Author stuff: Hey, everyone! This fic has been on Ao3 for a couple of years now. And with the site being DDoS-ed by an international terrorist organization looking to blackmail American companies for coin, I figured that I would finally get this up over here. I'm only going to post the first five chapters today while I wait and see what's going on with Ao3 to post the next chapter of It isn't that much.
Anyway, enjoy!
Drawn From Stone
Chapter One
"And ya burnt," Detective Thomas Scott said to the eggs and toast he was making. They were, in fact, so burned, they were practically charcoal.
Darci scrunched up her face, chewing slowly on the almost soggy Frosted Flakes.
"That's," she said, swallowing, "that's not how that goes."
"Eh, I never understood how your new fangled slang works."
"Didn't realize you were in your 60s already."
"Ugh." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her little brother Darren join them in the kitchen. His princesses and fairies blanket trailing after him. He'd had it for as long as Darci could remember. "Who burned the toast?"
"Dad did," Darci said, pointing an accusatory finger.
"I am not that old," Detective Scott said, wagging the spatula at her, "and the toast was begging to be burned."
Darci snorted as Darren joined her on the bar stools around the island counter.
"Do you want me to wash your blanket before school?" she said, pouring him a bowl of cereal.
"No," he said. "Not enough time. Dad, toast isn't toast unless it's over a fire."
"Did you just pun?" She slid the bowl over to him, the spoon tinkling against the ceramic. He was right, there wasn't enough time to wash his blanket before school. She actually had to get going in a couple of minutes.
"Ashley H. has been teaching me. She's really funny. Dee, I'd think you'd like her."
"We'll have a playdate soon." She chugged the sweetened milk, wincing at the taste. She wiped her lip with her arm. "Dad, be sure to set that up with Ashley H.'s mom. Make sure he does it, little guy. I'll see you later, yeah?"
She held out her fist for him to bump — which he did while loudly slurping the milk in the spoon. She laughed and gave him a kiss on the forehead. She dumped her dishes in the sink and swung around to hug her father.
"Be safe on the way to school, okay?" Detective Scott said. "There are Trolls and goblins still lurking about."
"The Trolls don't come out during the day. They'll turn to stone. Come on, dad. You know that."
"Whatever you say. You're the one dating the Trollhunter."
"Actually, Jim's the official Trollhunter. Toby is an honorary member, so is Claire. Huh. Wonder if that makes me and Mary members too? I'll have to ask later."
She gathered her things from their hooks in the laundry room, leaving through the garage. She was going to bike to school that morning — maybe meet up with Toby?
Normally she would have bit the inside of her cheek, but by herself? She allowed a little giggle to escape. They'd been dating for over a year now. Both of them missing their best friends. It had been… toxic for a little while, both of them going through some things while missing Jim and Claire. But they'd gotten back together soon enough.
It helped when Jim and Claire texted and FaceTimed whenever they could. It didn't make it any easier for them, but the pain lessened over time.
And that was that.
Junior year was a pain in her behind (she'd actually ranted to Claire the last time they FaceTimed). There was all the SBAC prep they had to go through. Miss Janeth was mourning the loss of Jim and Claire (she'd wanted to do Tuck Everlasting). Coach Lawrence and the football team were actually winning — which meant she had to go to the away games as the Mole. She was also forced to go to any of the marching bands competitions — they'd actually won more trophies than she'd thought possible (more than the football team, anyway). Their new History teacher wasn't as great as Strickler — of course their new History teacher was really just Coach Lawrence. She didn't know how Spanish was going; she'd opted out of it.
It all sucked.
Claire had laughed at her, telling her not to worry about it. It was just high school, after all.
But Claire didn't get it anymore. She'd gone off with the Trolls and Jim and Merlin (she had so many questions). She'd gotten magical powers. Her boyfriend was part-Troll now. Claire wasn't a regular student. She'd always been extraordinary, but now?
Now —
A car horn blared loudly at her as she halted from crossing the street. Shit. She hadn't been paying attention.
"Sorry," she said, waving timidly at the driver in the blue sedan. The woman behind the wheel was dark skinned and fair haired. Her face was pinched, but she nodded. The boy — who looked about her age — was dark haired and freakishly pale. He looked completely uninterested.
The woman seemed to scoff at her, before slowly rolling away. Neither person in the vehicle looked back at her.
She shrugged it off. They must be new to Arcadia Oaks.
