Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 25th April 2022
"What the...?" were Douxie's first words as he entered Hiccup's forge.
When he'd left on Tuesday, there had been three finished layers of woven wire armor laying on the bench.
Now there were five.
"Yeah, so." Hiccup leaned against the wall. "I was on a hot streak and kept working on your project the last couple days..."
"Mordrax's miracles," Douxie swore, touching the topmost layer with gentle fingers. "You've finished the samite and adamantine layers?"
"Yup." Henry popped the "p." "I thought... well, heck, we both know the voidstone's going to be a bitch. If I got those out of the way, we could work together on the final layer. It's going to need two mages to get it done."
Douxie stared at his friend, then set down his backpack and opened it, pulling out a white cardboard box, the kind you got from bakeries. The box was clearly bigger than the backpack, and barely fit through the fully unzipped mouth. The wonders of the "bag of holding" spell. "Here. Jim sent this, he's been on a cake-baking kick lately, I don't know why."
Hiccup's eyebrows rose as he opened the lid and peeked inside, revealing a two-layer chocolate-frosted cake decorated with icing roses and swirls. "I have experienced enough of his culinary prowess that I will never turn down a Jim Lake, Jr. offering."
"Wise man," Archie complimented as the cake box was re-closed and set reverently to the side.
"He's also sent packed lunches for all three of us," Douxie reported. "You'd think he's worried about wizards burning through their energy or something."
Hiccup snorted. "Why do you think I took over the ranch instead of going into business like my dad wanted?" he asked. "We raise enough livestock that my food chain is a lot more secure than most wizards'."
"Because you love smithing and your magic," Douxie responded. "You can't deny you started from a better place than a lot of us."
"Eh." Hiccup shrugged. "It just means I'm one of the more stable smith mages around."
The problem is, Barbara thought, scrolling through the internet, what do you get for an immortal teenager?
There was "the big gift," obviously: transportation. A car or (she shuddered at the thought) a motorcycle. She hated them because she'd seen the aftermaths of too many serious accidents. She could only pray that neither of her boys ended up with severe bodily injury or, worse, brain damage. Because she could see a clear trajectory for Jim, at least, going from a bicycle to his Vespa to an inevitable motorcycle.
But Douxie... really didn't seem interested in vehicles the way most boys were. He seemed perfectly happy with his skateboard and what he had once referred to jokingly as "shank's mare." (She'd had to look that one up.) Could he even drive a car? Did he need or want driver's ed lessons? She made a mental note to ask.
So, absent the possibility of a vehicle... even she knew clothing was seldom an appreciated gift. Maybe concert tickets? Or... no, he was clearly past the point of needing sheet music; she had seen him listen to a new song on the radio once, then reproduce it perfectly on his guitar. Books? "No, most of what he reads is magic stuff," she sighed, defeated. Though that sparked a thought. If she didn't know what he might like, there were other people who might be able to give her a clue.
/Douxie's birthday is coming up,/ she texted to Blinky. /Do you have any ideas what a 918-year-old wizard might want?/ Maybe there were magic stones, or other supplies for his sorcery, that Douxie might appreciate.
Her phone rang. Seeing it was Blinky, she answered. "Barbara!" he crowed. "It has been a while since we've found time to speak, my dear lady."
She smiled. "It has. You and Aaarrrgghh are doing okay?"
"Yes. You must come down to Trollmarket to see our expanded library!" he told her. "For the first time in well over a decade, there is not a single stack of books on the floor. They are all on shelves now," he said proudly.
She had to smile. "I'll try to make the time," she promised.
"I shall look forward to your visit," he said. "But as to your inquiry... no, sadly, I have few ideas as to what Douxie might want."
She sighed, disappointed. "Well, we all know he wants his staff back," she murmured. That burning craving of his had been clear even to her, who didn't possess any memories of the first timeline.
"Agreed. But sadly, that is something that is in neither of our powers to grant him," Blinky said. She could hear the sound of papers being rustled. "His recent borrowings from my library have been somewhat scattershot, and unfortunately lead me to no clear ideas of an interest being pursued."
