Jak and Daxter: Legacy
Chapter 1: Promises
Healing was a tough job, even for a green sage's apprentice. The villagers often peeked into the cliffside hut to watch the young man work. To them, what they saw was a miracle. A simple hand wave, a burst of jade light, flesh and blood braiding together with ease.
But the apprentice knew eco channeling was no magic. It was coaxing something to happen sooner, or awakening something that was already there. To him, there was always rhyme, always a reason; patterns to what seemed like pure chance, magic, or – yes - even the gods themselves.
They just didn't understand them yet. Of course, one couldn't understand something if one never asked. They simply accepted. Believed.
Jak, on the other hand, would have traded his soul for truth.
"Careful, Jak," said the older man standing to his right, "This one's particularly nasty."
Jak bit his lip and continued to concentrate on the patient before him. The man laid atop a bamboo cot, his wound a raw chasm in a valley of skin. Jak remembered how he'd stumbled in earlier. How the man's hand tried in vain to stop the red from flowing, the other clutching a dripping sickle.
Why or how he'd managed to cut himself with the thing, Jak wasn't sure, but neither he or his teacher – Samos - had hesitated to drag him onto the cot and start their work. Samos typically handled bigger injuries like this, but today was the first day he'd stepped aside and let Jak take the reins completely.
Well, almost completely.
"Check your speed, boy. Go too fast and the wound seals sloppy. Go too slow, you'll fuse his rib to his nipple."
The farmer looked even less pleased than he had before.
Jak raised a brow, "He's only joking, Nazo. But it'd sure be a lot easier if someone wasn't barking in my ear."
"Oh, and you afforded me the same luxury all these years? 'How did you do that, Samos'? 'Let me try, Samos'! 'What are we having for dinner, Samos'?"
"Apprentices are supposed to ask questions."
"No, apprentices are supposed to simply observe. Something you seem to have incredible difficulty with."
"Well, I learned from the best now, didn't I?"
The farmer stopped glancing between the two of them, sighed, and let his head flop back to the straw pillow, "You done yet?"
"Soon," Jak said.
True to his word, Jak finished not long after with a final wave of his hand, then stepped back to admire his work. A scar had taken the cut's place, fine and silvery. Nazo sat up, patted his liver-spotted chest, and nodded.
"Looks pretty damn near new! Thank the Precursors you sages put up with us."
Even though he'd said "sages", Jak noticed Nazo only looked at Samos when he'd spoken. A spiteful "you're welcome" almost slipped past Jak's lips, but he forced them to form a painful smile, instead.
"You can start 'thanking' us – both of us - by not flaying yourself open again. We wouldn't want you in here for a fifth time this month, now, would we?" Samos said.
"Sorry, Samos," Nazo said as he rose from the creaky cot and lumbered out, snatching his sickle from where it rested against the doorframe on the way, "No promises from me."
And with that, Nazo was gone.
"So," Jak turned to Samos, cracking a sly grin and resting his hands on his hips, "How does someone cut themselves with a sickle, anyways?"
"I'm more impressed by the fact that he managed it four times in one month. Honestly, being this village's sage is like watching children play in a wolfadger's den. Every time one of them walks out that door, I think to myself: how long before they return?"
Jak paused for a long while, lips pursed and eyes squinted in thought. Then he said, "I give him three days."
"That's rather generous of you."
The two chuckled, but there was a lingering nervousness that plucked at Jak's gut and soon chased his good spirits away. It had begun the night before, when he'd realized that he'd wake up to yet another birthday.
Every year, there was only one thing he wanted. And every year, he chickened out. Not because it was too much to ask for, but because he knew that he'd get his wish all too easily and nineteen years of theories might just come true.
"So, I was thinking… there's-"
"-something I've been meaning to ask you."
They stared at each other, caught in the awkward silence that always follows when two people speak at the same time. Jak felt his heartbeat drum against his chest. Was Samos going to…?
"You first," Jak said.
Samos paused for a long while, not looking at Jak as he ambled to his desk across the circular room and perused one of his many yellowed tomes. In that moment, Jak realized Samos' back looked more bent than ever, and his hands seemed frailer than ever as he ran them through his scratchy white beard. True, he still wore the same jade robe Jak always remembered, and he still managed to gather enough wisps of hair to wrap around his large wooden hairpiece and hold it in place.
