Atlas

With a contented sigh, Walter Strickler put the last comment under the very last essay he had managed to look through before the first lesson. Actually, he had intended to finish all the work already last night, but Bular had put a spoke in his wheel. And Walter hated nothing more than when someone messed with his calling! Because that was what his teaching profession was for him. It always had been.

He still thought with fondness of the first time he stood in front of curious young people. That was the first time he had been able to escape the burden of his destiny, at least temporarily. No excruciating pain with which his body was made docile for his role to be played, no harassing words of the other Changelings who thought him an inferior troll because he had descended from a stalkling and was thus considered impure among the impure, and no overbearing human parents whom he had never been able to please. And when his human father had died, he had had to make sure that his mother and two sisters continued to be cared for. That had been the end of Waltolomew Strickler's childhood, and had he not been able to transform into his original troll form every now and then in between, the hard and deprived times would have sent him to his death as well. But this way he had been able to keep himself and his human family alive thanks to his wicked troll mind, which had already matured at a young age.

Waiting for his students, he looked out of the window. It was once again a bright and beautiful morning, and yet it wouldn't end well if Bular had his way. They had no idea if Merlin's Amulet had chosen a new trollhunter and, if so, who. If it really was just accidentally pocketed by someone and he sent the goblins off at sunset without a new trollhunter to stop them, there would be many casualties, if not deaths! And the worst part was that he, Walter, would be partly to blame. For as the immediate middle man between Bular and the Janus Order, he had to carry out the orders of Gunmar's son.

"Are you all right, Mr. Strickler?"

He heard a voice beside him and winced slightly before quickly turning to face the boy.

"Ah, Eli. What makes you think I wouldn't be all right?" Walter asked, attempting what he thought was at least a semi-successful smile.

"You just looked like you were thinking. I mean-" the boy stammered suddenly and Walter had to laugh softly against his will. Eli Pepperjack was one of his best students and Walter could always count on the boy to be punctual. Which could not be said of other students...

"I mean, you looked so terribly thoughtful, like your thoughts were causing you pain or something. And that would make you the second one today."

"Oh?" With raised eyebrows, he nodded to Eli to continue.

"Well, Jim doesn't seem to have quite gotten over his stomach bug from yesterday yet. He's trying to hide it, but earlier at his locker, when he surely felt unobserved, I could see quite clearly that he was in pain. And that even before the first class. Maybe he should see the nurse?"

"Hmm, I'll be watching him. Thank you for the tip, Eli."

No sooner had Eli taken the few steps to his seat than Jim came walking slowly into the classroom. But Walter wouldn't have needed Eli's hint to see immediately that something was wrong with him - usually he was either smiling and at peace, wearing an expression of concern for his friend when the two of them had already crossed Steve Palchuk's path, or rubbing his eyes sleepily when his night had obviously been quite short once again... But this morning his face was closed off and his overall posture was so stiff it couldn't be anything than pain that he obviously wanted to hide. Eli had been right.

With a worried look, he watched the boy walk to his seat without his normal greeting and sit bolt upright on the chair. But the longer he watched Jim, and the more the class filled until the bell rang, the more the feeling crept over him that this could in no way be a remnant of his stomach bug from the day before.

"All right, assuming you've all done your homework and read the two chapters in the book, today we're going to look at the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War and how the King's Peace finally came about in 386 BC," he began his lesson, not taking his eyes off the boy for long who reminded him so much of himself at a young age.

And indeed, not once during the entire lesson did Jim hold his stomach or sit hunched forward. Instead, Walter caught him contorting his face twice and, with his lips pinched together, apparently trying to inconspicuously massage his temples. That looked like a classic headache to Walter. Knowing full well that Jim was actually good at judging when he needed appropriate medication to fight such debilitating pain, Walter completed his lessons as planned and didn't send him to the school nurse ahead of time. But when the school bell sounded again, and with the end of the class all the students seemed to be fleeing the room as fast as they could, he held him back.

"Jim, may I have a word?"

Bewildered, he saw the boy reflexively reach out for his bag on his table, as if to stop it from falling down. But when he realized in the next moment that it was stable and wouldn't have fallen at all, he looked up at Walter with a jerk and showed a smile that looked extremely embarrassed. With a frown, Walter stepped closer and put a hand on Jim's shoulder to reassure him. Whatever was going on in the boy's mind right now worried him. For as far back as he could remember Jim had never complained of a headache. Could his pain have had another origin? But in this setting, it was neither the place nor the time to bring up and discuss any private problems he might have. With an inward sigh, he therefore confined himself to the school aspect.

