Author's note: I didn't originally plan for a follow-up, but the plot-bunnies attacked again and I got to thinking about Daxter having his own trauma that the games really gloss over.
Daxter sighed heavily as he finally gave up on sleep.
He'd been dozing for hours now but never truly managed to drop off into sleep, his brain refusing to shut off.
Looking over to where he had last left Jak, Daxter saw his friend slumped over at the window, having succeeded in falling asleep despite the bad angle compared to Daxter actually lying down, which seemed unfair to the ottsel.
"Really, this is the third time you've fallen asleep stargazing. You better not start complaining about a bad back and neck because you couldn't be bothered to drag yourself to bed." Daxter grumbled quietly so as to not wake Jak as he walked over to his friend.
With his size, Daxter couldn't exactly move Jak into a more comfortable position, so he settled for pulling Jak's blanket over his shoulders.
"The things I do to look out for you." Daxter said.
Deciding that a walk might clear his mind enough to sleep, Daxter walked out the door, shivering slightly from the cool air of the Wasteland.
Just letting his paws take him wherever, Daxter ended up at the beach.
It was a common place for him and Jak to find themselves when they had nothing else to do. With the wide-open sea, sand beneath them and lack of and zoomers or other noises found in Haven, they could almost pretend that they were back in Sandover, just lounging around on Sentinel Beach like they used to.
Sometimes, Daxter wondered what happened to Sentinel Beach. He didn't pay very much attention to geography or maps, but he was familiar enough with the orientation of Samos' hut to the beach to know that it wasn't in Haven city, being just beyond Dead Town. What was the beach like, was it still there, was it gone, would the Sentinel structures still be standing? Daxter had no idea just how much the world he knew had changed from what he'd once known, and he was honestly afraid to find out.
Like with the whole time travel confusion, Daxter had decided to just ignore it all. It couldn't affect him if he didn't think about it. Right?
Still, Daxter missed the beach from home, and the hut from home, and the safety of home. Life in Sandover may have been rather basic when looking back on it with three adventures under his belt, but it had been safe. Nobody tried to eat him, or shoot him, or chase after him, food was always shared between the community, and he and Jak were just two kids in the world instead outcasts who had to fight for survival.
He and Jak had begun to find a new place to belong in Spargus, Jak more so than Daxter, but it still wasn't the home they yearned to return to but never could.
"Daxter?"
The ottsel startled out of his thoughts at the voice, turning to see Damas standing there.
"Oh, hello, Sand King." Daxter waved casually.
"I called your name more than once." Damas stated with a raised eyebrow.
Daxter flinched. He must have been lost in his mind more than he thought.
"Eh, just tired, I guess." Daxter shrugged.
"And yet you are out here instead of in bed." Damas pointed out.
The king then looked around the beach.
"Without Jak, it seems." He added.
"Yeah, he's in-asleep." Daxter corrected himself mid-sentence, since Jak wasn't actually in a bed.
Damas' face softened slightly.
"How has he been? Since we had the memorial?" He asked.
Daxter took a moment before answering.
"He doesn't try to recite their names as much, and doesn't stress out as much when he does." Daxter revealed. "But…"
Damas nodded in understanding.
"Healing takes time, even with support." He said.
Daxter looked up at the stars.
"He falls asleep at the window a lot now, though. Stargazing." He huffed.
While nowhere near as bad as Jak being kept awake until he remembered every single name of his fellow prisoners, it still wasn't the most healthy of coping mechanisms, Jak forgoing a bed in order to stare out into the night sky as if he could still see the lights that were released, until he fell asleep like that hours later.
And every time Daxter saw Jak slumped over at the window, it was a painful reminder that his friend was still suffering, no matter how he acted in front of others and on missions, and no matter what Daxter did to be there for his friend.
From the ottsel's face and voice, Damas could tell that Daxter did not like Jak's 'stargazing'.
"Healing takes time." He repeated. "And can come in many stages before coping mechanisms become healthy or even just benign."
"He shouldn't even need coping mechanisms!" Daxter burst out, surprising even himself. "He shouldn't have been there. It shouldn't have taken me two friggin' years to bust him out! If I just…if I just…"
Daxter quickly ran out of steam, slumping forward.
Taken aback by Daxter's initial outburst, it took Damas a few seconds to react, but he then walked closer to the ottsel, who was breathing heavily, and got his attention.
"Daxter, are you alright?" He asked as gently as he could.
Daxter looked at the king in shock.
For split second, he thought that Jak had suddenly appeared, only to realise that it was still Damas there and who was asking him that question. Maybe it was because, in such a long time, Jak was the only one who ever asked Daxter that question.
"Am I alright? Of course I'm all right!" Daxter denied, not knowing how to properly react. "I'm not the one who got locked up for two years and experimented on, while his friend wasted time on the outside, not breaking him out."
Damas watched with a frown as the persona Daxter always presented began to break down.