Whoever said life was like a box of chocolates should be punched in the face. With a chainsaw. That was on fire. Being wielded by a gorilla. Or, better yet, Draal.
Jim had had enough surprises for one year — the amulet, Trolls existing, his mom on-and-off dating his ex-enemy-turned-almost-stepfather-but-he-wasn't-absolutely-positive-about-that-yet-as-they-hadn't-announced-an-engagement, Merlin existing (which meant King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table existed — he still needed to ask about that), Claire paying attention to him and agreeing to multiple dates and being his girlfriend, being turned into a half-Troll, everyone still loving him despite his monstrous appearance, everyone in Arcadian Oaks making a silent agreement to keep everything hush-hush, an adopted brother who was the original Walter Strickler (now named Willoughby Lake)...
There were a lot of things he omitted from that list. Like his new eating habit — yeah, he hunted and ate a rabbit and it was weird. (There was a lot of screaming involved and laughing on the behalf of his screaming. Claire thought it was cute, so that kind of made up for it. Until Toby found out and started making fun of him.) A lot of those things weren't really important. They just sort of… existed at this point.
He was glad for the relative peace and quiet the journey across the US had brought. Well, there were a few hiccups along the way, but what journey didn't have some? He was just glad it was almost over.
Claire and Merlin were gone for the day — restocking on necessities and holing up in a motel for the next few days, so Merlin could get his bearings. They were so close, he'd said, to the new Heartstone. All the energy was muddling with his senses, but he could feel it… on the other side of the mountains.
Jim was tired of mountains.
He was tired of walking. Maybe he could learn to slither along the ground…
"... the way, Master Jim?" Blinky said, pulling him from his thoughts. His mentor knew he wasn't paying attention by the look on his face. Blinky sighed and rolled all of his eyes. The Troll he was talking to — one Jim had seen at Trollmarket but had never had a chance to talk to — gave him an empathetic smile.
The journey was wearing them all down.
"Sorry, Blinky," Jim said, scratching the back of his neck. He gave them a bashful smile. "Can you repeat that?"
"I was asking if you were going to daydream the rest of the way, but I do believe you answered my question." He clapped both pairs of hands. "Now, we need to ensure the safety of our camp. I presume you will be rejoining Fair Claire later?"
"Yeah, eventually. But you said yesterday that you wanted to teach me a few things."
"Ah, yes," Blinky said. "I needed some help with the whelps."
"Whelps," Jim said flatly, looking at the small cluster of young Trolls playing together. They were like puppies, the way they played. It looked and sounded more vicious than it was, all rough and tumble and cries and yelps. But none of them actually got hurt. And it was sort of — read, obnoxiously — cute.
"They've been good so far, but I fear they may be getting anxious."
"They're whelps. Of course they're getting anxious."
"Well, you're a bit of a whelp yourself."
Jim stopped in his tracks, not liking where this was going.
"No," he said.
"Why not? You're young, they're young. Besides, you're the Trollhunter — they'll listen to you!"
"Blinky."
"James Lake, Jr." They stared at one another for a long moment. Blinky turned away first, heaving a sigh. "I would appreciate the assistance. It's not much, just… talk to them for a few minutes."
"Fine," Jim said, tossing his hands in the air. "But you're going to have to do it eventually."
Blinky gave a scoff, though he could see the playful glint in his eyes. He gently bumped his mentor with his shoulder and headed over to the whelps, who immediately perked up and crowded around him. A cacophony of voices rang up to greet him. He could barely catch one question.
"Alright, alright," he said, finding any empty spot on the ground to sit on. "I know it's been a long couple of… months, we all want to get to the new Heartstone."
"Tell us a story!" one of the whelps said, pumping their fists in the air. The others rang out their voices in agreement.
"Okay. Um, what story would you like me to tell?"
"How you beat Bular the Vicious."
"No no no. How you beat Angor Rot."
"Nuh-uh, how you and Lady Claire met."
"Yuck. We want the defeat of Gunmar!"
"How about," Jim said, interrupting the argument before a fist fight could break out, "I tell you about the time I got beat up by a gnome?"
That piqued their interest. Their great Trollhunter was beat up by a gnome? The sheer audacity. The ridiculousness. Oh, they wanted to hear this story.
"Alright. Quiet down, now. I don't want any interruptions." The whelps giggled at that. A knowing smile pulled at his lips, curling around his tusks. "It happened around a year and a half ago. I was still a human back then…"
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, pressing his fingers harshly at the cartilage. He was either going to break his own nose or leave a rather nasty bruise.
