Chapter Text
Jon had made a terrible mistake.
In fairness he was the veteran explorer of nearly a hundred planets; he had considered himself to have seen a bit of everything. The idea that the squarish grey rocks that clustered the planet’s surface were natural geological formations wasn’t completely absurd. He’d seen a lot of geometric geographical formations and lots of native civilizations that built in shapes other than squares and rectangles. Jon had just taken the scout pod down for a closer look and he had kept it cloaked just in case. He wasn’t expecting the native population to be advanced enough to detect him, let alone be able to intercept his craft.
Jon winces at the memory.
The native aircraft didn’t use laser-based weapons that would have been nullified by the protective shielding of the scout pod’s hull, they had shot some sort of metal covered explosive into the scout pod’s intake vent. The incendiary wasn’t strong enough to burn out the engine but the shards of molten metal that had been its case had chipped the turbine’s blades and clogged the engines. He was lucky he hadn’t been hurt worse from the crash, and the natives were lucky he had managed to crash land the scout pod away from anyone that might get hurt. Not that they’d been very grateful when they dragged him from the wreckage, but Jon couldn’t blame them for that.
He hopes that they let him see the scout pod soon. The defenses wouldn’t activate unless they were spending a lot of time chucking rocks at it, but he really didn’t want to disrupt this planet’s ecology more than he already had by crashing here. It was against the Code of the Kryptonian Adventurers’ League to interfere in the development of a native civilization. He was only supposed to be an outside observer. The natives weren’t at the level of Kryptonians but they were clearly intelligent, who knows what would happen if they had access to alien technology? They hadn’t even been to their moon yet!
He toys with the cuffs as he waits. They are shiny metal disks, buffed and smooth, and if it wasn’t for the chain connecting them he wouldn’t mind giving them as a gift to a girl he liked.
His translator was still hooked up to the main ship so he could speak the native language, but there had been trouble when he’d spoken more than one kind of language. Apparently there was some kind of inter-tribal conflict going on. He had been called a spy and left to stew while they decided what to do with him.
Jon sighs. Yeah, he had made a terrible mistake. What a way for the great Jon El, Explorer of the Stars, to go. He’d probably be executed before they found out he was an alien and, by the way their civilization was going, his ship would drift into the sun and burn up before anyone could find it. He’d be lost forever to the annuls of Kryptonian history. It was funny, even facing imminent death the thing he regretted the most was never finishing his maps. So much knowledge that would be post to the future people of Krypton…So many things he had seen that would be lost forever…
There is a faint ‘thump’ in the distance; it sounds like someone being slammed against something. Jon stops feeling sorry for himself and starts paying attention. He looks at the door and it flies open. A man in black rushes him, vaulting over the table before Jon can blink, and grabbing him the cuffed hands to slam him against the wall. Jon hits it hard and one of the man’s hands grabs him by the throat, almost strangling him.
“Talk, Alien!” The man hisses.
He doesn’t look like the natives Jon had seen before; the black he’s wearing looks like armor, some kind of military caste? His emerald eyes are hard, he looks like he has seen even more battles than the natives who were interrogating him before. Plus, he knew Jon was an alien.
“What do you want me to say?” Jon asks him, trying to keep calm. The tan native’s grip is like iron; he doesn’t want his throat crushed.
The hand tightens.
“Who are you? Why have you come here? Are there more of you? Are they coming here?” The man in black narrows his eyes. “Is this an invasion?”
“No!” Jon yelps, answering the last question first. “My name is Jon, I’m a Star Mapper from a planet called Krypton! I’m alone, there’s no invasion force!”
The man is black’s eyes narrow further and his grip tightens; he doesn’t believe the story. He watches Jon squirm as his air is cut off before letting up enough for Jon to breathe.
“What is your real name?!” The figure in black snarls.
“I told you, it’s Jon!” Jon yelps as the man in black slams him back against the wall by the throat.
“Why would an alien be named Jon?” The man in black snarls.
“I have no idea! Frankly, the implications of parallel evolution are extraordinary, and I am going to have to do a lot of science to answer that question!” Jon replies, panicked but honest.
