She opened the door to her home, to an exasperated sigh belonging to the aged man who stood before her.

"You're late. Again, I might add. Surely your extensive education has included the importance of time".

She grinned and reached into his arms for a brief hug and then pulled away. A casual greeting of physical intimacy that she never thought possible with anyone.

"They did bring up the concept of time and how it was all relative once."

She quipped back leaving her grin plastered over face. She leant across from her foster father to look towards the source of the scents of home cooking floating towards them both.

Initially, she had been uncertain about Lajun. Why would this woman want a wild feral child in her house, why would a woman of her background, her wealth, want a poor runaway who had a pendant for embellishments and distrust. But she had been patient. Coaching the little animal jack out of her hiding spots.

In the early days, when he hadn't left her yet, she had enjoyed playing hide and seek with him. She was sure he had indulged her and that her racing heartbeat could be heard thundering throughout the house. During one of those games, she had discovered that by lifting a wooden slat just right she could sneak under the stairs and hear almost the entirety of the living room and extended entry rooms. She could even look up and see the footsteps coming down the stairs. She had been thrilled. Smirking to herself over her success, she had her signature grin and a rising joy into her eyes; that was until she had looked up from her hiding spot and seen a pair of sharp, silver eyes staring down between the staircase steps. She swore, loudly, and had been rewarded with a deep laugh. She clambered out of her hiding spot and had been rewarded again, but with a chastising for getting herself covered in dust by Abu.

Another lesson learnt. Don't squeeze into small spaces without easy escape routes. Especially when the predator would always outsmart you.

"Lajun is cooking?"

She asked hoping that she could avoid the light scolding that would follow her poor time keeping moments, given she was hardly invested in changing this particular habit. The twilight sky was, in her opinion, always worth watching rise into view and brought a sense of calm to end her day.

"She is but there are matters we should discuss before dinner."

He looked nervous or unsure. Not making eye contact, which for a man whose warming brown eyes often stared down at her with an equally warming smile was unusual. She looked up to his face and then leaned in and hugged him again. She grinned to herself knowing that this probably made him more uncertain as to why she would reward such an elusive statement with an impromptu physical touch. He had never picked up on this little trick that she had deviously worked into her repertoire of skills that Riddick had inspired.

Heartbeats. That's how he knew when people were going to act, attack or run. Their heartbeats would start hammering away and next thing would be some foolish merc jumping him with some doomed attempt at a stab or gunshot, but he already knew. Already ready for the countermove, the fatal retaliation.

He had told her once. In the dark, in the black, after the nightmare of Chillingsworth, after she had proven to him she wasn't going to be left behind, that she could keep up with him and if he would teach her, train her who knows maybe she could, well not be a match, but maybe something.

Something like what? She had scolded her childhood imagination, looking back at what an idiot she considered herself to be. His 13 year old sidekick, relying on distracted angry mercs psychos and lucky gunshots. But at the time, her imagination had her fighting merc battles, killing monsters by his side, sitting in the co-pilot seats, soaring into the blackness of space. Jack and Riddick. Riddick and Jack. Sometimes she had even imagined rescuing Abu from the monsters, he was the damsel in distress, turning to her. Pleading for her help.

His heart was currently thundering in her ear and she laid her head against his chest.

"Hmm" she responded. "Matters like what? I'm still not dating Markus, if his father asks again."

A neighbourly request for his son, of a fellow neighbour for his foster daughter. And whilst she did not dislike the boy, who was becoming a man, just as much as she grudgingly recognised she could no longer pass for a child, or even a girl in all honesty, the idea of courting, being courted frightened her. Well, not frightened, after all what were boy-men compared to the monsters she had faced, maybe more of a situation she would rather not face just yet. Especially if she was brutally honest with herself, she realised she was holding tightly, in that place in her chest, a hope that was just foolish.

A hope that less than a few hours ago she had just agreed to close the page on, to move on from.

"No, not Markus, just matters that are better articulated by another." He responded, eyes now meeting hers and conveyed a deep weariness that she hadn't seen since that night, fleeing a monstrous world.

