Da'in heard someone chasing after him and his first instinct was to run faster. However, when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that Jack's eyes were looking forward and scanning the area rather than being locked on Da'in. The smoke inside had grown thicker and he kept as low to the floor as possible, though it didn't seem to bother Jack too much.

He hadn't really expected backup, but it certainly felt nice. Besides, it was highly unlikely that he would manage his task without help.

"If you showed me how to use your weapon, I wouldn't need protection," Da'in said as they began climbing the winding path to the lab.

"Sorry, kid. There's no way in hell I'm giving you a gun."

It was worth a try.

Up and up and up. Da'in pushed himself to move faster, despite the protest in his exhausted legs, and yet Jack always kept pace. He breathed a little harder but seemed otherwise fine with the speed. When they reached the top and Jack still seemed perfectly alert and energetic, Da'in couldn't help but bare his teeth at the man.

"Is it your magic that keeps you from tiring?"

"Oh yeah," the man answered with a grin. "A magical potion called coffee and whiskey. Chug a mug of that in the morning and you're set for the day. I'll show you when you're older."

Da'in tilted his head to the side and regarded the man curiously. He suspected from Jack's tone that there was some sort of joke that he didn't understand.

"So, what are we doing?" Jack asked.

Da'in forgot about what coffee might be and returned his attentions to the task at hand. "I need to make a picture," he explained quickly. "Like that woman the Doctor was talking to."

"You mean a hologram?"

"If that is what that woman's picture was, then yes," he answered in annoyance. When he approached the devices, covered in all their lights and buttons and strange symbols, he was immensely grateful that someone had followed him. For some reason he had assumed that, because he saw the Doctor working at this spot, he would somehow just know what to do. It was only now that he was looking at it that he realized he didn't have the faintest clue.

"My people aren't looking for a light. They're looking for the light."

"The light of Mu'atin, I know. How's it different than any other light?"

"Mu'atin's light isn't just a light. It's her light," he turned and saw the confusion on the big man's face. "They mean the light she watches us with," he added, putting a finger on his own face.

"Eyes," Jack said, finally looking as though he understood. "They're expecting to see an eye?"

"Yes," Da'in answered. "That light outside means nothing."

"Why didn't you just tell the Doctor that when he was setting up the beacon?"

Da'in pushed his tongue against the flesh in his teeth and answered quietly, "Because I thought that Mu'atin would appear."

Jack stared at him for a moment, in such a way that Da'in began to feel uncomfortable and looked away. "Sorry, kid," he said. "That's tough."

Part of Da'in felt that he had to justify himself, to explain how he had come to this point, but all he could do was nod. He was sure Jack understood anyway.

Da'in had spent his life hearing the tales of the gods and of all the things that were promised. His mother had told him that the gods would one day set them free and the light of Mu'atin would guide their people.

Guin-Po seemed to think that these strangers from another world were just annoying and disrespectful pests that got in the way. Her pride had stopped her from seeing what had been put in front of her, while Da'in shameless desire to survive forced him to see it.

The strangers were the gods. Or at least, as close as they were going to get.

The only thing that he knew of that distinguished a god from an ordinary person was the ability to perform magic and miracles, and he had seen the strangers all use magic in form or another. Even more, Jack had promised that the magic could be taught. If anyone could learn magic, then anyone could a god.

Including Da'in.

It wasn't until he watched the one they called Harry and that pointless, empty light in the sky that he knew what he had to do. Even as Harry glowed like the sun, spilling magic out of him as though he were simply breathing, he bled. He was tired, he was hungry, and apparently he was cranky.

Harry was only a man.

These strangers hadn't drifted forward from mist and nothingness and waved omnipotent hands to free the people. They stumbled in like lost children. They screamed and fumbled and got scared and regularly forgot their manners. But they were the ones who had made them free, and Mu'atin's light had yet to appear.

Jack had already begun working, pushing buttons and making adjustments with dizzying speeds.

"Jack," Da'in said, finding it very hard to speak all of a sudden. "Will you promise that you will teach me magic?"

Jack paused his work and looked down at Da'in. There was a sad look in his eyes, despite the half smile on his mouth. "I promise, I'll teach you everything I can."

Da'in nodded and his mind was made up. "Then today is my first day."

Today he would commit great blasphemy and make himself a god in the eyes of those who still believed that there was such a thing. If Mu'atin had a problem with it, she could show up herself to scold him.

Mother would be proud.

"Let's make some magic then," Jack said happily, rubbing his hands together. "I'll need you to look into this little thing here and I can project the image into the sky."

Da'in stepped up and gazed into the small black circle that Jack had indicated. It didn't look particularly special, Jack didn't seem particularly amazed, and the room didn't feel particularly solemn, but Da'in felt as though the entire world changed in that moment. In this one instant, he was turning his back on everything he had been taught and his future with his own people.

After a few seconds, there was a quiet clicking sound, and Jack told him he was finished. Just like that. His people saved, history changed, with nothing but a few buttons pushed and a few seconds staring at nothing. If he had known such things were so easy, he would have tried it before.

