#Jak is about to be the focal point of the custody battle of the century

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

By the very scientific method of "flip a coin", it was ultimately decided that today would be another Splinter Cell follow-up

Sig strode through the makeshift mess hall in the weapons factory with a confidence that drew eyes to him immediately. He swung himself up onto a chair and placed two fingers in his mouth to shatter the quiet with a piercing whistle. Instantly, he had everyone's attention.

"Listen up, rebels!" Sig barked, "There's been a change in operations! Jak’s just secured the backing of the Wastelander nation in this war."

A foreign ally? The motley gathering began to whisper amongst themselves. The majority had never even heard of Wastelanders having an entire nation. But they did know that Wastelanders had a reputation for finding rare treasures and selling them to the highest bidder. Having them fund the war against Praxis could either spell victory or trouble, depending on what they wanted in return.

"What's this gang-"

"Nation," Sig corrected.

"Yeah, that. What's their angle?" A woman named Kloe demanded.

Sig's eye glinted dangerously. "Payback. Praxis thought he could kidnap Wasteland kids and let the Marauders take the fall for it."

He slammed a fist into his palm.

"They're gonna help you shape up into a real fighting force. We Wastelanders will take point in any heavy firefights and strategic planning. You'll be crucial for intel and evacuation routes. We work together, maybe we'll bring down the Baron before he gets half the city killed with his stupidity."

Bran, a barrel-chested tailor, folded his thick arms and scowled. "And what happens when the war is over, eh? These Wastelanders planning to leave peacefully?"

"Fair enough," a youngster agreed from across the table. "That's how we ended up with Praxis in the first place, right? How do we know these people don't want to take over?"

From the side of the room, a new voice scoffed, "Oh you need not worry. I have no desire to rule this city again."

A grizzled man sat in the corner, arms folded across his chest. Half in shadow, he observed them all with keen eyes. On the scaffold above him, others in the garb of Wastelanders stood, feigning disinterest. Jak, Daxter, and Tess leaned against the railing, watching the man below with curiosity.

"I may not respect the choices you've all made in my absence, but I'll respect your rejection of the House of Mar."

He raised one brow.

"Personally, I disagree with the notion that a bloodline is what gives someone the right to rule."

Damas leaned back and let his eyes wander over the twenty or thirty individuals at the fold-out tables. The younger rebels seemed confused by his appearance. Those closer to his own age sat frozen, shock coloring their faces. They remembered him. They recognized him, even after 16 years of change. It was gratifying, in a way.

"If you mean to ask whether there is a "catch" to my aid, I will not lie to you," he said. "We are not helping you for free. But when the Baron’s head has been freed from his shoulders, you will all do with the city as you see fit, and we will return home."

One of the older members of Daxter's "Fight United" division stood up. Her eyes weren't what they used to be, but she could still operate a Titan Suit with deadly efficiency. Now she squinted across the tables to the corner.

"It really is you, isn't it?" she asked, "King Damas? Most of us were afraid Praxis had murdered you in secret."

"He would have," Damas answered bluntly, "but the Precursors have always taken a bizarre and not entirely welcome interest in the fate of my House, to the point of several Council members deeming it blasphemy to kill an Heir of Mar before the Precursors can do something absolutely ridiculous to them."

Above him, Jak choked on a laugh and hastily pulled away from the rail to hide his smirk. He knew there were enough devotees of the Precursors in the Factory Cell that laughing could step on some toes. Normally, that wouldn't have mattered to him. But since most of the devout were in Daxter's Titan Suit squad, he didn't want to make his best friend's life any harder than necessary.

Kloe leaned out from her seat, as little less confident now that she knew the leader of this foreign ally was the lost king of her own city. Among her generation, there were still a lot of mixed feelings about his reign. Most agreed that he'd been a failure as a leader during the Metalhead War, but sixteen years had softened blame into an acknowledgment that he'd come to the throne a boy, forced into manhood too soon. To throw the weight of an entire city of innocents onto such young shoulders without offering a hand in support had led to catastrophe. He hadn't been ready to rule, but after seeing the alternative, the older generation didn't blame him anymore.

"King- King Damas." Kloe swallowed her nerves. "You didn't answer my question. What's your angle? Can't just be payback, or you'd probably have assassinated Praxis by now. What is it you want from us?"