"She'll be with us shortly and all I ask, is that you listen, she is" he paused as if formulating the best phrasing, as if she wasn't curious enough to follow this sequence of events to its end, "interested in determining a way for all of us to live and survive a great threat."

Sometimes it is better to remain silent and let others show their hand. Another lesson he had taught her on the ship whilst they crossed the black. She had nodded furiously when he had said those words, as if her excited head bobbing would lead to an outpour of wisdom and Riddick excerpts but that had been her luck for three days. Though she rewarded his silence by beating him three sets in a row at the card game they were playing. She didn't think of him as a man who would let her win, let her have anything, maybe earn a win, sure, but her being better than Riddick in anything seemed unlikely.

But maybe with hindsight, given all the embellishments to his character overtime in her imagination, she would remember him as something more. Maybe he was not the godlike hero she had moulded him to be and she was good with cards, always had been, hence why she hadn't starved when she ran. Card tricks for coin on street corners, whilst her peers had to rely on other tricks to avoid death by miserable hunger.

"A great threat, hmm." She replied, looking into those weary eyes. "I'll be good"

A vague enough statement that seems to promise enough to satisfy Abu without committing too much on such a curious request.

"Good, good"

He turned, bringing his arm around her shoulders, she stood just below his eyes and when she would stand on toes, to lean forward, gifting her customary peck on the cheek before she would scarper out of the door, yet again late for morning classes she could almost match him in height. They walked towards his office, a room full of leather bound books, warm red fabrics with two frames on his desk. In one, her and him the day she had achieved the examinations required for higher schooling, a moment that had left him with a sense of pride unmatched until the birth of his daughter, the star of the next frame; who featured in the arms of his beautiful wife who held the hand of his foster daughter, without encouragement or request, who had accepted this foreign child without question or resistance. He was blessed in a way that he was entirely thankful for and unworthy of.

He had considered at great length why his God would deem him worthy of such blessings. He had failed in his mind the only task he had been set to. To assist three young boys to cross the blackness of space, to grow in their faith before maturity was reached so that they could be blessed in the faith that they shared. Instead, they had been torn apart by monsters in the dark on a planet devoid of sunlight. He had failed to keep watch. He had allowed them to be dragged into the darkness. He was meant to be their Watchman, watchman of their faith of course but he knew that charge came without question to involved their physical as well as their spiritual one. He had failed. They had cried out in the dark and he had failed the three children.

He had once been something worse. Something that he considered standing in his office, of his home, surrounded by wealth and good fortunes, that he did not deserve this. He deserved nothing. More than nothing he deserved punishment for his sins. His faith had saved him and he had offered up his soul, his future, his life to his God and accepted whatever fate or sufferings were to be bestowed on him. After all his sins, what he had done, what his younger self had allowed to pass without defiance without strength of character to stop, well, he deserved the misery that surely was to follow.

Instead he had not been punished, he had been led out of the dark, out of the sweat slickened containers that he had allowed to be filled with other lives and been directed back into the light, towards life. He had been purified with water and holy words and all that had been asked was that he believed, believed with an openness that felt raw, unyielding and he had thrown himself both physically and metaphorically on the floor at the feet of the one who promised him redemption from his sins, to be saved. And he had believed in the redemption that was offered to him, he still did believe that he had been saved truly. Saved from the monster that he had been. The monstrosities that he allowed to happen, that he had taken coin for.

And yet, when given the chance to act, truly act with purpose in his faith, now an established part of him as much as his skin clothed him, he had failed. He had failed utterly and completely in protecting three souls. The dark had come back and swallowed up the children bestowed into his charge, as if to remind him that there was no rest for him.

And yet, again in that darkest of darkness there had been life. Two lives. Three but one was swallowed before escaping. One who appeared to be Death's right hand man, built like an old empire soldier with an aura that he had no shame in admitting frightened him, left him feeling uncertain, unsafe and unsteady. However, this dark, forgotten soldier who seemed to lack direction, had led them through hell, with blood pouring from the sky, back to safety. The dark warrior had saved him and the girl. The young unknown daughter who had fooled him into believing was a boy.

