Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 7th July, 2023

Jim's ears were ringing. And he was fairly sure he'd gone blind.

He blinked furiously, shaking his head, until the ringing died down and his pupils adjusted.

He wasn't blind, it was night. And he was...

I'm right where I left from. Jim looked around in wonder. The battle had done a serious number on the town square. The bandstand was just gone, as were all the trees. He was sure Claire's mom, and the town council, had thrown a fit over that. Mature oaks weren't exactly easy to replace, and they'd been some much needed shade amid all the buildings in the summer.

And... not too far away was a hunched-over figure, clearly nomming on the remains of one of the Gumm-Gumms.

Jim just stared.

He did not have the energy to deal with a gruesome right now.

But if I'm here... where's Douxie? Because Jim was absolutely sure they'd both come back. Just... obviously not together?

He turned slowly, confirming that there was, indeed, no wizard visible in the park.

Shit.

But what there was, on the far side, was a taco truck, its windows a blazing beacon of light and sanctuary against the night.

Jim considered the couple of miles between here and home, because that was almost certainly where Douxie would also head to, and wanted to cry. He was so tired, he'd been up for well over twenty-four hours, fought an army of Gumm-Gumms, hunted down a deer, marched a bunch of troll kids miles back to their home, and freaking literally /carried/ them all to safety.

He was just so tired.

Feet dragging, he trudged his way toward the truck.


Stuart was chilling between frequently non-human customers, making the best of his time by giving things a good cleaning beyond his usual neatness, bopping his head to some music that he absolutely had to share with Prince Krel, when a rap on the service window caught his attention. "Yes, what can I get for you?" he asked, spinning around.

Only to stop, staring at the armored figure just outside the window. "Jim?!"

The teenager gave him a weak grin. "Hey."

"You're back! ...And you look absolutely knackered," Stuart said, brain still not firing on all four thrusters. Jim was back? When had that happened? Why hadn't anyone told him? He was on at least one of the group chats that had formed among the defenders of Arcadia.

"Yeah. Just got here," Jim said, his face drawn. "And I am really tired, so I was wondering if I could ask you for a ride home?"

"Absolutely!" Stuart shut the shining steel cabinet he'd been sorting. "Hop in."

Jim took the shotgun seat and blinked at the seat belt for a minute before fastening it.

"Dare I ask where you've been, my friend?" Stuart asked, closing up shop and securing everything as quickly as he could. He frowned at the window as it stuck, and put a little more shoulder into it. "Need to lubricate that," he reminded himself for the dozenth time.

Jim yawned. "Medieval England."

"Jolly good, toodle-pip, huzzah and hooray?"

The teenage king looked blankly at him.

Stuart sighed, plopping down into the driver's seat and buckling in. "Never mind. Get done what you needed to?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"And your lanky shadow?"

"We got separated." Jim's eyelids were drifting shut. "He... I hope we'll meet up at home?"

"All right. Home it is, then." Stuart cast one more look at Jim, who was already well on his way into dreamland, and pulled away from the curb. "Lucky for you, mate, I know where that is."

He drove carefully, not wanting to wake the dozing teenager who, frankly, looked wiped. Whatever he'd done back in medieval England had clearly been strenuous and left him little enough time for sleep. Despite himself needing far less sleep than humans, Stuart could empathize. There had been more than a few times, early in his life, that he'd worn himself to a nub. Age and experience had taught him how to keep away from those situations as best he could.

"And yet here we are, Stewie old pal," he murmured to himself, "helping out a group of world-saving heroes. Heh! Two worlds, even." He cast a glance over at Jim as he pulled onto the boy's street. "Ah, reminds me of what my old gang got up to when I was but a mere blob. Weren't those the days. Never on such a grand scale as this, of course, but..."

He pulled up to the curb in front of the dark house, and set the parking brake. Nudged Jim. "Wake up, your Majesty. We're here."

The boy woke with a start, blinking several times before reality reasserted itself. "Uh. Oh. Thanks."

"Got a key?" Stuart asked as he unbuckled. "Because I may or may not have a bit of an aptitude for lock picking, should it be needed..."

"Um." Jim managed to fish a wallet out of somewhere on his armor. Checked it. "Yeah, I've got a key. Thanks for the ride."