Damas didn’t take his eyes off the gathered crowd. He pointed upward, right to where Jak stood with Tess above them.

"Him," he answered bluntly. "I'm taking Jak."

The room burst into an uproar.

"You can't just "take" Jak! He's our best fighter!"

"Jak?! Why the heck would you want him?!"

"King or no king, we don't trade kids for favors!"

"What do you even want him for?"

"Dude, that's a bad idea! Have you seen what that guy is like?!"

"Sig, you're not letting him take our tank, right?"

Sig cut through the protests with another sharp whistle.

"Everybody zip it!" he shouted.

When the room had quieted, he stepped down from the chair and walked between the tables.

"I understand your concern. Nice to see y'all showing more concern for Jak than some cells. But let me remind you that, like a couple others of you here, Jak’s a kid. Not a soldier. When this whole mess is done, you rugrats deserve the chance to go where you want. See the world. Don't you think?"

Some of the younger members exchanged glances. Well. That was different, wasn't it?

Jinx ground his unlit cigar into the tabletop. "Bull. Prettyboy, you ain't cut out for the wastes, believe me. You really gonna go with them when this is all over?"

The boy looked away.

"Yes."

"Jak?" A round-faced teen from the Scout Flies division frowned up at him. "Are you...are you really okay with this?"

Jak was quiet for a moment, like he wasn't sure what to say. Then he raised his eyes, and with an almost guilty expression, he croaked,

"Yes."

"Jak, you can't-"

"Yes I can!"

The sharpness in his words caught them all off guard, himself included. He winced slightly.

"Look- I can take care of myself, okay? It's fine. We get the numbers and firepower to take down Praxis, they get me, and I get to go as far away from the Baron's labs as possible. Everybody wins."

It seemed selfish to tell them that he had always planned to leave once the Baron was dead. Not everyone in the Factory Cell liked him, or saw him as more than a walking weapon of mass destruction. But four weeks of operating as a splinter cell was enough to forge at least a sense of camaraderie. They were all wary of him, even the ones that liked him -- except for a couple senseless kids who looked up to him for some godforsaken reason -- but they depended on him. They had expectations of him, and knowing that he couldn't fulfill them turned Jak's stomach and tightened his chest.

He pushed off of the rail and swallowed.

"I'll um. I'll see you at the next briefing."

Phobos turned and followed him up the scaffolding, through a short antechamber covered in buttons and dials to what used to be a testing room. She wasn't wearing her wrap in her hair anymore: currently it was functioning as a sling to hold Mar on her back. Bored by the adults talking and talking and talking, Mar had fallen asleep until the shouting started. He blinked sleepily over his mother's shoulder at Jak, then dropped his head back down with a tired grumble.

"So you've decided for sure?"

Phobos frowned at Jak.

"I don't want you to feel that our help is dependent on you coming home with us."

Jak tilted his head. "Would you still help if I didn't?"

"We wouldn't wait for your cell to be ready." Phobos bounced Mar a little higher on her back and glanced back towards the hall.

"If this was the city you'd chosen to live in, Da- your- your father would already be on his way to kill Praxis without you, to make the city safe for you."

"Why?"

The boy spun on his heel and forced himself to look this Other Mother -- as if he'd even known one mother -- in the eye.

"You don't know me."

"Not yet, no. Is that a requirement for wanting you to be safe?" asked Phobos, with a hint of a wry smile.

Jak shut his mouth quickly. That was a hard question to answer. Usually, knowing him meant people started throwing him toward danger. Made sense that the strangers were the ones being protective if they just saw some random teenager playing soldier. Once they saw him in action, they'd change their tune.

"But Jak-" Phobos seemed to glide forward, reaching up to tuck a loose curl behind Jak's ear. "Do you actually want to come to Spargus with us?"

He leaned into her touch the slightest bit, like a skittish crocadog. If Sig was right, Phobos realized, he was likely starved for affection. What kind of life had this Other Mar led? What, exactly, had the Baron done? The boy had mentioned laboratories. The very word made Phobos's blood curdle.

What have they done to you, child?

She eased closer.

Jak's eyes darted this way and that. He opened his mouth, but the words faltered on his tongue. After a few false starts, at last he gathered himself and looked up. His resolve broke the instant he glimpsed Mar's curls over Phobos's shoulder.

Mar was safe now. But what about him?

