#he warms up to Jak when Jak disregards age restrictions and enters the Arena anyway

[radioactivepeasant]

Halloween Fic: Prologue

(This angsty little bit actually happens month before the story itself, but it's very important worldbuilding for the story. When the whole thing is done, it'll be published on AO3 as a two-chapter whole)

"This one's temperature is too high."

Damas frowned down at the pallet beside the vast Precursor statue that loomed over the dais. The survivor he'd tracked the beacon to that morning in the desert lay there, unresponsive to the whispered chanting and cooling packs of the monks. He'd been shocked to discover that what he'd taken for a young soldier was barely more than a child under the sweat and grime embedded in his pores. By the size of the bones standing out just a little too visibly against the Unclaimed's skin, and the teeth they could count, Brother Rhys reckoned the boy could be no more than three and a half lustrums: seventeen at the oldest.

Seventeen was just barely old enough for the Trials, and that was just the high estimate of the stranger's age. That complicated the usual procedures of dealing with newcomers to Spargus. If he survived -- and at the moment it wasn't looking terribly likely -- and it turned out he was younger than seventeen, some kind of arrangement would have to be made for a child-Unclaimed.

"Do you not have cooling packs?" Damas asked, gesturing to the boy and the two animals that had been found with him.

"They are inadequate, my lord," Rhys answered. "Our supplies were greatly depleted after a failed expedition of several acolytes to the Great Volcano."

Was that all? The king of the Wastelanders turned away with a dismissive gesture.

"Then keep his body submerged until his core temperature stabilizes. I have questions for this one."

Silence followed the command. When Damas turned, the monks were watching him with conflicted expressions. He frowned and paced to the edge of the dais.

"Well?" he demanded.

Another monk, lower in rank than Brother Rhys, made a pacifying gesture and said apologetically, "We cannot, my lord. It is improper."

The king curled his lip at them. "Oh? Tell me, when did it become improper to render aid to a child?"

Rhys raised a hand, silently forbidding his companion from speaking further. He bowed his head.

"He is an Unclaimed, sire. Only those who brought the Unclaimed into your city may give them the rites of Water and First Breath, by law."

His meaning was clear: if Damas wanted to this one to live, he had to deal with it himself.

But there was a problem.

The monks would not treat submersion as an emergency medical treatment. They were rigid and uncompromising in the arena of new citizens. No matter what Damas said, if the Unclaimed was submerged, even to lower his temperature, they would record it as the rite of First Breath. But the rite of First Breath was reserved for those who had earned their first amulet in the Arena; those who understood the laws of Spargus and chose to stay, sponsored by their Finders, would use the ritual to move from Unclaimed to Foundling in the city census, gaining the same legal status as any child born within the walls.

This Unclaimed would die long before he had the chance to test his mettle in the ring if his temperature was not brought down, and soon. But without that amulet, if he were to step out of line later, he would not be the only one held accountable.

Damas took one last look at the limp form, and -- with a fairly imprecatory prayer under his breath to the Six Patrons of eco -- he made up his mind.

The king tossed aside his staff with an echoing clash of metal against stone. The monks twitched, and the guards at the lift jumped. Damas ignored them. He stormed down the steps of the dais and grabbed the skinny boy's arm. For a moment, he was thrown off by the texture of scars swirling across the skin like silvery fractals. More questions without answers. He shook away his curiosity and dragged the Unclaimed from the pallet and down to the edge of the pools. The orange creature raised its head and let out a choked cry -- it likely thought he was going to harm its human.

This wasn't going to help its opinion.

Damas stepped down into the water and hauled the Unclaimed bodily in after him. Frustration boiled under his skin, making his movements rough and brusque as he pushed the boy down under the surface and held him there.

The Six were mocking him.

You couldn't handle a toddler. Try again, maybe you can keep track of one big enough to protect himself? Try try again, Damas. Try and fail again.

The frustration bubbled up into his throat and tasted of bitterness.

He hadn’t asked for this.

He didn't want another child. He wanted his son. He wanted Mar.

But he knew in his heart that he was far too stubborn to let this one die.

One of the newer guards watched, and realized soon enough that the boy was awake, yet he did not struggle.

"This one is too weak, sire," he sneered, looking down with contempt, "Let the waters claim him."

And perhaps it would have been the merciful thing to do.

But Damas hated being told what to do.

And Damas had always been the kind of man who refused to admit defeat.

The boy's body would realize it needed air soon enough, surely. Any moment now.

Usually candidates are fully lucid during this rite for a reason....

Two seconds passed. Then five. Nine. At eleven seconds, the boy's eyelids twitched like he was going to open them. Good.

"Push," Damas whispered, stubbornly willing him to fight, "Push, whelp."

The Unclaimed's body tensed as if in response and one hand slowly, ever so slowly, rose to break the surface as if he'd just realized he was underwater. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open -- horribly, familiarly blue -- and his fingers snatched at whatever he could reach, clawing weakly at Damas’s arm.

It was enough.

Damas yanked him up out of the water by the collar of his mutilated tunic and the boy coughed out a mouthful of water. There would be no going back after this. The second they'd entered the water, the Unclaimed -- the Foundling's -- fate was bound irrevocably to Damas’s.

Grimly, and as quickly as was socially acceptable, Damas recited the words that would make the ritual binding -- and would add one more duty to his endless litany of tasks.

"Take your first breath, child of the wastes. By this birth and the hands that bore you, you belong to the people of Spargus."

"To the king of Spargus," the second monk softly corrected him, cutting off the rest of the words traditionally spoken as the young man sucked in a desperate gasp of air. "It is you who has chosen to forego the First Trial to give him his birth-by-water early. His fate is solely in your hands, my lord."

Damas snarled softly. "There was no need for it to be so," he reproached.

Emotionlessly, he hauled the Foundling from the pools and dropped him back onto the pallet.

"Heal him."

"Of course, my lord," the monk murmured. "As he is now part of your household, do you consent to the use of city eco to treat your Foundling?"

"Don't call him that." Damas turned away to retrieve his staff.

"It is what he is," Rhys observed placidly. "As you are his Finder-"

"I didn't ask to find the whelp," Damas hissed, "None of you were going to give him his rites!"

He marched past his throne, towards the exit of the chamber, stonefaced.

"Put him back in the water until one of you returns with the eco. Inform me if he recovers."

Between the monks, Jak lay on the pallet and stared at the ceiling with wide, glassy eyes.

If anyone had been paying attention, they would have seen his pupils dilate unnaturally wide.

#fic prompts #writing prompts #jak and daxter #jus sanguinis fic #dadmas #king damas #jak and daxter au #worldbuilding #i needed to post this one first so the vocab in Jus Sanguinis with foundlings and finders will make sense #but also this scene actually ends up being very important later #reluctant dad Damas #he warms up to Jak when Jak disregards age restrictions and enters the Arena anyway #the guard guy and some like-minded Wastelanders comment sometimes that Jak is too weak to be a Wastelander. that he's better off a servant #Damas and Jak bond out of spite for those people tbh #until the Arena Incident. Then things get a little tense. And then the main story happens. #halloween fic