{"id":585,"date":"2024-07-30T19:27:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T23:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=585"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:38:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:38:31","slug":"the-changeling-game-chapter-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/the-changeling-game-chapter-51\/","title":{"rendered":"The Changeling Game, Chapter 51"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\ntt {\nfont: .857em menlo, monaco, consolas, monospace;\nmargin: auto;\n}\nh2 {\ntext-align: center;\n}\nh2.chapterhead {\nmargin-bottom: 2em;\ntext-align: center;\n}\n  .nowrap {\n    text-indent: 0;\n    display: inline-block;\n}\n<\/style>\n<p><b>Title:<\/b> The Changeling Game <small>(Formerly <i>Identity Theft<\/i>)<\/small><br \/>\n<b>Author:<\/b> Ardath Rekha<br \/>\n<b>Chapter:<\/b> 51\/?<br \/>\n<b>Fandom:<\/b> <i>Pitch Black<\/i> (2000); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick<\/i> (2004); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> (2004)<br \/>\n<b>Rating:<\/b> M<br \/>\n<b>Warnings:<\/b> Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence<br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b> Gen<br \/>\n<b>Pairing:<\/b> None<br \/>\n<b>Summary:<\/b> Jack finishes telling the story of the eclipse, making\u2014and receiving\u2014a few surprising revelations in the process. But a bigger concern may be just how strongly <i>Kyra<\/i> is engaging with the tale\u2026<br \/>\n<b>Disclaimer:<\/b> The characters and events of <i>Pitch Black,<\/i> <i>The Chronicles of Riddick,<\/i> and <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> are not mine, but belong to Universal Studios.  I just <i>wish<\/i> I were in charge of their fates.  No money is being made off of this.  I\u2019m writing strictly for love of the story.<br \/>\n<b>Feedback:<\/b> Absolutely, the more the better!  Shred me, whip me, beat me, make me feel grammatical! I post \u201crough,\u201d so I can always use the help. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='6a8e6ffd9863a2023453550' value='6a8e6ffd9863a2023453550'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-6a8e6ffd9863a2023453550' value='Long post is long. Click to read the story.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-6a8e6ffd9863a2023453550' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-6a8e6ffd9863a2023453550' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-green-button  '   style=\" color:#D9ECFB;\">Long post is long. Click to read the story.<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-6a8e6ffd9863a2023453550' ><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"chapterhead\">51.<br \/>\n<u>Who We Become in the Darkness<\/u><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat\u2019s going on up there?\u201d Jack asked, craning her neck to look toward the rooftop.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Five stories up, somewhere out of sight, she could hear the shriek of a buzz-saw.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan glanced up and then grinned. \u201cFather said he was going to have most of the chimneytop cut away. Only a few inches will remain above the floor of the rooftop, just enough to help ensure that the fire bush has some boundaries. We\u2019re going to let it form a small dune up there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWill it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Tafrara, who was helping Kyra dig the hole for her fig tree, nodded. \u201cThat is what it does. We will let it make a little desert garden, and Mother is talking of putting a fountain nearby to give it an oasis. When you two return, I think the entire rooftop will have gardens around its length.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra\u2019s breath hitched and she glanced over at Jack. <i>Ouch. We\u2019re supposed to avoid talking about the future like that.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Yeah,<\/i> Jack told her silently. <i>I know\u2026 but at least we know there\u2019ll always be a welcome for us here, right?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I hope so,<\/i> Kyra\u2019s mental \u201cvoice\u201d was subdued.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo,\u201d Izil said, emerging from the house with a glutted Sebby riding his back and peeking over his shoulder, \u201cI hope you waited for us before starting up the story again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack felt instant relief. The silence, following Tafrara\u2019s gaffe, had been growing awkward.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan had set up a small canopy around the area where they were working, to keep the worst of the waning midday heat and light off them. Lalla had brought out a small array of snacks for them to enjoy while they worked through the evening-day\u2019s \u201cmorning\u201d period. Cedric, supervising the removal of most of the chimney-top and the pouring of a few tons of sand down the flue, had told them that it would be shortly after lunch before everything would be ready to plant Jack\u2019s fire bush. Ewan intended to assist her in its planting, the way Tafrara was helping Kyra. And in the meantime\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack, who had finally mastered the trick of pouring tea from one of the long-spouted Maghrebi teapots, poured Izil a cup as he joined them. \u201cWe were waiting for you two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cGood. So you had reached the place in the canyon where the huge bones had fallen during your ride back to the ship?