever come to an authority figure he trusted. What if he lost that, too?
The second his and Daxter's heads were visible in the elevator shaft, Damas was already raising his voice. Perhaps he was simply projecting his voice to reach them, but Jak's stomach twisted into knots regardless, and his breathing became quick and shallow.
"Where have you been?" Damas demanded, rising from his throne. "It's been a month!"
The elevator locked, and Jak crept out onto the pathway like a skittish animal. He didn't meet Damas’s eyes. The confused anger and hurt he'd seen in them the last time flashed in his memory, and he winced. An oppressive silence fell for a few unnaturally long seconds, punctuated by the creak of the water wheel. Damas was waiting for an answer.
It's not our fault, Jak tried to reassure himself, Just another betrayal. We didn't do anything wrong.
When he didn't answer Damas, the king’s expression twisted between outrage and disbelief and-
And disappointment.
"Nothing? Really, Jak?" He took one step down from the dais, clenching his fist at his side. "Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?"
Daxter took it upon himself to answer when Jak wouldn't -- or couldn't.
"Oh lay off!" he hissed, puffing himself up to look bigger, "Don't you have friends to kill in your gladiator ring?"
"Dax!" Jak gasped. Too late.
The words were already out and a black look fell across Damas’s face. His entire posture went rigid.
"Excuse me?" he asked in a frightful facsimile of calm.
"Daxter, don't," Jak pleaded, but it was far too late for that. When Daxter got this mad, he didn't even hear Jak.
"You heard me!"
Daxter leapt off Jak's shoulder and stood on the first stepping stone as if blocking the way between them.
"You tried to make us kill one of our only real friends, and threw a tantrum when we wouldn't! And if you think I'd trust you with Jak's location after that, those spikes must be diggin' into your brain!"
Jak couldn't breathe.
Either Damas was going to cut them off, or Daxter was going to get hurt, and either way everything was going to crumble. He'd finally escaped Haven and there was going to be nothing to escape to.
His core pulsed, obeying signals he didn't even know his brain was sending. It tried to respond to the fight-or-flight instincts quickening his pulse and shortening his breath. In Haven, he would have gone Dark in response. But he'd used all the dark eco. There was nothing left. Nothing but adrenaline and panic.
A strange, almost echoing sensation pushed at the inside of his skull, and the room spun. He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt like they'd been fused shut. He couldn't breathe!
"Jak!"
Between blurs of brown and green, Damas -- or an unfocused and staticy version of him -- approached rapidly.
As if from another room, Jak heard Daxter snarl, "Stay back! If you hurt him, I'll rip your spikes out!"
"I wouldn't hurt him!"
"You already did!"
It was too much. He couldn't- he couldn't focus. He couldn't find the light eco. Jak's knees gave, and it was a struggle to stay upright. Hands caught his upper arms, preventing him from collapsing entirely.
"Breathe, Jak!"
Damas sounded worried this time.
"You have to breathe!"
"Can't-!" Jak gasped, breath squeaking.
Then the world turned sideways and he was in the water. Or partly in the water.
His legs twitched with the shock of the new sensation, surprising him enough to suck in a deep breath. A compressing sensation against his chest and arms tightened in response.
"Focus on the water. Find your feet."
It took four tries to get his boots on the rocky bottom of the pool. His chest hurt, but he managed another deep breath.
"That's it. You can do this."
A small hand took his, pulling against the pressure around his shoulders, and pressed it against a narrow chest.
"L- like we practiced, bud-"
Oh. There's Daxter.
"Just breathe when I breathe, remember?"
Distantly, he heard Damas ask Daxter, "Has this happened before? In- in Spargus, I mean."
"Don't think about it, warrior," the other voice encouraged -- Damas? Is that Damas? But he's mad at us! -- "Just do as your friend does."
"If Jak wants to tell ya, he'll tell ya," Daxter said sourly. "You and I are not on speaking terms right now."
"...that is understandable."
One by one, his muscles relaxed. His breathing was much too fast, but it was easier to get full breaths at least.
When the ringing in Jak’s ears at last began to subside, he picked up a new sound. It was faint, barely audible at all, but he could just make out a nervous rumble. A laryngeal vibration he could feel through the back of his shirt. With conscious thought on standby mode, Jak's body responded to long-forgotten cues unbidden. His glottis rapidly dilated and constricted with his breathing, creating its own vibrations in a bid to self-soothe. It was how he'd learned not to cry out loud as a young child -- although blessedly, he would never remember that.
It wasn't the first time Damas had walked one of his people through a panic attack in the throne room, and it wouldn't be the last. But this one hurt.
"You're safe. There is no danger here. This is a safe place."
Shame raked its claws down his chest and Pain reached through the incision, grasping at organs and prying bones out of the way.
Jak didn't trust him.
And it was his fault.
"I'm sorry," he whispered- to Jak, to Daxter, to either-
A memory loomed damningly before his eyes. Mar had just started walking, and nearly toppled into the pools. Damas had yelled at him to get away from the edge, and the baby had burst into a loud, terrified wail.
"I'm- was it the shouting? I-"
"I'm sorry, it's okay, it's okay now- I know, I used the Big Voice, Daddy's sorry! You scared me, Bug!"
He hadn't gotten any better after losing Mar, had he? He still shouted when he was afraid. And look how that had turned out.
Damas tightened his hold on Jak and rested his chin on the crown of the boy's head. The apologies were bitter on his tongue, but necessary.
"I...I triggered this, didn't I? I'm sorry- gods, I'm sorry, Jak. I'm- you scared me. I couldn't find you! No one could!"
"You...thought we defected?" he asked through numbed lips.
The panic was slow to fade, still muddling Jak's mind. He couldn't quite make sense of what he was hearing.
"I thought the Marauders had taken you! Or you'd collapsed somewhere in the Wastes where we couldn't find you!" Damas answered. The dregs of that old fear still stained the edges of his voice. He shuddered.
He swallowed hard, interrupting the agitated purring for a moment. "I...did not handle the...situation as I should have. I damaged your trust. And I deserved worse than the silent treatment. I understand that. But to keep it from Sig, too?"