"It took me two years to even attempt a break out! Jak would have had me out in no time, I know he would have! If I tried sooner, then maybe Jak wouldn't have been tortured like that and changed so much. Maybe he wouldn't have nightmares so bad that he wakes up transformed and ready to attack! If I didn't wait so long, then maybe I could have saved the others, and Jak wouldn't have to remember their names because they'd still be alive!"
Damas remained silent as he let Daxter vent what had clearly been building up inside him for a while.
Eventually, Daxter fell quiet, letting out sharp and stuttering breaths.
Looking at the ottsel, Damas realised that beneath the fur and inelven stature, Daxter was young himself, likely the same age as Jak. And like Jak, Daxter hadn't been given the help he needed to understand and process what he was going through.
"It is not your fault, Daxter." Damas tried to assure the Ottsel.
"Yeah, I know." Daxter responded snappishly. "I'm not the one who took him, and not the one who strapped him to that table, and I'm not even the reason we travelled to the future in the first place. Jak was the one who made the Rift Rider work and decided to ram Kor's ugly head with it."
'Travelled to the future'?
There was much to unpack with that claim, Daxter apparently believing that he and Jak were time travellers. But that would be something for Damas to ask about later, after he had helped Daxter.
"Ah, but it is one thing to know, and another thing entirely to believe." Damas said knowingly.
It was something that Damas had dealt with a lot after being usurped as king of Haven, and then again after Mar was taken. While the true guilt lay with the leaders of the coup and Mar's kidnappers, Damas still felt blame for not having the knowledge or power to have stopped them from happening.
Daxter nodded, showing that he still felt guilt despite knowing he wasn't to blame.
"I keep thinking, yah know." Daxter sniffed. "How I could have found a way to break Jak out sooner. How I could have found the Underground when I first arrived in Haven instead of scrambling around until Osmo offered me a job so that I could get what I needed to rescue Jak. How Jak and I might have been able to fight off the guards if I'd still been an elf."
'Still been an elf'? Another thing to unpack, it seemed.
"I have often been plagued by 'what ifs' and 'should haves'. I still deal with them to this day." Damas empathised.
Though Damas did not believe that he had been a bad king to Haven, there was a reason that Praxis had been able to gain enough of a foothold to succeed in his coup. So, there were things that Damas could have done to stop Praxis, but a lot of what he could have done relied on Damas knowing more than he could have or being suspicious of people he had thought he had no need to be suspicious of, or being an automaton incapable of making mistakes and being ruled by emotion.
Similarly, he could have possibly prevented Mar's kidnapping by having his son under heavy guard and never being away from him, but that would have meant suffocating his son and not allowing him to be a regular child, as well as being constantly on guard for a kidnapping attempt despite no threats being made.
"But entertaining these thoughts avails nothing but further guilt and suffering. We can do nothing about what has already happened. The only thing to do is learn from the misfortune of the past so that it does not repeat in the future." Damas advised.
Daxter nodded silently, not looking at Damas.
After a moment, he began to speak again. He didn't know why he was being so open with Damas, and he never intended to speak of his struggles with anyone, but something about the man made it hard to keep what Daxter kept inside from spilling out.
"I wasn't just doing nothing for those two years." Daxter said defensively even though he didn't need to defend himself, Damas had shown no judgement so far. "You try being 2 feet tall and covered in fur, all alone in a strange new city where the first thing that happened when you arrived was the local law enforcement dragging away your best friend for nothing. Without Jak or anyone who knew me, I was just a talking animal, something to chase away or try to have for dinner. I had to fish through garbage, GARBAGE, because no one wanted to feed an 'animal'."
Damas looked at Daxter in sympathy.
He couldn't imagine being in a position of such helplessness, confined to a small form that everyone dismissed in a new and dangerous place. And yet, Daxter had survived for the two years he was separated from Jak.
"I want my elf body back." Daxter rubbed at his eyes, feeling rather childish in his demand. "I don't want to be so helpless. I don't want to be looked down on as just an animal. I'm not an animal, I'm a man!"
"So, you used to be an elf?" Damas decided to raise the question.
"Yeah," Daxter nodded, looking down at his paws sadly. "I got knocked into a pool of Dark Eco and spat out as…this. Me and Jak went on this big adventure to try and turn me back, only for the Dark Sage who was supposed to help me to turn out to be evil, big shocker there. Then that Precursor gate thing we found in the citadel was supposed to bring us to the Precursors or something, to see if they could turn me back, only for it to dump us out in Haven city instead."
Damas rubbed his chin.
He had never heard of Dark Eco transforming someone's body so drastically, especially while keeping their mind intact. But Daxter once being an elf did explain a few things, like how the ottsel never displayed any animalistic mannerisms, unlike the other talking animal Damas knew, or how Daxter seemed to constantly forget the restrictions of his own size.
"Daxter, how long have you been in this form?" Damas asked.
The ottsel shrugged.
"A few weeks before we arrived in Haven." He said, unsure of the exact length of time.
