Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 31st March, 2023

Douxie came back into the treehouse late that night with a strand of black hairs wound around his fist.

"I know that's not your hair," said Jim from where he was reorganizing their supplies. One of the advantages of being loaded down with too much food was that it was a self-correcting problem. "It's too long."

Douxie laughed softly and sat down on the bed, looking down at the hank he was holding. The fingers of his other hand smoothed over it. "It's the unicorn's."

Jim blinked.

"If I look at it sideways," Douxie explained, probably meaning his magic aura sight, "it's easy to tell from horsehair. It's got a sort of glow to it. Which was why I had to wait until after nightfall to go collect it. Too easy to miss in daylight."

"Huh. So, what's it for?" asked Jim.

Douxie shrugged. "Potions?"

"Come on. Even I know you're lousy at potions."

Douxie shrugged again. "Didn't say I was the one who was going to be making them. But if I ever need them, these will be useful for barter."

Jim thought about it. Thought about someone who had grown up in a barter system instead of using simple cash and coins as an exchange medium. Thought about the way even Douxie's apprenticeship had been a barter: you do everything I say for nine hundred years, and I'll teach you how to use magic. "Do most wizards barter?"

Douxie waggled his hand. "Eh, some. Like with Hiccup making Claire's and my armor. We paid him in gold, but he also called it repayment for my teaching him. But more modern wizards, like Zoe... well, I paid her cash for those phones and tablets for the trolls." Douxie sighed. "Do not get me started ranting about capitalism. It's as bad a system as any other I've lived under. Power accrues power, no matter the framework, and those who don't have it are left without."

"So unicorn hair is a kind of power?" Jim guessed. Not to mention the horn, which Douxie had already secreted in his magic pocket.

Douxie was silent for a moment, then said softly, "There's not going to be any more of it, so... yeah. This is very valuable." His fingers tightened.

Jim weighed his words. "Why can't we just, y'know, catch a couple of them and take them back to the future with us?"

That made Douxie actually look at him. "Star Trek Four?" he asked.

Jim looked blank.

"The one with the whales?" Douxie prompted.

Jim continued blank.

Douxie sighed. "Never mind, you uneducated heathen." He uncoiled the hairs and laid them across the blue of the hoodie blanket, smoothing them out. "While I understand your suggestion, Jim, I can foresee a few problems. One," he said, "would be capturing the unicorns to begin with. They are not domestic creatures. Two, you would need to take back enough of them to make sure the gene pool was stable."

Jim's brow wrinkled. "Gene pool stability?"

"Inbreeding causes bad things to happen," Douxie said simply. "There's strength in diversity. When there aren't diverse, robust enough genes in a populace... well, you get massive crop failures, or the Hapsburg dynasty. I'm actually surprised cheetahs have survived to the modern day, because they're so closely related it seems like one good targeted virus would wipe them all out." A dark expression crossed his face. He ran his hand over the unicorn hairs one more time, then began braiding them.

Jim stood up and sat down next to him. "What other problems do you see?"

Douxie's breath huffed out but his fingers never stopped moving. "Once you start," he said, "where do you stop?" He looked up, his eyes meeting Jim's. "If you manage to bring back the unicorns, which species will you go for next? Thylacines? Dodos? Passenger pigeons?" A smirk flashed across his mouth. "The dinosaurs?"

"Dinosaurs?"

Douxie shrugged. "You've got the Time Stone. If you can ever get it to obey you rather than doing its own thing... no reason you couldn't jump back that many million years. Though as I understand it, the oxygen mix in the air back then was different, so it might not be a good idea to head back that far. At least not without a scuba tank."

Jim just stared. "Douxie, you're talking about jumping back in time sixty-five million years. Have you ever been told you're out of your mind?"

"Frequently." Douxie finished braiding the unicorn hair and tied off the end of the braid. His expression turned sly. "Let me know if you ever meet a sane wizard. We're all nutters, by mortal standards."

"Claire," Jim rebutted.

