#writing prompts

At least there was some good news to put in the Jak File at the last briefing. He'd moved from the sixth percentile up to the seventh in weight at last. In fact, he was pushing much closer to the eighth than they'd expected.

Getting some rotting variety in his diet had worked. Who'd have thought.

His last psychological assessment was a bit more optimistic than past weeks as well. The night terrors hadn't decreased, and insomnia was still a regular problem. But despite that, his emotional regulation had improved.

But -- because of course there had to be a "but" -- he was not interacting with peers his age.

Not that he had many opportunities to meet peers his age in C-Ward.

When Jak spoke to anyone beyond perfunctory answers, they tended to be adults. Which was decidedly ironic, considering his documented distrust of adults. Tam had theorized that it had been so long since Jak had been allowed to act his age that he didn't understand teenagers. He defaulted to what he knew, and that was warriors.

Some two or three specific warriors, evidently.

The brothers who had shown him that unexpected kindness in giving him the headphones had won his trust almost completely. He brushed them off if they attempted to intercede on the nurses' behalves, but they could get him to open up sometimes even when Tam couldn't. He said they reminded him of Sig.

Brother Tam very much wanted to speak with Sig on his next leave.

So did Damas.

Damas felt the stare from across the room as he added his signature to the bottom of yet another form. Consent for medical treatment from the hospital's default guardian ad litem, bills for longterm hospital care, document clearance forms transferring power of attorney from the hospital to the city government-

They were going to take several days to complete, given his work schedule. But it would be good to have some of the forms on standby.

Just in case.

Looking up and across the dining hall, Damas caught sight of the boy, tucked cross-legged into one of the corner seats with his headphones on and a bowl in his lap. Realizing he'd been caught, Jak looked chagrined and offered a very small wave.

Damas lifted his brows, but he felt a smile trying to slip onto his face.

"What?"

He tossed the word across the room. His spot near the end of the hall made it easier for the kid to read his hands.

"Nothing!" Jak's ears flushed and he hunched his shoulders.

But of course, he couldn't hold up the pretense for long. All Damas had to do was give him a skeptical look before he cracked.

"Why do the people in the white face paint follow me when I'm outside? Whatever it was, I didn't do it."

There was no way that heralded anything good.

"Do you mean the monks?"

"White-red-orange faces. Weird clothes."

"That's the monks."

Damas folded the data device and slid it into the back of his belt.

"I'll be right back," he murmured to the chief justice he'd been speaking to previously.

He knew he was drawing stares by crossing the room to sit on one of the wall benches with someone. But most Wastelanders had minding their own business down to a science. That wouldn't stop them from gossiping later, but no one would ask him directly about it.

"Hey, kid."

Damas settled onto the bench beside Jak's little corner.

"Heard you were doing better this week. If you can survive the protein supplements a little longer, we'll probably have you cleared to go outside the wall before the end of the year. Good work."

Jak seemed almost to physically brighten.

"I'm allowed to go to the gun range now!" his enthusiastic signs almost tipped the bowl out of his lap, and he hastily caught it. "I have to do the check-ins in the morning and whenever I go back though. Which I hate."

His eyes narrowed.

"I'd sleep on a roof if I didn't think Rezzik would find me anyway."

Damas glanced at the boy's busy hands and held his peace. Jak shrugged, far less bothered than he would've been even a few months ago.

"It's a heavy static day," he said in explanation. "Vocal cords are on lockdown again."

Brother Tam had mentioned something about "static" in one of the older progress reports. Jak didn't like admitting to anxiety. He believed it was the same as admitting fear, and that he would not do. But he understood the need for describing his symptoms, explaining to Tam why sometimes he spoke with his mouth and sometimes he spoke exclusively with his hands. Why he could be "fine" one minute and trying to tear up his blanket for preemptive bandages the next.

Jak said it felt like static in his brain sometimes. Or ants running around under his skull. When his anxiety was high, his body seemed to select things it saw as non-essential to shut down. Oralized speech, primarily.

"Ah, I understand." Damas nodded slightly. "Bad night last night, huh?"

Jak frowned. "No, actually. No nightmares this time. But I dreamed Daxter was here."

Waking to remember that his best and possibly only friend his age was still behind enemy lines must have been a demoralizing way to start the day. Many Spargans who began as exiles dealt with similar days.

Even Damas did -- although his dreams were less about people left behind than about people taken from him. The dreams where he found Mar playing in the sitting room, getting sticky fingers all over his lyre, hurt the most.

