Warning: This story incorporates Kurt Vonnegut's rule 6:
6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
It is angstly-and is a nearly finished story I was playing with, so I decided to put it up, since it's a little different writing style than normal.
It was a week after Jim had returned Enrique that it happened. Draal was keeping watch over the Trollhunters mother. She was asleep, the house silent, Toby and Claire returned home when Draal heard it from the outside.
Draal…
He moved outside of the house, careful to keep from waking Barbara…
And there it was. The amulet of daylight was laying on the grass in front of him. The predawn light gleamed off of its metal, as it called for Draal again. Draal reached out, praying to the spirits of trollhunters past that it was just a phantasm.
But it was not.
What he had wanted, what he had almost killed the Trollhunter for… and as the armor formed around him, the only thought Draal had was, Oh Trollhunter. Oh Jim. I am so very sorry.
And then, he realized he had an even worse duty ahead. It was Saturday. Toby and Claire had decided to gather with Blinky to make plans to rescue Jim. He would have to tell them.
It was the longest walk in his life. He entered trollmarket, and around him, silence grew as trolls stopped and stared at him. Some knelt, an old, old gesture of both acceptance and sorrow. Jim had not been a troll. But as he continued to fight for them, that somehow made him even more accepted—for what was greater than a hero who fought for those not of his family?
And now, he was dead. His body never to be recovered.
Draal felt his pace slowing as he heard Blinky's enthusiastic words. Making plans that were no longer needed. But he forced himself to enter the chamber. Blinky, Claire, and Toby were looking over the table, facing away from him.
"You do not need to search for James Lake," Draal said quietly.
"Why, what do you me—" Blinky turned before the others and stopped, six eyes going wide. "Oh Merlin, no." He whispered. Claire and Toby turned a moment later, to see Draal wearing the armor of daylight.
"It came to me just before sunrise," Draal said.
"They just took it away, right?" Toby looks… Lost.
"No." Blinky closes his eyes. "Master Tobias, you know what it means if the Amulet chooses another."
'I—no, Jim can't—not after…" Toby starts to breath faster. "They used a magic spell, right? That's gotta be it." His voice starts scaling up. "Jim can't be dead—he has to go to school! He has to graduate and get a job and play video—he can't…" Toby's leg's start to give way, and suddenly Claire is helping him down to the ground.
As Toby melts down, Claire holding him, Draal stares at Claire, at how her face has gone fixed. Frozen. It is disturbing, to hear her voice, seemingly untouched by what has happened, calming Toby down.
It is very disturbing.
She remains calm even after Tobias has dissolved into near hysteria, Blinky finally forcing a calming potion between his lips. Blinky looks like he could use one as well.
"How can we tell Dr. Lake?" Claire asks. Her voice is…
Calm. Too calm. This isn't normal, Draal knows, but he doesn't know what is normal for a fleshbag in this case.
"I—" Blinky closes his eyes, puts his hand out, blindly touching AAARRRGGHh's corpse. "I have Jim's Vespa. I know one road he takes…"
Draal nods. The road with the deep gorge and rushing stream.
"She…" Claire pauses. "She'll know he died. She'll know he died quickly." She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes. It's the closest Claire has come to showing grief. "But she won't know what he did for us."
"No." Blinky said. "Would it"—his voice breaks—"help?"
Draal thinks they all know the answer to that.
"Do you need our help?" Claire softly says.
"No." Draal tells her, voice firm. "We'll do it—"
"I see the amulet has found another wielder." Vendel has come in, quietly.
"Yes. Early this morning."
"I am sorry for your loss," Vendel says to Claire and Toby. "Trollmarket is in his debt and he will be remembered."
Claire's hand clenches into a fist opens up, clenches again. Once, twice, three times. Then she looks at Vendel and Draal can't remember any time he'd seen those brown eyes so cold, so… emotionless. She shakes her head, and walks over to Toby.
"Toby, give me your hammer."
"But—but we nee…" Toby's voice is lost.
"No. We don't, not anymore." Claire takes out her staff, holding it with the hammer, then nods, and walks to Vendel. She holds them both out. "For you."
Vendel paused, staring at the weapons that Claire held. "Fair Claire," the ancient troll said. "You do not need to surrender your weapons. Queen Usurna doesn't even know of them."
"We were here because of Jim," Claire said, her eyes gleaming. "And because of Enrique. Jim is"—her voice breaks—"gone, and Enrique is home. Bular is gone, the bridge is destroyed. It's time for us to go home. Barbara will need"—she blinked her eyes several times—"we need some time." Vendel reached out and took the staff and hammer, and then, unexpectedly, gave the two children a deep bow.
"If you ever decide to return or visit, you will be welcome here."
"Thank you," Claire said. She holds hands with Toby who just looks lost. Toby puts his head against AAARRRGGHH's body, sniffling before he turns as Claire leads him out of the chamber, the three trolls following them.
"I hope they don't. Return here, I mean." Draal said softly, as the three watch the two figures walk up the pathway to the surface. At some point, Claire put her arm around Toby and they leaned into each other as if they were unable to stand up straight by themselves.
"I thought you had reconciled yourself." Vendel was surprised.
"I have. But they're whelps. James Lake helped saved us from Bular, but he was sacrificed for our salvation. Even had he survived, what life is that for a human wh-child?" Draal's eyes were thoughtful. "And they die so very quickly. A decade for us—barely a moment. For them…" The trollhunter shook his head. "Let them return home, seek what healing they can seek. Forget about us. They have given us enough, and we have taken enough from them."