"Oh, Jim." Douxie leaned in close. "Claire's the most powerful shadow sorceress since Morgana. Her mutually claimed brother is an ex-changeling. She had absolutely no hesitation dating you after your little species change incident." His smile sharpened. "Claire's as mad as any proper witch."

"Uh..."

"More practically," Douxie said, straightening, "Bringing a species back from total extinction can't be done. The structure of time is stable for the most part. Little jaunts like this one, or you jumping back two years, or our trip to Camelot... they're closed loops. We come, we go, case closed. They're tiny bubbles in the time stream, as it were."

Jim eyed him warily. "But taking unicorns to our time wouldn't be?"

Douxie sighed. "Jim. There's endings to all things. People die, coastlines change, stars expand and collapse. Even the universe itself will go through heat death someday, and a new one will be born from its ashes, like a phoenix. Taking something from the past permanently into the future destabilizes order and... well." Douxie's mouth tightened. "Like any other organism, time attempts to heal itself. By ejecting the intruders, causing timequakes."

Jim's brow furrowed. "Timequakes...?"

"World War One."

Jim blinked. "How was World War One a timequake?"

Douxie's smile was wry. "Ask Strickler sometime about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. On the surface, it reads like a comedy of errors complete with Benny Hill music. Not being much of a chronomancer myself, I don't know what was supposed to happen, but I can read the signs of time being messed with."

"You have the time map," Jim pointed out.

"True. But irrelevant. My point is, nine million people died because of one man's death. In a logical world, that shouldn't happen. I'm also pretty sure the Spanish Flu was one of those aftershocks that's worse than the original quake."

Jim was silent for a minute. Finally, he spoke again. "So bringing unicorns to the future would be a really bad idea."

Douxie nodded. "I'm sorry, but yes. It would be an immensely bad idea, and might destroy everything we're working toward."


"Ahem." Blinky coughed into his hand for attention before unrolling, with a flourish, his scroll. "Our plan." It covered most of the surface of Vendel's worktable. Arrayed around the flat surface were the core of their team, the actors involved in this scheme: Aaarrrgghh, Tobias, Lady Claire, and, of course, the Akiridions.

Vendel leaned in close, casting a gimlet eye across the series of images. "I mistrust this plan already."

"Which is why we have brought it before you, for your insights!" Blinky assured Trollmarket's leader.

Aaarrrgghh nodded. "Vendel good at poking holes."

The praise from the former Gumm-Gumm general won a faint smile from Vendel. He waved a hand at the plan. "Very well. Walk me though it."

"As you know," Krel began, "an advanced OMEN robot from our planet has been stalking myself and my sister."

Aja nodded. "It has already attacked the Mothership three times. Thanks to Krel's upgraded defenses, each time it has been repelled. But we hope you will understand that we are desirous of it not trying again."

"Every attempt," Varvatos put in, "has a possibility of success. And the OMEN must not succeed in its goals."

Vendel raised an eyeridge. "Which, I assume, is the elimination of King Fialkov and Queen Coranda."

"Yes," Krel said. "And then of my sister and myself."

"I am not happy about our parents being the higher priority target again," the princess added lowly. "They are not able to defend themselves right now."

"So!" Krel took up the thread again. "Our proposal is to set the time and place of engagement. And, since the OMEN has not encountered magic before and will have no means of defeating it, to use that tactical advantage."

Vendel narrowed his eyes. "You assume it was not watching during the battle of the town square."

"I assume nothing," Krel told him. "But it took me the better part of a year, working with a master wizard, to come up with a way of reliably detecting - and suppressing! - magic. I do not think the OMEN will be able to succeed where for so long I failed."

Vendel nodded. "Proceed."

Claire took over, pointing to various drawings on the scroll. "Krel has a pair of glasses that amplifies an Akiridion's latent telepathy and lets him read minds. He says he can fine-tune it to detect robotic consciousnesses. Once we find the OMEN, we send in Steve." Her fingers drifted to a picture of the blond. "He talks about the Tarrons hiding out in Trollmarket and it having a secret, unguarded way in and out of the Mothership."