"You can't just run away like that! I- I understand why you didn't tell me-"
Painfully slowly, Jak drew his legs back out of the water and onto the rocks.
"They wouldn't let me," he mumbled. "They didn't let us leave."
Damas shot a concerned look at Daxter, who shrugged and looked away.
Shifting his grip to have one arm around the boy's waist, Damas heaved himself to his feet, taking Jak with him.
This promised to be a very unpleasant conversation, the least he could do was find them somewhere more comfortable to sit.
They were silent for a time, each processing the whirlwind of events. Jak was deeply, thoroughly, confused. No one had ever apologized like that before. Acknowledging his pain and the specific way their actions had caused it? It would be a cold day in hell before Samos ever did anything like that.
He didn't understand.
They'd defied Damas, then run from him. Daxter had just challenged him to his face.
Yet he spoke like a man anxiously awaiting the return of a prodigal son.
"Who wouldn't let you leave, Jak?" Damas asked him, far too gently.
Jak shut his eyes. "Haven."
"Haven?!" Damas sounded horrified. "What were you doing there?! Is that where you've been this whole time?"
Miserably, Jak nodded. "I was just- we were just scouting. Just- it wasn't supposed to be-"
He gritted his teeth.
"They locked down the air trains," he croaked. "And- and there's force fields blocking off the city exits. The only way they'd let us go was if I fought on the frontlines for three weeks first."
Fighting down his anger lest he trigger Jak's panic again, Damas forced himself to ask, "What made you go back to that city in the first place?"
A hostage. His boy- The boy had been a bloody hostage, and he'd had no idea! Damas felt something dark and dense fluttering between his ribs. If he found the person who ordered this, he would drown them in the sands.
Jak winced and passed several looks back and forth with Daxter.
"Ashelin...called me to the oasis," he said at last.
Damas stiffened beside him.
"She want- she wanted me to come back to Haven. After everything they did to me, she wanted me to come back."
He felt the hints of the anxiety returning, and wrapped his arms around himself for comfort.
"Ashelin Praxis?" Damas demanded. He curled his lip. "I might have known. I hope you told her where to shove that offer."
Daxter scoffed. "Oh, he did. Even told her "I have new friends now", which was a little too generous considering what you said to my pal."
Jak gave the ottsel a weary look, and Daxter grudgingly subsided.
"I told her to leave. She- she wouldn't drop it. Said the friends we still had were going to die. That it was my responsibility because of-"
He flipped a hand in the air in frustration.
"I don't know! Dead people I share some common blood with!"
"Pal, I'm pretty sure that common blood stopped bein' responsible for that dump when Princess Scribbleface's darling pappy took over," Daxter grumbled.
"Common blood?!" Damas startled, but Jak had already moved on, hastily trying to explain himself.
"We didn't believe her -- I- I mean, why would we? But when I asked the Oracle in the temple-"
"How did you find the Oracle?!" Damas spluttered.
"The stupid thing called me," Jak growled. He leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. "Said the whole planet was in danger and my friends would die if I didn't find the catacombs."
He muffled a snarl in his palms.
"I hate them. I hate those rottin' things. They don't tell me when something is a trap. They only tell me what fits their agenda."
Jak could speak to Precursor Oracles.
Only monks were supposed to still be able to do that.
Monks, or Heirs of Mar taking the Trials.
"And...was it a trap?" Damas asked, fearing he already knew the answer.
A painful, wishful image of Jak in the Tomb of Mar wormed through Damas’s thoughts. If life had any semblance of fairness, or restitution, it would have been reality. It was not what he deserved, not after how many times he'd failed the people he cared about. But Jak deserved it. He'd been isolated enough.
Jak's face was like stone.
"All they cared about was getting me into Haven to find the catacombs before that nutcase Veger could. And all Haven cared about was keeping us there."
A deep, ominous creaking filled the room. Harsh shadows stretched and yawned as the terrible old statue beside the dais flickered, then lit up. A suffocating sense of dread filled Damas as he beheld the monolith. It wasn't a real Oracle. It was a shell, made to hold pieces of the water wheel. It wasn't made to have any kind of lights.
Daxter yelped and scurried up to Jak’s shoulder as the water wheel ground to a halt.
The silence was unnatural.
Jak's chest heaved, and Damas feared for a moment that he was going to panic again. But an answering light flickered in the boy's eyes. White, incandescent rage.
"What do you want now? You're not welcome here!" Jak snarled, standing up with a jerk.
"Angry one-"
It said in warning, a rolling, ancient voice that echoed off the stones and twisted in their eardrums.
Jak clenched his fists.
"No! I'm not afraid of you! You're no "holier" than Onin. You aren't even a Precursor!"
A sense of fury shook the room, and the water trembled.
Jak held his ground though his legs shook.
"You can't do anything to punish me," he challenged, angry tears glowing in his eyes. "The worst you can do is withhold information that would protect me, and you do that anyway! If- if you had power at all, you wouldn't have let Veger destroy Crius!"
Crius? Damas vaguely remembered that name. Hadn't he been one of the Bonekeeper's heralds? The memories were fuzzy at best. Father forbade Mother from speaking of the Bonekeeper when they married. Any communing with the patron of dark eco was done in secret, and as a child Damas had only caught her once.
"The dark shrine was all those people had!" the anger was slipping away from Jak now, replaced by something closer to grief. "He gave them hope! He gave- he gave me hope! And you couldn't save him. So what makes you think you can scare me now? Hu'mens are worse than you."
And the Oracle, miraculously, quieted. The waters stilled, and some of the dread receded. Jak fell back to the steps, having exhausted the last reserves of his emotions.
"Yeah! You tell him, Jak!" Daxter cheered, breaking the silence, "About time you put Sparky in his place!"
He ruffled Jak's hair -- the hair he could reach at least -- and leaned against his arm comfortingly.
"Next, we get Loghead!"
The Oracle remained lit, but speechless. All this time, had rebuking the heralds really been an option? Ever the pragmatist, Damas decided to follow Jak's example.
