Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 26th November 2021
When Hisirdoux woke, he knew exactly what needed to happen.
In the other room, he could hear Jim's alarm going off. He eased out of bed. Archie opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows, then closed them again when Douxie nodded in the direction of Jim's room and went next door to shut off the clock.
It was early still. And after the evening they'd all had...
Douxie sighed, and went to make up a tray for breakfast. Orange juice and bowls of sweetened oatmeal adulterated with cream and cranberries, chocolate chips and cinnamon. Cups of mint tea to end the meal.
He set the tray on his dresser when he went back upstairs, and gently put a hand on the shoulder of both the dragon and the young king, rocking them both awake. "I've made breakfast," he told them softly. "And I think I know what we need to do."
Jim rubbed at his eyes, sitting up. "What do we need to do?"
Douxie moved the tray on the bed so all three of them could access it, and sat on its other side. "Eat," he said, "and I'll tell you."
"We need to find Nimue," Douxie said, and Jim just about choked on his oatmeal.
"What? Now?"
"Not this instant," Douxie snarked. "Even if you really wanted to cut school today, I've no idea where she is."
"Or even if she still is," Archie added.
Douxie rolled his eyes. "I think we'd've heard about it if someone managed to off her, Arch."
"True," the dragon conceded. "That sort of thing doesn't tend to happen quietly."
Jim was quiet for a moment. Then he drew a slow breath and nodded. "What almost happened last night... I don't want that to happen again. You think she can help?"
"I think she's our best shot," said Douxie. "And I'm hoping she might be able to give me an idea what I should be doing. Because I'm really getting tired of blundering from one disaster to the next."
"All right," said Jim. "We have a plan."
Claire was cornered by Mary the instant she got to school. "Have you seen the video?" Mary demanded, right up in her face.
"What video?" Claire asked, blinking.
"Ugh." Mary pulled out her phone and thumbed through her passcode, tapping rapidly at the screen until a video popped up.
Claire watched, her eyes widening as Douxie... openly used magic to keep his coworker from cracking his head open in a fall. "Holy frijoles," she whispered. She looked up to meet Mary's eyes. "How bad is it?"
"It's viral," Mary told her. "Like over a million hits overnight on YouTube. Jeez, what I wouldn't give for that many clicks," she muttered, tapping away at her phone again.
"That's bad," Claire told her.
Mary looked up. "How can that kind of numbers be bad?"
Claire looked around and, seeing no one close enough to hear, told her bestie, "You know what happens to people like Douxie? Like me?"
Mary shook her head.
"Remember what he said about burning witches?"
Mary's eyes widened.
"Or Area 49-B?"
"Shit," Mary whispered. "So... I shouldn't reshare it?"
"You should burn as many copies of it as you can," Claire told her. "Downvote them, or whatever."
"Right. Right," Mary said, looking at her phone with new eyes. Her expression hardened with determination. "I'm on it," she said, and started tapping away with renewed fervor.
"Come on," said Claire, grabbing her elbow and starting to tow her. "We've got to find Jim and Toby."
"Right," said Mary, eyes still on her screen, never looking up as she worked and allowed herself to be towed. "Lead on, Clairey."
"Jim!" Claire called as Toby and Jim finished locking up their bikes. Toby turned around to see her pulling Mary along behind herself. Darci was nowhere in sight. "We've got a problem."
Jim grimaced. "I know."
"You know?"
"Wait, what problem?" Toby asked.
"Douxie used magic in front of a whole restaurant of people with cellphones," Mary reported, never looking up from her own phone.
"And he's now a pariah for the entire magical community because he exposed himself," said Jim bitterly. "They don't care that it was to save somebody's life, I guess, as long as it wasn't theirs."
"Wait, what?" asked Claire.
"He's banned from HexTech," Jim reported. "I don't know what else, he didn't tell me."
"Dude," said Toby, "that's crazy. He's like on the fast track to be a master wizard."
"I don't think they care," said Jim.
Claire's mouth tightened. "They just care about being exposed."
"So, like, what are we going to do about this?" asked Toby. "Wait wait wait... I might have an idea," brain suddenly racing at times one thousand speed. "We're making a movie. As of last night."
Mary looked up. "What?"
"I've done it before," Toby said. "The Adventures of Captain DJ Kleb," he said.