"I have to get out of this city," he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard. "I have- I have to- to see the sky again. The real sky."

The words spilled out despite his attempts to stop them.

"I'm not- I'm not going to leave Mar. Where he goes, I go. Please- please don't leave me here."

What a pathetic plea. Jak cringed internally. Two years -- two and a half, now -- he'd managed without ever begging for escape. Not from his captors, not from his abusers, not even from the Underground. But after the glimpse of the Wastes Sig had shown him, after the possibility of freedom had been dangled before him, how could Jak ever go back?

He couldn't quite interpret the emotion in Phobos's eyes. But she opened her arms and held her hands palm up, where he could see them. She made no moves towards him, instead asking, "Jak, may I?"

No one had ever asked him that before. He either got hugged, or he didn't. Usually, with the dark eco running under his skin, he didn't like hugs. He was wary of sudden movement, and even when it was telegraphed, the eco made his skin so much more sensitive than it would be otherwise. Which often made tight squeezes unbearable. But ever since Mar's father had used the light eco on him, things felt more...more settled. Restrained.

Did he want a hug?

He wasn't a baby, or some helpless victim. He was a monster. A survivor. An ex-hero.

....a kid.

Just a kid.

"I...uh, okay."

Jak grimaced and sternly told himself not to look desperate.

The embrace lasted for only a moment or two, but for those brief heartbeats Jak wondered at how safe he felt. Was this how Mar felt when he carried him around after nightmares? How Keira felt whenever Samos used to hug her when they were kids?

Jak had told himself often that he had plenty of human contact in the form of Daxter. But now he wondered if Tess was right about that "touch-starved" thing she was talking about the other week.

Phobos released him gently and stepped back to hoist Mar higher on her back again. Sympathy lined her eyes, but Jak didn't feel pitied. He felt seen.

Mar yawned and Phobos clicked her tongue and hummed quietly. Nine notes, rising and falling, only a snatch of a tune, but it was familiar to Jak.

Stay with me, the seas are dark and wild-

"Mar hums that, too," he said.

Phobos looked up. "He remembers?"

There was just a hint of a tremor in her voice, but her eyes lit up.

"Er...I think so. I don't think he knows the words though." Jak shrugged, feeling a little uncomfortable.

"Well." Phobos bit the inside of her cheek and reached back to run her fingers through Mar's hair. "I didn't always sing the words to him."

A gage on the wall began to click rapidly, startling them both. Jak banged a fist against the panel and a jet of steam burst out from the seams.

Phobos jumped back and raised her eyebrows.

"Is it supposed to do that?"

The boy shrugged. "I dunno. But it stopped clicking, right?"

That earned him a snort. Phobos shook her head.

"Oh dear. You really are just like Damas, aren't you?"

Wary curiosity crept into Jak's eyes. "Am I?"

It was something he'd always wondered about. Did he get his eyes from a parent, or share their need to explore? Was he an outlier, a freak even as a child? Or would he have been enough like a parent for people to know who he was?

Did it even apply when those parents came from a completely different timeline?

"Ohhh yes." Phobos chuckled and tapped experimentally on the gage. "Your father has a lifetime ban from the mechanics' corner of the city garages."

"What did he do?" Jak breathed.

The slight awe in his voice and eyes suggested that he found the idea at least somewhat inspiring. That was...mildly concerning. But at the same time it was a little poignant. In the two days since their meeting, Jak had been holding back around the Spargans, like he was afraid to let them close. This was the first time the lonely boy had asked them a question. He sounded tentatively hopeful, like he was desperately looking for some kind of connection to make between them. Phobos could empathize with that.

"I'll tell you what," she said, glancing around conspiratorially, "Why don't you help me get Mar settled for a nap, and that way I can tell you the whole embarrassing story without Damas stopping me."

A shy, crooked smile peeked out from under the boy’s tough facade.

"Fine. You, uh, you want me to carry him?"

"No, that's alright. I'm...I'm not ready to let go yet. Thank you, though."

Phobos nudged his arm.

"Not that I doubt you could carry him easier than me. Huh. That friend of yours is as big as Mar and you just carry him around on your shoulder!"

She strolled out of the corridor with a mischievous look. "Let's pretend you got that from my side of the family, for the sake of my pride."