"This is what they'll see," Jack said, pointing across the room. Where there had been a woman stood earlier that day, now there floated a gleaming, golden eye. It stared into the room, so large and piercing, that Da'in felt a need to both run away and move towards it at once. Until he remembered that it was his own eye.

The people wouldn't know that though. Seeing that in the sky would leave no question in their minds that they were meant to follow it.

Mu'atin sees all and her light illuminates the world.

Da'in couldn't help but smirk at it and raise his chin in mock respect.

"It will work now," Da'in said after a moment.

"Got it," Jack hastily pushed a few more buttons and the eye in the room vanished. "Eye's in the sky. Let's go!"

Suddenly they were running back down the winding path again—leaving and never planning to return. Part of Da'in felt like it was uncomfortably hasty to go now. He felt like there had to be some kind of ritual or observation to commemorate what had just happened. It felt so very important. But, then again, all they'd really done was put a picture in the sky. He felt strangely empty and yet bursting with purpose. He was so distracted by the confusion of it that he didn't even notice the soldiers at the bottom of the steps.

Jack wordlessly scooped Da'in up in his arms and spun, putting himself between Da'in and the enemy. Da'in felt the heavy impacts thudding dully against him through Jack's body, and then the arms holding him went limp. Da'in tumbled to the floor and barely managed to roll out of the way before Jack's body landed on him. Thick red blood splattered the ground and Jack laid there with empty eyes.

Da'in scrambled for cover, moving quickly in random patterns so that the soldiers couldn't get a shot. "Jack!" he shouted, panicking as he looked for somewhere he could hide. The smoke was making him cough. "Jack, get up!"

One of the Gurani soldiers kicked Jack's body onto his back and gazed down at him, then chattered at the others in a series of clicking noises. Da'in had no way of knowing what they were saying, but suddenly they began to spread out and look around.

Da'in found a small space between a large stone column and the wall that he could easily fit into. It wasn't exactly perfect cover, but at least he could run out again if he had to. All he needed to do for now was wait until Jack's magic woke him up.

So he curled his knees in tight to his chest, trying and failing to slow his breathing so that it wasn't so loud—the only thing louder than that was his pounding heartbeat. He could feel his whole body trembling and the fear brought a sting to his eyes that threatened tears.

Be brave, he reminded himself sternly. This was what Mother had fed him for. But it was a lot easier to tell himself something than it was to change the way he felt, and right now he felt terrified. Any second, one of those soldiers was going to find him, and when they did to him what they had done to Jack, he would not be getting up.

A small sound escaped his mouth without permission, and it was embarrassingly high-pitched and squeaky sounding. He clapped his hands over his mouth to stop it, pushing his tongue to his mother's flesh for strength, but it was too late. One of the soldiers had heard it and was coming towards him now. Some kind of deep growl joined his pitiful sounds as the fear built, higher and higher, and tears spilled freely from his eyes. He could barely breathe, his hands were clasped so hard against his mouth, and yet he could not stop the whimpering.

The growl grew louder as the soldier's steps grew closer, until the sound of it and the fear were so overwhelming that Da'in did not think he would be able to move. And then, the world erupted with noise.

The entrance doors at the far side of the room burst open so loudly that Da'in was sure they had been torn from the walls, and a roar filled the room so loud that the air itself shook.

Da'in threw his arms around the column, clinging to it as if he expected the ground to give way and shouted in fear. "Jack!"

Then the screaming started. He could hear the sharp, barking sounds of the soldiers' weapons and the wet thudding sound of their impact and, over it all, he heard them screaming. One at a time, their shouts of panic devolved into the high pitched wails of a wounded animal. And, one at a time, they grew quiet.

It felt like forever, but Da'in later supposed it had only been a minute or so, before he felt Jack's strong arms wrap around him again. "I got you!" the big man shouted. "Keep your eyes closed! You hear me? Don't open your eyes!"

Da'in opened his eyes.

He looked back over Jack's shoulder as he was carried to the exit and he almost didn't believe what he saw. The monster was bigger than any animal he'd ever seen, and its skin rippled with coloured stripes of purple and red. Soldiers, or at least pieces of them, were strewn about the floor and a few ragged straps hung from the creature's jaws. He could hear it, even when its mouth didn't move—a sound that was so absolute and terrifying that it felt like a force of nature in itself.

And the monster looked at him. He stared into its shining black eyes for what felt like forever and sensed the enormous power behind it. It reminded him of Mother.

Suddenly he wasn't afraid of it anymore, and the Beast looked away.

Just as the monster turned back to its prey, Da'in and Jack emerged back into the sunlight. He slipped into a sort of shock, hearing nothing but pressing silence and feeling nothing but the jarring impact of Jack's heavy steps. He was being carried, he realized.

His eyes caught upon the Doctor's face as they ran past him and it looked like the Doctor didn't even see them. His eyes were distance and his face was distorted with some kind of terrible rage. Suddenly he was shoved into someone else's arms and, when he watched the immortal man turn away and run back, the surreal detachment he'd been feeling vanished.

