A/N: In response to the mysterious guest who left no name or mailing address, I sincerely appreciate your thoughts. I'm grateful you read my fic and cared enough to share how this story affected you. Honestly your words motivated me to get off my lazy tail and get back to work. Hard to do when inspiration dries up due to that pesky thing called Life, but I gave it my best shot. Thanks!
Chapter 18: In which the group makes preparations
"So this is the vaunted Hunter of Trolls that Varvatos's revered Nancy has spoken of."
Jim, Claire and Blinky craned their necks to look up at the blue-glowing speaker. The selfies Toby had shared with them of himself beside the giant didn't quite do him justice.
"A warrior knows a warrior," he said with a confident nod, then placed one heavy hand on Blinky's shoulder. "Such an imperial bearing as well."
Claire tried to cover her laughter with a sudden fit of coughing as Blinky stuttered his gratitude for the compliments while trying to direct attention to the real Trollhunter. Far from being surprised at his mistake, the massive Akiridion grunted.
"Varvatos supposes on this backward planet the ideals of strength and nobility are quite limited. Still, who is he to question the valiance of anyone? The Foo-Foos are a particularly fearless, bloodthirsty race despite their appearance."
On his way over to join them, Krel finished handing out assignments to the dozen or so engineers from his planet and sent them off.
"My sister said these are all the workers she can spare at the moment since much rebuilding is required on our homeworld, but at least it's something."
The downed castle was currently being lifted into a vertical position once more with a combination of thrusters and antigravity equipment. Most of its lower base had been blasted away during the earlier attack, so the Akiridions were having to reconstruct a portion of it to accommodate the power source they'd brought to replace the Heart of Avalon.
"Working at full capacity," the king-in-waiting said as he gestured to his people, "I believe we may be able to relaunch Mar-lin's fortress by tomorrow afternoon—a full delson ahead of schedule."
"Whoa!" Claire exclaimed, not expecting such good news. "Not bad at all! We've been worried that having it stuck here makes us easy targets if the Order decides to—"
"The Order!"
Everyone spun to follow Jim's horrified gaze. Their panic turned to confusion as they saw nothing out of the ordinary among the stretching chain of night-shrouded mountains. But despite this, both Claire and Blinky took his outburst seriously.
"You're able to penetrate even their invisibility spell?"
"Can you tell how fast they're going?" Claire spoke almost on top of Blinky, fists clenching with nervousness.
Jim stared harder, now unsure. "Wait… are they headed our way? I thought so, but…"
Krel squinted into the darkness, then lifted a scanner. After a few seconds he shook his head. "Whatever you see is evading our sensors too. I assume it has a barrier similar to the one here?"
"Close enough," Claire supplied, still focused on Jim's intensity as he stared at something no one else could see.
"It's not moving," he announced after a short, tense minute. "For some reason it's just floating there looking at us."
"But aren't we invisible to them too? Archie did say it would take a while for the invisibility spell here to fade even after Merlin's death."
Since they were gazing together roughly the same direction, they all saw the blazes of colored lightning flare in the darkened sky at the same time. Claire let out a gasp.
"That's Douxie! I'd recognize his magic anywhere!" She immediately focused on opening a shadow portal, but her brow furrowed. "It's… it's hard to get a lock on him. He's moving too much and I—"
The Mexican girl cut off as they saw a brilliant green burst in the distance. After a few silent seconds she raised her hands again, straining intently, but then sag in confusion.
"He's… I can't find Douxie at all. There's no connection. I'm not sure if maybe…" Her voice trailed off with the unspoken possibility of their friend's fate hanging in the air.
"Krel!" Jim shouted, sword appearing by instinct at the anticipation of a fight. "Do you have a vehicle of any kind we can use?"
"At the moment, only a couple of skimmers," the king-in-waiting answered as he pointed at the transports.
"That'll do. Let's get out there now!"
"I never met any ambient wizard with less potential than you, Hisirdoux."
"If I had a choice between a grub-eating hornswaggle and you, I'd take the hornswaggle!"
