Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 13th January, 2023
There was, in Jim's absence, and in Douxie's, some question of who should lead the rest of their group in the interim. /I mean, I could totally do it,/ Toby messaged Claire privately.
She sat up a long time in her bed, looking at that message.
They had no reason to think Jim and Douxie weren't fine, whenever and wherever they were. No reason to think they hadn't landed together and were making their own way.
They would be fine, and they would come back when they could. The only reason, Claire tried to convince herself, that they weren't back already, was that last time they'd had the time map. Douxie had been able to use it to send them back to the very moment they'd left the present. But this time, he didn't have that map.
But, really, the pair of them could show up any minute now!
And even if they didn't, it didn't really matter how long they were gone. Douxie was already immortal; Jim was brushing up against it, as were Claire and Toby. As long as they got back within twenty or so years, it would be fine. It would be all fine, right?
/I said I would date you for a hundred lifetimes, Jim Lake, Junior./
/I'm willing to wait for you for a hundred lifetimes, if it comes to that./
She scrubbed a wrist across her burning eyes, then moved back to the group chat. Aja might be an actual queen, and Toby might be the Trollhunter, but Claire was the one who had grown up in Arcadia in a politician's shadow.
/Brunch meeting?/ she texted everyone.
/I think it had better be at our place,/ Krel texted back. /Aja and I need to vouch for all of you to Zadra./
/Ooh, how's it going between her and Varvatos?/ asked Toby.
/Dismal,/ replied Aja. /Zadra does not believe us yet about the time travel. Krel and I have had to send her and Varvatos each to their rooms. Fortunately they are on different sides of the Mothership./
/Have you introduced her to Steven yet?/ asked Blinky.
/UGH. No. That will be a whole other debacle,/ Aja replied.
/What's that supposed to mean?/ asked Steve.
/I'll tell you when you're older,/ Eli piped up.
/Children, settle down,/ sent Draal.
Claire had to smile. God, she loved her friends.
/I concur,/ said Blinky. /It has been a long, and emotionally fraught, evening. You should all try to get some rest./
As if that was going to happen. Claire switched over to another of her chat groups, this one newly formed, and consisting of the other wizards she'd met - some previously, some for the first time tonight. They, apparently, were discussing the logistics of moving Killahead Bridge back inside the museum, and if it would even be possible without their heaviest hitter (Douxie) in attendance.
/We should still give it a shot,/ she told them. /When's good for everyone else?/
Douxie woke to the sound of heavy rainfall. He closed his eyes and sighed. To spend another day tramping on through the woods, hoping to find something, or to stay all curled up in their cozy little wizard's nest, maybe do a load of laundry with a lavam spell, heat some rainwater over a fire so he and Jim could scrub their own selves clean?
The mud from that initial crash-landing was secreted in seemingly all the crevices of their garments, and Douxie itched.
Jim, to his credit, hadn't complained yet about the lack of modern facilities, just followed Douxie's lead as to bodily waste and the like. But between mud and blood and crud, he had to be as uncomfortable inside his clothes as much as Douxie was.
I used to withstand this better, Douxie thought.
Then, No I didn't. Arch was always a stickler for me keeping myself clean. Worse than Merlin, even. Merlin's "Cleanse yourself weekly, Hisirdoux," had seemed like a blessing when he'd moved into apprentice's quarters in Camelot. At last, freedom from Archie's strictness, because a master trumped a familiar, right? Until it turned out that Archie had, as he frequently did, been biding his time and letting the lesson teach itself.
Between cleaning the workshop, leaning over boiling cauldrons making potions, milking the gods-damned slorr, and running all over the castle and city hunting down ingredients for Merlin, Douxie had been sweaty nearly every day, and the idea of wiping himself down with a damp cloth only once a week had rapidly become too horrible to contemplate.
Judging by smell, Douxie had probably kept himself the cleanest person in that castle.
Archie had only been a little smug.
Of course, Douxie considered, the problem with him and Jim taking a day to rest and recuperate (and lather, rinse, and repeat) would be the decided lack of anything to eat.
Douxie sighed heavily.
