Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 11th April 2022

"Okay, things that concern me," Krel said, tapping a pencil against a notebook. "Where are the Zeron Brotherhood? We have not seen them yet."

"Relax, little brother," said Aja, spinning on her stool as Lucy fried eggs and bacon with a wide smile. "They did not show up until we took driver's ed, remember? So we simply have to not take driver's ed this time, and..."

He rolled his eyes. "You know it does not work like that," he told her. "We may not know how they tracked us here, but they know that we are on this planet. They will not give up until either they are dead, or we are, and they are handing our parents' cores over to Morando for the bounty."

"It is a large planet," Mother pointed out.

"It is actually a fairly small planet, and they are looking for us," Krel rebutted.

"You want to steal their subspace many-folds," Aja accused.

"It is a navigational subspace manifold. And, yes, it will make things significantly easier if I can do that again."

"Breakfast's up!" Lucy trilled, sliding full plates in front of them, accompanied by glasses of orange juice.

"The most important meal of the day," Ricky agreed. "Eat up, kids!"

"Thank you," Krel told the robots, and used his fingers to shove a strip of bacon in his mouth. His eyes closed in pleasure. "Oh. That's good."

"I would say I had forgotten how much I loved the bacon," his sister said, munching her own strip, expression blissful. "But it has not been that long."

"Human sensory simulators," Krel said disparagingly. "It would not taste nearly as good without the transductions."

"Little brother, we do not eat without the transductions."

"Humans are so inefficient," Krel complained.

Aja grinned. "Yes, but they are wonderful friends!"

"If you two are done mooning over our compatriots," Varvatos chided, entering the room, "you might spare some attention to the idea of getting in touch with Lieutenant Zadra, and having her keep an eye on Morando's moves."

"Hmm, not a bad idea," Krel said. "If we use some of the old Earth technology in Stuart's shop, I could probably make an interstellar commlink later today."

"Good. Get to it, King-in-Waiting!" Varvatos commanded.

"Yes, yes," Krel said.

"Anyway, we have to get to school!" Aja announced, tilting her plate so both her sunnyside-up eggs slid into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed, grabbing her backpack. "Do not wait up for us!"

"Have a good day!" Ricky cheered, waving with one hand and holding on to Lucy's waist with the other.

She, too, was waving, a vapid expression on her face. "Knock 'em dead!"

"And do not sign up for driver's ed!" Varvatos bellowed after the two of them as Krel and Aja went out the door.

"Curses!" Alpha's fist pounded down upon the console. "Those children must be here somewhere!"

"The ion trail indicates their ship arrived on this quadrant of the planet," Omega said. "They are here."

Alpha's hand curled and uncurled in and out of a fist. "We will wait here," he decided. "We will perform surveillance. And when we find them..." His snarl said it all.

Beta nodded. He silently keyed the ship's controls. It set down in a suitable place of concealment from the primitive life forms that inhabited this backwater.

The Granada Drive-In.

The bell over the door chimed. Douxie turned, book in hand, and leaned sideways over the railing. "Welcome-" he started his usual greeting, but the words stilled in his throat. "Toby?"

"Uh, hi?" The Trollhunter waved up at him.

Douxie blinked, checked the store's clock, then, for good measure, the watch on his wrist. "Shouldn't you be in class right now?"

"Yeah, but I'm, uh. I'm not really having a great day." Toby looked up at him. "You mind if I stay here for a bit?"

Douxie narrowed his eyes. "Your gran know you're skipping?"

"Uhh. No, not really?" Toby clearly tried his best for an innocent look. It must have been equally obvious that Douxie wasn't buying it, because a moment later his face fell. "I had a bad night and there's a lot of stuff I'm dealing with, so I don't really want to go to school and deal with algebra and history and Coach Lawrence today, so I thought maybe I could hide out here?"

Toby really did not sound well. Douxie exchanged a glance with Archie, who stood near him on the railing. Archie, too, looked concerned. Turning his attention back to Toby, Douxie shrugged. "Well, I'm not your parents, and I'm certainly not going to narc on you for needing a mental health day, Toby. Feel free to stay as long as you want."