Almost paralyzed by the barrage of words coming at him, Douxie continued to hunch against the wall. They only seemed to intensify as time passed, though, and eventually the exhaustion of being subjected to this endless storm made him snap.
Balling his hands into fists, he squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, glaring at the empty room. "This isn't how Merlin really felt about me!"
The attack lowered an octave, becoming less overwhelming. It continued, but there was enough room now for his own thoughts as well. Still sitting where he'd dropped, Douxie took a deep breath and shut his eyes to concentrate.
After a few moments Merlin's words in a calmer, more sensitive tone wove along behind the fire and irritability of the rest. Douxie latched onto that one phrase.
"I've had more apprentices than I can count, but it's been eons since any of them felt like family…"
At once the voices faded away.
One hand slipped into his pocket, pulling out the emerald vessel containing all that was left of his master who, at one time, had been the most powerful man to ever walk the earth.
"I'm not ready to let you go, Master," he whispered to the ashes. "Maybe I never will be. But I will try to keep going no matter how hard it is. Thank you for everything you ever did for me—all the things I know of and the countless others I don't. Thank you."
This short confession was born of simple honesty, pulled from deep inside where Douxie's innermost thoughts often hid themselves. But as if it had been a key, the combination dials circling the vault set into the wall of Merlin's workshop spun of their own accord. A moment later it swung open.
He regained his feet mainly out of surprise, but as the dark-haired wizard started to take a step forward, he pulled to a jerky halt.
No. He had to stop. To think. Where was he? How had he gotten here? And why had Merlin's words come flying at him in a volley like that? What was going on? The last thing he recalled was the burning as he fought to take his hand from the staff. Had it really broken?
Hazel eyes took in the room more carefully now. There was the portrait of himself standing awkwardly behind Merlin, but the shelves of books were missing most of the more recent tomes his master had been studying—and he knew with great precision which ones had been available even two days ago. In fact… it looked the way the workshop had the day before the battle at Killahead Bridge. Even the bottles and ingredients beside the cauldron matched the recipe for an invisible armor potion. Frozen in time.
Could this be… a Maze?
There were other names for it, but in more modern terms it could be described as a pocket dimension designed to hold something of great value or highly dangerous. The five libraries of Camelot were themselves these miniature pocket dimensions, but ones designed to preserve their contents from the decay of time rather than keep unwanted people out. (He'd even attempted to cast such a spell on GDT Books when the shop was first built… which had mostly worked.)
A Maze was slightly different. They could be practically any size and have unexpected rules. Douxie knew perfectly well that such places could become prisons unless one was strong enough to escape or if one had the key. And a key could be anything from a physical object to a word or thought given in just the right way.
But he hadn't come here alone. Even now he could sense the two intruders hunting through the Maze's corridors. There was no doubt in his mind if he accepted the Genesis Seals then this place would disintegrate—its purpose being fulfilled—and they'd all end up back in the mountains together where he would be at their mercy.
There had to be something he could do! What else did he know about pocket dimensions? Was there possibly a way he could avoid bringing the Arcane Order back? They were certainly powerful enough that practically the only way to keep them here was if they wanted to remain.
A thought sprang to life and Douxie broke into a mischievous grin.
He went over to the wall's secret chamber, also noting as he pulled the metal door wide that his left hand was already beginning to tingle. Not much time left on the numbing spell. Inside the vault rested a heavy chest filled with a shifting colored mass, its texture somewhere between sand and mist.
On touching the Seals, a perceptible change swept through the Maze and the two who did not belong zeroed in on the workshop. They arrived almost simultaneously—the stained glass windows shattering as Skrael burst through in a storm of wintry winds and Bellroc blasted the door off its hinges with an eruption of flames.
The sight that met them was a boy holding the Genesis Seals with a cocky expression while at his feet lay a blue-glowing tetragram. Before either of them could react, he'd thrown their coveted relic directly into the pool of energy.
"You want them? Go fetch 'em!" he shouted as they were swallowed up.
Bellroc let out a screech, her cloak's false eyes widening with rage. She leaped headlong into the new doorway, screaming "Keep it open!" before she too vanished.