Then he decided. "Jim." He poked the Trollhunter in the shoulder. "I'm going out to gather some firewood, all right?"
"Mrphgl," was Jim's expressive answer, facedown as he was into the mattress.
Douxie slipped out of the bed, pulling on his jeans and socks and shoes. His hoodie was currently being used as a mattress, so he reconciled himself to getting cold and wet, and went over to the knothole/airhole and pressed his fingers against the wood. A glowing circle formed under each of his hands as he closed his eyes and pressed his will up against that of the tree.
As a rule, trees generally liked wizards; similar magic ran through sap and blood. Which was why Douxie could, without too much difficulty, convince a living tree to work with him on the subject of topology and agree that a hole left by a broken off branch was the same as a small cave. But what he was doing now was a bit trickier, because he didn't want Jim to wake and think that Douxie had disappeared and he was trapped in this tree forever.
(Douxie had heard tales from Merlin about Druids who had done just that, sealed themselves up in trees until eventually the wood absorbed them and they became the tree. The idea, frankly, didn't appeal.)
But what he was trying now was a little less in tune with the tree's own nature. He was trying to make a door that Jim would recognize as such, but that would still keep out anything dangerous.
Because there were predators in these woods. If nothing else, Douxie had come across clear wolf tracks and spoor the day before.
"Come on," he murmured to the oak. "Work with me, here..."
Oak was strong. Oak was stubborn. But Douxie had centuries of his own stubbornness to throw up against the tree's, and, eventually, his resolve wore it down.
A door, with a bolt latch, slowly formed under his hands.
"Thank you," he breathed to the tree, who couldn't understand him. But Archie hadn't raised Douxie to be entirely without manners, so it needed to be said, comprehended or not.
Quietly, Douxie slipped from the cozy room, leaving Jim dozing.
The bolt locked itself behind him.
Outside, while the storm wasn't as violent as the one on the night of their arrival, it was still intense. Heavy cold rain streamed down from the canopy, soaking Douxie in an instant.
Mouth in a line, he took a deliberate walk to a spot a few hundred yards away, wanting to check something.
The night before, he'd left out a pile of rabbit bones and skins and offal, all the entrails and eyeballs and brains that Douxie wouldn't have thought twice about cooking and eating himself, but which he knew Jim would.
It was gone now.
His feet squelched in the mud as he looked at the ground. At the clear wolf tracks circling where he'd left the offering.
Offering to what powers, he wasn't quite sure yet. But a part of that basic manners Archie had drilled into him early was this: if you hunted, it was rude not to share part of your spoils.
The voice of modernity murmured in his head that he might just be habituating the local wildlife to handouts.
But given the way the hairs on the back of Douxie's neck had been ghosting up now and again since they'd arrived in this time and place, he didn't think so.
Jim blinked his way awake, warm and comfy and with the sound of rainfall droning in his ears. It took him several minutes to scrape together enough consciousness to open his eyes, and several more minutes after that to process that he was not, in fact, in his own bed. Or his own house.
He sat up and looked around the little wooden room, lit by magic light. "Douxie?" he asked, even though it was extremely obvious the wizard wasn't there.
The room was so small that there was nowhere to hide.
Getting out of bed, he walked over to the door that hadn't been there the night before, figured out the bar mechanism, and opened it.
Peering out into the dimness of the heavy rain, he still couldn't see a wizard. "What on Earth did you go out there for?" Jim muttered, then shut and re-barred the door.
He looked around the room again, then, for the lack of anything to do, sat back on the bed.
Eventually he flopped down on it.
He closed his eyes.
And, in the best tradition of chefs everywhere, started tinkering with recipes in his mind.
Some interminable amount of time later (Jim had started with a hors d'oeuvres course, followed by soup, then a salad course, and was up to tweaking the main dish), the bolt unlocked itself and the door opened with a thump. He sat up.
Douxie came in, absolutely soaked, carrying dead animals in one hand, greenery and a leaf-sack in the other, with a sizable bundle of wood floating in the air behind him.
"You look like a drowned rat," were Jim's first words.
