Previously: Toby, Claire, Mary, and Darci explore Trollmarket, and Draal moves into Jim's basement.
Content warning for this chapter: a very distressing prank goes awry and creates a real risk of death instead of an illusory one, although no one actually dies.
Seriously, the prank where AAARRRGGHH 'attacked' Jim was stressful enough for the Jim in the show, but for a Jim who's actually had to fight people he's cared about to the death before (in the Darklands) and knows way more about AAARRRGGHH's history than they know he knows? I couldn't see this going well.
On a less distressing note, a quick reminder that Jim still thinks of 'Not Enrique' as 'Enrique', and the name 'Not Enrique' has not been introduced to the story yet even though the character has.
"Wake up, wake up," Barbara crooned. "Don't want to sleep through your big day! And your big day begins with – Mom's Special Birthday Pancakes!"
The pancake stack had a screaming syrup face. "He looks excited," said Jim, blowing out the burning candle nose.
"I know you're not crazy about your birthday," said Barbara. "But sixteen is a big one. We should do something tonight."
"Mom." Jim put the breakfast tray on his desk and hugged her. "We don't have to –"
"Non-negotiable." Barbara kissed the top of his head. "You eat. Once you've had your fill, there's another surprise waiting for you downstairs."
Barbara had over-mixed the pancake batter, which was easy to do, since perfectly-mixed batter for light and fluffy pancakes was supposed to still be lumpy, therefore looked under-mixed. The result was a rubbery texture that deeply appealed to her Changeling son.
She also seemed to have heated the skillet too high, searing the outsides of the pancakes before the insides were fully cooked. There were slash lines where she must have cut them open with the spatula to see how the insides were doing. Each pancake was thoroughly cooked this year, at the cost of a few burnt spots.
Jim usually favoured human food over troll food, but Barbara's cooking really felt like the best of both worlds. He loved Mom's Special Birthday Pancakes, even if he didn't love the occasion.
For the first five years of his human cover, this particular date had meant nothing to him.
It wasn't his birthday. Or, maybe it was; it wasn't like he knew.
It wasn't the anniversary of the day he'd been swapped for Jay-Jay, either; that was in three months – and, based on the human reproductive cycle, was probably also the approximate anniversary of when Jay-Jay had been conceived, which was … awkward to think about.
This was the anniversary of the day James Lake Senior had abandoned Barbara and young Jim, leaving Barbara without her husband or her biological son, alone with a Changeling she felt obligated to comfort, to make this day special for so that her ex-husband would not permanently taint all association with it …
Jim shook his head to dislodge the bitter thoughts and took another bite of the bitter pancakes. Mom had used baking soda instead of baking powder again, and possibly mixed up the tablespoon and teaspoon.
If Draal was going to be their housemate, Jim should sneak some of Barbara's cooking down to the basement for Draal to try.
It was later than usual when Jim went to brush his teeth. When he spat on the mirror, Jay-Jay was getting cuddle time. A goblin had crawled into the crib and partially unswaddled the baby, to hold him close and protect the tiny human from suffering skin hunger. Jim cooed. He didn't usually see this part of the daily routine.
"Happy birthday, Jay-Jay."
He spat on the mirror a few more times to enjoy the cuteness. He wished idly – should've tried that on the birthday candle – he could check on other Familiars, too. Enrique had been partially his idea, so he felt partially responsible for the kid's wellbeing, and it would be nice to confirm he was settling in okay. Jim supposed he could ask Enrique at some point to show him the other Enrique, but that was kind of a weird and personal request.
He neatened his hair and took his tray downstairs. Barbara sprang up from the table.
"Wait! Wait right there! Let me get your present ready in the garage."
"The garage?"
There was absolutely no chance at all that she'd bought him a car, but Jim had expressed interest in Vespa scooters. She'd said 'no' at the time, but if she'd planned it as a surprise …
"I know you've wanted one of these for a while, and now that you're the big one-six, maybe it's time. I think you'll get a lot of mileage out of it."
He heard a motor. Jim ran into the garage.
"Did you seriously get me a –?"