"No problem, my friend!" Stuart said cheerfully as Jim opened the door. He waited at the curb as the boy mounted the steps and fiddled with the doorknob. Only after the front door shut safely behind him did Stuart pull away, whistling and considering whether he should return to the town square in hope of a few more late night customers, or if, like the young king of Arcadia behind him, he, too, should pack it in for the evening.

He could, he thought, drop Jim's return into the Arcadian group chat. Who knew, Prince Krel might even still be awake, tinkering with some project, to read and respond to that tidbit!

No, I'll let Jim do that himself, Stuart thought. Kid's been through the wringer. He deserves the chance to cause some harmless mayhem. Besides, if anyone was still awake, Stuart suspected their reaction would preclude Jim's much needed sleep. And he wasn't that heartless. Well, technically he was; Durians didn't have or need hearts, having a vastly different circulatory system than species homo sapiens. But regardless of lacking a heart, Stuart just plain wasn't that cruel.

Let the kid king have his rest.


Jim managed to make it up the stairs. Into his room. The bed lay there, in the corner. He fell onto it face first, and didn't even notice when his armor vanished, the amulet, in a wisp of blue light, coming to rest by his side.

Exhausted, he finally slept. So soundly that he didn't even notice when, less than an hour later, a shapeshifted Archie hauled Douxie up the stairs and into his own bedroom.


Douxie woke to sunlight tickling his face, the smell of cooking food tickling his nose, and the distant sound of voices from downstairs tickling his ears. Groaning, he flung his arm over his face and rolled over onto his stomach.

Which promptly began making noises at him.

With a whimper, he shoved himself upright, and blinked down at his lap. What am I wearing?

Memory came back like a flood of molasses. Which was something he'd had the displeasure of actually witnessing, once upon a time. Merlin. The sixth century. Taliesin. And the making of a master's staff, which had drained him as he'd seldom been drained before. Followed by the fight against time itself, trying to do the impossible and hold on to what he needed to fix the world.

For a second, he didn't know if he'd succeeded in that, until his eyes fell on the lute case leaning up against the wall, right next to his guitar.

"Mordrax's Miracles," Douxie breathed, staring. "I... did it?" He stumbled off the bed, falling to his knees by the lute, the loose fabric of his Atlantean-style robes puddling around him. He ran fingers across the smooth leather of the case, then hastily undid the straps with shaking fingers, afraid that time was playing a nasty trick on him, had let him keep the case but not the instrument-

Taliesin's lute gleamed from within, polished dark wood, mother of pearl inlays, the twelve mithrilium strings each faintly aglow with their own light.

Douxie felt relief so intense it was almost like a sob, as he took the instrument out, cradling it in gentle fingers. His bones felt emptied out, hollowed, but he hadn't failed...

The opal pendant thumped against his chest as he sat back down on the bed, callused fingers brushing over the lute strings, eliciting the faintest whisper of sound. He'd always kept a pick or two in the magical storage space in his vambrace. They were pesky little things, and he lost them so easily; it was best to keep a few on hand. Douxie took one out now, and gently began testing the strings, tuning them. Of course, there was no saying Atlanteans had kept the same musical scale as the modern Western world (it was, in fact, unlikely), but neither had their music been discordant to Douxie's ears.

And, regardless, he thought Taliesin would forgive him for retuning the instrument.

Maybe, he thought, somewhere among the Atlantean books that had been washed forward on the cresting tide of time, there might be one that covered Atlantean music. It was a longshot, and an unlikely hope, but given Atlantis had held the secrets of bardic music? Not impossible, either.

He finished tuning the instrument, and began to run through fingering exercises. Other than that single session in Charlie's den, it had been a while since he'd played one, and the twelve-stringed lute was a bit of a different beast than his six-stringed electric guitar. Not irreconcilably different... but a separate set of muscle memories to shift to.

Closing his eyes, he let music spill through him.

"The cure to not enough magic," Merlin had told him once, after Douxie's first true experience with overuse and magic depletion, "is more magic." Meaning, get back up on the metaphorical horse and perform some trivial bit of sorcery over and over again to get the juices flowing and convince your body to produce more magic to fill up its emptied well.

