Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 29th April 2022
Hisirdoux would not say he was used to getting home after a long day of magic work and finding someone waiting up for him, with a hot meal at the ready. Because if he got used to it, that mean he expected it to happen. Brother or not, he could not add that kind of weight of domestic expectations onto Jim.
Which was entirely different from being grateful, of course.
He groaned as he raised his head from where he was slumped on the table, Jim putting a plate of food before him. It looked and smelled absolutely divine. "Bless you and all your works," Douxie said as he straightened, pulling the plate toward himself.
Jim chuckled, setting a second plate down for Archie, and taking his own seat across the table. "You've said that before. Be honest, Doux, what would you do on days like these if you weren't living here?"
Douxie chewed and swallowed his first mouthful - roast pork, juicy with perfectly crisp cracklings - and replied. "Be torn between my cot and the packets of ramen, I suppose."
Jim rolled his eyes. Loudly. Douxie didn't know quite how he managed that, but he did. "You have the worst eating habits of anyone I've ever met," he said, picking up his phone and tapping at it. "How you've survived nine centuries of taking care of yourself, I will never understand."
"He's got me," Archie said defensively.
"That and the fact that I can't actually die of starvation and malnutrition," Douxie put in. "Otherwise, no, I wouldn't've made it a century past Camelot."
"Wizardry doesn't pay shit?" Jim asked.
Douxie nodded.
Jim sighed and lowered his phone. "Speaking of, how much gold are we hauling out to Hiccup's ranch? For your armor, and Claire's, and the daxial array?"
Douxie looked at Archie; Archie looked at Douxie.
"Realistically speaking," Douxie said, making tiny circles in the air with his fork, "we probably owe him every last cent that Toby hauled out of Gatto's Keep." Jim's eyes widened. "That said, wizards aren't always realistic-"
Jim snorted; Douxie glared.
"Claire's armor could be negotiated to a price," Archie put in. "My suggestion would be to let Hiccup know the extent of your resources, and trust him to set a fair amount."
"He's not one for price gouging," Douxie agreed. "And the work for Krel and Aja is on a separate contract. Either that could be negotiated from the group funds, or Hiccup might be willing to take credit as a future payment from the royal family of Akiridion-5, once they've regained their throne."
"Royal patronage is no small thing," Archie informed Jim. "And the Tarrons being from another planet is its whole own level of cachet."
"Plus they can likely pay in all sort of interstellar goodies that'll be worth Hiccup's while."
Jim's blue eyes were steady on Douxie. "And your armor?"
He met Jim's gaze levelly and laughed softly. "Shy of robbing Fort Knox?" He shook his head. "It's made with some very expensive materials. The voidstone alone is pretty well close to priceless, and I still have no idea how Hiccup got his hands on that much of it."
Jim's mouth stayed shut. Douxie would have given a fair amount to know what was running through his head, but Jim didn't volunteer it, so he didn't ask.
"Hiccup thinks he owes me a life debt," he said tiredly. "Which is so much bushigal, of course. He saved his own life; I was nowhere near there when he fell in the Bolton Strid. But that's how he's phrasing it regardless. I doubt we can get him to take a red cent for my armor."
"That's-"
"Agreed." Douxie nodded. "That said, I do have a suggestion."
Jim's eyes narrowed. "I'm listening."
"If he's going to gain the patronage of House Tarron..." Douxie smiled. "Give him also the patronage of the house of Lake, and the renewed kingdom of Camelot."
Jim sighed. "Douxie..."
Douxie stabbed his fork at him. "You are the successor to King Arthur. You wield Excalibur. You are the rightful king of Camelot, and even if it's the world's smallest kingdom, consisting of exactly one flying castle, it's also a known name, Jim. Royal patronage is no small gift to bestow, when the time comes."
"I doubt Merlin's going to think Camelot's mine," Jim grumbled.
"Merlin can go stuff it," Douxie rejoined. "He can argue with the facts until he's blue in the face, but he cannot deny either that you are a king, known and tested, nor that you are Excalibur's master." A smile quirked his mouth. "Hail King James, first of his name."
"Technically, my dad..."
Douxie grinned, vicious. "The sperm donor who walked out on you and your mam when you were a kid? Does not get to count in this." James Lake, Sr., would probably get cheerfully maimed by a number of people, himself included, if the man ever dared show his face in Arcadia Oaks again.