"As the boy said." His voice was quiet at first, but gained courage with each new word.
"This is not a place of seers and soothsayers. Respectfully: we do not require your guidance at this time."
"Heir of Mar-"
the Oracle began, almost wheedling.
Rage loosened his lips and he lost the last shred of reverence he'd held for the messenger.
Jak went rigid and Damas felt an anger of his own. How dare this entity try to leverage his bloodline when the Precursors had turned their backs on him!
"Hold your tongue! Unless you can comprehend the trouble you have caused, keep your counsel to yourself."
Resentfully, the Oracle's eyes flashed.
And with that, the lights were gone. The water wheel resumed its gloomy rhythm. The statue was hollow once more.
"So be it. You wish to hear no truth from me? Then you, Damas of the Wastes, shall hear no truth from me."
Something about the acquiescence -- or threat -- made Damas uneasy. Withholding information again, just as Jak had said. But he had the feeling it was hinting at something important. Taunting him.
Bloody seven hells.
He'd sooner cast the bones himself and call upon the Dark Lady directly as his mother once had than ever deal with that thing again.
"Little wonder you're always so on edge, dealing with that," he said; a poor attempt at a joke.
Jak dropped his face back into his hands.
"I'm so sick of them. Jak do this. Jak go there. Suffer for us, Jak! It's Fate!"
Damas scoffed. "Fate, eh? Wastelanders make their own fate. If this is who my monks consult, it's no surprise that they believe the world is coming to an end."
"They are pretty worried about the creatures in that space ship," Jak admitted reluctantly.
"Bah."
Damas waved it off.
"When the metalheads invaded our world, we survived with or without the Precursors they hunted. We will do the same if these creatures land."
He jostled Jak's shoulder -- shaking Daxter by proxy.
"Ey! No manhandling!"
Daxter slithered away down the steps and into the water. He glared up over the step like a little croc.
"You keep your emotionally constipated hands away from me!"
Damas let out a startled laugh, and Jak shook his head and grinned.
"I...guess you're right. Spargus is pretty tough."
"We are Wastelanders, boy," Damas declared, "We carved out a home in the places where nothing else survives. We'll carve out our fate the same way, with the same tools our ancestors used."
"...with eco," Jak said quietly, as if experiencing a revelation.
"Our minds think alike."
Damas’s wry grin faded.
"Jak...I'm...sorry. That I made you feel you couldn't contact me for help. If I had known you were being held in Haven against your will, I would have come for you."
The boy fixed him with a bewildered expression.
"You would have?" Jak asked, "You're serious. You. Leaving your people to come after me?"
The king met his stare evenly.
"Yes."
"After the- the thing, with the Arena-?"
Damas winced and looked away.
"I. I did not warn you, I was not permitted to. But the final trial of a Spargan is one they are supposed to lose."
Jak bristled. "What?!"
"It's a test of whether they can put loyalty to their city over the commands of a tyrant. Sig wasn't supposed to throw down his gun, he was supposed to goad you into a sparring match." Damas ran his hand over his shaved head. "I should have told him before he went in that it was you. I didn't know that you knew each other, but- maybe he wouldn't have panicked if he'd known it was a Final Trial. Maybe I wouldn't have panicked."
Jak stared at him in disbelief for several seconds. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he blurted out an accusation with no bite to it.
"What, did you forget I didn't grow up here?"
When he was met with chagrined silence, his eyes widened.
"Oh my gods you did. How?! You're the one that found me out there!"
Clearly embarrassed, Damas shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what to tell you. There are days when it just...seems as though I have known you for much longer than seven months."
Jak took that statement, turned it over in his mind. The version of Damas in his head wasn't quite matching the one in front of him. Even before things had become strained between them, he hadn't had the context to understand the way Damas saw him. He still didn't- not completely.
"Sorry," he said suddenly, and gestured to the soaked trousers. "I um. I don't usually...not in front of people, I mean-"
He leaned back against the stairs and stretched his legs out before him. The linen stuck to his legs in sodden wrinkles and folds, nearly transparent against his calves. It would dry quickly once he stepped outside again -- and the evaporating water would serve to cool his skin nicely. But for now, it drew his mind to his panic attack.
"Don't apologize." Damas laced his fingers together loosely and leaned his elbows against his knees. "May...may I ask what it was that sparked that kind of fear?"
Jak met Daxter's eyes, down in the water. The ottsel winced. He knew he'd taken it too far. He was just so sick of people acting like Jak was a trained dog with no autonomy of his own. And sometimes his desire to protect Jak’s emotions didn't mesh completely with what Jak needed at the moment.
Jak broke their gaze and began to pick at a scar on his elbow.
"...thought I was going to have to choose sides. Between you and Dax."
"Why would supporting Daxter cause you to panic?" Damas pressed.
"Because," he muttered with a shrug.
He'd assumed without question that Jak would take Daxter's side. Jak didn't know whether to be amused or grateful or just tired.
"Because?"
"Because I- I wanted this to still be home." Jak made a vague gesture encompassing the room, and its occupants.
"This is your home," Damas insisted. He glanced to the empty Oracle with a thoughtful frown.
Something lingered in the corners of Jak's eyes. A concern he wasn't voicing. Did he still believe he could be so easily forsaken?
"If this is where the desert brought you, then this is where the desert meant you to thrive."
But then, he had been cast out of Haven on the flimsiest of pretenses. His faith in hu'menity was shaken. For a moment, Damas considered changing the subject. He could talk about the coming trials, give Jak something else to think about.
Or he could meet him on his level. Show him the same vulnerability he'd so unwillingly displayed.
The words stuck to his tongue, stabbed like needles into the roof of his mouth as he forced them through his teeth.
"I...had a son. Some years ago."
"Had". Was there ever such a horrible word?
"He was like you -- or, he would have been, when he was older."
Under his breath he added, "if he ever got the chance to get older."
Jak's brows knit together, then went slack. From tiny pinpricks in the centers of his eyes, horror flooded out to the rest of his face.