The young unknown daughter who was now less young, and was now known as his daughter. It had not taken thought, had not required consideration, days to contemplate. It came simply and without question. He would offer the child his home, his safety and all that he had to offer. He would open his world to her and the all the light and life he could find he would bring to those green eyes.

"No."

It was almost brutal her response to his offer when he had offered it. No she had said without explanation or follow up statements. Had simply clambered back up to her perch on the top bunk and placed her arms crossed underneath her head in mimicry of the man below.

And yet, now she stood beside him, in his home, adopted as her own with those still bright green eyes which had seen such brutality and he would spend his lifetime attempting to avoid repeating her past suffering.

But, the darkness had risen again. Like a cold dread slipping underneath ajar door, a cold not experienced on this hot Helion Prime world.

Necromongers the woman had called them.

Spoke of their horrors and how they would end life, all of who resided in this homeworld, his, his wife's and daughters'. How their armies would be swatted from the skies and destroyed before their eyes. Their careful crafted defences on a world, that had only known generations of peace and unconquered calm trade agreements with neighbouring worlds, would be torn apart and their people would be slain.

She had gone on to speak of prophesy and in all honesty he had not heard it. Had not listened. Had lost himself to the nightmare of what was coming to his world, to the three woman that were his world. He could not lose these three like he had lost those boys. But how? How could one man, albeit a man who had risen amongst ranks of the political elite of his world, had risen to a place of titles and access that many would never know and ideally would never discover was held by their elected officials.

His panicked deliberations had been interrupted by the woman, who had stared at him, through him, through to his very soul. "...Choked by the cords of their birth, an attempt to remove the threat.."

He had interrupted her there on that statement, asked for clarification. Looked up from his sitting position, where he had placed his head in his hands when trying to grapple his family's future in the face on an unstoppable end. The envoy had smiled, one that with hindsight he would realise lacked any warmth, Furyans she had gone on to elaborate. A race of man, prophesied to kill the dark king of this murdering army.

The other members of his cabinet had left in panic whispers at the end of her speech, fleeing into a twilight evening without action, resolutions, or hope.

He stayed behind and waited for the hustle of scurrying footsteps to cease and then turned to face her. She appeared unhurried, as if she knew what he had to say, that she was waiting for him. That dark feeling grew again within him. The sense of dread, as if he was about to step into the jaws of a colossus fish that haunted the depths of foreign world oceans. He mentally shook himself from this day terror and spoke of a man he knew with such a birthing story and could he one of the race of men she sought to fight the coming dark.

She had smiled again, a smile that lacked warmth and had nodded only asking for his name. Which he gave without hesitation, for he must save his people, his family, he must save life from death and darkness, even at the cost of betraying one of two promises he had made to the man who had saved his life and returned him home. He felt guilt at this action but guilt he could carry, and if the man returned his betrayal with death, he would close his eyes and welcome it, he must do everything to save his people from the brutality that was hurtling towards them.

That meeting, that action, that betrayal had led to him and his foster daughter standing in his office waiting for her arrival. He would do what was necessary for the ultimate outcome of his people's safety. He would do what needed to be done. He would betray the man who saved him, he would put down his faith and its guiding principles. He would save them. He would sacrifice what was required, and he would carry the burden of that decision. There was no choice. He would save them. The words had become a mantra, a mantra that had haunted his waking life for the week since the envoy meeting. And his dreams had been filled with armies murdering through his home world's streets to arrive at his doorstep ready to tear apart his kin. Save them.

That's why he was accepting of this obscene suggestion. Why he recognized that whilst he would likely never be able to redeem himself for what he allowed to be set in motion. And he would have happily suffer in her stead, he would not be the reason he would return, he would not be the motivator. He could not be, it would have to be her.

The air moved in the room, Jack's head twitched to the window in the far corner of the room and he followed her direction. And there she stood, the envoy. The woman who called herself Aeron. With a smile, that he could now clearly see lacked any warmth.

"Well, hello there Jack."