"I still do not like using my Palchuk as a 'stalking goat'," Aja muttered.

"Sorry, but Steve's our best patsy," Claire told her. She returned her attention to Vendel. "We lure the OMEN to the Trollmarket entrance under the bridge. Once it's broken through the door, I'm waiting on the other side, and I hit it with a shadow portal."

"OMEN never gets into Trollmarket," Aaarrrgghh told Vendel, whose mouth had tightened at the implied danger to his people.

"Why not simply portal it from outside, before it ever gets in?" asked Vendel.

"Because my portals are line of sight," Claire told him. "And if I'm close enough to see it, it's close enough to sense me."

"But," Krel said, "I have scanned the Trollmarket entrance. It reads completely as solid rock, blocking all hint of magic on the other side from Akiridion sensors. So this should work to trap the OMEN."

"Having destroyed the entrance to Trollmarket, leaving it open to any passing intruder, you will have captured your enemy and sentenced him to eternity in the Shadow Realm." The butt of Vendel's staff thumped on the ground. "I fail to see the benefit to Trollmarket."

"Ah, but we are not leaving the OMEN in the Shadow Realm!" Blinky crowed.

Vendel arched an eyeridge again. "Do tell."

"I'm not going to portal it to the Shadow Realm at all," Claire continued, "but to a specific spot in the woods."

"Where Strickler will have aided us in setting up a stasis trap," Blinky said proudly.

"And once it is in the trap, Toby's warhammer should take care of the rest," said Krel. "We will be paying the HexTech wizards with about the last of our funds to repair Trollmarket's front door as soon as the OMEN is disposed of."

Blinky watched anxiously as Vendel mulled the plan over. They'd worked hard on it, plugging as many holes as they could find-

"Well," said the Trollmarket leader eventually, "you seem to have set your mind on this course. Far be it from me to dissuade you."

"Yes!" Blinky punched the air in validation. "Ah, ahem, that is... I'm glad you find our plan satisfactory, Vendel."

He won a thin smile. "Do not let your enthusiasm overwhelm your good judgment, Blinkous."


"Once we get home, I am never going hiking again," Jim grumbled.

"Come on now, didn't you walk all the way from California to New Jersey?" Douxie, in front of him, asked.

Jim looked around for a pebble to throw at his brother's head. Sadly, none were in evidence at the moment. "Yeah. Don't remind me."

Douxie visibly connected the circumstances of that march to the trek itself. He winced. "Sorry. Shan't bring it up again."

"It's fine," Jim told him. It hadn't happened this time around. He, Claire, and Blinky were the only ones who remembered it. And the less Jim thought about battling his dysphoria on a cross-country journey with a bunch of traumatized trolls who possessed questionable hygiene, the happier he was. Particularly given what (or, rather, who) they'd encountered at the end of that journey.

His hand raised to his amulet and rubbed at it.

There were no dark crystals protruding. No scarred flesh beneath. No pain if he breathed too deeply or stretched the wrong way...

Some days, that lack didn't matter, and he still felt cold.

"I want to go home," he said unexpectedly.

Douxie stopped.

"Sorry," Jim said. "I don't know where that came from."

Douxie turned to look at him. "I think you do," he said softly. "And for what it's worth, Jim... so do I."

Jim bit his bottom lip, then moved up to walk next to Douxie. It wasn't as easy this way as letting Douxie break the trail, walking where he walked, but Jim didn't want to be the little brother trailing behind right now. "Think they miss us?"

Douxie nudged him. "You know they do."

"Mom's got to be going out of her mind worrying. Archie too," Jim added.

"I hope he's all right."

Jim looked sharply at Douxie.

The wizard shrugged. "A familiar bond's a two-way street. As bad off as I get? At least I can soothe it somewhat with music. Archie hasn't got that outlet."

Jim tried to picture Archie's sanity fracturing the way Douxie's had started to. He couldn't. The dragon was a rock. More so than some trolls Jim knew, actually. "He hasn't got all your..." Jim waved nebulously, "head things, though."