"A Food Magic 3000! From those cooking shows you like." Barbara beamed. "It slices – it dices –"
"It's perfect." Jim half-hugged the food processor and put it on a shelf to hug his mother. "I knew you'd remember. I …" He picked up the Food Magic again. "I can't wait to cook you something with this. I've got to get this to the kitchen."
He couldn't find an unoccupied nook in the kitchen for future storage, so for the moment he left it sitting proudly on the counter and grabbed a dishcloth to make sure it wasn't dusty from the garage.
This present really was much more in character of his mom. You could hurt yourself with one, usually by dropping it on your foot, but every day Dr Lake saw multiple people at the hospital who'd been injured riding non-enclosed vehicles.
"JIM!" Toby let himself in and didn't bother shutting the door behind him. "Jim, you've gotta come quick, there's an emergency at –" He froze, realizing Barbara was there too. "At, the place. With the thing." Toby's eyes darted around as he backtracked. "Not even an emergency, actually – hey, is that a Food Magic?"
"3000," said Barbara. "I'll leave you boys to it. But Jim? Tonight? Celebration."
She went upstairs. Toby went on edge again.
"Seriously, we've got a DEFCON 1 situation in Trollmarket."
"What? How do you know?" Was this really Toby, or Otto trying to trick Jim into bringing him to Trollmarket? He could've just ordered Jim to bring him there and not risked potential witnesses of two Tobys.
"I – I just do! Come on!" He tried to physically pull Jim to the door. Jim went with him.
The Changeling was ninety-five-percent certain he was being led into some kind of trap, but if there really was an emergency, the Trollhunter couldn't just ignore it.
No, please, by Fair Morgana, no.
It was one of Jim's worst nightmares come to life – General AAARRRGGHH on a rampage. His eyes hadn't changed colour and his carvings weren't glowing, like in the stories, but his roars were powerful enough to shake the cavern. The only good surprise was that no one seemed to have been killed yet.
"It's too late, Master Jim! AAARRRGGHH has lost his mind! Save yourself!"
AAARRRGGHH almost grabbed him. If it had been a few weeks ago, Jim would not have dodged in time. His new training regimen was really paying off.
"Toby, run. Get to the surface and stay in the sunlight!"
I did not risk Bular's temper just to see you eaten by AAARRRGGHH instead.
Jim ran around the attacking troll and jumped onto his back.
I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die.
AAARRRGGHH twisted and reached. Fingers bigger around than Jim's legs barely missed him.
Please don't do that tuck-and-roll thing Draal can do.
Jim climbed AAARRRGGHH's fur and – please let this work, I don't wanna die – caught his scruff, and grabbed, and pulled.
Like cats, trolls had loose skin behind their necks and between their shoulder blades. Jim had seen adults around Trollmarket scruffing their whelps and depositing them on their parents' shoulders. He suspected the whelps held onto their parents' scruffs while being carried about.
His own experience with scruffing was as a dirty fighting trick, since the troll scruffed instinctively relaxed – if only for a second before trying to tear their opponent's hand off. He had no idea if it would work the same on AAARRRGGHH as it did on Changelings, but if Jim could snap AAARRRGGHH out of this without anyone actually dying –
AAARRRGGHH collapsed.
"Wha-what?" Tobias, who had not run, gasped. "What did you do to him? Was that a pressure point thing?"
"AAARRRGGHH!" Blinky recklessly ran up to him and gently patted his massive grey face. "AAARRRGGHH, are you alright?"
"Didn't expect that," AAARRRGGHH rumbled. Jim's relief – AAARRRGGHH was coherent, at least aware enough to speak again – was almost enough to deactivate his armour, before he felt it start to fade away and his burst of panic at being unarmoured in Trollmarket forced it to solidify.
Jim moved to a spot on AAARRRGGHH's shoulder where he could see Blinky more easily, but still quickly scruff AAARRRGGHH again if he had to. Blinky was on his knees, all four hands in the green ruff that framed AAARRRGGHH's face. Their noses were pressed together. They were murmuring back and forth in trollish. AAARRRGGHH bent his head further forward. Blinky matched the gesture. They gently knocked horns.