But Jak's smirk faded as he wondered, Has Samos always looked this old?
Samos turned around and caught Jak in his green, bespectacled stare. Just a minute ago, they were poking fun at each other, like always. Now he was gazing at Jak so sternly that it gnawed the young man's stomach to anxious shreds. Now was the time. Now he'd finally know-
"I've watched over this village for two centuries, Jak. And in all those years, I've taught many an apprentice. But there comes a time when one tree must let another take root."
"Oh," Jak replied.
He began to tidy up their medicine shelves, hoping the clinking bottles, pungent herbs, and his turned back would hide his disappointment. As he did so, he stared out the window. Sunlight glimmered on the beach, the waves, and the brassy ruins that dotted their village's cove.
This discussion was only making them seem more distant, like a horizon he couldn't touch.
"I'm serious, Jak."
"Samos, you know it would never work out."
"What are you talking about? You've trained with me for almost eleven years now, and you had talent before that. Precursors, Nazo's wound was probably one of the worst we've had in here, and you healed it just fine. No, I'm certain you're ready," Samos walked up to Jak and put his hand on the young man's tense shoulder, "And I'm certain you're the one I want to take my place.
A warmth flooded Jak's chest, but it faded in unison with his growing frown, "It's not that I don't want to, but…"
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Samos."
Samos withdrew his hand. Jak was typically a cheerful, if not quiet, calm sort, but when his voice turned low like this the sage knew it meant that ill feelings were slithering about, ready to strike whenever Jak's patience broke. Like one would when reaching through a thorn thicket, Samos chose his next words carefully, slowly, knowing that a wrong move might leave him stung.
"Jak, if there's something you wish to say, now is the time to say it."
"You know exactly what I'm about to say."
Samos' answer was silence.
Jak turned around, fingers tightening on an empty vial he had picked up from the shelf, "They don't like me."
The sage thought for a while, then crossed his arms, "That's not true. And even if it was, what does that have to do with taking over my duties?"
"Are you serious, Samos? It has everything to do with it. Have you heard what they've-" Jak gestured to the window by the doorway, through which the village could be seen, "-said about me? Did you see how Nazo acted?"
"Stupid, like always?"
"He wouldn't even look me in the eye when he was thanking you-"
"Thanking us."
"No, thanking you."
Samos struck the bottom of his staff against the floor, "That doesn't mean that everyone dislikes you. Keira and I like you just fine, and that's all that matters."
The young man stared at Samos as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard, then shook his head and leaned – defeated – against the window.
"The worst part is? All their rumors might be right. And even if they're not, the others never accepted me anyways, and they never will."
Samos opened his mouth to argue, but found the words catching in his throat. They were sickly sweet lies, things a man like Samos – who spoke bitter truths – couldn't bear to let past his lips.
Jak was right. There was a peculiarity to him that unsettled the villagers. Jak came to understand this as the 'yes this, but that' effect.
Yes, he had golden hair, but his roots were an angry red. Yes, he had gentle blue eyes, but his jaw, brow, and cheekbones were impishly sharp. Yes, his skin was warm like sand, but it looked so dark compared to theirs, all sick lily pale.
Yes this, but that, stuck on endless repeat for nineteen years as they'd reminded him time and time again that he didn't look like them, and he'd never be one of them. But that wasn't the whole story. It was his origin – or lack of one – that sealed their tales.
Demon child. Cursed child. Other child.
The vial Jak had been holding in his hand shattered. Samos stepped forward, palm already glowing with green eco, but Jak jerked his arm away before the old man could heal him. Jak ignored the blood and glass shards as they intermingled, warm and sharp, in his closed fist.
The two stood without speaking for a long while, the room's atmosphere locking them in a gloomy embrace as pleasant sunlight, soft wind, and cheering gulls encircled their hut outside. Samos turned his own back, finding refuge from Jak's anger amongst his books.
But he still glanced at the young man from the corner of his eye. He saw the way Jak stared long at the shore, and how his unbloodied hand gripped the salt-stained sill when he turned his head towards the copper ruins just peeking above the forest.