"Gods help us if he did," Douxie muttered. His fingers trailed along the underside of a branch as they passed it. "Doesn't mean he's not going to be as off-balance as I am, though... Oh."

Abruptly, the forest turned to clearing, and fields. And a house in the middle of them.

"Uh," said Jim intelligently. "Think this is it?"

Douxie narrowed his eyes. They glowed slightly. Or was it just a weird reflection of the light? "Well, some sort of wizard definitely lives here, judging by the etheric residue. So I'm going to say yes."

Neither of them moved forward, though. Taking in the scene, the hairs on the back of Jim's neck prickled up, though he couldn't say why.

"Something's wrong," Douxie murmured, confirming Jim's unease. "The animals..."

"What animals?"

"They should be in the field," Douxie said. "Instead, hear that?"

Jim concentrated and, sure enough, he could hear unhappy sheep-and-cow noises coming from a building he assumed must be some kind of barn.

"There should be people outdoors, taking advantage of the fair weather," Douxie murmured. "Where are they?"

Scanning across the vista, Jim's gaze caught. "Uh, Douxie?"

The wizard's gaze followed where Jim indicated.

Two fresh scars of mounded dirt rose from a low hill. One was smaller than the other.

"Oh, fuzzbuckets," Douxie murmured. "We're coming into a house of mourning. Wonder how long it's been since Charlie visited? No, scratch that," he said. "It's been months. He's been busy with Archie's egg and his own loss." His mouth drew to a line. Finally he sighed and hitched the supplies he carried higher. "Come on. Let's go see what help we can offer."

Jim nodded, and followed.


Down the dale, Douxie's unease grew. This was a sizable freeholding. It showed all evidence of being well-kept, but it was definitely larger and would need more than two pairs of hands. Where was everyone? Had they run off? Or been run off? The distressed lowing of cows and bleating of sheep irritated his brain; he wanted to tend to them, but he needed to get the lay of the land first. Were there any humans left? Had Charlie's hedgewizard friend been one of those killed?

From inside the main house came a crash.

He and Jim exchanged a look, then headed that way.

"Halloo the house," Douxie called once they were within ten paces.

No answer came.

Shrugging, he opened the door, letting light spill inside.

The reek of alcohol spilled out.

"Ugh," said Jim, covering his nose.

Douxie quite agreed, but...

Summoning a witchlight to his hands, he stepped inside.

It was a dark mess. Furniture was turned over, broken and splintered, covering the Roman mosaic on the floor. Douxie sidestepped the pieces, picking his way through, following his nose.

Down the corridor he found a kitchen, with food spilling forth out of the cupboard. No rats yet, though; the strength of the anti-pest wards was still good. And in the corner there, surrounded by emptied bottles, slumped a man.

"The hedgewizard," Douxie murmured to Jim, who had followed him. Because even as inebriated as the fellow was, he was muttering under his breath, and the shape of the Latinate syllables was an invocation Douxie had heard any number of times: a spell to strengthen. In this case, he suspected, it was an attempt to strengthen the potency of the alcohol. Merlin had used it that way once or twice in Camelot, at Sir Galahad's request.

Douxie knelt and reached his arm out. "Hey. Sober up."

The man's head lolled, his bleary-eyed visage coming into view.

Douxie's hand shot back as though he'd been burned by a coal. "No," he said, wide-eyed. "No no nononono-"

He stood, and bolted from the room.

Jim caught up with him in the corridor outside.

"Doux?"

Douxie was busy trying not to hyperventilate. His stomach roiled. "I really," he managed, "do not want to throw up. Oh fuzzbuckets."

"Douxie." Jim's hand found his shoulder. "What is it?"

Douxie swallowed bile down. Sank down against the wall. Jim knelt beside him. "It's..." he said, mind spinning, reeling, with all the implications. Or was that the corridor? No, it was him. He swallowed. "Did you see who he was?" he asked Jim.

Jim shook his head.

It seemed simplicity itself to say, but everything that followed on from the two words was too much to deal with. "It's Merlin," said Douxie.