The contrast in AAARRRGGHH's body language now compared to the attack earlier was so extreme as to be surreal.
Jim finally noticed the crowd. They hadn't really registered in his mind earlier beyond 'screaming trolls', but this was an unusual number of them to see in the Forge. Probably. Jim wasn't usually in Trollmarket this time of day. Mary and Darci and Claire were there, too.
"Are we still throwing the party?" asked Bagdwella.
"… What party?"
"Ah." Blinky looked up at Jim. "Well – you see …"
Claire and Darci pulled ropes, unfurling a banner and unleashing a cloud of balloons and confetti.
"Tobias informed us of your human custom, the 'surprise birthing day party'. Are you not … surprised?"
"… That's … definitely … one word for it." Along with 'frightened', 'betrayed', and 'angry'. "You all … made me think … I might have to kill AAARRRGGHH … to stop him killing anyone else … possibly me … as a party prank? Yes. I am very. Surprised."
And now he was crying. Wonderful. It's a chemical release valve, let it out, if you're crying it's because you need to …
"Jim." Toby.
AAARRRGGHH got back to his feet and picked up Toby – the sight of the fleshbag being lifted towards the ex-Gumm-Gumm's mouth brought Daylight to Jim's hand before he could stop it – no, it's okay, don't stab AAARRRGGHH in the neck, DO NOT STAB AAARRRGGHH IN THE NECK – and put him on his shoulders beside Jim. Jim was still mad at Toby, but Toby was soft and warm and sympathetic and the best guy to cling to and cry on.
"I hate you so much right now," Jim snarled into Toby's shoulder.
"I – we – must apologize, Master Jim," said Blinky. "You have devoted much time and effort into learning troll customs and we thought you might appreciate a chance to indulge in a human one. It did not occur to any of us that we might cause you distress."
"You were awesome-sauce, though," said Toby, patting his back. "I had no idea you were that fast, and the way you jumped AAARRRGGHH like that – I mean, I'm sorry we scared you but I wish you could've seen it. You took the big guy down."
"I got it on camera," said Mary, waving her phone. "Don't worry, I stopped filming before the crying part."
The tears seemed to have stopped. Jim pulled his face off Toby's shirt and scrubbed his eyes. Claire stood on tiptoe to give him a tissue from her purse.
"What is the meaning of this?" Vendel bellowed. The elder entered the Hero's Forge and burst a balloon with the pointy head of his staff.
"Balloons … pop," observed AAARRRGGHH, taking one and biting it. It seemed to amuse him, because he took another and did the same thing.
"You will remove them post-haste. I don't want anything to interfere with the Trollhunter's training."
Blinky was once more impressed by the human Trollhunter's resilience. After the disastrous attempt at a surprise party left the boy clinging to his friend in tears, Blinky thought he might falter and stumble in his training, and would have let him skip it for that day if not for Vendel's orders. But perhaps the illusion of mortal terror spurred him on. Rule Number One, after all.
Master Jim was training alone in the Forge. Sparring sessions were on hold since Draal's departure from Trollmarket. Blinky could see the logic in setting up protections around the Trollhunter's home in Master Jim's absence, but it created some difficulty for the Trollhunter's trainer. They would need to determine a new sparring partner for Master Jim in the interim, and had not yet found one.
Blinky had been intending to ask AAARRRGGHH to consider the task. He'd fully expected the answer to be 'no', in accordance with AAARRRGGHH's longstanding oath of nonviolence, but Blinky had hoped that sparring matches could fall under the heading of 'not truly fighting', since neither truly intended the other harm.
But after what had transpired earlier, it would be cruel to make such a suggestion.
Blinky felt horrible for his part in frightening Master Jim so badly. He could only imagine how AAARRRGGHH felt about it.
On the other hand, there was some encouragement to be found in this mess. If swiftness, agility, and the first hint of ruthlessness were how Master Jim responded to imminent threats to life and limb, perhaps this meant the young Trollhunter actually stood a chance now of surviving his first encounter with Bular.