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, looking up blankly at the ceiling. "What do you get for an immortal teenager?"
Blinky was silent for a moment, then spoke quietly. "If I may, what do you remember best about your own birthdays, Barbara?"
She thought about it. Other than the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings paperback set she'd been given for some birthday or other, which still resided on her bookshelf, she couldn't really recall any specific gifts. She knew she'd gotten them, of course; that sort of thing was far more memorable in absence than in presence. But they all blurred and faded over the years.
"Not much," she confessed.
"Well, then, what do you remember most vividly from your youth?"
Her father's funeral was the thing that came first to mind. But that was not a happy memory, so she pushed it away and tried to remember what else was important. But now that she'd thought of him again, it was harder to move on. The feeling of his hugs. The way he'd called her "little missy" and snuck her candy. The way he'd taught her to fish...
"Our family vacations," she said, remembering the flickering light of campfires. The smell of wood smoke. Large hands guiding hers, teaching her how to turn the marshmallow on the stick just before it caught fire.
Laying on a blanket, trying to follow her father's finger as he pointed to the stars and murmured constellations.
Hadn't... hadn't Archie said something about how he and Douxie had never been to Yosemite?
"I think that's it," she said, sitting up. "Thanks, Blinky!"
"My pleasure, Barbara," he said, sounding confused but pleased that he'd been of assistance.
Joggling her mouse to awaken her monitor, which had gone to sleep, Barbara started typing, looking up dates and availabilities for Yosemite National Park.
Once upon a time, Saturdays had been long endless stretches of freedom, a relief from the crushing tedium of school schedules, time to spend with his best friend, goofing off.
Well, at least Jim still got to spend them with his best friend.
With a lot of his best friends, he amended, looking around the Hero's Forge. Toby and Claire were sparring, a clash of Daylight against the staff Claire had somehow wreathed in shadow magic. Jim had no clue what effect that was having, but he had to admit it looked cool.
Elsewhere, Draal was working one-on-one with Steve, while Eli and Krel were up in the stands, poking at the backpackful of potato cannon pieces Eli had brought with him. Aja was sparring with Darci, very clearly in teacher mode, pulling her punches, but also stopping every so often to walk Darci through a block or an opening. Aaarrrgghh was working with Mary, very VERY gently guiding her through beginning staff forms. And Blinky was...
...Blinky was walking down the steps into the Forge, a particular grin that Jim was all too familiar with on his face. He walked over to the Forge's controls.
"Newbies clear the floor!" Jim yelled as his mentor hit the controls and the floor started to move. Steve yelped and ran for the nearest exit, followed by Darci. Mary almost didn't make it clear until Aaarrrgghh snatched her up and slung her onto his back, where she clung to his scruff as he vaulted up into the seats.
"I have added some new features to the Hero's Forge," Blinky yelled, his voice carrying over the twisting, turning, grating, flame-jetting cacophony. He twisted a knob, and spikes sprung out and then retreated in a pattern Jim hadn't yet learned. "For our more experienced Trollhunters... the off switch is at the top of the Soothscryer." Smug, he leaned back against the wall, watching and ready to call commentary.
Aja caught Jim's eye as she grinned. "Oh, this is lively!"
"Race you to the top!" Claire called, ducking a swinging stone arm.
Toby batted away a scythe with his warhammer, switching weapons flawlessly with an ease Jim needed to start studying. "Seriously?!" Toby yelled at Blinky. "Like this thing wasn't hellish enough to begin with?" But despite his grumbling, like the rest of them he danced over the rotating floor plates to the central structure, and began to climb.
"Ugh!" Aja slipped a foot down as an unexpected buzzsaw nearly cut her hand off. "You did not say he was a sadist," she complained to Jim.
"Yeah, well," he grunted as he dodged a sudden oil spill from above, slicking the stone, "it kind of skipped my mind."