The man in black pauses, clearly not expecting that answer. Jon pauses too, a thought occurs, and his eyes widen.
“…Is your name Jon too?” He asks.
The man in black drops him.
“It is not.” He says emphatically. “My name is Damian.”
Jon brushes himself off.
“Right, nice to meet you Dami.” He says and smiles.
“DamiAN.” The man in black snarls.
“Right, Dami-An, sorry.” Jon says sheepishly.
The man in black snorts.
“Clearly your species is less developed than I thought.” He sneers as he looks down at the Star Mapper. “I imagined First Contact to be a much grander affair.”
He grabs Jon by the cuffs and roughly pulls him to his feet.
“Follow.” He orders in the voice of someone who is used to being obeyed.
He pulls Jon forwards out of the room with a sharp tug. Jon nearly trips over his feet but the man in black, Dami, doesn’t seem to notice or care. The corridor beyond is the same dull grey as the walls, but in the far corner is the slumped body of one of the natives. They are wearing the neat uniform of the armed guard but have fallen in disarray. From this distance Jon can’t tell if they’re breathing or performing any other vital process. He pauses and the cuffs are tugged viciously.
“That guard is hurt!” Jon says, thinking the man in black hasn’t seen them and tugging at the cuffs to draw his attention.
Dami’s hard green eyes barely flicker in the guard’s direction.
“They wake up in half an hour, I didn’t hit them very hard.” He says and Jon’s eyes widen.
“You hit them?” He asks.
The man in black rolls his eyes and makes a small annoyed huffing sound.
“If you continue to state the obvious I will be forced to gag you.” He says. “Follow.” He repeats but sounds more annoyed than previously.
The corridors all look pretty much the same; it’s brutal architecture, made to be intimidating and hard to navigate, but Dami clearly knows where he is going. He tugs Jon along the corridors as if in some great hurry.
There are few more guards lying slumped against the wall. This time Jon can see they’re still breathing but, shockingly more figures in black seem to be nearly melting out of the walls and stepping into line behind them.
“Dami-An…” Jon warns. “We’re being followed…”
Dami throws a quick look over his shoulders and the figures fall back. Their footsteps on the ground are entirely silent but there are a LOT of them and all of them look dangerous. They fall into formation and Jon recognizes the look they are giving Dami. It’s the look a soldier gave to a military leader. Jon looks back at Dami. He seems used to it.
“Who are you?” Jon asks incredulously. “Are you the ruler of this planet?”
For a moment Dami pauses and there is a flicker of something that looks like pain in his eyes.
“No…” He says softly. “I am not the ruler of this planet. I am a protector of humanity.” He clicks his tongue. “Hurry up Alien. We don’t have much time.”
Jon struggles to keep up with him
“My ship…” Jon asks.
“We already have your vessel in containment. You will explain its function thoroughly when directed to.” Dami snaps at him as he continues to drag him along.
“Who is we?” Jon asks.
“We are…the League of Shadows.” Damian says after a pause and draws himself up. “And I am the Master of Shadows.” He winces and mutters ‘shut up’ under his breath as if talking to someone only he can hear. “You ask too many questions Alien.”
Jon manages to shrug, tugging at the cuffs in Dami’s grasp.
“I’m a scientist, it’s kinda my job.”
Dami snorts.
“Well my job is keeping this world safe, a job that was easier when all I had to worry about were threats from this planet.”
Jon half shrugs.
“I’m sorry?”
Dami harrumphs.
“You will follow my orders, you will not touch anything without being asked, you will answer all questions honestly and to the greatest extent of your knowledge.” He rattles off like a list of demands. “Follow these rules and I may not dissect you until you’ve outlived your usefulness.”
“It’s not like I’ve got any other options.” Jon says. He tugs against the handcuffs to show they’re still holding fast.
Dami smirks and it’s terrifying.
“No, you don’t.”