Douxie found himself facing off against his enemy who immediately attempted to encase him in a prison of ice. But with everything that had happened—from Merlin's death to the destruction of the staff and now being caught up in this place where all his self-doubts had come crashing down in one massive tide—the young wizard felt pushed to the limit.
Pupils lighting with fierce aquamarine brilliance, he repelled the icy onslaught and charged forward. For a few moments Skrael attempted to defend himself, but their weapons met with a deafening crash of magical energies and the scythe-shaped staff flew across the room.
Now for the first time a glimmer of fear crept into Skrael's eyes as he saw nothing hesitant or merciful in the face of his opponent. A flare of deadly magic arced forward, narrowly missing its target. Dodging away in sudden desperation, the Bringer of the North Wind found himself mere feet from the tetragram and flung himself through without a second thought—intent on escape.
With both members of the Arcane Order inside the trap, Douxie shut it with one glowing fist and watched it vanish into faint wisps of fog. With an air of surprise he realized his spontaneous plan had actually worked.
But the amount of strength he'd expended left him drained. There was a moment of utter disorientation and fizzling lights, then the wizard felt himself toppling forward. His face landed on a patch of stubbly grass instead of Merlin's workshop floor. Before his mind could fully process this, the numbing spell on his left hand slipped to the point where pain came bleeding out in escalating waves.
Douxie clenched his jaw, mildly aware of Archie's panicked voice somewhere nearby. With tremendous effort he managed to open his eyes only to wish he hadn't.
What remained of the staff of Avalon lay scattered on the ground, its pieces dull and lifeless after millennia of being one of the most powerful objects in the world.
There were also feet around him, but he couldn't be sure whose they were. Words passed back and forth but he was too tired to try making sense of them, though he was sure the hand that had reached down to rest on his shoulder belonged to Claire.
Even the thunderous sound of an explosion overhead didn't pull him back from the brink as he let himself succumb to unconsciousness.
"And nobody took pictures?!" Toby demanded, incredulous. "I can't believe you guys would blow up a flying evil wizard fortress and not document it."
"Varvatos Vex can assure the steel-mouthed one that the carnage was indeed glorious!" came the giant alien's inevitable bragging. "He takes great pride in his talents and has ensured the enemy's stronghold will never hold strong again."
"And we all appreciate it," Claire waved him off, more intent on Douxie who had just finished relating his recent adventures.
Douxie rubbed his newly-healed arm—courtesy of their resident member of the Arcane Order—but barely seemed to have the strength to sit up on Jim's living room sofa. Everyone else was digesting this new information with varying degrees of concern. Crouched in the corner, Nari stroked the flower in its pot, the faintest quiver in her fingers betraying her emotions.
"So Merlin bound the Seals to his staff all along," Blinky repeated, awe in his tone. "To do such a thing not only requires power but… His staff? He might as well have tied them directly to his own life."
"A shrewd hiding place," Nari agreed. "Merlin's choice united them to him in the most essential way so that they could not be retrieved without either his death or the loss of his greatest weapon. He put everything into protecting this world from the Order. From us."
"But where are they now?" Jim wondered. "Did they really get trapped in that place? That, um, Maze?"
"Well, yes and no," the wizard said. "There is one particular pocket dimension I've been accessing over the centuries and it comes in handy at times when we want to imprison creatures that don't mesh well with humans. It's called Limbo and it has possibly the best containment spell ever crafted."
"But even weakened as they are, the Order will still break free given time. And since they have the Seals…" Nari trailed off, looking frighteningly troubled.
"No big deal," Toby said through a yawn, not entirely pleased to have been woken at 6:00 AM. "As long as we keep you safe they can't do much of anything. Especially now that their doppelgänger-assassin-guy is back where he belongs. Plus Skrael is nothing but a cowardly little wimp without his staff, so ha!"
The green-clad witch turned on him with an anxious light behind her eyes. "You still don't understand! The Arcane Order has always abided by rules. As powerful as we are, there are specific things we cannot do. If my sister and brother have their hands on the Seals, many of those rules can now be bent or broken. Chief among them is permission to kill. After all, if we cannot take lives, the rebirth of the world would be impossible."
