And so, it begins.
Riddick x Jack (all grown up)
Skip to the next line mark if you get bored, don't just go back.
Space stretched out before them, a gaping hole littered with stars once too far away to comprehend. The holy man prayed, handling precious beads with loving hands, muttering desperate pleas barely audible to his travelling companion.
Jack reclined in the co-pilot seat, staring at the darkness through heavily lidded eyes, deep bruises under her eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, fingernails chewed ragged showed the anxiety she felt. Beside her, Riddick had not stirred, even as his injured leg wept as infection began to blossom, his goggles hid his eyes, masked his feelings.
"It's odd." Her voice was raspy from lack of use, her words quiet, internally, their bodies screamed that it was night, but the skiff had no day or night simulations, they slept when their eyes wouldn't stay open any longer. "We're in a prime shipping lane, we should have crossed paths with another ship, been overtaken, picked up on radar."
Riddick silently turned in her direction, the only indication that he was still alive.
"Won't survive out here much longer." His hands caressed the shiv that sat openly in his lap, Jack had no doubt that if she were to ask, he wouldn't hesitate for a second to beat the looming threat of starvation and thirst. Spill her blood in a macabre waterfall; the last movement her body would make would be the dance of death, writhing on the dirty floor of an ancient skiff, a coffin in an endless sea. The monologue of her thoughts just comfirmed the dehydration getting to her brain.
Later, the measure of how much they had no idea, Imam had fallen asleep, tucked on a bench, folded in his robes, hands clutching his prayer beads, and at the front of the skiff, Jack and Riddick quietly conversed.
"You don't respect God?" She asked him, running her small hands over the last bottle of water from the kit they had found, tasteless packaged food that lasted forever, and water, most of it gone now. If there was a God, it was apparent that he had forsaken them.
"You were listening, I take it?" His voice rumbled in the silence, and with her eyes closed, Jack compared his to the animals she had read about, but never seen, gone hundreds of years before her time, on most planets at least.
"Baby in a trashcan." She murmured. "Does anyone come into this world happily anymore?"
"You have a family?" He asked, just because it was something to ask.
"What is a family?" Jack questioned. "The Crack Whore that birthed me, the Pimp that bought me, the Slavers I ran away from, the Alley Rats I ran with, the people we left down there to have their bones picked clean and bleached by the sun?"
"Guess this is family too?" Riddick mused, eyes darting back to the sleeping Imam, and then to Jack, whose green eyes swept the vast emptiness, as if expecting to see something else beside the nothingness.
"Maybe." She sighed. "You would have dumped us on a rock, kept running. Imam would have gone to temple, maybe taken a wife, prayed for the dead. I would have stolen, lived in back alleys, gotten too old to run with the Alley Rats and become a whore."
"Guess this is a family mausoleum now, huh?" Riddick asked, looking around at the small skiff.
"Are you okay, going out this way?" Her voice was a mere whisper, as she thought about the end.
"Are you?"
"It's just another way to die. I usually live." She was pensive for a moment. "Can you see anything out there?"
Riddick just chuckled darkly.
They didn't die on that Skiff, floating aimlessly in space.
Six Years Later.
"Child, you are looking well." Jack smiled graciously at Imam on the communicator screen, knowing he took her in her shining hair and healthy complexion, as well as the shadows under her eyes and the weariness that betray her lack of sleep. There were some things cosmetics couldn't conceal.
"How is Little Sister?" Jack inquired.
"She complains of the heat." Imam chucked. "And she sends her love."
"She should come visit, it's Autumn here." Jack suggested, gesturing at the world outside of her bedroom. "As well as you and Lajjun."
"And you will not be too busy with your duties?" He asked.
"I'm not a Priestess yet Holy Man." She reminded him. "And I'd like to see my family."
"You feel we are complete as a family?" Abu asked her.
"What kind of family doesn't have a ghost lingering? Mother, father, children, perhaps you should petition Lajjun for a son?" Jack suggested lightly.
