This was written for urisarang for the 2023 Battleship Exchange. The title comes from a poem by George Gordon Byron.
Claire swung aer staff at Jim, and he parried it away from his head.
"This isn't you!" Jim said.
"The Pale Lady showed me the Eternal Night," Claire said. Aer voice sounded like ae was in a trance, like ae wasn't fully there. And how could ae be? Claire would never agree to any of this.
"She's going to kill all of us!" Jim raised his shield and adjusted his footing, trying to gain the upper hand. He didn't want to hurt his datemate, but he had to find a way to disarm aer. Maybe that would break the Pale Lady's hold on aer? Blinky had warned Claire multiple times that the shadow Staff was imbued with dark magic, but surely it hadn't corrupted aer so fully that there was no way to save aer.
"Not everyone. My family will be safe. Maybe Toby, your mom, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!, too, if they surrender. I really wish you weren't the Trollhunter, Jim. Then you could see the glory of the new world. Instead, you're going to have to die to bring it about."
"You know they'd never agree to that." He dismissed his shield and tried to reach for aer staff. Ae fell backwards into a portal and reappeared above him, twisting in the air to try and impale him from above. Jim dove out of the way, rolling back to his feet.
Ae landed delicately and shrugged, a cruel smile on aer face. "More's the pity, then, that they won't see the Eternal Night either." Ae ran towards him, and when he tried to dodge out of the way a portal opened in front of him. Ae reached through a second portal and grabbed his amulet from his breastplate, his armor fading away. Ae thrust aer staff through another portal, and Jim felt something sharp pierce through his abdomen.
And Claire's eyes remained gold. Disarming aer wasn't the way to save aer. Jim tugged at the staff, groaning in pain. His mom had told him, once, that removing an impaling object usually made things worse, but he couldn't do anything when pinned down like this. This was no happy dagger, and he was no sheathe.
The staff didn't budge no matter how much Jim pulled.
The amulet wasn't supposed to return if it had been stolen, but Jim had called back the stolen amulet to himself for Claire's sake before. Doing that had removed all the goblins from him, so maybe this would remove the staff so he could retreat. He could find another way to save Claire after he had stitches. "For the Glory of -"
The daylight-blue stone of the amulet turned gold, the same gold as Claire's eyes. A ghostly hand reached through it, shattering the stone, and Claire laced aer fingers through it. "Pale Lady, it is done."
How many times can I reference the final scene of Romeo and Juliet in an angst fic for this show? Probably several more times.