Author's Note: Done as an application to join an Rping community on Deviantart. Don't know if I'm going to be taking this story down later—for now, I'm posting it to see what you all think, and if you can find any way to make it better.

This story takes place sometime when Seem still doesn't think very highly of Jak--In other words, sometime between the scenes "The Day Star Approaches" and "Veger Makes A Promise".

WHAM! The sound of the heavy metal door was almost tangible, causing the tall shelves inside to vibrate. Otherwise, the stone cave-like room was immobile.

Seem froze, a nondescript pen held poised above a clipboard-like object. Loud, infuriatingly familiar voices invaded the storeroom she had been carefully taking inventory of.

She didn't turn around. The impact of the heavy metal door slamming shut was still echoing around her head, and her eyes narrowed.

Daxter's voice hollered from across the room. "Well, look who's here! What are ya doin, paint face?" Seem's face darkened to a scowl.

"You did not just do that…" Her low, hoarse voice was as unwelcoming as always.

"Huh?"

She began striding towards the door, not glancing at either Jak or Daxter as she passed them. She tried the door. It was didn't open. It had been placed so securely in it's doorframe that it didn't even rattle. "This is the carelessness that will doom us all…" Seem all but hissed.

"What are you talking about?" Asked Jak.

"This door you just slammed, hero, locks from the outside. On it's own." She kneeled at the doorknob, examining it.

"WHAT? Stand aside, Monk boy, and let a professional do his work!" Daxter leapt from his perch on Jak's shoulder, pushing Seem out of the way, and looking at the doorknob first hand. He grabbed it with both hands, and tried it. The ottsel got less results than the priestess had, ending up picking himself off the ground. "Ungh! Jak—a little help here!"

Seem crossed her arms while Jak stepped foreword, testing his strength against the secure hinges. He examined the door, having learned a few tricks in Haven City before he had been exiled.

Not much later he was snarling at the door in frustration. The hinges were large, solid iron, and firmly rooted in the wall. The gap between the doorway and the wall was too thin for a card to fit through, the doorknob was wedged snugly in place, and there were no obvious weak points in the door.

He stepped back, readying to follow his next course of action: try to break the door down. For that would need Dark Jak. His eyes glinting darkly, his olive skin beginning to pale, he arched his hands like the claws they would become—And a raspy acid voice cut through the fog his mind was sinking into, shaking his concentration on the transformation.

"Your brute animal strength is no match against this door, dark one—it was built long before you and I came into living, and will last long after we perish."

Jak let the tide of dark eco ebb with a sinking sensation in his stomach. This wasn't good. They were stuck. He turned to the monk, while Daxter snapped, "WELL then, Rubber-tweeds, what do you suggest? We ask the door nicely that it open for us, and offer it cookies if it does?"

The monk glared icily while Jak smirked. Despite her annoyance, her tone was reasonable, and she made a few thoughtful hand-gestures. "I suggest that we wait until dawn, when a patrol will be sent around to re-light the torches. They will see the closed door, and—"

"DAWN? Monk boy, you expect us to wait until DAWN? You must be out of your thick-sculled head if you think THAT!"

Jak interrupted before she could find an answer. "Is there any other way out of here? A less used passage, maybe, or a window?"

A pause. "There are ventilation canals in the upper corners. They are no bigger than the size of your hand, Orange Lightning—you have no chance of fitting through them."

Jak frowned, resolute. "There has to be another way out…"

"By all means, find one, hero—but know now that you will find nothing."

Jak ignored her, starting at the wall on one side of the door, and running a hand along it as he walked. Seem watched him silently, making hand-signs to herself while she thought.

An hour or so later…

"I'm amazed, dark one—you have so much darkness in you, yet in the time you have spent searching, you have not once acted destructively." The priestess paused. "Aside from that, obviously." Seem threw a small glance at a wreckage of a bookcase Jak had accidentally tipped over while peering behind it. What was a normal, haven-city bookcase doing in the middle of the desert? When the hero had asked her, Seem hadn't replied.

Jak glanced at her from the wall he was re-examining. It was his third—or fourth, perhaps—time around the room, and he was still finding nothing

Seem was sitting down in a meditative position. If she hadn't had her eyes open and spoken to him, he would have assumed she was in a trance.

Daxter saw fit to assert his authority, however little it was. "LOOK, doom and gloom toots, I'd stop making witty comments at him if I were you, because if he gets pissed off, then HE goes 'GRRRR'. And if that's what HE does, you don't wanna know what I can do!"

Seem closed her eyes, not bothering to disguise a look of disgust on her palely painted face.

There was silence.

" Monk, I may have self control, but you're pushing it."

Seem opened one eye, watching Jak like a sort of cycloptic statue. "Neither darkness nor light will save you, in the end. Your shape makes no difference to who you are in death."

Jak scowled, shaking his head.

"So, Jak, How's it going—found anything yet?"

The human shook his head again.

Daxter fell to his knees, crawling dramatically around on the dusty stone floor. "We're gonna die in here… we're trapped… there's no way out, we're dead…" He moaned.

Without moving an inch, Seem somehow managed to catch his gaze and glare distastefully. "You may be of the same as our makers, Orange Lightning, but you are obviously not of their wit. This is a food-storage room. We will not starve. We would not starve if this room were empty, either—it is for one night only."

"If this is a storage room, what were you doing in here?" Jak asked, curious in spite of the situation.

"I was asked to take inventory while searching for a particular item. I found it was not in here, but I continued with my other task regardless. What were you doing?"

Jak muttered something, and Seem smirked at what she heard.

"Indeed, it is quite easy to loose one's self if new to these catacombs…"

Jak turned away, starting to examine the shelves instead.

Perhaps there was a useful tool in the stock.

Another few hours later…

"What've we got?" Daxter crowed, scuttling up onto his partner's shoulder to look down at it all.

Jak grinned slightly, surveying their work.

They had found and put in a huddle in the middle of the room a mallet, a small saw, several bottles of an alcoholic drink (it was unlabeled, but obviously either wine or beer), and a dusty deck of cards.

"Hey, are we allowed to take these?" At the sound of Jak's voice, Seem opened her eyes. She looked from him, to the wine, to him, and shut her eyes again.

"…Uh, Okay—I'll take that as a yes…"

Seem ignored him. She didn't care in the least that they were opening a bottle, and shuffling the cards, apparently getting ready to play a game called 'poker'. How did one play poker, anyway?

However one played it, it was obvious to even her that the little one was considerably un-skilled at it. If they had been playing with money (which the ottsel had suggested before they started), the ottsel would have quickly been rendered credit-less.

"Hey, monk boy! Care to try your hand at this game?" Daxter suggested slyly. If anything, he wanted to see someone loose worse than he had—it might cheer him up.

"Monks do not engage in such frivolity." Seem didn't move.

"Aah, Come oon! Your face isn't gonna crack if you live a little… then again, with all that face paint, it just might!"

Seem opened her eyes to glare at him. In a point in her favor, her face-paint didn't crack.

Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw Jak grin cockily at her, re-shuffling the cards.

"We have wine, we have cards, and we have long hours of torture and boredom…" Daxter went on.

Seem closed her eyes.

"If you play, he'll stop calling you 'monk-boy'." Jak added.

A few long moments of silence.

"How do you play?"

One can only imagine Jak's surprise and Daxter's horror, when they later find out exactly how good that priestess could be at gambling.