He pushes open a door and suddenly there is blinding bright sunlight. Jon squeezes his eyes closed reflexively and nearly gets pulled off his feet. He opens his eyes a crack and sees a glimpse of golden and green grass under a bright blue sky. The sun shining in the sky is a bright golden yellow rather than the softer red of Krypton’s star. There, making the blades of grass sway under the wind, is a black hulk of an aircraft.
Jon only gets a quick look at it before a black bag is being pulled over his head and he can’t see. He does trip as he is blindly pulled forwards but is hauled off his feet and into the vehicle. He’s shoved backwards into a seat and some kind of restraint is tightened around his chest. He tries to say something but the mask muffles his voice. There is a faint sensation of movement and Jon knows they are moving.
Jon carefully tests his bonds but he can’t break them. The vehicle is softly humming like a living creature and, after a few attempts to communicate that accomplish nothing, Jon leans back. There’s nothing more he can do, just hope that Dami is a good man. With the faint sway and hum of the vehicle and the lack of conversation Jon eventually finds himself drifting off to sleep.
He wakes up in a bed. He sits up and looks around. The bed is a flat squat slab, covered in sheets of woven cloth. The room itself is made of caramel brown stone. There is a window in one wall, arched reinforced metal and barred so he can’t escape through it. Outside is a starry night sky and Jon feels a sudden jolt of homesickness. No matter what planet he was on the sky was the same. He always felt on edge on the planet where the sky was permanent cloud but as long as he could see the stars he knew home was still out there. As he gets up Jon notes that his cuffs have been removed but he was still wearing his Kryptonian pilot-suit. Good, the thought of someone undressing him while he sleeps makes Jon blush.
There is one door, made of dark wood and banded with metal. It is locked. Aside from that the room is completely bare, of furniture, of decoration, even of paint on the walls. Jon knows a cell when he sees it. He sighs and lies back in the bed. There’s nothing he can do. He just has to wait.
Jon returns to the bed and goes back to sleep. He is woken up by the rising sun throwing a beam of the golden tinged sunlight onto his face. He pulls himself up and blinks in the harsh light. With a yawn he pulls himself up and stretches. His bruises ache but they are healing. Alright, a new day, time to see what he can do.
He goes to the window. Now the sun is up he can see it overlooks a forest running down the mountainside. The trees that spring up are dark-needled conifers if his xenobotany is still up to scratch. They extend until they haze with distance and low-lying cloud. The air is filled with sounds, chirps and hums and calls in the distance. As he looks out the window he sees dark specks flitting from branch to branch. Large insects maybe. He taps the clear panes with his knuckles. They seem stronger than glass; he doubts he could knock out a pane. Even if he could the thick iron framing, almost like bars, doesn’t give him enough room to crawl out.
Jon sighs and tries the door. To his surprise it is unlocked. He opens it. Beyond is a corridor of the same caramel stone, lit by wall sconces though, as he looks closer, it is electronic lights in each one not flaming torches. Jon steps out and as silent as a shadow there is a figure in black at his side.
They grab him by the arm and start to lead him down the corridors. There are other rooms here and there, all the doors closed and identical, but the figure seems to know where they are going. They are not Dami, they’re taller for one, but the black cloth of their uniform is so thickly draped Jon can’t tell if they’re male or female. There’s only a slit in the fabric to show their steely grey eyes and a flash of tan skin.
“Where are we going?” Jon immediately asks.
The figure in black is silent.
“Are you taking me to Dami-An?” Jon asks instead.
Again nothing but silence. Jon follows; it’s either that or be dragged. He’s already getting lost, he swears this place is a maze on purpose.
“Am I a prisoner or a guest?” He half-asks, half-mutters to himself.
The figure in black gives him a hard look.
“Oh…” Jon realizes. “Can you not talk? Is that it? You can’t talk?”
The figure in black pauses in front of a door and looks down at him.
“…Yes.” They say and push him into the room.
It’s a bathroom and Dami is shaving in front of a mirror. His black armor is neat but not entirely buckled as he sweeps the razor along the underside of his chin. His feet are bare.
“There you are.” He says. “I was wondering when you’d be up.”