"Feel like one, too," Douxie replied. The door shut itself behind him, the wood neatly stacking against it, except for one long piece that leaned itself against the wall. Douxie shook his head, splattering water everywhere; it didn't do much, his hair was still plastered to him. "I figured you could have a lie-in while I fetched supplies, since we're quite obviously not going anywhere today."
"Ugh." Jim considered flopping back down, but that seemed ungrateful. "What can I help with?" he asked instead.
Which was how he ended up skinning and cleaning yet more rabbits and a squirrel while Douxie did something to the tree to make a small hearth, a chimney, and a water collection system. The last one apparently turned several high up branches into something rather like gutters. Water came splashing down into a tub that formed itself on one of the walls, with another tiny hearth underneath it. Douxie dried out some of the wood and set a second fire going below the tub.
"What do we need that much water for?" Jim asked as Douxie sat down next to him and pulled out one of his own knives.
"One," Douxie said, "cooking. Two, washing every item either of us is wearing. And, three, hot baths."
"Ooh," Jim said appreciatively before he could even think about it. Then, "Wait, can't you just magic everything clean?"
"Well, I could," Douxie said with a tilt of his head. "But, one, a cleaning spell feels rather like being scoured with lye. Extremely unpleasant," he translated at Jim's inquiring look. "Two, I'm trying to conserve magic right now. And, three, since I found some soapwort and I'm intending to heat up a bunch of water anyway, why not clean things the old-fashioned way?"
"'The old-fashioned way'," Jim muttered under his breath. "The old-fashioned way involves a washing machine," he informed Douxie.
Who spread his hands wide. "If you find a laundromat in this neighborhood, be my guest," he offered. "Now, want to learn how to pluck a pigeon?"
The rest of the day was spent letting Jim work out his culinary frustrations on the various meats, herbs, and fungi while Douxie washed every stitch they owned, including their erstwhile bedding. While the tub drained and refilled, he hung them all up to drip dry. Then he grabbed the stave resting against the wall and settled down, bare-ass naked, on the smooth dirt floor, pulling out his whittling knife.
"What are you doing?" asked Jim, equally nude but far less comfortable about it than Douxie.
"Well," said Douxie, turning the length of wood over and over in his hands, testing it, feeling it out with more senses than just his hands, "I sweet-talked this out of a tree, earlier. It's yew."
Jim looked blank, and gestured for Douxie to continue feeding him information.
"Yew," Douxie told him, "is the traditional wood for a bow."
"So you're, what, making a bow?"
"Bow today, arrows tomorrow," said Douxie. "Also the bowstring, I'll need to find some spiderwebs for that."
Jim made a face at that. "You can just carve a bow in a day?" he asked.
Douxie set the edge of his knife against the wood. "Most people? No." He made his first cut, beginning to strip the bark and a paper-thin sliver of wood from the branch. "But with wizardry? I can cure and shape this in a fraction of the time it'd take a traditional bowyer."
Jim rolled his eyes. "Is there anything you don't know how to do?"
Douxie thought about it. "Algebra."
Jim laughed.
The doorbell rang.
"Ugh," said Aja, exchanging a look with her brother. "Great timing."
Krel shrugged. "Better bad timing than no timing?" he suggested. "I will go let them in."
"No, my royal!" Zadra protested. "It could be anyone!"
"It is our friends, Zadra," Krel retorted.
"Scan and analysis confirms: the individuals at the door are your classmates," Mother agreed with him.
"See?" Aja asked Zadra, as Krel opened the door, revealing Toby and Claire, Mary and Darci.
"Hey-o!" Toby greeted with a wave. "Long time no see, Lieutenant Zadra!"
Her blade instantly snapped out, ending up under his neck. "Who are you to speak so familiarly to me?"
"Aaaand I see you still have that same temper," Toby said, not moving an inch. "Got something for you."
"A weapon? Some attempt at clever deceit?" she demanded.
"You speak poorly of our valued comrade!" boomed Varvatos.
"Forgive me," Zadra bit out, "if I do not accept the assurances of a proven traitor."
