After four chapters, the boys are finally cagemates!

So, during the longer-than-planned hiatus, a movie was released. Don't worry, not only do I refuse to watch said movie, the exact events of RotT cannot happen in this universe because of things that happen in my outline for the AU.

Content/Spoiler warning: Grieving, loss of child, and suicidal ideation

The first thing Merlin had done when he felt his magic return to him was cast his senses outward to look for Hisirdoux.

Well, no, not exactly. The first thing he had done was groan in pain as his many injuries began to heal themselves. Morgana had already brought him to the brink of death twice, only healing him enough so that he would live, and she could continue to torture him. But, after groaning in pain, Merlin had cast out his senses to find his son.

There was no trace of Hisirdoux anywhere. Archie had been a clear signal, as was the Trollhunter. Nari, as distant as she was, had been a powerful beacon.

Hisirdoux's magic was nowhere in this world. There was only one explanation for this: Merlin's son was dead. And so, for the first time in many centuries (even whilst ignoring the ones between Killahead and now), Merlin Wylt allowed himself to cry. He did not allow himself to cry for long, of course. He couldn't let his grief consume him. There was work to be done. An Eternal Night to reverse, a familiar to collect, a sword to repair, and a Heartstone to find.

Merlin had done two of those things, and he had tried to convince Archie to come with him. Merlin owed it to Hisirdoux to at least try to protect his familiar. But, as usual, Archie was too proud to listen to reason. He always thought he knew best on matters concerning Hisirdoux. And, in some ways, Archie had known better since he had known Hisirdoux for longer, but he was clearly in denial of the obvious.

That was a day ago. Now he was in the process of doing the fourth of those things. Merlin had to deal with a tribe of irritable trolls, all crammed into a too-small cave. The sun wouldn't set for another hour.

Merlin felt a wave of energy pass through him.

It was like an agonized cry of distress coming from his son. It was short, and it was brief, but Merlin could feel Hisirdoux's fear.

For the briefest of moments, Merlin almost hoped that maybe Hisirdoux was alive. Alive, scared, and in pain. Perhaps hoping that his master would come to save him, as selfish as Merlin knew the thought was.

But no. Hisirdoux was dead. This was merely an echo of his last dying moments, and Merlin must have been close enough to feel it. He wasn't sure why Hisirdoux had died so far from Arcadia Oaks. Even if in life Hisirdoux hadn't been the best at following instructions, that one was simple enough that he should've been able to follow it easily. Besides, there was no reason for Hisirdoux to abandon Archie like that. Could it have been Morgana? He had foreseen her trying to kill Hisirdoux, and clearly Merlin's visions had been wrong since the formerly human Trollhunter was even younger than Hisirdoux should be now. But no. Morgana wouldn't have killed Hisirdoux so far away. She would have dragged Hisirdoux to where Merlin lay gasping for breath and tortured and killed Hisirdoux in front of Merlin.

And to think she had once cared about the boy, or at least, seemed to have cared about him. Merlin wasn't sure if he would ever know how early her betrayal started.

Merlin would never know how Hisirdoux had died, not unless he stumbled upon what was left of his son's body. And call Merlin selfish, but he didn't want to see it. Seeing his son's corpse would only be useful if Merlin was planning on reanimating it. Bringing his son back was an act of dark magic, and Merlin would not partake in it no matter how desperately he wanted his son to be alive.

Merlin knew how the Trollhunter and his allies saw Merlin. A washed-up, bitter old man who had failed to do nearly anything useful. And Merlin had failed. He had failed his last two apprentices. He had failed to stop Morgana from going down her dark path, whether by guiding her better or just by annihilating the threat no matter what cost it would bring down, Merlin killing the king's sister.

And he had failed Hisirdoux. For a millennium and a half, Merlin had not taken in another apprentice because he had always planned on returning to his apprentice. Tradition dictated that Merlin only take on a new apprentice should Hisirdoux die, become a master wizard, or should Merlin decide that Hisirdoux was too much of a nuisance to keep around and break the apprenticeship. No matter how frustrating Hisirdoux was sometimes, whether it was disturbing Merlin with his lute or trying to get out of doing his chores by wrestling with a broom, Merlin never would have abandoned Hisirdoux. He was far too attached to his son to do that, and so he had not taken an apprentice during the absence.

Perhaps it was time to change that. There was, after all, an orphan wizard nearby. One who had learned the hard way why a staff was only something a master wizard could safely wield. First off, though, he would need to see if she had any skill beside shadowmancy.

"Fair lady Claire," Merlin said, approaching her. He kept his voice steady and even, betraying nothing of his grief. "Levitate that rock for me?"

She flinched.

"Sorry, Aja," Stuart said. "He wasn't anywhere in Arcadia. Or at least, I couldn't find him."

"It's… it's not your fault. Zadra and Steve couldn't find Krel either," Aja said. It had been a long day of searching for everyone gathered around the dining table of the Mothership. Stuart, Zadra, and Steve had scoured the town and woods for Krel, while Aja and the Blanks had been more successful in their search for the core scanner. Even the success felt weak, though. Between the crash and Krel's sense of organization, it had taken her all day to find it. It hadn't helped that three horvaths into searching, she had found herself wanting to walk up to Krel and lecture him on how just because he was smart it didn't mean his organization patterns were the best ones to follow since only he could find things, but then she'd remembered he was missing and burst into tears. She probably wouldn't give him the lecture when they found him, not until she had to look for something else he'd hidden away in a place that was only obvious to him.

"But we will find him," Aja continued. "We have to."