Jim's eyes widened. "Fuck."


Val Morando was having a good day. The latest attempts by the pathetic resistance had been crushed, the vast majority of Akiridions were bowing at his feet, and nothing had gone wrong-

Loth Saborian, the sniveling coward, entered the throne room. He looked nervous. But then, he looked nervous all the time. Even when those pathetic fools the Tarrons ruled Akiridion-5, he had always been sure the empire was on the verge of disaster. Therefore, this was truly nothing new for him.

"Speak," Val bade him.

"Well, you see, my lord..."

Val waited.

"That is... er..."

"To the point!" Val snapped.

Loth Saborian flinched. "There is a message for you, my lord."

A flickering, and then the video appeared on a holoscreen. "Is this thing on?" someone said. "Ah, there we go." A being stepped into view.

Val growled. "Krel Tarron."

"It appears to originate from your OMEN, my lord," Saborian offered. "The one that followed Lieutenant Zadra to... 'Earth'."

Val gritted his teeth. When he caught Zadra, her execution would be most painful. And public. She would be made an example to all other potential traitors.

On the screen, another figure joined the prince. His sister. "Well done," Aja Tarron complimented her brother. Then she looked directly at the transmitting OMEN. "Hello, General Morando. Traitor. Would-be usurper. Shall I continue?"

"No need," her brother laughed. "I think he gets the point." Krel Tarron also looked directly at the OMEN. "You have tried, again, and failed, again, to have us killed, Val."

"How many attempts has this been?" asked Aja. She counted off on her fingers. "The Zeron Brotherhood. The bounty hunter Halcon. The bounty hunter Magmatron. This OMEN." She stepped forward and kicked upward. The video fritzed for a moment, then resumed. "Like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target. I am not very impressed."

"And before you say it is the fault of those you employ," her brother put in, a smirk slashing its way across his face, "let me just point out that it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools."

"Come get us yourself, Val," Aja continued, taunting. "If you have the courage. And to the Resistance..." Her expression changed. "Keep fighting," she said. "We of House Tarron are still here. We will never abandon you. Victory is our only option."

She nodded at someone offscreen, and the transmission abruptly broke into a shower of static.

"She was talking to the Resistance," Val gritted.

"My apologies, my lord," Saborian said. "Our controls were overridden. The transmission appears to have been broadcast on every screen on the planet."

Val lashed out, smashing the nearest control panel. Saborian quailed. "How long until my fleet is ready?" Val growled. "I will go take care of these brats myself."

"One d-delson, my lord!"

"We launch the sekton it's ready." Turning, Val stalked out of the throne room.

He needed to go hurt something.


"Okay, that was brilliant, guys!" Toby said. Beside him, Eli nodded frantically, camera in hand.

"Well," said Aja, "let us hope it is enough to get Morando on the move. The more attention he directs to trying to kill us, the less he puts on our people, and the more the Resistance can sabotage."

Krel knelt, poking at the sparking remains of the OMEN, smashed to smithereens by Toby's warhammer. "Well, I don't think I can salvage much of this," he said. "But the materials should be good for something."

"Maybe Hiccup will want them?" suggested Claire. "Especially if we end up needing more armor or something."

Eli's eyes widened, shining. "Can I have armor?"

"Of course you can," Aja assured him, slinging an arm over his shoulder. "You and my Palchuk deserve armor."

"I will want to go over this with a fine-tooth comb first, make sure there is nothing dangerous," Krel said, straightening. "But, yes. Hiccup can have the metal and make of it what he will."

"Have you got Dog Fight locked and loaded?" asked Toby. "'Coz, you know, I'm always good for a new round of foiling the bad guys' plans."

Krel nodded. "I am just awaiting Izita's signal, then I will ask Mary to make it go viral again."

"Dog Fight?" Eli asked.

"Oh, man, you're going to love it," Toby rhapsodized. "You see, Krel here programmed this game which can totally be used to take down Morando's fleet and leave him stranded and boiling with anger..."

