Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 22nd November 2021
Hisirdoux dodged and weaved like it was a dance, bringing coffee and Coke to Mister Johnson and his red-headed son, cheerfully ignoring, due to long practice, the man's standing distrust of all immigrants and the barked, glowering tone of orders given to Douxie.
When Krel arrived, Douxie needed to let him know not to take it personally. Seamus' father's racism extended to British immigrants as well as supposedly-Hispanic ones. Anyone with an accent "taking jobs away from good, hard-working Americans." Never mind that Douxie had been in the USA since long before the man had even been born. Sometimes he understood why Zoe had worked hard to eradicate any trace of her roots.
With Mary, Darci, and Eli appearing at the bookshop, he hadn't been able to bring up what the lack of the Eternal Night might do. His closing shift at the cafe was going to go on long enough that by the time he was done, Jim, Toby, and Claire should all be in bed. And, joy of joys, the cafe was short-staffed tonight, so he wasn't going to get enough of a break to express his concerns via texting the group chat.
Well, there was always tomorrow, he supposed.
"And what would you like for a side?" he asked Mister Johnson, not missing a beat.
And not letting on that every single bite the man would be eating tonight would be cooked by a team of three Mexican chefs, immigrants all. Doing the jobs no "good, hard-working American" seemed to want.
"So, what's up, Sis?" NotEnrique asked, crawling up onto her bed.
"Not much," Claire replied. She had the new Papa Skull album playing (softly, per her parents' insistence), but she just wasn't feeling it.
She rolled over onto her stomach. "Do you ever want anything from life?"
He chuckled meanly. "Yeah, not gettin' eaten by anything."
"That's a pretty low goal, Bro. Come on, you can do better."
"Like what?" He picked up the album jacket with his toes, swinging back and forth, suspended on his arms as he examined it.
"Don't eat that," Claire warned.
"Like I would." NotEnrique licked his lips. "Don't suppose your boyfriend sent over any snacks for me...?"
"He said he'll have a batch ready tomorrow," Claire reported. She held her hands apart, and a rift bloomed between them. Well, at least that was getting easier. It had almost felt effortless this time. Which probably meant she was ready to be working on a larger size.
But it still didn't feel like... hers. She sighed and let the portal go, dropping her face onto her pillow. "I should probably tell Douxie about this," she said into the pillow.
"Tell 'im about what?" NotEnrique asked, shifting himself up by her head.
"I feel like I'm stalled on developing my magic," Claire reported, raising her head. "And I just don't have... I dunno. The connection he seems to have with his. Like, his magic makes him happy. And I like mine, I really do! It's useful. But I just don't feel the same way about it Douxie seems to, and I want to feel that way."
The little monster hummed. "Didja ever think maybe ya might have more than one type a' magic?" he asked her.
Claire stared.
"I'm just sayin', from what you say, he's got lots, right? Bein' a master wizard candidate and all. So maybe you've got other kinds of magic, too, and some of 'em might feel more natural to ya, or something." NotEnrique looked embarrassed, and scratched behind his ear with one foot.
He was not expecting it when Claire lunged at him and grabbed him in a hug. "Hey, lemme go!"
"NotEnrique, you're a genius!" she said, beaming.
"Wha- well of course I am," he replied, his thrashing dying down. "What else do ya expect?"
The opal alone, Jim concluded after a solo session in the arena, going through his sword forms, didn't seem to do anything.
(Either that, or he'd totally botched up cleaving and polishing the stone. But given that Vendel had seemed to approve of the finished product, he hoped that wasn't the cause.)
The stone didn't give him any new weapons so far as he'd discovered, and a quick check in a mirror in his house before he'd come downstairs hadn't revealed any changes to his armor. And as far as somehow using the gem to concentrate and shift to either of his troll forms...
"Pfff," Jim's breath hissed out between his teeth. "Yeah, that's a bust." Unless Douxie or maybe especially Archie had any tricks about shapeshifting that they hadn't shared yet.
And maybe he should be studying for Spanish or something, but he felt antsy. Still, Jim knew he wasn't in the right headspace to head down to Trollmarket and tackle cutting the tiger's eye. Even if Vendel hadn't firmly set a date for that project on Sunday afternoon, being in Trollmarket felt weird now, with the way almost everyone kept staring at him.
