Jim stopped at the sight of the gaggletack. He had forgotten it was in his old room. With the Janus Order gone and changelings more or less stuck in troll form, the artifact had long since lost its significance. Still…
Jim leaned forward to pull it out of his shelf.
The moment his hand touched the cold iron it felt like he had been struck by lightning. Jim snarled in pain but his hand stayed closed around the gaggletack. A burning pins and needles sensation spread across his body like a million tiny ants and then, as quickly as it had started, it was gone.
Jim gasped for breath, trying to calm his racing pulse, and jerked his hand back. He overbalanced and fell down. Groaning, he reached up to rub at his head.
He froze.
His hand wasn't blue.
For a long moment he just stared at the appendage. Hesitantly he waved it in front of his face. He looked at his right hand and noted that it was also strangely human looking, but still missing the pinky. He reached up to feel his face. His tusks were gone, his skin no longer felt like stone. Leather maybe, but definitely not stone.
He staggered to his feet and bolted down the hall to the bathroom.
Gasping for breath Jim stared at himself in the mirror. The face staring back almost looked human. Almost.
At first glance he looked like the man might have grown into had he not become a troll, but the more he looked the more differences he picked out.
The nose was human enough, but then it had always been, even in troll form. His ears were slightly pointed, elflike. He reached up to touch one and it flicked reflexively under his finger. He pulled his hand back.
He bared his teeth and noted that while they nowhere near what they had been before he definitely still had fangs.
He ran his hand through his hair and found tiny little nubs where his horns usually were.
A ray of sunlight fell though the bathroom window and hit his hand. Jim yelped and pulled it away, then stilled. That hadn't hurt. Slowly, shaking from hope and fear, he placed his hand back under the beam of sunlight. Nothing happened. It just felt warm. Jim's eyes widened.
He spun around and leapt down the stairs. Unused to the sudden change in his body, he overbalanced and landed in a heap. He was up again in a second and sprinting for the door. He flung the back door open, hesitated a moment, and stepped into the soft evening sunlight.
For the first time in five years it didn't burn. Instead the warmth soaked into his skin, gentle and welcoming. Jim sniffed and realized his eyes were wet. He didn't bother to wipe them as he just stood in the sun, tears streaming down his face. He had missed this so much.
How was this possible?
One quick gyre trip later, Jim was back in troll form and sprinting through Jersey Trollmarket with the wrapped gaggletack secure in his bag. The inhabitants of the market stared at him in puzzlement as he passed but quickly moved out of the way. He didn't stop until he reached the cave at the far end of Trollmarket. There, at the end of a long maze of tunnels, Merlin had created his dwelling.
Jim halted before the door and rapped twice. There was a muffled answer from within so he entered.
"Merlin!"
The old wizard looked up from his workbench with a disgruntled expression.
"I thought I said to come back later…"
"Oh… I couldn't understand you," Jim paused for a moment then shrugged.
It wasn't like he was going to catch Merlin in a better mood later. Anyway this was too important to wait.
"Watch."
He reached into his bag and pulled out the gaggletack. Steeling himself, he unwrapped a corner of it and touched it to his bare skin. The sensation was just as painful as the first few times, but he didn't care.
Once it was over, he looked at Merlin and found the wizard looking at him with a pensive expression.
"So it did work."
Jim blinked and then felt a wave of annoyance wash over him at the wizard's nonchalance.
"You did know I could shift," He said, tone of voice accusatory.
He had wondered. That was why he had come here first.
"Why didn't you tell me? It would have been really useful to know this earlier."
Like when they were leading a whole market of trolls across the country and had only Claire and Merlin to scout for them during the daytime.
"I wasn't sure it would work, so I didn't want to get your hopes up," The wizard said with a huff. "Besides you needed time to adjust to your new form. The bond wouldn't have been stable if you just started shifting willy-nilly from the start."
Jim froze.
"What bond?"
Merlin grimaced and turned back to his workbench. He began meticulously putting the ingredients he had been working with back into their containers.
"What bond?" Jim repeated, there was the slightest hint of a snarl in his voice.
"That's unimportant," Merlin said, still ignoring him. "Forget that I mentioned it."
"Merlin."
The wizard sighed.
"Are you sure you want to know. Ignorance is bliss as they say."