Samos sighed as he mulled over an idea he'd had many times before. He'd suspected the villagers' rumors over the years had likely stung Jak's ears more than once. How much the boy knew, the sage wasn't sure, but the fact that he always seemed so drawn to the ruins told Samos that Jak knew more than he'd hoped the boy ever would.
"How much do you know?"
Jak's gaze fell, "Not much."
"Well, let's get started, then."
An excited glow brightened Jak's face, as if he'd just discovered a treasure chest full of lost gold. He was about to speak, but Samos interrupted with a 'come here' flick of his wrist. Jak followed Samos through the hut, winding around the central column that supported the rooms upstairs, ducking under the clustering vines that grew from pots on the ceiling beams, hurrying towards a room near the back.
Samos' room. Jak paused at the threshold, then watched as the bent man pulled a tattered woven sheet from some furniture at the far end. Beneath it sat a large box.
"I suppose those idiots already mentioned the ruins, yes?" Samos said as he struggled with its silver clasps.
Jak nodded, "A little bit about them, yeah."
The clasps sprung open. Jak tried to peer around Samos when he heard the click, but the sage kept his hand held firmly on the box's dull top.
"Now Jak, before I even think of opening this for you and telling you what I know, you have to make me three promises. One, that you'll accept that everything I'm about to say as the honest truth. Two, that you'll be content with the answer and understand that the best place for you is here, with Keira and I."
"What does that mean?"
"And three," Samos gave Jak a look so sharp it could have split the vast stone cliff cradling their hut into pebbles, "You must promise me that you will not, under any circumstances, go out and try to investigate the ruins in the forest. Have I made myself clear?"
"The ruins? What's there?"
"Promise?"
The young man furrowed his brows. He already wasn't liking where this was going. But for years, he'd thrashed about aimlessly in a sea of unknowns, the only thing keeping him afloat being the occasional rumor. He knew he wasn't from Sandover Village, that was for sure, but the rest were fearful superstitions, at best.
Now, he could finally cast all doubt away. Now, he could finally discover the truth he'd sought all this time. All he had to do was nod, and all the mystery would dissipate like sand stolen from a palm by the wind. Jak stared down at his own hand, watching as the little blood still flowing from his cuts pooled in its creases.
He smiled at long last, healed his hand with a burst of green eco, and nodded at Samos.
"Promise."
Keira returned to the hut at sunset. She was usually greeted with the sound of Samos and Jak – her adopted father and brother – bickering over something, their voices entwined with the buttery smell of a rice and yakow meat dinner stewing over the fire.
But something felt… off when she began to ascend the creaking steps to the main room, where the two did their healing work. There was no sound or smell, save for the chimes ringing from the eaves. Keira paused to peek over the railing. It looked like no one was home. She tightened her green ponytail and headed inside.
Nothing seemed amiss in the hut, save for a broken vial on the floor by the window and an open chest she'd never seen before in Samos' room.
I swear, if I find those two went to Jadecrest again without me… she thought, then went to the ladder attached to the central pillar.
"I'm back from the fields, guys!" she called up, thinking she could hear a fire murmuring in the hearth up there, "I know you're home."
No answer.
"Hello!?"
"Yes, yes, Keira, we're here!" came Samos' voice from two levels up, "By the Precursors, that girl's voice is loud."
Keira grinned and climbed up with trained ease, the various tools on her belt clanking against the rungs as she did so. The first level above the infirmary passed quick, nothing more than a blur of plants, bookshelves, and the doors to both hers and Jak's rooms.
"Man, you guys wouldn't believe how many of the villagers' brassbeetles had broken in that storm! I thought I'd never get done fixing them…"
She stopped on the last rung. The kitchen looked normal in every way, but the people in it didn't. Samos' usual scowl had softened to a genuine frown, though he tried to hide it as he turned away to stoke the hearth. And Jak…
Keira had never seen him like this. True, he was the quiet sort and liked to keep to himself, but he usually did so with a smile. Now, as he leaned against the wall, hands toiling over what looked to be a red silk blanket she'd never seen before, he looked glummer than ever.
Keira jumped from the ladder. He didn't even flinch at her arrival (or step forward to ruffle her hair, as he usually liked to do whenever she came home). He just stood there, mouth weighed down by unspoken words, far from Samos and alone in the hazy shadows.