"You have a child?"
After a moment to collect himself, the king nodded.
His head dipped lower, nearly brushing the steeple of his fingertips.
"I did. He was taken from me, by some of the same people who seem to have orchestrated your own suffering."
"I pray that my son still lives but- he was so young. So small. So-"
Damas’s voice cracked.
"So very small."
Guilt played across Jak's face for a moment, then was swallowed up by a deep sadness that welled up from within. Haven was a city of devils. He wondered if Damas’s child had been taken during the time when Praxis was snatching children en masse in his search for Jak's childhood self.
Did that make it his fault that Damas was so bereaved?
"That's-"
That's not fair. It's an abomination. Hurting a kid should be enough to make the Precursors strike you dead on the spot. Errol should've died the first time he put me in the Chair-
Jak's thoughts spiraled out of control, and he had to fight to return his focus to the moment.
"That's terrible."
Inhaling sharply, Damas raised his head and straightened his spine. One warm, callused hand found its way to Jak’s shoulder and squeezed.
He felt his throat closing up, snapping his voice into grating pieces.
"The reason I tell you this is so that you will understand this: It would take more than a little teenaged defiance to make me turn my back on you."
"I lost my son, Jak," he croaked, "I cannot lose you, too."
The laryngeal vibration began again -- from Jak, this time. The nearly autonomous response was as much a subconscious desire to comfort Damas as it was self-soothing. Even so, his chest ached dully. How old, he wondered, had Damas’s son been when he was taken? He must have been so scared! Did he call out for his father? Did Damas call out for him?
"In...war," Damas said hesitantly, "Sacrifices are sometimes required of us. In my case, I had to stay and rebuild the part of the wall the attackers destroyed. To protect thousands from the storms and the Marauders. I knew that, but it still took days for Sig to convince me to send him to Haven in my place."
"Yeah," Jak muttered, "I know about sacrfices."
But Damas shook his head. "It's hardly a sacrifice if someone else chose it for you out of convenience. That's just betrayal."
Silence fell again, but there was no tension to it. A sense of introspection lingered between them, each consumed with his own thoughts. Even Daxter's anger had muted itself -- now overlayed with guilt, berating himself for jumping to fight Jak's battles without bothering to see what Jak himself wanted.
The moment of quiet ended with a crackling of the city radio from which Damas monitored all official channels.
"Oh not now," the man groaned with a most unkingly attitude. "Can I have a moment of peace?"
"No way," Jak scoffed, finding a glimmer of humor in the situation, "You jinxed it by letting us take a break. Now something crazy is going to happen."
Damas narrowed his eyes. "Boy, if you will that into reality-" he warned, with no real way to finish the threat.
The second he picked up the receiver, he knew it was going to be a headache.
"Sire! We've got three different Marauder patrols converging on the city gates! There's a fourth on the radar crossing the river now!"
Daxter pulled himself out of the water and cringed. "How many cars is that?"
"Twelve, at least," Jak gulped.
Damas did not take this information the way he normally would have. He seemed to be fuming as he stood up and stomped up the stairs to retrieve his staff. Jak could hear him muttering under his breath.
His voice rose to something more audible. "I'm not in the mood for this, Egil," he snapped, addressing the thane of the Marauders as if he were present.
"Not the time, Egil, this is not the time to test me! Just got my kid back, got threatened by a bloody Oracle-"
Jak decided, for the sake of being able to focus during a fight, to just pretend he hadn't heard Damas referring to him as his own kid. He could come back to that and freak out later. Right now, there was a fight to be had. He held an arm down for Daxter to use as a ramp, then stood.
"Where do you need me?" he asked.
Damas gave him a searching look. For an instant, his gaze flicked to the lifeless Oracle. That seemed to reinforce his resolve.
"With me," he said shortly. "We're taking the Dozer. You're on the turret gun."
The way Jak's -- and even Daxter's -- eyes lit up almost made up for the hassle Damas knew this skirmish was going to be. He cast one last look at the Oracle before shepherding them to the lift.
Keep your counsel, he thought, and I will keep mine. I don't need your permission to add a son to my House. What of that, eh? The Heir and your renegade Pawn allied against you!
"Hey, maybe I should drive," Jak suggested as the lift began to move."
"Hm." Damas pretended to consider it. "No."
"Why not?!"
"You can't reach the pedals yet."
He could have simply explained that he preferred to drive his favorite vehicle himself. But, the slightest bit giddy at the thought of open rebellion against fate, Damas instead bent slightly to offer a teasing grin.
"What?! Oh come on!"
The elevator sank out of sight, and the water wheel trembled. The statue vibrated and the pools bubbled and boiled with the helpless fury of a falconer whose birds had long since slipped the jesses to fly free. But the boy had not spoken falsley: it was not a Precursor, merely the echo of one's memory. In the face of hu'men defiance, it was helpless to retaliate in any meaningful way. Even withholding the truth of the Hero's identity had been robbed of its intended effect, considering the Fallen Heir and the Hero had gone ahead and reformed the broken bond between them anyway!
The Oracle could not comprehend their motives, nor could it ever hope to understand the complexities of the hu'men mind.
It could only watch and seethe.
47 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 11 months
Text
Rough sketch I'll likely finish tonight of Eldritch Damas au plus @sparguscityangel 's version of Mictecacihuatl as the patron of dark eco (in her marigold crown of course, for Dia de los Muertos)
Tumblr media
Text: "Accidentally walked into the room at the wrong time"
Tumblr media
Text: "Babe, blink."
26 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media
I spent 4 hours on this eldritch man 😂
Saw a character from Blood of Zeus in that pose with glowing eyes and went "Oh I can make a Light Damas out of that"
100 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 1 year
Text
Snippets: Jak and Daxter Thursday Part 2
(As promised, the Less Angsty Part.)
