Chapter Text
'Just stuff my dad into a bag,' she'd said. 'He'll fit, of course he will. Have you seen how small he is? He's bluffing, he won't really turn you into a fern,' she'd said.
Daxter's heart hammered in his ears as he crept towards his target. His soft shoes slid silently over the crude wooden floorboards. Burlap rasped across his fingers, the rough material wicking the sweat from his palms. He breathed in slow. Plants and rubbing alcohol and the ocean's salty tang filled his lungs.
Sweat tickled his forehead, stung his eyes. He should've brought a bigger bag.
Scraping, shuffling noises floated up through the floor. The cries of the gulldoves circling outside the hut almost managed to mask the faint sound.
Almost.
"Mar and Makers, what is that infernal—" The old man turned, the invective dying on his tongue. He blinked, ocher eyes owl-like behind the thick lenses of his glasses. His magnified gaze flicked from Daxter's face, to the sack in his hands, and back again.
A frayed callus snagged the burlap. Pain tugged at his skin. "Uh." Anxiety stretched his mouth into a taut smile.
"Daxter—"
A thud vibrated underfoot.
Samos looked down, brow furrowed.
His heart leapt into his throat, tightened around his vocal cords. "Samos!" Daxter flung his arms outward and bashed the table beside him.
Glass vials tinkled against each other. The tray of tubes skittered towards the edge of the table. The eco within pressed up against the inner walls of the vials, nudging them ever closer to gravity-induced doom in its desperation to get away from Daxter.
Samos, however marginally, was faster. He hobbled forward, eyes wide. Tall wooden sandals caught on the floorboard and he stumbled, kicking up a waft of freshly-splintered oak. He caught himself on the edge of the table and pushed the tray back to safety. The green eco quieted under his touch, although it still churned and fluctuated in brightness. Samos let out a sigh before turning his glare upon the intruder. "Daxter, you great oaf—"
"No time for pleasantries, Grandpa Green — we got a serious problem here." Jak was going to owe him for this. Daxter was adding this to the life-debt, he was adding three— no, five years. "You see, me an' Jak? We're havin' somethin' of a disagreement."
"Someone has a disagreement with you?" Samos grumbled, voice craggy as time-roughened bark. He steadied the still-swaying vials. "Perish the thought."
Daxter strained to hear anything from below. Quiet footsteps and thumps, barely audible over the dull roar of the ocean. If he could just keep Greenie occupied— "Hey, this is your problem, too. 'Cause you see, Jak? He's tellin' me that this—" he waved the cinched sack in the air— "is a gold-bellied river-swamp tree frog, but—"
"Daxter, that is not a real species, and if you'd paid the slightest—"
"That's what I said! Only, y'know, I was a lot less mean about it. But you see my problem? Our problem? We can't have our boy runnin' around, believin' in gold-bellied river-swamp tree frogs. It'd be improper. No one'd take him seriously. Bein' the strong, silent type'll only earn you so much grace, you know." He thrust the bag at Samos, hands still clenched around the neck. "So? Help me out, Samos. Buddy. Pal. Tell me this is just any ol' frog. Stop the madness."
"If this is some sort of game—"
Clunk.
Daxter let out a loud, fake sneeze halfway through the noise. He sniffled theatrically and chuckled. "Please?" The word pushed out through his gritted teeth. "I'm beggin' you, here. He'll listen to you. He always does."
The old sage's jaw worked as he chewed his tongue with molarless gums. "Fine. Let's see your damned frog."
The muscles in Daxter's shoulders relaxed as he teased the mouth of the bag open a finger's breadth. "You're gonna wanna look in there real quick — he's a slippery li'l bastard."
"Will you just open the thrice-damned—"
Crash.
Samos's head jerked up. "What in the—"
His lungs constricted, pushed a tiny squeak from his throat. Daxter wrenched the bag open and hooked it over the old man's head. He pulled the drawstrings taut around Samos's shoulders and yanked down again for good measure.
The trapped air escaped Daxter's lungs in a breathy laugh. Small though he was, Samos would not have fit all the way in the sack. Daxter awarded himself ten points for foresight. "Gotta tell you, Log Nog, you look just as good in that bag as any tuber. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."
"Daxter...!" Samos clawed at the ropes, failed to gain purchase with each swipe.
Vegetal, cloyingly sweet air filled the space.
Daxter's heart stuttered and stopped.
A rumble reverberated through the hut. Glass vials rattled in their racks. Green eco thrashed against its confines.
The muted noise below fell silent.
"...Fuck."
Vines erupted from the floor. Crashes and yelps and crunching and groaning filled the air. The tendrils worked up under the bag. The cloth lifted from Samos's face. Curled lips, pinched brows, green skin flushed scarlet.
"You little—"
Daxter yelped and scampered out of the lab.
Samos's cane whooshed through the air, ruffling the hair at the back of Daxter's head.
He scurried up the ladder into the loft.
Sunlight slanted in through the spaces between the walls' wooden slats. Dust motes danced in the dim light.
Dust motes that couldn't escape because Samos's loft wasn't like Jak's, didn't have windows, didn't have a way out and Daxter had zero foresight, he rescinded his shiny new points and—
No. No, this was fine. He was fine. Daxter breathed in, drowned the acidic adrenaline on his tongue with dusty air. Samos probably couldn't get up the ladder, anyway. The eco was all that was keeping the old man alive, everyone knew that. He was like... salted fish. Ancient, green, angry salted fish. And salted fish couldn't climb—
Creaking groans erupted from below.
Daxter peeked over the edge of the landing.
Samos's bespectacled face rushed up at him, propelled by rapidly-growing vines.
A strangled cry escaped Daxter's throat. He stumbled back. The rough-cut wall snarled splinters into his tunic, bowed ominously as he leaned into it.
White hair crested the landing, followed by the branch woven into it—
Pulse pounding in his throat, Daxter turned and slammed his shoulder into the old boards.
Pain shuddered through his shoulder, radiated into his chest.
The board gave a creaking, snapping crack.
Daxter's breath caught in his throat. He took one step back, two, and flung himself against the weakened wood. It buckled and splintered and split and Daxter fell, landed on the thin slate tiles of the lower roof with a crunch. Shattered tiles slid off the roof to the grass and rocks and sea below. Daxter scrambled to his feet. His shoes slipped and skidded along the slate as he shimmied around the building.
Below, without the buffer of the floor of Samos's lab, the clanging was louder than before. He glimpsed the entrance to Keira's workshop at the bottom level of the islet and crouched down to peer through the doorway.