"So… how are you two?"
"Fine," Samos answered.
Keira raised a brow but said nothing. Whatever bomb had gone off, she wasn't interested in getting hit with the shrapnel. She walked over to Samos and started to help with dinner, occasionally glancing over at Jak between stirring and cutting meat to make sure he was still there. Samos liked to chatter away with her about both of their days when they made dinner together, but tonight the sage toiled without a word.
If dinner had been a hell made of silence, the hours afterwards were its deeper, increasingly horrific rings. Keira thrived on conversation. Jak and Samos, however, weren't willing to indulge her tonight. After a while, she gave up on asking them about how many patients they'd had that day, or what kind of herbs they wanted her to collect in the morning, for her answers were only nods, mutters, and Jak fidgeting with that weird blanket of his.
Whatever… Keira thought as she sauntered to her room, lit a candle on her bedstand, cracked open a worn tome, and flopped onto her straw bed, I suppose a book will have to keep me company, then.
Keira awoke to the sound of something sharp hitting the roof. She flung herself up in bed, patting drool from her cheek, flinching as her book flopped onto the floor. She scrambled to pick it up, then waited to see if whatever was on the roof would stir again.
Minutes crawled by. When she heard nothing but waves crashing on the shore below the cliff, she settled back into the covers, closed her eyes, and started to drift off to sleep-
Clank!
Keira shot up again. The sound was louder this time, followed by the pitter-patter of more. If she didn't know any better, she would have assumed someone was walking on the roof. But to do so would to be suicidal, what with its steep gables and slick, mossy tiles. Still, she found herself grabbing the nearest weapon-like item – a long pine staff she used on her many escapades into the forest – and crept out into the main room.
The steps sounded more distant in the hut's center, though she still could pick them out between the crackle of the dying hearth and wind as she climbed the main ladder. Up above the kitchen, the ladder led to a straw-filled attic, and above that loomed a great crow's nest.
She poked her head above the straw and looked across the roof. In the dim moonlight, she couldn't pick out more than cliffside ivy fluttering in the breeze, the slow, creaking spin of the windmill just outside their hut, and the flicker of lanterns in the village beyond.
"Must have been a bird," she muttered, and started descending the ladder.
A sigh of relief sounded above.
She froze. There was someone up there. Unfortunately for them, Keira was great at hatching plans, and she tightened her grip on her staff as she waited in the darkness of the humid attic. The footsteps began again not long after.
Closer. Closer. Just as they passed the opening, she lunged up the ladder and grabbed the trespasser's foot.
They fell with a loud thump onto the wooden tiles. They tried to crawl away, but Keira pulled on their ankle tighter as she heaved herself onto the roof and prepared to whack them with her staff. She twisted around, raised the staff high-
"Keira, wait!"
She stopped mid-swing. That light hair, those blue eyes…
"Jak!?"
"Keira, wait, just… just wait," he scrambled to his feet, wiping moss from his cheek and goatee as he did so, "Just hear me out. And keep quiet, while you're at it. You're gonna wake up Samos."
The way her eye twitched wasn't encouraging, but she soon lowered the staff. Jak was wearing his normal day clothes, though his white trousers and jade tunic were now patchy with dirt. In his hand swayed that strange red silk blanket.
"Look, I know what you're going to say-"
"I don't even know what to begin to say. What are you doing up here? And what's with that weird thing you've been dragging around all day? I've never seen it before."
"It's a long story."
Keira crossed her arms, "Start talking."
He coaxed her to climb to the crow's nest with him, and they settled next to each other, bare feet dangling over the edge. Keira didn't go up there much during the day, never mind at night. Sitting there now, though, she realized she regretted never having tried.
Countless stars speckled the sky above. A sea of glossy palm fronds waved below. The village looked like a sprinkling of tiny boxes at this height, one silver strand of road tying them together before ribboning off into the woods that hugged the rice fields.
Jak seemed unconcerned with the spectacle. He instead focused on his blanket, which looked like a swathe of bottomless shadow beneath his fingers in this light.
"So… you were going to explain that?"