There is a yelp from floor height. A small red fluffball is chewing at a boot. It’s large ears flicks and it turns towards the door, still gnawing on its prize. It growls at Jon, the tiny ineffectual growl of a puppy.
“No Goliath.” Dami says fondly as he pulls his boot out of the fluffball’s jaws. “Chewing shoes is a bad bat thing to do.” He sits on the edge of the bathtub to pull his boots on.
The red fluffball’s stubby tail waggles.
“Ree!” It chirps talkatively. “Reee-UNK!”
“I love you too.” Dami tells it.
It sneezes and sits, its tiny stub of a tail wagging, before with a deliberate prancing tread it wanders over to sniff at Jon.
“Hey there little guy.” Jon says as the fluffball crouches, flares its tiny wings, and leaps at his shoes. It gnaws ineffectually at the Kryptonian boots. Jon reaches down to pet it and the fluffball crouches with a growl. It sniffs at his hand briefly before letting him stroke it between the large ears. Its bright red fur is soft and fluffy. It nudges upwards against his hand. “Never figured you for a pet owner Dami.”
“What do you mean by that?” Dami asks with a completely straight face as Goliath rolls over on its back to get its belly scratched.
“Ree!” The fluffball chirps and wriggles on the ground. Its eyes squeeze closed and its mouth opens. Its tongue flops out.
“I mean…look at that!” Jon gestures to the scene. “He’s goddamn adorable. He’s hardly an intimidating pet Dami.”
On its back the fluffball catches sigh of a fold of cape hanging nearly. It stretches out one clawed paw towards it and bats at it, its mouth opening in a deliberate snap. It manages to catch the cape on its claw and tries to drag it towards its mouth. When that fails it rolls over the whole way to snap its jaws around the cape and drag it forwards towards Damian. It stands on its hind legs and puts its front paws against Damian’s legs.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Damian says as he picks up the fluffball. The red-furred creature happily curls up in his lap. “Goliath is a powerful beast of destruction.”
Jon gives him a look but either Dami is completely confident this is the truth or the fluffball is more dangerous than he thought.
“What do you want from me Dami?” He asks with a soft sigh.
Damian taps the razor on the edge of the sink. A fine fuzz of black stubble falls from the blade.
“Until yesterday we were alone enough for my only concern to be threats from this planet.” He says. “Now an alien ship has crash-landed on my planet. We barely survived the Great War, my people are not ready for a war with star beings.” He raises a hand to cut off Jon’s anticipated protest and Jon closes his mouth. “Now I know that you might not intend harm to humanity but that is little comfort. What if your people decide to invade anyway? What if they take offence to your capture and raze the planet to rescue you? What if now you’ve landed another less friendly alien race takes it as an opportunity to conquer? Can you promise me that won’t occur?”
Jon looks down, unable to meet Dami’s emerald eyes without feeling guilty.
“I will do my best to keep your planet safe.” He promises. “I’m a member of the Explorer’s League, I’m not supposed to interfere with the development of a native civilization.”
Dami snorts.
“How noble of you.” He says and Jon is sure he’s being sarcastic this time. He puts down the razor and sweeps a hand over his recently clean shaven chin. “But you are just one…man.”
He steeples his fingers.
“This is the deal; you will teach me, Star Mapper, all that I need to know. In exchange I will grant you certain freedoms, extending, perhaps, to a return to your home and your duties.”
A rush of relief sweeps over Jon; he can return to his ship, to his maps!
“What do you want to know?” He asks with the taste of promised freedom sweet on his tongue.
Dami grins.
“Everything.” He says and stands, holding the red fluffball cradled in his arms. He flexes, and does up his armor, once again looking battle ready. “Let’s start with the basics. Make me a map Star Mapper. Show me where we stand.”
Dami clicks his tongue in a wordless order and one of the people dressed in black, shadows he had called them, rushes forwards and hands Jon a bundle.
Jon unwraps it; a flat sheet of some kind of dark plant tissue, perhaps a soft tree bark, and a stick of crumbly white rock. Primitive tools, barely better than those used by Kryptonian’s cave-dwelling ancestors. Something of his distaste at the simple tools must have shown in his face because Dami smirks.