The onlookers all seemed to think Jak had slipped out of the Precursor craft at the last moment. That was just fine with him: it meant no one had seen him teleport out, carrying Damas into the tower. Leaving him there had been terrifying -- even if the monks in the Convalescence Ward had believed him to be a Precursor himself, and vowed to care for Damas with a reverence that made him sick, it was hard to trust his father's care to others. But he had appearances to keep up, just as his other self had warned him. All he could do was focus on his next steps.
Sig had taken the throne as interim regent in Jak’s place, as while he was more than capable of satisfying the battle requirements of a Spargan king, he wasn't yet of age. That was a mercy, but Jak knew Sig loathed the role. Damas had been like an elder brother to him from the moment he staggered through the gates of Spargus seeking refuge. Sitting in his place felt as wrong for him as it did for Jak.
Jak turned a tired smile to Daxter, who met it with a knowing look. Tess raised her brows at Daxter, but he tiptoed to whisper in her ear that he'd explain later. Jak clapped a hand to Keira's shoulder in camaraderie as he passed, and she returned it in kind with a light squeeze.
There was a pain in her eyes Jak remembered too well. Everything had come out in bits and pieces from the moment Haven had traded Jak to Damas, and Keira almost regretted digging for answers. Learning that a beloved parent was capable of such thoughtless cruelty to someone else's child "for the greater good"- well. They'd had their fights, but Jak wouldn't have wished that feeling on her even if she'd joined the Krimzon Guard.
"J- sorry, Mar."
Jak managed a bittersweet smile. "For you, I can still be Jak."
Keira bit her lip and looked skyward for a moment, blinking rapidly until she had her facial expression under control.
"...okay. Jak, I'm...I'm going to denounce him. To think that all that time, he knew- I. I don't think I'll ever- it's like I woke up and someone replaced my dad with a complete stranger."
"We never blamed you for any of it," Jak answered earnestly. "Spargus won't hold it against you if you don't denounce him. We all answer for our own choices."
Keira blinked hard again, and nodded. "And this is my choice. I'm choosing you and Daxter this time. Like I wish I had before."
Jak reached up to squeeze her hand. "...thanks, Keira. We...I missed you."
"I missed you too, Jak." Keira let go to fold her arms across her middle. "Can we start over?"
Swallowing down a lump in his throat, Jak nodded. "I- yeah- yeah we- that sounds good."
Keira offered a wan smile, then let him go. It felt like torture, climbing the last few platforms to the balcony. Sig was there, but so was Samos. And so was Onin. And while Jak knew they were only there because Sig wanted them within firing range if they tried something, it made him hesitant to continue forward. He didn't want to be anywhere near the people who had known about Veger's plot and blithely co-opted it for their own uses.
"Jak, m'boy! Well done!" Samos chortled merrily, wearing that grandfatherly air Jak had always fallen for before.
Not anymore.
"I'm not "your" anything." Jak stepped past him in a hurry. He didn't trust himself not to snap if he remained within arm's reach of the sage.
Sig rose from the throne and held an arm out to him with an understanding look.
"Mar," he said softly.
He clasped arms with Jak, and nodded solemnly.
"I'm proud of you, kid. Your- Your father would be proud."
"He is," Jak answered softly. Then he pulled Sig down to his level by the shoulder to whisper in his ear, "Dax is going to take over the diplomacy stuff down here. Meet me in the C-Ward upstairs."
Sig straightened and frowned down at him. "What'd you do, cherry?" he murmured.
The smirk Jak gave him in reply was so grim he could have sworn it was Damas who stood before him once more.
"I shaped my own fate, like my father taught me."
For a long time, Sig just looked at him. Then he shook his head. "Boy, if I didn't already know you did impossible things-"
The Convalescence Ward was a hive of activity the instant Jak stepped through the door. He frowned. The light eco should have rewound the crushed bones and organs almost perfectly! Doubtless his father would be sore a while, and Jak hadn't been able to fully repair the broken leg before running out of eco, but that wouldn't warrant this much fuss, would it? He opened his mouth to ask what the problem was, and a senior monk rushed to him.
"Young prince! Your father-! He- he-!"
Irrational thought it was, anxiety twisted in Jak’s stomach. "What about my father? What are you talking about?"
The old woman took him by the hand, a slightly disturbed awe wavering in her voice.
"He lives! Your father lives, Mar!"
Relief washed over him, and with it, the events of the last 48 hours that he'd been shoving to one side.
"Let me see him," he said urgently.
"I...must warn you first, Mar," the monk cautioned, and Jak's stomach flipped again.
"He is...changed. The Precursors returned him from the edge of death -- by hand! No mortal can experience such a thing and remain unaltered."
Ah. Just the normal "Mystical Whooo Crap", as Pecker called it.
"I've seen that kind of thing before. I'm not afraid," Jak assured the monk. "Please. Just take me to him, Ruma."
Damas was awake now -- he hadn't been when Jak had seen him last. One leg -- the still broken one -- lay propped up where monks could splint it. Dark blue shapes twisted and curled under the skin, as if lights were shooting through his veins. The rest of him looked strangely normal for having just been yanked back from the edge of death. The monks not splinting his leg quickly backed away from the bed as Jak approached.
It had worked. The timeline was closed now, and Damas lived.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, Jak dropped to sit in a heap on the edge of the cot. He fumbled for Damas’s hand and held it to his chest as he let out a shaky breath.
"You're here," he croaked.
"I'm here," Damas repeated, almost confused. Then his face split into a wide smile. "I'm here."
Jak blinked. Something wasn't quite right about his father's face. Something about his eyes was a little brighter than he recalled. And the teeth...Too many? Too few? Too sharp? His mind couldn't decide for a few seconds before the bones in question seemed to settle into a fairly standard -- if unusually sharp -- set of human teeth.
A memory of his own face, saturated with both light and dark eco, rose to Jak’s mind, and an uncomfortable thought followed on its heels.
Had he altered his father's physical form by healing him in the Precursor craft?
Further speculation was cut short when Damas pulled his hand free to tap playfully against Jak’s cheek.
"You once pushed a chair in front of the door -- a toddler's chair, mind you now -- because you thought it would keep me from going to work without you. You never could stand being left behind, could you?"