It wasn't that he felt unsafe, but he definitely felt uncomfortable. He didn't want to go back without Toby, to share and divide the unwanted attention.
"Huh," Jim breathed, suddenly realizing something. Even in his very first days in Trollmarket, he'd never felt uncomfortable there before. Scared and overwhelmed, maybe, but never like a piece that just didn't fit.
Would unlocking his troll forms make that focus on him seem better? Or worse?
He needed, he realized, to find out what Trollmarket knew about him, and decide what else he wanted them to know. Because right now all they knew was that he'd been hiding things from them. Had Vendel explained anything more? Had Blinky? (And, Jim had to ask, given Blinky's reputation-at-large for being a crackpot conspiracy theorist, did any additional explanation he'd given to Trollmarket sound good or bad to the trolls' ears?)
"Trollhunter."
Jim turned. There, coming out of the shadows of the tunnel, was Draal.
"Draal. Hey."
"You seem disturbed."
"A little, yeah."
"Tell me."
Jim sighed. "I was just wondering what the heck Trollmarket is making of, well." He gestured at himself, at his armor. "Me."
"You feel they do not trust you."
"I kind of have been lying to them," Jim pointed out.
Draal laughed. "And you think we do not tell one another lies all the time?"
"This is kind of bigger than 'who finished the last of the tin cans? it wasn't me!'"
"Perhaps." Draal inclined his head. "But you should not let the opinions of others effect you so."
"Effect me?"
Draal gestured at all of him. "Your stance is weak. Your form, uncertain."
"Trollmarket means a lot to me," Jim felt the need to tell him.
Draal rummaged through the weapons heap, eventually pulling out a steel-hafted spear. "Of that I have no doubt. If it did not, you might have just let Usurna take her course."
"And sacrifice Vendel?" Jim demanded, aghast. "I mean, I don't always get on with him. But there was no way I was going to let her murder him again!"
"I see that," said Draal, whirling the weapon, testing its weight. "And, given a chance, so will the rest of Trollmarket. If Toby is the sword in the light, you too are our defender, the knife in the dark. Though given Toby has the dark armor now, and you the light... well, the contrasts will no doubt please the poets."
"Wait, there are troll poets?" Jim asked.
Draal laughed uproariously. "Yes! Many, and fine. I will find you their works, that you may admire how they speak of bravery and sing of the deeds of heroes past."
"There are drinking songs, aren't they?" Jim realized.
"Some," Draal admitted, smiling. "But for now, my brother in arms, let us clash and see if you have improved that weakness on your left side since the last time we trained."
Jim couldn't help the grin coming to his face. "Bring it on, Draal," he said.
And Draal did.
Toby lay on his bed, amulet held up in the air, over his face. The title screen for Go Go Sushi was still playing on his TV, but without Aaarrrgghh playing it with him, the game felt kind of stale right now.
He ran his fingers around the inscription at the edge. He'd cut all three Triumbric Stones and secured them within the amulet, and now the thing glowed red.
Like raw meat. Flesh. Blood.
Toby shuddered.
Everything that had happened to Jimbo the first time around had been hell on his best friend. Sure, he'd seen Jim grow because of it - it almost seemed like the more weight you threw on Jim's shoulders, the taller he'd stand. And now he was a divine king. What was up with that? Was it just because he'd been able to pull Excalibur from the stone, with the rest of them helping? Or was there something more, something deeper?
What the heck had Douxie known that the rest of them hadn't?
But for all that, Toby wasn't Jim. Sure, he wanted to save the world. He totally had, even if it had killed him! But this time they had a chance to do it better, smarter. Without the casualty count.
But they didn't know if Excalibur could kill Gunmar.
So it was going to be Toby's job.
And that scared the crap out of him.
"Fear is but the precursor to valor," Toby whispered.
His resolve hardened. He was going to do it. He was going to kill Gunmar. Somehow. He just needed to figure out how.
Merlin had said once upon a time that Jim hadn't been enough, had needed to become something more. But now Merlin wasn't around, and Douxie had flat-out admitted he didn't know how to make the transformation potion. Even with the list of ingredients Toby, Jim, and Claire remembered all too well, and the fragments of what Jim knew about how it had been made, it was all too easy for alchemical potions to go wrong, Douxie had said, refusing to even try. When he'd listed out a handful of examples of the results that could happen if he botched even one step, Toby'd had to agree with him.
