Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 30th June, 2023

After vengeance...?

The words hung in the air before Tronos Madu, making no sense.

There was no after. There never had been.

But for the first time, the glimmer of a notion occurred to him: what if there could be?

It niggled. It burrowed in. It invited doubt, and wonder, and introspection. None of which were comfortable things.

What if the accursed Akiridion princess was right? What if there could be... more, after?

There was little justice in the life of a bounty hunter, he knew. No assurance than any given target was bad. (Though the Akiridion royal family, he had thought, was likely to be in that category. Were they? The younger ones, anyway.) There was only the highest bidder, the sweet energy of the chase, and the blessed relief of not having to think for himself, only move at another's bidding.

He tried to think now. It was hard, that instinct atrophied.

What came after turning in the royal family to Morando, and collecting his fee?


One foot in front of the other, Jim kept going. He was simultaneously dragging with tiredness and lack of sleep, and, oddly, hyper-aware of the forest around him. Each of the troll younglings stood out almost like they were lined with fire; every footstep, cracked twig, and bird shrieking seemed amplified.

It almost felt like being high on gravesand again, only without the accompanying murderous rage.

I really should have taken a nap before rescuing these guys, Jim thought. But in a forest rife with Gumm-Gumms, gods, and no wizard to make a shelter? Yeah, that would've been tantamount to suicide.

Kanjigar eyed him warily. "Are you okay?"

"Just tired," Jim told him, and rubbed at his eyes. "Like, really really tired. For future reference? Humans need a lot more sleep than trolls do."

Kanjigar nodded, slow and thoughtful. "Should we stop?"

Jim sighed, wishing for a cup or twelve of coffee - he'd even take it filtered through socks right now - and looked around. "No. We're almost back to your home." And he just wanted to be done with this mission. Not that the kids weren't cute. (Well, okay, Bagdwella was only cute for a certain value of cute, but that was her parents' problem to deal with, not Jim's.)

"Okay." Kanjigar looked dubious, but nodded in acceptance as they pressed on.

Which, of course, led to the next problem: they were out of nighttime. Thin morning sunlight slanted down between them and the trolls' home.

Jim said a word he'd learned from Draal as he looked across the expanse between the tree line and the boulder shaped like a goshawk.

Kanjigar looked moderately impressed.

"Don't say that in front of your parents," Jim warned, suddenly feeling like he had to be an adult.

Kanjigar scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"How are we getting across that?" Bagdwella demanded. The pitch of her voice was like an icepick inside Jim's head.

"Obviously," Dictatious said, "we have to wait here until nightfall."

Jim still had problems with Dictatious, which had started a lifetime ago in the Darklands. Right now he clenched his fist and reminded himself that no matter how tired they were, heroes didn't smack little kids. Like, ever.

Jim mastered himself, and breathed. "I ferry you guys across," he said, "one at a time." He could use his body to block the small trolls from the sunlight, and there was still some shade right by the boulder. They could shelter in that, then once he had all six of the kids over there, he could use the horngazel to get them to safety. "Okay?"


Douxie ran until he had a stitch in his side. Even then, he barely slowed, gasping for breath and trying to manage the pain (side, lungs, throat, bloody sodding headache-) as he wove between trees, heading as straight as he could for the quartz crystal necklace that was imbued with his magic and worn around Jim's neck.

Work smarter, not harder, a little voice inside his head (that sounded rather like Archie) told him.

Douxie as much as looked blankly at the little voice, having absolutely no idea what it meant.

An unseen dip in the forest floor set him swaying between one step and the next until he recovered his balance.

The limb of his longbow banged against his calf as he stumbled, and sent Douxie's thoughts zoning out.

Fact: a longbow was, essentially, a fancied up long wooden stick. Just like a broomstick, only lacking the bristles at one end.

Fact: he'd seen Jackson Overland ride his staff just like a broom, and it had no bristles either.

Fact: ...

"Oh, sod it all," Douxie muttered, hauling the longbow off his back. "I'm probably going to get myself killed anyway."