"Oh, come on!" Toby wailed, falling afoul of a different oil slick. "Where's Douxie with his sticky feet spell when we need him?"
"Out putting together his armor," Claire grunted.
"You're a wizard, can't you make it work for you?"
She gritted her teeth. "Different type of wizard, Toby! I could shout lignum aeternum until I was blue in the face and it wouldn't do me any good!"
"Ugh." Jim's armor-covered fingers failed to find purchase on the stone above him. Aja, meanwhile, was climbing up with all four arms like she was a glowing blue spider. His eyes narrowed; he was not going to let her win this thing!
One glaive appeared in a clenched hand and he drove it into the surface of the stone, anchoring himself. The second glaive appeared in his other hand and he drove that in, higher up, using his feet to brace himself as he pulled the first blade free and jammed it in higher still. Using his weapons to make handholds was tedious, and not as fast as he'd like, but it seemed to be working.
"Oh, screw this!" Toby decided, and let go, dropping.
"Toby!" Claire yelled.
Only to have her cry cut short by Toby, clenching the handle of his warhammer, floating gently upwards past her. "What good's having a magic hammer if you don't use it?" Toby asked, going up.
"That's cheating!" Claire declared, and renewed her efforts, heaving herself up over a buzzsaw and somehow using spots of black portal magic to reach into the stone of the pillar, providing herself with grips.
"Mary Poppins, coming up!" Toby called, drifting higher.
Only to get hit by a massive stone arm unlocking from the side of the pillar, smacking down on top of him before it locked into place at a thirty-degree angle. Toby was knocked back down to base level.
"Tobes!" Jim shouted.
He got a weak thumbs up and an "I'm okay!" before Toby yelped and rolled to the side, dodging a flurry of arrows.
Aja side-jumped another falling arm. "This is most- ingenious!" She twisted around a gout of flame. "Was all your training like this, Trollhunter?"
"Believe it or not, this was one of the less lethal parts," Jim called back.
Claire barely avoided another blade trying to remove her arm. "Okay, screw this," she said, her face tightening in concentration. Beneath her, a portal appeared and grew, swirling black. She kicked off the stone and let herself drop in.
And promptly fell out of the matching portal over the peak of the stone spire. She scrabbled the landing, then smacked her palm down on something.
The Forge stilled, and began to return to normal, the floor flattening, projectiles folding away, and the central pillar sinking slowly into the floor.
"Oh, well done, Fair Claire!" Blinky called, beaming with pride.
She looked at him with exasperation. "Seriously, Blinky? You made this thing even more murderous?"
"And yet you all survived!" he crowed. "Teamwork at its finest."
She and Jim and Toby all looked at one another and sighed. There really was nothing you could do about Blinky's... unique methods of instruction. Aja, meanwhile, was beaming. "That was great fun," she said. "May I go again?"
"Hey, whoa," Jim cautioned, hands up. "Maybe we should have Blinky set it to a, um, lower difficulty and let everyone else have a go?"
"Yes!" Steve cheered from the stands. "Come on, Pepperjack!"
"Me? But-"
Mary and Darci exchanged looks, then each shrugged and followed.
"Eh." Krel gestured with two of his hands. "I have survived worse. I will give it a try."
"Metallurgy. That's the scientific part," Henry quoted, drawing a careful finger along the edges of the voidstone mesh, welding the edges of the weave with a fiery touch. The voidstone, as expected, hadn't liked being telekinetically woven... but even it had certain chemical characteristics. It was a metal, and would melt at a given temperature. The fact that that temperature was plasma-hot held little difficulty for an experienced smith-mage.
Sitting on the bench watching, his elbows propped on his knees, the fine sheen of sweat on his brow slowly drying, Douxie chuckled. "Jolly Beggar. Now there's a name I've not heard for a long time. A long time."
Scooting around the frame, following the line of the trouser leg, Henry chuckled. "I never have figured out why you decided to be an actor at Faire instead of a musical performer."