It was odd, Blinky reflected, that such an encounter had not yet occurred. Did the Son of Gunmar perhaps not know of the human who now wielded Daylight's mantle? Or … had Bular left Arcadia entirely after Kanjigar's death? There had been no sightings reported of late. Where was Bular, and what evil might he be plotting?
Master Jim lost his balance and fell from an elevating platform. He caught the edge and swung himself to land in a roll on the next level down – just in time for it to begin tilting, sending him scrambling for more stable ground.
"I messed up," said Toby softly. "I knew Jimbo hates his birthday. I really thought we could turn it around."
"Why would he hate his birthday?" Mary asked. "Getting overwhelmed by a party I could see, even without the scare, but hating his birthday?"
"Birthdays always remind him of the day his dad disappeared."
Disappeared? "Interesting," said Blinky. "I did not know that Jim's father was a magician."
"Not … 'magic' disappeared. More like, 'walked out because he's a deadbeat' disappeared." Blinky turned three eyes to focus properly on Tobias while still keeping three on the Trollhunter. "I had just moved into the house across the street, and Jim's dad got him this sweet bike kit for his fifth birthday, and then he just took off. Last I heard, he ran off with his girlfriend to become a ski bum in Vermont. Those bike pieces just sat there in the garage for months before Jim put them all in a wagon and carted them off somewhere. He never said where."
Blinky closed his lowest pair of eyes in solemnity and put a hand on young Tobias' shoulder. "What a horrible tragedy. Made even more horrible that I had no idea."
The rest of Jay-Jay's birthday was less perilous for Jim, or at least perilous in different ways. Once advanced training was over, Claire and Darci and Mary and Toby started their beginner training with weapons selected from the racks around the Forge. They'd brought bike helmets and shin and elbow pads, which weren't much protection but better than nothing, and definitely lighter and more flexible than Jim's armour.
Toby picked a hammer he could barely lift, let alone swing. Claire wanted to try all the varieties of spears. Darci went for a crossbow, which Jim encouraged – a ranged weapon meant the wielder was, ideally, far away from the actual danger. Mary picked a sword. Actually, to a troll it was a dagger, but for a human it was a sword.
Blinky corrected the humans' stances and grips, and then Darci started target practice while Toby tried to pick his Warhammer up. Mary and Claire had to leave – the school play had Saturday afternoon rehearsals.
"Hey," said Claire, "I'm sorry the party didn't work out. Happy birthday."
She kissed Jim on the cheek.
Jim stared awkwardly after her as she and Mary started to leave the Hero's Forge. He had to do something about this before it got out of hand.
"Claire, wait!" He ran after them. "Can I, uh, talk to you for a minute?"
She let him lead her to the side while Mary blatantly eavesdropped.
"Listen, um, I know it might not actually mean anything, but, you've kissed me twice now and it's kind of making me uncomfortable? Like, I don't know if you're actually flirting or not, and I get that you might not be," he added hastily, "but, I'm not interested in you, that way? So … little awkward."
Claire tensed, subtly, and blinked twice. "… Okay. I … won't kiss you again, then."
She and Mary left.
After about twenty minutes, Toby and Darci were ready to leave Trollmarket as well, and Toby dragged Jim over to the Vespa dealership. Jim finally got to test-drive one of the scooters … with the help of the testimonials Toby had been gathering about Jim's good character, and a bribe of six dollars cash in lieu of Barbara's parental signature.
"I brought cake!" Barbara sing-songed, closing the front door with her hip. She always bought one for Jim's birthday, rather than risk ruining the cake by making it herself or having Jim bake his own birthday cake. "The decorator said they'd draw a scooter on it, but the bakery was nearly closed when I got there to pick it up so I didn't have time to check."
Jim took the white cardboard box from her, set it on the table, opened it, and laughed.
It was a picture of a scooter, alright. A motorless, collapsible scooter, rather than a Vespa – a simple, nearly abstract arrangement of three lines and two circles.
"I guess this must have been easier to draw."
"Oh …" said Barbara. "Sorry, honey. I guess I should've been a lot more specific."