A shock of curly green and blond hair moved below.
Wooden clogs clopped above. Paused. A hollow thunk on the tile behind him.
Shit.
He glanced around. Sunlight glinted off metal. The drainpipe.
Daxter jumped.
His hands wrapped around the sun-heated metal. Scalded nerves screamed. He held on, bit his lip until it hurt. Hot, metallic tang. Iron or blood.
The pipe groaned and shuddered under his weight. It bowed out, away from the house, fastenings moaning agony.
Daxter's heart crawled up his throat. He clung to the metal, still as a sentinel.
The pipe creaked, swayed, steadied. Held.
Air hissed out his lungs, through his teeth. He clambered up the pipe.
Wooden sandals clopped below. Louder. Closer.
Daxter hauled himself up to the second roof, above the loft. Thatching fibers crunched beneath his feet, musty sweetness on the ocean breeze.
The ocean. It stretched out before him, going for miles and millennia until blue water met blue sky in an infinite horizon, broken only by the misshapen shadow of Misty Island in the distance.
His breath hitched and he blinked the stinging sunlight from his eyes. Was this why Jak was always climbing things? Because he wanted to see until forever?
"Where do you think you're going, you fool?" The wind carried the gruff voice up to the sky. "There's nowhere to run — not unless you jump."
Jump? Daxter glanced over the edge, down at the white water and sharp rocks and crashing surf. His stomach flipped.
Vines creaked below.
Makers beyond, he had to think of something, think. Climb higher, up to the lookout? No, no way. Down the other side of the house, the lower roof was only a ten foot drop. He could—
Thud. Crackle.
Out in the open air, the sounds from the workshop rang out clear as bells.
The creaking stopped. "Keira?" All the venom drained from Samos's voice. As though the mere thought of his daughter had sucked his malice out with a syringe. "What's going on down there?"
Fuck. Fuck fuck shit fuck yakkow-fucking— Daxter dove off the rooftop, rolled across the slate roof below, and dropped to the veranda. He stumbled, rolled his ankle on the final drop to the bottom of the islet — the cavern stubbornly hollowed out of the stone so it could kiss the sea — and barrelled into Keira's workshop.
"Couldn't—" His ankle throbbed, his lungs burned. "He's comin'—"
Jak threw a sheet over the workbench as Keira shoved a mechanical something-or-other back onto its shelf. She leaped down from the ladder and sprinted for the workbench.
Daxter kicked an oversized comm unit under the table. Blue eco sparked out the other side, fisting fractal fingers in the air as it clawed away from him.
Jak grabbed him by the shoulders, his grip firm yet gentle. Hot sweat stuck his hand wraps to Daxter's tunic, the cloth peeling apart begrudgingly as Jak pushed him through the doorway to Keira's room.
The clay wall beside the door coaxed the heat from Daxter's back, cooled the air in his lungs. He craned his neck until his shoulder popped, until he could see just enough of the workshop through the doorway. Keira hopped up on the workbench and seated herself between the covered pile of tech and the door leading outside.
A shadow fell over the doorway.
Daxter pulled back, shrank against the wall.
"So, I guess Tov's muse ran off again, so he's planning— oh. Hi, Father."
"Keira, what was that noise?" Samos's sandals and cane beat the floor in rhythm — clop clop thok, clop clop thok — as he entered. "And where did that horrid rat of a child scurry off to?"
"Daxter's not a rat."
His nails bit into his palms as he sank his teeth into his tongue. He wasn't a child, either. But the measured beat of the old man's cane on the floorboards inched Daxter's shoulders towards his ears with every strike and filled his nose with the scent of lilies sweet enough to churn his stomach and almost enough blood to temper it and he swallowed it all down, down.
"When I find him, I swear to every god that ever was..."
He focused on the bite of nails and teeth and held his tongue.
"Why are you always so mean to him? It's not like Jak or I haven't ever played a joke on you."
Despite himself, a huffed laugh escaped him. Talk about understatements — Daxter couldn't even hope to top the Lightning Mole Incident. He didn't want to try. He liked having all his limbs.
"You two have discernible futures. Demonstrable skills. The capacity to learn, and stop talking for thirty seconds..." Samos's voice and clopping paused. "What's all this, then? Let me— Jak, for Mar's sake, get out of the way."
"Father, that's not—"
"Keira." Samos's voice flattened, sucked all the air out of the room. "Explain."
The skin of Daxter's face and hands grew cold, clammy. Like he'd started cleaning a fish without gloves, spattered the guts across his face. He slid down the wall, sank into a crouch, slumped forward over his knees. He buried his cold, dead face in his hands.
It hadn't been enough. He'd fucked it up. Even as a diversion, as bait, he'd fucked it up.
He curled into himself like the coward he was, and waited.
Jak's body tugged him towards Keira's room like Daxter had buried a hook in his heart. He'd seen the slump in Daxter's spine, the glaze over his eyes. He couldn't leave Daxter alone, now — not when his thoughts were bleeding into his body.
But moving now would lead Samos straight to him.
Samos, who had as good as caught them red-handed.
The sage glared at Keira over the rim of his glasses. "Well? I'm waiting."
Keira's eyes hardened to malachite chips. She hopped down from the workbench and grabbed a fistful of the sheet she'd draped over it. In one smooth pull, she whipped the cloth away.
Metal glinted in the mid-morning light — Haven steel and Precursan bronze, tools and weapons and zoomer parts and drones.
"I have a demonstration today." Her voice, usually soft and gritty as beach sand, carried a scalpel of sterile sharpness. "Jak was helping me get ready."
Samos's eye twitched. "A demonstration."
"For the Minister of Science."
"The Minister—? Impossible." Samos brought his cane down on the floor with a crack.
The sound lanced directly into Jak's brain, stabbed at the backs of his eyes. He flinched and moved a step away from Keira, towards the doorway to her bedroom.
"How did he find you? I specifically forbade you from sending couriers, and now—"
"Couriers. Not scout fly drones." Keira scooped a small machine from the table and held it out in her cupped hands.
Barely larger than a newborn muse kitten, the drone whirred softly in her hands as it went through its idle motions. Its compound camera eyes rotated in their housing and its gossamer wings ran through a single flutter cycle, sunlight glinting off the crystalline panels.
"Miko here hand-delivered my application to the Minister, and the letter I got back—"
"I see now that I've been lenient with you, far too—"
"—he can't wait to see my portfolio—"
Crack. "He can keep waiting. I will not allow Havenites under my roof."