"Oh. That… uh… that might change things a bit."
The chubby teenager's response seemed to sum up everyone else's thoughts as well. Off to the side, Douxie continued to stare down at the floor, lost in his own thoughts.
"I didn't have much choice. I knew there would be no escaping once I got free of the Maze. My only option was to leave the Genesis Seals behind."
But despite his words, shame draped heavily over him. Jim stepped forward.
"Hey Doux, if you hadn't done it then we'd be facing them right now. You bought us more time to complete Merlin's machine. Yes, we're definitely in the danger zone, but we also have a chance to get the balance with the world sorted out." The Trollhunter turned to Krel. "What about the Akiridions? How much more support can we count on from them?"
Krel shrugged lightly, but there was an uneasy shifting from his lower pair of hands as he clasped them behind his back. "If we had an official alliance with the ruling family of Earth, it would be one thing, but without that… Well, diplomatically my people's options are limited."
Jim sighed. "In other words we can't expect much."
"You forget we have our own rebuilding to do, and this planet's problems are galaxies away from them. They have no stake in the outcome here and have very few resources to expend on a world whose prospects matter very little, especially since it is no longer the resting place of Gaylen's core. I'm sure Eli is working to change that, but change does come rather slowly, especially during times of recovery."
"So in other words you're saying you were fairly lucky to get the engineers you did?" Claire wondered.
"Extremely so," he agreed. "And if you expect me to complete Mar-lin's device before Nari's time expires, I had best focus on that from here on out."
"Barbara, you have to speak with him," Strickler murmured as he stroked her back.
The young mother sat on her bed, having just woken up a few minutes earlier only to find the babies all being taken care of by others. She didn't want to admit she'd used them to keep from thinking about the other day when Jim had…
Every time her boyfriend started to bring it up, she'd suddenly notice one or more of the children needed attention that moment. Now he'd purposely sent them all out on a playdate, keeping her from the one reliable source of distraction. Forcing her to stop running.
"Do you think you're the only one hurt by this?" the troll behind her asked reasonably. "Consider how angry he is with himself. You know your son, Barbara. No matter how it's explained to him, he will assume all responsibility."
She took off her glasses to wipe her eyes, embarrassed at the tears welling up.
"Walter, you saw his face. He stared at me like I was some nasty bug that had crawled out of a drain. He was disgusted!"
Strickler stilled, not answering. The acute pain of that encounter was still too fresh. Too raw. Sending the children out was the only way he could think of to make Barbara stop avoiding it and face reality, but he should have known she wasn't ready.
"Get more sleep if you can, my dear," he suggested, standing up. "Mrs. Nuñez won't be bringing the changeling children back until noon. I'll do some investigating of my own in the interim."
He cast her one last sympathetic smile before leaving the room. Anytime Strickler needed to travel during daylight hours the underground tunnels were a handy highway, so Barbara couldn't even use his safety as an excuse to do anything but lie back down.
But after tossing, turning and refluffing her pillow at least half a dozen times she finally gave up. Her mind was too busy to relax now.
The truth was… she didn't want to discuss the situation with Jim because ultimately there was nothing she could say or do that would fix it. Expressing her own feelings on the matter or listening to her son's apologies would only last until the next time his memories faded. Then it would begin all over again.
One tired hand massaged her eyelids, coupled with a sigh that dragged out all the fatigue accompanying something very close to despair.
Barbara stepped into the upper hallway, registering voices downstairs in the living room as she wearily wandered toward the bathroom. Once she finished toweling her face dry, Claire and Toby's words of farewell drifted up and the door shut. She was just about to head back to her room and change into some fresh clothes when her son's voice caught her ear.
"Nari, I've been wanting to speak to you alone."
"I am at your service, Trollhunter. What do you wish to speak of?"
Almost holding her breath, Barbara listened in. Downstairs, Jim searched for the right way to ask the question burning its way into every thought and act.
"Your magic deals with life, growth… the nature of things. You know what's wrong, don't you? Can you help me?"
