Disclaimer: I do not own Jak and Daxter

Prologue

For Mental Verin

Sometimes life throws things at you which makes you think 'Life's not fair' and 'Why is it easier for them but not for me' or even 'Why do I have to struggle and suffer while they strive?' I was born into a world which didn't expect much from me. They would know who and what I am and were ready to make a judgement within a split second based upon stereotypes and presumptions. They didn't ask me about who or what I was because they already made that decision for me. I think it was the mother I was given which may have been the reason for this. I spent too long blaming my mother. Perhaps it was even my mother who had originally planted this idea in my head that I was not meant to amount to much. Not just through what she implied sometimes but just the way she was...Like she was showing me what my future was going to be like and I might as well get used to it until I arrived at that stop. She probably gave me one look and thought, 'I don't want this kid, I never asked for this'. Nevertheless she stuck with me. She didn't hit me, she never voiced her hatred towards me. She just...looked at me in a way which pretty much assured me of these suspicions. Most people would be traumatized by all this but I eventually got through it. But I am tough if anything. All these struggles and trials which my mother gave me made me tough. I can at least thank her for that.

It's also because of some of the mistakes I made which made me a little tough. Its our mistakes which help us learn and remind us the next time round what not to do and we become better and tougher people. She made mistakes, such stupid mistakes. She was tough though. Maybe that was who I got it from. She was resourceful. She was a survivor I could give her that. She wasn't one until the end though. She wasn't able to survive her death. Ones I certainly wouldn't have made. I never made them and I am glad that I didn't either otherwise life would have gotten a little bit difficult for me. Besides, they would have contradicted a lot with who I am as a person so it was unlikely that I would have done those things anyway. I have made my mistakes though. I can't criticise her for making mistakes as I have made my own. Just for the ones that she made but I cannot judge her for the act of actually making a mistake. As human beings we are flawed. We cannot learn if we do not make mistakes. Although, the difference between my mother and I is that I am trying to undo the wrongs of my past. I seek and yearn for redemption. She just tried to get out of the mess that she created as smoothly as possible and ran away. I didn't. I allowed the guilt to stay, even if it was just for a little while...

~ (***) ~

The rain was falling down from the heavens almost as if they were trying to protect him. He knew now that he had done the right thing, even though he was partially giving into his own primal, animalistic desires. He had brought this down upon himself but for the one time he held her in his arms he knew he had done the right thing by bringing her into this world. The moment he held her he saw something. He saw the fires which were going to cover the world beginning to wash away. She would be that flood which would put of the fires of the Dark Makers. She was the light which was to bring them out the darkness. The man ran through the city with fire chasing him. He pulled his hood over his head and kept on running. He had experience with running from when he was a child living in the city. He would have to steal to feed himself most of the time before he realised his gift and took himself to the monastery. Now, he wasn't entirely sure whether he had made the right decision in going there at all. But he knew that there was no doubt in his mind that he had done the wrong thing recently. He knew he had done the right thing in following those visions and the voices of the Precursors in this crusade. None of them would understand now, however one day.

The torches of his once-fellows had set it upon themselves to destroy any evidence of corruption of the monastery. They knew that if word got out that they had a seer that had broken one of the vows then he knew there would be no chance of them being able to keep the peace. They would never be able to recover. The king would be able to have more power. Yet, he knew that there was nothing to fear from him. He wished now that there could have been no chance of his betrayal. Or they could call it that. Another way of putting it could be him following orders of the Precursors. He would never forgive himself, most of all for leaving her there, but they would never be able to meet unless she stayed. If she brought him with him, the future would change and even though his heart told him one thing, his eyes, his visions told him something else. She had to be brave for entire life rather than be safe. She would survive the fires which she was to wash away. He had to admit he wasn't entirely sure that it was him but with the future which they showed him, after a while it was clear to him. He pursued this mission only to find himself burned in the flames of his determination and now he had to run as if he was a petty criminal and he was sure that in the eyes of the people who he once considered his comrades, that he was. He would always know the truth though, the one which would always rest in his heart...