"Okay," Toby said, giving a deep sigh, "tell me again: What the hell did you guys do?"
Steve, Mary, and Krel all looked around shiftily. None of them were meeting his eyes. Not that he thought any of them would, guilty little sons of… Nevermind, that was incredibly rude to say or even think about calling someone's friends.
Eventually, after he shifted his gaze back between all of them, he caught Mary's eyes. She scowled at him and went back to her phone, tapping away on the screen as if nothing had happened. He reached out to take it from her, mostly to get her attention, but she slapped his hand away.
Krel's human appearance fizzled out as he jumped in surprise.
Even after all this time, he still wasn't used to the glowing form of Krel with his extra limbs. And that was after knowing of Trolls for even longer. What was his life even?
The boys all groaned, knowing she had given them up. Normally, it would have been him, but lately… Lately, there was something going on with the remaining Creepslayer.
"Is joke, no?" Krel said, fiddling with her fingers. His eyes flitted nervously about. "Was told it was funny. Uhl did not like?"
"No, Señor Uhl did not like the joke. He didn't think it was funny." Toby tossed his hands in the air, exasperated. "What am I going to do with you guys? It's our job to keep Arcadia safe. I rely on you guys to help me out. We work together, Trollhunters and Creepslayerz. You guys can't run off and do stupid shit like this every time you get bored on a mission. What if something bad had happened? What then?"
When did he become the parental unit of the group? When had that happened? Ugh, he needed a vacation. For the rest of his life.
"You know what you need, my friend?" Krel said. He draped one arm over Toby's shoulder and one… uncomfortably low on his back. He fought the urge to slip out of the Akaridian's grip. "You need to, er, Mary, how do you say it? The laxing of chilling?"
"Chillax?" Mary said, cocking a brow as she glanced up from her phone.
Toby wanted to bang his head against the wall. Or scream into the void somewhere.
He wished AAARRRGGHH! was with him. Instead, it was the middle of the afternoon. They should have been in school — well, technically he had a free period that he could have used to makeout with Darci in some dark corner of the school — but instead he was lecturing them.
He had to lecture them on not stealing a teacher's vehicle because they couldn't sit in class long enough to learn the history of the Trail of Tears as taught by Coach Lawrence.
(Actually, that was a godsend because why hadn't they hired someone to replace Strickler yet? It was bordering stupidity at this point. He was going to have to attend a parent-teacher meeting and bring it up. Or make History a night class.)
"Yes," Krel said, squeezing him tighter, "you need to chillax."
"I'll chillax," Toby said, "when I'm given a reason to chillax. With the way things are going, I'm going to be bald or grey haired by the time I'm nineteen."
"I don't think that's physically possible," Mary said, halting when she saw the look on Toby's face. She snorted and rolled her eyes, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"As much as I hate to admit it," Steve said through clenched teeth, "the buttsnack's right. We're sort of the only defense this town has against any creepy crawlies. We really can't run off every time."
"So," Krel said, combing his hands through his tall hair, "Uhl is not monster, no?"
"No, he's not," Toby said with a great huff.
"We have no proof of that," Steve said, holding up a finger. Mary folded it down, covering Steve's hand. Steve's chipper expression dropped.
"And we have no proof that he's not. For right now, Señor Uhl is human and we have to treat him as such."
Toby looked at the three in front of him and sighed. He was already done with today, and he hadn't even had lunch yet. He really should text Jim and Claire, see how they were doing.
"Great," Toby said, "now that we have all that sorted out, we can head back to school. I have… twenty minutes to find Darci and a dark corner. You guys, er, don't… don't blow anything up, okay? Or run out of the school again."
"Just a quick question," Krel said, stopping Toby with a hand.
"What."
"How do we get the truck back to school?"
Toby sighed.
"Steve can drive it, assuming he doesn't crash this like he did Ms. Pepperjack's van."
"Oi!"
Author stuff cont'd.: This fic was originally written before season 2 of 3Below was released and is pretty much a canon divergence fic that I did too much research on and didn't take good notes. I don't really remember much else about it, but I will let you know about any triggers at the top of the chapter. But there are def a few I missed. Please let me know if I do. I'm accessible through private messaging, comments, and my tumblr - icyandthefrostbites - and my writblr - icy-writes.