"Oh, that thing you and Krel did while we off in New Jersey," said Claire, eyes widening.
"Yep."
"New Jersey?" Mary asked Claire, who waved her off.
"Long story. I'll tell you another time. The point is, you thought the goblin attack was footage for a movie, right? Toby's actually made a movie. We just need to, what. Um."
"I'll bang together a script, we workshop it this weekend, and start 'leaking' more footage as soon as we can," Toby planned out. "I'll ask Eli to help me with the tech stuff again."
"Tech stuff?" Eli suddenly popped up out of nowhere.
"Jeez, Eli, give people a heart attack, why don't you?" Jim complained, hand clutched on his messenger bag strap.
"Sorry, Jim!"
"We're making a movie," Toby informed Eli, "to obscure all the magic stuff that goes on around Arcadia, and also to cover up Douxie publicly using magic last night."
"Really?" Eli's eyes were shining. "That's so awesome!"
"You're camera two and boom guy," Toby informed him.
"Yes!" Eli fist-pumped.
"Uh, guys." Mary snapped her fingers. "Gimme a title. I can't do a cover story without one."
"Oh." Toby thought about it and came up blank. The Adventures of Captain DJ Kleb had been obvious. Something about magic... was less so.
"Um." "Oh." "Er." It seemed everyone else was having the same problem.
Eli adjusted his glasses. "Maybe something about into the woods..." he suggested. He looked at Claire. "You know, like the musical? You go into the woods, and magic happens, and you're not the same when you come back out? If you come back out."
Claire's eyes widened. "The Wild Woods," she said, exchanging a look with Jim.
"Uh, what?" Toby asked.
"The Wild Woods were the woods around Camelot," she explained.
"Where all the magic creatures lived," said Jim, something dark flashing across his face.
"Into the Wild Woods. Got it," said Mary, typing away rapid fire.
Toby looked at the others and shrugged. "Well, I guess we've got a title."
"And a film crew!" said Eli.
"And a social media manager," said Mary. "I'm registering the domain name now."
"Uh, this weekend might not work," said Jim suddenly. "Douxie and I need to go find Nimue about some stuff."
"What stuff?" asked Claire.
"Uhh-" The class bell rang. "I'll tell you guys about it at lunch," said Jim. "Come on, we've got to get to class."
Douxie took the back ways as best he could, and slid into GDT five minutes before his shift started.
Jamie looked up from the book he was reading behind the counter. "Hey, Doux. Boss wants a word with you."
"You pissed at me, too?"
Jamie shrugged. "I mean, you did do a pretty big screwup."
"Fair."
"But on the other hand, you did it to save a kid, so I think Jack'd kick my butt if I held it against you."
Douxie snorted. "Gabe's twenty, he's hardly a kid."
Jamie shrugged, brown eyes lit with mischief. "Compared to you? We're all kids."
Douxie had to laugh. "You mind if I call the boss before I take over?"
Jamie shrugged again. "It's been dead all morning. Another five minutes is hardly anything."
"Thanks," Douxie told him, and wandered into the special books room to make the call.
Mister Del Toro picked up the phone within two rings. "I hear you're in a movie."
Douxie blinked. "What?"
"Apparently," his boss said, "that footage that 'leaked' last night was from a movie being made in Arcadia Oaks." His tone was rather heavy on implication. "You should have told me you were doing that."
Douxie's mind reeled. Someone was trying to pass all the cellphone videos off as a movie? "So... I'm not fired?"
Mister Del Toro snorted. "As long as your 'filming schedule' doesn't interfere with the shop."
"It won't," Douxie promised, feeling somehow both numb and like a seed of hope was bursting up through barren ground. "I'll keep you apprised as best I can."
"You do that." A note of good humor returned to the libriomancer's voice. "And, Hisirdoux... well done. Using magic for its true purpose. In the film."
"In the film," Douxie repeated, like it was a code.
"Saving someone is always worthwhile, no matter what some scared children may think."
"Thank you, sir," Douxie whispered.
"Thank you," his employer replied. "We all of us need someone to remind us of the responsibility those with power bear."
/What's going on?/ popped up in the group chat, from Douxie. /I know you're all involved with this somehow. No one else would be interested in saving my bacon./
"Crud, we forgot to tell him," said Claire, biting her lip. She exchanged looks with her friends, then sent a reply.