"Not completely accurate," Krel said. "But close enough."


In a bar on the moon, Zeron Beta wound his way between tables, an overflowing mug in either hand. He sat down at a table where Zeron Omega, her tail perhaps a quarter regrown and looking very stubby, sat. She was frowning at a tablet.

"Have you seen this?" she asked, and turned the holoscreen toward him, pressing play.

Within a sekton, the video was the focus of every being in the bar, excepting perhaps the blank behind the bar, who was polishing glassware.

Beta growled.

"The damned Tarrons," Omega agreed when the video ended. "But... without Alpha." A snort. "Pointless taking that bounty, no matter how much they're worth."

"Perhaps I might join you?" a smooth voice asked. Beta looked up to see red armor and sparking eyes.

Omega's eyes narrowed. Then she smirked, kicking out a foot to push a chair back in invitation.

"Thank you." The Voltarian took a seat. "I understand the Tarrons have taken much from you."

Beta nodded, wary.

"Our Alpha," Omega agreed.

The Voltarian inspected his fingers. "I, too, have much to thank House Tarron for." He cocked his head, examining the both of them. "Might I suggest, this one time only, a split bounty?"

Voltarians were not to be underestimated, Beta knew. But for the chance of revenge... perhaps, this once, they could overlook the possibility of future backstabbing.

Vengeance, after all, was worth more than credits.

Omega read this all in his eyes, then nodded. "One time only," she warned. But she stuck her hand out to shake. "You have a deal, Tronos Madu."


Douxie had apparently decided that the best way to deal with everything going through his head did not involve a massive magical lute jamming session, which Jim would have expected, but instead dealing with Merlin's menagerie. Which turned out to be a handful of cows, a herd of sheep, and more live chickens than Jim had ever seen in his life.

"Come on, lovelies," Douxie said, leading the sheep to literally greener pastures while Jim, as instructed, picked up every single chicken egg and put them all in a basket Douxie had snatched from the house.

Jim stared as the sheep followed Douxie like he was some kind of sheep whisperer. Seriously, he'd seen puppies that were less enamored of people.

Five minutes later, Douxie was back and dealing with the cattle. Which were a lot smaller than Jim had expected cows to be. "Let me guess," Jim said, "you worked on a farm."

That scored him a laugh. "Jim, I have worked on so many farms that I've legitimately lost count," Douxie said. "Back in a minute." He led the cows away presumably also to pasture. The chickens had scattered outside while Jim got their eggs. He had no idea if he was supposed to feed them or not.

The barn, he thought, stunk.

Finally Douxie reappeared. His nose wrinkled. He rolled up his hoodie sleeves and disappeared up through a hole in the ceiling. "Straw coming down!" he called. Jim backed away. A stream of golden straw poured down through the hole, guided by blue magic, and flew to where the animals had been confined, obligingly covering up their fecal matter. The odor immediately cut in half. Douxie's head popped out of the hole. "Better?" he asked.

"Much," Jim told him, and watched as Douxie somersaulted out of the opening. He held onto the edge for a second, dangling, then dropped to the floor, landing in a neat crouch. "Are we going to talk about Merlin now?"

Douxie huffed out through his nose and walked to the barn door, where he leaned against the frame, looking out onto the vast, tidy rows of the garden. His fingers curled and uncurled, over and over. Jim followed and stood beside him.

"Merlin..." Douxie said slowly. He shook his head. "There's little enough of him in that drunken sot."

"What do you think happened?" asked Jim.

Douxie's gaze was fixed on the two grave mounds in the distance. "At a guess? He lost someone important. Drove off the workers that'd be needed to maintain an establishment this size. And started drowning himself in the strongest drink he could find, to try to forget."

Jim couldn't help it. "Have you ever done that?"

Douxie snorted. "Gotten rip-roaringly drunk? Oh yeah." His sigh was long, like a rolling ocean wave. "It never works. But it always seems like a good idea at the time."

"So," Jim said, "what do we do?"