"Yep, same Zadra," Toby said, smiling. He moved very slowly, shrugging off his backpack and reaching inside. His fingers pulled out a familiar shape. "Nougat Nummy?" he asked, offering it to her.
She accepted, her expression befuddled. "And just what is this?"
"A traditional Earth confection," Aja informed her.
"They are very delicious," Krel agreed.
Zadra's scythe lowered as she stared at the treat in her hand.
The doorbell rang.
"I'll get it," said Krel, who was still standing by the door.
The door opened to reveal Steve and Eli. The former sauntered right in. "'Sup, losers?" He beelined for Aja. "My princess," he said, kissing her hand as Zadra's eyes widened, incredulous.
"Your highness-" she began.
Aja held up her hand. "He is my suitor, Lieutenant Zadra."
"Your parents-"
Varvatos glowered and strode forward, placing himself nose-to-nose with Zadra. "The Queen-in-Waiting's parents will be lucky to have such a son-in-law as Steven has proven himself to be,"
"Whoa," Steve breathed, wide-eyed at the praise. "Didn't know I'd done that good."
Aja smirked.
Zadra growled and glared at Varvatos.
"Hey, is that a Nougat Nummy?" Eli piped up.
"Yeah, they're great," Darci agreed, her gaze darting back and forth between Varvatos and Zadra. Her hands were hovering; she was clearly trying to cool down the temperature in the room.
Eli snorted. "Only if you don't have a peanut allergy."
"Wait, you have a peanut allergy?" Mary asked.
Eli glared. "Only since forever. You clearly don't remember my third grade emergency room trip."
"I do," Toby piped up. "Which is why I also always carry a couple of these." He pulled out another plastic-wrapped rectangle.
"A Three Caballeros bar! My favorite!" cried Eli, seizing upon it.
When the tub had refilled and reheated, Jim realized there was a problem.
Namely, that it had been several years since he had been comfortable taking a bath.
Eyeing the tub of barely-steaming water sitting over the little fire, he sucked in a breath.
"Something wrong, Jim?"
"No. Just not... really fond of baths. That much. Anymore." He couldn't stop looking at it, all that water in an opaque tub. It was shadowed. Was the water dark? He couldn't tell.
Douxie looked up at him. "Anymore?" the wizard asked.
"Just." Jim's throat closed up on him. He swallowed. "Merlin," he managed to say.
Douxie's eyes widened; he half made to stand. "What did Merlin do?" His face was serious.
"He… the potion." Jim looked away. "The one that turned me into a half troll."
Douxie sucked a breath in through his teeth. "Let me guess: immersion?"
Jim nodded. "I poured it into the tub upstairs at home, and..." His throat closed on him again. "I thought I had to," he forced past the blockage.
"I'll kill him," Douxie swore softly, standing. "He made you think that?"
Jim nodded, mute for a moment. After moving his lips for a moment, he found his words again. "They were on the other side of the door. Everyone. Banging. Telling me not to do it. They thought I was going to..." His voice closed with a squeak. "They begged me to let them in," he managed to whisper.
Douxie's arms went around him in a flash. "I am so sorry."
Jim shook his head. What should Douxie be sorry for? They hadn't even known each other then.
"I was too busy faffing around, being useless," Douxie murmured by Jim's ear as Jim stared at the tub of streaming water. "But I promise you, Jim, if I'd known Merlin was around, what he was doing... I never would have let you think that. I would never have let you be that scared."
"Fear is the precursor to valor," Jim managed.
"That it is." Douxie's hug tightened. "And, believe me, you are the most valorous individual I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. But there was no reason to make you undergo that fear. To make you do that alone. That was pure cruelty on Merlin's part."
"Was it?" Jim asked. "If I wasn't afraid..."
"Jim." Strong hands turned him around, so he was looking into Douxie's eyes. "You and I both have powerful self-sacrificial tendencies. We will lay anything down for those we love, including our lives. And that can be very useful sometimes. But it's also an Achilles' heel. It makes us vulnerable to those who might use that tendency."
Jim set his lips. "Like Merlin?"