Her honey-colored eyes gazed through him, measuring as she perceived something no one else could. Unfortunately the way she pursed her lips was answer enough.
"Merlin's magic is unique. The spell he crafted utilized the will just as much as the body."
"The will?" His four-fingered hands clenched into fists and he pressed her, "But doesn't it make any difference that I didn't fully understand what I was getting myself into?"
"Does any living creature fully understand its maturity beforehand?" She waved in a delicate movement, revealing the magical image of a creeping caterpillar on her forefinger. In a flash of light it had transformed into a butterfly that circled the small woman's head with a cheerful flutter. "Had you not voluntarily chosen this, there would have been no change, and it could not have been forced upon you. By the same token, it has taken root so deep I can do nothing without bringing harm to you in the process."
"But there's got to be a way!" Jim was desperate and he accidentally swiped a hand through the butterfly as it drifted close, making it dissolve into a starry green burst. "I can take the pain as long as I get back what I lost."
"I fear what may happen if I were to attempt what you ask," she responded soberly. "To reverse the nature of one who has already altered it once—which was dangerous enough the first time—is to court disaster. The soundness of your mind has been affected as you well know. A second time would accelerate the process and may easily shatter what remains, leaving you bodily human but empty within."
Still rigid with the stress of his situation, Jim considered her words. "What about just my memories? Is there any way you can keep them from deteriorating more?"
This time Nari stood to her full height on the couch and reached up to touch his face, eyes shut. When she spoke, her words came out in a whisper.
"I feel the cracks. They bleed away your past even now. To heal them requires much energy. More than I can safely offer at this time since I must gather all the strength I can to help this world recover."
"But you're willing to help me once that's done?"
"After," she nodded.
Unable to voice his gratitude at the moment, the half-troll took her tiny hands in his, both of them oblivious to the eavesdropper upstairs who silently hid away in her room.
It had been a restless night for Zoe. Amadeus had ranted and raved for almost an hour the day before, describing more than a few colorful ways he would rip Douxie to pieces once the wizard showed his face in Arcadia again. Her friends had finally left at her request, insisting how tired she was, but in truth she hadn't been able to sleep until well after midnight.
Even then she'd woken constantly, brought to tears by the broken shards of that emptiness inside where her magic had once lain. The only reason she'd forced herself to get up was because she had promised Pia that she would help her with the sea quartz from Douxie's shop.
Although she couldn't use magic she could at least help her friend, and Pia had understood that. The guys had insisted she didn't need to come to work… but that only made her feel useless. Without magic was she really no good to anyone?
A light knock interrupted Zoe's thoughts and she set down the cup of coffee. Pia usually couldn't be called punctual, but maybe today she'd made an exception. Pulling the door open, her instinctive greeting froze in her throat.
It was him.
"I wanted to speak with you," Douxie said, voice low.
No words came. But Zoe managed a mute nod and stepped back to allow him inside. With more than one sideways glance at one another they took their seats at the fold-out card table in her kitchenette, then an awkward silence descended as neither one could decide how to begin. From its perch on the wall, a clock in the shape of a cartoon cat swung its pendulum tail, shifting eyes locked in a rhythm that matched its tail. Its eternal ticking was the only sound for at least thirty seconds.
"I'm sorry—" they both started and stopped.
Douxie gestured for her to go first and the pink-haired girl bit her lower lip with both embarrassment and nervousness.
"I-I'm sorry about the other night. I had no idea about Merlin until after you left. He hardly said anything to me the entire time I was in Camelot, but I know he meant a lot to you. I see now you needed someone to talk to, and instead you found me moping about my own problems."
He shook his head. "Don't pretend what happened to you isn't important, Zoe. It is. And it shouldn't have happened! If it weren't for me—"
"No, that's not true, Douxie," she interrupted with a vigorous headshake. "Ever since you left I've been thinking and thinking nonstop… and I finally get it. The truth is I didn't really know how I felt until the moment I saw him about to kill you. Not really. I kept telling myself I only thought of you the way I do about Mark or Asmodeus, but…" Zoe rubbed one arm and fixed her eyes on a discolored scratch in the card table's surface. "I know without a doubt that I wouldn't have been able to make myself pour all my magic into one spell to save either of them. Maybe I would have tried, but I'd have held back just a little. Now I understand I care about you more than I care about my magic."
