Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 28th August 2021

"Oh, hey, Claire!" Jim said as she passed by his locker.

She brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Oh, hey, Jim." Behind her Mary and Darci tittered, no doubt ready to savage Jim in private if he tried any clunky moves on her.

So Jim didn't try.

"I got something for you," he said, and pulled the ring out of his messenger bag. Mary and Darci's eyes went wide. "I thought you might like to wear this, you know, for the school play?" he said for the public audience. "I got it from Vendel," he added softly, so that only Claire would hear.

Claire's eyes were shining as she looked at the ring. "I would love to," she said. "I love purple." And he could tell from her expression that she felt a good deal more than she could say right now.

Jim had always hated when he'd been left powerless. There was no way he had been going to let Claire linger in that feeling any longer than he had to.

Claire slipped the ring on. He'd been right - it fit her thumb perfectly. "Thank you," she said. "You still coming over to do homework after rehearsal?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Claire smiled, kissed him on the cheek, then wandered off, her girlfriends beside her, already examining the ring and chattering about it.

Toby sidled up to Jim. "Nice work, Romeo."

"Yeah," said Jim, watching after Claire, aware that he probably looked like a love-struck fool at the moment, and not caring one bit.


"So I had a not-great thought," Claire began over chips and guacamole. "If Bular set all those goblins swarming to draw out the Trollhunter, that probably means he doesn't need them anymore. Which means Killahead's complete."

"Yeah. About that," Jim confessed. "I might've stolen a piece out of it while we were at the museum the other day."

Claire's jaw dropped, delight painted all over her face. "You did what? I could kiss you! Well," she amended with a glance toward the kitchen, where her father was making dinner while Enrique-or-NotEnrique played in his saucer chair. "I could kiss you. Except for supervision."

He touched her hand. "Claire. We've got time. Let's take it slow, okay?"

"You got it, Romeo. You still need help with algebra and Spanish this time around?"

"Ugh." Jim let his head drop back. "I've already done this once! You'd think they wouldn't be so hard."

"And how many school days did you miss the first time?"

"Too many." A thought occurred to Jim. "Did you still want to go to the Papa Skull concert?"

Claire's face lit up. "Yes!" Then her face fell. "Not with Steve. He was such a faker. He didn't know any of the songs."

Jim grinned. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he just went with you because he wanted to date you and rub my nose in it."

"Do you want to come with me?"

"Actually," Jim said, taking another scoop of guac, "I was kind of hoping you'd ask me to babysit your brother."

Claire stilled. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I figure the best way to get... the changelings," Jim whispered, "on our side is the old carrot and stick routine."

Claire crossed her arms and glared. "What's the stick?"

"Gunmar. If we're gonna be the carrot, we have to show how much better it would be to be on our side. Which means no intimidation."

"Huh." Claire sat back and considered it. "That actually sounds like a good idea."

"I am full of good ideas," Jim told her, smiling.

"Just promise me you and NotEnrique won't trash the house this time."

"I will try my level best," Jim promised.


Eyes narrowed, Toby stared at Douxie's hands. "All right, show me that again. Slower."

Smiling, Douxie demonstrated the sleight of hand move again.

"All right, I think I got it this time." Toby repeated Douxie's gestures slowly and carefully, but accurately.

Douxie grinned. "That's it!"

"Now you just need to practice," said Archie.

"That I can do," Toby said, already suiting action to words. Muscle memory was important for magic tricks. Also for Trollhunting. He'd never been so sore in his life. "Hey, can I ask a question?"

"Fire away," Douxie said, leaning back in the armchair opposite Toby's. Since Jim was spending time with his lady-love, Toby had decided to spend his own time getting to know his new neighbor, magic club co-founder, and local centuries-old wizard. And GDT Arcane Books was apparently absolutely dead at this time of day, so club meeting number one was well on way.

"How come you keep calling Blinky 'Master Galadrigal'? He's not that formal."

"Ah-ah-ah," said Douxie, wagging a finger. "He's not that formal with you. With me, he knows I'm centuries old and trained by Merlin, so he expects me to have and use a certain set of manners. If I used his personal name before he invited me to do so, it would be a huge breach of etiquette and he would be well within his rights to ban me, and by extension Archie, from his library."

"So I can get away with being rude because I'm too young to know better, but you can't?" Toby summed up.

"Exactly. Court manners were the first thing Merlin drilled into me when he took me on."

"The second thing," corrected Archie.

"Ah, you're right. Second thing."

Okay, Toby had to know. "What was the first?"

"Don't scam the knights," Douxie and Archie chorused.

"Wait, scam?" Toby leaned forward. "I have to hear this story."