Douxie's gaze met his. Then the wizard pulled the time map out of his pocket and looked at that instead. His fingers traced the lid, then the symbols on its side. "You have to understand, Jim... Merlin was always so proud of his teacher."

"His teacher?" Jim asked.

Douxie nodded. His eyes met Jim's again, and there was a weight to his expression that Jim didn't know how to read. "Merlin's master, the one who gave him his staff, was Taliesin. The last wizard of Atlantis."

"But Taliesin's dead," Jim said.

Douxie nodded. "Long so." He waited, like a teacher letting Jim work through to a correct answer.

"But you said the guy in there is a hedgewizard. Not a master."

Douxie nodded again.

"So who gives him his staff?" asked Jim.

Douxie's mouth became a line. "Best as I can guess? I have to."

Jim blinked. "You? You're out of your mind."

Douxie smirked. "So says the man who has been known to make puff pastry from scratch."

Jim glowered, and looked around for a mud puddle to shove the wizard into.

Douxie sighed. "Only a master can forge a staff. So. I've got to go sober up that drunken git, get him to want to live again, teach him, and give him his staff and this map, all while under false pretenses and a fake identity."

Jim thought about it. Thought about proud, cold Merlin. Thought about what Merlin might do if he ever found out he'd been made a dupe of by his own apprentice. "He can never learn about this," Jim said seriously, meeting Douxie's eyes. "From either of us."

Douxie... relaxed, oddly, his shoulders lowering at Jim's assent to his plan. "Agreed. He hates me enough already, and you really don't need to earn more of his ire." His eyes ran up and down Jim; a sly smirk suddenly appeared. "I'll need to cast some appearance altering spells on both of us. Immortals' memories don't suffer the same time degradation as mortals'. If we look like ourselves, he'll recognize us both sooner or later, and then we'll really be in for it."

Jim groaned. "Are you going to change my hair color?"

Douxie's grin grew. "What, you never wanted to be a blond?"

"No." Jim glowered. "I'll leave that to Steve."

"Fair enough." Douxie glanced down at the time map, before pocketing it again. "Mind if I borrow your eye color?"

"Go for it." Jim hesitated, then spoke up as Douxie began working magic on his own eyes, snakes of blue plasma writhing around his hands. "You teaching Merlin and then Merlin teaching you feels like some sort of causality loop."

"Mmm, probably is," Douxie agreed. In between one blink and another, his heterochromatic eyes turned solidly blue. "Doesn't really matter as long as the loop is stable. And may I say, I am proud of you for even knowing that term."

"Hey, I watched the Future Warrior movies," Jim protested. "Also, it's creepy seeing you with my eye color, and we really look like brothers now."

Douxie grinned, magic fading away, and fished his phone out of his pocket, turning it back on. "Quick, a selfie for your Mam!" he crowed, and raised the phone, crowding his head in next to Jim's. "Smile!"

Caught out by the absurdity of the situation, Jim had to smile.


He lay, if not comfortably insensate, then at least comfortably numb, in the wreckage his life had become.

He was waiting to die.

The bucket full of ice water that was dashed upon him dashed that hope.

Spluttering, he flailed, his elbow painfully catching the wall, and looked up.

"Get up, Myrrdin Wylt," said a cold voice. It came from a tall, thin man. Cold blue eyes glared at him out of a face the color of cider; long black hair spilled down his back; his dark, dusky robes were embroidered with sigils of power that Merlin had never seen before. Behind him lurked a knight, similarly dark-haired and dark-skinned, clad in fine ivory armor. "We've work to do, and I've no patience for your drunkenness."

"Who-" Myrrdin's voice failed him. He mustered it and tried again. "Who the blazes are you?" he managed, head pounding at the effort.

Regal eyes looked down a long nose at him. "I am Taliesin of Atlantis, and it is time for you to fulfill your destiny."


Author's Notes: Aja draws from Captain Kirk in Star Trek II when she tells Morando that, like a poor marksman, he keeps missing the target. HoneyxMonkey has drawn brothers selfie art, which is on the AO3 version of this chapter.