His lips moved to respond, but nothing came out. Keira narrowed her eyes.
"Does this have anything to do with why you and Samos were so quiet today?"
"You noticed?"
Keira failed to hold back a laugh, "How could I not?"
His cheeks flushed red. Her curiosity burning stronger than her desire to continue teasing him, Keira apologized and pretended to not mind the following silence. Whatever he was about to say, she would have waited years to hear it. The two may have acted like quarreling siblings much of the time, but she'd be lying if she claimed Jak wasn't her best friend.
She got along with the villagers well enough, but they couldn't understand her on the level Jak could. He knew what it was like to not have any parents, to be raised by a sage, to feel so close to the others yet so far at the same time.
Sometimes, though, his distance from the world spanned miles farther than hers. Right now was one of those times, and even she struggled to reach him across it. She followed his gaze to the ruins just outside the village. They looked like little white mountain peaks at night, ghostly and alien compared to the dark, warm greens surrounding.
"I found out where I came from today."
Keira's stomach felt like it'd dropped to the planet's core. She'd expected some bombshell secret, but not the secret of Jak's life.
"What? Samos actually…?"
"I know, right?"
"And what did he say? What tribe?"
"Well, that's the thing," Jak chuckled, but it was far from genuine, "None of them."
"None of them?"
"I'm not from anywhere."
"What!?"
The word's echoes bounced across the roof. Keira covered her mouth. Thankfully, their hut and village remained silent, though it was a while before she felt she was ready to remove her hand without blurting out again.
Keira lowered her voice to a whisper, "That's not right, Jak. Are you sure Samos didn't lie to you?"
"He was dead serious, Keira. And there was this chest in his room. He'd had it for I don't know how many years. Probably as long as I've been around. This was in it."
She took the blanket from him as he offered it.
No wonder he's been gawking at it all day, Keira thought as she rubbed her hands over it, I've never seen material like this before.
Patterns adorned what – by her best guess – must have been some form of silk, swirling endless in its folds. As she tried to gather them all into one clear picture, Jak continued.
"That's all I had when he found me. He said he'd been searching in the woods one morning for some herb. He'd heard some crying, followed it to the mouth of the ruins, and… there I was. Just lying there, wrapped in this blanket."
"So the rumors were true?"
Jak flinched a little at the question.
Keira gently smacked her forehead, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean… just the part about the ruins, is all. Not the other things."
"Do you…?"
She cocked her head, "Do I what?"
"Well, what do you think? Any theories? You're smart. And you know better than anyone that those places aren't-"
"Demon dens? Haunted? Cursed?"
They chuckled, but the gravity of what Jak was implying was a weight only they shared. To admit in public that Keira knew anything about Precursor ruins was to invite suspicion, if not accusations. She tinkered with a few devices she'd found, so what?
It wasn't like they didn't use some already anyways; the scratches she had on her palms from working with the brassbeetles earlier that day proved it. Why discriminate between tech that helped them clear trees for farms, and tech that could clean salt from ocean water, heat rooms, and light their homes? It wasn't like she was re-awakening any weapons of mass destruction. And she never went deep in the ruins, just scrounged around outside them or not far in.
But if anyone ever found the little projects she hid under the floorboards in her workshop, or the hundreds of diagrams she'd drawn over years of secret study, she'd be ridiculed, if not tossed out of the village, no matter what Samos and Jak might do to protect her.
It was the reason she often dreamed about going to the northern cities. Up there, technology was never inhibited. Traveling caravans to their village spoke of eco-powered homes, robots, and even flying machines. Here in Sandover, such things were blasphemy. Such things angered the Precursor gods, whose spirits watched over them from the cursed yet glorious, hallowed yet dangerous skeletons of what was once Nadoa's greatest civilization.
Or so the others claimed.
"I mean, you know their tech better than anybody."
Keira shook her head, "Jak, if you're asking me whether or not the Precursors had machines that could spit out human babies, I don't know, and I doubt it. They usually made weapons, Jak. Weapons."
"They made all the races, didn't they?" Jak waited for Keira to nod, but she didn't as no one knew that for sure, "Where else could I have come from, then? Samos said I was right there, at the mouth of the ruins in the woods. You've been in them, right? What's in them?"