He sweeps past the Kryptonian, apparently unconcerned by anything he might do, and Jon realizes that he’s been given these tools specifically because it would be really hard to kill someone with them. The crumbly white rock was too brittle to be used to stab and the pressed plant sheet would be easily torn if he tried to use it to suffocate.
“Just show me the basics.” Dami orders. “You can have better tools when you’ve shown you can be trusted with them.”
The Master of Shadows steps into the corridor without a backwards look at his prisoner, but the shadows guarding him step in to make it clear Jon’s choices are to follow willingly or be dragged.
Jon finds himself falling into line half a step behind Dami to avoid the bodyguards. The red fluffball wriggles out of his master’s hands to trot as his heels. Goliath mostly looks ahead purposely and licks its chops, but occasionally looks behind itself to check that Jon is still following. Its nub of a tail waggle happily as it walks at his master’s side.
Jon is forced to one side to avoid both the grimly silent bodyguards and stepping on the red fluffball by accident. With his arms full of the pressed plant scroll he feels more like some hired scribe than a prisoner about to be interrogated. In fact he’s reminded a lot more of being a Cadet following after a Captain as part of his training, though he’d been holding a Datapad then, rather than a roll of dead tree. Dami had the military bearing of a general, though Jon isn’t sure what military he’s part of or how their ranks work.
In his head he is already composing a report on the indigenous people. Unless he was greatly mistaken about the nature of their clothing there weren’t any biological caste separations; at least superficially Dami and the guards who had first captured him looked the same.
There were many different theories on why so many intelligent races resembled Kryptonians, from those that claimed it was proof of their status as the superior lifeform that all others were naturally derivatives of their inherent supremacy, to those moderates that claimed it was simply that the explorers were merely most successful in identifying the civilizations most like their own and that stranger things lurked beyond the barrier of the unknown. Of the races Jon had personally encountered only the Martians had been as close and that race of telepathic shapeshifters often shaped themselves to best influence those they were talking to.
Jon hadn’t made Xenobiology his major but you didn’t train as a Star Mapper without picking things up; was it down to parallel evolutionary pressures or, perhaps more interestingly, some common ancestor seeding worlds with life in a specific form? He can’t wait to find out.
“Here.” Dami stops in front of a door that looks no different to any of the others and Jon has to stop too to avoid walking into him.
There’s a brief flutter of movement from the attendant shadows as hidden weapons are readied, then slipped back into sheathes.
Damian pushes open the door.
The room beyond is bare of anything but a table and two chairs, an interrogation room but at least his hands aren’t cuffed this time. In one corner another shadow inclines their head in a silent, respectful greeting.
Goliath pricks up its large ears, immediately trotting up to the black-wrapped figure and rubbing itself against their legs with tiny chirps. The black-wrapped figure leans down and pats the red fluffball between its large ears. Goliath’s eyes slide closed and its little pink tongue sticks out of the corner of its mouth. The black-wrapped figure places a clay bowl filled with fish on the floor.
“Ree!” The red fluffball chirps, its ears prick up and it pounces on the bowl before taking an eager mouthful of the fish. Its large ears twitch and its tiny wings flutter happily as it swallows.
“I want information on all extraterrestrial sentients that might pose a threat to Earth.” Damian says bluntly as he takes a seat and imperiously gestures for Jon to take the other seat.
Internally Jon sighs.
“That would take too long.” He says and Dami’s eyes narrow. “It’s a big universe Dami, and I haven’t seen all of it!”
“Unacceptable.” Dami says bluntly.
“Look, let me give you an example, this planet, it’s a diverse bio-sphere. How many species on it could possibly be a threat to me?” Jon asks.
“Right now? The one in the room with you.” Dami replies with a cold threat.
“Exactly!” Jon’s genuine enthusiasm at the answer has Dami raising an eyebrow.
He grabs the crumbly rock and spreads out the plant-sheet, adding a dot in white to the center of the sheet.
“So if this is you,” he adds more dots, including a much larger white one. "and this is your planetary system, then these are the civilizations ‘in the room’ with you.”
