priorcommitment | the shadows kept me hidden

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jack harkness

the shadows kept me hidden

There had been a part of Ishiah which suspected, when a large group of people had suddenly gone missing from the island, that all of them would manage to return relatively unscathed. It seemed to be the modus operandi of the island, to snatch people and put them into uncomfortable situations, but in the end never to be a direct and concerted cause of death. Ishiah had to wonder what the reason was behind it, if indeed there was any reason at all, and the peri thus spent a great deal of time simply sitting in the hut and pondering over the possibilities. Perhaps the island was a sort of limbo, a nexus of an afterlife, one that went beyond even the Heavens he was personally familiar with. Perhaps it was the work of a strong and sentient being. Perhaps still it was random, a tear in the fabric of reality through which a great deal of people seeped and came together.

Perhaps.

In the end, what he had determined was that no matter what the island was, he could not count on the place to stay safe. Hauling his sword from where he usually kept it stashed under the far side of the bed, the peri sheathed the weapon and made his way over to Jack's hut. The dinosaurs were a threat that needed to be overcome for one reason or another— either they were hiding something, or they simply posed a danger to the island residents.

Sharply, he knocked on Jack's door, hoping to find help, whether in the form of a weapon or a person to stay by his side as he trekked through the jungle.

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"Oh. Interesting," Jack replied, not sure what else to say about it. Angels, demons, vampires, things of legend. He was on much more solid ground when it came to aliens or discussing temporal or dimensional theory as it applied to the island. He wasn't quite sure what to say about Ishiah being a kind of angel.

"Do you...mind being human now? I know some beings have a problem with it when they find themselves on the island," he continued lightly, hoping it wasn't one of those questions that would get a dodgy answer. He was just curious.

Not many were sure exactly how to respond to a peri having been turned human, and Ishiah couldn't fault them for it— there were certain differences that were impossible to skate over through willpower alone, and many of them resulted from the fact that peri's minds were simply crafted differently. Ishiah didn't care to go into the intricate details of how he felt, simply because more likely than not, it was impossible for anyone to feel more than groping sympathy.

"There are things I miss about being a peri," Ishiah replied evenly. "But being human is not an insurmountable hurdle. Given a choice, I would rather be what I once was, but dwelling on that isn't likely to cause the physiological changes to revert."

"Wouldn't we all," Jack said under his breath as he sauntered along. His hips rolled with the easy gait and carried the pair deeper into the jungle. Past the prison, past the outpost, the jungle grew dense and dark around them. Jack stopped long enough to breathe it in.

"When we get in there we'll head for the fresh water. You'll see the most dinosaurs there. They all have to drink eventually."

His sharp ears did not miss the words which slipped from Jack's mouth, a remark that made Ishiah's eyes narrow with questions immediately lining up in his mind, although it didn't seem smart to bring any of it up too early. Or, even, when the two of them were heading into territory that contained predators up to several dozen times their size.

"You know where the fresh water is?" Ishiah asked, wishing that there was some type of map for the two of them to peruse— but then again, wasn't that the purpose of heading into the territory in the first place?

"Yeah, it's about halfway in on the north face of the mountain. Well, it's not really a mountain by the time you get to that end of the island," Jack chuckled. "I like it there. It's how all the island was when I first got here. We've come a long way from the days when most of us slept in lean-to's near the beach. There's so many huts now that...well, it's not like it used to be."

He smiled as he told Ishiah that. He loved his island home and everything he had here, but it had been a long journey. Four years ago he'd never have believed he'd have a house, pets, and a husband. Hell, he was surprised sometimes that he was even alive.

Regarding Jack carefully, Ishiah couldn't help but think that this man was one he was far from understanding, the optimism with which he seemed to face almost every situation simply beyond the more practical peri. He tried to think back on times long ago that the world had moved away from, away from towering skyscrapers and to sprawling castles, to wooden cabins and clay huts, even to the latent memories of Heaven.

He didn't particularly care to return to any of that, aside from the most recent place he had called his home. Tabula Rasa had yet to join that long line of locations, had yet to become a place he expected to spend the rest of his life. Thus, while Ishiah knew nostalgia, it didn't seem to be quite the same type as Jack displayed, and so all he could do was nod in general understanding.

"I've read the records, although I must confess that I appreciate having arrived after the residents have already constructed an order."

"Reading the records doesn't give you that good of an idea of what it was like. I'm sure they catalog the weird things that have gone on, though. The times we turned into the opposite sex or kids or when our fears turned real," Jack said. He knew Dale and the rest of the council kept fantastic records. But, he thought, no matter how great the records of arrivals and disappearances and strange occurrences were, they couldn't paint a real picture of what life was like on the island.

"They do have a decent record of the events that were out of the ordinary, yes," Ishiah confirmed as the two of them wove further out on the island, meandering through trees that were growing in number. "I found the arrival of the second island to be quite interesting; in the end, I suppose what I'm hoping for is to find answers of some sort that might have gone undiscovered, to comb through the islands, both of them, for any hints of what might have brought us here. Or why we are here."