But the bow, unstrung at the moment, caught with his magic just like a broomstick would, and levitated smoothly off the ground.

Swallowing, and still trying to catch his breath, Douxie stepped up, one foot on either side of the grip, and bent his knees slightly.

The -broom- bow began to move.

As it wove between the trees, his balance shifting naturally, easily, with centuries of practice, Douxie grinned.

Work smarter not harder indeed.


"Any luck?" Louis asked as a museum curator threw herself down into the chair in front of his desk.

Her stormy expression was clue enough as she snarled, "/No/."

He thought a few bad words. "Scene contaminated?"

She waved that off with a demure hand that he regardless had no doubt could disembowel him if she so chose. "That's not the problem. He, or she," she conceded, "went down the stairs and vanished. My partner and I both agreed on that much," she added. "Best guess is our would-be killer got in a car, breaking the scent trail."

He thought a few more bad words. "So no description?"

Nomura shrugged. "No one I've ever met before. And he wouldn't have."

Louis arched an eyebrow.

She glowered. "Draal's not a changeling."

"Ah." Interspecies romance was well outside of his jurisdiction. "So we're at square one."

The changeling woman snorted. "Not quite. Strickler left, leaving me in charge. I'll bet you rubies that the assassin's trailing him, to lady knows where, since he didn't tell me."

Which meant the perp was probably out of Arcadia, and out of Louis' legal jurisdiction. "Dammit."

She smirked. "You said it."


"I am not sure about this," Kanjigar told Jim solemnly as they mutually adjusted position in the clinging-to-person-with-armor and carrying-a-child-that-weighed-a-solid-ton game.

"What, you've got a bad feeling about it?" Jim quipped, smiling.

"If you fail, or fall, you get a little bit hurt. But I get dead," Kanjigar informed him.

Jim cast a look at the various piles of rubble between them and the shaded safety of the boulder. "I know," he said. "But this is going to work." Because if it didn't, Kanjigar was right, and the little troll would be dead, and never grow up to be the Trollhunter and Draal's father, and the timeline would be fucked.

No pressure.

Jim let out a long, low breath, trying to center himself against his sudden flurrying uprisal of nerves. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. To any of you," he said, casting a look at the others. Bagdwella, who would grow up to have a persistent gnome problem in her shop. Rokum and Glandir, who Jim had never met before, which... probably meant they wouldn't survive the next fifteen centuries. Or, maybe a better thought, just meant that they hadn't immigrated with the other trolls to North America. And Dictatious and Blinky, who were so important, in their separate ways, to how time needed to play out.

Jim's jaw firmed. "I'm not going to drop you," he told Kanjigar, "and I'm not going to let the sunlight touch you."

Kanjigar's gold eyes looked up at him, as if seeking something. Then the small troll nodded once, slowly.

Trusting Jim.

He tried not to let that feel as significant as it did. "Okay, ready?" he asked rhetorically instead, and shifted sideways, so that his body was perfectly angled to block the sun. "'Cause here we go."

Jim burst out into the daylight, crab-walking sideways, moving as fast as he could, which with a troll clinging to him wasn't very. He'd plotted each step of his path out, avoiding any dips, hollows, or loose stones that could make him trip or fall. He and Kanjigar ghosted past the mounded remains of dead trolls. And if Kanjigar's fingers clenched harder on his armor at that point... Jim couldn't blame him.

The hundred-yard trip seemed to take forever. It certainly wasn't a dash. But at the same time, it felt like almost no time had elapsed before they reached the shelter of the stone.

Kanjigar dropped from Jim's armor and looked up at him with wide eyes, wondering and surprised, as Jim leaned over, hands on his thighs, trying to catch his breath.

"You really did it," Kanjigar said. "You brought me home."

Jim flashed him a grin. "Told you I would, didn't I?"

"But you're human," the future Trollhunter said softly.

"Someday," said Jim, "you'll understand why that doesn't mean I can't be a good person." He pulled the horngazel out of his armor's magic pocket, handing it to Kanjigar. Then he turned, and jogged back down the slope to where they'd left the others.