Silence fell again. He didn't want to speak, too afraid he'd misunderstood. The cat on the wall announced the hour with a pitiful mew that would have been comical any other time.
Finally raising her eyes to look at him, the former witch continued, "Claire told me about your Foretelling. Did you really give up becoming a master wizard to find me?"
A guilty shrug answered the question. "All I could clearly remember afterward was your face and the overwhelming feeling of sadness that you hadn't been born when I was young. So I decided to stay young until you were born. Archie always thought I was out of my tree, though."
The beginning of a smile faltered on her lips and she looked down again. "I'm not worth it. Maybe I could have been before, but I'm no good to anyone now."
"Zoe, do you really believe your magic is what gave you value and purpose? You believe that's the reason I was interested in you all along?"
"Isn't it?" she wondered with the merest trace of bitterness.
"I didn't even know you were a witch in the Foretelling," he insisted. "All I knew was that you were so amazing that a decrepit old man would have done anything to be able to be by your side. Listen… You gave up part of yourself for me. I would do the same for you in a heartbeat."
The metallic sound of an object being placed on the table between them pulled her attention. His charm bracer sat there. Zoe's eyes were drawn to his left wrist which she finally realized had been bare this whole time. Now she could see the scar stretching up from beside his thumb in an ugly spiderwebbed pattern.
"I didn't understand what the purpose of this was until Archie's father explained it to me," Douxie said, sliding it towards her. "Turns out it was created specifically for wizards whose magic is lost."
"No way." Zoe stared, almost uncomprehending. The hope in her blue eyes was dampened by the fear that this was too good to be true. "Y-You're making this up, aren't you?"
"Well…" He looked a bit more unsure now. "From what I understand it's not exactly the same. Not only will you have to learn spells an entirely new way, but even accessing magic will take concentrated effort."
"But if… if you give me that… how will you use magic?"
"I guess it's time I stopped using this as a crutch. It served its purpose after all." He held up his other wrist to show what looked like a keychain dangling from the bracelet there. "I have all I need."
"Is that your staff?" she almost laughed. "It's so cute!"
"Did you think I'd carry it around full-size all the time?" he grinned before growing serious again. "Zoe… maybe the whole reason I was given this bracer and stored centuries of magic inside wasn't for me after all. I can't think of anyone I'd rather pass it on to."
Her gaze panned from the bracer to his face. "Can I… can I really use it?"
"It'll be different and it will take you years to master, but yes. You—"
He broke off as she nearly capsized the table in order to throw herself on him, sobbing.
Jim meandered through Camelot the first day it was airborne again, sorry that so much had been damaged. Fractures marred every building to one degree or another, but the restorative measures supplied by the Akiridions only emphasized how badly the Order had beaten them. The glowing generators and force fields that filled in assorted gaps in the castle's architecture felt incomplete.
Yet the greatest surprise was when he entered the throne room. At first it looked about the same as he remembered except for the broken windows and cracked walls, but then his eyes were drawn to the great hulking boulders that overshadowed King Arthur's former throne.
"What in the world…?"
A sword had been rammed into the very center of the stones.
Curiosity got the best of him and he strode forward to get a better look. Giving a moment's scrutiny to the stone carvings of wide-mouthed serpents (or perhaps dragons?), he sprang up. The sword itself gleamed with an eerie light that didn't feel as if it came from an outside source.
As his fingers slid along the hilt, Jim felt a thrill of excitement. The banners in Camelot all depicted a pair of toppled stones crested by a sword and blazing arc. The symbol of Arthur himself and his mightiest weapon.
Jim was touching Excalibur.
"Merlin put it there after Douxie used it to free you from the big emerald," Claire's voice came from behind, startling him. "I suppose he didn't want anyone messing with it again. Toby already tried to pull it out, though he won't admit it."