Music had always been much the same, at least for Douxie.

And if somehow Douxie could manage to remarry the two... so much the better.

But for now, he just played, letting himself float on the waves of sound. It was only after a bit that he realized the notes were familiar.

Some hang on to used to be
Live their lives looking behind

"All we have is here and now," he murmured, "All our lives, out there to find." Sometimes his subconscious was too smart.

The road is long
There are mountains in our way
But we climb a step every day

The song was absolutely trite, always had been.

But, like with all memorable things, there was a nugget of something true in it.

Maybe, Douxie thought, continuing to play, he could jazz it up. Riff on it. Reframe it to be something that Ash Dispersal Pattern could play. Because to love, and to hope, was, after all, unabashedly punk...

A rap on the frame of his door distracted him.

"Hey," said Jim. In his hand was a plate; by his ankles was a black cat.

Douxie smiled, feeling himself relax a whit further now that he knew Jim had made it safely home as well. "Hey."

Jim came in; Douxie shifted over, letting Jim sit down by him on the bed. Jim handed the plate over. "Breakfast burrito," he said. "Apologies if it's not as good as Stuart's."

Douxie snorted. "You should see if he needs a sous chef and can afford to hire you over summer break. Get some industry experience. Also, thank you." His stomach made another twisting rumble as Archie jumped up to meatloaf himself on Douxie's other side. Douxie took a bite of the burrito. It was, as with everything Jim made, delicious. Eggs and sausage and sauteed mushrooms, all wrapped up in a lovely soft tortilla. It definitely hit the spot.

Jim leaned his head back against the wall and sighed, closing his eyes. "Thought I was the only one who slept in my clothes," he said after a moment.

Douxie snorted, amused despite himself. "Only in direst necessity." He hesitated, then asked, "Do I want to know what happened with the trolls?"

Jim opened his eyes again, looking at the ceiling on the other side of the room. "Gumm-Gumms had attacked... well, whatever the precursor to Dwoza was called, I guess. Killed most of the adults. Vendel was there."

"Really." Douxie was surprised.

Jim nodded. "He told me the Gumm-Gumms had kidnapped a bunch of their younglings."

"You went after them."

"Yeah." Jim let out a long sigh. "I took out most of the Gumm-Gumms, got the kids back home safe. That was it."

Douxie exchanged a glance with Archie, who was intently listening, then narrowed his eyes, looking back at Jim. "I feel like there's got to be more to the story than that."

Jim met his eyes and smiled. "Blinky," he said, "was a really cute baby."

Douxie stared. "So you mean to tell me," he said after a moment, "that the whole two weeks we spent in the sixth century was just so we could both save our mentors' butts?"

Jim snickered at his indignant tone. "Well, not just Blinky," he confessed. "I also rescued Dictatious, Bagdwella... Kanjigar."

Douxie's eyes widened, mental math sinking in. If Jim hadn't rescued all those troll children... if he himself hadn't given Merlin the firm shove from grief to purpose... "I think we just saved history," he said, feeling astonished. Which... probably meant that somewhere in their original timeline, this exact same quest would have happened, in the future. They just hadn't gotten to that point yet.

"Yeah." Jim's smile was strained. "One down, one to go." He cocked his head to the side, considering the lute resting on Douxie's bed. "Didn't you say something about not being able to bring things back to the future? That it caused timequakes?"

Douxie sighed. "It does. To be honest, I probably should've left this, and the necklace, with Charlie, for him to hold onto. But I didn't have time, Jim, not when the jump back to the present started... and I need the necklace. It's the only way anyone's ever going to crack the Atlantean books."

Jim was silent for a minute. "And the lute?" he asked, his tone carefully nonjudgmental.

Douxie's lips made a line. "Less necessary," he admitted. "But... Taliesin left this for me. It's the last piece of Atlantis... of bardic magery."

"Hey." Jim's hand landed on his shoulder. "I know about needing to hold onto something important."

Douxie met his eyes. "I suppose you do."

"I just need to know if this is gonna cause any timequakes."

Douxie smiled. Now Jim was talking like a king. "I shouldn't think so," he said. His hand smoothed across the mother of pearl inlays. "It's got enough preservation spells on it that it should have lasted, regardless. So I think the only true problem time had was with me taking it through a shortcut rather than the long route across the centuries."