He sounded like he wasn't certain whether he was more amused or annoyed.
So much pain, so much loss, and here they all were at the end of it all, still standing. So to speak. The exhilaration of not being the only one left to tell the tale filled him with a heady feeling he would later come to recognize as joy.
With a giddy laugh, Jak threw himself forward and into Damas’s chest.
"We did it!" he crowed, "We did it, we did it!"
Damas’s arms folded over his back, and his chest vibrated with a soft chuckle.
"So it would seem! Though how I'm to explain this, I'm not certain."
"So just don't explain," Jak snorted, "and let them come to their own conclusions."
He ducked away from the hand tweaking his ear with a laugh.
"And let someone start some crackpot theory about our already bizarre bloodline?" Damas feigned offense. "That sounds like a terrible idea!"
"Terribly clever, I agree."
Damas lightly thumped Jak over the head. "Impudent little- When I get out of this cast, I oughta-"
Finally seeing an opportunity, a monk gracefully interrupted. "My lord, your leg requires time and watchfulness to heal correctly. You must leave it immobile for at least two weeks until we know what the eco is doing in your bloodstream."
She turned and nodded respectfully to Jak. "I trust you will keep the injury well tended-to?"
Jak slid over to occupy the space between Damas and the small nightstand. He leaned back against the wall beside his father and nodded back.
"Don't worry, he's not going anywhere. I'll make sure of that."
"This is elder abuse," Damas complained, just as lighthearted and almost giddy as his son. "You can't make me stay in bed! That's mutiny!"
"No," Jak retorted with a broad grin, "That's what happens when Sig gets here and finds out you're alive!"
"Argh, you're right!" Damas slipped an arm around Jak’s neck in half a hug, half a headlock. "And then I'd have to contend with Daxter!"
Jak gently poked Damas in the side with a smug grin. "Daxter? No no, Tess is the one you should be afraid of."
Damas flung his other hand into the air in mock exasperation. "Rot me, it's a conspiracy! I'm outnumbered!"
When the monks had finally taken the hint to leave the pair alone to catch up, Damas sobered slightly. "You know we'll probably have to make a plan for if the Precursors choose to retaliate for this."
Jak's eyes danced with mischief. "What're they gonna do without their technology? They're as powerless as Veger!"
Damas raised a brow -- no, Jak hadn't imagined it, there was something weird about his eyes now. The pupils weren't supposed to have little points of light like stars, were they? Not for humans.
"Alright cub, what did you do?"
"What did Daxter do," Jak corrected, deciding to deal with the possibility of his father gaining a Light Form later. "He confiscated the old one's staff, and then made them drop the ship with the Precursor we hatched from the Stone last year. Because they weren't being responsible with time and space."
Considering the young Precursor had been sitting on the beach that would one day hold Sandover Village, happily building elaborate sandcastles in lieu of blueprints, Jak had a feeling the new owner of the time machine would have fewer agendas to push. And given how the glowing being had greeted them as "My friend Mar" and "little Scout-brother", perhaps subsequent timelines would be kinder to his family. The other ottsels' horror and chagrin boded well, anyway.
31 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 2 years
Text
Eldritch Damas au
Tumblr media
Sometimes Jak regrets accidentally turning his father into a sort of neo-Precursor. Especially considering his mother being the dark eco patron. (@sparguscityangel 's Micte)
It's really hard to keep up his image when his Lovecraftian parents are busy being Morticia and Gomez any time they encounter each other on the battlefield.
59 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 2 years
Text
What if Damas got a Light Eco Form like Jak's?
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Always thought it would be neat if there were actual stars and constellations you could see on their bodies in that form. It didn't show up as clearly as I would've liked though.
60 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 6 months
Text
This Week's Prompt Poll (because I can't decide)
6 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 2 years
Text
Fic Prompts: Free Day Friday
It's Black Friday and I refuse to leave the house. Here, take my incredibly and unrepentantly self-indulgent Eldritch Damas au.
Premise: Damas death scene but close to a light eco vent and Jak tries to heal him.
Well Tumblr won't let me fix the formatting it donked up, guys, so there's a copy of this post that's actually readable on dark theme up now.
Damas has never been exposed to that much at once, unfiltered. Jak can't control how much he's channeling from the vent, he's too distraught. And he ends up changing Damas in the way the Dark Warrior Program changed him.
Damas can't control the light eco transformation. He looks like some kind of ascended being, trapped in a more powerful form and unable to utilize his new powers in a way that would deplete the eco and let him de-transform. 
Do people consider him dead? A changeling? A Precursor-king? Jak would feel so guilty, having put this on Damas's shoulders without him having a say in it.
_____________________________________________________
He's guilt stricken, he's horrified, he's so sorry, Damas please- 
He doesn't know he's Damas's son, Damas doesn't know he was always Jak's father and not just recently his father. 
Jak thinks of the Arena, thinks he knows what Damas's wrath looks like (he doesn't, he's seen only the strongest commingling of worry and frustration) 
His war amulet feels meaningless. He has betrayed his leader, after all. The one ruler he chose to serve willingly. The only adult in his life to see his darkness and embrace it as simply part of him. And look what Jak's done to him. He thinks he deserves what is surely coming, but he's still just a boy and he can't help pleading for forgiveness. 
And Damas sees a child, stripped of his tough protective shell, terrified beyond words -- is he so horrible to look upon? -- pleading incoherently for either forgiveness or mercy, he can't tell which. Tears stream down his face, making him look disturbingly young.
"I didn't mean to- I didn't mean to, Damas, please-! Please forgive me! I-I-I lost control of it, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" 
Jak doesn't beg. Jak never pleads. 
This is profoundly wrong and he knows this in his heart although he cannot quite fathom the depths of the wrongness he feels. He only recognizes that he does not want this boy to kneel before him. He has never been so formal before, it feels unnatural for him to be so now. 