Jon lets the scientist’s desire to share information take over as he draws a rough map on the dark plant matter.
It hurts to admit but…the Golden Age of Exploration was over.
Jon had been raised on the stories of the heroic space explorers who had carried the banner and the pride of their planet to distant worlds, hunting adventure and wonders of faraway stars, back in the days when new knowledge of the universe had been the most valuable thing to the Kryptonian people.
Since he was a child he had dreamed of being one of them. Now he had to admit they were the last of the Star Mappers.
Discovering new worlds was no longer considered worth the cost of outfitting ships for the expedition, it was considered an inefficient waste of resources.
He’d actually been ordered to return to Krypton but he and the other remaining explorers (and there were so few of them left now) had decided to ignore that order until they had completed their maps, for the good of Krypton’s future.
No-one would remember them as heroes, there would be no more children looking at the stars at night and swearing that one day they would visit them all like he did, but maybe in the future when Kryptonians were allowed to dream again, they would read his maps and know where he had been and what he had seen there…It was a frail flickering flame of a dream but it was all had to hold onto on the long nights away from home. Sometimes the homesickness grew so deep it was a physical pain.
Kryptonians had forgotten how to dream, how they had once looked on the sky with hope and wonder in their eyes. He was an outlaw, allowed freedom only because the cost of dragging him back was higher than his worth in the eyes of the Kryptonian people. It had been years since anyone had paid as much attention to him as Dami was.
Goliath determinedly pads its way across the floor and sits at Jon’s feet. The red fluffball paws at his leg until Jon turns and looks down at it. With great care the red fluffball leans forwards and spits a mouthful of half-chewed fish onto his boot.
“Ree?” Goliath asks, looking back up at him and tilting its head to the side with one ear flopping over.
Dami snorts.
“Goliath is right; it is time to eat.” He says.
“…Do you have anything I can eat?” Jon asks curiously. The scanner that would have told him the chemical makeup of the alien food was still on the scouting ship.
“I can guarantee nutritious, not palatable.” Dami says dismissively. “We could only study your blood so far before it decayed to uselessness.”
“When did you get my blood?” Jon asks in surprise.
Dami taps him on the wrist, when Jon looks closer there is a tiny dot of red there that he hadn’t even noticed.
“While you were sleeping.” He says.
“You stole my blood?” Jon says incredulously.
“Don’t be melodramatic.” Dami scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“Isn’t that just the Swamp Toad calling the Nightwing ugly?” Jon mutters under his breath. “That’s still weird here, right?” he asks the figure in black. There’s a silent amusement reflected in their eyes but no answer.
“It’s merely prudent.” Dami snorts. “I choose to be cautious and alive.”
He nods at the figure in black and they gather up the rough map he’s drawn.
“Come, alien.” Dami orders as he stands.
“Would it kill you to be polite?” Jon says before he remembers he’s a prisoner.
“It might.” Dami says solemnly and his eyes narrow when Jon laughs at him. “I must be seen to be bargaining from a position of strength.” He tries to justify himself but it doesn’t stop Jon laughing. He throws up his hands in despair. “Does your culture have no concept of respecting your betters?”
“Never been much good at that.” Jon replies with a grin.
“Tiresome across two worlds then.” Dami sighs. “How lamentable.”
Jon tries to put an arm around his shoulder and Dami’s hand darts out quick as lightning to grip his wrist and twist it until the bones grind together.
“Don’t do that.” He says, somewhat unnecessarily.
Goliath snorts as they stand and sniffs briefly at the lumps of half-chewed fish for a moment before scooping them back into its mouth before they leave. Jon bends down to give him a pat on the head as he follows.
The red-furred little creature reminds him of Krypto. Jon hopes Dami lets him see his pet before the Kryptonian hound grows too lonely without him. He’d often gone on scouting missions but the longer they went the more anxious his precious pet got when he returned to the ship. He’s sure the dog is worried about him, alone on an alien planet, but he can’t take Krypto with him until he’s sure it’s safe for dogs.