"Eh." Douxie shrugged. "Less chance of getting caught up between the now and the then. Playing at being Robin Hood... that was easy. Fun. I didn't want to go around caterwauling tired old ballads I'd already sung a thousand times. Back then, about all I wanted musically was to open for Wyld Stallions."
"And now you're opening for Papa Skull."
Douxie blinked, straightening. "Wait, you know about that?"
Henry smirked at him. "Zephyr might be a Papa Skull fan."
Douxie stared at him for a second, then let his head fall back, groaning. "You took her to that concert."
"If it helps, I doubt she realizes that was you." Henry grinned. "You put on one hell of a stage presence. Very different from the tired, snarky teenager her dad's helping with wizardry stuff."
"Eh, tell her you can get her a poster autographed by the band or something. Score dad points while you can."
"I will take you up on that offer." Henry pointed at Douxie. "I want it signed by all the band members."
Douxie nodded. "It'll take a few days. Zoe's off stealing plutonium." He fell silent for a minute. "From Area 49-B."
Henry stopped what he was doing. Literally stopped and stared at Douxie. "You're serious."
Douxie nodded.
"And she calls me a crackpot?" Henry felt anger rise, flaring the forge's fires before he tamped it down. "She's risking all of us!"
Douxie sighed, and nodded. His gaze shifted away, out the open doors toward the driveway. Not visible, but not far off either, there was a high-pitched shriek of delight, followed by a drawn-out cry of "Mo~om!" and the sound of Astrid's voice. "Just so you know," Douxie said softly, "we're going for broke soon."
Henry nodded. "Yeah, I know. Taking on Gunmar in the town square and all that."
"Not just that," Douxie said, shaking his head. "Mary's been doing some 'promotional videos'" -his fingers made air quotes- "for the 'movie.' We're dropping that pretense. And I'm going to start riding a broom instead of a skateboard."
Plasma flared at his fingertips. Henry jerked his hand away before he could ruin all their hard work. "Why?" he asked, looking keenly at the older wizard.
Douxie didn't meet his eyes for a long minute. Then he did. "Because changing the world's the only way we can win." He raised three of his fingers. "Scenario one: we take on the Arcane Order and lose. They remake the world. Game over." He lowered one finger. "Scenario two: we take on the Arcane Order and win. The world still gets hit by earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, mudslides, who even knows what else. Game still over." He lowered that finger. Only one was left standing. "Or we give the Order what they want - a return of the balance between magic and man. And we win."
There was something, Henry thought, about the quality of Douxie's voice. It wasn't /shaking/... but it somehow sounded as if it ought to be. "You're scared," he realized.
"I am effing terrified," Douxie agreed, not looking away. "I have spent nine hundred years running from letting any... any muggles know about magic. And now I have to let the whole world know I should be put to the sword?" His eyes flashed; his chin raised. "But I'll do it."
Henry wanted to protest that Douxie was insane, was going to get himself and probably a lot of other people killed...
But there was something inside him, something which would probably always be inside him. It had been formed when he was thirteen, looking up to the cool, taller older boy's wicked smile as Douxie guided him in summoning his first flame, and more importantly, taught him how to put fires out. Sarcastic as he'd been, he'd still idolized Douxie. While the older wizard could sometimes be clumsy, or careless... deep down to his core, Henry trusted him.
He took a deep breath, steadying himself.
"What," he heard himself asking, "do you need me to do?"
Douxie's expression flashed to shock. "No," he said instantly. "No, you stay out of this. You stay here on your ranch, where it's safe. I don't want anyone coming after you or your kids."
Zephyr's laughter cut the air, followed by Nuffink's protests. Then Astrid's words, peacekeeping.
Henry swallowed, realizing that he could be risking everything. His kids' lives, his wife's love.
But there were some things that were worth risking everything for. A world where he didn't have to be afraid that his children, or grandchildren, would inherit his gift. A world where every transaction for his business didn't have to come with a risk assessment of magic exposure and a secondary layer of "how do I spin this to the IRS?" A world where his father might someday understand why Henry could never have gone into business, not when fire burned inside him and metal sang in his veins.