The wheels of the plane lifted off the ground and the great metal bird soared up into the night. The ground dropped away below, and all of the Los Angeles basin was rendered into a glittering spread of lights against the darkness.

As above, so below, Waltolomew thought, observing the view through the airplane's small window. Flight was, of course, natural to him, but the way humans had achieved it was a wonder of its own. One that, while it sometimes paled, always crept sneakily back into the mind, underlining its point.

Men were never meant to fly, yet somehow they still did. And it was remarkably faster to make his way across continents or oceans by depending on their technology, than by his own means.

So. Twenty-one hours and a change of planes would see him to New Delhi, and from there he would find his way south, to Rathambore. For now, the Inferna Copula was on his hand, to prevent any... misfortunate losses of luggage that might occur.

He cast one last look out the window as the plane wheeled northward. He couldn't see the lights of Arcadia Oaks from here; it was sheltered from view by the hills.

But there his heart, and his work, lay.

I'll be back soon, Waltolomew promised silently, hand against the cool glass.

Then he closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and prepared to sleep away as much of the dull liminal time as he could.

He did not notice the glare he received from three rows back and the other side of the aisle, from eyes full of hate, that momentarily flashed an inhuman gold.


"All right." NotEnrique prepared his opening arguments. "Get your gobs ready for... this!" He whipped out a stack of Tupperwares and handed them out to the assembled sprogs.

Gingerly, as if expecting them to explode (which was fair, given what some of the food sources in the Darklands did), they took the containers. Some sniffed at them. Some shook them. One licked the lid.

"Uh, Rockhead," said one of the femmes, which /had/ been NotEnrique's name once upon a time, before he'd gotten an assignment and a familiar and a family, "what's this?"

He smirked. "Observe," he said, and thumbed off the lid of his own lunch.

A wave of "ooh"s followed the tantalizing smell that wafted out. Eyes shimmered. It wasn't long at all until all the other lids clattered to the ground and the air was filled with the sounds of grunting and munching and slurping.

NotEnrique exchanged a grin with Chompsky, who gave him a thumbs-up, then returned to his own lunch, which looked like nothing so much as a tiny bowl of ramen noodles. How he'd managed to cook them without a microwave or a fire, NotEnrique didn't know, but gnomes had mysterious magic of their own.

"Shit, Rockhead," said one of the toms, staring at his nearly emptied container. "You eat like this every day?"

NotEnrique grinned, and let his bait drop. "Nah. Usually better," he said.

The wide eyes and gaping expressions let him know that his fellow trollings were hooked.

Now to reel 'em in.


By the time he'd hauled Rokum, Glandir, and Bagdwella across to the boulder, Jim's back was aching and informing him in no uncertain terms that even little trolls were too effing heavy.

Ugh. Jim put his hands on his hips and leaned into a backbend, trying to work out the kinks.

Kanjigar's keen eyes remained on him, ever watchful. He'd already drawn portal arches for the other three; they were safely inside the stone. "This costs you," he observes.

"Eh." Jim waggled a hand in the air. "It aches. I'll recover."

"Why do this?" Kanjigar questioned. "For people you don't know. Who aren't even of your strange species."

Jim's blue eyes met Kanjigar's golden ones. "Because it's the right thing to do," he said, watching as that sunk somewhere deep into Kanjigar. "Because I can't stand by and do nothing while others get hurt." Nothing to do with being the Trollhunter - a term Kanjigar wouldn't come to understand for hundreds of years yet - but everything to do with who Jim knew he himself was.

Kanjigar nodded slowly, as if beginning to understand what Jim meant.

Jim nodded to him in return and jogged one more time across the sunny slope, to gather up the two smallest younglings in his arms. Blinky was wide awake now, gazing up at him with all six brown eyes. God, he was cute.

Dictatious was less so, though Jim admitted that his impressions might be colored by his feelings toward the two tiny trolls when they were... not so tiny.

Dictatious looked at the passing scenery. Specifically at the piles of dead troll stone as Jim crab-walked past them. He probably knew who they each were. Jim didn't.