(Veger arrives late, does not recognize the cosmic horror as the king he willingly betrayed. He sees the dark eco freak humbled, on his knees before what he believes is a Precursor. He thinks that at last the thorn in his side will be struck down) 
This is it! At last! Veger thinks 
And then this thing that was their king bends 
Jak grieves, believing Damas no longer knows him; he wonders if this is worse than Damas being angry. Everything they've been through, every memory, just gone? As beyond reach as Jak’s own childhood? And he did this to him.
- this is it. I won't fight him, Jak thinks -
And the great tendrils of its -- his -- wings wrap around Jak. On that too calm face, artificially peaceful, something quizzical appears in the tilt of a mouth swirling with stars. Wings draw close around them, dragging Jak up to collide with a broad chest thrumming with energy both alien and familiar. Light eco begins to seep into Jak, whispering beneath his thoughts "ours, ours, ours"
He traces a glowing hand along Jak's cheek, cocks his head and twists Jak's face back and forth with an innocently curious expression as though he's never seen him before. 
Something sparks in Damas's eyes, some thought or impulse, and he seizes Jak by the upper arms. The words that pour from his mouth are ancient, a dialect lost long ago to all but the monks and those who once called Sandover their home.
"Mine…? You are! You are mine.” 
It is a declaration, a discovery. A revelation. A promise. 
With a flick of his wrists, he sends Jak tumbling into the light eco vent. Light flares and Jak transforms with a choked cry. Daxter panics, but he can't get past Damas's wings to get to his best friend. He watches Jak stand on shaky legs, wings curled tightly around himself as though he is trying to hide. Hide from his shame, hide from his friend, hide from his king. Light eco usually calms him, soothes his nerves, but not this time. It is frenzied, yet it is rejoicing, singing through his veins like a homecoming and Jak is left disoriented. Dazed. 
Ours, ours, ours-! 
Unnaturally strong hands lift him up under the arms, leave his feet dangling like a child's. Jak doesn't remember ever being held like this, outside of the secondhand memories of holding his own childhood self. When he finally works up his courage and looks into the Precursor King's eyes, looking through the filter of light eco himself, there is no anger. Neither is there a lack of recognition. Damas still knows him, that's becoming obvious. Jak looks into his eyes and sees pain and acceptance and a naked, boundless joy. 
And Jak is so stunned that he forgets in that moment that he was trying to hide. He almost forgets why he feels squirming guilt -- albeit muted -- under his skin. He knew that Damas liked him. That Damas was comfortable expressing pride in him, even in front of the whole Arena. This is something else. Something Jak has never been bold enough to hope for outside of his own lonely imaginings: that Damas might see him with a kind of fatherly affection. That the closest thing he had to a real father figure might see him as a son as well. 
"Child,"
Damas echoes, proud and warm and earthshaking,
"My child." 
And what Veger sees, what he thinks he sees, is the child he ripped away from Damas, the tainted heir, receiving the blessing that should have been his: to ascend to Precursorhood. Welcomed into this evolved form as though the dark eco meant nothing. 
He can't fathom it. 
His worldview is cracking at the edges. 
Oblivious to his crisis, Damas -- now closer in nature to his ancestors than he knows -- is content. This is his child. His. The eco in their blood harmonizes, dark with light, in one melody. He knows this weary warrior. He knows the blood that flows in his veins. His subject, his best warrior, his impudent rascal, his Jak: his son. 
Vaguely he knows there's something they were supposed to do, something quite important. But it doesn't seem as important as stopping time just so that he can hold his child in his arms again. 
Jak would like to get down, he really would. His wings flail in an ultimately futile bid for freedom. He has a world to save. But Damas won't let him go. He's smiling -- it's a relief, but the guilt still eats at him and he doesn't understand, what is the eco doin? Why is it harmonizing? Does the light eco in Damas recognize his own eco? Is that why he's calling him "My own. My little one."? 
Jak has had enough experience with the Light Form that the Precurian instincts don't overwhelm him, and he still thinks on a very human level. But Damas doesn't know how to separate human instincts from Precurian instincts. They're all one to him. 
His memories run against the swell of light and life and love and absolute otherworldliness coursing through him, too strong to control.
"Why aren't you angry?" Jak whispers as he tries to find somewhere for all that light eco to go. 
Tendrils of living eco brush across his cheek in a loving caress and lift his chin. Jak finds himself leaning into the touch without thinking as he watches the stars shift and swirl across Damas's face. This Light Form of Damas croons comfortingly, a subsonic rumble that is both calming and Alarming to Daxter and even Veger as they watch.
"Angry?" The word lilts oddly in the old language. "Why, little one?"
"I...I did this to you! You didn't choose this!"
"But now I am neither dead nor dying. And I know who you are." 
Jak twists up his face in confusion, refracting light across his cheeks. 
He's not afraid, but he's hesitant to ask. "Who...who am I?" 
"My son." 
53 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 2 years
Text
Free Day Friday redux
Since tumblr wanted to wreck the formatting on my last one and make it unreadable for anyone on dark mode, here's the text, hopefully, without issue
Almost midnight and brain cheerfully whispers 
"Damas death scene but close to a light eco vent and Jak tries to heal him." 
Damas has never been exposed to that much at once, unfiltered. Jak can't control how much he's channeling from the vent, he's too distraught. 
And he ends up changing Damas in the way the Dark Warrior Program changed him. Damas can't control the light eco transformation. He looks like some kind of ascended being, trapped in a more powerful form and unable to utilize his new powers in a way that would deplete the eco and let him de-transform. 
Would people consider him dead? A changeling? A Precursor-king? 
Jak would feel so guilty, having put this on Damas's shoulders without him having a say in it. ______________________________________________________________
He's guilt stricken, he's horrified, he's so sorry, Damas please 
He doesn't know he's Damas's son, Damas doesn't know he was always Jak's father and not just recently his father. 
Jak thinks of the Arena, thinks he knows what Damas's wrath looks like (he doesn't, he's seen only the strongest commingling of worry and frustration) 
His war amulet feels meaningless. He has betrayed his king. The one ruler he chose to serve willingly. The only adult in his life to see his darkness and embrace it as simply part of him. And look what Jak's done to him. He deserves what is coming but he's still just a boy and he can't help pleading for forgiveness. 