Aja didn't even want to imagine what would happen if she didn't find her brother. She placed the core scanner on the table. "Stuart, do you know how to make a second one of these? We only have one, but if we had more we could split up and look for Krel. Krel and Varvatos."

"I can try," Stuart said, "But I get the feeling that I won't have all the parts. At best I can make a version with a very, very short range."

"You still want to find the traitor?" Zadra asked.

"Our first priority is finding Krel, but if we find Varvatos in the process we're not going to leave him to suffer," Aja said. "We'll bring him home to the Mothership. He sacrificed himself to save my parents, and I won't let that sacrifice be in vain."

Besides, depending on how badly hurt Varvatos was, he might be able to help search for Krel.

For all she knew, Varvatos had already found Krel and was trying to take care of him, especially if Krel had been knocked unconscious and Varvatos no idea where the Mothership was. That happened to Krel a lot, so surely it wasn't too unreasonable to hope for.

Right?

Krel slowly began to wake up, and he realized he was laying on his side. That didn't make sense. In his cage, it was impossible for him to lay on his side; he had to remain sitting up. He almost began to hope the past several delsons were all just some awful dream, but he was in so much pain from the cuts and the beating he had endured.

Krel opened his eyes.

He had been transferred to a larger cage, one where he could lay down. He tried to push himself onto all four of his hands and knees and gasped as moving brought more pain to him from every place the batons had struck him. He pushed himself up onto his lower pair of arms instead and saw Douxie laying barely a foot away from him in the same cage. White hair hung in front of his closed eyes. Krel frowned; Douxie's hair had been darker before. Was that a normal thing that happened when he used his magic? Krel couldn't be sure, but if it was then capturing Douxie and any other wizard must have been easy if there was unexplained glowing and hair lightening. Humans didn't glow.

Douxie looked almost peaceful in his sleep, enough so that a small part of Krel was loathe to wake him up. That small part was very easy to ignore. Krel began to nudge at Douxie with one of his upper arms. Douxie groaned out something about arches.

"Please, please wake up." Krel shoved a little more forcefully. Douxie had sounded hurt back when he had used his magic. Maybe that was normal. Maybe being a wizard was a constant sacrifice, which sounded extremely inefficient.

"What do you want?" Douxie hissed even though his throat hurt. Why were they even in the same cage, for that matter? Douxie wouldn't have minded if it weren't for the shoving.

"Oh, good, you're okay." Douxie opened an eye to find Krel looking concerned, except something white was blocking most of Douxie's field of vision. Douxie opened his other eye and focused on the white strand of –

No.

No.

Oh, fuzzbuckets, no!

As the memories of what he had done flooded back to him, Douxie sat up straight and away from Krel's hands. His head was swimming and he felt sick as he pinched his bangs between his fingers as he glared at the stark contrast.

His hair was white.

Of course it was white. There was a reason why wizards who chose to dye their hair did not let it go bleached for very long, according to Zoe. Dark magic attacked life forces, and that attack could make dyed hair into something eternally white. Of course, this was only if the wizard using dark magic survived.

Douxie hadn't planned on surviving. He'd planned for himself and Krel to escape, with Douxie's escape to be death and Krel's escape to outside of the base.

A woman in green walked towards the cage, hands on her hips. As Krel tensed, Douxie realized she was the same one who had tased Krel. She stopped in front of the cage and gazed at the boys smugly.

"I don't think we've ever been properly introduced," she said. "I'm Colonel Kubritz, and I'm going to give you two a deal."

"Oh, really? And what do we have to give you to let us go?" Krel asked. He didn't trust this colonel at all, but it was worth asking.

She chuckled. "Oh, no, both of you will be spending the rest of your lives in captivity. I just have a way for you two to extend those lives: if one of you resists experimentation or an order, the other will be punished." She turned around and began to walk away before casting a glance over her shoulder. "Oh, and keep the conversation quiet, or there will be consequences."

"Resist as much as you can," Douxie said in a low voice as soon as she exited the room. Krel looked towards him and saw him staring at the ground. "Don't pay what happens to me any mind."

"What? Didn't you hear her say that you'll get punished if I resist?" Krel suspected that they'd get punished anyways, but any minimization was a good thing.

"Even if I somehow get out of here, I won't have anywhere to go. I've used dark magic, and it'll be obvious to everyone."

"Dark magic?"

"It's dangerous, and it feeds on life forces, and only evil people use it. Evil, or desperate, like I was desperate to save you. You're welcome, by the way. But they won't see it as desperation."

"Thank you," Krel said. You don't seem evil to me, he didn't say. An evil person wouldn't have saved Krel, except what did that make Varvatos? Varvatos had saved Krel over and over again, despite the danger it had posed to Varvatos. Despite the way that Varvatos betrayed the Tarrons and had led to Krel and his family being hurt over and over again.

"My familiar, my master, and my," Douxie cut himself off, shaking his head and biting his lip. "The coven I've been taken in by will all outcast me at best. They might just outright kill me for being dangerous. You, though, I'm sure you have something left to live for. If you resist, you might live longer than if you don't."

Krel stared at Douxie for a long moment, noting the defeat in his posture. "No."

Douxie looked at Krel. There were tears forming in his eyes. Krel found the strange urge to hug his companion, but no. The two of them were getting unwanted touches from everyone else, so why should Krel do the same to Douxie? Granted, he had already shoved Douxie, but he would be better from now on.

"No, I'm not going to let you die here," Krel continued. "Even if everyone else casts you out, you can stay with me. My sister will come for me, and when she does, I'm going to make sure that both of us escape with her."

Now that Claire has officially been made more important to this fic than she was in 3Below season 2 she probably won't show up again (though she may get mentioned).