A bit of tension bled out of Toby's shoulders. "Thanks, Douxie."

"Make yourself at home. Mi librería es su refugio."

Toby blinked. "Huh?"

"Take a load off," Douxie directed. He gestured at the book still in his hand. "I've got to finish shelving these before the local Wiccan coven comes in to buy them. I'll be down in a few."

"Right." Toby looked right, looked left, and finally headed for his favorite chair.

Returning to his work, Douxie raised his eyebrows significantly at Archie. "What d'you think?" he asked sotto voce.

"I couldn't even begin to guess," Archie replied. "No, that's not alphabetical-"

"Yes it is," Douxie retorted, tapping the subject card next to the book. "New section. You want to go put the kettle on?"

"You think it's going to be one of those conversations?"

Douxie sighed heavily. "Aren't they all?"

"It isn't like him to skip school," Archie agreed. "All right, then." He shifted form and flew down to the first floor, and the back room, where the kettle and all Douxie's tea-making supplies were stashed.

Douxie finished shelving, knocked the emptied box flat, and carried it down the stairs and out the back door to the stack of to-be-recycled cardboard next to the dumpster. After that, he walked back into the store, dusting his hands against one another, and looked around. There... really wasn't anything else left to do until a customer or two came in. So, teatime!

He let his hands wander across the assortment of jars and boxes on the shelves of his former flat and finally decided on his own blend, which he'd made of some wild-harvested plants as well as the assortment of herbs and flowers he'd grown in the window boxes and the container garden he and the other employees kept on the bookshop's roof. The cost of some spell ingredients was prohibitive, even before you added in shipping, so when Jamie'd had the idea for the garden... well, Douxie had jumped at it. And Beth had been downright enthusiastic about it, before she'd stopped talking to Douxie.

Tea and biscuits in hand, he returned to the shop, settling the tray on the low table between his usual chair and Toby's. "So, is something you want to talk about, or would you rather I let you marinate?"

"Eh." Toby sat up a little straighter, reaching for one of the sugar cookies on the tray. He fiddled with it, didn't meet Douxie's eyes. "How did you deal with finding out you were different from other kids?"

Oh, it's going to be one of those conversations.

"Didn't, really." Douxie handed Archie his tea, took up his own mug, and allowed himself to slouch in the wing-backed chair that the dragon was draped across the back of. "I was all of five, so adult concerns didn't make much of an impression. And pretty quickly after, there was the plague, my parents were dead in days, and all of a sudden I was very much no longer welcome in the village. I never really had to worry about fitting in after that, because I didn't have peers, and I already knew I was different anyway."

"Yeah, okay, so your life sucks."

"Never claimed it didn't." Douxie blew on his tea and regarded Toby over the top of it. "Given the way you hang on Darci's every word, I'm pretty sure you're not having a sexuality crisis out of the blue. So, you want me to take a wild guess?"

Toby gave something that might have been a laugh. "Go ahead."

"Your gran told you something you weren't expecting."

Toby gave a full-body twitch and stared at Douxie. "How did you know...?" he breathed, eyes wide.

"Eh." Douxie shrugged. "It's not that hard to figure out, really. If it was something about Trollhunting or Trollmarket, you'd've gone to Jim about it. The fact that you've come to me instead..." He waved a hand. "It speaks volumes."

"How did you know about Nana?" Toby asked. His eyes widened. "You cheated and used your magic sight or something!" he accused.

"Really, I didn't." Douxie set his mug down on the table and straightened up, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. "There was no need to. The first day I moved into Jim's, I went over and introduced myself so I could get on with warding your house. And when your gran told me she fought in both world wars..." He shrugged. "Either she was mental, or there was something going on there."

"I'm surprised you didn't think she was mental," Toby grumbled. "She's always been a little..." He made a vague gesture with the hand not holding the cookie. "Too happy," he finally settled on.

"No one looks for secrets behind a happy, grandmotherly face," Archie said from the back of the chair.

"Besides, there's that lovely portrait of her from the 1920s up on the wall," Douxie pointed out. "So your gran was definitely over a century old, but only looks in, what, her seventies? Either she came into sorcery late in life, and I think you would have noticed if she was a witch, or she had some other reason that she aged a lot slower than normal. Inhuman blood was the simplest explanation."