He didn't want to end up dead again before he could even kill Gunmar. The possibility of becoming a half-troll just wasn't worth the risk.
And he wasn't even sure he wanted to be a half-troll.
Well. Jim hadn't wanted it either, but he'd done it anyway. Because he felt he had to. Because he was responsible.
Whereas Toby was the goofball sidekick, with emotional support for his superpower.
"But I'm not anymore," he whispered. "I'm the Trollhunter."
He let his arm, and his amulet, fall by the side, onto his bed.
He was as scared as crap, but he was going to step up and get the job done, no matter what it took. Because he loved Trollmarket. He loved the trolls. He loved Arcadia Oaks, and his Nana, and Jim, and Darci, and Claire...
And he was going to save them all, even if it killed him.
Again.
Mary sat on her bed, phone held above herself, rewatching a video from months ago. She'd had to dig through YouTube to find it again, which had been a pain.
But now she knew what she was watching.
The attack at the cafe hadn't been special effects or some movie being made. No, it had been real and she'd just been too stupid to know the difference. Now, though...
The green things were scary. Not big, but scary. Vicious, snarling, screaming. They looked like they'd bite. She wondered if bites from them got infected as easily as cat and dog bites did.
And there was Douxie in the street, coolly smashing them into goo with a folding chair and then, with some blue magic, summoning a broom to his hand and continuing even more hardcore to destroy the green mob.
All by himself, because no one was helping.
Until Toby, wearing armor of all things, and a couple other figures showed up.
"Wait a minute," Mary said, sitting up and staring at the screen. She knew those other two... well, were they people? They certainly weren't human. But she recognized them from the Halloween event. They'd both been in the costume contest. The big one had won.
They hadn't been wearing costumes at all, those cheaters!
She suddenly thought, with a chill running down her spine, of how many other costumes she'd seen that night that looked kind of like them. At the time, she hadn't thought anything about it.
Now, though...
"Ugh!" She flopped back down on her bed.
She was going to have to talk with Eli and find out what he knew, then check with Claire to find out what of Eli's crazy talk was actually accurate...
Because Mary Wang was many things, but stupid wasn't among them. She liked being safe. And how could she be safe, if she didn't even know what was out there that might try to eat her?
So, step one. Find out what the green things were called, and how to deal with them. Step two, learn about the not-in-costume guys and what was going on with them.
Step three, corner Claire and maybe Douxie, and demand to know everything.
Mary was on a mission. Boys were just going to have to wait.
Eli sat in the dark, looking happily up at his theory board, which he usually kept concealed behind an enormous banner to keep his mom from knowing about it.
He'd been right. He'd been right about so many things, and not crazy like everyone thought! There really were creepers, and trolls (he'd been right on his guess about what the stone creatures were!) and wizards and magic...
He sighed happily.
Best. Day. Ever.
And he had permission to go back to the bookstore and ask Douxie questions, and Douxie had practically promised to show him the "rare books room" which, just the implication of that held so much potential.
And he could talk to Claire, and Jim, and Toby about all this and they wouldn't laugh at him.
Well, they might laugh, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't be in the mean way. And then they'd tell him what he'd said that was so funny...
He could have friends, and...
...and...
...and why was he crying?
Eli raised his glasses, scrubbing at his eyes, sniffing.
Why did it suddenly hurt so much?
Darci clicked through the channels, one after another, trying to find something, anything, that would take her mind off the day's revelations.
Claire hadn't exactly been lying to them... she just hadn't wanted her besties dragged into the big, scary world of magic.
She didn't want them getting hurt.
But it stung that Claire was up to her neck in magic and danger and hadn't trusted them to have her back.
Not that Darci or Mary had magic (probably), but still. There were things like pepper spray and baseball bats. They could totally help!
She wasn't even aware that she'd stopped clicking the remote until her mom came in the room and plopped down beside her on the sofa. "Ooh, Labyrinth!" Yara Scott said. "This is a good one, sweetie."
"What?" Darci refocused on the TV, watching as some spiky-haired guy dressed like a Victorian fetishist broke into song with muppets.
"Now, you see, that guy's the Goblin King," her mother explained, gesturing at Spiky Hair. "And there's this human girl who wants to be an actress. She wished her baby brother away, and is trying to rescue him. And the girl, Sarah, and the Goblin King kind of fall for one another." She laughed. "Well, that's my interpretation of it, anyhow. Other people read it a little differently."