Douxie shrugged. "Not much to tell. For a few years we moved from town to town, earning coin by playing the shell game. With a few cheats in place. When we hit Camelot, we had the bad luck to come across Sir Galahad, who called us on the cheating."

"I told you to stay away from the knights," Archie sniffed.

"It turned out well enough, didn't it?" Douxie protested.

The cat-dragon's eyes narrowed. "Sheer dumb luck."

"Anyhow, long story short, I almost got killed, Merlin decided I had enough potential to be worth training, and the rest is history."


The frustrating thing about it all, Claire decided, was trying to make their schedules match up so that she could get Douxie's help with getting her magic back. On his texted advice, she was wearing the ring as much as possible, either on her thumb or threaded on a chain around her neck. Her body, he'd said, needed to get used to the aetheric resonance of the artifact before she tried to use its power. (She had a rough idea of what that meant.) But actually finding the time for them to get together and work on it was a pain.

She had school eight to four on weekdays, with play rehearsal afterward on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He, meanwhile, worked an evening closing shift at the cafe Wednesday through Sunday, morning shifts at the bookstore Monday, Wednesday, and Saturdays, and afternoon bookstore shifts on Thursdays and Fridays. Plus band practice slotted in between his Wednesday/Saturday morning and evening shifts.

When Claire had asked him via text when he slept, Douxie had replied Sleep is for the weak. Then, Also, Archie says that's why I've got perpetual dark circles under my eyes.

Eventually they hammered out a plan for practice on Monday, after rehearsal, at the Lake house. Jim's mom would be at work, and the odds were good that Toby would be down in Trollmarket, which left the four of them freedom to experiment.

Or not, in Jim's case. After dinner (and god, Jim was a good chef - Claire's mom was totally onto something with her "marry one that can cook, mija" advice), Jim sat on the back step and hauled out a book that was clearly borrowed from Blinky. Claire tilted her head to read the faded gold embossing on the spine, and...

"Is that a cookbook?" she asked.

"Yup." Jim licked his thumb and turned a page. "I asked Aaarrrgghh which of Blinky's cookbooks had the tastiest recipes."

"There's a purpose to you learning to cook troll food, right?" asked Douxie, standing behind Claire, his arms crossed and his head cocked to one side.

Jim's smile was dark, his eyes hard. "The Darklands suck," he said fiercely. "And I'm pretty sure what food the trolls can scavenge there isn't any tastier, healthier, or easier to come by than what I was able to find. So," he said, his tone turning closer to normal as he hefted the book a little higher, "I figure the way to NotEnrique's heart is through his stomach."

"And we didn't have a lot of resources when we were traveling to New Jersey, so you really didn't get to learn to cook troll food then," Claire realized.

"That's sound reasoning by me," said Douxie.

"You guys go ahead and do your magic thing," said Jim. "And I'm going to sit here and do mine."

Douxie considered him. "Is troll cookery not very different from human, then?"

Jim shrugged. "Not really. Take ingredients, mix together. Sometimes use fire. Pretty much it's all the same techniques, just different... ingredients."

"Well then," said Douxie, grinning, "next time I need a hand with making potions or tonics, I'm grabbing you to help."

Jim laughed. "Me? I'd just mess things up. I don't have any of your guys' magic... stuff," he said with a lame wave at the two of them.

"Not all magic requires the flashy stuff," Douxie told him. "Sometimes it just needs a steady hand and the ability to follow the instructions. Or recipe."

"Oh, like when Toby and Blinky and I made the Creeper's Sun antidote for Aaarrrgghh!" said Claire.

"That's the part Douxie's always had trouble with," said Archie. "Let's just say potions have never been his forte."

Douxie rolled his eyes. "Which is Archie's ever-so-polite way of saying my potions have sometimes ended up more combustible than anticipated. Which is why they're not my specialty."

"If you're a master, you can't afford to have a specialty," Archie shot back. "A true master wizard must be competent at all aspects of the art."

"A master never stops learning, I know." Douxie sighed. "Before mastery, chop wood, carry water. After mastery, chop wood, carry water."

"Shouldn't that be 'push broom, milk slorr'?" asked Archie.

"Probably," said Douxie. "But who knows? Maybe Jim can finally teach me proper potions making. All right, Claire, you're up. Let's see what you've got."


The book sat unnoticed in Jim's lap as he watched the two mages together.

Once upon a time, he thought, he would have been madly jealous of the way Douxie touched Claire, offering a minor correction to her stance, raising her hands a little higher, tucking her elbows a little closer in to her body. Now it was the opposite of an issue, it was a relief. Because if Jim was on his own, trying to figure out how to help Claire get her magic back, he would have failed.