"Never those ones, specifically. And never far in. The Precursors are long dead, anyways. No one could have been there to keep a machine like that running. Jak," Keira paused, not sure how to say her next words without hurting him, "You were probably left there by your mother."
"Keira, look at me."
She did, "And?"
"Do I look anything like any of you?"
"Maybe there was a passing caravan?" she said with a shrug, "Maybe your parents were of different tribes? You look a little red, maybe some yellow…?"
"So two people of two different tribes extremely far from here - that hate each other's guts - got together, produced a kid that not only looks like some freaky mixture of both, but has blue eyes like the blue peoples, and can channel green eco like the green?"
"Maybe your parents were mixed, too? And like I said: caravan. They travel all over. Or maybe they were from the northern cities? People there are mingled together, just like you."
Jak let out a long sigh. That wasn't the answer he wanted. Keira had to admit, it was farfetched, but it was the only rational explanation she could think of. Jak returned his attention to the blanket, twisting it to and fro as if that might wring out some answers.
A pang of pity hit Keira's gut, "I'm sorry, Jak. No one can give you the truth."
"No," Jak's hands paused, then he stood up and faced the woods outside the village, "But the ruins can."
"Jak, you aren't seriously thinking-"
"Why do you think I was up here on the roof in the first place, Keira?" he said, starting to walk towards the crow's nest's ladder, "I need to see what's in those ruins. And I can't just sneak out the normal way. You know how light of a sleeper Samos is."
Keira sprung to her feet and pulled on his arm, "I am not letting you go. There are wolfadgers in the woods at night, not to mention whatever's down inside."
Jak raised a brow, "You're the one that's always poking around places like that."
"Around, Jak. Not in." she followed as he kept walking, grabbing onto the blanket in his hand this time, "Jak, please!"
He stopped. Then he turned around, pushed the whole blanket into her hands, grabbed her by her shoulders, and stared right into her face.
"I need to know, Keira."
Keira closed her eyes and grimaced. What to do? When Jak was dead set on something, there was no stopping him. But what if Samos found out? What would he do to her, since she'd knowingly let Jak go? Even worse, what would he do to Jak?
Of course, that didn't matter if Jak never came back at all.
"Promise me you won't tell Samos?"
She sighed, then nodded, "Only if you promise me you won't get yourself killed."
Jak grinned and drew her into a tight hug. She hid her own smirk in the folds of his shirt as she hugged back, then mumbled 'you idiot' into his chest.
"I know," he replied and started ruffling her hair, "We can't all be geniuses like you."
She laughed, pushed him away, and fixed her hair back into its typical neat ponytail. His grin didn't budge an inch as he descended the nest's ladder to the roof, then climbed to the ground by a rope that hung from one of the hut's eaves. Keira wanted to keep up a smile on her end, but as she stood there watching his form shrink into the distance, it faded.
He disappeared into the woods, leaving her alone with the blanket in the moon's cold light.
A/N: Normally I won't have author's notes like this except to quickly thank reviewers, but since this is the first chapter, I wanted to explain a few things. So...
1. If you're not sure what this story's point is/what it's all about, read the foreword.
2. This chapter is a good example of how long chapters usually will be; anywhere from 3000-7000 words, trending towards the longer side. They typically won't be this dialogue heavy, though some chapters where a lot of character development is necessary may require more.
3. This is going to be a long story. My rough guesstimate from the plotting charts I've done makes me think it may be about 180,000-200,000 words long? There may also be two similar-length sequels. So... I hope you like epics!
4. I am a super busy college student just finishing up my last year and have two jobs, but I will try to update once a week, or every two weeks. The day may vary.
5. Forgive me if the characters are a little OOC; this is a reboot, so the characters have been reimagined and may not fully resemble their original incarnations. However, I've tried to keep them as close as possible while also changing them enough to fit the new plot, save for about two later on (who I felt would greatly benefit from a larger rehaul).
6. Con-crit is always welcome! I strive for writing quality work and your feedback helps me achieve that goal.
7. There is, in fact, a map I've made for the journey that takes place in this story. Feel free to glance over it on my DeviantArt account (my name is StarMasher on there as well). I'd link it, but doesn't allow links, unfortunately. :(
