Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 6th November 2021
Vendel wanted them to wait. To give him time to figure out what Usurna wanted. To let her spin out enough rope to hang herself.
Jim wanted to go in and destroy her. To take the threat she represented to his family, his friends, his team, and root it out entirely.
Douxie had listened to his rant and, with a patient smile, said that no, much as he appreciated the irony in the thought, he was not going to teach Jim how to brew Creeper's Sun.
Which was... probably fair, Jim admitted in the light of day. He didn't really want to become a poisoner. He just wanted Usurna gone from Trollmarket and preferably no longer among the living. She was their enemy, plain and simple.
"Yes," Douxie had said, "but there's better ways to destroy someone than just physical action." So Jim had sat and listened and they'd bounced ideas back and forth past midnight, until they'd hammered out a plan.
Jim didn't like the plan.
But Douxie had laid out, step by excruciatingly precise step, why it should probably be the one they went with. It played to all their strengths - and made Jim practice some skills he needed to hone.
Which was why Jim didn't like it.
But Douxie was right. Thanks to Excalibur, Jim had these abilities, so he needed to learn to use them. And how to keep himself from using them.
So. He just needed to get through eight hours of school, meet up under the bridge after, and then they could deal with Usurna.
Eight hours had never seemed so long.
Eight hours and textbook stacking, Jim mourned, having realized he'd completely forgotten about the third Spring Fling King challenge. As tempting as it was to just flake, he... really couldn't. Not when he knew Seamus was going to knock down Eli's stack and make Steve the winner.
(Jim... really didn't get Seamus' problem with Eli. They were both smart guys, shouldn't they get along better? But then Jim didn't understand Steve's problems half the time either, even when he knew their exact cause. Whatever. Steve and Seamus were both jerks at this point in time, and he was pretty sure that could all be laid at the feet of their dads.)
So he sighed and sucked it up, got through his Spanish test, and made sure he was positioned between Steve and Eli as he picked the biggest book he could out of the cart to be the base of his tower. It was kind of like Jenga, right?
Jenga with jerks, he decided fifteen minutes later. Not Eli - working beside him was kind of fun as they gave tips back and forth and helped each other pick out books. But Steve was still a bully, and when Seamus and Logan showed up, that made it so much worse.
Jim really wished he had the kairosect with him. But it was in the arena under his and Toby's houses.
A bonus, he considered, to not being "the" Trollhunter this time around, was that it was Toby Bagdwella called, shrieking about gnomes. He grinned as he saw Toby at the other end of the hall, holding his phone at arm's length. Toby saw him grinning, frowned, and made a "my eyes are on you" gesture as he walked out into the quad to finish taking the call somewhere that echoed less with student noise.
But a bonus to still being "a" Trollhunter, Jim discovered, was that it was almost pathetically easy to catch Seamus' arm as he threatened Eli's stack, swing him around, knock his feet out from under him, and dump him ass-first on the floor.
"Really, Seamus?" he asked. "Grow up."
Eli, Steve, and Logan all stared.
"Lake," Seamus growled, fingers curling into a fist.
Jim frowned down at him. Douxie wants me to practice working with Excalibur? Fine. "I can take you down any time you want to name," Jim informed his classmate, pulling on what the book called radiance. The world expanded slightly, like he was big again and Seamus pathetically small. Like nothing else mattered but what Jim said and did. His heartbeat sounded in his own ears, thudding low and slow. Like time itself was somehow dilated. "Knock it off, Seamus."
Seamus stared at him.
Logan and Steve stared at him.
Eli stared at him.
Jim hated this, this feeling of mattering more than other people. Because he didn't. He was one person, like any other, and none of them was more special than the rest.
But pulling back from the power was hard. It took effort, once it had been invoked.
"Get lost," Jim said softly, trying to center himself again, to not be convincing the world he was the most important being in it.
Still staring, Seamus lumbered to his feet, looked at Steve and Logan, looked back at Jim.
And chose to walk away, surliness in every line of his body.
Jim sighed in relief, and turned back to stacking books.
Blinky peered around the corner, searching.
"There," he whispered to Aaarrrgghh, pointing. The Krubera troll looked over his shoulder. "The purple one. He arrived at almost the same time as Usurna."
"Changeling?" Aaarrrgghh rumbled softly.
"The very same, my friend," Blinky confirmed. "We must arrange to publicly unmask him, detain him, and ultimately remand him into Strickler's custody." He raised his phone, performed the mystifying "zoom" motion on it that Claire had shown him, and took a photograph of the individual in question.
Typing quickly, he sent the image, along with a note, to Stricklander. A changeling named Krax has entered Trollmarket in the service of Queen Usurna of the Krubera. I assume he is one of yours. Have you any thoughts on what we should do with him?
"Have gaggletack?" asked Aaarrrgghh.
"I do, my good friend." Blinky patted one of his pouches, where the item rested. "Like the first time, he has already bought out Rot and Gut's entire stack, rendering himself both safe and anonymous. This time, however, his strategy is useless! Even though he thinks his secret secured, we already possessed a gaggletack, which I have borrowed from Master Jim for just this circumstance!"
"Blinky be careful," Aaarrrgghh advised even as Blinky's phone chimed with a reply.
Blinky raised the device to his face, reading the tiny characters aloud for Aaarrrgghh's benefit. "He is a hard-core loyalist and will seek to raise Gunmar at all costs. Loathe though I am to lessen the number of changelings and our familiars, my recommendation must nonetheless be to terminate him."
"Strickler talks like you," observed Aaarrrgghh.
"Yes, I suppose we both are most loquacious," Blinky agreed.
"Low quay shush?"
"Many big words."
"Yes."
Blinky was already stabbing at his phone again, this time texting the Trollhunters group chat, letting them know he and Aaarrrgghh had identified another adversary to be dealt with.
Can we NOT kill him with a dwarkstone this time? Claire immediately shot back.
Strickler recommends his termination, Blinky replied with a frown. Have you another suggestion?
Whoa, guys, Toby cut in. Can't we, you know, just put him in stasis until it's all over or something?
I haven't the power, Douxie sent. But I agree with Toby - any changeling we kill is effectively cutting two lives short. Is there any mundane way we can imprison him for a few months?
Trollmarket doesn't have any long-term prison arrangements, said Jim.
Hey, I have an idea, sent Claire. The Quagawumps kind of owe us a big favor right now. Think they could take care of him?
Oooh, I like it! Toby wrote. Even if he escaped them, there's all those alligators and stuff in the swamp.
Then it is settled, Blinky wrote. We will reveal him at the same time as Usurna's treachery, and ask the Quagawumps to guard him.
Of course, nothing ever really went according to plan.
"Seize the imposter!" Usurna commanded her guards the moment she saw Jim.
As the huge Krubera trolls thundered down upon him, Jim sighed, shoved his bookbag into Toby's arms, and pulled out his amulet. "For the good of all, Daylight is mine to command!" he called, in clear sight and earshot of most of Trollmarket.
The first shockwave, as his armor manifested, buffeted the Krubera back.
The second, as Excalibur appeared in his hand, knocked them to the ground.
"Someone's been practicing," Claire said from behind him.
"Indeed," Archie agreed.
And maybe they were right, the armor and sword hadn't really done that before he started embracing what they were, what they meant for him-
Destiny is a gift, thought Jim. And if this was his destiny...
...to be the king Douxie saw in him...
...maybe it was time he stopped fighting it.
"Queen Usurna of the Krubera," he said, pointing his blade at her where she stood, a coward, behind her guards, "you are a traitor to trollkind. You have sold out your kinsmen to Gunmar the Black, given your tribe's children to him," he said, with a nod of his head toward Aaarrrgghh, "and even now plot for his return."
Behind him, Jim's team stood. Too small, still, missing some vital members... but united. One.
"How do you plead?" Jim asked, merciless.
Usurna stood still, her eyes wide, a thousand expressions crossing her face before she finally settled on derision. "A cheap attack from an usurper!" she sputtered. "He spins lies, while you do nothing. Seize him!" she demanded again.
"Not lies," Aaarrrgghh said, moving forward to Jim's side. "You gave younglings to Gunmar. Gave me."
"You know nothing of what you speak, brute," she spat at him.
"I've seen what you've done," Jim shot back. "What you will yet do. You'll murder Vendel when he stands in your way." He took a step forward. "You'll sentence the Trollhunter to death when he won't kneel to you." Another step. "You'll welcome Gunmar into Trollmarket and let everyone here die, for what? Your glory and ego? The chance to lick the boot of someone who despises everyone not himself?" Another step. He could see the fear in her eyes now. "Tell me which words are a lie, Usurna."
The queen looked about herself. Aaarrrgghh's testimony had disturbed her guards; they stood uncertainly to the side. And while Jim wasn't the Trollhunter, he was known to Trollmarket, and generally trusted by them. Trollmarket wouldn't stand with her either.
Her gaze fell upon Vendel. Usurna drew herself up. "Vendel. Do you allow your allies to be so maligned?" she demanded. "By an outsider? By a human child?"
Leaning against his staff, Vendel regarded her. "So you find his words outrageous, Usurna?"
"Extremely so," she said.
"You do not believe him to be a true Trollhunter? One returned from the future, to guard us against our own mistakes?"
Usurna practically snarled. "Time travel is forbidden. You have allowed him to dupe you, and your blind eyes."
"Well, then," said Vendel mildly, "let us take this to the Hero's Forge. You do, I trust, still stand by the sanctity of the Soothscryer?"
"It will reveal him for the charlatan he is," Usurna declared.
"In which case." Vendel indicated the path to Forge with one open hand. "Let us all discover the truth."
"Bring him," Usurna commanded her guards. But when they made a move toward Jim, Aaarrrgghh loomed in front of him, growling like a feral thing. They stopped.
Jim laughed a little, patted Aaarrrgghh's arm, and stepped past him. "No need," he told the Krubera. "We know the way."
Followed by his own entourage, his team, Jim walked after Vendel and Usurna, noting how Draal kept close by the pair. He and his friend exchanged a look and a nod, which was a relief. Even if all of Trollmarket didn't fully understand yet what was going on, Draal knew not to trust the Krubera queen.
And in their wake, the rest of Trollmarket followed, murmuring, chatting, gossiping. Confused, conflicted... but trusting in the Soothscryer, and the ghosts of Trollhunters past, to know the truth and protect them.
"Think I should armor up?" Toby asked, watching the crowd filing into the seats above and around the Hero's Forge.
"It could not hurt," Blinky murmured, eyes also on the crowd. "Remind Trollmarket that even if Master Jim is, unexpectedly, also a Trollhunter, they have you too... and that you have yet to fail them, Master Toby."
"Reassuring," agreed Aaarrrgghh.
Even as Toby shed his backpack, dumping it on the ground next to Jim's, Jim's eyes were fast on Vendel and Usurna as they took their seats, and on Draal shadowing behind them. "Okay, so Draal's going to protect Vendel whenever Usurna makes her move," he said.
"You seem sure she will," murmured Douxie.
"She's a poisonous puta," said Claire. "She's going to try something. We just have to be ready for it."
Finally the crowd finished filing in. Murmurs died away as Vendel stood, rapping the butt of his staff against the ground. "both Queen Usurna and the future Trollhunter have made accusations about one another," he said, voice almost echoing in the Forge. "As we are unable to test the veracity of the claims against Usurna, let us test those against her challenger. The Trollhunter from the future, James Lake Junior... approach the Soothscryer, and be judged by the greatest of our champions, the Trollhunters of ages past."
At Vendel's words, the Soothscryer rose from the Forge's floor, growing taller and taller until it reached its final height and locked into place.
"Worried?" Toby asked, armor-clad and stepping up by Jim's side.
"About the Soothscryer?" Jim shook his head. "No. About Usurna? Yes."
