Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 2nd August 2021
It wasn't on his first visit to Trollmarket, or even his third, that Jim finally found himself able to slip away to the Hero's Forge alone and place his hand in the Soothscryer.
For a moment, it didn't work. But even as he felt his heart sinking into his shoes, he narrowed his eyes and hissed "Come on!" at it.
Then it clamped onto his hand and he whirled away into the Void Between Worlds.
He straightened as he landed in the other version of the Forge. Blue wisps circled around him.
"Not the Trollhunter," one whispered.
"What is he doing here?" another whined. Jim recognized that voice - Unkar.
"Human," a third hissed. "How is it even here?"
"He's not not a Trollhunter, either," someone said. Deya?
He stood, and waited, until finally someone made a decision and materialized before him.
Kanjigar. Of course.
"You are not the Trollhunter," Kanjigar said levelly.
"Oh," said Jim, pulling his amulet out of his jacket pocket. "I think you'll find I am."
Kanjigar's eyes widened even as Jim said the incantation and his armor appeared.
"You are a Trollhunter," Kanjigar conceded. "Though not one with whom I am familiar." His frown deepened. "There is only one amulet. How can there be two living Trollhunters at a time?"
"Let alone two human ones," someone else whispered sulkily.
"I thought you could see all through the amulet," Jim jibed, to cover the fast beating of his heart.
Kanjigar paused, then reached a hand out to where the amulet rested in Jim's armor. "The connection is... unclear," he admitted.
Jim nodded. "Yeah. It got destroyed, then remade. In the future."
"Time travel!" Unkar howled. "I told you it was possible!"
"Yeah, yeah, we know," Deya said, materializing. Her ghost-light eyes met Jim's and her head cocked to one side. "Do I... know you?"
"I'm... not sure," Jim admitted. "I know you, though. Nine hundred years ago, you busted out of Camelot's dungeon and helped someone else escape too."
"...A crazy time-traveling troll," Deya said, like she was just remembering it. She blinked. "Wow, you look different, Jim."
"You do know me, then." Relief warred with dread in Jim's stomach. It seemed he would be the one going back in time to Camelot after all.
"I do." Deya nodded. "Time has no meaning to the dead."
Wait, what? So is it me who goes back, or will it be Tobes?
But with Deya's approval, the whispers of the other Trollhunters had turned from aghast censure to something... neutral.
"I wasn't sure if you would," Jim confessed. "When I came back, to set things right, I changed things. I let Toby have first crack at the amulet."
"You chose who would be the Trollhunter?" Kanjigar demanded.
"Toby was already a hero," Jim argued. "This is just his chance to become one."
"The amulet does not choose the unworthy," someone reminded Kanjigar.
"Besides," Jim said, "two Trollhunters stand a better chance of making things right than one."
"And what," Kanjigar demanded, "goes so wrong that you needed to change time itself?"
"Bular. Gunmar getting out of the Darklands. Morgana summoning the Eternal Night. Invasion by an Akiridion usurper. The Arcane Order raising the Titans," Jim listed off, hard and merciless. "If you want a more personal list, Draal, your son, will be dead within a year, and Heartstone Trollmarket destroyed not much later."
If a ghost could be said to pale, Kanjigar did.
"Toby needs to be trained," Jim said, ignoring whispers of shock from the other Trollhunters. "I'm going to try and nudge things so that none of the worst happens, but he can't know about me yet. He needs to be the Trollhunter. He needs to become."
"All right, Jim," Deya said. "We'll do it. But," she said, her tone suddenly turning harder, "since we can't see through your amulet, we're going to need you to check in with us."
"As often as I can," Jim promised.
When Jim rematerialized back in the Hero's Forge, armor still shining around him, he felt at least fifty pounds lighter. The Council of Elder Trollhunters was at least nominally on his side... or at least willing to watch him fall on his face.
The euphoria lasted until he turned around, to see Aaarrrgghh at the entrance to the Forge, looking at him with large eyes.
"Fuzzbuckets," Jim whispered, Douxie's favorite curse falling unbidden from his mouth as his armor vanished. "I don't suppose I could get you not to tell anyone about this?"
Aaarrrgghh slowly shook his head. "Don't keep secrets from Blinky."
Jim sighed and hung his head. Might as well get this over with.
"All right," he said, raising his head and looking Aaarrrgghh in the eye. "Let's go talk to Blinky."
"I am most astounded, James," Blinky said, an interminable amount of time later.
Jim bit back the tiny stab of hurt that starburst in his chest. This wasn't his Blinky; the troll barely knew him. And this Blinky's concern wasn't Jim, but training Toby up as the Trollhunter before the human could get himself killed.
(Draal, predictably, was skewing the odds toward the latter.)
(It still stung, just a little, that Blinky, who'd more than once called him a son, now saw Jim as a stranger.)