\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah. Riddick got in front of us and started hoisting them out of the way, to try to clear us a path. There was only one area that was really obstructed, and we almost got all the way through it. But all those monsters that had fallen from the sky, the ones I told you about\u2026 some of them weren\u2019t dead yet when they hit the ground. One of them grabbed Suleiman\u2019s leg\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was weird to realize, suddenly, how many of the deaths on that planet had been comparatively quiet. Owens and Shazza <i>had<\/i> both died screaming, and she suspected those screams would haunt her nightmares for years to come. Shazza had heard <i>Zeke<\/i> screaming, but Jack had been sorting through the contents of a locker in the cargo container at the time. But Ali\u2026 if he\u2019d screamed, they hadn\u2019t heard it over the weird alien caterwauls of the creatures killing him. Mostly, death had seemed to come entirely too quietly. Not that <i>this<\/i> was the moment of Suleiman\u2019s death, but he had certainly thought it was going to be. Even now, having studied Arabic, she couldn\u2019t parse most of what he had been shrieking. At one point it had almost sounded like he was yelling \u201cDaddy!\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The closest word she\u2019d found, when she\u2019d poked around in languages <i>connected<\/i> to Arabic, meant \u201cGrandma\u201d in Urdu. Had Suleiman been calling out for his grandmother? Maybe speaking in Urdu? Even now she could only guess at half of his sobbing words.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt ripped up his ankle before they got it off him. Riddick was moving on, dragging the cells further down the canyon, while Fry and Imam were tying up Suleiman\u2019s ankle with Imam\u2019s headwrap. I called out to him, wanting to get him to wait. I mean, I know he probably figured we\u2019d catch up with him\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Had he? She silenced the doubts that tried to crowd into her head yet again before Kyra could hear them. She knew that, for Kyra, Riddick was the undisputed, undoubted hero of the story\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026and needed to <i>stay<\/i> that way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBefore he could turn around, though, I realized I was just standing out in the middle of the canyon with no cover and nothing but a flashlight, and something was swooping down at me from above. I barely had time to get under one of the big pieces of bone before it was on top of me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That had been the moment when she had, at least for a while, known that she didn\u2019t <i>really<\/i> want to die. Or, at the very least, not like <i>that.<\/i> Struggling to hold the bone up above her with the weight of a large, hungry predator on top of it, while the predator hammered at the barrier with its bony head, had unleashed her own desperate screams.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan put his arm around her as she described it all, and she leaned against him. \u201cI heard Fry yelling \u2018get off of her!\u2019 She was trying to use the flashlight I\u2019d dropped to drive it away, but it must\u2019ve been really hungry because it tried to fight her and managed to knock the flashlight out of her hand and smash it. I thought we were both dead, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cRiddick to the rescue,\u201d Kyra breathed. When Jack glanced over, her expression was enrapt.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He\u2019d let out a stunning, predatory roar as he\u2019d lunged at the creature, catching both of its legs as it tried to pounce him. Neither she nor Fry could stop staring as the beast snapped at Riddick repeatedly. It reared back, but he pinned its wrists\u2014ankles?\u2014together and pulled out his shiv, gutting it while <i>it<\/i> screamed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I knew he\u2019d come to save us.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Where had that thought come from? It wasn\u2019t hers. She glanced over at Kyra, who had gone still and whose eyes were closed, focused on the visuals she\u2019d been evoking of the battle as she described it, and who was smiling a soft, vindicated smile.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Us?<\/i> Had that been <i>Kyra?<\/i> It sent a tiny chill through her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAfter he snapped its neck,\u201d she continued, trying to put whatever that instant had been behind them, \u201che just stared at it for a moment and said, \u2018did <i>not<\/i> know who it was <i>fuckin\u2019<\/i> with.\u2019 Then he looked up at us, like he was surprised we were there, like he\u2019d forgotten all about us while he was fighting it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cRiding a combat high,\u201d Ewan murmured.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack looked up at him. \u201cA combat high?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He nodded. \u201cAdrenaline can have that effect. I\u2019ve\u2026 felt that <i>rush<\/i>, once or twice, during really intense battlefield exercises. Some soldiers <i>chase<\/i> it, developing something called \u2018appetitive aggression.