Blood rushed in Jak's ears, over his brain. The edges of his vision swam in black.
"He's on his way here, right now. If you'd like to explain to him why he can't come into the workshop—"
"I'll do no such thing. The impertinence—"
The pain in Jak's head rose to a pounding, rushing riptide. If they didn't stop arguing, stop yelling— He brought his thumb and forefinger to his mouth and whistled.
The shrill sliced through their voices, leaving only silence in its wake.
Two pairs of eyes, two frowns fixed on him.
Heat flushed in the tips of Jak's ears. "Samos," he signed, hands shaking, "this is important. For Keira. The Minister thinks—"
Samos scoffed and returned his attention to Keira. He kept his eyes firmly away from Jak's hands.
A knot of fire burned in Jak's chest. He dropped his arms to his sides, fists clenching and unclenching, nails biting into his palms. He squeezed his eyes shut.
It was wrong to hit people. He had to remember. It was wrong—
"If that's how you're going to act, so be it. I know better than to get between an oxboar and its rut." Samos knocked his cane against the workbench with another crack.
A solar fin slid down from the pile and off the table.
Keira's eyes flew wide and she dove. She caught the fin with a hiss. Droplets of red pooled where the metal edges sliced into the flesh of her inner arms.
Jak shouldered Samos aside as he moved to Keira's workbench. He pulled a jar of glowing green eco salve from the upper rightmost drawer and uncorked it. The eco flowed from the kelp gel to his hand, didn't so much as wait for him to ease the fin out of Keira's arm. He positioned his hand over the wound, fingers not quite touching her flesh, and waited.
Keira wrinkled her nose and bit her lip, but she nodded.
Warmth flowed from his hands to her skin. The scent of lilies, floral and saccharine, filled the air between them. Dermis knitted together in the green light, layer by layer, until the only evidence of the injury was the trail the blood had made across her tanned beige skin.
Keira didn't look away. She never did.
Jak helped her to her feet, throwing a glare over his shoulder.
The sage, her father, hadn't moved after Jak had shoved him. He stood precisely where he'd landed, his expression impassive. "Show the Minister your playthings if you must, Keira — and your dramatics, as well. But you are not doing it here."
Keira yanked her arm away from Jak and stepped around him to face Samos. "Father—"
"Figure it out, girl. You're clever, are you not? That's why you thought to set all this up behind my back: so we would all see how clever you are."
C-l-e-v-e-r. Electricity prickled in his fingertips as the letters tapped into his crossed arms. Jak clenched his jaw until it popped.
It was wrong to hit people... even when they really deserved it.
"The moment I see the Minister's convoy, I'm shuttering the house. Whether you're here or not is no concern of mine." He turned and jabbed his cane at Jak. "And you. Stay away from the Minister. Understand? And no channeling." Samos turned on his heel and stomped out of the workshop. His footsteps thudded over their heads as the sage retreated up the stairs, back to his lab.
Like water from a basin, all the fire drained from Keira. She heaved a sigh and slumped back against the workbench.
Jak shifted to stand beside her and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Keirs?" The nickname hovered beside her, brushed the tip of his thumb against her cheek.
She pushed a strand of blue-green hair behind her ear and managed a thin smile. "I'm fine. I just need a minute."
Nodding, Jak patted her shoulder and offered a smile in return. He glanced over at the bedroom. His smile wavered.
Daxter still hadn't come out.
The moment Jak entered the room, Daxter's fiery hair gave him away. He was huddled beside the doorway, arms wrapped around his legs and forehead pressed to his knees.
Jak's throat constricted. That someone as tall and loud as Daxter could seem so small and silent— He slipped in and sat beside him, scooting closer until their shoulders pressed together.
Daxter raised his head just enough to look over at Jak. Ultramarine blue filtered through red bangs. "Gone?" Daxter signed, the motion small and stilted.
"Yeah."
"Sorry. I fucked it up."
Jak shook his head. "We were never going to get it all set up before Samos noticed." If he'd realized exactly how much was in Keira's workshop, he wouldn't— well, he would've helped anyway. But he wouldn't have dragged Daxter into it.
Daxter bit his lip and raised his hands. "But—" He hesitated, started over. "How's my face?"
Some of the tightness in Jak's chest unwound. Of course they weren't going to argue about whose fault it'd been. It just wasn't them.
Jak took Daxter's chin in hand; the stubble there scratched the webbing between his forefinger and thumb. He turned Daxter's head side to side, scrubbed away the moisture beneath Daxter's eyes with the pad of his thumb. He tousled the hair at the back of Daxter's head, flattened from where it had pressed against the wall. It fluffed back out to its usual state of intentional disarray.
With one last once-over, he gave Daxter the thumbs-up and stood, pulling Daxter up with him.
Daxter stumbled, grabbed Jak's shoulders for balance, and righted himself. He straightened his clothes and, lips twisting around buck teeth into his customary smirk, he passed Jak and led them back into Keira's workshop. "Ol' Father Time didn't give you too much trouble without the Daxterminator for backup, did he?"
Keira looked up at them, the hardness of her eyes finally melted back to verdant pools. "Don't worry about it. I think we've all heard worse from him."
Daxter's shoulders twitched upward. His smile stiffened.
"Still," Keira continued, looking down as she wrung her hands, "it's exhausting. I have no idea how you guys manage it."
Jak tilted his head, eyebrow raised.
The corner of Keira's mouth quirked up. "You know. Being so damn obstinate all the time. I can barely last five minutes."
"You gotta build it up. Like a muscle." The lines of Daxter's shoulders loosened and his hands slipped into the pockets of his trousers. "So, what do we do with...?" He jerked his head at the pile of tech on the workbench.
Keira followed the motion and frowned. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "I mean... he said he was going to close off the house. And the last time he said that..." The hair found its way into her mouth. She chewed on it, eyes fixed on her inventions.
A shiver ran through Jak's limbs. They'd be stuck rebuilding the bridge to Samos's islet again, he was sure of it. At least it was springtime, so the water wouldn't be so frigid if they fell in—
"We gotta move it all off the island. You guys start with Keira's handcarts, I'll go steal a wheelbarrow from ol' Zeb—"
"Okay, but where do we move it to, Daxter?"
"Uh..." Daxter sucked on his bottom lip and glanced down at Jak.
Jak rolled his eyes and nodded towards the village. Wasn't it obvious?
The color drained from Daxter's face. "Jak, no," he whimpered, eyeing a grease stain on the floor. "No. What'll Thad say?"
"Nothing," Jak signed, "because I'll clean it up before he gets back."