For that matter, given Douxie's knowledge of how the future might go... a world at all.
He swallowed again, and decided. "When you let Gunmar out," he said, "I will be there. With Tannlaus. If you're going to stop hiding, Douxie, you need others to stop hiding with you."
"Your kids-"
"My kids," Hiccup said levelly, "can go with Astrid and visit my mom in England for a while. Or my dad will protect them. He might not approve of my life choices, but they're his only grandchildren."
Douxie was shaking his head. "I can't let you-"
"You do not control what I do," Henry overrode him. "Zoe is risking her neck to save the Tarrons' family? I can risk my neck for a greater good."
Douxie looked at him for a long minute, before nodding, accepting that Henry's life was his own to endanger. "We'll be honored to have you," he said, extending a hand.
Henry shook it, and grinned. "Time to burn some bridges."
Two weeks. Two weeks, and she would have her baby back. Her sweet, loving, laughing boy. Not the foul-mouthed creature who was pretending to be Enrique.
And who was currently slurping down a bowlful of wires like they were noodles.
The sauce smelled disgusting. Like something she imagined one might find in a sewer.
"How can you eat that?" Ophelia demanded.
The little yellow-eyed cret- creature looked at her and smirked. "This? This's delicious," he said, and never looking away, he raised the bowl to his face and drank down the last of the sewer-broth. He considered the chopsticks in his hand for a second, then tossed them into his mouth too, crunching them down. He swallowed, then gave a small burp. "Anything that Lake kid makes is pure gold."
Ophelia paused. "Jim makes you those horrible concoctions?" It cast her daughter's boyfriend into yet another new horrifying light. And Ophelia was already not best pleased with her daughter being a sorceress and a warrior and running around with other children who were the same. All she'd wanted her to be was a straight-A student!
"Yep. He's a genius for cookin', and without a hint of magic to him, either." The tiny Troll-whom Claire and Javier had taken to calling NotEnrique, which was, Ophelia had to admit, accurate-tucked his bowl under his arm and sauntered into the kitchen. She followed, watching as he scrabbled up the cabinets to the counter, placing his bowl into the sink and squirting a bit of soap into it before filling it with water to soak. Well, at least he was doing his best to minimize the stench.
"How did you learn to use chopsticks?" she finally asked. "I know Javi didn't teach you." She couldn't get him to accompany her to Arcadia Oaks' sushi restaurants for love or money.
NotEnrique snorted. "What, like it's hard? You just watch what they do on the TV an' imitate 'em. Easy peasy."
Her eyes narrowed. "How do you feel about raw fish and rice?"
He shrugged. "Got nothin' against 'em?"
"Good." Ophelia pointed at him. "In two weeks, after Enrique is back, you and I will go eat sushi together." And so saying, the spun on her heel and left.
Look at her, Councilwoman Nuñez, supporting the new inclusion initiative. Taking the first steps in meeting Arcadia Oaks' newly discovered residents halfway.
She swallowed.
Making the effort to meet her husband and daughter's adopted child/sibling halfway.
And maybe finally getting someone in this damned household willing to go eat sushi with her!
Author's Note: Jolly Beggar is a group that performed at the Northern California Renaissance Faire in the 1990s; I never had the pleasure of seeing them live myself, as I lived in southern California, but my best friend loved them and made me a tape copy of one of their albums. It's currently somewhere in a box, so despite my best online digging, I sadly can give neither the song nor album name that Hiccup quotes from. Douxie's line about it being a name he's not heard for a long time is referencing Obi-Wan Kenobi saying the same thing in Star Wars: A New Hope. Wyld Stallions is from the Bill and Ted's movies (I still have not seen the third one). Douxie referring to non-magic-possessing humans as "muggles" is, of course, from the Harry Potter series. And NotEnrique's "What, like it's hard?" will always, always be a reference to Legally Blonde.