\u2019 A love of the fight, and the kill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDoesn\u2019t sound so bad,\u201d Kyra muttered, settling the fig tree into its hole.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt can be, when soldiers come home to civilian life still addicted to that high,\u201d Ewan mused. \u201cWhen combined with the numbing effects of battle fatigue, for some of them, moments of violence become the only times when they can feel <i>anything.<\/i> That combination can be incredibly dangerous for everyone if they start chasing the high again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack wondered how many times he\u2019d been dispatched, in his role as a paramedic, to deal with the aftermath of someone who had.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra\u2019s expression, Jack noticed, had turned defensive. Jack couldn\u2019t hear any of her thoughts now. Her sister bent her head, appearing focused on filling in the hole around the fig tree\u2019s roots with dirt.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Was she reacting to a possible criticism of Riddick, or was she taking it more personally?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Time to get on with the story, either way.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSuleiman was hobbling, and he needed to lean on Imam, but he didn\u2019t need to be carried\u2026 not at first, anyway. Riddick was in front of us now, the whole way, dragging those four fuel cells. Most of the ground was clear now, but the canyon walls had gotten really high on either side of us. Then Suleiman suddenly fell and couldn\u2019t get back up. Fry and Imam were trying to help him, and then I felt this plop of liquid on my arm. I thought maybe it was more blood from those things\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBut it wasn\u2019t?\u201d Tafrara asked, helping Kyra fill in the hole around the fig tree.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt was starting to <i>rain<\/i>,\u201d Jack sighed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOh no,\u201d Izil groaned. Sebby squeaked in concern, reaching up with both antennae to touch his chin. He chuckled and began petting the cat-sized crustacean. \u201cAnd you were down to just the flaming bottles by then?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah, the only flashlights left were the ones on Riddick\u2019s back. In under a minute, it was pouring. And Riddick started laughing like it was the funniest joke he\u2019d ever heard\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>\u201cSo where the hell\u2019s your God now?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Keeping her bottle lit had become Jack\u2019s top priority as they huddled against the cliffside. Fry\u2019s flame had gone out, and they couldn\u2019t get it to reignite. Jack\u2019s whole focus narrowed down to keeping <i>her<\/i> bottle\u2019s flame from guttering and dying, too, as she tried again and again to relight Fry\u2019s soaked wick. Riddick had climbed up onto an outcropping to scan the path ahead, while Fry begged him to tell her that they were almost at the settlement. Jack still had no idea whether anyone but her had heard his murmured answer: <i>\u201cWe can\u2019t make it.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWe hadn\u2019t even noticed that one of those monsters was crawling down the cliff\u2019s face until it wrapped its tail around Suleiman\u2019s neck and dragged him away. He barely got out a choked kinda scream before he was <i>gone.<\/i> Imam\u2026 <i>lost<\/i> it. He was screaming up at the darkness, begging for his last kid back. I don\u2019t know if he was begging the monsters or his God\u2026 he looked completely broken.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI wouldn\u2019t doubt he was dealing with survivor\u2019s guilt as well,\u201d Ewan murmured. Kyra snorted derisively.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMaybe. He did seem to get all gung-ho about prayer afterward. Like, <i>constantly<\/i> praying. Maybe he decided if he\u2019d just prayed harder on the planet\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNever works,\u201d Kyra muttered. \u201cI know that for a <i>fact.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cRiddick had found a cave opening in the cliff face,\u201d Jack continued before things could get any more awkward. \u201cHe wanted us to hide inside it. But he didn\u2019t follow us in. Instead, he pushed this huge rock in front of the hole once we were inside. We were down to just my bottle. Fry\u2019s had some liquor left in it, but too much water had soaked her wick. I think\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And now it was time to lie. To straight up, unflinchingly <i>lie.<\/i> Both about Riddick\u2019s intentions and about what she believed they were, then and now.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI think he wanted to get the cells to the skiff and then come back for us. He couldn\u2019t drag them and protect us at the same time, but once they were there, he\u2019d be able to keep us safe on the last part of the run. It was hard, waiting, with the light burning lower and lower. We added the liquor from Fry\u2019s bottle to mine so we could make the light last longer\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She forced herself to resolutely <i>not<\/i> think about her absolute certainty that Riddick had no intention of returning, that he would leave them behind and take off on the skiff on his own, that none of them meant enough to him to come back. She didn\u2019t want Kyra picking up on it. Instead, she pretended\u2014carefully, so that it wouldn\u2019t leak through\u2014that it had been <i>Tomlin<\/i> on the other side of the rock, who had promised to return to save them all, and who would be prevented from keeping that promise by nothing less than death itself. The visuals that she let Kyra see absolutely did <i>not<\/i> include the moment she had turned to Fry and asked, \u201che\u2019s not coming back, is he?