A/n: My god, it's the twentieth already. How did that happen? At this rate, it'll be Christmas before you know it.

Anyway, this prompt could have worked for many fandoms, but I chose to do Douxie since the first prompt mentions time, which could work in one or two ways as you'll see. As I wrote that last sentence, I got the second idea which could change how this turns out lol, but we'll all see how it goes. Because of that, I can't exactly give you a timeline until the end probably of where this'd fit in canon but likely sometime after Wizards.

Whoever said "People don't change people, time does" wasn't entirely wrong, but they were half wrong.

Douxie would know better than most. Being immortal and all, he'd had plenty of time on this earth to meet a whole host of different characters in his life, some he'd met once and never seen again, and some he was quite close with to this day. Zoe was one example. Archie another. There were too many names and faces he'd met only a few times hundreds of years ago before he might have had to watch them die, or grow old, or turn into someone he didn't like.

Time did change people, he couldn't deny that. He had changed over time, grown more mature and experienced in terms of magic and skill as well as just growing as a person. Time had let him see things that changed him, either in a good way or bad, experience things that he found he enjoyed - the evolution of music for one - but also pain he never wanted again. Time had brought death around him, his non-magical friends growing old and decrepit, the pain of loss too present in his life for him to really let himself feel it anymore. While all those things sucked, it also brought life, seeing the kids of some of his friends grow up never failing to make him smile, even if there was always an undertone of melancholy and grief to it.

Time did change people, but so could other people. He'd seen it happen so many times, whether it was his friends changing for the better because of his help, or changing for the worse because of a relationship gone wrong. It maybe wasn't so much the people that brought change, but the relationships related to those people, what happened to those people. Too many fellow magic-users he'd seen ripped apart by the loss and grief of seeing their friends killed just because of how they were. Because of that, because of them, he'd learnt to not let the same feelings overcome him, even if it meant burying those feelings deep, down in the dark depths of his heart, only to be let out on the darkest of nights when his body was wracked with sobs.

Once Merlin had come into his life, Camelot and everything and everyone he'd encountered there had definitely changed him. He'd had a purpose after that, proper training even if it'd been cut a little short, a new perspective and perception of the world. He couldn't say all that - the friends he'd made, the family he'd found outside of Arch, the things he'd seen and done - hadn't changed him at all, because it had. Both time and people working to make him into someone… new, even if only in small ways.

The Arcane Order stood in front of him, and all he could see was blue. Magic tinted his vision, blue wisps of light growing to surround and warp around him, balls of it blooming in his hands. Nari and Archie lay on the ground behind him.

"You will regret touching them," he snarled, voice echoing and laced with magic. He placed a shield spell over Arch and Nari and then he let loose.

He woke up with a gasp, the leftover panic from his dream making his limbs tangled in the blanket.

"Douxie?" Arch's sleepy but worried voice asked quietly into the dark.

"Hm? I'm okay, it was… just a dream, it was just a dream. Sorry for waking you, Arch, you can go back to sleep."

A disbelieving hum came from the foot of his bed, but he could hear Archie settling down as his own heartbeat slowly returned to normal.

He had to remind himself that it was only a dream, one from a past life in a way at that. They hadn't technically met the Arcane Order yet, not in this timeline, not since Jim had turned back time. He still remembered the day Jim had walked into the bookstore and told him that the things happening in his dreams were real, had happened in the future. Once he'd found out that Douxie remembered - at least to some extent, even if he almost wished he didn't - the younger boy had burst into tears, and Douxie had closed the store early, letting him stay until the next morning after he'd fallen asleep in one of the chairs by the bookshelves. Douxie had thrown a blanket over the troubled teen, and then spent the rest of the night watching over him and doing research on the Arcane Order and time and anything Jim had said - and he remembered - they'd encounter.

Time could change people, and it had certainly changed Jim Lake Jr.. Douxie hadn't known the boy too well before Merlin had contacted him, but he still knew enough to see the drastic changes. Even from when they'd been thrown back into 12th century Camelot to when they'd battled the Arcane Order, he'd seen the younger teen - someone he had come to consider family, a brother - grow and change so much. He'd become a better leader, and a greater warrior, but an air of grief and heavy sadness had also started following the boy and Douxie hated it. He hated how they'd all changed because of everything that had happened.

He hadn't been exempt from the effects either, but at least he was more used to the loss, or more used to hiding it. Even just being older than the others made him someone they looked up to, someone he had to make sure could be looked up to, used as an example, a role model no matter what it meant for him. He wanted to be someone they could trust and see as almost an older brother, since that was what they'd been by the time they'd fought the final battle.

They'd become a family, and because of it, they'd only been hurt more by each loss. He wouldn't give those relationships up for anything, but if it saved them all the extra pain, then maybe it was necessary to change that this time around.

He knew it was an impossible ask, not likely to happen, but now that he knew what had happened and what they now had the opportunity to change… he was prepared to do anything to stop it from happening again. Jim likely had the same thought, but Douxie wanted to protect the Trollhunter too. If it came to it, he was prepared to sacrifice everything again, even his life if he needed to, if it would save them. But if he did it, he didn't want the others to be destroyed by his choice, do it all again in hopes of saving him, tear themselves apart by thinking about what they could have done to avoid his loss, stop his death, all the things he thought about every day for all of the friends and found family he'd have over the years.

Grief was a close friend, loss and sadness following him every day. Sacrifice was no stranger either. If there was anything he could do now that he could change the outcome of the painful future he'd already lived, then he would do it without hesitation, just to spare the others from the same things that plagued him.

"People don't change people, time does."

Time definitely did, but people changed everything else.

A/n: I don't know if that last line made sense but oh well. If I read it over later sometime and decide I actually hate it then I might take it out entirely. But yeah, other than that, I think I actually like it. Timeline-wise, the first part up until the dream would just be sometime before or after Wizards, don't think it really matters specifically though however the second bit would be after RotT, assuming that Jim has gone back in time already but Douxie keeps his memories bc he's magic or smth, idk.

Anyway, love Douxie, self-sacrificial idiot as he can be sometimes but just makes for good whump. Arch and Nari make the cutest trio with him, even if he was a little underrated imo during RotT which kinda pissed me off but what can you do? I did have ideas at some point for a RotT rewrite but it's so ambitious I don't think I'll ever really get around to it. Oh well.

Stay safe and see ya soon.

- CrowofArcadiaOaks