"Thank you," Dictatious said, almost so quietly that Jim couldn't hear him. "For rescuing me and the pebble. Even if he is a crybaby."

"Oh." Jim blinked. He really hadn't been expecting thanks from any of the trolls. "Thank you" was a phrase that was used easily, often, in human culture... but not so much among trolls, who expected everyone to do their part. The only times he'd ever been thanked were after he'd done something really huge.

The fact that Dictatious was thanking him now...

"I've got a brother, too," Jim said. He'd always had more brothers, in different ways. Toby, always. Draal was definitely a brother, even if they weren't as close as they'd been in the first timeline.

And now Douxie, who so desperately needed a family, because his dad was as shitty as Jim's own. "Family is important."

Dictatious looked up at him as Jim set him and Blinky down, safe in the shade. Kanjigar was waiting, the horngazel in hand, to take them to home, and safety.

Jim glanced at Kanjigar, then looked back at the Galadrigals. Blinky's hand was clasped in Dictatious'. "Take care of each other," he told them all.

Dictatious nodded solemnly. Jim stood as Kanjigar drew the arch on the boulder. The stone fractured magically away. The future Trollhunter led the two smaller children inside. None of them looked back.

Jim watched as the stone reformed behind them. Once it was sealed, he closed his eyes, and let go, the crackling, vining energy of the Time Stone surrounding him in a sphere. A bubble. A shield.

Taking him home.


Douxie stumbled off the makeshift broom as lambent green energy began swirling around him. "No no no...!"

He knew the taste of this magic. Had felt it twice before: once in the back room of the bookstore, when he'd read the incantation on Jim's amulet. And once when he'd run desperately across a town square at war, managing to grab onto his brother and king just as an overload of power had sent them both careening fifteen centuries into the past.

The magic peeled things away from him. His pack tumbled to the ground, the waterskin and Charlie's pots of leftovers rolling out onto the earth. Douxie managed to grab Taliesin's lute case as it spun away from him, catching the enchanted leather with his fingertips. "No, you can't have this," he argued with Time, digging his nails and his magic into the case, reaching out, hooking his own power in to the preservation spells imbued in the case. "This is the last bit of Atlantis...!"

The green magic wanted to argue with him, to take away the lute, the opal... even the unicorn hair and horn tucked into the pocket of his vambrace. To let him take nothing of the past into the future.

"No!" Douxie cried. His fingers began to smoke. His eyes blazed blue. "No, they've got to come with me, this is the only chance we've got to understand those books...!"

Time fought. He fought harder. The warring pressures made reality warp, screech, and buckle, nearly blowing out his eardrums. A trickle of blood ran down, tickling, under his nose.

"No," Douxie whispered, throwing everything he had into the battle against Time, to keep the tools he needed to save the world-

Time exploded into blackness. He was blown back, his head cracking against stone.

Douxie knew no more.


Tronos shook his head. Once. Twice. Violently. "You are trying to confuse me!"

"I do not think she is 'trying'," Krel muttered.

"Shh!" Claire hushed him, her eyes rapt on the two figures on the other asteroid.

Tronos lashed out again, but as before, his fingers stopped just shy of touching Aja. For her part, Krel's sister merely sat silently, still, waiting.

He'd known his sister had gotten quite good at politics during their year apart, but this was still impressive to see, how easily she was getting inside the Voltarian's head.

"What do you want, Tronos Madu?" she asked softly. Compassion was all across her expression, her posture. "What will make you happy? And." Aja swallowed. "How may we make amends for the unthinkable? The unbearable." Sorrow shadowed her face. "The casual cruelty and pride that can no longer be allowed to be the hallmark of House Tarron?"

Tronos yelled, an incoherent staticky screech of pure anguish, and ripped open a hole in reality much the same way Claire's portals did. His body flashed to glowing energy, and disappeared through it.

Aja stood, watching as the rift pulsed once, then closed. Her expression was still wrought with grief.

Krel pushed off his asteroid and landed beside her. He put a hand on his sister's shoulder. "That was well done," he said softly.

Aja looked down. Drew a breath. Then looked back up at him. "It is so hard, undoing what has not been well done by our family."