"Crispy," said Jim.

Then they both heard the front door opening downstairs.


Thank god for Nancy Domzalski, thought Barbara.

"Oh, let me get that for you, dear," her neighbor said, taking the key from Barbara's hand and unlocking the door, pushing it open. "And don't you worry about leaving your car at the hospital, either. I'll take Toby-Pie with me after he gets out of school, and we'll bring it home for you-"

Her good-natured ramble was cut off by the sound of feet thundering down the stairs.

"Mom!" Jim appeared around the corner, barreling straight for her, followed closely by Douxie. Barbara barely had the presence of mind to angle her injured arm away before she was glommed onto first by an enthusiastic set of arms, then again, more cautiously, by a second.

"Jim?" Her mind was a blank for a moment. "Douxie?" Then her thoughts caught up. "You're here? You're home?"

"We just got back last night!" Her blood son beamed up at her. "I missed you-"

"What," broke in her other son, staring aghast, "happened to your arm?"

"What?!" Jim demanded, easing off and staring at the blue sling.

"Gunshot wound," Nancy said from behind her. "Come on, let her in, boys. I'll make tea and get some cookies together." The buxom woman pushed past them, heading toward the kitchen.

Jim was still staring. "You got shot?"

Barbara sighed, feeling a headache starting to creep in despite the admittedly nice painkillers she was on. "Yes, I did. Can we sit down and you tell me where you've been the last two weeks?"

"Sixth century England," Archie said, leaping up on the back of the sofa as they all eased down onto it.

"And Jim and I come back and find you shot," Douxie said to Barbara, "and you having lost weight - don't try fibbing to me, Arch, I've known you for nine centuries," he told the dragon. "What the blazes has been happening while we were gone?"

Archie sniffed. "What was I to do, make a glutton of myself while my familiar was lost in time?"

"Besides, we've mostly been living on takeout," Barbara admitted without shame.

Jim groaned. "I knew it. I need to make a menu and go shopping-"

"First," Douxie interrupted, "how about you tell us how you got shot, Mam, and who we need to hurt about it?"

"Ahh..." Barbara tried to think how to spin this to her boys. Only to stop in realization at what Douxie had just called her. Her heart did something funny, twisting and turning over. She wanted to do... something.

She settled for looping her uninjured arm around him and giving him a sideways hug.

Douxie blushed, but didn't say anything.

"Well?" Jim prompted, apparently having completely missed his adopted brother calling her his mom for the first time ever.

"Someone's been trying to kill Walt," she said, deciding to just rip off the bandaid and go for it. "This," she said, gesturing at her arm, "was meant for him."

"What?!" Jim demanded again.

"Don't think that happened the first time around," Douxie said speculatively.

Archie jumped down onto his lap and stretched across Barbara's lap to sniff at the wound. "I thought you were just pulling an overnight shift," the dragon demurred.

"Well, I certainly did spend the night in the hospital." She sighed and leaned back into the sofa cushions, looking up briefly at the ceiling. "Walt's taken off to get more help from... somewhere, since we didn't know when you two were getting back."

Jim was frowning. "I don't like you getting hurt," he said. "You're not a combatant, Mom."

"Shit happens in war," said Nancy, coming into the room bearing a tray of tea and cookies.

"Anyhow," Barbara put in as Nancy sat and poured, "I'm off work for the next several weeks, until my arm heals up." She gave a wan smile. "Hope you boys won't get sick of me being around all the time."

"No," and "Never," were her gratifying answers. "So tell me about what you've been up to. And..." She looked up and down Douxie's odd outfit. "Douxie, I have to ask. What are you wearing?"

Her older son sighed and dropped his face into his waiting palm. "I transmogrified my clothes into a knockoff facsimile of an Atlantean wizard's robes," he muttered.

Barbara's eyes flew wide. "Atlantean?"

"Oh, do tell us more!" trilled Nancy, taking a sip of the tea.


Toby was sitting in the middle of health class, listening to Coach Lawrence fumble his way through a lecture on nutrition, of all things, when his phone chimed with an alert. Sneaking it out of his pocket, he stealthily thumbed his way to his messages.