Jim sighed, and looked away. "I'll think about it," he allowed. Which was not a promise, but was at least a step in the correct direction, so Douxie took it as a victory. "How goes the armor-making, anyway?"
Douxie scooped up a forkful of mashed potatoes. "It should be finished tomorrow."
Jim's eyes bulged. "Tomorrow? That's like a whole week ahead of schedule!"
"Mm-hmm," Douxie hummed through his mouthful of mash, smug.
"Hiccup decided that since he was done with the first part of the daxial array, he might as well get the next few stages of armor assembly done," Archie informed Jim.
Douxie swallowed. "So all that's left now is bonding it into a cohesive whole, and then stuffing it in here." He tapped his bracer. "Which is actually not going to be fun. The voidstone's going to fight us all the way. But once that's done? It's done."
"And you need to embed the traction on the left bootie," Archie reminded him.
Douxie sighed. "And I need to embed the traction on the left bootie," he allowed.
"Traction?" asked Jim, eyebrows high.
Douxie grinned. "Diamonds on the soles of my shoes," he sang. "Well, that's one way to lose these walking blues~"
Jim looked tragically blank.
"It's a Paul Simon song," Douxie informed him. "The... booties... don't have much traction, so we're augmenting them with diamond dust grips on the soles."
"That seems unexpectedly..." Jim waved his hand around in the air, clearly searching for words.
"Decadent?" Archie suggested.
Jim pointed at the dragon. "Yes. That."
Douxie scoffed. "You did see us sinking gemstones into Claire's armor right, left, and center, didn't you? Excepting the engagement ring worthy ones, gemstones really aren't that rare in the Earth's crust. Not even diamonds. They're also pathetically easy to trade for down in Trollmarket. Having diamonds on the soles of my shoes really isn't that big a deal."
"Booties," Archie corrected.
Douxie rolled his eyes and flipped off his familiar.
"Hey, so, quick question," Jim said, remembering something he'd wanted to ask. "Since we're talking about armor and all. Where the hell does my cellphone go?"
Douxie blinked at him. "Going to need you to draw that out a little more, Jim."
"When I'm in the armor," Jim explained. "I can pull my cellphone out of nowhere and put it back there too. Where does it go? The armor doesn't really have pockets."
Douxie snorted. "'I like your armor. Thanks, it has pockets!'" he said to Archie, leaning forward so his hair shaded his eyes. By the shaking of his shoulders, Jim thought he might have been silently giggling.
"Hey, I'm serious!" Jim protested. "I'm going to lose my phone one of these days or something. And if I do, I'm making you pay for a new one, since you made the armor in the first place."
Douxie straightened, bright-eyed and still grinning. "You could make Merlin pay for a replacement instead," he said. "Since he designed the armor and all."
Jim rolled his eyes. "Merlin doesn't have money to pay for McDonald's. C'mon, Doux."
"All right." The wizard set down his fork and spun glowing runes around his bracer. "You do in fact have a, mmm, I'd call it a dimensional pocket these days, as part of your armor. Toby and Claire have them also. Actually there's two, both connected to the amulet. The first one's where the armor and weapons are stored while the amulet's deactivated. The second one's where your clothes and phone and various other things go once the armor activates."
Jim blanched. "Wait, so I'm naked under the armor?"
"No, you've got the bodysuit," Douxie refuted. "You didn't really think you were wearing jeans and your jacket under it, did you?"
Jim shrugged. "I never really thought about it."
"Yeah, well." Douxie seemed to find what he was looking for on his vambrace. He tapped at the rune but didn't activate it. "I've got my own subspace pocket too, right here. It's where I stashed my staff in the future. Also where I'm planning on stashing my own armor."
Jim couldn't help it. "Do you get a bodysuit too?"
"No." Douxie looked unimpressed. "I, essentially, will be wearing a second layer of jeans and hoodie over the first."
"And your booties," Archie put in.
"Thank you, Arch."
"So, like, how big is my dimensional pocket?" Jim asked, thinking. "And can I put stuff in it that's not my phone?"
Douxie paused, letting the runes around his bracelet fade away. "Should I ask what you're planning?"
Jim shrugged. "I'm thinking some kind of emergency food stash, for when certain people," he let his gaze and head tilt indicate that he meant Douxie, specifically, "overdo things in battle."
In response, Douxie very deliberately picked up his fork again and speared more roast pork. "You could definitely fit a couple Nougat Nummies in there," he said lightly. "I don't know about a whole picnic hamper, though. It's really not that large a pocket, Jim."