"Doesn't surprise me," he said, cracking a brief grin, then he let his fingers drop away and got down from the perch with a nimble leap. "It's practically alive with magic. Not necessarily dangerous magic, but it can be. It's different from anything I've ever seen before, though I'm not completely sure how. I'm still not good at this whole seeing-magic thing."
His girlfriend stepped up beside him, leaning her head against his arm as they both gazed at Excalibur. "I've been wanting to speak with you, Jim."
Turning to stare at her, he gave an immediate nod. "You know you don't have to ask permission."
Concern and slivers of fear passed over her face as she walked a few paces away. Reaching one of the covered windows, she took a deep breath and spoke without looking back.
"Jim, I'll be honest with you about all this… I'm scared. We have no idea what Merlin's magical amplifier will do to the world. People, plants, animals… Everything is going to be affected. All the things that are familiar to us could be warped. I know we have to go through with it, but we really haven't considered what will happen all over the world."
He remained silent as she spoke, and when Claire turned to look at him again, the doubt in her eyes was unmistakable.
"Maybe Bellroc and Skrael are right about people turning on each other and going to war against magic-kind. If so, then that means it's going to be our fault. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Claire, I have considered it more than you realize," the half-troll answered, shaking his head. "I had to navigate these waters on my own and I know how terrifying it is to suddenly be thrust into another world. Yes, things could get violent, but it's our only option. There is no other way."
He had crossed the length of the throne room by the time he finished speaking and gently reached out, but she seized his outstretched hand with both of hers. Obviously his words did little to quiet her anxiety.
"I know it's important that we fix whatever has gone wrong with magic in the world, but at the same time I can't help wondering what caused it in the first place. Jim, think about it! Without knowing that, isn't it likely to swing back to this problem all over again?"
"But that's countless generations from now. I'm more concerned about the fact that every thousand years Trollhunters are going to have to deal with the Arcane Order and the Genesis Seals to protect the world from annihilation."
"It's a never-ending cycle, isn't it?" Claire whispered, sounding almost lost. "Bellroc and Skrael will never stop trying to destroy everything, and they'll get chance after chance to do it. Meanwhile the world's balance will slip out of control again and by then our solution—if it even works—might be lost. The real key to all this is to find out why it's happening, Jim."
They stood still, neither one sure what else to say for a time. Finally Jim let out a deep breath in a depressed sigh.
"Even Merlin had no idea. If he couldn't figure it out, how are we supposed to?"
A/N: Dare I give any explanation for the nearly year-long hiatus here? Tons of life happenings interfered and I won't bore anyone with any of them except the happy one: my baby's birth went well and she's healthy!
Now on to the good stuff. The other reason for this delay is that there was no real spark giving the chapter life. It's mostly a bunch of random interactions that all had to take place, but ones I had the hardest time completing.
First off I knew I needed to include the Akiridions in some way since their part in "Wizards" is mostly relegated to Krel helping out with one random tech/magic gadget and driving the getaway vehicle. His contribution other than that was… pretty much nil. Which is embarrassing for someone so important. Not only did I want to showcase the Akiridions aiding in Camelot's recovery, but also meeting certain people. I knew I needed more of Barbara and Nari, but especially Jim and Claire. And of course Zoe's problem had to get a bit of light shined on it as well.
Speaking of, I kept coming back to the first episode of "Wizards" to get a closer look at Douxie's bracer. I know I mentioned this in another of my chapters, but the scar directly beneath it is visible even on his younger self, meaning it is very likely tied to the bracer itself. Knowing the earlier series never included excess information that's meaningless, I suspect we were meant to find out something important about them at some point and an "embedding process" was the only realistic and interesting idea I could come up with that fit the circumstances. (Oddly enough we never see Douxie's scar when his bracer was disguised as a watch, but hey! Minor illusions seem pretty easy for him to cast.)
I can't help also noticing that Douxie often wasted a lot of time trying to find spells on his bracer even when he had a staff. Often it slowed him down, and whenever he did spells without it they always seemed stronger and more effective. I'm wondering now whether he continued to use the bracer after he got his staff just because its special effects were just so awesome and fun that the animators weren't willing to give it up.