[pixelatedperils]

#damas is not above theatrics. man was definitely hiding in the corner like aragorn For Effect#Jak is about to be the focal point of the custody battle of the century#lullaby is based on Stay With Me from Into the Woods because its been stuck in my head#and Mar still doesn't know what's going on

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

By the very scientific method of "flip a coin", it was ultimately decided that today would be another Splinter Cell follow-up

Sig strode through the makeshift mess hall in the weapons factory with a confidence that drew eyes to him immediately. He swung himself up onto a chair and placed two fingers in his mouth to shatter the quiet with a piercing whistle. Instantly, he had everyone's attention.

"Listen up, rebels!" Sig barked, "There's been a change in operations! Jak’s just secured the backing of the Wastelander nation in this war."

A foreign ally? The motley gathering began to whisper amongst themselves. The majority had never even heard of Wastelanders having an entire nation. But they did know that Wastelanders had a reputation for finding rare treasures and selling them to the highest bidder. Having them fund the war against Praxis could either spell victory or trouble, depending on what they wanted in return.

"What's this gang-"

"Nation," Sig corrected.

"Yeah, that. What's their angle?" A woman named Kloe demanded.

Sig's eye glinted dangerously. "Payback. Praxis thought he could kidnap Wasteland kids and let the Marauders take the fall for it."

He slammed a fist into his palm.

"They're gonna help you shape up into a real fighting force. We Wastelanders will take point in any heavy firefights and strategic planning. You'll be crucial for intel and evacuation routes. We work together, maybe we'll bring down the Baron before he gets half the city killed with his stupidity."

Bran, a barrel-chested tailor, folded his thick arms and scowled. "And what happens when the war is over, eh? These Wastelanders planning to leave peacefully?"

"Fair enough," a youngster agreed from across the table. "That's how we ended up with Praxis in the first place, right? How do we know these people don't want to take over?"

From the side of the room, a new voice scoffed, "Oh you need not worry. I have no desire to rule this city again."

[[MORE]]

A grizzled man sat in the corner, arms folded across his chest. Half in shadow, he observed them all with keen eyes. On the scaffold above him, others in the garb of Wastelanders stood, feigning disinterest. Jak, Daxter, and Tess leaned against the railing, watching the man below with curiosity.

"I may not respect the choices you've all made in my absence, but I'll respect your rejection of the House of Mar."

He raised one brow.

"Personally, I disagree with the notion that a bloodline is what gives someone the right to rule."

Damas leaned back and let his eyes wander over the twenty or thirty individuals at the fold-out tables. The younger rebels seemed confused by his appearance. Those closer to his own age sat frozen, shock coloring their faces. They remembered him. They recognized him, even after 16 years of change. It was gratifying, in a way.

"If you mean to ask whether there is a "catch" to my aid, I will not lie to you," he said. "We are not helping you for free. But when the Baron’s head has been freed from his shoulders, you will all do with the city as you see fit, and we will return home."

One of the older members of Daxter's "Fight United" division stood up. Her eyes weren't what they used to be, but she could still operate a Titan Suit with deadly efficiency. Now she squinted across the tables to the corner.

"It really is you, isn't it?" she asked, "King Damas? Most of us were afraid Praxis had murdered you in secret."

"He would have," Damas answered bluntly, "but the Precursors have always taken a bizarre and not entirely welcome interest in the fate of my House, to the point of several Council members deeming it blasphemy to kill an Heir of Mar before the Precursors can do something absolutely ridiculous to them."

Above him, Jak choked on a laugh and hastily pulled away from the rail to hide his smirk. He knew there were enough devotees of the Precursors in the Factory Cell that laughing could step on some toes. Normally, that wouldn't have mattered to him. But since most of the devout were in Daxter's Titan Suit squad, he didn't want to make his best friend's life any harder than necessary.

Kloe leaned out from her seat, as little less confident now that she knew the leader of this foreign ally was the lost king of her own city. Among her generation, there were still a lot of mixed feelings about his reign. Most agreed that he'd been a failure as a leader during the Metalhead War, but sixteen years had softened blame into an acknowledgment that he'd come to the throne a boy, forced into manhood too soon. To throw the weight of an entire city of innocents onto such young shoulders without offering a hand in support had led to catastrophe. He hadn't been ready to rule, but after seeing the alternative, the older generation didn't blame him anymore.

"King- King Damas." Kloe swallowed her nerves. "You didn't answer my question. What's your angle? Can't just be payback, or you'd probably have assassinated Praxis by now. What is it you want from us?"