Douxie nodded. "Like Merlin. I don't doubt that he cares. But... he cares about the big picture. Not individuals."
"He cared about you," Jim pointed out.
Douxie drew a deep breath. Looked away. "He did, in that other timeline." A wry twist of his lips. "I think I've pissed him off too much in this one."
"He's your father," Jim argued.
Douxie's eyes met his again. "And we both know that some fathers walk out on their kids. No, I can't count on Merlin to be that for me anymore."
"Doux..."
"All of which," Douxie ran over Jim's protestation, "does not actually have to do with you and that bath." He smiled, a gentle thing. "Want me to hold your hand getting in?"
Jim considered it for a fraction of an instant. He wasn't /five/. He didn't need someone to hold his hand because he was scared of the dark.
But he remembered his heartbeat echoing in his ears as the darkness swallowed all light.
And the silence once it had stopped.
"Please," he begged, ashamed.
Douxie's smile turned gentler. "It's all right to need help sometimes, Jim."
Maybe it was the fact that he wasn't alone: Douxie was still sitting on the ground just by the tub, within arm's reach, carving himself a bow. Maybe it was how the wooden tub was shaped more like a barrel or a single-person hot tub than a white casket; Jim was sitting up in it instead of laying down. Maybe it was that he was warm and clean for the first time in days, the heat seeping into his bones, making him relax.
Whatever it was, it made it okay.
It was a long period of companionable silence before he thought to ask, "Why do you need a bow?"
Douxie paused. He set his bow blank down. He didn't meet Jim's eyes. "There's something in the woods. It's been watching us."
"What," Jim said, sitting up straight. The water in the tub sloshed, but didn't spill. "Douxie, if it's hostile–"
"We do nothing," Douxie said.
"But–"
"We are out of our time and out of our place," said Douxie. "This is not what we're here for, Jim."
That didn't seem right. "But it might be."
Douxie shook his head. "The type of being I think it is, really isn't capturing and holding others. Which is what you're here for, according to Ga-Huel."
"So... what is it?"
Douxie picked a scrap of wood up from the floor and spun it around between his fingers. "You have to understand, Jim, there's always been bigger, older powers in the world."
"Like Nimue?"
Douxie nodded. "Nimue." His eyes met Jim's. "And the Arcane Order. Among others."
Jim's hand fisted on the edge of the tub. "So why are you assuming whatever's out there is more like Nimue than the Order?"
"Because there's rules, between humans and gods."
"Rules." Jim's tone was flat.
Douxie nodded. "One of the rules for the being I think is out there is, /share your hunt/."
"Hunt?"
Douxie gestured at the pile of entrails by the door, on top of another enlarged beech leaf. "There's lots of good eating in guts and brains, if you're not modern-day squeamish. I left yesterday's in a particular spot." His eyes met Jim's. "It's gone. Completely. So. What I think might be out there, is the forest lord. Now, giving the forest lord his share might be enough to keep him and his off of us."
Jim didn't like the word 'might'.
"However," Douxie continued, "I'd like more surety than that. I saw a lovely hart while I was out earlier. Therefore, I'm thinking a bit of proper hunting, with a huntsman's bow, and offering the local deity first choice, might get us a chance to talk with them. And a divine king, marked by Nimue, will probably get at least a small amount of respect."
"Why do you want to talk with them?"
Douxie shrugged. "I'd rather know who's lurking about than not know. Even if they're not an ally." His mouth turned down. "There's not too many of the old powers about, in our time. Or even in Camelot's time. They're either hiding, or sleeping, or locked away." He spun his scrap of wood between his fingers again, then tossed it into the fire under the tub. "Mostly locked away," he said in a low voice.
"Merlin?" Jim asked.
Douxie nodded. "Merlin."
"So," Jim said, just to check. "You're going to go out there and kill an animal to attract the attention of a god we're not sure if we want to deal with."
Douxie shrugged. "Like I said, I'd rather know than not."
"...Fair," Jim allowed. "But I still think you live in a strange, strange world."
Douxie smirked. "You live in it too, now."
"How come I never heard about any of this before?"