Is Douxie serious about me helping him figure out potions? Jim wondered. Then, Wait, what was it Douxie said in Trollmarket about knowing how to find out what you don't know...?

Even so, the thought of being Douxie's teacher and helping him figure things out still felt weird somehow.

But part of the strength of their team, Jim knew, was that they had come from such different backgrounds and had such different areas of expertise. And while they clashed on little things - Blinky's ongoing feud with both Douxie and Krel over music came to mind - they had all respected each other and relied on one another's strengths. Together, they were all so much stronger than apart. Douxie had magic, Krel had tech, Blinky had knowledge...

Which made Jim sometimes wonder what his role was. Warrior, yes, but was he really so much better than Aaarrrgghh, or Aja, or Varvatos?

(Better than Steve, he reassured himself. He was definitely better than Steve.)

Excalibur had let him pull it from the stone only with the backing of his team. Arthur, Jim was pretty sure, had pulled it all by himself. So was Arthur a stronger leader than Jim?

Or did Jim have a stronger bond with the team standing with him?

"I can practically hear you overthinking something," said Archie, looking up at Jim.

"Would I be me if I didn't?"

In front of Claire, the air crackled the smallest blaze of black that then vanished. She sagged.

Douxie frowned, tapped his fingers together, then pulled Claire's necklace over her head. He unstrung the ring from the chain and handed it to her.

"So what is it?" Archie asked, watching as Claire put the ring on her thumb and lifted her head, ready to try again.

"Just trying to figure out what being a leader means."

"Ah." Archie blinked. "Is this about Douxie comparing you and himself to Arthur and Merlin?"

"I don't know," Jim said. "Maybe?"

"Hmm. Because if so, I'll point out one thing: while history may rhyme, it does not in fact repeat itself. If you're worried about you making Arthur's mistakes, or Douxie making Merlin's, I don't think you should be concerned."

"It's not that that I'm worried about," said Jim. "I think it's more like, what makes a good leader? Because I feel like I've failed so many times, and I'd really like to not fail this time."

Another try by Claire. Another failure. Douxie put his hand on her shoulder. His words were too soft for Jim to hear, but he knew what they were: a pep talk. You can do this, Claire. You know you can. You've done it before. You just need to have faith in yourself.

"You know," said Archie, flicking his tail to the side as he shifted down into meatloaf position, "Douxie's much more into fiction than I am. I prefer to read about things that actually are. Though I do admit some of the novels he finds are rollicking good yarns. But there's one in particular we read a few decades ago that seems relevant at the moment." Gold eyes looked up at Jim. "It postulated a great leader is one who values 'persons before principles'."

"Persons before principles?" asked Jim.

"Indeed. Which do you value more?"

Jim thought about it, sitting in his backyard with three of his friends. Which was more important - people, or being right? "Persons," he said.

"Douxie agrees. Which is why I think the pair of you will shape the world very differently than Arthur and Merlin," said Archie. "After all, they were both men of great... principles."

What would the world be like now, Jim wondered, if Arthur hadn't hated magic and tried to wipe it out? Or if Merlin had been concerned more about Morgana's pain than about her power? Maybe there would be fewer wars. Maybe there would be more magic. Maybe the magic people in the world - trolls, wizards, dragons, others Jim couldn't even imagine - wouldn't have to live in hiding.

What would that kind of world look like?

Claire growled, a gutteral sound, and thrust her arms out before herself, eyes blazing.

A portal, no bigger than a softball but a perfect circle, crackling with purple magic, formed before her.

"That's it, Claire!" said Douxie, sounding even prouder than if it had been his own accomplishment. "You've got it!"

The portal irised shut. Claire turned to Jim, her face ablaze with happiness. "Jim, did you see? I did it!"

"I saw," said Jim, smiling in spite of his worries. "You're really something, Claire."

"Good," said Douxie. "Now, do that ten more times. You need to build up your stamina."

"And then, we all get dessert," said Jim, and finally started flicking through the troll recipe book.


Author's Note: Archie's line about "sheer dumb luck" is lifted from the first Harry Potter film. Dame Maggie Smith's enunciation of that damning line was memorable. The book Archie refers to later is Brothers In Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold, who, as far as I can tell, has never written a bad book. For those who haven't read the series, I'm not sure that particular volume is the best point to enter the Vorkosigan Saga, but the point it made on caring for persons over principles has stuck with me, and really, really fits both Jim and Douxie... but not Arthur and Merlin. And, completely unrelatedly, I really wanted to work in a To Serve Man / "It's a cookbook!" joke for the Trollish cookbook, but just couldn't.