~ (***) ~

Ten years later...

The first thing Aella remembered was the screams. That's what would always stay with her. There were no images. No tastes, to sense of her being able to feel anything. Just the sound of screams. It was what distanced her more for her mother and the rest of her family for while. All except her brothers. Then again they were the only ones who were left from her mother and her men. Everything else was just blackness. She didn't know what was more disturbing or frightening. Being able to see what it was that was causing them or not seeing anything at all. Either way she knew it was traumatizing. Sometimes it was better to just hear nothing but silence even though sometimes it could be more terrifying not knowing whether something or someone was there. Rather than that horrible sound which resembled someone scratching their nails against a wall only they were scratching against her eardrums or against the fringes of her mind.

She would never be able to get through a single night without hearing someone screaming. It didn't even need to be her mother and her current lover. Whether it was her younger brother, her mother or a neighbour. Sometimes when her brother would scream she would go running, if she heard her mother screaming whether it was from anger or ecstasy then she would throw the covers over her head and wish the world away. They had that sort of life she had when she was growing up. She didn't have a fairy-tale beginning and it took her time to realise than her ending wasn't going to be very sweet either. She always had a feeling though that there could have been another option. That she could have had another kind of life. It wouldn't be easier but it would be an alternative to this. She could recall nights where she would sit up in her bed and cover her ears, sing to herself to drown out the noise helplessly. They would be songs which she made up herself since her mother never sang her to sleep. She never sang her any songs. She only sent her screams. Sometimes it would be ones she heard others singing in the street. Anything to drown out the noise. The screams of her younger brother when he entered the world. The screams between Nik's father and her mother. She couldn't remember his name so she always dubbed him as 'Mom's scary boyfriend'. She never talked to him much anyway.

Yet again, she thought he was scary so she would always hide away when she heard him coming through the doorway. She would hide under the covers thinking it was the only way she could hide from him and be safe from the screams. Perhaps one day the screaming would stop. Maybe one day things could get better for all of them. It was as if she entered the world of screams. Everyone came into this world screaming and bloody and people left it the same way. It made you wonder what you meant to be doing in between. She could never remember her own screams. No one could remember the day they were born or the early months of their life but she could never recall herself screaming in the earliest years she could remember. Maybe she felt that if she joined in she would be lost in the madness she tried so hard to shut out as well. But her torn, patched up blanket always left her feet cold. She could never hide from him. Sometimes she felt his shadow hovering over her for hours. It seemed like hours or throughout the whole night. When she knew it was safe to come out he was gone and the dawn was on the horizon but she always knew he would be back until he stopped coming back altogether. None of them ever stayed. She took this as a little mercy even when it gave her mother a bad name. Then again that was her own fault. She had dragged herself to that level bringing Nik and Aella with her.

She knew that she screamed as she entered the world, protesting against her fate as a daughter of a careless fifteen year old teenager. She didn't know the doctor who delivered her. She didn't know the nurse who washed away the blood she was covered in. She didn't even know whether she was even treated by a doctor, knowing her mother she probably gave birth to her in some alleyway. She knew was screaming at her mother, telling her to stop this. That she should leave her inside her belly and never come out. That what she had done was cause nothing but pain and sorrow between mother and daughter and that their lives together were never going to be easy. Or for as long as they were going to be together, every day would be a struggle. Maybe she was begging her to give her to some other parents who wanted a child, who could give her a home, who would love her more than Lynder could ever love a child. She was screaming for the father she never had, like a siren calling out for help. Maybe she was calling out to the universe, as she soon found out for herself to be more important to a greater cause than she could have imagined, that she had arrived. That all would be well, but that was something that would come later. She would have to wait until she had to thick skin to walk through the fire alive.