Everything felt like it was comprised of blanks, shadows, and even if Ishiah could find no solution, just the slightest more knowledge would have been far better than nothing at all.

"Good luck with that. I don't think anyone ever figured out why they were where they were before here. Why we get brought here is just another mystery. Maybe it's to learn something we just couldn't in our own dimension," Jack shrugged.

"I used to think it was a punishment. Like prison. I used to hate it here. Being confined. I lived to travel. I think what I've learned is how to face up to things and not run away when things get tough."

Ishiah was silent on that particular matter, a heavy sort of silence and contemplation given to the question that he had spent all of his time on the island thinking about. Was it punishment? Some type of Purgatory where lost souls went? But Ishiah, a peri, had no reason to be placed in such a place— he had never lost his faith in God, even if Ishiah had decided to leave the woodwork for some time, a decision made with Heaven's consent. It was possible that this was a new order, or that Ishiah had somehow died to pass over to a land like this one, but it was also not paradise, and the fact that Robin had tagged along— one of Her creatures, not His, and bound to pass through a different afterlife altogether— made it unlikely.

So he kept silent until the two of them reached the dinosaur territory, largely because he had nothing else to say on the matter, with almost nothing concrete to hold.

Almost as soon as they passed the electronic barrier, Jack was pointing. Nearby was a herd of nearly a dozen dinosaurs peacefully eating their way through the jungle vegetation. On each of them was a collar with a sort of transmitter on it.

Jack smiled at Ishiah.

"Aren't the cool?" he asked, though he still pulled out the device Stark had built for the ITF to control the collars. It was like a portable fence to keep themunder control-- though he didn't do anything to the peaceful diners.

Although Ishiah had been alive during the age of dinosaurs, he had simply not had felt any sort of compulsion to examine them at length. Ishiah was fashioned as an angel meant to purge the world of evil and its influences, and while that had been his job, dinosaurs were simply part of a scenery he was not made to appreciate. Now, however, he could, the faintest of smiles passing over his face before he turned back to Jack with a nod.

"They are rather majestic, yes," he agreed, although his eyes soon moved to scouring the area for anything of interest, sorrowfully coming against nothing out of the ordinary.

"Keep your eyes open. The deeper we go in, the more likely we'll meet some that aren't so majestic as they are deadly," Jack told him, striking out again, giving the herd a wide berth. He obviously had plenty of experience with this. Jack moved with a predatory grace and confidence himself as he made his way through the jungle.

Ishiah's eyes grew darker with the slash of straight brows as he held his gaze constant, penetrating through the shadows of the foliage and eying every sudden movement in their vicinity. But before they went much further, he peered over in Jack's direction; he had deferred to the other man's judgment, trusting him to be able to work his way around the jungle, but he also wanted to be in on where exactly Jack was planning on taking him.

"Do you have a plan?" he asked, "Or are we simply combing through the area?"

"No, no real plan. It's not the biggest area so I figured we'd go toward water and see what we see. If we're lucky we won't come across the t-rex, but there's plenty of other dangerous dinosaurs in here. I'm not sure how useful your sword will be against them, but we might find out," Jack replied. He'd rather not hurt the things at all, but sometimes it was unavoidable. They were, after all, just animals and some of them could be vicious.

"In that case, let us keep to an area that we can clearly chart on a map by memory," Ishiah concluded as the two of them continued to move through brush. Usually, it was wise to avoid stating the obvious too many times, but that lesson was one hard to learn when what came naturally to the peri didn't always align with thought processes of people. "I doubt that we can carefully comb through the entirety of the region by nightfall, and it would be unwise to camp in the area for the evening, but I would eventually like to have scoured the entire area. And if my sword is not enough, you have brought along a number of weapons— all of which I am also capable of using, I hope you realize."

"With a little luck I don't think we'll need to use anything," Jack said. "But you never know."

Jack followed a well trod path through the jungle, keeping his attention focused ahead of them. He pointed out monkeys and snakes and small dinosaurs that were lithe little knee high creatures.

"They bite," he said. "But they're scavengers, not predators. Just...don't try to pet them."

Ishiah also kept himself intensely aware of his surroundings, turning his head strategically so that his sight, when including peripheral vision, stretched two-thirds of the way around him, with occasional glances over his shoulder to cover the back. Although he was familiar with most of the creatures Jack pointed out, he made sure to nod politely, never knowing if there would be a specimen from another reality, or one inherent to the island itself, that Ishiah would not be able to recognize.

When warned off petting them, however, Ishiah sought to reply to that directly, even if the remark had been meant as a joke. "I had no intention of petting them," he reassured his traveling partner in an even tone.

Jack shot a quizzical look at Isiah for a moment beofr ehe smiled and shook his head.

"You take things pretty seriously, don't you?" he asked. "I used to be like that. Being here kind of changed that. Other than work, I don't take much seriously. You can't. It's a good way to wind up hurt and disappointed."