"It could have been a curse," Archie pointed out.

"True." Douxie looked back at Toby. "So which one is it?"

"Not entirely human," Toby muttered, and shoved his cookie in his mouth.

"Ha, called it!" Douxie told his familiar. Archie swatted him. "Hey!"

"Do be a bit more sensitive," the dragon chided.

"Sorry," Douxie apologized to Toby, sobering. "I shouldn't make light of it. At least not while you're still unsettled about it." Archie swatted him again. "Hey!"

"Nah, it's okay, I guess," Toby said, finally taking up his own mug. "I mean, I guess I'm just trying to figure out what this means for me, yanno?"

"Hmm. Well, how far back was your mysterious ancestor?" Douxie asked. "And does your gran know what they were?"

"Eh, it was her grandfather," Toby said. "And I don't think she does. Her grandmother never told anyone."

"So that makes you one-sixteenth... something." Douxie thought about it for a second. "I'm not sure that's even enough to get you tribal membership, Toby."

"What are the benefits and drawbacks, did she say?" asked Archie.

"Long life." Toby shuddered. "Apparently she didn't even have my dad until she was over sixty."

"Ah. That kind of scuttles the destroying-the-amulet-to-give-you-a-human-lifespan plan, I suppose."

"Yeah." Toby slouched. "I mean, even if we do destroy it... I'm probably going to live longer than Darci. A lot longer." He glowered at his tea.

Douxie glanced at Archie, then back at the Trollhunter. "Toby, if you and she do make a serious go of things... there are ways to extend her life," Douxie said gently.

"Wait, what?" Toby sat up straight so fast tea slopped over the sides of his mug. "Ow, hot, hot!" He waved his free hand in the air.

"There are certain spells," Archie told him, after another glance at Douxie, "that bind two lives together. Essentially matching lifespans, for good or for ill."

Toby blinked, setting his mug down on the tray. Comprehension crossed his face. "Oh. Oh, you mean like that thing Strickler had Angor Rot do for him, with Doctor L.?"

Douxie nodded. "I believe so. Of course, your partner would have to be willing to take on the dangers that being pair-bonded with a Trollhunter would entail. It's not something I'd do without the informed consent of both parties. But, yes, I was thinking of something like that."

"It's also not easy to do," Archie added. "And gets very messy in the case of, say, a divorce."

"Exactly," Douxie agreed. "But in any case, it's something I'd be very willing to do for you, Toby, should the time come."

Toby hummed, his eyes looking into the mid-distance, tracking nothing as he thought about it. Douxie sipped his tea and waited.

"I gotta say," Toby said eventually, "that would be a weight off my mind. I mean, Nana told me she'd buried two husbands. I didn't even know she'd had the first one."

"She'll have three, if Varvatos succeeds in wooing her again," Douxie pointed out. "But since Akiridions are much more long-lived than humans, she shouldn't have to worry about burying him too."

Toby rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but consider: it's Varvatos. He's never met a fight he didn't love."

"Or one he lost," Douxie rejoined.

Toby sighed and settled deeper into his chair. "Thanks, Doux. This helped a lot."

"Anytime," Douxie replied easily. "Now, since you're cutting class anyway, want to spend a few hours working on coin tricks?"

Toby brightened. "You're on!"

"So, afterschool plans?" Steve tried.

"I am going to raid the electronics shop and build an interstellar communications device," Krel said, poking at his cellphone. "And it looks like Hiccup has delivered the empty fuel cell to the Mothership, so I should go inspect it."

"Nerd stuff," Steve dismissed.

"Ooh, can I come and help!" Pepperjack begged, his hand in the air. "I can be useful!"

Krel's dark eyes looked him up and down. He sighed. "You do not yet know enough to be useful," he said, "but you can hold things and I can explain things. So, yes."

"Yes!" Pepperjack fist-pumped in excitement.

"You do not have training for your tournament of basketball today?" asked Aja.

Steve shook his head. "Nope. Tuesdays and Thursdays off, babe. Coach doesn't want to overwork us, not so close to a championship run."

"Excellent! Would you like to accompany me on a 'date'?"