"You mean you'll do a piss-poor job, make a bigger mess than we started with, and then I'll end up cleaning the whole damn house."
Jak shrugged one shoulder. And that was somehow different than usual?
Daxter managed to glare at him for seven seconds before he threw his head back with a groan. "Fine. I'll steal you a wheelbarrow, and then we'll haul Keira's nasty-ass inventions halfway across the village, and then we'll invite some Haven bigwig into our house. I see no way at all this could go wrong."
"We love you, Daxter." Keira's singsong floated to them from the deepest corner of the workshop, where she was already setting up the handcarts.
Daxter flapped a hand at them as he turned to the door, a soft smile on his face. "Yeah, yeah. I know it."
The engine dropped to the table with a thunk. Jak winced, shaking the pinched nerves out of his hands. There was no way the machinery hadn't scratched the wood; he'd have to try to convince Tov to help him cut a new tabletop before Uncle came home.
Or, more likely, Daxter would have to convince him.
Daxter staggered in, hauling a life-sized model of a human skeleton, complete with nervous system. He dropped the mannequin beside the doorway with a grunt. Swiping sweat-slick bangs away from his eyes, he surveyed the room — every greasy machine and bulky contraption — and huffed. "There's no way we're gettin' all this crap back to Samos's 'fore nightfall, huh?"
"Not unless we're a lot faster at rebuilding the bridge, this time."
Daxter's nose wrinkled. "Y'know, Moss Man could've at least waited 'til I was all the way off the bridge before he crushed it with the Vines of Doom. Is that so much to ask?"
For Samos? Jak snorted and went out to the wheelbarrow. He walked backwards as he signed to Daxter. "He'd say you should be grateful he didn't crush you along with it."
It wouldn't have been hard, either — reticulated vines could support over two hundred orda in weight at full maturity. Empowered by green eco and angry old man energy, they'd have some incredible crushing force. Jak didn't have to approve of that kind of eco manipulation to admit it was impressive.
Daxter's sweaty, irritated expression warned Jak off sharing that particular bit of commentary.
It was fine. There'd be time to tell him later.
He grabbed another device — a rudimentary prosthetic hand — and tossed it to Daxter before grabbing the last large, blocky item for himself.
"I've been tellin' you for years: Samos is a gremling in disguise. He's vile, tiny, green, takes undue pleasure in the suffering of others—"
Jak lowered the block to the table, only for the abused furniture to groan in protest. Before he could relocate it, Daxter bumped him out of the way and claimed the block for himself. Jak backed away, tugging his loosened hand wraps back into place. "Like how he doesn't want us to meet the Minister? Or channel when there are visitors in town?"
Daxter dropped the block, the floor quaking beneath their feet at the impact. He winced, but didn't dare check the floor for damage. Instead he went back for the prosthetic he'd abandoned by the front door. "Yeah, well. Nobody could accuse ol' Grandpa Green of being careless, huh?"
"But he doesn't do that with anyone else — just us." Just Jak.
Daxter folded the mechanical hand into a scolding finger and waved it at Jak. "That's 'cause everyone else channels like normal, sane humans. Not... whatever it is you do."
Jak moved to take the hand from Daxter.
Daxter raised it up out of his reach, earning a deadpan stare.
"It's normal," he signed, gestures clipped. "Samos does it."
"Who we've just established is actually a gremling. Keep up, bud."
"All the sages channel like I do." He swiped again, missed.
Daxter rolled his eyes and allowed Jak to take the hand. "Of which there are only two, and they're both so saturated in eco you can see it in their damn skin. If you ain't dead of eco poisoning by the time you're twenty-five, you'll have built-in jungle camouflage."
"Dax..."
"And the next time you fall out of a tree and concuss yourself, it'll take me that much longer to find your clumsy ass."
Jak set the prosthetic in a prominent place on the table, lingered there. The gray metal contrasted the deep golden-brown of his skin. He tried to imagine it green. Samos's skin was usually a light, swampy hue — Jak's would be darker, probably. A deep, mossy green.
He shuddered and jerked his hand back. "Saturates don't get eco poisoning."
Daxter pursed his lips and shrugged. He leaned out the door and stared off towards the Fire Canyon. "Keira's been gone a long time."
Jak's stomach turned. She had, now that Daxter mentioned it. Was something wrong with the Minister's transport? Had something kept them up? Mount Morzid had been dormant for over a century, but colossi like that never truly died. If it were to erupt now, the Fire Canyon was a dry flume directly in the volcano's path and—
No. He pinched the thin skin of his wrist, focused on the sting.
One thing at a time.
"Dax."
His eyes flicked to Jak's hands.
"Saturates don't get eco poisoning."
"Yeah. Heard you the first time."
"There have been no recorded cases—"
Daxter cleared the distance between them in two strides. He grabbed Jak's hands and hunched over to look him in the eye. "I get it, dude. Just stop already. I don't think you're gonna die. I'm not gonna stop you from channeling. You're gonna be a sage, and you're gonna kick ass at it. Is that what you wanna hear?"
No. Because Daxter could say that all he liked, and still look at Jak like he already had one foot in the pyre.
He nodded anyway.
With a tight smile, Daxter released his hands. "Good. Now let's get outta here, 'fore Keira brings those city snobs in. I don't wanna watch 'em muck up our house."
He turned to leave, but Jak caught his arm. "Wait. You want to just... leave? Make her do this all by herself?"
Daxter breathed in, held it for three seconds, and let it out again. "Jak. Brother. Keira's eighteen years old. She's an adult. She's trying to get a scholarship outta his Minister guy. She's gonna move to the big city; she's gonna have classes, and a job, and we can't just follow her around and be her personal bodyguards the whole time."
"But she's..." Blunt and brilliant and stubborn and shy and far, far too trusting—
"Totally capable and has definitely got this? Couldn't agree more, pal." Daxter clapped him on the shoulder. "So let's get out of her hair, huh?"
Right. Daxter was right. It would be fine. This was Keira. This was the girl who'd convinced a village of technophobes to move their power supply from mined blue eco crystals to rechargeable solar cells, who'd wheedled the miserly mayor into funding her wind turbine project. She could handle one Havenite. One Havenite who was already impressed with her, already wanted her to succeed.
He swallowed around his dry tongue and nodded.
Daxter grinned and started for the door, watching Jak over his shoulder. "You'll see. We've got nothin' to— fuck!" Daxter ran into a tall figure in the doorway. He staggered to the side, crashed into Keira's model skeleton, and tumbled to the floor in a clattering jumble of limbs and bones.