\u201d and had seen the same dashed hopes in the pilot\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She did, however, describe the final guttering of the last liquor bottle\u2019s light, as the beasts prowled and sang their chilling songs just outside of the cave. As the last of the firelight died, she and Fry had clasped hands\u2026 and realized that they could still <i>see<\/i> each other\u2019s hands. There was a gentle, bluish glow surrounding them, making her wonder for a moment if the single blue sun had somehow risen and the terrible night was over. But above her, the cave ceiling seemed to glitter with stars, blue stars\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Imam had reached up and brought two of them down, revealing a pair of glowing, wriggling grubs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The cave was full of them. It was one of the most beautiful things she\u2019d ever seen.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack heard Kyra\u2019s breath catch as she shared the images of the glow worms spangling the cave ceiling with their soft blue light. \u201cSo beautiful,\u201d her sister whispered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWe decided to fill up one of the two bottles, scrape its labels off, and make a lamp so Fry could go help Riddick get the skiff ready and then come back with him. Imam could barely push the rock away enough for her to squeeze out of the cave. I don\u2019t even know how Riddick had managed to move it. After she left, I kept collecting glow worms so we could try to fill up the second bottle, too. And then, when we were waiting, I heard it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Low groans, echoing through the cave from somewhere deep below. It was an animal sound, but deep and dark and terrible. Something enormous was rising up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThose huge bones from the canyon, and out in the bonefield? We hadn\u2019t seen anything big enough to leave them behind, not yet. Johns thought maybe the creatures we\u2019d already seen had killed them all off, but\u2026 I think he was wrong. I think it just took <i>them<\/i> even longer to come out in the dark than the other creatures\u2026 but they were coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cA whole subterranean ecosystem rising up for a month on the surface,\u201d Ewan breathed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cA <i>month?\u201d<\/i> Jack gasped.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan nodded. \u201cYes. The crash investigators concluded that it took a month before the planets on either side of your crash planet finished the conjunction and light reached the surface again. Roughly two weeks after the eclipse began, things apparently got very rough for life on the surface, too, because the alignment became a true syzygy. I wonder if the huge creatures whose bones you saw, and whose voices you may have heard, used <i>that<\/i> to fly. The gravitational effects would have been both fascinating and terrifying to observe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Staying at the ship would have been death, Jack realized. A whole month in darkness would have ended them all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBloody hell, I\u2019d love to study that world and its life,\u201d Izil muttered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou\u2019d need to be armored like a <i>tank<\/i> to survive for very long,\u201d Jack told him. \u201cThose things were vicious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The low, rumbling groans of the beasts\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026why did the word <i>below<\/i> suddenly make her think of the <i>Apeiros?<\/i>\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The thought vanished a second later as if plucked from her mind.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2014the beasts beneath the surface were growing louder when, with a harsh scraping sound, the rock in front of the cave fell away. For a moment, she thought that one of the rising leviathans had triggered an avalanche, until Fry\u2019s smiling face appeared in the opening\u2026 and then she moved out of the way so they could see that Riddick was with her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>\u201cNever had a doubt!\u201d<\/i> Jack had lied, pure relief coursing through her. The truth was, she was amazed by his return, but wouldn\u2019t have blamed him for leaving them, leaving <i>her<\/i>, if he had. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They\u2019d barely known each other then. If he\u2019d simply left, flying away either so he wouldn\u2019t have to watch them get taken one by one, or just because he didn\u2019t care about their fates anyway, she wouldn\u2019t have hated him for it or felt particularly betrayed. Maybe because a huge part of her had still felt like she deserved to share the fate that had befallen so many of her recent friends.