"Uh." Steve wasn't used to girls being so forward. But then he remembered what he'd worked out with Coach, about girls doing the choosing and guys having to go with the flow. "Um, sure!" he managed.

Aja smiled broadly and leaned over, giving him a peck on the cheek. Steve felt his face heat up as his hand flew to that spot.

At the other end of the table, Jim was eating his lunch with one hand and scrolling through his phone with the other. As were Claire, Darci, and Mary. Occasionally Mary squealed and typed lightning-fast, or reached over to show something on her screen to Darci.

"I'm not really getting anything from this, Jim," Claire eventually said, setting her phone down on the table.

"Yeah, me either," Jim admitted. "But Douxie's taking on so much of the work right now, I thought we could at least try to help, you know?"

"Yeah, but I can barely read wizardese," she complained. "And whatever this is? It isn't even that."

"Oh, are you guys looking at the Voynich Manuscript?" Pepperjack craned his neck, trying to look.

"Yeah," Jim admitted. "Not with much success, either."

Eli waved that off. "No one's ever been able to figure out what it is. Is is a cipher, an undiscovered language, or just something someone made up?"

"Well, the count of people who can't figure it out can now include a dragon, two wizards, an Akiridion, a troll, and a Trollhunter," Claire said with a huff.

"What are you doing, Darci?" Krel asked, leaning over.

"Texting with Toby," she replied, unconcerned. "He's not feeling too good today, I guess. He said he was hanging out with Douxie at GDT earlier, but now he's down in Trollmarket."

"It is really not like him to cut school," Mary put in, never looking up from her screen.

Jim frowned. "No, it's not."

"Jim, relax." Claire put her hand on his arm. "I'm sure Toby would tell us, if it was something important."

He sighed. "Yeah, I know. I just worry. He's my best friend."

She smiled. "Believe me, he knows it."

"Oh, come on!" Toby whined.

Vendel, face impassive, thumped the butt of his staff against the floor. "I said no. I will not risk the lives of Trollmarket's citizens on a foolish battle like the one you insist on waging against Gunmar."

Toby breathed through his nose and tried to control his temper. In the past (in the future?), Vendel had been just as stubborn, but he'd always, always had Trollmarket's best interests in mind.

This was no different.

"You did it before," Toby argued. "All of Trollmarket, or rather, Dwoza, showed up at the battle of Killahead Bridge, to fight against Gunmar! And you didn't even know what Deya being a Trollhunter really meant."

Vendel's milky eyes narrowed. "And how do you know about that?"

"I talked to Deya, duh," Toby said. "Also Blinky and Aaarrrgghh." He left out Jim and Claire and Douxie's recounting of events, because the time travel hadn't happened yet, and it was kind of a gamble that things would go the same this time around. But troll history was certain on this much: all of Dwoza had showed up at Killahead, behind Deya, to fight for their freedom, both from the tyrant Gunmar and the tyrant Arthur.

"Those were different circumstances," Vendel said imperiously. "We were fighting for our freedom, our lives! Now you-" he poked Toby in the chest "-are about to undo all the good done that day, and loose Gunmar upon the world again. And for what?"

"So we can end this problem and get rid of the threat hovering over everyone's heads!" Toby smacked Vendel's hand away, anger flashing through him. "You put the problem in a box and taped it shut, but I've got some news, Vendel! The tape's old and not holding the box closed anymore. The Janus Order rebuilt Killahead Bridge, right here in Arcadia, and Bular was this close-" he pinched his fingers together "-to getting the Trollhunter Amulet and opening it, letting Gunmar and all the Gumm-Gumms out, without anyone being ready or willing to fight them."

"And now Bular is dead and the Janus Order subverted!" Vendel snapped back. He didn't look angry, though. Just old. And tired. And afraid.

Toby stared at him, anger melting away.

"Why," asked Vendel, "must you free Gunmar?"

Toby sighed, shoulders dropping. "Because he's always going to be a threat, otherwise," he told Vendel. "He got sealed away in another dimension, but he was still able to use the goblins and the changelings to manipulate things back here. If we don't take care of him now, while we've got a plan and we've got the manpower, who knows what he's going to do down the line?"