The figure in black leaves in the opposite direction from them with the rough map (as much of a map as he can make using a 2-D representation anyway). The other black-wrapped Shadows press in behind them again. Jon can’t tell if they’ve been waiting all this time or if they’re a new escort. Their uniform was loose enough that they all look alike. Jon supposes that is the point. The shadows were as hard to distinguish between as the layout was hard to memorize; it meant invading this place would be harder. Jon’s already hopelessly lost, without an escort he’d be easy to take out. It’s a good reason not to try sneaking off on his own. Even the guards with them look like they might skewer him if he slips up.
When they enter the dining hall silence falls in ripples like a stone has been dropped in a pond, each black-wrapped shadow turning their head towards him as the conversations in the hall cut out mid-word. Steam curls from the cooling dishes in large communal bowls and bites of food are held halfway to mouths. As soon as he is noticed there’s a subtle shift in every observer, from at ease to an army ready to fight at the faintest signal.
In his navy-blue pilot-suit Jon feels he stands out as the only speck of color in this sepia-toned place. His throat dries up and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. There’s easily a legion’s worth of shadows here, a complete unit in any army, and as much as a threateningly wiggled toe could have him killed before he knew what hit him.
Goliath twitches one ear and starts to walk with a prancing tread like a dressage horse, its tail and head both held high. It clearly thinks all this attention is for it. There’s another smaller ripple of silent amusement at this, the Shadows being used to their master’s pet by now. A fraction of a nod from Dami has them all relaxing again, food being shared across the tables, conversations restarting but in guarded tones. Either his translator had just broken, or the conversations had slipped into code.
Jon feels a glimmer of amusement that they consider him worth the effort. He’d been snatched up less than a solar cycle from landing, he couldn’t have made any allies worth betraying them to. He didn’t even know what they called the local landmass, let alone anything of strategic value.
The hall is filled with massive long tables of utilitarian design, with large bowls and plates of food set in the center for everyone within reach to eat from. There was enough variety in the food that Jon’s sure one Shadow is haggling with another for a dish out of reach and offering a trade for something further down the table.
The looks they give Dami are more than just respect due a superior officer, it’s the kind of awe that goes beyond mere respect into worship. Maybe they wouldn’t call it quite that but it was clear the Shadows view their leader as some kind of god. Dami ignores their worshiping looks, or perhaps he is merely used to it. Something for further study, if he survives that long.
One of the things he had learned from his travels that he was always going to be an outsider. That meant there was no reason to try and mimic the natives closely to avoid giving offence, more often it was seen as an attempt to conceal himself.
Jon isn’t sure what he’s expecting as he’s directed to take a seat. A throne maybe, or an altar, or just an officer’s table but, though they’re being seated at the head of it, Dami’s sitting a table like everyone else. The dishes don’t even look richer or more sumptuous. There’s something symbolic there, the leader eating with the rest of his subjects, sharing their table and their food.
The Shadows escorting them throw a brief suspicious look at him before they shed their wrappings enough to eat. Jon was relieved to see at last that there were faces under the dark cloth. He’d begun to think it might be some sort of cocoon to be shed during metamorphosis, but they’re eating in the way he’s used to.
Jon’s stomach twists as he sits. It all smells amazing, unfamiliar but still like food. Rao, he’s eaten worse on worse planets. He’d take the risk that Dami was right about the food being edible, he did steal his blood to find out after all.
“If I stop responding take me to the ship.” He says and reaches for something that looks like a bread. No-one puts something sharp through his hand, so it looks like he’s allowed to eat. He feels a pressure being put on his leg.
“Ree?” Goliath asks, resting its forelegs on his lap as it looks up at him with its yellow eyes wide and ears dramatically drooped.
“You have just been fed you greedy beast!” Damian scolds it with a smile.
"Sorry Bud, the puppy-dog eyes don't work on me." Jon tells the red fluffball but leans down and gives it a pat on the head. Goliath seems to accept this as the tiny beast nuzzles up against his hand.
The way things are going within a solar revolution he’ll either be dead and dissected or free. At this point he honestly can’t tell which it would be. He might as well start compiling his report.