"You climbed enough trees, and fought enough fights as an adolescent, that I feel I have already raised a son. Although you were adamant that nobody had a hand in raising you, my daughter." Her Abu reminisced. Jack smiled sadly.
"Maybe you just tamed me." She mused.
"No one came tame a true animal, child." He told her.
"Is that why your eyes are sad?" She asked the man she considered father.
"Helion Prime is experiencing some, upheaval." Imam chose his words carefully.
"But our mutual friend remains hidden?" She chose her words equally as carefully.
"As long as there are still places to remain hidden in this universe." The frown didn't leave his face.
Jack sighed, knowing their time was limited. "Be safe." She told him.
"Learn much." He bid her, making her smile as she signed off.
A rapping on the door to her room drew her attention from the Comm. screen. Her fellow Acolyte entered the room, wearing similar jewel coloured robes, eyes darkly lined.
"The Lady wishes to see you." She told Jack.
"Thanks Amara." She bid the younger girl, waiting until the door was closed again before she stood, smoothing out her robes, fingers hesitating briefly over the weapons she needlessly kept hidden. Before she left the room, she gave it a cursory glance, committing to memory the place that everything held, and biting back the bitter reminder that Imam was right when he told her that some things never change.
Return to civilisation. All the things he hated, will always hate, there was a darkness behind the light that blinded him. They had finally caught up on him on UV-6, and even the flurry of snow and the roar of the storm couldn't mask an approach very much lacking in stealth. He settled back, feeling the cold of cryo drugs creeping through his veins like a sickly invader, the logical, thinking part of his brain closed down, as the animal side, primal and dangerous, prowled to the forefront of his mind, reminding his body that no amount of drugs could ever really quiet the instinct.
"Hello Jack." The Lady who greeted her casually, was an Elemental, a fire elemental, and just stepping closer to her granted Jack a reprieve from the cool air of the courtyard. A flurry of dying leaves was caught in the wind, and a stray leaf, not unlike a maple leaf, landed on the Lady's shoulder, instantly being incinerated.
"Lady Thera?" Jack questioned, moving towards an alter in the center of the courtyard, lighting a candle and watching it flicker in the wind.
"Elementals believe in balance." Thera explained, as if Jack were ignorant of this fact.
"I've heard it said that no Elemental is without their own agenda." Jack told the other woman, moving away from the alter and settling on a bench, her robes carefully draping around her.
"That is true." Thera acknowledged. "Do you know of the Elementals of the Aether? The sky, the heavens? It is what fills the void in the universe."
"With all due respect, beyond the atmospheres we create through terraforming to mimic Old Earth, space is merely emptiness until the next port of call." Jack told her.
"Maybe." Thera, lighting a candle of her own with the touch of a finger. "But there is always balance, we Elemental's calculate this balance, it allows us the foresight of when a place, or person, is going to thrive, or doomed to failure."
"And this is how you prophesise, calculation?" Jack questioned.
Thera smiled. "You are my favourite sceptic, you can believe in God, but not in science."
"You calculate, you don't worship. Makes me wonder why there are Elementals here on Siniah, a religious planet?" Jack asked, a slight smile on her face. "Why do you light candles on an alter?"
"We intervene, when necessary." Thera explained. "And it makes you more comfortable if we observe your customs."
"Did you ask me here to exchange philosophical quips?" Jack asked, examining her fingernails, painted a dark purple to contrast the ruby of her robes.
"No." Thera said. "As I said, we Elementals, where necessary, intervene. We have calculated, now is the time, this is the place, and you are the person."
"The person to do what?" Jack asked cautiously.
"You, unless precise intervention is undertaken, will die, and the universe will ignite." Thera told the younger girl bluntly.
"Wouldn't be the first time it becomes clear I'm meant to die." Jack said. "But the universe ignites?"
"There is one, we have spoken of him before, who, in his infinite rage, will destroy the universe in retribution, it has already begun."
"No one cares about me that much." Jack argued.
"What of your God, who is meant to love all?" Thera asked.