"Ooh!" Jim straightened as a new idea occurred to him. "Battle brownies!"
He did not miss the way both Douxie and Archie seemed to lean toward him at that announcement. "For post-battle brownies," Douxie vowed, "I will find a way for you to access that pocket."
Krel was busy working on a scope for Eli's potato cannon when he was interrupted.
"Prince Krel," Mother said.
He sighed and set down his tools. "How am I to work if I keep getting interrupted?" he complained. "First Luug, then Aja, now you."
"Prince Krel," the AI tried again.
"I mean, it's not like it's important that Eli be able to accurately target the Gumm-Gumms or anything!" He brandished his sonic screwdriver in frustration. "And while I admit his cannon is ingeniously able to sneak past the notice of almost all technological weapon detection systems, it remains nonetheless primitive and in need of some upgrades and enhancements for optimal utilization. Of which this targeting system is one!"
"My royal!" The Mothership finally raised her tone, causing him to flinch and look up, wide-eyed.
"What? What is it?"
"I believe you should go outside," she finally directed him.
"Ugh, fine," he complained, setting down his tools and leaving his workspace. He trudged back through the spaceship and to the part disguised as a typical human dwelling. The front door was open, so he went out it, reactivating his transduction.
"By golly, will you look at that!" Ricky said with a wide grin.
"Now there's something you don't see every day!" Lucy, her smile equally manic, agreed, clinging to Ricky.
"You can say that again!"
In the middle of the cul-de-sac, beyond Varvatos and Aja's waiting forms, a huge silver saucer glowed on the bottom with green lights, hovering a dozen feet above the street.
"Seklos and Gaylen," Krel breathed, eyes wide. "Is that Stuart's ship?"
He was answered by the ship's central hatch opening and a familiar pink-haired head popping out. "Hey," Zoe called down to the lot of them, "any of you leave this thing double-parked in Area 49-B?" Next to her, a familiar horned head poked its way out of the hatch and bellowed a screech.
"Buster!" Aja called joyously.
Zoe grinned. "Gimme a sec; I've got to put this thing in park." She disappeared back down into the body of the ship. Buster stayed where he was, looking around. Well, it was presumably the first time in keltons he'd seen anything outside his cell.
"Varvatos is impressed," Varvatos said, crossing his arms. "He did not truly believe the hooman witch would be able to withstand the rigors of invading Colonel Kubritz's domain."
Krel, meanwhile, already had his cellphone out, dialing. "Stuart!" he said when the Durian picked up. "There is something I think you need to see- no, I do not care that you are in the middle of an evening rush!"
Buster bellowed again as the spaceship set down with barely a wobble.
"Wait," Stuart said, his voice tinny through the phone. "Is that... is that Buster?"
"Yes it is," Krel said smugly.
"I will be right there," Stuart promised. Even as he hung up, Krel could hear him saying "Sorry, closed for business! Family emergency came up, you know how it is."
"All right!" Zoe popped back up through the hatch. Buster practically purred and rubbed his head up against her. "Aww, yeah, love you too, you big lunk," she said to him, scratching her fingernails against his carapace. "So, as best as I can tell, this thing doesn't have any trackers on it, which is totally stupid," she said as an aside, "but, I don't think leaving it parked out here where all your neighbors can see it is a great idea either."
"Hmm." Aja crossed her arms and tapped fingers against her chin as Zoe hefted out the plutonium fuel cell and slid it, and herself, cautiously down the slope of the spaceship. "Mother?"
"My camouflage field only extends so far," the Mothership replied. "If the ship were to be brought closer, however, for instance, if it were to be parked in my hologram's carport..."
"We can do that," Krel said, walking forward.
Zoe hovered at the ship's edge, looking down at the twelve-foot drop.
"Allow Varvatos to assist you," Varvatos said, stepping forward and dropping his transduction. His hands easily spanned Zoe's waist; he set her down on the ground as if she weighed no more than a skelteg.
Buster let out an ear-splitting shriek.
"Oh, relax," Zoe told him. "He was just giving me a hand down. No need to be jealous."
Snuffling, Buster started to extract himself from the ship.
"So!" Zoe said brightly. "Stuff I have learned today." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the ship. "This thing drives like a truck."
"Good," said Varvatos. Then, "What is a truck?"
"More important than that," Krel said, his gaze fast on the silver container Zoe held, its engraved lines pulsing with what he recognized as spellwork, "did you get the plutonium?"