"Jack!" he shouted, kicking against whoever had taken him without bothering to see who it was. He didn't want Jack to leave him with someone else. He would feel safer in the middle of the fray with Jack than he felt out of it without him. Jack's magic was the strongest, that much was obvious, and Jack had carried him when he was afraid.

"Quiet now." The laboured breathing and hobbled step told Da'in that Harry was holding him before he even looked. "He'll be back in a second."

Da'in kicked and fussed some more but, even wounded, Harry was strong and he did not let go. Harry kept saying things to calm him down but Da'in couldn't focus on the words. He kept trying to twist around and see past him and shouted in frustration when he couldn't.

The sun disappeared and the air grew cold and Da'in realized that they had entered some sort of building that he was certain had not been there before. Harry passed him off to someone else who held him for only a second before hurriedly putting him down on the floor.

He looked up to see Guin-Po and his fellow people behind her. The room they were in beeped and hummed with a hundred different noises and vibrated with power. He glanced around it, feeling strangely numb, and spotted Ganbri and Donna-Sylvia across the room, far away from the door where they could not see what was happening outside.

"Come on!" he heard Harry shouting behind him, back out through the door they had come in. "Jack, just grab him!"

"Did you see Mu'atin's light?" his aunt asked with whispered excitement. "Just as we knew it would come!"

Da'in nodded his head, avoided eye contact with Guin-Po, and swallowed. "You will be with your people soon."

There was a moment of silence in which Da'in feared his aunt would remind him of his responsibilities to his own kind, but the words never came. There was just silence. And it was with silence that she gently put her hand on top of his head and lingered for a moment, before she walked away from him. The others followed her towards the door, each of them pausing briefly to touch his head.

After the last had gone, he turned to look. The Doctor was back, looking much calmer than before though there was still some anger blazing in his eyes, and he was exchanging words with Guin-Po. Jack was looking around and had spotted him sitting on the floor.

"Kid," the man said simply as he stepped forward.

For all Da'in knew, Jack only wanted to check him for injury, but he scrambled up the man's body and clung to his neck before Jack had a chance to speak. Jack didn't say anything at all. And for some reason Da'in found himself trembling and making that odd squeaking sound again.

"We have to move everyone further in," Harry's voice muttered quietly from nearby. "He's going to bring it back inside."

"Okay," Jack answered in a near whisper.

Da'in didn't ask where they were going when Jack began to walk. He looked over Jack's shoulder and watched as his aunt and his people stepped back into the sunlight, knowing it would be the last time he'd ever see them. That was okay. The light of Mu'atin would guide them to safety.

Jack carried him through a couple of doors until they were in a room that felt warm and comfortable. Every one of the strangers was with them now except for the Doctor. Donna-Sylvia laid a large cloth across Da'in's back and it was so very soft that Da'in temporary released Jack's neck to pull it closer. It felt like Mother's hair when he laid next to her at night.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" Harry said. Apparently he'd been talking for a while and Da'in had only just noticed. "You might not ever see them again, Dean."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Donna-Sylvia hissed at him. "Really, Harry. His name is Da'in. Da. In."

His name was Da'in-Nuek Nista. Except for a moment ago when he had been Mu'atin. And now he felt like he was someone else entirely. Nuek died when Da'in was young and he didn't remember him. Nobody had anything very important or impressive to say about Nuek anyway. And Da'in was his own name, to do with as he pleased.

"I will be Jack," he announced firmly, though his voice quivered as he spoke. "My name is Jack Nista. You can remember that, can't you?"

There was a little bit of a stunned silence in the room. Several pairs of eyes glanced at Jack, who suddenly felt quite rigid. Da'in worried that perhaps he had offended them somehow and his shaken and stirred nerves suddenly resurfaced again, his body starting to tremble from the stress still running through it.

"Jack it is," Jack suddenly agreed, and he tucked the soft cloth in around Da'in's body more carefully.

There was a murmur of agreement through the room and then silence fell again. For some reason, as time passed, Da'in found his quivering only got worse. He pushed his tongue against his mother's flesh, but couldn't taste her blood anymore. Her strength had left him. All he had left of her now was a scrap of skin.

"Are you alright?" Donna-Sylvia asked softly, in the kind of hushed voice that Mother sometimes used with him, and her hand landed lightly on his back. "You've been so brave, but you have been through a lot today."

"Now is not the time for mourning," Da'in responded through stubborn reflex. He tried to steel himself and regain control. But something about the kindness in Donna-Sylvia's eyes and the way Jack's arms adjusted to hold him a little closer quickly broke down any walls he put up.

"Jack," Donna-Sylvia whispered his new name to him, gently rubbing her hand on his back. "Now is the time for mourning."

Then, without any choice at all, he pushed his face into Jack's chest and cried.


Finally finished :) Now you all know where Jack Nista came from! I will be returning with more chapters for Domestic Life soon and, of course, from now on they will include Nista. Thank you all for reading and please remember to review :)