Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 4th August, 2023
Douxie was seated cross-legged on his bed, guitar on his lap and amp by his hip, running absently through Kansas' Wayward Son, when the knock came on his door. "Come in," he called, rather than getting up from the bed. Open before him was his Atlantean book, and he didn't care to move hastily and risk damaging it.
The door opened to reveal Jim. "Hey," he said, and gestured behind himself. "Krel has something to say to you. Unless you want me to tell him to take a hike."
Douxie sighed. "No, it's fine," he said, and shifted to the side.
Krel came hesitantly into the room. Jim glanced back and forth between them, then shook his head. "I'll be downstairs if you need me. Making brownies," he added impertinently.
Douxie had to smile. "You can leave the door open." He looked at Krel. "I'm fairly sure that we're not going to be discussing anything too private."
Jim nodded, and disappeared.
Krel still looked a bit at sea.
Douxie closed his eyes and sighed. "Krel, sit."
The Akiridion prince gingerly perched on the edge of Douxie's bed.
"Why are you here?" Douxie asked simply.
"Jim said I should apologize," Krel said, looking at his hands.
"Bit late at night," Douxie observed, glancing out the window, at the darkness fallen over Arcadia Oaks.
Krel snorted. "Lucy made a disgusting meat and vegetable suspended in gelatin concoction for dinner. Varvatos decided we were instead raiding Stuart's truck for dinner. And while we were there, he gave me his disappointed look."
"Is that different from his 'I will rip your bones from your body and use them as Lego' look?" asked Douxie.
Krel considered. "Not really."
"So." Douxie rested his hands on his guitar's body and waited, Archie silent and watchful by his side.
"I regret insulting you," Krel said quietly. "It is not you I was frustrated with, but you were, inappropriately, my target."
That... sounded rather like Krel had been subject to lots of lectures, growing up, about appropriate behavior. He'd clearly learned the rules, such as they were, but didn't understand why they were the way they were.
Douxie wouldn't dare label someone from a literal other planet neurodivergent, particularly when he and Krel weren't even the same kind of lifeform, but the practical effects were the same.
"Apology accepted," he said simply.
Krel's head shot up. "That easily?"
Douxie shrugged. "What, you want me to make it hard?"
"Everyone always does," Krel muttered darkly.
"Well, I'm not everyone," Douxie retorted. "And it's not like you were wrong, anyway. I'm not your intellectual equal."
Krel looked guilty.
Douxie sighed. "Look... just tell me why you were lashing out, all right?" Better for both of them to cut to the chase.
Krel examined the plain walls. The minimal collection of Douxie's self-care products on top of the dresser. Even the floor. Anything but address the question in the air between them.
Finally he, too, sighed. "Look, I would be excited to be a wizard," he said. "Believe me, what you can do seldom fails to be impressive. But... I am not human."
"So?"
Krel huffed out his breath through his nose and met Douxie's eyes. "We all know it costs you to use your magic. You have to repay that cost by eating. And Akiridions... don't eat."
"Oh." Douxie felt small and stupid as the sedentary layer of his expectations was swirled up and disrupted by new information. Akiridions didn't eat, so any excessive energy expenditure by them would have to come from some other source. And if there was no intake to balance the output...
Merlin had spent nine centuries in a magic coma because of his injuries. Krel's parents were in regeneration chambers.
Douxie didn't want to imagine what might happen to Krel if he used too much power exploring his own innate abilities.
"That seems a rather major mistake for Gaylen to have made," Archie said, voicing Douxie's own thought.
Krel snorted. "For a god, or a wizard, Gaylen was riddled with mistakes."
"Gods are more fallible than you might think," Douxie murmured absently. "Wizards, even more so." Which clashed right up against A wizard doesn't make mistakes, he makes unexpected possibilities. But there it was.
Still... it didn't make sense. Life was magic, that simple spark of dumb matter getting up and moving, growing... it was all magic. Using his Sight to look at the Akiridions was no different than using it to look at trolls, or at humans for that matter. Living crystal, living rock, living meat.
Akiridion cores... felt rather like heartstones, Douxie thought. King Fialkov and Queen Coranda's bare cores had been weak, flickering, but still registered with a similar warmth to his extrasensory perception. Krel and Aja's were harder to sense, obscured as they were by the living crystal of their bodies. But like Earth's heartstones, and presumably like the one that had been Atlantis', and was now Akiridion-5's, they all generated energy, the spark of magic that made life possible. But it was a constant flow, not one they could supplement from other sources.