Zoe grinned wide and patted the fuel cell. "One battery, fully charged," she reported, and handed it over.
"I could kiss you!" Krel said, taking it from her. "Well, you know, if either you or I were interested," he said. "Which I do not think either of us are."
"Ugh. No. No offense," Zoe said, "but I like my guys with the right number of arms." Buster bellowed an objection. "Excepting you, big guy," she said, rubbing at a leg as he set it down by her.
Which was when, with a screeching of tires, the El Güerito taco truck rounded the corner and drew to a smoking halt in the middle of the street.
"Buster?" Stuart asked, spilling out of the vehicle in a waddle of pink bathrobe, his eyes huge and incredulous. "Is that really you, old pal?"
Buster turned. Stared at Stuart with all eight of his red eyes. Tilted his head to one side.
"It's me! Your old pal Stuart!" The Durian stepped forward, beaming. His arms held wide in greeting, he dropped his human disguise.
"Oh no," Krel said, even before the wave of Durian stench hit him.
"We forgot to warn him." Aja pinched her nose.
"Ugh, what is that smell?" Zoe asked, batting her hand before her nose.
"Buster has a long memory, and is slow to forgive," Varvatos said, even as the giant insectoid screeched in mixed recognition and betrayal, and charged forward, toward Stuart.
"You know," Zoe said, some time later, after Stuart had been flung into various structures and surfaces, the pavement cracked in several places, and Buster huffed off into the woods in a snit, "it's a good thing your neighbors don't seem to be home much."
"Why is the blond oaf here?" Krel wondered aloud the next day, as he stood under Stuart's re-parked spaceship, rummaging around in its innards.
"Dude! Eli said you were going to be working on your junker, and dudes working on cars together is a time-honored tradition!" Steve puffed out his chest in... something. Supposed masculine solidarity, Krel supposed.
"Yeah, when you said junker, I thought you meant a car," Eli said, adjusting his glasses.
"Well, this is definitely a piece of junk," Krel agreed, tugging a few connectors loose and letting them dangle free. "But, no, this is a spacecraft. As outmoded and derelict as anything I have ever seen."
Steve scoffed. "Man, you are, like, a prince. When was the last time you ever had anything but the newest shiniest model to play with?"
Krel paused. "I had not thought of that," he admitted. "I always tend to assume that everyone got the same things growing up that I did. But they did not. You are correct."
"Well, I mean." Eli spread his hands wide and shrugged. "Not everyone had to survive a coup and see their parents almost murdered in front of them either, so maybe it evens out?"
"Maybe," Krel said, frowning. This was something he would have to think on. Later. He set the thought aside, and tugged his target free.
"Dude, what's that?" Steve asked.
"This," Krel said, "is an osmic circuit. Despite the age of this hunk of junk, the basic design of the circuit has not changed in at least a century, so this should perfectly integrate with the fuel cell and the subspace manifold, and restore full power to my parents' regeneration chambers."
Eli's eyes were wide and shining. "Can we help you put it together?" he begged.
Krel looked at the pair of them, one small and smart, the other big and dumb, and sighed. "All right," he said. "But you will follow my instructions exactly. And!" he warned sharply, to Steve in particular, "you will not touch anything without my prior approval."
Steve saluted. "Got it, Mister Glowy Dude!"
Eli would never, ever get sick of being inside an actual alien spaceship. He especially would never get tired of getting to help Krel with building things!
"Oh! Do not let me forget," Krel told him. "I have the scope for your potato cannon. Remind me to give it to you."
"Wicked," Eli breathed, nodding. "I'll need to get some practice in on that."
"Heh." Steve smacked a length of piping into one hand a few times. "I prefer bashing them hand-to-hand." He mock-swung, like the pipe was a baseball bat. "But if distance is what does it for you, Pepperjack, you can be my backup, no problem."
"Give me that." Krel snatched the pipe out of Steve's hand. "Did I not tell you not to touch anything?" he demanded, handing it over to Aja. "Now, the osmic circuit fits neatly onto the navigational subspace manifold, here. Do you see the contact points?"
Eli nodded, leaning in close. "Those four square holes, and the short pegs on the osmic circuit that match them, right?"
"Yes. They are magnetically connected. Once the plutonium fuel cell is added and powered on, you will not be able to separate them with anything less than nuclear fission."
"Um." Eli adjusted his glasses nervously. "If we're working with plutonium, and nuclear fission, shouldn't there be, like, some safety lights or something?"