"Watch where you're going, boy."
The hissing rasp of the stranger's voice thickened the blood in Jak's veins to an icy slurry. Jak lunged forward and pulled Daxter to his feet, keeping the tall man in view.
The man righted himself and straightened, his head brushing the top of the door frame. He pushed a long strand of golden blond hair back from his face, a scowl twisting his pointed features. "This village has no shortage of idiots, I see." He raised his hand, steel gauntlet gleaming in the sunlight.
But within the blue-tinged metal pulsed something darker, something that tugged and hummed and chittered in a song Jak had only ever heard in one place before.
Some places, Samos had taught him, were closer to the Abyss than others — closer to the tarnished, the forsaken, the damned. Misty Island was one of those places. The dark eco that rose to the surface in burbling pools proved it.
Jak stiffened, brought his arms up as he shifted between the stranger and Daxter—
"Gol?"
The man flinched. His arm slackened, dropped to his side.
A woman drifted into the house, bumping the man — Gol — aside with her hip as she sauntered through the doorway. "You're making kind introductions, I trust? Considering that we are guests here, Ms. Mesa having invited us as she did?"
...Mesa? Keira hadn't used that name in ages, not since she'd wheedled Samos into letting her use the Hagai family name.
Gol looked away, hugging his arms across his chest. "You're right, of course."
A cool breeze brushed Jak's skin, raised goosebumps where it chilled the sweat at the nape of his neck. He chanced a look behind him; Daxter was gone, the curtains of the nearest window billowing.
Some of the tension bled from his shoulders.
"Thank you for waiting!" Keira slipped in, skirting around the two taller figures to stand by the table. "I apologize for sending you ahead, Ministers, I had to—"
"Oh, sweetness." The woman's voice, sharp as splintered glass when she'd spoken to Gol, dropped to a peacat's purr. "Gol's the only Minister here. Call me Maia, would you?"
"Of course, Mi— Maia." Keira turned her too-wide smile on Jak. It softened, if only at the edges. "Thanks for helping me move everything, Jak. I should be fine from here, if you want to go find Daxter?"
The soles of Jak's feet prickled in agreement: the best place to be was outside, with Daxter, away from Gol. Nothing good could come of a person who carried the essence of evil in his hand, brought it into a stranger's home.
Jak smiled, hoping it looked easier than it felt, and shook his head.
"Oh, you're going to stay and help, tweetledov?" Maia cooed, not unlike Ms. Perch talking to her baby flut-fluts.
"That's Jak." Keira rolled her eyes, but there was a smile beneath it. "Always looking out for me."
"Boy." Gol's voice rumbled beside him. His eyes remained fixed on Keira, but his murmur, the growling grumble that preceded earthquakes, continued. "You would do well to learn to choose your battles."
The darkness in Gol's arm writhed and giggled, pressed against the edges of Jak's consciousness, coated his tongue in bile.
Gol strode towards Keira and Maia, clapped his hands together, and smiled. "So! Shall we get started, Ms. Mesa? I'm simply dying to see what you've in store for us."
Soaked with sweat, his hand wraps pulled across his skin, slipping and sticking and catching on chapped calluses. His damp fingertips squeaked against metal as the device shifted in his grip. Greasy air coated his lungs with each sharp breath, caked his sinuses in dirt and oil.
Everything from his chest up — lungs, face, brain — smoldered like he'd been dipped in yellow eco. Every squeaking millimeter of slip turned the temperature up, and up—
"—Boy. Put. The processor. On. The table."
Jak's jaw clenched. His fingers tightened around the edges of the eco processor. The bite of metal into his flesh anchored him, coaxed him not to throw the machine at Gol's head.
Keira was like Jak in some ways — they would never have been friends, if she weren't — but she didn't have that fire in her chest, in her head. She'd never had as much trouble moving through the world as though she belonged in it.
Samos had once said that Jak's mind was a riptide: calm on the surface, with churning chaos fit to drown a man beneath. It hadn't been a compliment; sages were meant to be calm to their core, dispassionate and serene.
He tried to summon some of that ocean current, to wash over his brain and cool his blood.
Keira didn't need to cool her mind; it wasn't a fire, or an undertow. It was a prism, catching thoughts and inspiration like rays of sunlight and refracting them into rainbows.
"Minister Acheron, I'm positive that the solar cells that power my scout fly drones are scalable. If we were to convert..."
Rainbows. Like the elytra of the prismatic crystal beetle in the display case above his dresser. That case held all his favorites: the prismatic crystal, the sapphire clubtail, oleander moth and infernal beetle—
"Ms. Mesa, such a large-scale project deserves more time than today's demonstration can provide, wouldn't you agree?"
Jak's fingers itched to drop the processor where he stood. The early afternoon was one of the best times to view his collection — the midday sun shone into the loft just right, making each specimen glitter like ocean spray. He would feel better, he could tolerate Gol better, if he just had a few minutes to look at them.
"Let's return to that topic in Haven — perhaps at the university? For now, perhaps you could show me this, ah... what did you call it?"
Maybe he could just... sneak away. He'd only be gone long enough to grab one. Just one. Maybe the ironclad — he'd never managed to pose it right, anyway, and the craggy hills and valleys of its chitin would do wonders to soothe his raw nerves. If he kept it in his pocket, no one would even know he had it. It wasn't like they were paying attention to him.
"An eco recirculator, sir. Using quartzite, we—"
"Please. 'Gol' will do just fine." He glared over his shoulder at Jak. "The processor, boy," he hissed. "Are your ears as numb as your tongue?"
Metal edges dug into his palms. Flames licked at his brain.
Eco — sparking, phantasmal darkness — hummed over the surface of Gol's metal hand and vanished.
Jak breathed in deep. In for three seconds, out for five.
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter that the ease with which Keira talked to this stranger — this condescending, two-faced stranger — made Jak feel as charismatic as a slime mold by comparison. It didn't matter if Gol thought Jak beneath him. It didn't even matter that Gol's sponsorship was the only thing standing between Keira and a real lab at a real school and never having to cobble together her inventions from scrap metal and driftwood again.
All that mattered was that the evil inside Gol's hand stayed there, and that Jak was around to make sure it did. And he would endure every insult until Gol realized that Keira deserved every bit of funding and recognition he could offer, signed her endorsement letter, and turned his back on Sandover for good. Whatever Gol could say to him, Makers knew he'd heard worse.