She and her siblings strictly never shared the same father. It was like Lynder Auroalis was incapable of having more than one child with one man. She had a child with him and it was a sign or a warning to move onto the next man. This made the message that she didn't really care for her children even more clearer. Sometimes though, the men left her because of the children and they would some how be punished for it. Not physically or verbally. But they knew that she hated them for it. She didn't mind leaving others but she didn't like to be left herself. It was a bruise against her ego. Nik's father soon left her mother like the wolf who had terrorized a flock and once it realised that there were no more trophies to be reclaimed. He was off to find his next feast and see what he could devour from another helpless victim. This didn't deter her from changing her lifestyle. A year later, Lynder was forced to have an abortion, something Aella didn't find out about her mother until years later. Among other things. It made her wonder why she had that abortion but she didn't abort them. Maybe the men had forced her not to and this time since it was probably a one night stand she didn't have someone to stop her. There were many things Aella learnt of her mother at an early and old age. There were some things she would never find out about her as well. That was something she had to accept rather than wish for it to have never have happened to her.

Soon she began to play a dangerous game with a baron of Haven City, who took her as his mistress. Aella knew, she didn't know how, but she knew that there was something wrong. She knew there was something bad which was going to happen out of all this. She knew from looking into that man's eyes that there was darkness in his soul. She knew that her mother shouldn't be doing this. Aella would sometime mention this name in the future when she herself was working in the palace under more respectable circumstances and she would get a few women turning up their noses in response and knew then and there that her mother wasn't particularly popular. They just knew from her surname that she was the daughter of a notorious whore. Then again she couldn't imagine her being that well liked either.

When the affair first began Aella would be wondering why a rich looking man would come into their home. She knew her mother had got a job as a maid in a Baron's household but she didn't know whether it was conventional for the employer to come to their home and go into the other room with your mother only to come out with a proud look on your face and your mother glowing. Or more looking out the door fondly with her dress off her shoulder in careless manner. Aella looked back thinking about how pathetic her mother was. If she had convinced herself that this relationship would amount to something she was truly a foolish woman. Soon Aella began to catch on that the 'relationship' between her mother and the Baron wasn't exactly a normal, professional and platonic relationship usually shared between an employer and employee. Eventually the Baron's wife found out and Lynder lost her position but that didn't necessarily end the relationship.

After that Lynder and her two children were lavished with the luxuries of a privileged lifestyle. Nik became the son he yearned for and failed to obtain from his wife. Aella later found out that the woman was barren which may have been another reason why he was frequently unfaithful towards her. He spoilt him, sat him on his knee and whispered the secrets of manhood in his ear. Aella was regarded as an extra daughter, gifts thoughtlessly passed onto her, just in order for her to remain silent and happy. He never really thought much of her. She wondered whether he would recognise her in the years when she came to work in the palace. She recognised him but he never gave her a second thought. Just like the way he disposed of her mother. It was almost as if the family they all wanted was finally achieved. The dream wasn't real though, they were hidden in the shadows the bright golden light cast over. They could finally have the happily ever after they wanted and deserved. After all the suffering and struggles they had been through. They were not given the real luxuries of the upper-class. They were living a fake life. A fake life which soon began to fade. Her mother bore the man a son, the son was weak, the son died, as did the love affair. All he wanted was a son not another wife.

He saw Lynder as what she was. She was just a common whore who was taking his money merely to survive. She was pretty good at it as well. He wasn't even willing to give her a second chance to better herself for him. He tossed her aside like some bread that had gone mouldy and left her there to rot. It just took him this long to figure out, that was just how clever and observant he was. Even Aella knew what she was but that was only because they had so many neighbours shout it at her often enough for Aella to get the message. Her mother never did that was why she always screamed back at her. A cheap whore. He hoped that they would have a son, she would divorce or dispose of his wife in another manner and he and Lynder would marry making their son legitimate. But that dream fizzled away along with the life of life of Aella's younger brother. She looked back sometimes and wondered why he didn't simply adopt Nik but then again everyone would know. Everyone would know that he really wasn't his. He needed his bloodline to be able to carry on. Thrown on the streets Lynder and her children were desperate for money. Their dream, shattered into a million pieces. The sun had drifted behind the clouds, sending an overcast over their lives. She sold the presents her showered her with but the money for that soon began to run out. That was when the families lives collided with a crime boss who went by the name of Krew...