/We're all making a movie now. It's called Into The Wild Wood. We'll come to the bookshop after school and fill you in?/
There was a moment before he replied. /I'm confused, but sounds good. See you then,/ Douxie responded.
"So," Toby said, setting his lunch tray down on the usual table, "what's this about the scary tentacle lady?"
Jim looked like he'd rather be anywhere else other than explaining, but he sighed nonetheless and looked down at his own taco pizza. "Last night, after Douxie got home, he told me the whole thing about the whole magic community ditching him cold. And since one of his bandmates is also magic and is not talking to him now, he's pretty sure that between him and her, the rest of the band members are going to pick her and kick him out of Ash Dispersal Pattern. Which he founded. And named." Jim's hand clenched and unclenched. "And I kind of lost it and..." His voice trailed off into silence. He looked down at the table.
"And?" Claire prompted.
"And I was going to be just like Arthur, and go off and kill a lot of the people that hurt someone important to me," Jim concluded quietly. He looked up, contrition all over his face.
"Holy crap," Toby whispered.
"But you didn't, right?" asked Darci. "I mean, I think we would've heard about it if you had."
"I didn't," Jim confirmed. "Doux stopped me."
"You can't really do things like that, can you, Jim?" Eli asked. "I mean, that's crazy, right?"
Toby, and Claire, and Jim, all just looked at Eli. His eyes widened.
"I could," said Jim softly. "I very, very much could. So. Douxie thinks that if we can find Nimue, since she's my 'patron' or whatever, she might be able to help me keep control better. Because I never, ever, want that to happen again."
"Heavy stuff," Mary said, peering at her phone. "Hey, our Kickstarter's halfway to funded."
"Wait, you set up a Kickstarter?" Darci asked, leaning over to look.
"Uh-huh," Mary said proudly.
Toby leaned over too. "What's the target goal?"
"Sixty grand," Mary said, taking a bite of her chicken burger. She chewed, swallowed, then explained, "I figure that's enough to get us some decent equipment and a nice editing suite for this project."
"Yeah, now we just need a script," Claire pointed out.
The bell over the front door chimed just about when he'd expected, and a group of chattering teenagers came into the bookshop. Douxie shared a look with Archie, and both of them went to the front.
There was Jim, Claire, and Toby, as he'd expected, and also Mary, Darci, and Eli. "Afternoon," Douxie greeted them all. He looked at the latter three. "Are you ready for your first council of war?"
"War?" Eli breathed excitedly, his eyes widening.
Mary rolled her eyes.
Darci, unexpectedly, grinned. "Bring it on."
"Right, then," said Douxie, flipping the lock on the front door and setting a time on the "Back in _ Minutes!" sign. "Come on into the rare books room."
"Rare books like...?" asked Eli.
Douxie smiled at him. "Like books in non-human languages," he said. "Arch and I can read most of them. Jim, Claire, and Toby can read... some of them." He should see at some point if any of them were interested in picking up another language beyond Trollish.
"Wow." Eli looked around the room in amazement as they entered it. The room was square, with shelves from floor to ceiling and even over the door. Every shelf was packed with books of all sizes and colors; more rested in stacks on the floor. An oak table, burnished black by generations of hands, anchored the room.
"Okay." Douxie pulled a scroll from one of the shelves and unrolled it with a flourish, slapping it down on the table. A spark of magic anchored each corner to the table. "You told them about needing to find Nimue?" he asked Jim.
Jim nodded.
"Good. Here's the thing, though. No one knows where she is. I might be able to rig a locator spell... but I think Claire would be better at this."
"Me?"
Douxie kept his eyes fast on his student's. "You found Nari when the Order had her."
Claire shook her head. "I can't portal us there, Douxie."
He grinned. "You're conflating two separate abilities. Time for you to distinguish them." He loved this, loved pushing her past her self-imposed limits. Loved watching her find out what she could really do.
"O-okay." She took a breath, in and out. "How do I do it?"
"You've met the Lady. Think you have enough of an emotional connection to find her again?"
Claire nodded.
"Use your shadow ring," Douxie told her, indicating the world map he'd spread on the table. "Dowse for her. Hold onto the necklace chain, close your eyes, and focus on finding her."