And as soon as Gol was gone, Jak would be moving some of his insects into the living room. He'd make another display case and put them right by the cabinet. Uncle wouldn't mind, so long as Jak chose pretty ones, and not—
"Goodness, you're making this whole event terribly easy for us, aren't you, tweetledov?"
Jak startled, his heart clenching as the processor nearly slipped from his hands. He forced himself to smile at Maia through the hammering of his ears and shrugged.
The metal squeaked against his fingers.
She'd been watching him. Why? For how long? If she wasn't a Minister, why was she even here?
Maia smiled a closed-lipped smile and gazed down at him, soft golden lashes veiling her eyes. She continued, her voice smooth and rich as an ottsel's pelt: "I know my dear brother doesn't act it, but he's very grateful for your efforts. Without people like you, the world couldn't run nearly as smoothly as it does."
People like—?
Her eyebrows pinched and lifted, lashes fluttering over garnet eyes. He'd seen that expression so many times before, but the sweat and the heat and the voices fogged his brain, made it impossible to identify. "Ms. Mesa mentioned that you lost your parents when you were young."
Jak bristled, bitterness curling his lip. Pity. How could he have forgotten?
"It seems to be an unfairly common fate. My brother and I had each other, but to suffer it alone..."
His parents. Why would Keira tell her that? Why bring it up at all? Just because Maia and her brother—
Gol. Of course. He was her brother. Those two could've been cuttings from the same tree: the same red eyes, hair like skeins of spun gold, bronzed olive skin—
The metal slipped.
He snatched it back before it could hit the floor.
Jagged sharpness sliced deep into his fingers. Warm, slick liquid slid the device further from his grip. Iron and eco soaked the air.
"Oh! You poor dear, let me—"
Jak clicked his tongue at her and pulled the processor out of her reach. He lowered it to the floor, his fingers slipping away at the last moment. The device landed with a jarring thunk.
He flinched from the sound, from the stab in his ears. The pain in his hands had already faded to the background of his mind. A strange, numb throbbing remained in its place.
Shock, his brain suggested.
He tried to move his fingers.
They barely twitched.
Yeah, definitely shock.
He looked down.
Red.
He sucked in a breath.
Red all over the floor, on his trousers, on the rug Uncle had brought back from Aeropa three years ago, along with his stories of peering over the edge of the world into the swirling light and dark of the Sea of Souls far, far below—
Uncle. Uncle was going to kill him.
"Jak! Makers, I'm sorry, I'm so—"
"—ruined Ms. Mesa's invention with—"
"—green eco in this house?"
"—I should have—"
"—bleed out—"
Bleed out? From his hands? He rolled his eyes, immediately regretted it. The room spun along with his stomach.
"—at his clinic— not fond of strangers—"
Voices and banging cabinets swirled and rattled in his brain, faster and faster and he needed them to stop, needed them to calm down because he was fine, he'd had worse, and if he could just tell Keira she could tell them, and—
His fingers barely twitched.
Right. That was a problem.
He drew from the green warmth in his chest, let it flow like a sunbeam down his arms and into his hands. Saccharine stargazer lilies perfumed the air. He choked back the vomit rising in his throat and focused on the light.
The metal had been sharper than he'd thought. Or maybe just heavier. Eco traced over nicked bones, severed nerves.
He filled the gaps with green, wove the sheared bones together with spiderwebs of collagen and calcium. The new material scratched at his insides like raw sandstone on an exposed nerve. Eco jabbed through veins and nerves, stitching the frayed ends back together. Flesh, tendon, skin. Even when the last gash closed, golden brown eclipsing red, the inside of his skin itched like sand under his fingernails.
Iron and lilies lingered, sweet and metallic and nauseating.
Sweat stung his eyes. He blinked it away and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, damp cloth dragging on clammy skin.
Green eyes swam in front of him.
"See?" He showed Keira his hands, back to front, and pulled off the bloody remains of his hand wraps. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."
Keira gave a short, breathy laugh. She brought her thumb to her mouth and chewed at the nub of her nail.
That... wasn't right. She was supposed to smile, or roll her eyes, or shove him, not—
"Jak..."
"How did you do that?" Gol hovered behind Keira, staring down at Jak's hands. He reached forward, hesitated, pulled his hands back to his chest. "There's no green eco in this house. I would have sensed it." The darkness grumbled its agreement. "How did you do that? Where did you get the eco?"
"I didn't—"
"With words, boy, use your voice. I don't understand..."
Heat flared in Jak's cheeks and the tips of his ears. His body was on fire, his chest burned, his throat constricted, the air wouldn't go in and he couldn't breathe couldn't think couldn't—
Cool wind and sharp salt and warm sun.
Hard-packed dirt beneath his bare feet.
He ran.
Voices cried out behind him.
Wordless.
Meaningless.
Thatching crunched under his feet as he shifted his weight left, right, left again. Sweat-damp hair pricked his eyes; scratchy cloth stuck to his back, under his arms. He mopped at his forehead and heaved a sigh.
How much longer were they going to take? The sun was high and the day was only going to get hotter. He'd have already fried like an egg by now, if not for the mayor's miserly refusal to spring for slate roofing.
The red-armored guard outside Uncle Thad's front door had to be cooking like a lobstropus in its shell.
The curtain in the western window fluttered in the breeze, drawing Daxter's eye away from the guard. A shape moved within Thad's house, shadowy and slight.
Everyone in the house would have forgotten him, by now. And even though the Havenites' convoy included at least ten guards, only one had accompanied Gol and Maia to the village. Daxter could drop down from the mayor's roof; no one would notice. He could creep back up to the window and steal a peek, get a better angle on the Minister.
There was something off about that guy. Not how he'd threatened Daxter — it was a rare day when the sun set without anyone cursing Daxter's continued existence — but how Jak had reacted to him. Jak wasn't the most social person in Sandover — not by a long shot — but he didn't exactly dislike anyone, either. And he definitely wasn't afraid of them. Hell, ever since the night they'd snuck off to Misty, he hadn't been sure Jak was even capable of fear.
Well. Now he knew.
A cry rang out from inside the house, followed by a solid thunk.
Daxter jolted and dropped flat onto his stomach. He waited several heat-stretched seconds before crawling as close to the edge of the roof as he dared. He craned his neck to peer through the neighboring window.
The Not-Minister, Maia, came into view. She reached for something out of Daxter's sight, then pulled back as though she'd been bitten.
Voices rose on the air, clamoring over each other in a cacophony of indecipherable noise.
Maia spun around to face the window and began throwing open the cabinets above it. She crouched to reach the cupboard below the windowsill. Sunlight caught in the yellow jewel set in her Precursan bronze diadem.