"It's fine, Mom. We've got a funny story now, right?" He got a knife and cut the small, round cake in half. "Which side do you want?"
"Jim!" she scolded teasingly. "At least let me put in a candle and sing first!"
There had been a candle on the pancakes, but Jim went along with the song-and-wish ritual. Then he cut one of the cake halves in half and served Barbara a quarter. They often ate dessert before dinner on birthdays, so Barbara had a chance at staying for cake before an emergency call could come in and she would have to leave again.
Up next: Jim sets in motion one of his "make the humans I like valuable enough to be kept alive once Gunmar takes over" backup plans.
Well. Season Three happened. Very little of this fic will be affected by that, since I already have an outline drafted, and none of this chapter was altered because I had it written already, but … yeah. That happened.
This chapter and the previous one were originally a single chapter, but as scenes expanded and more moments demanded to be written, I decided splitting the Birthday Episode into its own chapter made sense. But I had a doozy of a time naming it!
Working titles were 'Growing Pains Part 2', 'Un-Birthday' (as an Alice In Wonderland reference, since it's not Jim's actual birthday, but easily confused for an 'Unbecoming' reference), or just using the episode title 'Bittersweet Sixteen'. I ran the problem by Eurydyka_Kaput, who always has good chapter titles on their AO3 Trollhunter Strickler fanfic 'Changing light', and their fresh perspective brought us 'Bittersweet Un-Birthday'.
I've concluded Jim's birthday was on a Saturday. He apparently didn't have his alarm set on the morning of his birthday. He then went to Trollmarket and spent the morning training (after the prank/attempted party). After that, he met Toby in the alley by the Vespa shop, and then went on the test ride. He encountered Steve and got attacked by a Stalkling, after which he ran right back to Trollmarket to ask Blinky what was trying to kill him now.
Jim was at school later that day because the play had Saturday afternoon-evening rehearsal. He was still going to rehearsals when he could, since he was the Romeo understudy until Steve's accident; Claire's line, "I need you to come back. I'm willing to beg," referred to Jim rejoining the main cast of the production. Toby was there because he walked Jim to school while Jim explained about the Stalkling.
This makes more sense to me than believing everything seen in that episode before school managed to happen between 6 AM and 8:15 AM.
6 AM is when Jim's alarm clock goes off. 8 AM is the time Toby and Jim declared themselves already late for school when biking out of Jim's driveway in the first episode. The 8:15 theory assumes they live a 15 minute bike ride from school going along the streets and a 10 minute bike ride if they cut through the canals, which were stated to "save us five minutes" travel time and which are close enough to the school that Jim and Toby could hear the final bell from the canal bed.
On the other hand, in Gnome Your Enemy, Señor Uhl pronounces Jim late for class when Uhl's watch reads 7:30 … so it's not really clear when their school day is supposed to start. I'm going to go with 8:15. It still feels early to me. My high school didn't start until 9.
Jim's thought, by Fair Morgana, was a multi-layered reference, with one definition of 'fair' meaning 'pale' and Morgana le Fay confirmed in pre-S3 leaks to be The Pale Lady who created Changelings. The line was written before I heard any characters rant about the name being cursed.
A few people have asked how Changeling aging rates work in this story. It will come up in the narrative, but not for a while, and the birthday chapter seems like a good place to explain.
Baby trolls are – well, were – kidnapped and taken to the Darklands and put through a magical process that, among other things, halts their physical aging until they are bound to a Familiar. They still grow up mentally (magic overwrites neuroscience) while they wait for a Familiar to be assigned to them. Once tied to a Familiar and able to shapeshift, their human and troll forms both age at a human rate for twenty to twenty-five years, after which they go back to aging at troll rate.
One reason Not Enrique is unnerving to trolls when they first encounter him in canon is because he looks like a toddler but has the mobility and articulation of an adult, giving him an Uncanny Valley impression.
Despite being physically adolescent in both forms, Changeling Jim is equivalent to a human in his early-to-mid-twenties.
And, if anyone is wondering, Jim's fifth-birthday bike kit "got banished the Darklands," by which I mean he took the pieces to the Janus Order base and threw them through the Fetch.