Jim growled low and dangerous.
"Just tell me."
"Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you…"
Merlin set the last of the vials back onto the shelves and then turned to face him.
"Your bond with your familiar."
Jim's blood went cold.
"My familiar," He repeated tonelessly.
"Of course," Merlin said. His voice switched to the tone he used when he was lecturing one of them about magic. "In order to give a creature the ability to transform into two different forms it needs something to stabilize one. Polymorphs are the only exception to this, of course, but they can only hold a borrowed form for a short period of time before they have to return to their true form or that of their familiar."
There was a ringing sound in Jim's ears.
"Additionally pulling a large scale stable transformation like yours is nowhere near as simple as you think it is. The magic needs something to pattern your internal organs and other important systems off of. If they had remained human you would have died within the first couple days."
Jim drew in a slow breath and tried to steady his hands.
"Couldn't the changeling thighbone have done that?"
Merlin gave a derisive snort.
"Of course not. That was to pattern the shifting magic from. Given enough time I could have created the necessary spell from scratch, but time was something we were short on."
Jim's heart was hammering in his chest so hard that it was almost painful.
"What… Where did you get the familiar?"
"I snuck into Trollmarket," Merlin said casually. "There were quite a few whelps that were left behind during your hasty evacuation. They were unharmed as it would have been pointless for Gunmar to turn them into his mindless slaves. Doubtless he meant to keep them to train up as the next generation of Gum-Gums. It was a simple matter to sneak one of them out… even without magic."
Jim clamped down on the urge to ask why he hadn't rescued the other whelps or retrieved the staff. He didn't want to know the answer.
"Where is it?"
"Where is what," Merlin asked as if he didn't already know.
"My familiar," Jim said carefully keeping his voice level. "Where are you keeping them? The Darklands are no longer an option."
"That is unimportant. The whelp is in an enchanted sleep, so you need not worry about its health or wellbeing. The less people that know of its location the better."
"Unimport… Unimportant!? What about their family?"
"Their family is most likely dead, given that they were left in trollmarket, so you have no reason to worry about anyone missing them."
"That's not the point," Jim snarled. "Tell me where they are."
"No," Merlin said, his voice perfectly level. "If you were to break the spell on them you would lose your ability to shift and would be stuck in this form. You must have both to be the Trollhunter the world needs you to be."
Jim's breaths were rough in his throat. The threat of a snarl hanging on each inhale and exhale.
"Tell. Me. Where. They. Are." He repeated slowly.
Merlin sighed.
"See this is why I didn't want to tell you. Your intentions are good, but you are still too guided by your emotions to make a rational decision about this right now."
A sensation similar to the gaggletack but far less painful washed through Jim and he found himself a full foot taller.
"Where are they, dammit?!" Jim roared, taking a step toward Merlin.
"Clearly you need some time to calm down," Merlin said, still infuriatingly unruffled.
"Calm… Don't you dare tell me to calm down!"
Jim took another step forward and the wizard grabbed his staff.
"Merlin…"
"I'll be back, once you've had some time to process this," Merlin said as his staff began to glow green.
Jim lunged forward, but even with his enhanced speed he wasn't fast enough. The wizard was simply gone.
Jim roared and punched the wall hard enough to crack it. How dare he? His claws tore through the grain of the table as he gave vent to his rage. All that talk about stopping Morgana and he goes and does the same thing she did. The table cracked in half. He didn't even tell Jim about this part, he hadn't given him a choice.
With a final roar Jim collapsed to the floor. He had wanted to be able to walk in daylight again. To be able to enjoy human food with his family. But even more than that he had wanted to be able to protect them. But not like this.
Distantly he heard footsteps approaching. Blinky, Claire and Toby's worried voices drifted to him. He clamped his hands over his ears. What was he supposed to tell his family?
Tears started to trickle down his face as he buried his head in his arms.
He had finally been able to accept his new form, to move forward. He had been happy. And then…
Jim's breathing hitched and a soft whine escaped his mouth.
He didn't want this.
Author Notes:
I heard y'all wanted Jim to be able to walk in the sun again, so I took it upon myself to fulfill your wish.
(I got the idea for the title of this from a post on tumblr. Unfortunately I cannot find that post. Kudos if you can figure out reason for the title.)