Damas didn’t take his eyes off the gathered crowd. He pointed upward, right to where Jak stood with Tess above them.

"Him," he answered bluntly. "I'm taking Jak."

The room burst into an uproar.

"You can't just "take" Jak! He's our best fighter!"

"Jak?! Why the heck would you want him?!"

"King or no king, we don't trade kids for favors!"

"What do you even want him for?"

"Dude, that's a bad idea! Have you seen what that guy is like?!"

"Sig, you're not letting him take our tank, right?"

Sig cut through the protests with another sharp whistle.

"Everybody zip it!" he shouted.

When the room had quieted, he stepped down from the chair and walked between the tables.

"I understand your concern. Nice to see y'all showing more concern for Jak than some cells. But let me remind you that, like a couple others of you here, Jak’s a kid. Not a soldier. When this whole mess is done, you rugrats deserve the chance to go where you want. See the world. Don't you think?"

Some of the younger members exchanged glances. Well. That was different, wasn't it?

Jinx ground his unlit cigar into the tabletop. "Bull. Prettyboy, you ain't cut out for the wastes, believe me. You really gonna go with them when this is all over?"

The boy looked away.

"Yes."

"Jak?" A round-faced teen from the Scout Flies division frowned up at him. "Are you...are you really okay with this?"

Jak was quiet for a moment, like he wasn't sure what to say. Then he raised his eyes, and with an almost guilty expression, he croaked,

"Yes."

"Jak, you can't-"

"Yes I can!"

The sharpness in his words caught them all off guard, himself included. He winced slightly.

"Look- I can take care of myself, okay? It's fine. We get the numbers and firepower to take down Praxis, they get me, and I get to go as far away from the Baron's labs as possible. Everybody wins."

It seemed selfish to tell them that he had always planned to leave once the Baron was dead. Not everyone in the Factory Cell liked him, or saw him as more than a walking weapon of mass destruction. But four weeks of operating as a splinter cell was enough to forge at least a sense of camaraderie. They were all wary of him, even the ones that liked him -- except for a couple senseless kids who looked up to him for some godforsaken reason -- but they depended on him. They had expectations of him, and knowing that he couldn't fulfill them turned Jak's stomach and tightened his chest.

He pushed off of the rail and swallowed.

"I'll um. I'll see you at the next briefing."

Phobos turned and followed him up the scaffolding, through a short antechamber covered in buttons and dials to what used to be a testing room. She wasn't wearing her wrap in her hair anymore: currently it was functioning as a sling to hold Mar on her back. Bored by the adults talking and talking and talking, Mar had fallen asleep until the shouting started. He blinked sleepily over his mother's shoulder at Jak, then dropped his head back down with a tired grumble.

"So you've decided for sure?"

Phobos frowned at Jak.

"I don't want you to feel that our help is dependent on you coming home with us."

Jak tilted his head. "Would you still help if I didn't?"

"We wouldn't wait for your cell to be ready." Phobos bounced Mar a little higher on her back and glanced back towards the hall.

"If this was the city you'd chosen to live in, Da- your- your father would already be on his way to kill Praxis without you, to make the city safe for you."

"Why?"

The boy spun on his heel and forced himself to look this Other Mother -- as if he'd even known one mother -- in the eye.

"You don't know me."

"Not yet, no. Is that a requirement for wanting you to be safe?" asked Phobos, with a hint of a wry smile.

Jak shut his mouth quickly. That was a hard question to answer. Usually, knowing him meant people started throwing him toward danger. Made sense that the strangers were the ones being protective if they just saw some random teenager playing soldier. Once they saw him in action, they'd change their tune.

"But Jak-" Phobos seemed to glide forward, reaching up to tuck a loose curl behind Jak's ear. "Do you actually want to come to Spargus with us?"

He leaned into her touch the slightest bit, like a skittish crocadog. If Sig was right, Phobos realized, he was likely starved for affection. What kind of life had this Other Mar led? What, exactly, had the Baron done? The boy had mentioned laboratories. The very word made Phobos's blood curdle.

What have they done to you, child?

She eased closer.

Jak's eyes darted this way and that. He opened his mouth, but the words faltered on his tongue. After a few false starts, at last he gathered himself and looked up. His resolve broke the instant he glimpsed Mar's curls over Phobos's shoulder.