"And those are the goblins?" Darci asked skeptically, gesturing at the muppets.
"Yep," her mom said happily, leaning back into the cushions.
"Right," said Darci dubiously, settling back to watch.
Real goblins, she thought, probably didn't sing and dance like the ones in the movie.
Real goblins probably ate kids.
Real goblins probably needed to be dealt with with pepper spray and a baseball bat.
And the thought of violence scared her, and she didn't want to die. But if it was her bestie on the line?
Darci was going to come in swinging.
"Christ, is there a convention in town or something?" Sheree muttered as Douxie swung around her, hitting the ice and thrusting a cup against the Sprite lever.
"No idea," Douxie replied. "It's got to slow down at some point, right?"
"If we're lucky." She put her set of filled cups on a tray and turned to go to her tables, spinning so fast her skirt caught the air and flared. Hustling, she went.
Douxie pulled the cup off the dispenser just before it would have overflowed and set it on his own tray. He stepped over to the service window to check if any of his orders were ready yet, and caught a stream of good-natured grumbling in Spanish being tossed back and forth between the three chefs.
One of them caught his eye. "Not yet," he said. "One more minute, Douxie."
"Whenever you're ready, Carlos," he reassured the man, and turned to go deliver drinks and check for refills while he waited.
He was just winding his way back inside again when Gabe, bussing one of his tables because of course Sarah, who could clear and reset tables in fifteen seconds flat, had called out tonight, tripped over a foot out in the walkway at just the wrong time.
The bus tub, full of dishes and cups and cutlery went flying. Shouting, Gabe spun in his stumble.
Douxie could see it happen like it was in slow motion: his coworker's head aimed right for the sharp corner of the oak table. The dishes landing, shattering, ricocheting. The forks and steak knives on their own dangerous trajectories. The screams, the blood, the 911 calls.
Except magic flared without consciousness, and none of that happened.
Dishes and cutlery hovered in mid-air, suspended surrounded by blue light. Gabe turned his head slowly, looking at the table corner that was less than four inches away. His dark skin paled as he realized how close he'd come to serious injury.
And the entire interior of the restaurant was dead silent, looking at the unnatural tableaux.
One by one, heads turned to look at Hisirdoux, who stood by the door, empty tray still held under one arm. On the other, his spell bracelet was revealed, glowing blue, on the arm stretched out toward the disaster.
One heartbeat.
Another.
Then the first of the raised cameras appeared, and he felt the world start spinning around him as consciousness caught up with instinct and he realized just what he'd done-
This wasn't like the goblin attack. He couldn't laugh this off and lie.
Across the room, from on top of one of the cabinets, Archie's eyes met his, equally wide and stunned.
Ten years ago, this would never have happened. Being around people who knew about and accepted his magic had made Douxie lax. Sloppy. He had roots, now. Running was no longer an option.
Douxie ruthlessly shoved down panic to the back of his mind, to a place where he would deal with it later, and finished what he'd started. A swirl of his hand recaptured the bus tray. The dishes and cutlery flew back into it as he crossed the room and pulled Gabe out of his aborted fall. "All right there?" he asked, tone as light as he could make it.
"Y-yeah." Gabe was staring as much as anyone else. "Doux-"
"Be a bit more careful," Hisirdoux advised him, with a pat on his shoulder. The bus tray was still hovering mid-air. "You reset," he said, aware of how nonsensical the words seemed now. "I'll get the dishes to the kitchen." And he took off walking, the tray following him like a tame dog.
He could feel eyes following him, everyone who had seen. But he didn't grant himself the luxury of reacting until he'd slipped through the doors to the kitchen and methodically unloaded the tray for the dishwashers to handle. No one in the kitchen knew; they'd been busy with their own jobs and hadn't seen anything.
That, he knew, would very rapidly be changing.
Archie slipped inside the kitchen doors after him. Wordlessly, Douxie gathered his familiar in his arms and moved down the hall toward the office. He didn't go in, just found a bit of wall to lean against, shaking.
Everyone knew. Everyone had seen. It had been caught on video and was probably already uploaded to the internet.
There was no way he could hide, and lie, and pretend his way out of this.
Author's Note: Darci's mom is named for Darci's voice actress, Yara Shahidi.