Douxie shrugged. "You live in the suburbs. Most of the bigger powers avoid them because they don't like the noise and pollution. And American spirits tend to be of a slightly different flavor than those here in Europe, anyway. I've spent a century dealing with them, and sometimes the differences /still/ throw me."
"Huh." Jim sank back down in the hot water, letting it cover his shoulders while he thought.
"By the by," said Douxie.
"Mmm?"
"When we get home, I'm giving you more assigned reading on this."
Jim groaned and sank further down, his head going under the water, until he almost couldn't hear Douxie's laughter.
Douxie got his own wash and soak in after the pigeons and rabbits were ready.
Oh, how long's it been since I had a proper pigeon pie? he thought, sinking his teeth in. Jim was very American in his tastes, favoring steak or hamburger whenever he got a chance. But for Douxie, wild-caught game was a taste of home. As was lamb - though his preference for that meat had very nearly been soured by his experiences with tinned mutton during the world wars.
Next to him, Jim let out a soft moan as he bit into his own pigeon, stuffed with woodland aromatics that leant the meat a delicate flavoring. "Oh man, that's good."
"Everything you cook's good." Douxie smiled at Jim. "It's quite a gift you've got there, Jim."
"Yeah, well, magic's more useful right now," Jim shot back.
"Agree to disagree." Douxie shrugged. "I have never understood why pigeons have fallen out of culinary fashion."
"I can't believe these are the same birds I see outside Costco."
Douxie shrugged. "The descendants of domesticated pigeons are treated shamefully in modern society. If I had a million dollars, I'd build dovecotes on every corner and arrange to house and feed the poor things."
"Weird," Jim said under his breath.
Douxie nudged him in the side. "They're an ancient and honorable bird!"
"Now you sound like Blinky."
"And I am honored to do so," Douxie informed him.
Jim side-eyed him. "So, like, you're stupid good at hunting..."
"Mm-hmm." Douxie chewed and swallowed. "Do you know what a snipe is?"
Jim shook his head.
"It's a bird known for being well camouflaged, easily startled, and extremely erratic in flight. They're very difficult to hunt."
"So…?"
Douxie grinned. "Anyone who's good enough to bag one, is legitimately called a 'sniper'."
Jim's voice was flat. "And you're a sniper."
"I am at that," Douxie allowed. "Which, alas, does not translate into much that's useful for monster hunting or taking on gods trying to bring about the end of the world."
"Or playing video games. Your hand-eye coordination sucks."
"I," said Douxie with dignity, "will leave Go Go Sushi to Toby, Aaarrrgghh, and Krel."
Jim hummed. "Did you ever meet Annie Oakley?" he asked eventually.
Douxie grinned again at the memory. "Once, when she was touring Europe. She was a tiny lass - almost as short as Toby. Alas, I lacked the funds to challenge her to a match."
After a minute, Jim turned to look directly at Douxie. "If you're a sniper," he said quietly, "should I ask what you were doing in the world wars?"
Douxie stopped breathing.
I should've expected that one. Eventually. Just not now. He forced himself to inhale again. "I keep forgetting you're the king of me," he murmured, not meeting Jim's blue gaze. "And how bloody clever you are."
"So…?"
"I would ask," Douxie said quietly, "that you not ask me that question."
"Why not?" asked Jim, his question equally quiet.
Douxie gave him a thin smile. "Because I don't think you'd like the answers you'd get, Jim."
"Oh."
Forcibly, and with the skill of long practice, Douxie shoved the memories of death, death, and more death away from himself.
Even so, the memories soured the taste of the pigeon.
He ate, as he so often had, by rote.
Food was food, and in this time and place, not to be thought trivial and wasted because of mere memories.
Author's Note: I had rather thought a Nougat Nummy was supposed to be a skin of a 3 Musketeers candy bar, until it was mentioned in some episode or other that it had peanuts in it. So, maybe it's supposed to be a Snickers bar? In any case, since I have a family member with an extreme peanut allergy, I felt the urge to reskin a non-peanut-including candy bar in their honor. And thus, 3 Musketeers became the 3 Caballeros bar instead. :)