"You called me Master Jim, or just Jim, in another lifetime," Jim said softly. His amulet lay on the table between them. Blinky had stared at it with all six eyes wide for a long silent moment, but hadn't made a move to touch it.
"And you were the Trollhunter," Blinky said. Not a question, but a request for confirmation nonetheless.
"I still am." Jim picked up his amulet and pocketed it. "The thing is, though, we were all Trollhunters. Team Trollhunter."
"Nonsense! There's no such thing."
"There is," Jim insisted. "Or there will be. Because going it alone when you've got people willing and able to help you is just stupid." He heard the bitterness in his voice and reined it in. "And I'm done being stupid."
"Why come back in time?" asked Aaarrrgghh.
Jim sighed. "Because too many people died. Because we had the Chronosphere. Because a little goddess told me I could make things right."
"Goddess?" That distracted Blinky.
"A goddess," Jim confirmed. "Who was one of the people who died that I'm trying to save." He wondered if Nari would remember him; she was the one who had known about the Chronosphere and told them what to do. Did she exist partially out of time too, the way the ghost council did?
"And what is your intent, Ja- Master Jim?" asked Blinky.
Jim had to smile at the attempt to soothe him. "For now? See if I can get a few people to switch sides sooner. Make connections. The Council of Elder Trollhunters is willing to let me try, but they want me to check in regularly. Not that they could stop me if they wanted to, I think." His fingers drummed on the amulet in his pocket. "But I like Deya. And Kanjigar. Checking in with them is not a problem."
"Well, if the Council of Elders is giving you, as they say, enough rope to hang yourself with, who am I to disagree?" Blinky demanded sarcastically as he threw all four arms in the air and stalked in a small circle. "I have been training Trollhunters for nearly nine hundred years, and this is most unprecedented!"
"Different not bad," Aaarrrgghh offered.
"Yes, yes, you are right, of course, Aarghaumont," Blinky agreed, settling. He sighed, then looked back at Jim. "And I suppose this means simply that we have two Trollhunters to train."
"No," Jim said immediately.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm not saying that I'm perfect, or fully trained, since a Trollhunter never stops learning. But your priority right now cannot be me," Jim emphasized. "I've been doing this for two years. Toby's had two days, and Draal is going to kill him to try and get the amulet. And Draal?" he asked rhetorically, "Draal cannot be the Trollhunter. He doesn't listen yet, and Gunmar will end up getting out of the Darklands and killing him. And then no one will be able to stop Gunmar."
Blinky and Aaarrrgghh's eyes were both wide. "Jim know this how?"
"Stupid time travel magic," Jim bit out bitterly, but privately thanked Unkar for it. "Listen," he insisted, "your priority right now has to be training Toby."
"Yes. Yes, I can see that," Blinky said slowly. He hesitated, then, "This must be very sad for you, Jim, losing so many of the friendships you had built."
"Yeah," Jim agreed with a sigh. "But at least I get the chance to rebuild them."
"What were we like?" Aaarrrgghh rumbled. "In other time-line?"
Jim smiled. "We were really good friends," he was happy to tell Aaarrrgghh. "You were besties with Tobes, though."
"And you and I, Master Jim?" asked Blinky.
Jim felt his smile shift into something softer, wistful. "More than once, you told me I was like a son to you. And since my dad left when I was a kid, that really meant a lot to me, Blinky. Not that I'm jealous if it's Toby who ends up like a son to you this time around!" he rushed to clarify. "I mean, he lost both his parents when he was even younger than I was. So he could really use a dad too."
"I see." Blinky's expression was thoughtful.
"Well." Jim pushed back from the table. "I'd probably better go rescue Toby from Vendel, or they'll talk forever about rocks. We'll meet you in the Forge?"
"Yes. Well. I certainly must assume you must know your way around Trollmarket by now." Blinky looked wistful now. "Master Jim?"
"Yeah?" Jim turned back to look at Blinky.
"We trolls seldom have more than one child at a time. My brother and myself were the rarest of exceptions. That being said... I should be most proud," Blinky managed, "if I ever managed to have two sons as fine as yourself and Master Toby."
Jim smiled. "Thanks, Blinky."
Author's Note: The implication that Deya remembers Jim from the future was perhaps inspired by my best friend's love of classic Dr. Who (I've watched a little Dr. Who, but it just never stuck with me), and particularly the revelation that he was, or would become Merlin. I never saw the episode in question, but I dearly love her recounting of it: "Well, I could be, in the future. That is, my own personal future. Which might be in the past." It's very much the same situation Jim's stuck in right now, and the English language lacks the tenses and vocabulary to properly deal with time travel shenanigans. Like that picture of the old man recording the shape of sea foam with nails hammered into the sand, writers must do our best to represent the world through the inadequate vehicle of words, the only tool we have.