There was no reason beings made out of living crystal should be unable to wield magic. Blinky could do it, albeit on a smaller scale than Douxie, and his species originated in another dimension, for Merlin's sake!
He suddenly remembered Aja, and how she'd been taller than her brother, stronger, somehow more, when she'd returned from Akiridion-5 to help battle the Arcane Order.
"Krel, how do Akiridion life stages work?" Douxie asked.
Krel blinked. "Are you seriously asking me where babies come from?"
"No! Well, yes." Douxie shook his head. "I don't need to know how you're created. Seventh kiss and all that." Which certainly sounded like a form of magic to him. "But how do you grow? I'm assuming Steve and Aja's offspring were typical of the initial stage of Akiridion development."
Krel snorted and nodded. "They were extremely wiggly, but otherwise typical, so far as I know. Our growth stages are triggered by external mechanisms, at predetermined points in our development," Krel said, leaning back on his hands. "For instance, shortly after Aja and I came to this planet, Varvatos used the Digonar Etcher to give her the crest marking an heir to the Akiridion throne." His fingers briefly touched his own forehead between his eyes, where in his native form a line arced. "I had already gotten mine back on Akiridion-5, right before Morando made his coup."
"And this did what to you, precisely?"
Krel frowned. "It is hard to describe to an outsider. It... reinforces, perhaps, the individual. You become stronger, capable of more. While at the same time bearing more responsibility."
"It strengthens your core?"
Krel laughed. "Oh yes. And sometimes upgrades your exterior as well."
Douxie chewed his lip as he thought. Varvatos and presumably Zadra were skilled warriors, capable of rather amazing things. And he had seen both Krel and Aja's abilities as well. They were rather on par with one another. For a society with a military caste or component, it would be a natural assumption that their elite warriors would be upgraded to at least the level of the royal heirs. As for more... "And when Aja became queen?"
Krel was silent for a minute. "I did not experience that growth stage myself, so I cannot be sure. But she became more like our parents."
Heartstones were like lodestones, Douxie had told Jim. They drew people to them. Fully upgraded royal Akiridions, he was suddenly sure, were exactly the same. Queen Aja had been a magnet. A miniature heartstone, in a living crystal body.
...Jim was a magnet.
Douxie filed that thought away for later.
"Crystals... can store magic," Douxie murmured, thinking instead of his recent foray into building a master wizard's staff, and how all the theory he'd picked up over the centuries had abruptly become applied practice. "When I had my staff, I could put power into the focal crystal, and draw it back out again, as needed."
"I am not exactly a decoration on top of your staff," Krel pointed out.
"Hush," Archie told him. "Douxie's thinking."
Crystals... didn't sing, precisely, Douxie thought, remembering a trilogy of books from a few decades before, but they did resonate with magic, if they were pure enough. That enabled them to be cut, as by trolls, for power, and to have spells laid upon them, as by wizards, if the spells resonated with the stone.
And what was bardic magic, Atlantis' specialty, if not resonance? Music was, after all, mere vibrations in air, as were words spoken or acted; even the deeper part of the art was resonating with an audience's heart.
Taliesin had said bardic magic was sharing your soul, through your art.
And Douxie's fingers itched to play.
He carefully closed the Atlantean book, moving it to the side, and slid off the bed, abandoning his guitar and amp.
"Douxie?" Krel asked as Douxie walked over to the other instrument in the room.
He unlatched the case that leaned up against the wall and drew out the mother of pearl inlaid Atlantean lute strung with mithrilium.
He barely dared to breathe as he stood, tightening the pegs as he walked, tuning the instrument. If he didn't breathe, he couldn't scare away the possibility...
He sat back down beside Krel, and, looking his friend dead in the eye, strummed.
Krel bolted upright, his hair actually raising, his eyes going wide. "What- what was that?" Krel demanded.
"Atlantean music," Archie answered him, his own eyes owlish. "Douxie, do you think-"
He felt breathless. Light. Like he was a balloon drifting away into the sky. "I think," Douxie said carefully, "that this is yours, Krel." And despite fingers that wanted to clutch, to hold on to this last piece of Atlantean music... he passed the instrument over.
"What... what is this?" Krel asked, accepting it.