Mar was safe now. But what about him?

"I have to get out of this city," he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard. "I have- I have to- to see the sky again. The real sky."

The words spilled out despite his attempts to stop them.

"I'm not- I'm not going to leave Mar. Where he goes, I go. Please- please don't leave me here."

What a pathetic plea. Jak cringed internally. Two years -- two and a half, now -- he'd managed without ever begging for escape. Not from his captors, not from his abusers, not even from the Underground. But after the glimpse of the Wastes Sig had shown him, after the possibility of freedom had been dangled before him, how could Jak ever go back?

He couldn't quite interpret the emotion in Phobos's eyes. But she opened her arms and held her hands palm up, where he could see them. She made no moves towards him, instead asking, "Jak, may I?"

No one had ever asked him that before. He either got hugged, or he didn't. Usually, with the dark eco running under his skin, he didn't like hugs. He was wary of sudden movement, and even when it was telegraphed, the eco made his skin so much more sensitive than it would be otherwise. Which often made tight squeezes unbearable. But ever since Mar's father had used the light eco on him, things felt more...more settled. Restrained.

Did he want a hug?

He wasn't a baby, or some helpless victim. He was a monster. A survivor. An ex-hero.

....a kid.

Just a kid.

"I...uh, okay."

Jak grimaced and sternly told himself not to look desperate.

The embrace lasted for only a moment or two, but for those brief heartbeats Jak wondered at how safe he felt. Was this how Mar felt when he carried him around after nightmares? How Keira felt whenever Samos used to hug her when they were kids?

Jak had told himself often that he had plenty of human contact in the form of Daxter. But now he wondered if Tess was right about that "touch-starved" thing she was talking about the other week.

Phobos released him gently and stepped back to hoist Mar higher on her back again. Sympathy lined her eyes, but Jak didn't feel pitied. He felt seen.

Mar yawned and Phobos clicked her tongue and hummed quietly. Nine notes, rising and falling, only a snatch of a tune, but it was familiar to Jak.

Stay with me, the seas are dark and wild-

"Mar hums that, too," he said.

Phobos looked up. "He remembers?"

There was just a hint of a tremor in her voice, but her eyes lit up.

"Er...I think so. I don't think he knows the words though." Jak shrugged, feeling a little uncomfortable.

"Well." Phobos bit the inside of her cheek and reached back to run her fingers through Mar's hair. "I didn't always sing the words to him."

A gage on the wall began to click rapidly, startling them both. Jak banged a fist against the panel and a jet of steam burst out from the seams.

Phobos jumped back and raised her eyebrows.

"Is it supposed to do that?"

The boy shrugged. "I dunno. But it stopped clicking, right?"

That earned him a snort. Phobos shook her head.

"Oh dear. You really are just like Damas, aren't you?"

Wary curiosity crept into Jak's eyes. "Am I?"

It was something he'd always wondered about. Did he get his eyes from a parent, or share their need to explore? Was he an outlier, a freak even as a child? Or would he have been enough like a parent for people to know who he was?

Did it even apply when those parents came from a completely different timeline?

"Ohhh yes." Phobos chuckled and tapped experimentally on the gage. "Your father has a lifetime ban from the mechanics' corner of the city garages."

"What did he do?" Jak breathed.

The slight awe in his voice and eyes suggested that he found the idea at least somewhat inspiring. That was...mildly concerning. But at the same time it was a little poignant. In the two days since their meeting, Jak had been holding back around the Spargans, like he was afraid to let them close. This was the first time the lonely boy had asked them a question. He sounded tentatively hopeful, like he was desperately looking for some kind of connection to make between them. Phobos could empathize with that.

"I'll tell you what," she said, glancing around conspiratorially, "Why don't you help me get Mar settled for a nap, and that way I can tell you the whole embarrassing story without Damas stopping me."

A shy, crooked smile peeked out from under the boy’s tough facade.

"Fine. You, uh, you want me to carry him?"

"No, that's alright. I'm...I'm not ready to let go yet. Thank you, though."

Phobos nudged his arm.

"Not that I doubt you could carry him easier than me. Huh. That friend of yours is as big as Mar and you just carry him around on your shoulder!"

She strolled out of the corridor with a mischievous look. "Let's pretend you got that from my side of the family, for the sake of my pride."