"It is," Krel agreed. "But you are magnificent at it, as I could never be."

He won a watery smile. "I do not think so, little brother. Though I will admit I am better at it."

"So!" Toby landed beside them with a slight thump, the head of his warhammer glowing orange. "Think we've seen the last of him?"

Aja shook her head. "I doubt it. Whether I have managed to change his mind... well, that we shall see?" She looked over at Claire, who had likewise joined them. "Shall we go home?"

Claire nodded, and with a gesture, created a shadow portal large enough for all of them to enter abreast. "Let's."


He woke to pain whiting out all his thoughts, and to a rough tongue rasping licks across his face.

It took a long time before Douxie was capable of a coherent concept, or more than a faint croak issuing from his throat.

"My word, you're a proper mess right now, aren't you?" a familiar voice asked. But he couldn't think who it was. Not until a warm weight settled on top of his chest, purring loudly.

Even then, it took a long time for the right word to come to him. The right name. "Arch...?" Douxie managed weakly.

A slumping of the body atop his, as of relaxing. And a sigh, as of relief. "There you are."

Everything hurt. Douxie tried to take stock, and mostly failed. There was bone-deep pain everywhere, and it felt like his fingers were burned.

He felt worse than he had after coming back from the dead, and that was saying something.

It took several minutes before he was able to move his arms, clumsily, and drape them around his familiar. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by light stabbing into them and right through to his brain. Hissing, he shut them hastily.

"It's almost midnight," Archie told him, shifting, soft black fur brushing against the underside of Douxie's jaw. "You've been gone for two weeks."

"Jim...?" Douxie managed.

Archie sighed again. "I've no idea. I assumed he was with you."

"Sep'rated."

Archie hummed. "If you're back, it seems most likely that he has returned as well. Simply in a different geographical location."

Through the pounding of his head, Douxie considered that. The Time Stone was Jim's; Douxie had been mere baggage carried along on the journey. Archie was probably right. "'Kay."

He zoned out again for a while, until Archie's voice woke him again. "May I ask why you've brought a lute case home with you? You haven't played one since your last foray into the RenFaire."

Douxie flailed out a hand and groped.

"A bit higher," Archie told him.

His hand landed on cool, blessedly smooth leather. He could feel the spells singing under his raw fingers. "'S Taliesin's."

Archie stiffened. "Taliesin? As in, Merlin's master? My word, Hisirdoux, what have you been up to?"

"Sixth century fraud and identity theft?" He and Jim had sworn never to tell another living soul, but this was Archie. His familiar. His bondmate. Half of his soul, as the poets said. He wasn't about to keep secrets.

"Well," Archie said after a moment, kneading considering biscuits into Douxie's chest, "it wouldn't be the first time."

That startled a laugh out of Douxie, for all that it was true. And the laugh hurt. "Ow ow ow..." He curled around the pain.

"You're a proper wreck." Archie jumped off him. "Come on, let's get you home."

Home had never sounded so good, even if Douxie wasn't sure how they were going to get there. Well, Archie was a shapeshifter, and clever. He'd figure out something. "Hauled precious cargo through time, right after making a master's staff," Douxie explained as the source of his condition. He cracked his eyes open and figured out through his lashes that the stabbing source of light was a streetlamp, practically right above him. He managed to roll over onto his side, away from the pulsating yellow brightness.

"A master's staff?" Archie sounded surprised. "...Your own, Douxie?"

He worked spit into his mouth. Swallowed, which was agonizing. "Merlin's."

"Oh." Archie was very quiet, taking in the implications. Then - clearly he had shifted to something large - he hauled Douxie, and the precious lute case, up in gentle claws.

Douxie passed out again, trusting Archie to take him home.


Author's Note: Jim's quip about Kanjigar having a bad feeling about this was, of course, a Star Wars reference. And Maraviri drew some lovely fanarts of Jim leading the tiny trolls back to safety, available to view at www dot tumblr dot com/maraviri/721217959042990080/your-future-hasnt-been-written-yet-chapter-1?source=share.