"It's an Atlantean lute," Douxie told him. "It was Taliesin's. He left it for me. But I think it was meant for you." A part of him wanted to grieve that, that the lute was Krel's by rights, that Douxie wasn't special enough to deserve it...
But Krel needed it, to enable him to use his magic. Douxie didn't. It was that simple.
He swallowed. "A bardic mage, as most of Atlantis was, gives to their audience, it's true," he said softly. "But it's equally true that the audience gives back, Krel." Douxie nodded at the instrument. "So much has been lost. But. I think this is to help you to find your way to not run out of energy to fuel your sorcery."
Krel looked back up at him from where his fingers had been running over the mithrilium strings. "...I am not intending to infringe on your 'let me hit it with a guitar patent'."
Douxie huffed a smile. "Wouldn't expect you to. Not your style. But this is your beginning of your sorcery, DJ Kleb. In whatever form it manifests for you." He took a deep breath. "It's strung with mithrilium, which is a lot sturdier than anything more domestic instruments tend to use, so you'll need Hiccup's help if you need replacement strings."
Krel's eyes narrowed. "You're sure it's okay to give me this?"
Douxie's fingers involuntarily clenched. "I'm sure," he said, forcing his own feelings down. "Just... take care of it, okay? It's eight thousand years old, and... precious." He swallowed down everything else he wanted to say. "It's worth rather a lot for historical value alone, before you even get into the cultural implications."
Krel seemed to know that there was more that Douxie wasn't telling him, because his eyes lingered on Douxie's face for a long time. But, "Okay," he finally said. "I will experiment, and report back."
"I'm not the boss of you," Douxie informed him.
Krel gave him a smile. "No. But you are the senior wizard on the ground, and who else am I to go to with questions? Merlin? Pfft."
The unexpected comparison forced Douxie to snicker. "There's always Zoe," he offered, standing and fetching the lute's case for Krel. "Given that you're you and she's a technomancer, she might be your best bet anyway."
Krel hummed, considering that as Douxie showed him how to detune the instrument and secure it for transport. "Maybe. But I feel like the science is just me, and the magic is more musical, like yours, if that makes sense."
"It's your magic," Douxie said. "You're the expert. Let your feelings guide you."
"Feelings and data," Krel retorted, shrugging the case over one shoulder.
Douxie and Krel and Archie came back down the stairs a lot sooner than Jim expected. He slid his new brownie pan (the old one hadn't made it back from the past with them, and was probably what Toby called an OOPArt somewhere in the soil layers of England) into the oven. He closed the door and followed the three of them into the living room.
"Of course, you could always try playing it with all four hands," Archie said.
Jim's eyes widened as he noticed that Krel was carrying Taliesin's lute case. His gaze shot to Douxie.
"It doesn't work that way, Arch-" Douxie said, then cut himself off. "You know what, maybe it does. I've never had four arms, and what do I know about Akiridion music anyway?"
"It is very boring and staid," Krel told him. "I like Earth's much better. Though," he added, looking thoughtful, "I am not certain that any members of the royal family ever composed music."
"You shall be unprecedented," Douxie told him solemnly.
Krel grinned. "I hope so. See you in school tomorrow, Jim!"
"Bye, Krel."
Jim waited until Krel was down the front steps and the door closed behind him before turning to Douxie and giving a, he hoped, expressive what the hell?! gesture.
Douxie sighed, slumping against the hallway wall. "Krel needed the lute more than I did."
"But Taliesin left it for you!"
Douxie's eyes closed. "He did. But you should've seen it, Jim. One strum, and Krel was practically electrified. His hair actually poofed up like an anime character."
"Douxie believes," Archie said from around their ankles, "that an actual Atlantean instrument will help Krel recharge the energy a wizard must spend in the course of pursuing his magic."
"Besides," said Douxie, sounding weary, "it's his by rights. I'm only tangentially related to the Atlanteans, in that I'm a throwback oddity with their kind of magic. Krel is actually their descendant - and, by my best guess, also some sort of bardic mage. So he has higher need and better rights to that lute."
A lute which obviously meant something to Douxie and that he'd wanted to keep.
Jim bit his lip. "Self-sacrificial tendencies?" he asked after a minute.
"Even so," Archie agreed. Douxie didn't even nod, just breathed.
"I'm sorry," Jim said softly. He put his arms around Douxie's shoulders, giving him as much of a hug as he could for someone who refused to be parted from the wall.