After being brought to Haven, finding a way to return Daxter to elven form had become very low on the priority list, what with being hunted down as wanted criminals or being banished from Haven. So, the subject had become one of those things that Daxter resolved not to think about.
Damas let out a deep breath.
Not only had Daxter been forced to survive in Haven under the restriction of being an ottsel, but he had done so while still being relatively new to his body and the restrictions it entailed. And yet Daxter had still survived and managed to rescue Jak from the Barron's clutches.
"I am…impressed." He told Daxter.
The ottsel looked at the king in shock.
"With me?" He asked to clarify.
Whenever praise had been given in Daxter's general direction, it had always been while he was Jak, allowing him to at least pretend that it was for the both of them. But Jak wasn't here, the only one to praise was Daxter.
"Yes. You have survived and overcome so much. Yet you stand tall on the other end." Damas praised.
Just like Jak had. The two of them were as similar as they were different.
Daxter smiled at the praise.
"Of course I stand tall, I am a hero after all. You'll probably find me mentioned in the history books." Daxter bragged, trying to put his usual persona back into place.
"But just remember that being strong doesn't mean never addressing your trauma." Damas added.
"Trauma?" Daxter questioned, sounding slightly offended. "I don't have any trauma."
"So you claim that you are completely unaffected by the trails you faced for those two years in Haven, of the restrictions of the form that was forced on you?" Damas raised an eyebrow, reminding Daxter that he had just divulged what he'd gone through to the king.
"Eh, maybe a little." Daxter tried to act nonchalant. "Not really worth addressing. Jak had it far worse than I did."
"Daxter, trauma is not something that can be compared." Damas told the teen. "Even if Jak has gone through more, it does not negate your own. It is…unhealthy to just ignore it and leave it to fester."
As it had done with Jak, unresolved grief leading to him mentally and physically exhaust himself until he had recalled all the names of those lost.
Daxter began rapidly wiping at his eyes, trying to keep the tears from showing at Damas' words.
"And who would I talk to?" He demanded in frustration. "I can't exactly talk to Jak, he's got his own stuff to worry about, that I have to help him with."
Jak and Daxter could only ever be truly vulnerable with each other, an inseparable pair who supported each other through thick and thin. But after the prison, Jak had so much on his plate, and Daxter had to guide him through it all, being a constant and reassuring presence. There was no room for Daxter to seriously talk about his own struggles in the shadow of what Jak was struggling with.
Damas regarded Daxter sadly.
The ottsel had taken a heavy duty on his shoulders, one he shouldn't have had to, even though it meant ignoring that he was slowly drowning himself.
"You've been talking to me." Damas reminded. "And I will continue to listen for as long is as needed."
Daxter looked at Damas in shock.
"Really?" He asked in disbelief.
"It is my duty to care for all my subjects, and that includes you." Damas told Daxter. "If there's anything I can do to help, I will."
"Oh." Daxter croaked, his throat tight. He coughed. "Well, if you're serious about helping, maybe you could talk to those monks. Maybe they know something about Eco that can change me back."
Daxter would ask himself, but the Monks weren't exactly the friendliest of types and would likely just dismiss both him and Jak.
Damas smiled. "I will speak with them when I can." He promised.
Daxter returned the smile, feeling a small light of hope reawaken in his chest.
"Thanks, Damas." He sniffed.
Damas placed a gentle hand on Daxter's back.
"Remember that neither you or Jak are alone anymore." He said. "We are there for each other and we will share your burdens. You don't have to be strong for Jak anymore."
With those final words directed right towards Daxter's issues, the dam finally broke.
The tears came, pouring down his muzzle and sobs ripped from Daxter's throat.
The gentle hand remained on Daxter's back, a soothing and grounding presence in onslaught of emotion.
The crying seemed to go on forever, and by the time the flood seemed to have finally abated, Daxter was dizzy and disorientated, and too tired to think of doing anything.
"Come, now, I think it's time you slept." Daxter was vaguely aware of Damas speaking.
Rather than expect Daxter to walk, Damas picked the ottsel up, carrying him back to his and Jak's dwelling. Daxter too worn out to object to being manhandled.
Jak was still slumped over at the window when Damas entered the dwelling, making the king wince at the angle of the teen's neck. So, after Damas had gentle set Daxter down on the bad and covered him with a blanket, he carefully adjusted Jak's head to a better angle and shoved a pillow between his head and the wall.
With both boys asleep, Damas left and shut the door quietly behind him.
In the morning, he'd speak with the monks about what could be done for Daxter.
And, while he was at it, he'd see about finding Daxter some weapons that were suited to his size.
Author's note: Please comment.
I didn't really think about it until after writing the first chapter, but Daxter has to have his own trauma that the games just completely breeze past. Getting turned into an animal, people treating him differently because of it, being helpless to stop his best friend from being dragged away, being stuck in a strange city for two years without Jak to protect him, the general feeling of displacement after realising that they're in the future and seeing what became of their home, etc.
So, I decided to give Daxter a turn with getting the help he needs.