And it was his absolute pleasure to watch Claire as she followed his instructions. The others likely couldn't see the power flowing through her, but the instant her suspended ring flared with purple light, they gasped. Sighs followed like tides as the ring swung back and forth, searching. Finally it pulled eastward along the Mercator projection map, until it hovered over Russia.
Douxie reached out to the surface of the map, holding his fingers close together then pulling them apart.
The image rippled, the map zooming in, Russia now filling its surface.
He followed the pendant's movement again, enlarging the map once more.
And then one more time again, until the ring settled over a long lake.
"Lake Baikal?" Jim asked, reading the words on the map.
"Hmm." Archie inspected the map. "I would have expected Loch Ness."
Claire opened her eyes, swaying slightly. "Whoa," she said. Darci supported her. "That was a head rush."
Douxie smiled at his student. "Well done, Claire. You've unlocked a new skill."
"Do you need to sit down?" Darci asked.
"No, I'm fine." Claire waved her off. She looked at the map. "Russia? Isn't it cold there now?"
Jim groaned. "Russia in winter's why Napoleon lost."
"Hitler, too," Douxie informed him. "But we're not going there to fight a battle."
"Hopefully," Archie muttered. Douxie ignored him.
"So, what, we hop a ride in the gyre, find Nimue, get Jimbo fixed up?" asked Toby.
Douxie nodded. "That's the plan."
"Great! When do we leave? And can I bring my camera? See if we can get some footage for the movie?"
Douxie looked at the set of teenagers. "Tell me about this movie."
Toby grinned. "It was totally my idea! But Mary's the one who made it happen," he said, gesturing to the girl, whose phone had just pinged.
"Ooh, the Kickstarter fully funded!" she said, turning her phone to show it to Douxie. "People want to see a movie of you doing magic."
He stared at the screen. Stared uncomprehendingly at her. Looked at Archie.
"That shouldn't be possible," Archie said.
"Agreed." Douxie turned back to Mary. "Let me get this straight. Since the start of school today, you've somehow convinced a sufficient majority of the internet that the footage from last night is promo for a movie?"
"Yup!" She looked pleased with herself.
"And gotten fully funded a Kickstarter for... sixty thousand dollars?" he asked, looking at her screen again.
"Yup." She was smug.
"While in class."
"Mm-hmm."
"...Impossible," Douxie looked at her questioningly. "What do you know about technomancy?"
Mary blinked. "Techno... what?"
"Technomancy," Douxie repeated himself. "It's the branch of wizardry that deals with manipulating electronics, information networks and the like."
"What, like it's hard?" she scoffed. "You just have to know how the algorithms work."
"It is very, very hard," Douxie told her. "I know a half-dozen full-fledged technomancers, Mary, and I can do a bit of it myself. I certainly can't do what you did today, and none of my acquaintances could do it, either, let alone in as little time, and especially not while attending classes."
The others were staring at the two of them.
"Which might argue for a second specialty," Archie said thoughtfully. "Something about interpersonal relations, you think?"
"Maybe," Douxie told him. "The point is," he said, returning his attention to Mary, "there's no way you should be able to do that by normal human rules. By the process of elimination, that means you're a witch, same as Claire."
Mary was staring at him. "I don't want to be a witch."
"It's... not that bad," Claire offered, looking to Jim and Toby then back again.
"Nuh-uh!" Mary, wide-eyed, held a finger in Claire's face. "You said stuff about being burned at the stake. I don't want to die!"
"Mary." Douxie caught her hand, guided her attention back to himself. "I've been alive for over nine hundred years. Violent death isn't a given for mages any more than it is for regular humans. And given what you've managed to do for me in less than a day? You're probably the safest person in this room."
She still looked frightened.
"Would it help," Douxie asked quietly, "if I took you to talk with a technomancer, and let her confirm what you are or are not?"
Mary nodded.
"Right." Douxie looked at the others. "I'm taking Mary next door. I'll be back in a few."
"I thought Zoe wasn't talking to you," Jim said.
"For this?" Douxie asked rhetorically. "She will bloody well talk with me."
Author's Note: Douxie's bookshop coworker Jamie is very, very much a port of an aged-up Jamie Bennett from Rise of the Guardians. ^_^ And Mary's line of "What, like it's hard?" is very, very much a reference to Legally Blonde.