The voices — Keira, panicked; Gol, outraged — pitched up and up—
Silence.
Daxter's stomach clenched.
Hushed words like the rustle of leaves, too quiet to distinguish.
Gol, dark and jagged: "—your voice. I don't understand—"
A blur of blue and brown and green darted out the door. It wove between ferns and trees and vanished near as quickly as it had appeared.
The guard drew their gun and turned in the direction Jak had gone—
Maia emerged from the house and rested a hand on the gun. She leaned in close to the guard's ear.
"Jak?" Keira burst from the house. She hesitated a moment, then took off down the path that most closely followed the guard's gesture: the path to Sentinel Beach.
A decent guess. Wrong, but still decent.
Gol was the last to appear. He exchanged words with Maia before taking the eastern path — back towards the Fire Canyon and his convoy.
Maia lingered a moment in quiet conversation with the guard before the two of them followed Gol.
Daxter released a long-held breath and pushed himself to his feet. He hopped down from the roof and struck off into the brush.
Ferns and trees and rocks slipped past him, markers on a trail he could follow in his sleep.
There was only one way up to Outlook Rock, and time had engraved the narrow ravine's path onto Daxter's soul.
Each step was a memory, an echo. Stolen hours away from Samos's tutelage, stifled snickers as they hid from his bluster; teasing shoves at the edge of the cliff, the manic gleam in Jak's eyes before he dove into sky-blue water; the confidence that Daxter would dive with him someday, the snarky assurance that it would happen only in Jak's dreams.
The hunched figure on the clifftop reminded Daxter that not all echoes were bright.
Jak sat at his usual spot, on the precipice facing the ocean. But he wasn't leaning back on his hands. His legs weren't dangling over the edge in that precarious way that made Daxter's stomach come up into his nose.
He perched right at the drop-off, knees drawn up to his chest in a small, tight ball.
The Outlook had always been their spot, their safe haven. In good times and bad.
Daxter sucked in a breath. He ran to the cliffside, slowing to a walk only for the last few paces.
Jak didn't so much as twitch.
Keeping his eyes averted from the cliff's edge, Daxter lowered himself to crouch beside Jak. He didn't touch him. Not yet. Not until he could be sure.
Jak rocked back and forth on his heels, his breath coming quick and shallow. Sweat plastered curls of fern-green hair to his forehead. His skin, several shades paler than normal, looked ashen and bloodless. He had the knuckle of his thumb between his teeth, his jaw clenching and releasing as he rocked.
Daxter's breath caught in his throat. There was still time. He could still bring him back.
He planted himself beside Jak, pressed as much of his body against him as possible. Too little pressure, and the touch wouldn't even register. Too much, and he risked shoving Jak over the edge and into the water below.
His body settled into the correct position, the correct amount of force. Thoughtless. Automatic.
He sat there, a silent, steady pressure, until the nerves in his legs began to pinch and buzz. Until the tension in Jak's body began to loosen, until the rocking slowed. Until it was time to take Jak's hand in his own and guide his thumb away from his teeth. Jak released it without a fight, allowed Daxter to move their interwoven hands into his lap.
Daxter rubbed his thumb in small circles on the bitten knuckle. Jak's skin bore indents where teeth had sunk into flesh, but there was no blood. No injury. Unbroken.
Piece by piece, Jak's body unwound, unfolded. He relaxed into a seated position, legs dropping down to dangle over the cliffside. Indigo eyes lost their haze and slowly, gradually regained their focus.
Jak took a deep breath, held it, let it go. His eyes slid over to look askance at Daxter. "Sorry." The one-handed gesture was small, shaking. A whisper.
Relief washed over Daxter's heart like cool river water over a burn. He snorted and rolled his eyes. "'Sorry,' he says. Fuck off with your 'sorry.'"
Jak smiled and gently pulled his hand from Daxter's grasp. He scooted just far enough away that their arms and legs were no longer smashed together, but still touching. The heat of his body lingered in Daxter's clothes, on his skin.
Jak was fine. He would be fine.
"So, uh. If you don't wanna talk about it, I get it, but I gotta ask—"
"G-o-l." He spelled the name with quick, snapping motions.
A chill brushed along Daxter's skin. Icy fear chasing the rake of blood-red eyes. He shook his head to banish it. Gol. Of course. "Yeah. Well. That ass-goblin won't be here much longer. Too much big-city business to waste time with country bumpkins like us, right?"
Jak nodded, but his eyes were somewhere on the horizon. He twirled a short curl of hair around his finger, smoothed it out, curled it again.
"You're worried 'bout Keira, huh?" The question escaped with his breath — unplanned, unbidden. Someone else might have called him invasive. Tactless.
Jak only furrowed his brow and started to shake his head. He bit his lip and looked down instead. "He's hiding something. I didn't see it, but..."
But he thought Gol was dangerous. Thought he was a danger to Keira. "Right there with you, brother. But look at it this way: she's just tryin' to get a scholarship out of him. Right? Once she's got that, and she's all moved out to Haven, you know how often she's gonna see the guy? Never. He's just like... the creds we got stashed in the ceiling. A nasty, condescending, self-righteous cred stash."
Jak shook his head and bumped Daxter's shoulder. But he was smiling again, so it still counted as a win. "So you think she's getting that scholarship?"
"Bud, I don't think it. I know it. She's gonna go to that university, graduate with honors, and take over the world with her solar-powered robot army. Flawless five-year plan."
Jak chuckled and leaned back on his hands. Then his eyes widened. "...You're not joking about the robot thing, are you?"
"What, you think the world isn't ripe for a hostile robot takeover?"
Jak buried his face in his hands and groaned.
"Don't let our new robot overlords see you reacting like that."
He moved to his hands to speak. The worried knit of his brows stole the mirth from Daxter's chest. "So, Keira's achieving world domination, while we're...?"
Daxter swallowed, and tried for a smile. Hopefully it didn't look as hollow as it felt. "Eh, she'll probably let us be her cyborg manservants, if we ask nicely."
Jak arched an eyebrow and frowned.
Shit. Why did he want to talk about the actual future? Robot apocalypse future was way better.
"Well..." He chewed on his bottom lip and stared out over the water, as though they both hadn't known the answer their whole lives. "You'll replace ol' Log Nog when he croaks — all the eco in the world can't keep that bag o' bones together forever — so you'll be the Green Sage and, I dunno, cure death or somethin'. I'll probably just keep stealin' crystapples from old man Zeb's farm. And livin' in your attic."