"Jim, you're distracted. I don't know that about you, and frankly it worries me. I also had the feeling that you had a headache. You tried to not let it show, but that didn't really allow you to follow the lesson, am I right?"

"Sorry. My last night wasn't at all pleasant…"

There it was again. And well, even though he was neither the school psychologist nor a trained guidance counselor responsible for students' private problems, he could hardly leave him like that if he wanted Jim to open up to him. Protocol or not, soon it wouldn't matter anyway. But maybe this way he could make sure that the student to whom he currently felt most attached would get a chance if he approached him further than the professional student-teacher relationship dictated.

"I know it's just you and your mother and you want to help her," he therefore continued with a mild smile. "But you shouldn't try to hide such pain from her so as not to worry her. She certainly wouldn't have let you go back to school already if she knew you couldn't fully concentrate."

"She's just really tired, Mr. Strickler. She's been working double shifts at the clinic lately, and yeah, I really don't want her to worry about me. And this morning I was fine, really. It just started on the way to school."

With a nod, he accepted this information and pulled out a notepad on which he wrote down his phone number. "Well, I believe I'm overdue for a conversation with her. Have her call me, please." Handing him the note, he added, "And I expect you to stop by Miss Keller's before the next class and have something given to you if you don't want to go home because of this headache. And feel free to drop by my office anytime if you ever need to talk."

"Thanks, Mr. Strickler. I'll do that."

But what he saw in the boy's eyes at that moment confused him. So much pain spoke from them, which couldn't possibly come from a headache alone. But before he could compose himself and ask what it was that was on his mind, Jim had already turned and left the classroom.

"What's on your mind right now, young Atlas?"

Shaking his head, he walked over to his teacher's desk and stacked his materials to make room for those of the new class he now had.

During the lunch break, he saw the boy again and although he didn't look quite so pale anymore, he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that something was still wrong with Jim. His behavior was so completely different from what Walter knew him to be. It was almost as if someone in his family had died and now he didn't know how to deal with it. He would definitely discuss that with Barbara Lake when she called him. Well, unless Jim had opened up more with him first…

But for now, Walter had other things to turn to.

After watching the last of the students leave after school, he too packed his bag and headed for the museum. The date for the upcoming museum visit for Jim's class was quickly discussed with his old acquaintance Zelda Nomura, even though he honestly didn't see the point of it anymore.

"Don't think about it so much. After all, the show must go on until the last act..." With a soft and, to his ears, slightly mischievous laugh, Nomura took him into the bowels of the grand old building.

"Are you going to miss it?" Walter asked without any audible emotion in his voice while looking at the old paintings that lined the walls of the hallway they were walking down. But apparently she had picked up on something anyway.

"Miss what?" she asked with an accusing tone, eyes narrowed. "My life? My work? You're not going to go soft on me in the last few moves, are you, Stricklander? After all, you're passionate about teaching too."

Growling, he looked at her. "I merely wanted to inquire about your loyalty."

"Of course... My loyalty is to Gunmar and his cause. Nothing has changed in that regard."

"Good to know. Then surely you have already instructed the goblins for tonight."

"Oh, but I was going to leave that honor to you as head of our local Janus Order. I didn't want to transmit any possibly wrong orders in case of a communication failure. After all, it's not too often that a newly chosen trollhunter is to be lured out."

And with that he was back to his thoughts of that very morning. Certainly, Arcadia Oaks wasn't a city where things would get wild after sunset. But now that Arcadia's Sauna had expanded to include truly soothing steam baths (which Walter had enjoyed using regularly since the opening) and had become Arcadia's Sauna & Bath, more and more young people were only finding their way home at even later hours when they took advantage of this offer after a visit to the movies.

Walter knew that many of his students liked to hang out downtown.

But he couldn't afford any weakness, Nomura was right. Perhaps it had simply been a mistake to look for a profession that he also saw as a vocation. Many of his changeling brothers and sisters kept away from their fellow humans on purpose, in order not to build up bonds and relationships. But for him it was already much too late for that. And if he was honest with himself, he would choose becoming a teacher again at any time. Because that was what had given him joy, a purpose in this life and thus also fulfillment, after the first years had been so depriving and painful.

Now he simply had to remember his origins again and cut the ties that bound Walter Strickler. He had to become more of Stricklander again, otherwise he might not survive the new age of Gunmar's rule. And he had already come far too far to let human feelings drag him to his doom!

Steeling himself against any feelings of guilt, he stepped before the leader of the goblins a little later with a grim and determined face and motionlessly did his job as Bular's middleman...