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But, after four days of getting to know each other better on the skiff and another two days together on the <i>Xanadu III<\/i>\u2014not that she\u2019d ever told him her real name or destination\u2014having him vanish without a word and strand her in Imam\u2019s household\u2026 that was what had hurt. That was what she still couldn\u2019t reconcile. Leaving her to die on the crash planet would somehow have felt far less egregious than leaving her to wither in the harsh, dry emotional desert of Helion Prime.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra\u2019s breath hitched, and Jack realized that her thoughts of betrayal had seeped through their connection. She made herself focus back on the story and sent Kyra images of just how suave and dashing Riddick had looked, framed in the cave opening.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>\u201cAnyone not ready for this?\u201d<\/i> he\u2019d asked, and in that moment, she\u2019d felt ready to do <i>anything.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Two glowing bottles held aloft had done a good job of covering the four of them as they made their final run. At times, Jack thought she could still hear the low, almost subsonic sounds of the great beasts rising up under the ground. She hoped that none of them would rise in the settlement\u2026 at least, not until after the skiff could take off. The others seemed not to hear anything at all. Riddick led them to a steep incline, helping them over its top; she didn\u2019t realize he had fallen behind until they reached the bright, welcoming light of the skiff and he wasn\u2019t with them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cImam\u2026 well, we waited for a long moment inside the skiff, but Fry didn\u2019t come in after us. She was scanning the darkness for any sign of him. But Imam wanted to leave right then. He started telling her to come inside\u2026 he knew we couldn\u2019t fly off without either her or Riddick in the pilot\u2019s seat. She was starting to give up and turn back toward us when we heard Riddick scream somewhere out in the darkness. She raced off with one of the glowing bottles. I tried to follow, but Imam wouldn\u2019t let me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That had been an awkward moment for the two of them in another, unexpected, way. As she had tried to push past him, Imam had put his hand on her chest to stop her\u2014probably the way he would have blocked one of his boys\u2014and his hand had ended up cupping her right breast for an instant. She\u2019d shoved it away, but it had left both of them shocked and uncomfortable\u2026 and Fry, meanwhile, had vanished around a corner. There was no way to follow her. Imam had become even more stand-offish after that\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDamn, you should\u2019a kicked him in the balls,\u201d Kyra grumbled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHe didn\u2019t mean to do it,\u201d Jack argued, sighing. \u201cI\u2026 think he always <i>meant<\/i> well\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan gave her a gentle squeeze. \u201cYou need to show yourself as much grace and forgiveness as you show others, <i>a tafat-iw.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He\u2019d called her that once before, she thought, but she had the weird sense that she\u2019d been \u2026floating in space?\u2026 at the time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSometimes I still wonder if,\u201d she continued after a moment, \u201cif he\u2019d let me grab the bottle and go after Fry, both of them would\u2019ve made it back. Like maybe it would\u2019ve been enough light to keep them safe\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOr maybe you\u2019d have died, too,\u201d Kyra muttered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou could make an excellent First Responder,\u201d Ewan told her. She knew he meant it as a compliment; as a former paramedic, he\u2019d often been one himself. \u201cBut only once you learn how to protect yourself a little better at the same time. How long did the two of you wait after that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSeemed like forever,\u201d Jack sighed. \u201cImam\u2026 after a minute he started mumbling in Arabic that if they\u2019d both died we were going to be trapped on that ungodly world. I didn\u2019t understand what he was saying at the time, but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Now that she was parsing it from memory, she was appalled to realize just how much he\u2019d resented being left in charge of her, as opposed to <i>any<\/i> of the boys he had traveled with. His opinions of both Fry and Riddick weren\u2019t any better. If Fry returned, he would be surrounded by two females who didn\u2019t share his faith or understand true propriety; if Riddick returned, he would have to guard her chastity at all times; if both returned, he was convinced that the skiff would turn into a den of iniquity within hours of launching, that Fry had to have promised to indulge Riddick\u2019s undoubtedly perverted appetites to get him to rescue them at all. He\u2019d wondered what terrible sin he had to have committed to bring on this onerous punishment. When she\u2019d finally asked him what he was muttering, he\u2019d told her \u201cJust praying, child,\u201d holding up the beads that he\u2019d somehow managed to hang onto during their run.