For the duration of two heartbeats, he stared at the screen. His face slowly began to break into a bigger and bigger grin.

"Domzalski!" Coach barked. "You wanna share with the cl-"

Toby stood straight up from his seat. "Jimbo and Douxie are back!"

"What?!" demanded several voices, a flurry of hands pulling out their phones to check the group chat.

Claire's expression, as Toby sat back down, was one of almost heartbreaking relief, her fingers at her lips.

"Well," Krel said to Aja, "this will make that group meeting after school, about the situation, much easier."

Toby kind of wanted to ask, what situation? But overwhelming even that desire was a relief to match Claire's. That Jimbo, and Douxie, had made it back safe. That his best friend hadn't died in another century.

And, yeah, maybe just a little bit of the weight of responsibility sliding off his shoulders. Jim was back, and Jim was in charge. Not Toby, who was a pretty decent Trollhunter by now, but Jim. Who was a born-and-made king.

/Meet you guys after school at Aja and Krel's place?/ he texted back, ignoring Coach trying to get the class back under control.

/We'll be there,/ Jim promised.

/We have a lot to talk about,/ added Douxie.


"So," said Douxie teasingly, once Nana Domzalski had made her way home and Jim had gone to (probably despairingly) take stock of the pantry, "is there anything you'd like to tell us?"

"Hmm?" Barbara asked.

He cast a significant look at her hand, and the plain gold ring thereupon.

She blushed. "It's- it's not-"

His hand covered hers. "I know," Douxie said quietly. "It's clearly a protection ring. But am I wrong guessing who gave it to you?"

Barbara shook her head. "You're not wrong."

"You might want to tell Jim what it's for before he realizes it's there," Douxie advised. A smile bloomed on his face, mischief rising to the fore. "Unless you wish to torment him a bit, of course."

Barbara laughed and gave him another sideways hug. "I am so glad to have you both home," she said. "And... Douxie, I'm so sorry. You missed your birthday."

He shrugged. "What's another birthday, after the first century or so?" he asked.

"I was going to do something big," Barbara said. "A party, getting Jim to make a nice dinner and a cake, presents-"

"I really don't need any-"

"I got reservations," she said. "Walt helped. For a family camping trip this summer, at Yosemite. Since you've never been. It was going to be a surprise present for you."

Douxie blinked. "I." Words seemed to evaporate from his throat. He blinked, more than necessary. "I. Thank you," he said.

Barbara smiled, infinitely gentle, and wrapped both arms around him. "Welcome home."

In between them, Archie purred contentedly.


After Barbara was settled in her own bed to doze the afternoon away (Douxie was in complete accordance with modern medicine that sleep was one of the best healers). After Jim had made his shopping list and Vespa'd off to the grocery store. After he'd taken a hot shower (the blessings of modern plumbing) and changed into clean clothing.

After all that.

He went down to the Arena, and pulled his Atlantean book from its shelf. Douxie ran his thumb over the smooth, worn leather, the gilt of its title.

He carried it back upstairs to his room like the priceless treasure it was, Archie trotting at his heels.

Sitting on his bed, he gave a long sigh.

"What is it, Doux?" asked his familiar.

"Once I open this book," Douxie said quietly, "everything will change." The book that Merlin had said resonated with his magic, when Merlin didn't even truly know what Douxie's magic was. Not that he'd ever exchange the Jack-of-all-trades that he'd become for anything... but Douxie wanted the bardic magic too.

He was greedy like that. Greedy as a dragon. Dragons have hoards and wizards have libraries, indeed.

"Everything changes all the time," Archie said softly. "Growth is change. You know that, Douxie."

"And stasis is death," he agreed. There was still a cold knot in the pit of his stomach. Wakening the old magics. Releasing the old ones who had been sealed away.

Bringing disaster in his wake, just as always. Only on a far greater scale than ever before.

But magic had to return to man, Nimue had said, for the world to survive.

Douxie swallowed.

Opened the book.

And began to read.


Author's Note: Stuart's brain not firing on all four thrusters is a reference to Star Trek IV. Douxie was present at the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, in Boston, presumably while on his way to Hollywood and silent film stardom. And Douxie ends up playing Up Where We Belong, by Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker.