Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 14th November 2021
"Keep him until morning," Stricklander said. "I will take him off your hands at five a.m."
"That's more than twenty-four hours," Nomura told him.
"I am well aware." Stricklander's voice was aggrieved. "However, I cannot get all the papers in order before then."
Papers? Well, it sounded like he wasn't interested in killing Krax, then. "Ugh, fine," she told him. "Five-oh-one, and I'm killing him."
Krax, bound and gagged with enchanted linen ropes, glared at her.
"Charming, as always, Nomura," said Stricklander, and hung up.
She snorted and glared back at her prisoner. "You're lucky," she told him. "Stricklander thinks you should live. If it were up to me... well, I'm not as soft as he is."
She stepped over him, and made her way to her kitchen, ready for dinner.
"We are convened," began Vendel, "under most unusual circumstances. Troll law is clear that the accused must be represented by a member of their own tribe. But none of the Krubera wish to speak for you, Usurna."
The caged deposed queen drew herself up proudly, as if she could make the Tribunal bow to her by the force of her inches. "Then send to my people at home," she declared imperiously. "They will represent me and put an end to this farce."
"You misunderstand me, Usurna," said Vendel. "We have contacted the Krubera. After hearing the testimony of your guards, they, to a one, have refused to defend you."
That took her aback; shock went across her face. Nonetheless, she persisted. "I will speak in my own defence."
"Which is not allowed either, as you well know," Vendel told her, suddenly feeling like he was lecturing a particularly stubborn youngling.
She glared. "What do you propose, then?"
"As your guilt to attempted murder cannot be in doubt," Vendel said, rubbing at his own arm, where her poisoned blade had nearly cut him, "and as none wish to defend you, I hereby suggest that the Tribunal drop all further charges related to the revelations of the future Trollhunter, and try you on that charge alone." To either side of him, heads were nodding.
Usurna's glare turned poisonous. "You wish to commit murder yourself," she hissed. "I am queen of the Krubera! You have no right to try me."
"As my people have learned," Queen Wumpa of the Quagawumps spoke up, "a cruel ruler may always be deposed. You are queen no longer."
Usurna's gaze shifted. "Gatto-"
"Gatto will not speak for you," the mountain troll's semblance rumbled. "If you fail in your plots, you must pay the price."
"Those who find Usurna guilty?" Vendel asked.
One by one, each of the Tribunal members raised their hands.
He felt no pleasure in it as he declared, "So be it. Let the record show that the Tribunal has found Usurna of the Krubera guilty of charges, and sentenced her to the Deep."
"No!" shouted Usurna, rattling at the bars of her cage. "You will not do this to me! I an Usurna, queen of the Krubera! I am-"
"You are Usurna," Bork said evenly. "Queen of the Deep."
Usurna screamed and raged as her cage swept along, followed by the members of the Tribunal, until it was suspended over the Deep. "You cannot! I will not allow it~!"
"Blinkous," said Vendel softly. "If you please."
And that troll, who stood by the button that would lower Usurna to her fate, looked at her sadly. "In another lifetime," he said, "I had to watch as you sentenced the greatest Trollhunter our kind has ever known to this same fate. I feel as though I should be able to take pleasure at this symmetry... but, alas, I cannot."
Blinkous touched the button, and Usurna was lowered into the deep.
Her curses lingered in the air, followed by screams and pleas. And then, one final blood-curdling shriek echoing up from the chasm.
Finally, there was silence.
"It is done," Vendel said softly, and turned away.
Jim looked up from his text chain with Toby and Claire about the way out of their immortality dilemma that his mom had found. There had been nothing but relief on either of their parts, which he had pretty much expected.
Why am I feeling so torn about this? he wondered, leaning back in his desk chair. Is it something to do with divine kingship? Or is it something left over from my time as a half-troll? Why isn't getting out of immortality a relief the way it should be?
And why the heck were Douxie's hands shaking earlier?
He breathed out, peeved at himself and not knowing why.
He couldn't untangle his feelings about the prospect of immortality right now. But he could try to hash things out with Douxie.
Jim pushed up from his chair, and walked over to Douxie's room, where the wizard was sitting on his bed, Archie beside him, both of them intent on yet another magic book. Jim had tried keeping mental track, and going by the fact he'd never yet seen the pair reading the same book twice, he guessed they were making pretty good progress on working their way through Blinky's library. He knocked on the doorframe. "What are you reading?"
"Gems and Geodes, volume twenty-seven," Douxie answered, looking up. "It's got some interesting stuff about the alignment of the magical and crystalline lattice structures inside varying rocks and why they produce the resonances they do."
"I'm ninety percent sure that what you just said was in English," Jim commented.
Douxie gave his lopsided smile. "It's the magical theory behind gemstones. Why certain gems and certain shapes tend to lend themselves to certain effects."
"Sounds like something Toby would find interesting," Jim offered.
The pair exchanged a glance. "Do you know, I think he might be right," Archie mused.
"Toby might need explanations for some of the more esoteric stuff, but I'll certainly tell Blinky that he should loan the series to him next." Douxie summoned a black leather strip from the top of the dresser and set it in the book to act as a bookmark. He set it aside. "Something on your mind, Jim?"
Jim leaned against the doorframe, considering his words. "I don't get you," he finally started. "You blow hot then cold. You want so badly for me to be a king, but as soon as I start moving in that direction you insist it has to be 'for myself'. And then you tell me it won't be as bad as I think it will. You also don't want to be alone forever, but the minute you find I have an out, you shove me at it. Help me make sense of this, Doux."
The wizard blew a breath, his blue-tipped bangs fluttering in the air. "I've never known or done what's best for myself. But I will be d- I will not allow my personal failings," he amended for the curse word he wouldn't let himself say, "to set you on the same path of bad decision making I've so often followed."
"That's a bit harsh," murmured Archie.
Douxie shot his familiar a look. "It doesn't matter to me if I screw up my own life," he said, "but I will not let my own carelessness be the reason someone else gets trapped into a life they may not actually want." He exhaled again. "I will not be like Merlin," he murmured.
Jim stiffened. "Merlin's done great things," he couldn't help objecting. The amulet had felt like a trap at points, yes, but without it-
"Yes, yes, without him making the amulet you'd never have become the Trollhunter," Archie waved off his defense of the master wizard. "I'll point out that suddenly Douxie's not the only one blowing hot and cold."
Jim deflated.
"My point is, I do not want to corral you into making a lasting decision that you may well regret," said Douxie. "I will give you all the information I have, to make your choice an informed one, Jim. But I cannot, I should not, be the weighting thumb on the scale that tips your decision."
"Why are you so determined to take yourself out of the equation?" Jim wondered. "Because you're part of it, you know. Nothing exists in a vacuum. I even seem to remember you saying something about our strength being in our friends."
Douxie laughed softly, smiling. "Right before Claire accused me of being sappy. I remember."
"So why?"
Douxie sighed, his gaze dropping to his hands as his smile dropped away. "You shouldn't include me in the calculus of your decisions because I'm not sure I'll be around to see the consequences of them."
"What?"
"To quote from Star Wars, 'I've got a bad feeling about this'."
Jim stared, feeling dumbfounded. "I thought you said you couldn't see through time the way Merlin can."
Douxie shrugged. "A tiny bit," he illustrated with a pinch. "Mostly related to the more traditional fortune-telling pursuits. Tarot and tea leaves and the like." He shrugged again. "Regardless, I don't want you to base your future off me, when I might not even be there."
Archie rubbed his head against Douxie's chest. "Are you sure you're not just feeling frightened of Merlin's threat to seal you away?"
Douxie's arms found their way around the cat-dragon. "Maybe."
"Is that why your hands have been shaking?" asked Jim.
Douxie startled. Like he hadn't realized his tremors had been noticeable. "No," he answered. "That's... that's something else. Don't worry about it."
Jim took a deep breath. "What am I doing wrong," he asked, "that you don't trust me?"
Douxie looked at his hands, at the fine tremble they had even at this low level of confrontation. He clasped them together to try and still it. He was falling apart, and didn't know why. Didn't know what to do, to get some semblance of his usual confidence and rashness back.
"I do trust you," he said softly. "I think that's why." He let his shaking hands speak for themselves.
Jim's expression wrinkled, like he was trying to make sense of something that sounded nonsensical. After a moment, he stepped away from the door and sat on the bed next to Douxie. "Explain it to me?" he asked.
"I... don't let people in easily," Douxie said. "I can only think of four, in fact. Archie, obviously," he said, stroking the dragon's fur. "Merlin. Nari. And now you."
"Not Claire?"
Douxie could feel his expression soften, a smile forming. "Claire is brilliant," he said. "Being her teacher is a privilege beyond words. She's going to be, to do, incredible things. She will surpass me in every way possible." Which was, he thought, the ultimate goal of being a teacher.
"She is amazing, isn't she?" A besotted look crossed Jim's face.
Douxie nodded. "She is. But the thing is, for all that I'm her friend, there's not the same... space," he said for lack of a better word, "in my relationship with her. She can't hurt me the way you can."
"Hurt?" Jim zeroed in on that word.
"I mean, being vulnerable," Douxie tried to backtrack.
Jim wasn't having it. "Douxie."
He submitted. Like always. "The people you love best, are the ones who can hurt you the worst," he said, meeting no one's eyes. "When they leave you because they die. Or because they choose their father over you - even when you know that was the right choice," he said against Archie's stiffening. "Charlie might have died, I wasn't going to, I know you needed to save your dad, Arch-"
"Douxie."
He drew a breath. "I don't think I need to enumerate the ways Merlin manages to hurt me," he said softly. "I'm sure I don't even see some of them."
"And me?" Jim asked, his voice small.
"I don't know," Douxie said, voice equally small. "I just know that it happens, and I don't know why." He drew a shaky breath. "I can't... I can tell you when I think you're wrong. I can poke fun at you, even. But I can't go against you."
"Is it a magic thing?" Jim asked lowly. "Because you're a wizard and I might be a divine king or whatever?"
Douxie considered that. "It's... hard to separate that out," he said, "since magic flows in me almost as much as blood, but... I don't think so. I think this is an emotional thing. Another of the myriad ways I'm messed up in the head."
Archie snorted. "You're overthinking things, as always, Doux," he said, stretching.
"Oh, and I suppose you know why I keep getting miniature panic attacks?" shot back the wizard.
"Of course I do. Isn't it obvious?" asked the dragon. "You don't want to alienate your baby brother."
Silence.
Then, "Not funny, Arch."
"Who's joking?" asked the dragon.
"I don't think you're supposed to have panic attacks about family," said Jim.
"You do if you're exceptionally bad at having family," the dragon replied. "Especially if your only examples of it are... well, Merlin Ambrosius. And myself."
"You've always been perfect," Douxie said, drawing his familiar into his embrace without looking at Jim.
"Mmm. In hindsight," Archie said, laying his head along Douxie's shoulder, "I should have taken you home to Dad instead of dragging you all over the world for centuries. You'd have been much better served by me giving you a more traditional family dynamic. And you'd have been a good deal less vulnerable to Merlin. But I was too angry, and too proud."
"You saved me," Douxie said softly into dark fur. "'S not your fault I was messed up before you ever met me."
"Yes, but I could have done better by you," said Archie, "and I regret that I didn't."
"Vendel." Blinky hurried to catch up with the Elder before he could reach his home and make himself unavailable for the rest of the night.
Vendel paused, his grudging attention granted in every line of his body. "Yes, Blinkous?" he asked. Weariness dripped from his words, but Blinky paid it little mind; he needed but a moment of Vendel's attention.
"I come to you with a request," he started.
"A request?" Vendel cut him off. "On the very evening I have had to sentence a fellow member of the Tribunal to her death? Blinkous, have you never heard of good timing?"
"I have." Blinky lowered his tone and his gaze apologetically. "But this, too, is a matter of importance."
Vendel sighed. "Very well. Come with me."
Blinky held his tongue until they had entered Vendel's quarters. Even the warmth and magic of the living heartstone surrounding them, however, failed to take the weight off the Elder's shoulders. Vendel turned to offer his usual courtesy beverages, but paused, his fingers on one of his cups. "Usurna drank last from this cup," he murmured. Then he sighed deeply and turned away, toward Blinky. "Forgive my lapse of manners," he said, "but I find I have no heart for them tonight."
"Understandable," Blinky said softly, contrite.
"Well, what is it you need of me, Blinkous?"
Blinky cleared his throat. "In that other future," he began, "Master Jim was changed by Merlin's magic into a being half troll and half human."
Vendel raised an eye ridge. "A changeling?"
"No," Blinky said, waving away the accusation. "A true halfling, not one of those beings that shifts between one identity and the other." Though what they had planned for Jim would leave him with a similar transformative ability. Still, he did not voice that thought to Vendel.
"How curious." Vendel took a seat.
"Indeed. But it was necessary for him, in order to slay Gunmar." Blinky began to pace back and forth, mind whirling as he sought to stack facts one against another, in an order that would illuminate his request for aid. "In the bar the other night, Master Hisirdoux looked at Jim's aura and saw that even now, sent back in time, troll magic still permeates Jim's magical essence. He has further researched and believes that properly cut transformation stones would allow Jim to access his troll form without permanently severing himself from his birth species."
"You seek to destroy Gunmar." Vendel's tone was mild. Perhaps deceptively so.
Blinky smacked a fist into a palm. "Indeed! It has been done before, and it shall be done again. It is the only way to rid the world of the scourge and permanently eliminate his threat."
"And you plan to do this how?"
"Killahead Bridge," Blinky reported, "has been completely reassembled and is on display in the Arcadia Oaks Museum. All it lacks to open is the Trollhunter Amulet, placed there by the hand of the Trollhunter himself. We know the battlefield, and we may choose the time of engagement. All we lack is the confirmed martial ability." And the certainty of how to confront Dictatious, but that was another problem.
Vendel sighed. "As I apparently cannot stop you," he said, "what choice have I but to do all within my power to make sure you are successful?"
Blinky brightened. He had not anticipated Vendel would be so easy to convince.
"What do you need?" asked Vendel.
"Fire opal, and tiger's eye, to go in the amulet," Blinky reported. "And a piece of stone from a living troll. I plan to volunteer myself."
Both eye ridges raised now. "You trust the future Trollhunter so implicitly, Blinkous?"
"He is my son," Blinky said, "regardless of my form or his. And I could not wish for one finer."
Vendel was silent for a moment, then stood. "Among the gems left to us by Trollhunters past," he said, searching among his shelves, "there are no such stones. Yet if your wizard declares them to be what a Trollhunter requires, who am I to argue?" He found what he was looking for, and turned. In his hand there was a rough, uncut opal, its sides barely hinting at the glimmering heart of shifting colors that lay within. "I can contribute this to your cause, Blinkous. As to the other stone, you must consult the booths of Trollmarket itself."
Blinky reverently took the stone from Vendel's hand. "I accept this gift most humbly, on the behalf of my son and myself," he said. "We are thankful beyond measure, Vendel, and shall use it only for the benefit of trollkind."
"Yes, well." Vendel's eyes lingered on the stone. "It will be good to see it finally put to use," he said, and turned away.
Baby brother. The words kept sounding in Jim's mind, no matter how hard Douxie clearly was trying to turn away from that part of the discussion.
The funny thing was, since he'd grown up an only child, Jim had always assumed any potential sibling would be younger than himself. He guessed that didn't always work out - just look at Claire and NotEnrique. But the idea of being a baby brother...
Well, what were any of them ever going to be to Douxie? Excluding Merlin, there probably wasn't any human still around who was much older than one Hisirdoux Casperan.
"Douxie-"
"You can't yell at me," the wizard said, taking Jim aback. Douxie was curled up around Archie, looking nowhere near Jim. His body language screamed defensive as loud as anything Jim had ever seen from him.
"Why on Earth would I yell at you?" Jim asked.
Douxie's mouth tightened.
"Merlin," said Archie quietly, from within Douxie's arms.
"Merlin?" Jim asked, not understanding.
Douxie gave a sound that might have been a laugh, in some other twisted dimension. "Only made that mistake once." He didn't elaborate further.
"It was early in his apprenticeship," Archie said, stretching up slightly to rub his head against Douxie's cheek. "Douxie had the temerity-"
"Stupidity," Douxie cut in.
"Temerity," Archie rebutted, "to insinuate that Merlin and his apprentices formed a sort of family structure. Neither Merlin nor Morgana took it well."
Douxie's thumb was rubbing against the scar that peeked out from under his bracer, Jim noticed. "What did they do?" he asked, suddenly having a bad feeling about where that scar might have come from.
"Nothing," Douxie said lowly.
"Doux-"
"Nothing," the wizard repeated angrily, eyes flashing as he suddenly looked at Jim. "They didn't hurt me, all right?"
"Nothing physical," Archie corroborated. "Just... verbal."
Suddenly a lot of Douxie's emotional habits started to make sense. Especially if he /expected/ the people he loved to hurt him that way. "I'm sorry," Jim said.
"You've done nothing to be sorry for," Douxie said, back to not meeting his eyes.
"Maybe," Jim said. "But I can still be sorry that Merlin's such a dick that he yelled at you for wanting a family."
"It was my fault," Douxie said. "I've always wanted too much."
Jim was quiet for a moment, then spoke again. "You know," he said carefully, trying to feel out his way through a subject he was 100% sure was laden with hidden mines, "if you wanted a family, you could have one."
Douxie shook his head. "Hardly."
"We look enough alike that we could be brothers anyway." Jim tapped at Douxie's exposed arm. "Pale skin." He tugged his own bangs. "Black hair. Skinny body types," he said, gesturing at the both of them. "Anyone passing the two of us on the street would probably already think we were related."
"After forty-five generations? You probably are," Archie muttered. Jim ignored him.
"I can't make you take this, Doux," Jim said quietly. "But if you wanted it, you could have it. We could be real brothers." Instead of this weird almost that they were.
"Jim." A whisper. "I can't-"
"You can," Jim said firmly. "You just have to decide your own voice is more worth listening to than Merlin's." He put his hand on Douxie's shoulder briefly, then stood and left the room. Giving the wizard time to think, and decide.