Aja laughed. "Eli the Pepperjack," she said, "safety lights are for dudes."
"I don't know if you've noticed, Aja, but Steve and I are dudes," Eli shot back.
"Details." Aja waved this off. "Besides, a little radiation won't hurt you, right?"
"Eh." Krel shrugged. "It will only take a few hundred keltons off their lives, at the most. Practically nothing."
"Uh. Remind me what a kelton is, again?" Eli asked nervously.
"It is roughly equivalent to one Earth year," the floating blue exclamation mark that represented the ship's AI informed him.
Eli literally felt all the blood drain from his face. "Um." He looked at Steve, and saw that he was similarly pale. "You do know that humans only live, like, eighty keltons on average, right?"
"What? No." Aja laughed and waved that off. "You are joking, right?"
But Krel was staring at him. "You are serious," he said, eyes wide.
Slowly the levity drained from Aja's face as well. "You live... only eighty keltons?" she whispered. "No, that is not possible. Mother!" she said to the ship. "Tell me that is not possible!"
"I am sorry, my royal," said the ship. "Among all known sapient species, humans are notable for having the shortest lifespan. By a factor of anywhere from ten to one hundred."
Aja stared at Steve. "No," she whispered.
And fled.
Steve stared after her for a long minute. "What... what did I do?" he asked numbly.
Eli swallowed. He didn't know quite what to do in this kind of situation... but he knew one thing.
"Steve," he said, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Go after her."
Steve found Aja sitting by the pool. "Hey," he said, sitting down next to her. "You okay?"
She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. "Not really," she said. She didn't look at him. "I thought we had millennia together before us, not a mere handful of decades."
"Oh." He didn't really know how to address that, so settled for silence. It lasted for a few minutes. "You know I've never really met anyone like you before, right?"
She laughed. "I am aware I am from another planet, yes."
"No, not that," Steve said, trying to reason out what he did mean. What he felt. "I mean, you're so kick-ass, and so straightforward. You see what you want, and you go for it. And you're not put off by any of the bullshit stuff I sometimes feel like I need to do to be 'one of the guys'."
"You were never just one of the guys." Aja stared out at the pool. "In the future, we had children together."
"We did? I mean, sure we did!" Steve couldn't help preening for a minute before curling up smaller and asking, "What were they like?"
"Beautiful and fearless, like their father." Aja's hand curled along his jaw. "And all seven of them had your hair, my love."
"Seven?" Steve felt his jaw drop.
Aja smiled. "Seven," she confirmed. "Maja, Baja, Taja, Faja, Daja, Waja, and Eli Junior."
"Eli Junior? Wait, you mean we named one of our kids after Pepperjack?" Steve couldn't believe it.
"Well, he did help you through the delivery," Aja said serenely. Which... she couldn't really mean what that meant, right? It was just some artifact of English not being her native language, right? Right?
She sighed. "I did not know then that you would leave us so soon," she said, looking away. "When I think of how painful it was to me, losing my parents at this age... and then I think of all of our children having to lose you when they are only seven decades old or so..." She sighed again. "Maybe I would have made a different choice."
Steve swallowed. "Are you... are you breaking up with me?" he whispered. He felt cold, and he didn't know why. They'd barely started dating!
"No," Aja hastened to say. "No, I am not breaking up with you, Steven of the Palchuk. I am just... thinking."
He caught her hands in his. "Because if you're going to break up with me because I don't live forever, I'll, I'll-" Inspiration struck. "I'll learn magic! Like Douxie. Then I'll live forever and we can get married or something. And have seven babies," he added.
Aja breathed a watery laugh. "I do not think it will be that easy, my Palchuk. But you are right. I should not despair. And we should ask the Douxie. Maybe magic will have some solution that Akiridion technology does not."
"Yeah." Sitting there, holding the hand of the beautiful alien princess, Steve could only hope.
Author's Notes: Douxie sings a bit of Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes." The question about where, exactly, Jim's cellphone goes to and from in his armor was brought up by bluheaven-adw on Tumblr. Merlin not having enough money for McDonald's is a reference to P_Artsypants' story Arcadia or Bust. Krel's sonic screwdriver is taken from Doctor Who. Zoe's line about Stuart's ship driving like a truck (and Varvatos' response) are a callback to the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. And Aja's line about safety lights being for dudes is from the 2016 remake of Ghostbusters.