Damas cleared his throat.

"So," he said, "What's this about monks following you?"

"Two or three."

Jak stopped to scoop an unappealing mass -- what appeared to be rice and egg that he'd smushed most of an avocado into -- into his mouth before freeing his hands again.

"Stables needed new straw, but the stall in the north market wasn't set up yet because the awning collapsed and they let me fix it-"

He hadn't meant to interrupt, but the question popped out anyway.

"The market? Have you been helping out there?"

"No, Chiron hasn't set that up yet. I just went there today because the drovers needed straw."

Damas nudged Jak's shoulder with a smile.

"Your first errand, huh? How'd it go?"

Jak made a face and sighed. He looked tired and a bit exasperated.

"The awning collapsed because a kangarat chewed through the ropes. Kangarats got to the feed in the stables too. The weirdo with the mustache said they're after the grains. He said since I'm the one who figured out how they were getting in, I'm the one who gets to break up the nest tomorrow."

Weirdo with a mustache. That sounded like Kleiver. Damas would have asked, but Jak was still talking.

"But the whole time I was working on the awning, those monk people were just. Watching. From two stalls over. They didn't even try to help or anything, they just stared like they thought I was going to steal something."

The pride Jak had felt over doing something useful with his day had soured very quickly when he recognized the suspicion in their eyes. He'd caught those judgmental looks hundreds of times in Haven. People assuming he was going to steal food or water, assuming he was going to start trouble.

And he usually did, but usually because one of them got bright ideas about tipping off the Guard.

He hated those stares. They meant that people had decided he was worthless or a criminal just based on the way he looked or walked or talked.

"Once I had the straw, one of them even followed me to the stable. He wasn't even trying to hide!"

Damas frowned. He could think of no reason for monks to follow a citizen if they suspected wrongdoing. That was the responsibility of district Watchmen. The monks of the Golden Order almost never involved themselves in daily city life and drama. Even their leader Seem only interacted with Damas’s council if they had to be in the city.

"It...may be," Damas began, "that they were trying to determine why they have never seen you with others your age in the temple classes. They might have suspected you were playing hooky."

He hoped that was all it was. The highest likelihood was that it was no more dramatic than a couple monks following a suspected truant. But being followed wasn't confidence inspiring for veteran fighters.

What if they saw the Arena trial?

There had been concerns raised about the boy's trial. About the breathtaking display of violence that had come within a hair's breadth of murdering two of their citizen candidates. Dangerous was useful in the desert, but a serpent could turn to bite the hand that held it, to some minds. Others had been more concerned about the effects of such transformations on the boy's body and those around him, and whether it made him unfit for barracks. Dark eco still wasn't fully understood. Many people still believed that being in the vicinity of high eco exposure could result in longterm poisoning.

Damas had dismissed them all in their turn. Even if he'd lost control of the transformation in the ring, the lack of fatalities seemed to prove that Jak could control the eco-instincts.

"If you see them tomorrow," Damas decided, "Tell them you have every right to be here."

"I don't want to tell them anything."

Jak's expression indicated the signs were to be interpreted as a grumble.

"They creep me out."

Damas patted his shoulder and stood.

"Once they've seen you around more, I think they'll settle down. Just try to ignore them for now, alright?"

Unhappy, Jak promised to at least try.

"Good man." Damas nodded and tried not to notice the kid sit a little straighter, eyes just a little brighter. "Oh, come find me after check-in tomorrow afternoon. I want to hear how your first real job went."

"Sure!"

Now Jak was more genuinely enthusiastic. Even with how abysmal the boy was at asking for things he wanted, he was emboldened enough to tentatively ask, "If um. If it goes well and I'm done early I wanted to- to ask you about something. If you got time."

Curious, Damas shifted his weight and leaned a little closer.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, um. How- how does fighting with a staff work?" Jak flushed and his signs became clumsy and awkward. "I mean, everybody here seems to have gunstaffs. I was just wondering."

He was not subtle.

Damas hid a smile behind his fist.

The Ten had warned him he'd had a few citizens sneaking in to watch him train with the Rangers — an inevitability at this rate — and whether he knew it or not, Jak had just told on himself.

Well, it meant he was going outside, didn't it?

"Well now," he said as seriously as he could, "If you finish the job and you don't have any work Chiron assigned, I'll see what I can do."

It was only a rat-catching job. The kid seemed to like animals, he would probably enjoy working with the Leapers to hunt the rats. That was safe enough work for a cadet.