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cTold you he was a douchebag,\u201d Kyra grumbled. She had cleaned the dirt off of her hands\u2014but not, Jack noticed, from under her nails\u2014and was having a small snack with Tafrara. Sebby was creeping over to steal an olive, clearly thinking nobody would notice. The little pile he was stalking, though, had been placed there just for him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah,\u201d Jack admitted with a sigh. \u201cBut I think he was pretty traumatized by everything that happened\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBut taking it out on you reinforced <i>your<\/i> trauma reaction,\u201d Ewan murmured next to her. \u201cAnd drove you to this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He lifted one of her hands, turning it palm up and running his thumb along the scar on the inside of her arm. She tried <i>very<\/i> hard not to react inappropriately to his caress, hiding the thrill racing up her spine, and saw a hint of a knowing smirk appear on Kyra\u2019s face.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI guess,\u201d Jack said. Inside, it still felt to her like Riddick\u2019s abandonment had been a bigger indictment than anything Imam had said or done. But maybe, she thought, he\u2019d been struggling with his own guilt\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">From the darkness, they had heard Riddick\u2019s voice, calling out: <i>\u201cNot for <b>me!<\/b>\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack had known, even before he had staggered into view with the glowing bottle in his hand, that Fry was dead.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She described the takeoff from the planet as they cleaned up the gardening gear. Riddick had a ragged gash on his leg that Imam had insisted on treating before they lifted off, and Jack had discreetly changed pads while they were preoccupied, something that left her feeling profoundly uncomfortable afterwards when she discovered just how <i>gritty<\/i> the pad she\u2019d chosen was. Once they were ready to launch, Riddick had delayed for a nerve-wracking moment, switching off all the lights so he could lure the lurking monstrosities close before burning as many of them as he could with the skiff\u2019s engines. She\u2019d felt his desire for vengeance, and a strange, burning guilt beneath it. She had her own suspicions of what that guilt might have been about, but she omitted it from the story she was telling and the visuals she was feeding Kyra. She\u2019d let him stay the unquestioned hero of the tale.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo we were out in space, at last, leaving the crash planet. Riddick seemed to know exactly what to do to get us to one of the Sol Track beacons. Imam was <i>praying<\/i> and pretending not to watch us as I went up and sat down in the copilot\u2019s seat. But I needed us to get our stories straight, just in case we were found quickly.\u201d She was, after all, an open Missing Person case, even if nobody considered her <i>Armed and Dangerous<\/i> yet. Knowing what kind of cover story Riddick planned to use could affect which one she needed to go with. \u201cSo I said to Riddick, \u2018a lot of questions, whoever we run into. Could even be a merc ship.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Why she\u2019d thought that, exactly, she still didn\u2019t know. It had come to her with an odd sense of certainty. Later, she would wish she\u2019d been certain of almost anything else.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She mimicked the shrug she\u2019d given at the time as she\u2019d looked over at Riddick. \u201c\u2018So what the hell do we tell them about you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She could hear Kyra murmuring her lines, like a distant echo.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat did he say?\u201d Tafrara asked as she started putting away the gardening tools.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHe said, \u2018tell \u2019em Riddick\u2019s dead. He died somewhere on that planet.\u2019\u201d Jack was pretty sure he\u2019d meant it, too. He\u2019d seemed to have felt that something transformative had happened.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Maybe he\u2019d even have been right\u2026 if only she\u2019d been wrong about the merc ship. But if he\u2019d really intended to change his path, discard his identity and take on a new one, whether posing as William Johns or someone else altogether, their encounter with the <i>Kublai Khan<\/i> ruined that chance\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026and turned <i>her<\/i> into a murderer.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Changeling Game (Formerly Identity Theft) Author: Ardath Rekha Chapter: 51\/? Fandom: Pitch Black (2000); The Chronicles of Riddick (2004); The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004) Rat","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"\u201cThe Changeling Game\u201d 51: \u201cWho We Become in the Darkness\u201d","bgseo_description":"Jack finishes telling the story of the eclipse, making\u2014and receiving\u2014a few surprising revelations in the process. But a bigger concern may be just how strongly Kyra is engaging with the tale\u2026","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fan-fiction","category-the-changeling-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1170,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions\/1170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}