"Krel needs it," Douxie whispered. "I can't be selfish." He said it like it was the ultimate sin.
"Sometimes it's okay to be selfish."
But Douxie shook his head. His blue-tipped bangs hid his eyes, but Jim could see the shine of tears sliding down his cheeks. "Not when it's a big thing. Not when it's this."
Everyone was still up when Krel came back in the door. Varvatos and Zadra were intently glued to something on the television, Aja was giving Luug a belly rub, and Ricky and Lucy were putting washed dishes back away in the cabinets.
"Welcome home, Prince Krel." Mother's icon circled him, giving a brief scan to ascertain his status. Fully functional, he trusted.
"Thank you," he said. The dinner table was empty. Thankfully. "What happened to the gelatin abomination?" Even now, he hesitated to call it food.
"Luug ate it!" Aja reported, giving their pet an extra firm rub. "And you liked it, didn't you?" she cooed.
Luug belched, a cloud of toxic blue vapor erupting from his mouth.
"Eugh!" Aja laughed, waving it away from herself.
"I question these Earth natives, if their food is not edible even by themselves," Zadra remarked tartly, tearing her attention away from the game show.
Lucy burst into big crocodile tears.
"There, there, honey," Ricky consoled her, patting her shoulder. "I'm sure the next recipe will be a winner."
The blank wailed louder.
Varvatos rolled his eyes expressively, then looked at Krel. "What is that you are carrying?" he asked, standing.
Krel beamed, pleased to have been asked. "A gift from Douxie!" he said, carefully setting the lute case down on top of the record cabinet and unfastening the latches. He drew forth the lute itself, showing it off. "It was given to him by Taliesin. This is an instrument of our ancestors!"
Aja abandoned Luug and moved to take a closer look. "Lively," she said, inspecting it. "It looks like a guitar."
"It is called a lute," Krel informed her.
"And of what use is it?" Lieutenant Zadra asked, stepping closer. "It would seem a most inefficient weapon."
Krel grinned. "It is not a weapon," he told her, quickly twisting the instrument's knobs to return it to a state of being in tune. "It is for making music. Listen!" Placing his fingers of one hand on the neck, he used the fingers of his other hand to strum.
A chill ran up the back of his neck, raising the hairs there. Even when he was the one producing the music, it seemed, he was not immune to it!
All three of his fellow Akiridions were wide-eyed.
"Krel, that was..." His sister's voice trailed off.
"Most interesting," Varvatos said, narrowing his eyes.
"Prince Krel, I..." Zadra's words, like Aja's, faltered. She looked uncertain.
"You do not have to reject Gaylen as the creator of our world and people," Krel told her quietly. "But at the same time, it can be true that our ancestors came from this world, and that Earth magic can be part of our inheritance. If we can figure out how to harness it. Which this," he said, brandishing the instrument, "may well be key to."
"Well, that is quite a shift from earlier," said Aja, crossing her arms and shifting her weight back on her heel. "What happened to being a wizard killing you?"
Krel grinned. "That was before I had a magic lute to help solve that problem. Now, if you will excuse me," he said, grabbing the lute's case, "I have some experimentation to do, on the effects of various sound waves and auditory patterns on wizards of Akiridion origin."
Two home safe, Claire thought, leaning against the doorway watching as her mother made her now-nightly prayers. One more to go.
Well, two, she amended. Strickler needs to come back safe too.
Her mother caught sight of her, and gestured her in with a nod.
Claire straightened, and crossed the room to where her mother knelt before the low table with a candle flickering on it.
"Pray with me, Clara," her mother requested.
Claire knelt down beside her mom, but hesitated to obey. "I don't know if I believe anymore, Mamá. I don't know what I believe."
Her mother met her eyes, then looked away, at the candle. She just breathed for a moment. "We all have crises of faith, mija," she said finally. The corner of her mouth crooked up. "But I look at you, and your brother, and your friends, and I realize the universe is vaster and more inexplicable than I ever thought possible."
She meant NotEnrique, Claire realized.
"I've met gods, Mamá. Some of them were butts." To put it mildly.
Her mother smiled. "Ah, but gods, or God?"
"I'm... not sure I believe in an ineffable plan anymore."
Ophelia shrugged. "Some days, neither am I. That's when prayer, and ritual, become even more important."
Claire knew she must have looked blank.