"You take your relationship seriously," Ishiah noted plainly, examining the criticism as evenly as he could, in the way that the peri always had, in the way that he imagined he always would. "But yes, I respond to the face value of remarks, and compared to most, I suppose I would be considered serious. Old habits die hard. But as it's been this way for a couple of millennia already, I'm not too worried about the effects it may have on me in the future. I know the risks."

"Touche. I do take my marriage seriously...and that took a long time to get to," Jack replied. "I can't imagine being around for millenia, Ishiah. It's part of my future...I know that. Something happened to me back in the world and I can't die. I think I'm kind of grateful that's not the case here. Or if it is, I'm not testing it out just to find out."

"There is no need to try and test the theory out or to imagine what such a life might be like; I doubt anything too good would come of it," Ishiah exhaled softly, thinking on all that immortality brought the tricksters, the pucks in particular, letting them live to the point where they sought death out themselves. "It's simply that I have been this way long enough to know what does or doesn't pose a threat to my well-being. Risks and change are one thing, but I'm pretty sure I know where my habits and ingrained personality take me."

"And where's that?" Jack asked lightly. "Other than dino territory?"

He tromped along, making plenty of noise, but not so much that he couldn't hear. Ever vigilant, he may have joked with Ishiah, but he was keenly aware of everything around them. The trail they followed was well traveled and relatively clear. He still carried his machete raised and close, ready to use it if he needed to.

Noticing the wear of the earth under their feet and the lack of foliage, Ishiah could only assume that the trail they took was one which Jack had been down many times, and he wondered if that lowered the chance that they would find anything useful at all, aside from an updated knowledge of where certain animals took to.

"Forward," Ishiah finally replied, quiet but still cutting clear through the air. "It takes me forward and manages to yield progress even after so many years."

Jack parted his lips to speak, looking over his shoulder at Ishiah. But rather than speak, he froze. His eyes were locked on the jungle beyond the man and he found the will to move slowly. He reached for his device that Stark had made. He wasn't sure he could get it, though, and held the machete steady..

"Behind you," Jack said quietly and evenly. "We have a friend. The kind with teeth."

Ishiah's hand was on his sword before Jack even said a word, every movement of his slow but constant, smooth and practiced. The glint of a sword could easily rouse a more vicious species, however, and so he kept his eyes on Jack, and his ears closely attentive and aware of every last sound. How heavy the footsteps, how harsh the breathing.

"Should I turn to my sword?" Ishiah asked, voice hardly above a whisper.

"Wouldn't be a bad idea," Jack said, struggling to get the device only to have it slip out of his sweaty grip. It bounced to the ground, unharmed but out of reach.

"Actually, it'd be a great idea. I think there's just the one..."

Having all the confirmation he needed, Ishiah turned around with a flash of metal, eyes squinting to size up the beast before felling it with a particularly strong swing, a task none too difficult given the size of the creature, which did not exceed his own by much.

The problem being that there were two more flanking the dead body, hissing now in the wake of their slain companion.

Jack dropped to a knee to grab the device but one of the other dinosaurs began moving and he just didn't have time. It was much faster to swing the rifle up-- letting the machete fall-- and take aim. Well, not so much aim as reflexively point and fire. He hit the poor beast in the neck and while it didn't drop right away it was in little shape to attack.

Ishiah tugged the fallen blade out of the ground, not because he needed a pair in order to work on the third dinosaur, but instead because it always paid to be careful, just in case something happened. With both blades held in his hands, Ishiah bounded after the remaining dinosaur, enough practice that even his slower human pace had been accounted for in his mental and physical preparation. In little time, the third dinosaur was letting out a sharp cry as it fell to the ground, dead.

Jack fired another shot and put the wounded dinosaur out of its misery. Then he stood up and sighed softly.

"Too bad. I always feel bad having to kill them," he said.

"They're animals, the same as any of us, Jack," Ishiah pointed out, although he imagined that there was no need to. For his part, he stared down at his blade, knowing that the blood would harm the sword if allowed to stain too long, and took the softest portion of his shirt to wipe the weapon clean. A weapon well tended to was worth countless times more than a decent shirt.

"And unless all of them are brought down at once, I doubt that we've made much of a dent in their population."

"Yeah, and I have a feeling they get brought here the same way we do...maybe we're lucky we don't show up with collars on," Jack grinned. "Come on...the smell of blood will draw others. Unless you feel like slaughtering them all, we might as well get to the water."

"Dinosaurs and humans," Ishiah just had to marvel, mostly at how completely random it seemed, no strong connection between either of the species aside from the human fascination with a group of animals large, majestic, and completely before their time. "How absolutely arbitrary of the island. But yes, that sounds like the proper plan to me."

"Okay thenQ" Jack smiled. He held out hand for the machete and nodded down the path. "It's not far. Maybe another half mile."

And once they got there they may as well continue on to the beach, he thought. It would be faster to get home, taking the coast path than the route through the heart of the territory.

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the shadows kept me hidden

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