#in which humans who do too much time shenaniganry and eco channeling are at risk of becoming neo precursors

[radioactivepeasant]

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." 

[radioactivepeasant]

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." 

[radioactivepeasant]

What if Jak keeps Damas's fate a secret from everyone but Sig at the end of Jak 3? Ottsel Leader feels the shift, knows as a Minor Precursor that though they were the ones to help Mar's Heir unlock his demi- Precursor heritage, there's something else out there now. Neo Precursors, his more relaxed comrade dubs them. Neocurians.

"We've got some worlds to see, old business to wrap up, ya know?" Surfer Ottsel says cheerfully, "Don't sweat it, dude. You guys follow when you're ready. It's rad not to be the last ones anymore."

The ottsel leader Disapproves of this. The Chill Ottsel, predictably, doesn't care. The Ottsel With His Helmet Stuck On His Head missed the entire exchange. (He’s just doing his best, guys.)

"Then I'll stay. If there are more of us, I'll find them. You don't need to worry about this world."

What he's really saying is "leave, and don't come back. This world is ours now."

He returns to the temple, and he stays there for weeks.

His friends worry about him. Samos blithely waves it off as Jak needing time to grieve. That's when Keira learns that her father, Veger, Onin, Pecker, and Ashelin all knew that Jak's birth family was in the desert, and that Sig's presence on the throne means that Jak's father is dead.

And that he probably didn't know he was the king's son until it was too late.

Keira is first horrified by this conspiracy surrounding her childhood friend, and then she is disgusted. She begins her journey toward becoming a Light Sage then, going to the temple.

The upper room in the temple is filled with light. There's an effigy of a winged man -- or a man with the deadly tentacles of a jellyfish, she can't decide which -- resting in a seated position, hands open on his knees. Its eyes glow like the eyes of the oracles back home. Keira takes in the creases on its face and the way its armor drapes over it, and she wonders how they made it so lifelike. The lights dance around it, almost like there's lights moving inside it. Jak sits at its feet, with his back to the pedestal it rests on. Head propped up against the statue's left knee, eyes closed, breathing deeply: simply absorbing the eco the effigy emits as he dozes. He almost looks like he's being cradled by the strange, starry statue. Daxter is curled up on Jak's lap, snoring softly.

Keira wants to cry. She's never seen Jak look so peaceful. Not since coming to Haven. There's a soft smile on his face that twists in her heart. Jak has known so much sorrow. Is the only joy in his life to be found here, among the monks and sleeping against their statues? How can he still smile after everything the Precursors -- everything Onin and Praxis and even her father -- took from him? His parents, his childhood innocence, his choice.

Then the effigy -- what she took for a statue -- shifts. The wings that had been at rest against the figure's back begin to twist and writhe, like tentacles, like serpents. The shadows they cast fall across the length of the room, and she can almost swear she feels them squirm over her. A visceral discomfort fills up Keira's lungs, tightens around her chest like a vise. What she is seeing is not natural to this world. What she is seeing should not be.

The tendril-like wings snap out to the sides, in sync with the effigy snapping its head up to regard her with eyes that pulse with light.

Keira screams. It sounds muffled in her own ears, like she's underwater. Jak's eyes fly open and she wants to pull him away from the creature crouching over him. She wants to take his hand and run. But she is frozen, as though time has slowed to a crawl around her. Every heartbeat seems unbearably far apart. Her eyes take too long to close, to shield her from that burning gaze.

Then she blinks and it's over. She's sitting on the floor -- when did she fall? -- and Jak is crouched beside her.

"Hey hey no! Sshhh, shhh- it's okay! It's okay, don't be afraid." He squeezes her hand and shakes his head. "Geez, you startled us."

Keira lifts a shaking hand to point at the Entity. He stands over them now, the tips of his wings graze Jak's shoulders. They twist, they curl around her friend -- protective or possessive, Keira can't tell which.

Jak grins, sheepish and childlike, and for an instant she has her childhood friend back.

"I know. He's been like this since I got back from the Dark Maker ship. I think he's worried that the little Precursors might try to make me do their dirty work again; he won't let me and Dax go anywhere by ourselves for long. But-"

He ducks his head.

"Honestly? I...I kind of like it."

His voice drops lower. Keira barely hears him. "...never had a father before..."

A father?!

The entity lays a hand on the crown of Jak's head and smiles. A pulse of light eco washes over them, and the strength of the love in that smile erases the bulk of Keira's fright. Curiosity slowly begins to replace fear. She shifts to her knees and swallows hard.

"H-hello," she squeaks, "...are...were you...are you Damas?"

She's surprised to hear it -- no, him -- speak in the dialect she and Jak and Daxter used to use with the old oracles in Sandover. It is low, and raspy, and seems to vibrate in her bones, but it fills her with nostalgia.

"Hello, little one. Mar has told me of you."

She wonders if he means Jak. That's what Jak told Samos he had to call him last time they spoke, after all. "The name my father gave me", he'd said. It was a rebuke at the time. Keira doesn’t blame him for it.

"I..." Keira swallows hard. "I am so so sorry for what Onin and my father did. I- I came here to...to try to make up for it. Atone, somehow, I guess."

The smile widens. Keira glimpses the constellation The Navigator twinkling on his cheek.

"Indeed? Then perhaps I will keep you, as well."

Daxter appears over Damas's -- or the entity that was once Damas -- shoulder with a smirk. "Ooh, shoulda run when you had the chance, Keira. No escape now!"

Jak drops his face into his palm.

"Sorry, Keira," he sighs, "Dax is right. Once he claims you, so far it's proven very difficult to go far without Hovering."

"I do not "hover"!"

"You hover, Father. You've been hovering since Veger spilled his guts."

"Literally," Daxter added, gagging. "I mean, he had it comin' and all, but you did get kind of carried away, Pops."

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." 

[pixelatedperils]

#in which humans who do too much Time Shenaniganry and eco channeling are at risk of becoming Neo-Precursors#the sketchy Ottsel Precursors are very very nervous about this#Jak hasn't seen Damas's seal and doesn't realize yet that he's Damas's kid both literally and figuratively#Daxter has figured it out and mistakenly assumes Jak knows#Damas technically could change back but good luck making him do it

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."