And Damas sees a child, stripped of his tough protective shell, terrified beyond words -- is he so horrible to look upon? -- pleading 
incoherently for either forgiveness or mercy, he can't tell which. Tears stream down his face, making him look disturbingly young. "I didn't mean to- I didn't mean to, Damas, please-! Please forgive me! I-I-I lost control of it, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" 
Jak doesn't beg. Jak never pleads. 
This is profoundly wrong and he knows this in his heart although he cannot quite fathom the depths of the wrongness he feels. He only recognizes that he does not want this boy to kneel before him. He has never been so formal before, it feels unnatural for him to be so now. 
(Veger arrives late, does not recognize the cosmic horror as the king he willingly betrayed. He sees the dark eco freak humbled, on his knees before what he believes is a Precursor. He thinks that at last the thorn in his side will be struck down) 
And then this thing that was their king bends 
this is it! At last! Veger thinks 
- this is it. I won't fight him, Jak thinks - and the great tendrils of its wings wrap around Jak. On that too calm face, artificially peaceful, something quizzical appears in the tilt of a mouth swirling with stars. Wings draw close around them, dragging Jak up to collide with a broad chest thrumming with energy both alien and familiar. Light eco begins to seep into Jak, whispering beneath his thoughts "ours, ours, ours"
He traces a glowing hand along Jak's cheek, cocks his head and twists Jak's face back and forth with an innocently curious expression as though he's never seen him before. 
Jak grieves, believing Damas no longer knows him; wonders if this is worse than Damas being angry. Everything they've been through, every memory, just gone? As beyond reach as Jak’s own childhood? And he did this to him.
Something sparks in Damas's eyes, some thought or impulse, and he seizes Jak by the arm. The words that pour from his mouth are ancient, a dialect lost long ago to all but the monks and those who once called Sandover their home.
"Mine…? You are! You are mine.” 
It is a declaration, a discovery. A revelation. A promise. 
With a flick of his wrist, he sends Jak tumbling into the light eco vent. Light flares and Jak transforms with a choked cry. Daxter panics. Jak stands on shaky legs, wings curled tightly around himself as though he is trying to hide. Hide from his shame, hide from his friend, hide from his king. Light eco often calms him, but not this time. It is frenzied, yet it is rejoicing, singing through his veins like a homecoming and Jak is left disoriented. Dazed. 
Ours, ours, ours-! 
Unnaturally strong hands lift him up under the arms, leave his feet dangling like a child's. Jak doesn't remember ever being held like this, outside of the secondhand memories of holding his own childhood self. When he finally works up his courage and looks into the Precursor King's eyes, looking through the filter of light eco himself, there is no anger. Neither is there a lack of recognition. Damas still knows him, that's becoming obvious. Jak looks into his eyes and sees pain and acceptance and a naked, boundless joy. 
"Child," Damas echoes, proud and warm and earthshaking, "My child." 
And Jak is so stunned that he forgets in that moment that he was trying to hide. He almost forgets why he feels squirming guilt -- albeit muted -- under his skin. He knew that Damas liked him. That Damas was comfortable expressing pride in him, even in front of the whole Arena. This was something else. Something Jak had never been bold enough to hope for outside of pathetically lonely imaginings: that Damas might see him with a kind of fatherly affection. That the closest thing he had to a real father figure might see him as a son as well. 
And what Veger sees, what he thinks he sees, is the child he ripped away from Damas, the tainted heir, receiving the blessing that should have been his: to ascend to Precursorhood. Welcomed into this evolved form as though the dark eco meant nothing. 
He can't fathom it. 
His worldview is cracking at the edges. 
Oblivious to his crisis, Damas -- now closer in nature to his ancestors than he knows -- is content. This is his child. His. The eco in their blood harmonizes, dark with light, in one melody. He knows this weary warrior. He knows the blood that flows in his veins. His subject, his best warrior, his impudent rascal, his Jak: his son. 
Vaguely he knows there's something they were supposed to do, something quite important. But it doesn't seem as important as stopping time just so that he can hold his child in his arms again. 
Jak has had enough experience with the Light Form that the Precurian instincts don't overwhelm him, and he still thinks on a very human level. But Damas doesn't know how to separate human instincts from Precurian instincts. They're all one to him. 
His memories run against the swell of light and life and love and absolute eldritch otherworldliness coursing through him, too strong to control. Jak would like to get down, he really would. His wings flail in an ultimately futile bid for freedom. He has a world to save. But Damas won't let him go. He's smiling -- it's a relief, but the guilt still eats at him and he doesn't understand, what is this- does the light eco in Damas recognize his own eco? Is that why he's calling him "My own. My little one."? 
"Why aren't you angry?" Jak whispers as he tries to find somewhere for all that light eco to go. 
Tendrils of living eco brush across his cheek in a loving caress and lift his chin. Jak finds himself leaning into the touch without thinking as he watches the stars shift and swirl across Damas's face. This Light Form of Damas croons comfortingly, a subsonic rumble that is both calming and Alarming to Daxter and even Veger as they watch.
"Angry?" The word lilts oddly in the old language. "Why, little one?"
"I...I did this to you! You didn't choose this!"
"But now I am neither dead nor dying. And I know who you are." 
Jak twists up his face in confusion, refracting light across his cheeks. 
He's not afraid, but he's hesitant to ask. "Who...who am I?" 
"My son." 
39 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 2 years
Text
This Week's Prompt Schedule:
Monday: Meddling Mar
Wednesday: Something New (aka I came up with a character for a video game that doesn't exist and now I'm attached. Oops.)
8 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 9 months
Text
First Prompt Poll of the New Year:
This week our options are:
10 notes · View notes
radioactivepeasant · 2 years
Text
This Week's Prompt Schedule:
Friday: Jak and Daxter, but haven't decided which of my multiple aus it will be
The possibilities are:
Splinter Cell au
Demolition Trio
Meddling Mar
Faulty Info
Eldritch Dad Damas
10 notes · View notes