"We got this, Jimbo," said Toby.
"Nothing's going to happen while we're on watch," promised Claire.
Douxie just nodded, glancing from Usurna to Jim, then back again. His fingers were on his spell bracelet, ready. "Go talk to your forebears. Let us keep an eye on that termagant Ephialtes."
"I have no idea what you just called her," Jim informed him.
Archie grinned, showing far too many sharp draconic teeth. "Nothing nice. Now, go."
Nodding, Jim went.
"What's up, Skinnylegs?" Deya asked, leaning her weight on his shoulder as soon as Jim appeared in the Void.
"Eh, you know. Being accused of treason, treachery, faking my Trollhunter creds..." Jim shrugged. "The usual."
"Saw that," Deya said, nodding even as Kanjigar materialized before Jim. "Usurna's really a piece of work, isn't she?"
"You trust his word?" Kanjigar asked his predecessor.
"You don't?" she replied.
Kanjigar smiled. "I do," he said, turning his attention to Jim. "You are a Trollhunter, however strange your amulet may be. You have given us no reason to doubt you, from what we have seen through our amulet."
"And the amulet doesn't choose wrong," finished Deya, to an approving murmur of the voices of the dead.
"Do you have a plan?" Kanjigar asked.
Jim shrugged. "Not really? I mean, Usurna's got to act, since she knows I was telling the truth. She's probably hoping either the Soothscryer kills me, or she's buying herself some time. And she's not stupid," he added bitterly. "The minute I reappear, she'll try something," he said with dead certainty.
"Well, then." Deya cracked her knuckles. "Let's put a hole in her plans."
When Jim reappeared, it was in a flash of blue light. Hisirdoux didn't take his eyes off Usurna, ready to cast a spell the instant she so much as twitched.
But more than Jim's reappearance, it was the collective gasp of the audience and the way both Usurna and Vendel's eyes widened, that made him glance away.
His own eyes widened as two wisps of blue fire, a deeper sapphire than his own magic, swirled around the arena, as if searching.
One found Aaarrrgghh and sank gently into his forehead.
The other circled Hisirdoux.
It was a long second of feeling stupid before his brain put together oh, that's a spirit with they can possess those who have set a foot in the gravelands.
"Ah," he said, feeling awkward. "Sorry, I'm warded," he offered, fingers tapping at his right thigh, where the wizardly tattoo beneath his jeans explicitly forbade possession. "You might try him?" he asked, nodding toward Toby.
The spirit dipped once, as if in a nod, then looped over to the Trollhunter and sank into him.
Toby's entire body language, like Aaarrrgghh's, shifted. And when Toby's eyes reopened, they flared blue.
"James Lake, Junior, speaks the truth," a strange voice boomed from Aaarrrgghh's mouth. Douxie didn't recognize it, but clearly the denizens of Trollmarket did - they were all straightening up, eyes wide. He caught murmurs of the name Kanjigar, settling the identity of the possessing spirit.
Draal looked utterly gutted to hear his father's voice again.
"The kid's a true Trollhunter," the spirit within Toby spoke, and her, Douxie did recognize. Deya's name went around the arena just as Kanjigar's had. "He's come from the future to save us all, so you rockheads listen to him, all right?"
"His accusations against Queen Usurna of the Krubera are serious," Kanjigar said, giving them their weight and due as he turned, regarding all of Trollmarket. He finished his circle looking at Usurna. And Vendel. "And... they are true."
Jim, halfway down the Soothscryer, nearly lost his grip at that, Douxie noted.
But Jim's near-misstep was eclipsed by the growing rage on Usurna's face.
The minute Kanjigar's attention shifted to his son, she struck.
Author's Note: For Aaarrrgghh sounding out "loquacious," "quay" as a word is actually pronounced as "key" but I spent years only knowing how it was spelled and believing it was "kway." So, a nod to all the linguistic tics we all have that we don't find out about for years, if ever. (I also thought the "c" in "facade" was a hard "k" sound. The danger of learning words without ever hearing them spoken aloud.)