Jak tilted his head to the side, his eyes focused on something far beyond where Daxter sat. He popped his knuckles and shook out his hands. Eventually, he signed, "Do we have to?"
Daxter's mouth went dry as parchment. What did he—
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound echoed behind them, ricocheting off the canyon walls, up the path, out into the open air.
Footsteps. Loud ones. Lots of them.
Daxter and Jak rose as one and turned.
A troop of soldiers crested the hill, heavily armored in red.
"Which one?" The soldier's mask distorted their voice to something inhuman, breathy and mechanical all at once.
"The short one."
Daxter stiffened.
The first soldier nodded and leveled their gun.
Directly at Jak.
"By order of the crown, you are under arrest. Come quietly, and no one needs to die today."
"Under arrest?" Daxter's throat constricted, reducing his voice to a strangled squeak. "What did he do? What did you do, Jak?"
Jak only shrugged and shook his head.
"You are trying my patience." The soldier flicked a switch near the gun's trigger. The resulting click split the air. "You have ten seconds to comply."
Daxter's fingers twitched.
Ten seconds.
The soldiers blocked the only walking path back down to Sandover. Climb down? No — too steep, no cover. They could hide in the jungle, if it weren't twenty feet down and across the river. All that, and a sheer drop to the ocean behind them.
They were fucked.
Daxter's mouth filled with ash. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. Arrested for gods-knew-what, taken to gods-knew-where, alone—
Alone.
No.
His knees still shaking, he stood taller. His hands still trembling, he squared his shoulders. He glared into the dead space of the soldier's visor.
Fuck that. Fuck them.
He took Jak's hand in his. He didn't have any quips prepared about mutual destruction, but that'd never stopped him before. Bullshit was his specialty, and he wasn't about to go out tongue-tied.
He looked down at Jak and the words died in his lungs.
Because Jak had that look on his face.
"Oh no. No. Don't you dare—"
Jak squeezed Daxter's hand. He pulled Daxter in. His arms locked around his waist like a vise.
He threw them both over the edge.
Daxter's body dropped away, leaving his stomach, lungs, and heart behind.
He wanted to scream, needed to scream, but as the blue hurtled towards them, his lungs constricted and pushed the air out and his eyes squeezed shut.
Cold slammed into him from every side. His chest spasmed and tightened. Shifting sand and sharp shells prickled the soles of his feet through his thin shoes.
They kicked off the ocean's floor, the pressure around them lighter and thinner until air and sun wrapped warm around Daxter's face. He gasped, sputtering and snorting burning seawater from his nose. He shoved Jak away and mopped the sodden mess of his hair away from his face. Glaring through the sunlight, he found Jak.
His curls were stretched out, hanging to his shoulders where the strands weren't plastered to his skull or to his face.
His face. Soaked and flushed and beaming.
"You're insane." He slapped at the water, making Jak cringe away from his assault. "You know that? Absolutely, batshit insane."
Jak, little shit that he was, wiped the seawater from his eyes and grinned. "But you love me."
"Yeah. Against my better judgment."
Jak rolled his eyes and nodded towards the far shore, where the jungle met the ocean.
At least there was one thing they could agree on.
They swam for the beach, the soldiers' shouts still echoing across the cliff above. The water was still and calm; he passed Jak with long, sure strokes. Not ten minutes later, sand squished beneath Daxter's shoes as he trudged onto the beach.
He flopped back into the sand, the impact thumping the remaining air from his chest. Every breath singed his lungs; every muscle in his arms and legs quivered as though they had turned to kelp gel.
Jak, when he arrived, looked no better. His face was flushed; his chest heaved. When he looked to Daxter, though, he cackled before collapsing to the sand.
"The fuck're... you... laughin' at?"
"You. Swamp rat." Jak's hands shook with exhaustion and hysteria. "Drowned. Swamp rat."
Daxter slopped his hair away from his face and, grimacing, squeezed the water out. It ran in a heavy stream to the ground. The greedy sand soaked up each and every drop. "Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, Chuckles. Soon as those goons're out of town, I swear I'm gonna—"
"There he is!"
Red metal glinted in the sun as several soldiers rounded the cliffside.
"...Fuck."
Sand skittered and slid as they scrambled to their feet. Daxter dug his heels in with each stride as they made for the treeline. Sand turned to dirt turned to underbrush and the jungle canopy threw a verdant veil over the sun.
The crashing and shouting behind him melded into the pulsating pounding of his heart in his ears until it was all the same thumping, throbbing beat. He darted through the trees, hopped over roots and rocks. He ran from the beach, the voices, the guns and masks and poisonous crimson. He ran and ran until the green swam in front of his eyes and his heart beat as though it meant to overtake him and carve its own path through the jungle.
He ducked behind a tree and dropped into a crouch, lungs burning and clenching and not breathing. Fighting the instinct to hyperventilate, he forced himself to breathe in slowly. In, hold, out. In, hold, out.
His lungs relaxed, loosened. His heart slowed. The drumming in his head quieted. The clicking and chirping and humming of the wilderness filtered in.
Daxter closed his eyes and leaned back until his head bumped against the tree. Tiny tugs of pain prickled his scalp as his hair caught in the bark's splintered fingers. There were bugs there, too — entire colonies swarming around just below the surface, millimeters away from his skin.
He couldn't bring himself to care.
The tree was cool and it was solid and it was alive. He drank it all in: the oxygen, the moisture, the silence.
The silence.
"Hey, partner. Promise me something? Promise me we're never, ever doing that shit again."
Nothing.
No sigh, no laugh, no audible eye-roll.
Silence.
"Jak." His eyes slid open.
Green and brown and nothing.
"Jak?"
He was on his feet, turning in place. Everywhere was the same. Trees and dirt and rocks and emptiness. He whistled, two sharp blasts — a high note and a low. He couldn’t be more than a mile into the jungle — Jak would hear him. He had to.
No reply. Just the birds and the bugs and his beat of his own blood.
He was running again, back the way he'd come. Ferns and stones and tiny thin branches reached out and snagged him, but he didn't slow. He scanned the ground, the treeline, the edges of his vision. Any hint of blue tunic, of golden brown skin.
Maybe Jak had... crashed into a tree. Tripped on a root. It wouldn't be the first time, clumsy bastard that he was. Daxter would just—
He broke through the treeline. Sand shifted and sprayed from under his soles. Back on the beach.
Nothing. No one. No green hair, no red armor.
Silence.
"...Jak?"
Only the ocean answered.