Her mother lowered her rosary, the beaded necklace pooling on the low table. "I pray," said Ophelia Nuñez, "for peace and clarity within my own heart. Maybe God - the universe - doesn't hear me. Maybe he or it does. If there is a listening God, my hopes and fears will have been heard. If not, then at least I have ordered them within myself. In what way is this a losing scenario, mija?"
Claire thought about it. "None."
"Precisely." Her mother smiled again, and right now she was just that: Claire's mother, not Councilwoman Nuñez. "Now. Will you pray with me, for the safe return of your brother and those he shepherds?"
"Sí, Mamá."
Heartsore, Douxie thought. That was definitely the word for how he was feeling.
Archie followed him into their bedroom. "Douxie, I'm concerned," the dragon said, leaping gracefully back up onto the bed.
He himself sat down on the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and his forehead atop his knotted hands. "Attachment is the root of suffering," Douxie said to himself as much as to his familiar.
Archie headbutted him in the arm, supportive, worried, loving. "That doesn't mean you need to give up everything you love."
"No," Douxie agreed softly, the hurt of losing something he'd truly cherished and had scarcely had a chance to play, to really get to know, throbbing like an open wound. "But it's all water, isn't it? Passing on."
People said time was a thief, but Douxie knew it was more like a stream, always flowing onward. Trying to cling to anything was like trying to still the moving waters. Sure, a hard freeze would do it, but that would kill the stream.
Merlin hadn't had to teach him that about time. Douxie had already known it.
Everything you had was subject to change, to loss, to flowing beyond your reach. Parents. A home. Even Archie.
He'd always had a quixotic relationship with materialism, with money, and this was perhaps why.
But Taliesin had called him grandson, and he'd thought, perhaps foolishly, that this one thing could be different. That something which was already dead and gone couldn't be taken from him.
But he'd gotten that longing for a rock, for a stable foundation, tangled up with things.
The Time Map, he'd always known, was destined for Merlin, one way or another.
But the lute... a musical instrument... That was his specialty. That, he'd thought, he'd be allowed to keep. He'd fought the bloody timestream itself, to be allowed to keep it!
"More fool I," Douxie murmured. Then he cut that thought ruthlessly off. If Krel needed the instrument to fuel whatever his version of magery would be... well, that rendered Douxie's labors well worth the effort.
He just wished he'd known ahead of time that the lute wasn't to be his.
"Taliesin left me three things," Douxie told Archie, looking at his familiar. "The Time Map. His lute. And this." He fished the opal pendant out from beneath his shirt.
"Opal for transformation," murmured the dragon. "Of one language into another." He breathed out, and switched his gaze to the Atlantean book still sitting on Douxie's bed. "Let's hope you don't have to give that up as well."
Douxie's mouth tightened. "Given what Merlin said, about the book resonating with my magic, and about me being destined to free rather a lot of trapped gods? Doubtful."
"A key to knowledge." Archie's golden eyes met his. "More than the map or the lute, that pendant may well have been the most valuable of Taliesin's gifts."
Slowly, turning that thought over in his mind, Douxie nodded. "You're probably right."
"Shall we make use of it?" Archie asked, shoving the Atlantean book over toward Douxie, between them.
Douxie swallowed down heartache, not for the first time, probably not for the last, and made himself move on. "Let's," he said hoarsely, pulling the pendant over his head and laying it on the blanket, where both he and his familiar could touch it at the same time.
He opened the book, and read.
The first Jim knew of his mother's presence was a soft moan coming from the kitchen table. "That smells good," Barbara Lake said, sounding one half hopeful and one half still asleep.
"Mom!"
She clearly hadn't been awake long, Jim saw as he rounded the divide and went into the dining room. Her hair was messy and pillow prints lined her face.
"Ugh, my sleep schedule is all messed up," she complained as he sat down next to her.
Jim had to smile. "When have you ever had a good sleep schedule?"
"Uhh. Before I went back to medical school?"
"So before James left."
"The drugs aren't helping," his mom defended herself.
"What's that saying about how every doctor should be a patient?" he asked.
He won a smile. "It sharpens the perspectives," his mom replied. "That said, I'm already sick of becoming sharper. And it's only been two days." She laid her head on the table. "And Walt's not even here," she said, with much more whine in her voice than Jim was accustomed to.