"We do not murder," Vendel insisted, his hands twisting on his staff.

Toby met his eyes. "I know. But sometimes you've got to put down a rabid dog, before it kills others." He'd stolen that line from Mistrial and Error, but felt very proud of adapting it to the situation.

Wait, could trolls even get rabies? Did the rabies analogy mean anything to Vendel?

His train of thought was stopped from running away by Vendel sighing heavily and sitting down on a stool. "You have already made your plans; I am incapable of dissuading you."

"So... does that mean you'll back us up and ask Trollmarket to fight?"

Vendel huffed and ran fingers down his staff. "You must understand, I lead. I guide. I do not command."

"Yeah, but everyone in Trollmarket thinks you're worth listening to," Toby argued. "I'm not asking you to tell them to fight, I'm just asking you to say it's okay for them to fight."

"And you, I suppose, will talk them into it?" Vendel cast eyes toward the ceiling.

"We've got to." Toby breathed in and out. "Look, I know humans are horrible sometimes, and maybe you won't believe me, but in the last timeline, Arcadia Oaks changed. They accepted trolls. And aliens! They realized we're all just people, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or what we can do. That's part of why we want Trollmarket to fight with us. Sure, me and Jimbo and Claire and everyone can probably handle it on our own, but... if people see trolls fighting for them, fighting to protect them? They'll realize you're not the bad guys. But if the only ones they see fighting are us and the bad trolls? It's going to be a lot harder for them to figure that out."

"You look like shit, Casperan."

"Lovely to see you too, Zoe."

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, what the hell have you been up to that leaves you looking like that?" She gestured to all of him.

Douxie set down his guitar case and popped the latches, his hair falling into his eyes as he pulled his axe out. It wasn't his Spellcaster, but he'd still made some damn fine music with it. "Weaving."

Zoe recoiled, a look of distaste on her face. "Ugh."

Douxie smirked. "So much for your weaver witch background."

"I got out of weaving as soon as technology hit electric." She rubbed one hand against the other. "I can still feel the shuttle calluses," she complained.

"Glad I didn't ask you to help, then." He plopped down on the folding chair by the amp and fished for the cord, plugging his baby in and starting to tune by ear.

"Sorry, I've been busy sourcing materials for-" her voice dropped, even though Gil and Marti were running through their own warmups and paying the two of them almost no attention "-Krel's little project."

Douxie carefully didn't react, plucking each string with a pick, listening to the way it vibrated the air. So much potential in such a basic physical phenomenon: ripples, vibrations, sound. It was almost magical, how making a simple taut string go twang translated to something as expressive as music. "Hiccup's dropping off the first part today. I'd say give Krel a day or two to look it over and test it, and it'll probably be your turn to shine, milady."

She snorted, her own fingers flying over the keyboard in increasingly complex warmup exercises. "You have a lot of faith in a crackpot."

"Just because he hasn't abandoned the traditional magics the way you have, does not make him or his skills less worthy." Douxie struck a G and winced at the sour tone. He needed to wind the string a touch tighter.

Zoe frowned as he worked, but didn't say anything. The divide between traditional and modern magics was always a touchy thing with her; Douxie, who kept a foot in both worlds, had mediated far too many arguments on the subject. "As long as he does his job, I'll do mine."

"That's all I can ask for."

Marti came over as Gil banged out a wicked little rhythm on his kit. "Got anything new for us, Douxie?"

"Not this week, I'm afraid." And with how much energy Douxie was going to be pouring into making armor that wouldn't give him flashbacks to knights and squires who were absolute bastards, probably not for the next few weeks either.

Maybe he'd write a post-victory ode to defeating Gunmar.

Maybe this time he wouldn't even wreck his guitar smashing it into a Gumm-Gumm's face. He had lost /more guitars/ that way...

Maybe Douxie needed to reassess his combat style.

"We haven't finished working out all the kinks on 'Rock in a Hole'," Zoe pointed out, bless her. "Come on, let's run through that a few times."

"You're on," Gil called, and Douxie let himself be subsumed in music for a couple hours. Not straightforward, not simple. But compared to everything else he was dealing with? Not stressful either.