"There are a lot of people in the universe, this one and the next, I'm one of millions of billions, God can't keep watch on all his children."
"Then of the man who became your God in the darkness, when you thought yourself forsaken?" Thera asked, pursuing Jack as she began to pace the length of the courtyard. "And the family you adopted as your own back on Helion Prime?"
"Of all the people in my life, my family are the ones who matter most, and of him, I know Imam would never betray his confidence." Jack stated. "I've faced death before, I'll do it again."
"Very well, shall we talk of inconsequential matters?" Thera asked. "I understand you are soon to undertake the rights to become a full Priestess."
"Yes, they asked me to choose a name for my initiation." Jack revealed, taking a seat on the bench once again.
"Indeed." Thera smiled in delight. "And what name have you chosen?"
"It's not certain, but I think I might choose Kyra."
Thera's smile grew wider.
There were no lights on when Imam entered his home. The silence, no fleeting footsteps or gentle humming, indicated that neither his wife nor daughter were home.
"Did you know all your doors were locked?" The voice startled him.
"You have returned." He almost made it a question, he feared for his family, unsure whether the years of isolation had driven away what humanity was left in this man.
"You're surprised to see me." Riddick stated, stepping from the shadows, his goggles glinting dangerously. "Makes me think you weren't the one who set the dogs on me."
"I have told no one." Imam insisted, from outside he could hear the swing of the front gate, a child's laughter bubbling away.
"Then the question is," Riddick moved closer, "and think about the little girl about to walk into this house when you answer." His voice dropped menacingly.
"Please, they have nothing to do with this." Imam begged.
"Where, is Jack?" Riddick's question made his blood turn to ice.
The door opened and a young girl entered brightly, bringing the sunshine with her. She stopped when she saw the man who stood in the foyer of her home.
"Are you the one who killed the monsters? The ones that were going to hurt my father?" She asked after a moment.
Riddick was saved from answering by the older woman who followed her daughter through the door, gasping in fear when she saw the man standing next to her husband.
"Riddick." She breathed, dragging her daughter back with hands that shook.
"Cute kid. Let's talk Holy Man." Riddick suggested.
Imam led him to a study, while his wife, Lajjun, led the girl from the house.
"I know you suspect her." Imam said of Jack, opening a window to reveal the dying sunlight.
Riddick turned a shiv over in his hands, a weapon he knew intimately until it was an extension of him. He knew the exact angle, and force needed to throw it across the room, could calculate the seconds it would take to be buried in the Holy Man's spine, his fingers itched to unleash it. He resisted the urge.
"Let me guess? Jackie-girl ran screaming from the place the minute the stole enough to jump ship and run?" Riddick asked. "Or stayed around and played the perfect daughter until the little one replaced her."
"She left three years ago." Imam confirmed. "However, her experiences allowed her to find her own God." He paused for a moment in reflection. "It was the only way she could forgive you, she saw you as an older brother."
"Found God huh?" Riddick didn't fail to find the irony in this; God had never looked out for her so she went looking.
"It was either that or follow you across the universe." Imam informed him.
"Religion means she's probably on a Planet Of Faith." Riddick mused. "Women only I'm guessing, never did trust men, three in this system, two Chrislam, one of the Goddess."
"I will not lead you to her, if you have dark intentions." Imam warned.
"I'm guessing from the way you turn your nose up, Jackie chose the Goddess, means she's on Siniah, close enough you can keep in contact easily, which is why you're sweating, 'cause I'm so close." Riddick deducted, turning to the window.
"Please." Imam begged. "You left her here so she could have a life, she feels she has a higher purpose now!"
"Don't we all." Riddick muttered, disappearing.
Things are a little bit shallow at the moment. Things will become clearer soon. I do know where this is going, have faith. The necros probably will be invovled, but there won't be a real dragging exploration of thier motives and faith, after all, we hate when our fav's aren't the bad guys.
Reviews encourage regular updates, don't add to subs if you don't review. Add a string of random words if anything, call it an experiment to see if people actually read the notes down the bottom. Now I'm rambling.