"Yeah, well." His hand covered hers. "He'll be back," Jim promised. If I have to get Claire's help and drag him back myself, he added silently. Because he never, ever wanted to see his mom fall apart again the way she had after Strickler had died, attacking Skrael's Titan to a net-zero effect.
"Brownies?" she asked hopefully, not lifting her head.
He tilted his head, looking at the clock. "Fifteen minutes," he promised her.
"Douxie," said Archie softly.
He swallowed, fruitlessly. His breathing ragged. "All this time, it was here," Douxie murmured, pulling the book up onto his knees. "Merlin spent centuries looking, and the answer was here. In a book he thinks I never should have read." The fingers of one hand traced the diagram, the figures, the words that only Taliesin's gift had given back to the world. "This... this changes everything, Arch."
"Mm, not everything, I should say. But certainly quite a lot."
Douxie stared at the page until it felt like his eyes were burning, imprinting the instructions and warnings onto his retinas. "I've got to try."
"Douxie, no. You need to take your time, to be methodical about this-" his familiar protested.
He looked away from the book, into golden eyes that matched his own. "No," said Douxie, shaking his head. "The instructions are here, Arch. The warnings are here. And sometimes... sometimes you've just got to dive in the deep end."
"Sometimes you drown," Archie said softly.
"And sometimes," replied Douxie, his voice equally soft, "you learn to save the world."
Jim was putting the brownie pan in an ice bath to help speed up the cooling when he heard the stairs creaking, Douxie coming back down again from his room.
"I'm still not sure this is a good idea," Archie told the wizard, leaping up into his usual chair at the table.
Douxie's smile was faint. "When have I ever had a good idea?" he rejoined, setting his Atlantean book down as he took his own seat, next to Barbara, who was half dozing. He hesitated, then touched her arm. "Mam."
"Hmm?" She roused at his touch, blinking up at him.
Douxie drew a breath. "I've found a spell that might help," he said. "Will you let me try it?"
Barbara lifted her head from the table. "A spell?"
Douxie breathed again, like he was trying to scrape up his courage, or something. "A healing spell."
It took a moment, but then their mother's eyes widened. "Douxie, you said there weren't any. That you couldn't heal."
Jim abandoned the kitchen. "You said healing magic was legendary," he accused, taking his own seat at the table.
Douxie nodded. "The one thing wizards have never been able to do." His hand rested on the book. "Not since the fall of Atlantis."
Jim's eyes shot wide. Douxie's book had healing magic in it? "Holy shit," he breathed.
"I've not done it before," the wizard said softly. "I've only this book to follow as a guide. But will you let me try?"
Slowly, Barbara nodded. She extended her injured arm toward him.
Douxie took what was clearly a deep, steadying breath. "I can fix this," he said, as if to convince himself. His fingers took hold of her arm, so delicately, supporting, holding her sling.
"I can fix this," Douxie said, and magic welled up from his fingertips. His palms glowed. He closed his eyes, as if in concentration. A runic circle flickered to life, spinning slowly around their mother's arm, right above the wound. Jim squinted at the squiggles and arcane symbols. They looked... different, somehow, from what he was used to seeing.
Douxie's eyes opened again, pupils and irises and sclera hidden beneath the blue glow of his magic. His lips shaped soundless words.
The runic circle tightened, flattened. It became a thick ring of indecipherable characters flowing around Barbara's arm.
"Careful, Douxie," Archie warned. "Don't overdo it."
"I can fix this," Douxie murmured, in a tone of absolute wonder.
The blue light of his magic sank into their mother's skin, running up and down her arm through her veins and arteries, shining through her skin and bandage and sling.
"Oh," Barbara breathed, her own eyes wide. "Oh, that's so warm."
Douxie smiled, so sweetly. Like a little boy, Jim thought, who had given his mother some flowers, and been thanked for them.
And then the blue light cut off, Douxie's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed, his head hitting the table.
Author's Note: The term "Digonar Etcher" is borrowed with permission from Eli_Eli_El's superlative story Heirs to the Arcana. The books Douxie was thinking of are Anne McCaffrey's Crystal Singer trilogy. OOPArts are "out of place artifacts" in the archaeological record. "Attachment is the root of suffering" comes from Buddhism, Douxie's remark about Krel being unprecedented, as well as Barbara's remark about why a doctor should be a patient are both inspired by similar lines in Lois McMaster Bujold's book "Memory." And Douxie's "This... this changes everything" is probably a reference to How To Train Your Dragon.
